90 Year Old Twisted Lonely Perverts and Other Subjects

You all may have noticed that I'm updating the blog less these days. I've been exceptionally busy lately. One of Laser Blazer's trio of managers has been in Europe for the past month, splitting his time between selling hot antique furniture on the Spanish coastline and kicking ornery Ukranians out of condos. Or so I've been told. Plus, I've started tutoring young people around the Southland for the impending October SAT test. Not to mention all that screenwriting I'm supposed to be doing during my free time.

As if working two jobs and writing during off hours weren't enough to keep someone occupied, did I mention the 400 hours of "Big Brother" broadcast weekly on CBS? If you've never seen this show, good. You're one of the lucky ones. Let us never speak of it again. For those of us unfortunate enough to watch the show regularly, following the action requires an incredibly serious, all-consuming level of TV-viewing. I've seen successful marriages run on less commitment and invested time.

CBS airs "Big Brother" thrice weekly (as part of its exciting "We Got Nuthin'" line-up of programming!) Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. I've spent more time this month with Howie, Janelle, the evil Dr. Will than I have with my own roommates.

So little time have I spent in my room, in fact, that the cat has essentially claimed it as his own. When Sasha the Cat first moved in here, along with roommates Joe and Sig, he was tentative about approaching my room. It was uncharted territory and I was unfamiliar.

In the ensuing months, he's grown quite accustomed to life around here. The discovery of a large window at the back of my room, looking out over a fetid alley, an overgrown sap-heavy tree and the wall of an adjacent apartment building proved exciting for the little guy. I feel kind of bad, because Sasha's strictly an indoor cat and never gets to prowl around the neighborhood or chase birds or any other cat-like activities. (This is probably for the best, as he's an anxiety-prone specimen and would probably wind up just curling up in the fetal position and mewling for help if left to his own devices). So as a replacement for the feeling of actually being outside, he like sto climb up on my bed, peer out the window and ocassionally claw at the screen.

Here's the weird part: he'll only go up there if the blinds are closed. If I can see him, he won't bother. It's like he can't bear the idea of me watching him watch the window.



Right after I pulled back the shades and took this picture, Sasha freaked out and jumped down to the ground and ran out of the bedroom. I can't imagine what his problem would be with me seeing him at the window. He could probably escape that way if he really wanted to, but I'm not overly worried about it, and I don't give him shit ever for going up there. It would be tempting to assign some abstract, human psychology reason for this - it calls attention to his own voyeurism when he's being watched while watching others, or some such thing - but he's a cat and cats are stupid. So he must think I'm going to whip him around by his tail or refuse to give him food tonight or something.

Sometimes, I'll come back from work and enter my room and hang out for a few minutes without even realizing he's up there. Then he'll dart out from behind the blinds, race out of the room and I'll have a mild coronary from the shock. It's an odd and altogether new feeling for me to be suddenly and without warning set upon by an energetic feline. I'm still adjusting.

This past month has been a transitional one. I'm not someone who generally enjoys being busy. In fact, quite the opposite. I tend more towards the "lazy fuck" side of the spectrum than the "ambitious young go-getter" side. But I must say, I have kind of enjoyed getting into the tutoring. After years of working in an independent Los Angeles video store specializing in rare and out of print DVD's and Laserdiscs, it's nice to be around people who aren't 90 years old, twisted by loneliness and mental illness, perverts or 90 year old twisted lonely perverts. (Seriously...most days, I feel like Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in there..."Would you all please line up to take your medication so we can have nap time? No, Chief, put that DVD down. Put it down and take your medication. It's time for your nap!")

Despite being a nice break from clerking 24-7, the tutoring gig can occasionally be repetitive. There's only so many strategies and methods you need to do well on the SAT verbal, and so I wind up imparting a lot of identical nuggets to all the kids, no matter how much I try to personalize the program. I've only been doing it a short while and already I can feel myself slipping into a pattern during lessons. I'm sure this happens with real, full-time teachers as well. Mr. Sewell's AP U.S. History Class was all new for me, but I can't even imagine how sick to death of the Whiskey Rebellion and the XYZ Affair he must have been before I came along.

Also, I know it has probably been a while since most of you have taken the SAT, but let me assure you, it totally sucks. What a stupid test. It's as if a large group of people sat down and purposefully attempted to devise the most tricky, labyrinthine, convoluted way to test a student's handle on the English language. "Hey, I know, we could make them read a long, boring passage about the early development of the soldering iron, write an essay detailing their specific feelings on the topic of 'creativity' and then ask them trick questions about dangling participles! That'll determine if they're ready to handle 4 years at an overprized private university or my name's not Random College Board Beurocrat!"

Those reading comprehension passages are like punishment. Maybe not Bush Administration-"jab my in the ass with something sharp and electrified" punishment, the kind that approaches but doesn't include organ failure...but punishment all the same.

I know, I know, they purposefully choose dull writing samples to force kids to focus and concentrate...But come on. I've read more interesting, thought-provoking material on tubes of Astroglide. These passages make Kant's Critique of Pure Reason seem approachable and clear by comparison. "Yes, yes, I get it...A posteriori judgements are based on empiricism while a priori judgements derive from the rational progression of ideas as opposed to anecdotal or observed evidence. But why do I give a shit about the habitat of the weasel again?"

Don't we want to instill in our young people a fondness for reading? Should we really make their first exposure to the kinds of writing they'll see in college a passage about Greek Revival architecture written in the mid 40's? Also, I should point out that one of the passages we have the students read in our workbook - a passage and questions that really appeared on the test a few years back - comes off as sexist and offensive.

It's from this book, Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (no, not that Elizabeth Taylor...The British novelist one). I'm guessing that the overall book is probably not sexist or offensive. But the passage, read out of context, implies that Angel's mother - called Mrs. Deverell - lives only to cook and clean and has no other use in life. Most likely, in the grander scheme of the novel, this sad fate contrasts the fate of the protagonist, who grows up to become a novelist and attempts to live a life of experience and ambition.

But the passage is just about a lonely old woman who misses cooking for her husband and doing his laundry. Why is this on the test? The level of the actual writing must have been the selling point - the prose is careful and expressive but not overly wordy, excessively descriptive, confusing or overflowing with difficult vocabulary. The subject matter, an old lady reminiscing sweetly about how she used to whisk eggs, strikes me as patriarchial to an excessive degree.

Wow, now that's a digression. Hopefully, no student will read this blog as a primer on essay-writing, because this post wouldn't earn a 6 (out of 12). I'm jumping around all over the place, not to mention constantly misusing commas.

I was saying that the tutoring job is occasionally repetitive, but was about to make the point that the good about it far outweighs the not-good.. In particular, tutoring is actually kind of rewarding in an odd way. I've always worked in stores or cubicles, places where the results of a hard days work are intangibles. Sure, the store remained open all day and the company delivered its product to clients on time or whatever, but there's no actual end result I can look at and admire. (Okay, when I wrote subtitles for DVD's, I could then go back and watch the subtitle tracks if I wanted to. That was actually kind of depressing. So many hours of labor and most people will own the DVD and never even use the feature!)

But if I go to a kid's house for a few 90 minute lessons and he starts actually doing better, improving his scores, well that's an actual real-world accomplishment. Which would be a first for me.