Style Over Substance

So I’m in Columbia for Andrew’s wife’s birthday. It was a nice time. After a trying Friday’s worth of ups and downs, my head a spinning cocktail of regrets and cherished moments of humor, I arrived in Columbia in style, in a fitting counterpoint to the indignity of the week overall. Besides ironically being better dressed than I had been at school, I showed up with a gift-wrapped bottle of wine: undisguised. Just a bottle with skin-tight blue wrapping paper and a lighter blue bow on the neck.

As far as the “ups and downs,” the thing that stood out to me was the final hour of the day. What happened was that I was slated for the teacher who had seventh hour planning period, so I had the promise of leaving early to head to Columbia circa 2:30 PM, but I got tractor-beamed into covering the last period of Spanish class, which pissed me off because I would have been paid the same had I not worked that hour. So, despite the antics of those kids, I maintained a positive outlook simply with the knowledge of the promise of imminent bourbon consumption. Later, after the bell, in the hall, one of the nicer students said to me, “Mr. Scott, thank you for being patient with us seventh hour.”

To which I quipped, “Ha! Barely.” But I filed that away under “Abnormally Redemptive Instances of Humanity.” This girl unwittingly erased a day’s worth of bullshit in my mind, sending me careening into the Nebula of Pleasant Demeanor, an admittedly alien environment for me. Basically, it struck me as a bizarre thing to say. I’m like, “When did a teenager get so keen on damage control?”

Anyway, so, building up to this Friday I was contemplating a reprise of the many ways I used to be respected. For those of you with an inflated ego, I recommend substitute teaching. It’ll mess you up.

Also, context is everything. So, a little context…

I had a gloriously cathartic phone convo with the good Captain the other day about the folly of New Year’s Eve. See, I’ve been trying to pull off a visit to some good friends in the Twin Cities, but the Universe hates me and won’t let me do it—at least not over New Year’s. As per my routine, I was smoking a cigar and walking along the dam over the irrigation lake on the edge of the cornfield with my cell phone in hand. The Captain and I discussed the ideal New Year’s Party, somewhat of an anachronism these days, hearkening back to the sixties Rat Pack, daydreaming about reserving a V.I.P. room at a hotel casino, sending out “Adults Only” invitations for a dress-code-enforced party where conversations about work and parenthood are prohibited. Basically, in college I was part of the high roller scene, and the Captain and I mused, “What the hell happened?!” Summer barbecues are okay but the etiquette thereof is somewhat… unfulfilling. And, as the good Captain says, “Everyone’s New Year’s sucks.”

Why is that? Because we let it. Because people wear sweatpants to the freaking casinos to play penny-slots, but I’m on a tangent here. This is neither here nor there…

So, looking forward to this weekend, I held in my mind one simple, beautiful thing: the opening music to Ocean’s 12. L’Appuntamento. Enough said.

I tried in vain to explain to Herr Vogler over the phone the mentality of the past few days of subbing, the idea of going for “style over substance,” which oddly involves me spending some mornings’ free time running in the cold nearly to the point of vomiting and listening to Halo 3. Aside: Halo: The Fall of Reach is a fine book, which I read a few years ago and am reading again, and recommend.

Basically, these kids aren’t ever going to respect me, but they’re damn sure going to be perplexed by me. If nothing else, I can inspire them to think outside the box. More on that later, perhaps, when it’s not 3:00 in the morning and I’ve had too much Seagram’s 7.

The other thing messing with me is that I just watched Black Hawk Down again, one of my favorite movies, which reminds me inevitably of the obsessive analysis project I did for the music of that film, back in December ’04 at BGSU. Never mind the number of times I watched it at Truman before heading out on a bittersweet Friday to meet the boys for some pre-drinking with Halo before heading out to the bars. Ridley Scott, you magnificent bastard. Why aren’t we related? We have the same last name!!

Once again, I don’t know what I’m saying here on this blog. I lost my eloquence a long time ago. Now I just blog in “moment form.” Haha, moment form… ha… fuck you, Beerman. Define your terms, you fuck.

Wow, that ended on a dark note. Let me finish with:

All things considered, today (Friday) was a good day. It’s good to be with people who appreciate that I can be a classy guy, though I may have just disproved it here.

Listening List:

L’Appuntamento (Ornella Vanoni, featured on Ocean’s 12)
Leave No Man Behind (Black Hawk Down, Hans Zimmer)
Three Gates (Halo 3, Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori)
I Rise, You Fall (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Steve Jablonsky)
Brownsville Girl (Bob Dylan)
Casino (The World is Not Enough, David Arnold)

Pretty simple, hooah?

Take what you will from this post. Luminous beings are we… not this crude matter.