paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- like romeo and juliet Today I attended class and four meetings, back �to-back. In my old job, I started a trend calling this wall-to-wall meetings. In my new job, this phrase just puzzles people�. My day has been somewhat tainted by an accidental collision with an article on MSNBC news, which I do not even read, but for some reason, I did today. The article was all about plans for a reality television series that resurrects the Beverly Hillbillies. The concept is to find some clever, loving, lower-middle class midwestern hick family and transplant them in Beverly Hills. Millions will watch this rural �clan� try to eat at fancy restaurants and shop in luxuriant stores. The article assures us that this will not be making fun of the family, but rather it is a �fish out of water� story � this concepts was mentioned repeatedly. And really, don�t we like fish out of water because we get a weird feeling of delight watching them gasp, flip and contort, knowing that if we do not get them back in the water they will suffer dire consequences? So how is it that a �fish out of water� story does not mock? Is there ever a scenario where the �fish out of water� story mocks the water and not the fish? Although it is true that I get frustrated with State City. I do choose to live here and it is not because I do not have what it takes to live elsewhere. I can be cool, hip, edgy and urban. Two blocks from our house, 50,000 people congregate on weekends to listen to music and drink and celebrate. It is extremely edgy and urban. I have not seen the likes in many edgier, hipper cities. I am tired of the way Midwesterners are treated in the media. And people believe it. When I went to college, my room-mates were relieved that I was not barefoot and in overalls. Granted this was clear back in the 1980�s but I did sustain questions regarding whether we had television and cable �out there.� Once a woman from New Jersey, a friend of Beth�s, told me that I was brave to be from the Midwest. That she certainly would never let anyone know as long as she could pass. My relatives never visit. They fly right over the Midwest on their ways to visit each other on the coasts. My uncle in San Francisco took his son to Canada to have a farm experience and milk a cow. I love my uncle and his son, but they have not visited since 1992. Had I known, I could have hooked them up with a cow or two to milk. Although I think the Midwest needs to get away from this image. I do not watch television, so maybe this has changed, but when I did, it was not acceptable to me that the only television show set in the Midwest was Roseanne. Not everyone here is completely provincial, backwards, uneducated and longing to go on Jerry Springer. So all that said�. Here is my secret hope for what happens with the Real Beverly Hillbillies. A family gets all Springered up and puts on a great act. A mom with four children by three different men and her forth husband are the parents. The oldest daughter has a live-in boyfriend at sixteen and they have a daughter, so we are all led to believe. One of the children is a survivor of a boot camp, another has serious weight issues and the youngest is just cute but obnoxiously cute. They yell and hit and scream. They talk about putting people in their place, about chewing people out, and they even demonstrate how quick-tempered and dumb-witted they are, or so the network thinks. They are accepted and their initial promo is more amazing than the network's wildest dreams. The things these people cannot do and do not know are vastly funnier than mistaking a pool table for a fancy eatin' table and the cues for pot passers. The networks swings into full promotion and on opening night, the family is completely civilized. They show so much grace and elegance that the show is boring. The network tries to lure them into situations where it will become inevitable that someone will at least end a sentence with the word �at.� It never happens. The ratings give cause for the show to be pulled before the season is out. It is a flop. But I know this will not happen. Tons of families will audition. They will need to select from hundreds of candidates all equally perfect at being hicks. And the show will last for several seasons. The second thing that put my day in shock was the sudden realization that the university has more traditional students than ever. Enrollment is up by 1,000 students. In a university the size of this one, that does not seem too dramatic. But, I think enrollment is up by 1,000 traditional students because everywhere I see groups of kids with backpacks. They wear flip flops. They lounge all over campus. I am officially thrilled with this and mentioned it several times in meetings. What I did not mention was that today, in the yard, as it is called, I saw at least four different sets of co-eds in complete liplocks. I have never seen any sort of displays of this nature at the university. To top it off, I had the pleasure of seeing one of them again in class, bits of grass in her hair, a little dazed, with one of those �just-kissed� goofy grins. She had a fair measure of difficulty concentrating on Milton�s engaging rendition of the Samson and Dalilah story. She has a thing for this guy in class, I�ll call him Hunk, who can sit back and talk about god�s plan for man without making any sense at all, but with a full-belief that he is the shit � notice I did not say full of shit. I have been getting tired of Hunk because this is not Bible study, it is a literature class and Milton was a political thinker. His questions were larger and more specific than what are gods plans for man. Today, I decided to model good classmanship and participated early and with an idea that kept popping up again and again, so I hope it seemed like I participated often. It had to do with entities, agency and action in the final scene where Samson pulls down the temple in Judges versus when Samson pulls down the temple in Milton�s piece. Now, for 32 more ideas, as I continue to approach my semester like a board game. A short, super fast entry tonight as I spent the majority of my evening being good: worked a bit late, exercised the three-mile loop in the fancy neighborhood, went to the grocery store, ate dinner, wrote and edited the neighborhood newsletter, practiced the guitar�. 11:27 p.m. - 2002-09-03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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