How My Friend Is Ruining My Music

And I am not going to change this friend's name; I am throwing her right under the bus.

My two BFFs -- Lisa and Cher--and I decided on a last-minute trip to Solvang, CA for some quaint culture, boutique shopping, and WINE. I have known both of these amazing women for 30 years. As teens, we had similar music tastes; as adults, we have definitely struck out on our own: I love hard rock; Cher, country; Lisa, Indie Music spiced up with some Top 40.  It was my turn to drive, but feeling unusually accommodating, I decided to create a playlist that all three of us could enjoy (I almost made Cher psychotic after forcing her to listen to my music during the four-hour drive to Las Vegas).

So, I created a pretty cool playlist featuring the favorites we all shared from our youth -- Duran Duran, Def Leppard, Beastie Boys, Depeche Mode-- with a few of Cher and Lisa's current favorites thrown in.

Well, Cher must have not approved, because during our drive home, she managed to ruin a few of my favorites.

During the Bee Gees hit, "You Should Be Dancing," when they hit the first chorus, Cher said about the line, "What are you doing in the back, ahhh?" she said:

"Don't you guys think he's saying: 'Do you do it in your butt?' It sounds like he certainly does."

The next time the chorus rolls around, Lisa and I focus and burst out laughing: "He totally does!"

Every time they sang the chorus, all I could do was guffaw like a 16-year-old stoner.

When TLC's song, "Silly Ho" filled the car, after the line, "I'm not a chick you can hit," she asked, "Did she just say 'I am not a chicken head'?"

Yes, Cher. R&B artists often use farm animals as metaphors.

That is how she sang that line for the rest of the song.

The final shot? As she climbed out of my car, the song "She's Crafty" by Beastie Boys was thumpin' and she drops, "And with this one, it sounds like he saying, 'She's crapping'."

I will never be able to listen to those songs again in the same way. Next time I'm loading up Disturbed, Avenge Sevenfold, Seether, and Breaking Benjamin.  I can totally handle psychotic better than the visual of the members of the Bee Gees in sliver, skin-tight body suits) having anal sex while singing.  A disco balling spinning above their heads.

I guess I could do the same to her the next time she drives and I must endure her music. But, she listens to country and there's not much more damage I can do to their lyrics.

"Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill"-- Buddha

If Buddha is correct, then I am doing my part to destroy the future minds of America.

Some of the funniest incidents come from misuse of words, and if you teach English to teenagers, you will find yourself giggling (or screaming) a lot.

Or, if I am your English teacher, you'll find yourself giggling (or screaming) on the way to your therapist.

Available from Cafe Press

On the second day of the new school year, I used to teach students about the difference between Standard American English, slang, and dialects to help them understand why certain situations call for certain ways of speaking: you wouldn't use Standard American English when socializing with friends just as you wouldn't use slang with a teacher, employer, or anyone else not from your generation.

One year as I was transitioning from slang to dialects, I announced quite loudly: "Okay, now we are moving on to dicks." Immediately after I heard my diction faux pas, I threw my arms in the air like a referee signalling a touchdown and shouted, "Day two everybody!"

Forty pairs of wide eyes stared back at me.  That their teacher even knew what a dick was seemed to have stunned them.

Last year, while reading from "Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson"--a horrific account of her imprisonment to the Native Americans in 1675--I managed to turn a scene of violence into a snuff narrative. After reading about "bowels being split open" and a nursing mother and her child being shot through, I concluded by saying, "the Indians getting up upon the roof of the barn, had advantage to shoot down upon [the pilgrims] over their fornication."

I stopped. The last word was supposed to be "fortification." I pictured a bunch of pilgrims doing it doggy style while shooting up at the Indians on the roof.  I couldn't help sputtering a few Beavis and Butthead chuckles.

I know. There's something wrong with me.

Of course, I was the only one who laughed because the students had no idea what "fornication" meant, even though they probably engaged in it more than I did. So, instead of seeing this humor in my mispronunciation, they watched me giggle at the idea of innocent men, women, and children being slaughtered.

Then there was the time I told my students to "put away their notebooks because I was passing the testies out." I was trying to play off a persona that is so not me: cutesie and playfully condescending (I'm naturally sarcastically condescending).

And I often say fuck-tion instead of "function."

I could be on Law and Order Special Victims Unit. As myself.

I really threw out a good one the other night during the Advanced Composition class that I teach at the junior college during the summer. This class was dedicated to diction: denotation, connotation, phonetics and such.  I end the class with a lecture on the phonetics and purpose of profanity. Clearly, I cuss a lot during this lecture.

I had decided to give the students a break beforehand. As they were getting up to leave the room for a break, I overheard a student utter to another student a phrase that included the word "fuck" as a noun, adjective, and adverb. I smirked at the versatility of the word, which alerted the student that I could actually hear him. Embarrassed, he apologized for his language. To put him at ease I was going to say, "Don't worry about it, I'm going to say 'fuck' a lot after the break."

But, that's not what I said.

I forgot a word.

(drum roll while readers try to figure out what I did say)

Wait for it . . .

Wait for it . . .

Instead, I said, "Don't worry about it because I'm gonna fuck a lot after the break."

Let's just say no one was late coming back from the break.

And my second period seniors will not forget to turn in their composition notebooks on Wednesday. Why? Because when I reminding them, I said, "On Wednesday, I am going to start collecting your condoms."

From the silence, once small voice utters, "Well, we know Ms. Vance had a good weekend."

OMG.

To quote my grandmother: "Why are teenagers so stupid?"

When I started blogging, I promised myself that I would not allow it to turn into a mock-my-students blog, and believe me, I've got enough material to take the blog down that road.

This blog is supposed to be about writing--my writing specifically. And it's been relatively easy to keep it all about me.

But today, I can't resist.

Inspired by Lana Banana's post, I must share the greatest student quote EVER.

At the high school where I teach, we are in the final stages of the senior project. It's a district requirement for graduation; an assessment of the cumulative skills of seniors. Every senior must complete it--no exceptions.

Here's what the babies are required to do within a semester: write a 6-page research paper on a topic of their choosing, take the content of that paper and put it into practice for 15-30 hours of fieldwork under the guidance of a mentor, and then present their experience to a panel of judges from the community. This project is designed to push students out of their comfort zone, make them responsible for their learning, and help them explore career paths--a cutting of the umbilical cord, if you will.

And it's an excellent torture device for us teachers; only the most sadistic (and masochistic) of us get to teach it.

I've been teaching it for 14 years.

As my colleagues who are also mothers have said, "The senior project is like childbirth: unbelievable pain that results in the greatest of rewards."

Right now, I and my fellow SP teachers are in hard labor.  The final presentations are Thursday and Friday of this week.  Tensions are high because teenagers are freakin' out, and teachers have had it. Because the senior project is so individualized, teachers are scrambling to solve a variety of "hitches" spiced up with an abundant amount of teenage drama and a barrage of parent phone calls wondering why we can't dedicate hours of our time to their lovely child who up until now hasn't done DICK.

So let me be a little more specific: senior project teachers are currently akin to schizophrenics in hard labor. Without our medication. And the anesthesiologist is nowhere to be found.

I know that on Thursday and Friday, it will be rapturous as I watch my students march off to their presentations and return glowing and elated. There will be laughter, hugs, and camaraderie. It's the type of day that reminds me why I stay in teaching (I went into it to pay bills until I got published--ha, ha).

But right now . . . the pole as a source of income is looking better and better.

Right now . . . I want to change "what I'm looking for" criteria on my online dating profiles to "an elderly, rich man with a delicate ticker."

Students are currently practicing their presentations, which covers everything they have learned and highlights the specific skills they have acquired.

One of my students did his project on rap music and poetry.  In his research paper, he justified rap as a legitimate form of poetry that adheres to the traits of great poetry as outlined by the masters. For his fieldwork, he took an online poetry class, wrote his own song, and recorded it. Overall, I thought this project to be pretty good.

But, this is how he started his presentation (and here is the greatest student quote EVER): "Poetry has been around before literacy. Ya know, back when everything was oral? Ya know, before Christ."

He finished his presentation by plugging his iPod into my portable speakers and rapping for five minutes. No mention of his paper; no mention of the skills he learned during his fieldwork. Even if I had had an Urban Dictionary on hand and several gang members to act as consultants, I still wouldn't have had any idea what he was talking--excuse me--rapping about.

At this point, I just want the doctor to come in and say, "Fuck it. We're doing a Cesarean."

So, in honor of the end of the school year, when teachers are exhausted, crawling toward the finish line, piles of students on their backs, I invite my community of educators to share those moments that justify the title of this blog series. I need the laugh.

Shit, we all do.

"Give me your words, your view, Your huddled masses of dirty thoughts and nasty rhetoric"

To all the men out there: I need your minds.

Yes, gentlemen, your minds (I'll be asking for your bodies in the next post).

To be more specific, I need your dirty minds. Your filthy minds.

No, this isn't a dream.  There are no hidden cameras. I have not been hired by any of your wives or girlfriends to entrap you.

But I need to get inside your head. Way up in there. So far up I have a hard time finding my way out.

Guide me. Teach me. Corrupt me.

I need to know how the most childish, perverted side of you would describe a woman's body --any woman's body-- to another man. How does a conceited, smooth, unscrupulous womanizer see a woman? How would he describe having sex with a woman for whom he feels nothing but contempt?

I want the words, the slang. Unleash the inner asshole. Turn him loose . . . turn him loose on me. I want crude, rude, and raw. Offensive.

No, this is not for my sexual gratification (well . . . maybe a little).

This is for a piece I have written called "The Basement" (see review from Garrett Calcaterra at the right). It is one of the very few pieces where I take on a male persona and I want to get it right before I submit. I think I am close, but I think the voice is off a bit. So, some gentlemen feedback, pretty please.

Below is an excerpt. You can comment by suggesting substitutions for my current rhetoric, or if you could just leave me some key phrases or diction that's be great too.  I need man language.

Disclaimer: I do not think this is how all men are. I am trying to write the voice of a total dick.

The Basement

She was on him like a cat the moment he walked through the front door: jumping onto his back and clawing at his face. Cursing, Justin reached back, trying to grab her by the hair and yank her forward over his shoulders.  He was going to throw the bitch across the room, find the money, and leave. And if she tried to stop him, he would not hesitate to punch her straight in the face.

            But then her fingers hooked into his mouth. A chalky, bitterness bounced back into this throat.

“What the fuck!” he barked, shrugging her off of him, he staggered forward. He hunched over, contracting his throat in an effort to cough up whatever she gave him. But it was too late, his coated tongue smacked against the roof of his mouth. Straightening, he turned to bolt, but only managed a few steps before blackness overtook him. As the room jumped and he plummeted, he saw her out of the corner of his eye, her arms crossed over her chest and those painted red lips smiling.

                        *                                                           *                                                           *

            Justin snapped his fingers in Stan’s face, “What the fuck dude?”  He was right in the middle of telling them about how he dissed this chick who was in his Poly Sci 101 class when Stan suddenly straightened up like someone had jammed a stick up his ass and looked passed Justin toward Legends’ entrance.

Twisting at the waist, Justin looked scanned the busy scene. It didn’t take long for him to find the interruption: short, black hair; white skin; black eyeliner an inch thick around her blue eyes, extending out from the corners like she thought she was Cleopatra. Lip piercing in the corner of lower lip, sporting a black hoop. Nose piercing; eyebrow piercing.

            Bright red lip-stick.
            Fishnet stockings, a short checkered skirt, and a black T-Shirt with the Goth version of that white cat—Hello Kitty?—printed on the front. Great legs: thin and long. Perky tits accentuated by the tight shirt. Justin snickered. Ms. Emo had a chill.

          Justin leaned over to Kyle and said, “She must be lost. Should we tell her that the cutting party is probably downtown?” Sunday football at Legends sports bar didn’t exactly attract her kind.

Plan B for My Writing: Bumper Stickers

As I mentioned in an earlier post--see "What We Writers Do for Our Readers"-- I am one-third of a wonderful writer's group.

And, as I also mentioned before, we are all very different women. This comes out not only in our writing, but also in the way we take notes for revisions.

Jenny, aka Missed Periods, doesn't take notes at all. As Mindi and I make suggestions, she maintains eye contact, asks pertinent questions, and when she feels that something does need to be written down, she asks us to note it on our copies of her work. I find this method of "note-taking" bewildering because I'd forget my name if I didn't have to write down on a daily basis.

To maintain balance, Mindi takes copious notes. As Jenny and I dialogue about her submission, she is feverishly writing on her copy of the draft. Or, if we are working at her place, she will bust our her Mac and feverishly type.  It's almost as if she's doing the revisions as we are suggesting them.

I am a little in-between: I have a journal of fragmented instructions for overall revisions. For line edits, Mindi and JennyB are great about making those marks on their copies, so when I revise, I need both marked-up copies and my journal. 

As I was leafing through my notes that probably span at least a year back, I realized that if anyone read my journal, not knowing the nature of its contents, he or she would think I was a homicidal maniac. The female American Psycho.

But then, it hit me. These notes were going to make me rich!  I could market them as bumper stickers!

I know that there are a lot of great bumper stickers already, but I have a niche (or two)

Bumper stickers with relationship advice:

   

Stickers for those women who don't want their Match.com date to follow them home or for those women who want their Craig's-list-booty call only to fuck them.

                                  

So, what do you think? Maybe, instead of finding my name on the spine of a book, you'll see it . . .

Here.