My political development is pockmarked with a number of bad memories: the 2000 election, 9/11, the build-up to the Iraq War, Abu Ghraib, and others. But one of my least favorite memories was the bombastic sounds of The O’Reilly Factor, my grandfather’s go-to political news program. For more nights than I care to think about, he would turn the volume up loud enough for the whole house to hear, and O’Reilly would tackle the day’s stories with virulent righteousness. He berated guest after guest, and though the shouting matches were part of the entertainment, the audience took them–and O’Reilly’s beliefs–for gospel.
I wish I could tell you upfront that, unlike the Academy Awards ceremony, I can say with certainty what my best picture is. Well, it’s my blog, and I can be as indecisive as I damn well please.
The local mall’s movie chain held an Oscar film festival for the past week and a half. For $35, I got to see all of the Best Picture nominees for $35 even. The math was too good to pass up, and I meticulously planned around my class schedule so I could catch all of them. Below are some thoughts I had about the movies, which I arranged from least liked to most liked. I bunched them into tiers that reflect levels of enjoyment—many of the films are similar in quality to the point that I couldn’t make one better than the other. This is especially true among my top three films, which all were superb.
I was at a Super Bowl party when somebody made the tried-and-true remark: “we watch for the commercials.” While I would disagree with that claim after spending five hours smoking chicken wings and a Bacon Explosion, it’s rooted in empirical evidence: people who watched the Super Bowl viewed four times as much advertising as they did time in which the football was in play.
One advertisement that struck a particular nerve for me was The Journey, 84 Lumber’s 90-second spot about a mother and daughter traveling through Central America to the United States. I knew of the ad weeks in advance thanks to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article that documented how the original ending was rejected by Fox due to imagery of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
84 Lumber was one of many companies that included themes of diversity into their advertisements, a timely message in the wake of a new federal government. Though I and other partygoers welcomed the messages affirming diversity in our society, I couldn’t shake the sense that something was amiss in celebrating these ads. Two key puzzles remained for me: first, the implications for how messages are conveyed in these ads; second, the lessons we take from them.
The headline is one of my favorite lyrics from one of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs, ‘As.’ I’ve searched far and wide (i.e., the first page of search results on Google) for a source, and I was surprised to find it was written by Stevie. Not that I doubt his lyrical capacity—he’s no Dylan, but who is?—but I was surprised that nobody spoke those words sooner.
One of the more charming things I encounter on Facebook is the individual who lists their primary source of education as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It gives me hope that people have not abandoned well-told stories for reality teavee and overpriced, underlit 3-D films. (Okay, maybe that’s a bad example). I remember reading each of those books at breakneck pace—perhaps the wrong way to read, but how could I resist what was for the most part a perfect book series? Characters were identifiable and multi-faceted, mysteries had depth and foreshadowed well, and action sequences provided the right amount of description.
Yet for all my fondness of the Harry Potter series, I also see flaws in it. I found the later books to have repetitive conclusions—a big fight against Voldemort, a hero tragically dies, our characters rally around one another in hopes of a bright future. And, with fans marking the departure of the Hogwarts Express this morning on Facebook, I began to wonder: would Hogwarts be a good school to attend?
I was a young white guy once, so I’ve seen first-hand how it can be difficult for other young white guys to grasp concepts outside of the young white guy bubble. When your “cultural experience” consists of crushing some natty with your dudebros and talking about murdering your babe’s vagina, it’s understandable that you become less sensitive.
In a way, that’s what makes growing up so great; when you’re older, you have experience that teaches you how to treat other people and respect your fellow members of society. Perhaps, if you’re so motivated, you might even go out and try to elicit some change in the world as an adult, feeling that sentiment to leave the world a better place.
Not everyone grows up, though, and some dudebros age physically without developing a scrap of mental or emotional clairvoyance. Most of these guys get middle-management jobs and have no impact on the world, but an occasional meathead falls up through the cracks and gets a platform for their views.
From the Department of Why Didn’t I Think of This? comes a brilliant idea for portraiture. It doesn’t take much effort, but it radically changes the individuals that young people look up to. For young women in particular, the focus is either body image or social standard. It’s nice to look nice in a photo, but it doesn’t say much about a person: what have you ever learned about a person by looking at a senior portrait? Instead of being objectified, this provides young girls with the opportunity to pay tribute to their role models or, if they are like most children and don’t admire historical figures, to discover some people to look after.
The artist in the blog post chose a few individuals for her daughter to model after, so I thought it would be fun to create my own list of people who I would choose for an assignment like this. I tried to use women from a variety of backgrounds, and although it’s a bit U.S.-centric, I’d like to believe I chose five women who could provide a wide array of inspiration for a young girl.
Rosa Parks
“…The only tired I was, was of giving in.”
Look, we can get to the lowest common denominator set in Barbershop and look at Mrs. Parks through the lens (pun not intended here) of her inspiring the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It’s a funny scene in a funny movie, and it can be fun to say outrageous things from time to time. But it really cuts out the legs from under Parks’ life, in which she played an important role in organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
For her portrait, I’m running with her booking photo from when she first refused to leave her seat. There’s something about the expression in her face that is reserved—as if the impending fight were lying right behind her eyes. Her life and the rights she struggled for embody perseverance and the courage to defy those beholden to power for what is right. What a great example to set for a young mind.
Billie Jean King
The NBA player Jason Collins received a flurry of attention a few weeks ago by coming out. Much was made in recent years of an athlete coming out, but always with qualifiers: the athlete had to be male, active, in a “major” team sport. In short, they had to be marketable.
While Collins had the power to share his news as he saw fit, Billie Jean King did not have the same privilege, forced to reveal her sexuality in an alimony lawsuit. As a result, she had to come out of retirement to financially support herself. Fortunately, King is one of the all-time great tennis players, winning 129 titles in her career. But her most memorable victory was an exhibition match against Bobby Riggs in the second Battle of the Sexes matchup. Speaking of the match, King said she thought a loss “would set (women’s tennis) back 50 years.”
Though not a traditional portrait, this ends up being a bit more fun than sitting in a studio and nitpicking at posture. To achieve her accomplishments took a lot of bravery, and that gutsiness is demonstrated in this photo.
Sally Ride
When first considering women in the field of science, one of the things that I recalled from my own childhood was a PSA about science and young girls. A mother reads her daughter a bedtime story, but instead of a princess finding true love, a woman makes a grand accomplishment in engineering; the daughter, enthralled, asks for one more story. In hindsight, I get a big kick out of the ad; it takes a societal norm and spins it on its head. But it also makes me realize the importance of feminism and trying to break down gender barriers; more women are scientists now than ever before, yet major barriers still exist.
These nuances aren’t lost on women in science. Sally Ride spoke of how she needed her first shuttle ride to be a success at the risk of people using a failed mission against all women. But what impresses me about Sally Ride is her life after NASA. Continuing in science fields, she also co-founded a company that created grade school-level science programs for girls and wrote books encouraging children to engage in science.
Her portrait for NASA probably isn’t anything out of the ordinary for astronauts. (The flag over her right shoulder is a nice touch and undoes a monotonous background.) But for me, the kicker is the model of the space shuttle in the background. A simple model like that can make kids interested in engaging in science, and I’d much rather have a young girl play with a realistic, important toy than an unrealistic (and probably damaging) Barbie.
Somaly Mam
Sex trafficking is a tough subject to broach with any person, let alone a child. Our childhoods aren’t immune from unpleasant facts, but they’re usually presented in a sanitized manner (i.e., the heroism and sacrifice of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). I think that’s why it’s important to use a picture of Somaly Mam with a radiant smile. Overcoming any kind of personal crisis and still being able to smile takes a tremendous effort, and that can really help to instill a sense of confidence in young people.
Perhaps the most amazing accomplishment of Mam is to try and help out other women who are trapped in sex trafficking. Many people I know tend to want to move up and out, whether it’s the place they live or the job they have or the social status they hold. I understand it at a base level, but I’m a person who would rather look at what they have and make it better instead of leaving it. Even then, it’s nothing on a plane of sex trafficking, and I wouldn’t blame Mam if she tried to move as far from it as possible.
Julia Child
When trying to round out the list, I thought a successful businesswoman would add an interesting dimension. My first choice was Coco Chanel, but it turns out I knew less about her than I do fashion—apparently, she was a Nazi spy. So I turned to another French entrepreneur, Julia Child. Whenever I decide to learn to truly cook, I’ll certainly use Mastering the Art of French Cooking as a reference; it’s hard to deny a book when it is both popular and critically acclaimed.
I could’ve gone with a more traditional portrait I found of Child, but this picture captures so much more than posing in a studio. There’s a joie de vivre she shows when cooking, and creating a good meal, whether for oneself or others, should be a rewarding experience.
***
Of course, there’s always room to consider family members as well. My mother is an interesting mix of business and political success; she left the workforce to be a full-time mother for my brother and me, but also became very active in our educations and the local PTA. What I have the most admiration for, however, is how she took care of my grandmother as she slowly deteriorated from lung and brain cancer. It was tough for all of us to see—the slow pace makes it so much more real—but my mom was the primary caregiver, and though she helped mightily, she wasn’t able to save my grandmother. I certainly hope I have that courage when the time comes.
It was almost certainly the importance of the night that inspired those four dreaded words. The night in question was that of April 17 in the year 2000. The Pittsburgh Penguins were hosting the rival Washington Capitals at Mellon Arena in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. Not only was it my first-ever playoff game, it was also my first-ever Penguins game. Many of the details of the night have blurred as I’ve aged (don’t they always?), but a few still stand out clearly to me.
My first memory of that night was the bus ride into the city. The bus must have been in a race to see who could drive the slowest, because the ride took forever. I would nervously glance around to see if we were moving at all, worried that we would be late to the game—despite being under a mile from the arena with over an hour before game time. Along the route, my eyes landed on the Pokémon cards of another youngster on the bus, and he had a Mew card. Certainly this other kid must have been blessed from above, because that was the most rare Pokémon of all. It was an amazing sight to see that card in person. The envy I felt towards that kid lingers to this day.
The next memory of the game involved those opening four words. It was towards the middle of the game, and the score was tied. The Penguins had the puck in the Washington’s end, but all they did was pass the puck around at the blue line. At the age of ten, I was competent enough to recognize that a strategy like that wouldn’t score many goals any time soon. I started with the old staple: “Shoot the puck!,” yelled by all of the most knowledgeable fans at hockey games. But as the game wore on, I recognized that the players were not heeding my call to start trying to win. The call was so repetitive and the adrenaline was still flowing, and all of a sudden…
“Shoot the fucking puck!”
(The thought behind this was that team captain Jaromir Jagr would hear this and think, “Whoa, this kid’s serious. We’d better start shooting the puck!”)
My next memory was of two sets of hands pinning my shoulders to the seat, and my father’s appalled voice that cried out, “What did you just say?”
Still being on an adrenaline rush, I matter-of-factly replied, “I said shoot the fucking puck!” Tired of this distraction, I went back to watching the Penguins pass the puck, hearing the voice of my grandfather tell my father, “you’re kid’s got some kind of mouth!”
It didn’t bother me at the time. Heck, I didn’t even know what I said that had upset them so much that they would pull me back like that. But as the game progressed, it dawned upon me that I probably said something that was pretty bad. I thought about what word could have upset them, and it was pretty clear after eliminating the possibilities of “shoot,” “puck,” and “the.” My last happy moment of the night was when the final horn sounded, signaling the Penguins’ 4-3 victory over the Caps. But as we filed up the balcony steps to begin the long walk to the bus, I softly muttered something along the lines of, “let’s not talk about what happened here tonight,” shuffling away from the seat as if the Penguins had lost the Stanley Cup.
Even the bus ride to my grandparents’ house felt like a wake, as I rested my head against the window, staring into the black abyss of the street, wondering what I had done to deserve this punishment. (Actually, my father hadn’t said anything to me at all; it was the overwhelming feeling of guilt that was my punishment.)
As the weeks wore on, my feeling of self-loathing melted away. I tried my best to put the night behind me, resolving to not let it affect me. But all of that changed a few weeks later, when my mother brought it up to me on a late summer’s evening. What happened was unexpected to me—my mother didn’t get angry at me; she started laughing. As if the punishment I had already gone through wasn’t enough, now one of my parents was mocking me! Scarred by the experience of being laughed at by one of my parents, I began to cry. In this outpour of guilt and anguish, I took a silent vow: I was to never swear again, at risk of being subject to this mockery. While I have only broken that vow twice (and I was quoting someone on one of the occasions), it has left me with a stronger sense of restraint than I would have if I was like many teenagers who liberally use swear words, contributing to the dilution of their impact.
***
The best laid plans of mice and men…
I wrote the above essay during my freshperson year at Saint Bonaventure University. It’s unusual for me to look back on my own works—writing, video, photography, etc. There’s something about it that strikes me as though I’m having an out-of-body experience. I make pains to revise my writing in even my first draft, just to keep me from having to re-read things over again.
I won’t indulge my writing habits further, though. That’s not the reason for this essay. What I’m really interested in is finding out how my habits and feelings towards swearing have changed over the years.
Working with the Rats put me pretty close to the players…
To be honest, I’m surprised I didn’t turn into a potty mouth well before this essay. Starting in my sophomore year of high school, I began working for the Albany River Rats, the local hockey team. After a brief stint as a stickboy, I began working as an off-ice official, a role that involves gathering stats for the team. The crew remains the same for the most part, and a decidedly old school crew it is: filled with swagger, masculinity, wit, and a risque edge.
The experience reminds me of Slap Shot, the iconic ‘70s film with Paul Newman. Although I tend to criticize Hollywood nostalgia for glossing over major problems, Newman stands out. When you get on Richard Nixon’s enemies list, you’re doing something right. When you consider it a great accomplishment, you make Frank Sinatra look like the George W. Bush of classiness.
You can throw out that perception of Newman if you see Slap Shot, though. Here’s one of his first scenes—note that it’s very NSFW:
There’s no denying the shock of the video, but I look at it as a brilliant parody of masculinity in hockey. For Reggie Dunlop (the character Newman plays) to use those insults for victory is complete farce—nobody in their right mind would lose at sports over a petty insult. Yet the team’s success in the movie is because they use an extremely violent and insulting brand of hockey, one that wouldn’t work in real life!
The problem is that the film is not universally viewed as a parody of hockey—in fact, fans and participants alike often think that’s how the game should be played. Consider this clip of Washington Capitals coach (and an extra in Slap Shot) Bruce Boudreau who, with a team mired in a losing streak, tries to incite them to play harder in a profanity-laced tirade:
“If you want it, don’t just THINK you want it, go out and F**KIN’ want it!” It’s hilarious but true, to an extent: you have to go and give your all if you want something big in your life. That doesn’t make it a ridiculous thing to say, though. For most of my hockey life, I kept on what I considered the suit-and-tie end of things: keep the wit, but put it in a purely logical reference. That includes my language, and I made sure never to use a bad word.
And it worked for a long time. Through 2010, I could count on one hand the number of times I dropped an f-bomb: three. The lone addition followed Zach Parise’s game-tying goal in the men’s gold medal hockey game at the Vancouver Olympics. (What is it about hockey and this word?) It was a fun slip in the heat of the moment, and although my blood boils that the U.S. lost that game (a linesman too lazy to move out of the puck’s path practically kicked it to Jarome Iginla) I thought a roughly once-every-decade track was nice for that word.
Then Super Bowl XLV happened.
Since I became a sports fan, I realized how badly I wanted to see in-person my three favorite sports teams (the Pittsburgh Pirates, Penguins, and Steelers) win a championship. I consider it a lofty goal, but one worth pursuing as a sports fan—if you want it, go f’n want it, yanno?
My family’s held Steelers tickets since the ‘70s. My uncle nearly gave them up a few years ago, but my father stepped in and purchased them to keep them in the family. We don’t go to many games—once yearly if we’re lucky—but we share them with family and close friends so they can see games without having to pay exorbitant rates to ticket brokers. With season tickets come options for playoff and Super Bowl tickets. We’d passed on them in earlier seasons—once when the Steelers finally won one for the thumb, and another time when they won arguably the best Super Bowl ever played. With the team looking sharp, we decided that it was time to give the Super Bowl a shot. Lo and behold, the Steelers beat the Jets, and we packed our own bags for Texas. Not only was I going to see a championship in person, I was going to see it in enemy territory, the Death Star of the NFL—Cowboys Stadium.
Things don’t always turn out as you hope, though.
The trip began inauspiciously. Never has an airport as milquetoast as Memphis International Airport looked as wonderful and adventurous than it did through my eyes that day. I had an extra spring in my step, and I mean that literally: the moving walkways in Memphis have a unique construction that let you bounce up and down like a trampoline. Like a hokey scene from a movie, an airport worker with a Steelers lanyard stopped us and tried to turn us around.
“Hey, you’re going the wrong way!,” he said. “You gotta catch a flight to the Super Bowl!”
“We aren’t going the wrong way,” my pop replied. “We’re driving to Dallas!”
Driven enough that we skipped Graceland (in terms of rock-‘n-roll founding icons, we’re probably a Little Richard household) we began the long drive from Memphis to a hotel about 90 miles outside of Dallas (again, saving money) through the Mississippi Delta. Most shocking to me was just how flat everything was—it took about an hour before we finally reached an incline in the highway.
We met our first harbinger of doom along the drive: snow. Being a native of New York, I’m used to driving in snowy weather. Driving to and fro Saint Bonaventure my freshperson year, I became acclimated to the power that changing terrain can make for weather, so this was an easy task. You wouldn’t know it from the places we visited, though. Just west of Little Rock, we stopped to gas the car and grab a bite to eat. It took us three tries to find an open restaurant—two were closed due to the weather, which was an inch of snow at that point. The snowplows we passed along the highways looked nothing like the dump truck behemoths along the thruway—instead, they resembled farm tractors with broad shovel-like contraptions in the middle. We laughed it off, thinking it wasn’t a big deal.
But the problem with snow is that, if not removed in time, it becomes a sheet of ice. I’ll never forget passing the ‘Welcome to Texas’ sign and seeing in front of us a car fishtail along Interstate 30. From that point, we were roughly an hour away from the motel. But a few miles more and traffic came to a dead stop. Almost an inch of ice coated the highway, and drivers unused to the conditions couldn’t handle the traffic. Instead of arriving at the hotel at 7:00 p.m. that night, we arrived at 6:00 a.m. the next morning. Our plans to eat dinner in Dallas? Gone, in favor of a midnight meal at an IHOP in some rural Texas town.
I was miffed. Twitter updates from the Texas DOT mentioned road crews using sand to help the roads, despite sand providing no useful measure against that kind of problem. The idea of sleeping in a car offended my sense—I’m a college man, I said. College men don’t sleep in cars, I said. And I didn’t until about two in the morning when I figured it acceptable for college men to rest their eyes in a car.
One interesting thing about stopping was that, because the storm moved through during the day, the skies were cloud-free at night. I like to think the Adirondacks and parts of rural New York provide low light pollution, but nothing beat the number of stars I saw in that night sky. Adding in massive sleep deprivation and a bizarre travel routine that involved our car moving a few miles every hour or two, and it was far and away the strangest drive I’ve ever been on.
Shell-shocked, my pop and I arrived at the hotel and slept until one in the afternoon. What was supposed to be a day exploring the Dallas-Fort Worth area turned into a jaunt to find the stadium, have a steak for dinner, and get back in time to be rested for the big day. One odd thing we noticed while driving was the number of high-end high school football stadiums. It’s hard to exaggerate how big football is in Texas—these stadiums had press boxes and luxury suites, all to watch teenagers play sports.
Of course, none of those stadiums compares to Cowboys Stadium. I wasn’t kidding when I called it the NFL’s Death Star: it’s a giant gray bubble on the Arlington plains. With a cost in the billions of dollars, it’s main purpose is as an ATM of rich folk—and I don’t mean my family, I mean corporations that can afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury boxes and club tickets annually. We sat next to a couple who fit that bill, and I’m not kidding when I say they were almost worse than the game itself. Unabashed fans of George W. Bush, opponents of NASA—do not talk badly about NASA in my presence.
Outside of awful people, there’s nothing really outstanding about the stadium. Because of its size, it feels like an enormous airplane hangar. There was something a bit fun about walking up to it and feeling a tense anticipation. Something about getting to see the Super Bowl felt like a great accomplishment. The wait inside was a drag, but I felt like I was walking on air. Everything about the game felt right and wonderful.
So young and naive.
Then the game happened.
Things didn’t go well. The Steelers dug an early hole and kept turning the football over. I felt more confident in the early second half, but they blew it against a significantly worse team. In addition, some uncoordinated moron spilled chili on the back of a new (white) jersey of mine. By the time the Steelers’ last fourth down pass failed, everything about the weekend—the travel, the game—went from a wonderful moment into a complete and total disaster. (That’s not even including the halftime show. The Black Eyed Peas? Mercy. And I was in the bathroom half of the time.)
And remember that stuff about trying to not swear ever? Well that went flying out the door. And down the walkway, out the stadium, into the parking lot, the car, the traffic jam, and the hour-and-a-half ride back to the hotel. Needless to say the guy in the video I posted earlier would’ve blushed at me.
From that point on, the wheels were off. After years of saintly language, I began to explore all the variety of swear words at my disposal. Not simply the seven dirty words—I tend to avoid them—but unique combinations of swear words. I find “cockbastards” to have a nice, absurd ring to it, and it’s a favorite to write (not say) when sports events aren’t going well.
(That, of course, is when I bother to care about sports events any more. Since having that dream crushed, I’ve started to take a much more cynical view of sports. Most sports end in failure—there’s only one champion—and there’s no guarantee of enjoyment when winning is tied in. I think sports are as valid an entertainment option as film or stage or music or reading or any other option, but there’s an uncertainty there that makes it hard for me to enjoy. And for all of the rooting I do, it’s never reciprocated—no Pittsburgh Steeler ever traveled to see one of my high school concerts.)
I’d always try to use it for humorous purposes, often adopting a curmudgeonly tone when using them. But my problem is that I never wanted to be that person, even in parody. Swearing adds a harsh tone to what I say, and it’s not the kind of person I’d like to me. And it’s not necessary to swear to make a funny point. The other night, I copped a hilarious insult from the great sportswriter Myron Cope—‘if they don’t like it, they can stick their head in a vat of paint’—and left someone on the verge of crying from laughter.
When swearing is dropped, there’s more of a universal appeal to what people say. It’s why I find ’30 Rock’ to be funnier than any show I’ve seen on cable—the show had to appeal to a broader audience and did so with flying colors. It’s going to be difficult to break the habit, but I’m hopeful that, at some point, I can revert to my younger, more wholesome ways.
Perhaps my favorite television show of all time, ’30 Rock’ airs its series finale this Thursday night. It’s not a perfect show by any means–the show is ableist more often than I would hope–but that reduces the show to levels of mere humanity. I dread (in a purely humorous and over-the-top fashion) the end of the show, so I figured it would be interesting to pair some of my favorite clips of the show with the Kübler-Ross stages of grief.
About a week ago, my grandfather made a surprising find on the cover of the local newspaper: my brother, photographed at a meeting of individuals living with Asperger’s Syndrome. Throughout the story, which is available on the newspaper’s website (take a look at that nose—must be some good genes in that family) the author identified people by their initials in order to protect identities. My brother received a strange treatment—instead of ‘A.O.,’ the photo caption identified him as ‘A. Olsavicky.’ Knowing that there are only three Olsavickys who live in the Capital District (excuse me while I take a moment to salute my mother for retaining her last name; the last-name-switch harkens to when women were treated as property, which is BS) I got a kick out of the labeling; you mean to tell me ‘A. Olsavicky’ is less of a giveaway than ‘Andrew O.’? I was never concerned, though—his lifestyle didn’t seem to be at risk because of the article. Continue reading →
For her portrait, I’m running with her booking photo from when she first refused to leave her seat. There’s something about the expression in her face that is reserved—as if the impending fight were lying right behind her eyes. Her life and the rights she struggled for embody perseverance and the courage to defy those beholden to power for what is right. What a great example to set for a young mind.
Overcoming any kind of personal crisis and still being able to smile takes a tremendous effort, and that can really help to instill a sense of confidence in young people.
Brain Nourishment 