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Thursday, August 31, 2006
the enemy of my enemy is my friend
big weekend coming up. eight of my closest friends are gathering in soflo for our annual gathering. these weekends consist mainly of:
making fun of each other (see picture above)
making fun of each other's mom
quoting ali g
just got to get myself through hartsfield on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
a couple of gatherings ago, bloodninja and the chief made this sweet website to keep track of all the funny shit that goes down when we get together.
this time around, we're using google spreadsheets to keep track of everything. no, i didn't even come up with that idea. but it's awesome.
'snakes on a plane' is rumored to be the new 'alien vs. predator.' could there be a more memorable line than 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend?' could there be a more memorable scene than one of the predators checks out the heroine's ass?
melissa bugg, our A + wedding photographer just relaunched her web site here.
she does a lot great photojournalism--portraits, sea life, travel, weddings--and did an awesome job for us. the best advice we got was to pick our photographer not just on the quality of the product, but based on who we would want to spend all day with. your photographer follows you everywhere.
anyway, melissa picked a few weddings to use for her online portfolio, and your friends the wintermutes are among them. i think this is mainly due to mrs wintermute.
so check out the site, click on weddings, and let the pics cycle through (we're the 2nd wedding).
ok, so off to reynolds plantation for the company annual retreat. four days of (a little bit of work) and fun.
yesterday we had a post-work dinner at a pretty nice (by alphacrappa standards) steak house. half the sales force is in for a workshop that we've been putting together for a few months and our coo and cmo took us out for a nice celebration.
i park my car (i'm cheap and opt not to use the valet) and walk towards the door. joe suburb, having just finished a scrumptious meal, pops out the door, looks at me and hands me his valet ticket.
i look at him like why the fuck are you handing this to me? could it be because when you see a young person of color you figure he is here either to park your car, wash your car, or fix your car?
he quickly looks away and mumbles something. i keep trucking.
now, there's probably a good explanation for this. i was wearing a collared polo shirt, which valet guys are known to wear (and indeed, they were wearing them at this restaurant). and i'm kind of young (from joe suburb's perspective), and (i've been told) look even younger than i am. oh, and i'm not white. and there's not a lot of non-whites up alphacrappa. so in this particular instance, maybe joe suburb just made a mistake. maybe two seconds before i walked up, there was a valet guy who looked like me standing there.
however, when this stuff happens repeatedly, it makes me wonder. when the ticket attendent at the your high school's soccer stadium makes me pay to get in, even though i'm on the team, and then says 'you don't look like the soccer players' after my coach has to tell him to let me in, i had to wonder: is it b/c i'm indian? or b/c of my haircut? or what? and when people ask me if i was in latin club (which i was), is it because they think all indians are nerds who join latin club, or did they actually know that i enjoy roman history and the study of latin? and if someone guesses that i'm good with math and financial models (which i am), is it because they think all indians are good at the stuff, or do they actually i know that i went to the big h and learned it like the other 900 people in my class?
and you know, the thing is, i'll never know. i think that ambiguity is what frustrates a lot folks when they run into behavior like this. it's not overtly racist. i've done it myself--at target a few weeks ago, i walked up to a black person wearing a red polo shirt and almost asked her where the picture frame aisle was. i'll bet she went through the same process. and i don't consider myself a racist, and try to be pretty open about confronting my own prejudices. so maybe i should give joe suburb the benefit of the doubt.
this same "but i'll never know" sentiment has come up recently on a (almost) national scale with george allen, the virginia (incumbent) senatorial candidate. a lot of hub hub has come out over whether he really meant to use a racial slur when he picked an indian college student out of the crowd and called him a macaca (an obscure word meaning 'monkey,' it's not clear allen knew what it meant). however, besides the fact that it shows incredible lack of judgement on his part (the kid was holding a video camera and was from alllen's opponent's campaign, for fuck's sake!), it's disturbing on two levels:
we'll never really know if he meant to use some kind of racial slur (but he definitely meant to say macaca, because he said it very clearly. twice.)
he clearly meant to isolate and humiliate the one person of color in a large crowd
now, here's the clip:
the 'wecome to america and virigina' comments is ironic, in that the student was actually born and raised in virginia, unlike george allen (who was born in los angeles county, california according to the biographical directory of the united states congress).
it would be easy to call allen a racist, or an asshole, or a rusty trombone. this conversation gets us nowhere. it falls on deaf ears for those who disagree and preaches to the choir for those who do. so in the spirit of understanding, i'll offer purely how it makes me feel. i don't speak for all people of color, or immigrants, or indians. just me.
when a person of power, particular a white male, uses that power to single out someone, make a joke at their expense, and turn an entire group against that one person, it is an act of derision, plain and simple. it may be good humored. it may even be something that those two people would say in private, or that one indian person could say to another indian person. but at the end of the day, context matters. you can choose to ignore this fact, and claim that you're sick of 'political correctness.' you can claim that (choose any group) is playing the 'race card.' you may be right some of the time. but your actions have made that person feel less of a person. we have all had that feeling on the playground. it's not a good one.
so do whatever feels right to you.
but in this particular situation, i would ask george allen, or anyone that feels this his actions were 'no big deal' or not rooted in some kind of prejudice: if the tables were reversed, if you were the only white guy, 20 years old, in a room with 100 indian people, and the leader of those people singled you out, particularly in a way that is linked to your appearance, and those 100 people laughed at you, how would you feel? and how would you feel about that person's leadership ability?
ok, so i'm about to post a comment on prizblog, and i notice it identfies by my real name.
what the fuck!?!?!?
i don't use my name anywhere in the blogosphere. i even went back and changed all (i mean all of them--there were like 700) tags on every flickr photo to remove my name. i took down all of the early postings on this blog when i was not as careful about slipping my names (or mrs. wintermute's).
the real reason i use a screen handle for myself and my friends is so the casual observer can't use this blog to attach stories to names. obviously, if you know me, and find my blog, it's not hard to see that it's mine. however, i don't want a potential employeer doing a search (which an increasing # do, according to the wall street journal) and seeing my name come up next to a posting about the rusty trombone. and i doubt any of my friends what that to happen either.
anyway, so google (which owns blogger) flicked a switch, and now if you're logged into gmail, it automatically integrates and logs you in with that account when you're on a blogspot blog. it lets you log out and then log back in with your preferred handle, but that's irritating.
now that i get skyline in south florida and penn station in st. louis, it has lost some its allure.
last fall, i blogged at about mrs. wintermute's high school reunion (here and here). she was cool, popular, and everyone remembered who she was.
this is pretty much the opposite of me. about four months ago, when i got the email about my 10 yr reunion, i said that would be like be getting on board with snakes on a plane. unless samuel l. jackson is there for me, no way it's happening.
total decision time = 10 seconds.
i revisited that decision every time i checked the evite and saw that a few hundred of my class mates were planning to attend. but still, no dice.
about three weeks ago, teen wolf pings me. i have not seen him (or his wife) for a long time, since he shipped out (he's in the military) just before my wedding. so i was one groomsman short, and haven't seen him since. i went to junior and high school teen wolf and mrs. teen wolf. he and i played soccer together and were in a band together; basically, we go way, way back. he's one of two people from my high school with whom i keep in touch (well, three if you count my brother).
so, teen wolf pings me. he's in the states on short notice for some training, is going to be in the nati to see family, is there any chance that mrs. w and i can make our way there?
hell. yes.
total decision time = 2 seconds.
and it coincides with the aviator reunion. teen wolf is up for it, mrs. w is up for it. so we're going.
i have spent the last 3 weeks in a state of anxiety about this. it peaked the first 72 hours after i decided that we would go, and has reached a tolerable level of stasis since then.
it's not that i hate my high school. on the surface, i had it pretty good. i was on the varsity soccer team, i played in a band (not THE band, A band) that was actually quite rocking, and i even had a girlfriend my senior year. however, i don't have any feelings of affection towards that time in my life. I walked out of graduation, put my gown in the bin, and said good riddance. i figured feelings of longing would eventually arrive. ten years later, no dice. i am completely emotionally flat, at best, and supremely insecure at worst, when it comes to my high school experience.
i know, it shouldn't matter. i have a lot for which to be thankful; in fact, i haven't done much to earn or deserve most of it. it's largely been handed to me. and i've tried to not take it for granted and make the most of it. i even have some major things to brag about, if i were so inclined (a wife that's much better looking than i deserve to have and having a graduate degree from the big h, for starters).
so i really shouldn't care that i was a big tool in high school, was insecure about myself every single day, and felt completely invisible at times. but i do. i'm not sure how many people will remember my name. i expect a lot of, "hey...you...ummm, is it (insert common indian name, like sanjay, here)?"
being in the environment brings back all of those things. homecoming? 0 for 4. winter dance (where, cruelly, the girls are supposed to do the asking)? 0 for 4 as well. at a seventh grade dance, i was walking with a friend to larosa's (that's what everyone did afterwards). a car drove by, yelled "hey you fucking n&%#er" and threw some beer bottles at me. fortunately, i ducked and they shattered on the stop sign behind me. i wasn't mad. i was embarrassed, more than anything else. i told adam not to tell anyone, and just decided that school dances were not such a good idea.
in the early 90s, a neighbor (we live on a one-street neighborhood with 12 houses) had a super bowl party. guess who was the only family not invited? could it be the only family that's not white? around 5:30, my bro and i came in from playing with the neighbors. "ok, what time are we going over to the party?"
mom and dad exchange nervous looks. "uhh, i don't think we're going."
"why not?!?!?! it's going to be awesome! everyone's going to be there." i was actually mad at my parents b/c i though they were too lame to go. i found out later that we hadn't been invited. the saddest part of it is that my brother and i announced that were 'mature enough' to go without them. we ignorantly rang the doorbell. today, i understand the look of surprise on my neighbor's face when she saw us standing on the porch. her kids, not knowing better, ran up and told us to come on down to the basement where all the kids were. i can't imagine how my parents must have felt when we came that night, triumphantly, saying that we had a great time.
oh yeah, one more story: in sixth grade, i actually had a girlfriend (as much as anyone can have one...she agreed to 'go out' with me via a note in reading class). she was super cool and i felt super cool. i walked out of school that day with a big smile on my face. on my way to the bus, billy o'neil (fuck you, billy, wherever you are) said, 'hey, you don't think she's really going to keep going out with you, do you?"
"well, we've only been going out for a day."
"you know what happens when white chicks go out w/ colored kids, right? their kids are retarded."
it didn't take long for that one to get around. i was dumped by the end of the next day.
now, at the end of the day, i can't say those two incidents prevented from feeling better about myself. today, it's actually kind of laughable. the fact that kids on the playground can be mean wiil not surprise anyone. but back then, it was a little bit more difficult to digest. that kind racist bullshit repeated itself ad nauseum almost until the day i left the 'nati (literally. one of the last days before i went to college, some asshole came into the movie theater where i worked and hassled me about letting dumb immigrants into the country. it's a humbling experience to serve someone their popcorn, make change, and tell them to enjoy their movie while they denigrate your background).
then i went to emory, and realized that the rest of the country is not like this. i've pretty much been blocking out ages 11 to 18 since then. this includes my high school girlfriend's dad beating her because i wasn't catholic (did you know they sell special make-up to hide those bruises?).
but when i'm around my high school, i still feel like i'm stuck in one of those moments. i'm almost 30, but it's what i woke up thinking about this morning.
a long time ago, bloodninja, mrs wintermute, jwatt and others had a particular set of inside jokes. they revolved around who could one-up each other with strange stories of deranged sexual practices.
the big joke was that whenever we had to explain to someone why we laughed so hard everytime someone mentioned "dirty sanchez" or "warm carl," we would turn to bloodninja to explain. he would look at his shoes, blush a bit, and then launch into, "well, you see, it starts with..." here's a link to a nice summary of the lexicon.
it is also quite funny to submit all of these phrases when playing charades and watch someone try to act out 'strawberry milkshake.'
two years later, i'm sitting in the waiting room of JP morgan in midtown manhattan with 40 other eager beaver mba-types. making small talk. one of the guys sitting next to me looks at me and says, "i'm not sure why i feel i can share this with you, but do you know what 'smashing pumpkins' is?"
"err, no." but i am intrigued.
"well, its where you microwave a pumpkin for 3 minutes so it's warm and pulpy inside. then you cut a hole and fuck it. it feels just like the real thing."
wait, did you say you fuck a pumpkin? oh that is awesome. i gotta call bloodninja, i gotta call mrs w.
wait, he just said fuck a pumpkin. i'm at an interview. i'm wearing my best, most conservative suit. he singled me out of the entire crowd and chose to share this sick (but entertaining) story. he doesn't know me. he's never seen me before. he doesn't know i like to submit these kind of entries in charades.
what on my face says, "i like to hear stories about depraved sexual practices?"
this morning at hartsfield was fun. i don't get why people flip out about long lines. it sucks, i get it. i'm standing right here next to you. yeah, if you're missing your flight then i probably am, too. so get over it and chill out because there is nothing you can do about it. read a magazine or plug in your ipod or check your blackberry. but for fuck's sake, shut the fuck up.
delta now plays a muzak version of 'blue monday' as the boarding music aboard the plane.
on the first day of b school orientation, career services gathered the class into a room and asked, "who wants to go into private equity or venture capital?
everyone (well pretty much everyone. nobf and slim shady probably already knew better) raised their hands.
"ok, good. now, everyone put down their hand unless you already worked in p/e or v/c before coming here."
hands drop.
"now, that's who will get those jobs. the rest of you should start looking for something else."
apparently, this message did not get through to bono.
greetings from cape g, missouri. home of rush limbaugh.
and actually, a lot of great restaurants. for a small town, one can enjoy some great food celebration: (where i enjoyed antelope tonight), molly's, brouissard's (creole), jimmy john's (subs second only to penn station), all kinds of stuff.
what the fine folks of cape g are not good at is air conditioning. the office a/c was broken yesterday and 70% functioning today. the restaurant last night and tonight had almost no a/c.
in 97 degree weather, that can be a problem.
back to st. louis tomorrow. i'll be dreaming of a penn station dagwood, east coast style (no banana peppers) with pizza sauce.
