Now I am the Master!

I went back to Morgantown yesterday because Batmite needed a ride to the airport. He's on a three week trip to San Diego with his parents, so I figured I'd be nice and spare him a three week parking fee at the Pittsburgh airport. I was only there for about 14 hours, so I didn't have much time to catch up with everyone, but I did make some time to visit with a few people. I also made some time to stop in at the English department to find out about my diploma.

I chose to pass on my graduation ceremony, but being the go-getter that I am, also neglected to turn in my graduation absentee form until about two weeks after it was due. I couldn't figure out what this would mean. I turned in my money for graduation and completed all the requirements, so were they going to just burn my diploma? I was actually expecting to have to pay some sort of outlandish inconvenience fee. Colleges love to charge for anything they can. The very existence of a graduation fee seems like a golden opportunity for them to ravage your ass financially when you can't possibly say no.

But getting my diploma was a surprisingly simple procedure - no hassles at all. Given the way the university spends its money, I was amazed at how official the diploma looked. I would have expected it to be scrawled on the back of a used cocktail napkin.

Actually having the diploma in hand felt damn good. It finally felt like I had really graduated. I took a picture of it with my digital camera and posted it above. I was going to blur may name out (in keeping with my anonymity on the site), but I figure that you can't search for a word that's in an image, so no one can Google my name and find it. Besides, most people who read this blog know exactly who I am. And it's not a big secret anyway. It doesn't take Batman to put a few pieces together to determine my identity. I'm not plotting the downfall of civilization or the destruction of large monuments on this blog (I save such diatribes for anonymous postings on Food Network message boards... the other posters think I'm saucy) so I think I'm safe.

And I'm fucking proud of having that damn diploma in hand. Sing it from the sky, bitches! I have a Masters Degree!! All you Bachelors can kiss my fat pretentious ass!

Of course, the diploma does give me pause for a few reasons. First of all, I question the line, "With all the rights, honors, and privileges thereunto appertaining." What kind of bullshit is that? The phrase "thereunto appertaining" gives this verbose English major pause. That's excessive and pretentious wordsmithing at its finest. And what rights, honors, or privileges do I get? Am I going to get a discount at the Family Dollar if I show my diploma at the register? Maybe I'm now permitted to jaywalk with reckless abandon! I'm hoping the diploma gives me the legal right to commit one heinous murder for free. But then I'd have to choose between several tempting targets.

I'm also concerned about my diploma being signed by the infamous Michael Garrison, the President of West Virginia University. Garrison got a lot of bad press recently for granting an MBA degree to the daughter of the current West Virginia governor when she hadn't earned the required credits. Some faculty members are seeking his resignation... some of them quite loudly. Personally, I think it shows a particular naivety on the part of these intelligent faculty members to believe that powerful people aren't going to be corrupt. Besides, if the English department knew how few books I actually read to earn my Masters Degree, they'd probably be calling for my head too!

But I have it writing now. I have a masters degree in English literature! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go enjoy sitting on my unemployed ass for the foreseeable future.

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"When we last met, I was but the learner. Now *I* am the master!"
"Only a master of evil, JP!"

The "T" Stands for Tupperware

There are three basic truths about Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: the plot will always get more depraved than you could ever imagine, the normal looking guy is always a pedophile or rapist, and Ice-T must always be badass.

Rapper Ice-T plays Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola on SVU, and while every other character gets put through an emotional or ethical ringer on a regular basis, Ice-T never seems to get the short end of the stick. Even when some crazy sick shit goes down, Ice-T looks golden. In one episode, the entire team comes across a room filled with dead children who were killed by a religious fanatic. None of them handle it well, but a little bit later, Ice-T struts out of the office going, "Sometimes you just gotta step back, ya know!" Ice-T don't cry. Ice-T steps back.

The story goes that Ice-T asked series producer Dick Wolf how he was supposed to play the part, and Wolf told him to do what Ice-T would do if he were a cop. This is a man famous for a song called "Cop Killer," and yet the man who created Lennie Briscoe and Jack McCoy, the two most awesome characters in the Law & Order franchise, told Ice-T to play Ice-T. That would work for him. And this is a man whose name is "Dick Wolf" - he knows a thing or two about manliness.

But it turns out that the "Original Gangsta" has a softer side. About a month ago, I was watching Conan O'Brien, and Conan was interviewing our boy Ice-T. They were discussing Ice-T's new album, when Conan suddenly asked Ice-T about a tupperware party that he was apparently hosting. Not attending -- hosting. Ice-T was all too happy to talk about it. "Yo, tupperware is street, Conan." When Conan understandably laughed and scoffed at the idea of Ice-T throwing a tupperware party, Ice-T explained that rich people don't use tupperware because rich people don't have leftovers. Only poor people know about tupperware. Ice-T was annoyed because one critic asked, "What's next? Ice Cube doing a kids movie?" Ice-T's response: "Guess what, asshole! He's done two of 'em."

So Ice-T threw a tupperware party. And he apparently went all out. I was thinking about this interview today, and I started Googling around. Articles abound regarding Ice-T's baller tupperware party. There's even video footage of it:

He called it a "Tupper-Bowl" party. According to one website, Ice-T and his wife Coco (a swimsuit model no less) teamed up with Tupperware to host the first ever "Tupper-Bowl" party. This event celebrated the culmination of the Giants' football season and the upcoming Super Bowl. This all benefited the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club of America.

Bitch, please! That yellow lid doesn't match!

Ice-T invited rappers and SVU co-workers. I could actually see Christopher Meloni, Mariska Hargitay, or even Richard Beltzer attending Ice-T's rocking tupperware party, but according to that same website, the ones who showed up were the lousy new guy and B.D. "gayest Asian man since George Takei" Wong.

I find all of this bizarre and fascinating. Ice-T is the epitome of heteronormative manliness (rapper, married to a supermodel, tough-guy demeanor), and yet he apparently longs for little touches of a softer suburbia. Ice-T's Tupper-Bowl party is like some bizarre nexus of straight-gay-black-white-urban-suburban-male-female life.

Of all the Ice rappers, who would have expected Ice Cube to star in children's movies and Ice-T to host a tupperware party? Of course, Vanilla Ice was in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, so I guess they didn't get out unscathed either.

Here's to you, Ice-T!! You prove that real men don't like their leftovers to get moldy.

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Ice-T: His name may be cold, but inside he's a warm snuggy bear.

Come Fly With Me

Over Christmas break, I was considering what I might do once I was finished with grad school. One thing that I really wanted to do was to take a short vacation somewhere. I figured that I'd have some money saved up, and I could head off to California, Europe, or some other interesting venue. In the last decade or so, my travel has been limited to places within driving distance. New York City, Boston, Washington D.C., Niagara Falls, and Florida (my farthest trip) are some of the more interesting places that I've been. But the limiting factor is that I've driven to all of those locales. I've never been on an airplane.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. When I was about 13 years old, I went to a county airport with the Boy Scouts, and some pilots took us up in their personal airplanes for a few minutes. (Side Note: Yes, JP is a certified Eagle Scout... you can all quit snickering now.) Now I have a rather severe fear of heights, so I was a bit hesitant to get into this dinky little flying craft that was being piloted by a man who looked like Wilford Brimley's jolly uncle. But once we were up in the sky, I really enjoyed the experience! When you get that high up, the height is so extraordinary that it doesn't really register. I'd have the same reaction several years later at the top of the Empire State Building. Unfortunately, authorities frown on people spitting from either locale.

All was going well until about ten minutes into the flight when the other kid in the back seat pipes up: "Excuse me, I've been holding the door shut since we took off." He proceeds to loosen his arm a bit to show that the door isn't shut. Leave it to a Mormon Boy Scout to politely keep quiet while he's holding a plane door closed with his bare hands! (Side Note: Did I forget to mention that my Boy Scout troop was organized through my old church? Imagine that.) Needless to say (which is why I'll say it), I was scared shitless. The pilot seemed rather calmly befuddled. He calls the tower on his radio to ask for their advice on the situation, and the tower asks, "Can the kid hold on until you guys land?" I'm not surprised by their response; after all, what were they going to do? I think I was just amazed at everyone's cavalier attitude to what I saw as something of a life-threatening scenario.

While that whole situation has made me a bit wary of airplanes, I still want to go somewhere that warrants getting into a passenger jet. I'm really not all that particular about the destination as long as it's different from Western Pennsylvania. Give me a desert, plains, icecap, tundra, or even a fjord... I just want to see something different.

A few things stand in my way. First of all, my funds are not as vast as I might have hoped four months ago. I have enough to get through the summer as I search for gainful employment, but rustling up the greenbacks that I'd need for any distant vacation would be difficult. Second, I kinda dawdled around in the trip-planning area. It's certainly too late to plan a trip out of the country since I don't have a passport, but even planning a plane trip within the US this close to my intended departure time would be pricey. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I don't really have anyone to go with me. My friends in Morgantown all have new families or jobs, or they're taking summer classes. Batmite is traveling the country with his parents for a few weeks. And all my friends from Kittanning have legitimate jobs. They have the money, but they don't have the time. Traveling alone does not appeal to me. I'd probably end up spending most of my time in my hotel room trying to figure out what time they show Battlestar Galactica in the Pacific Time Zone or wandering the streets asking the locals where I can find a good time. Such plans can lead to infinite sadness in the former instance, or jail time and prescriptions for medicated ointment in the latter.

I think my travel will be limited to various trips to Morgantown, and a weekend in Baltimore to see a friend who lives there. Fucking time! Fucking money! Fucking friends with jobs!

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The World: Eluding JP since 1983.

I Love a Man in Uniform... In a Totally Straight Way

My favorite TV shows all involve men and women in uniform. Battlestar Galactica revolves around a space military. In the Star Trek universe, all the characters are in Starfleet, which is like a futuristic pacifist military. And all of the Law & Order series focus on police officers. And lest we forget, there's my love for Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October. I love seeing military operations and police procedurals in film and television.

What makes all of this so baffling is that I am completely ill-equipped to be a man in uniform myself. Not only am I physically unimpressive as a military specimen, but I have strong aversions to pain and death, which seem to be encountered by police officers, soldiers, and space cadets on a regular basis. I could probably handle being a behind-the-scenes kind of guy, handling reports and making witty comments about the war effort. I see myself as being a lazier and chubbier version of Hawkeye from M*A*S*H, only not as successful with the ladies... and, you know, not a doctor.

But this is not my attitude when watching TV. I love Admiral Adama, Lennie Briscoe, Captain Kirk, and all these other people who devote their lives to serving the greater good. I want to see my TV heroes charge into the weapons-filled drug house right in front of everyone else! After all, that's what heroes in uniform do.

Of course, that's not really what they do in real life. The guy leading the charge is usually the first guy shot. Fuck that noise. Let the loud motherfucker with delusions of grandeur who wants to charge the enemy get himself killed; I'll be huddled down about 400 yards away pissing myself and weeping like a little girl, but my cowardly ass will survive. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

I guess I'm just fascinated by the mindsets of the men and women who live their lives in this way. It's a social structure that's interesting to me, but I'm not sure why. It's clearly not just the whole uniform thing, despite what my title says. If that were the case, I'd like sports more than I do.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for militaristic values. I guess that makes my dreams of Hitler that much more disturbing.

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90% of all military personnel secretly dream of being unpaid bloggers with a Masters Degree in English.

It Was Nineteen Eighty-Something

As I indicated in my last post, Batmite and I ended grad school by hosting a bodacious '80s party at our heteronormative shared pad. It was the bombdiggity.

click on any image to enlarge

Batmite (obviously pictured left) opted to go with the old Hulk Hoganesque Fu Manchu stache, but most agreed that he looked like a gay leather daddy. I, on the other hand, totally rocked a pair of aviator shades, an AC-DC cap, and a Top Gun T-shirt (that was about two sizes too small for me). The running gag was that I was Iceman after he'd left the Air Force and let himself go over the years. I only wish I were playing Word Munchers or Oregon Trail on an old Tandy computer there.

A.J. agreed to be our bartender, making pina colatas, margaritas, and Batmite's apple-tini (he again claims heterosexuality on that one). We had a huge assortment of booze at this thing. Unfortunately, no one got really plastered, which only makes the costumes and behavior that much more unsettling.

Everyone really got into the whole costuming thing. I wasn't really thrilled about dressing up for the party. You know how hard it is to find 80s clothing in 2XL tall? I don't think they make parachute pants and tracksuits in those sizes. Nevertheless, we gave out prizes for the best costumes. Rachel is holding the third prize - a glittery hula hoop. I don't know if she actually won third prize, but she doesn't seem to thrilled to be holding it.

After finding out that Wal-Mart filled the hula hoop with several pounds of marijuana, Rachel perked right up.

Toby took second place. He won the complete first season of Teddy Ruxpin. I found that sitting right at the top of the bargain bin at Wal-Mart. What's unnerving is that there were five copies of it in the bin. I really think it should have been the first place prize, but Batmite overruled me. This was actually not a retro look for Toby. He normally wears the outfit of a Charles Dickens character, complete with bowler cap, pocket watch, and three-piece suit. His attire here is actually about nine decades ahead of his time.

Lisa took first place. I'm not really sure how authentically 80s her costume is, but what's sad is that everything she's wearing was purchased within the last month. That entire ensemble is available today, and statistically speaking there must be someone in the world who's wearing that getup because she (or he) thinks it looks legitimately awesome. In any case, Lisa won the first season of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. She didn't seem all that thrilled with the prize. In retrospect, I think Lisa and Toby should have switched prizes. Toby seems the type to shout "I HAVE THE POWER!!" to random passersby.

Virgil took a break from blogging to come to the party too. She said she was the 80s gal from the other side of the tracks. Not sure what's with the goofy face she's making. Her ensemble certainly beats her husband's attempt to pass off a green hoodie as his E.T. costume.

Erin and Ami are intrigued and aghast respectively when Batmite jumps up on the table to do a striptease.

They are less than impressed when I try to pull the same stunt....

Okay, so maybe there weren't any stripteases. Our party wasn't THAT exciting I guess.

That about sums up our party. I have more pictures, but some of them are of less than stellar quality, and others don't warrant clever comments. Suffice it to say, there was food and drink, we had several playlists of 80s tracks, and we rocked TO THE MAX. I shall end this blog as our party ended, with Batmite thrusting and gyrating to "The Final Countdown."

He claims that his legs hurt for days because he rocked so fucking hard. But he can dance if he wants to... he can leave his friends behind... 'cause if his friends don't dance, and if they don't dance, well they're no friends of mine.

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JP and Batmite: Sweeping the legs of anyone walking the dinosaur on Electric Avenue... especially if the Kommissar's in town!

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!

I'M DONE, BITCHES!!

That's all she wrote. Grad school is over! Two long grueling years of writing papers, teaching apathetic students, being an apathetic student, and running out of money faster than I'd care to admit has led me to this final day!!!

It's oddly anticlimactic.

Maybe my expectations were a little high. Was it too much to expect the heavens to open up, bright light beams to shoot out of the sky, a big smiling sun to appear, and the song "You're the Best" from The Karate Kid to start playing out of nowhere? I think not. The ticker-tape parade down High Street might have been optional, but I at least wanted ten topless cheerleaders bouncing in support of my sheer awesomeness.

Instead, I wandered into the office, turned in my final paper, turned in my final grades, cleared out my office, and turned in my keys with no fanfare. To be fair, no one was really there. By the end of finals week, anyone who can clear out, will clear out. I met up with Batmite and A.J. for lunch, but that was about it. I went quietly into that good night.

I think everyone is just fucking exhausted. The other MAs seem completely abused by life as well. It's like we all just came out of a cave, and we're seeing the light and going, "What the??... what's going on? Where am I? Did I just eat my body weight in cupcakes?"

For awhile there I was planning to go to graduation, but it doesn't really seem worth it. Only one other graduating MA is going, and my parents didn't seem all that enthused about it. It seemed like more of a hassle than anything else. I'll take my mail-delivered Master of Arts in English from West Virginia University and proudly throw it on a shelf somewhere.

As for the future... who the hell knows. Today is the first day of a completely empty undefined length of time. I'll be spending most of my time in Kittanning, since it's cheaper there, but I'm hoping to visit my friends in Morgantown several times over the summer. Despite all the grief I give grad school, I'll miss the friends I've made here. Shared misery and despair creates good friendships. I'm still hoping to see just about everyone throughout the summer and maybe even beyond, but it'll never really be the same.

On the plus side, we did get to have a rocking 80s party last night as a send-off. It wasn't really designed for my own benefit, so the personal fanfare wasn't there, but it was still fun. I got to see everyone one last time. I'll have pictures and more details about the party in an upcoming post.

Hopefully my blog posts won't suffer from this severe drop in stress and misery. I'll definitely have more time on my hands in which to post. I'll get to witness firsthand the lackadaisical life of an unemployed single man. I get to watch Law & Order reruns and Netflix movies to my heart's content... at least until my parents get sick of my existence as a household parasite and force me to get a temp job.

The grad school stage is complete. Time to enter the job world. I'll no longer be able to blame grad school for the failures of my life. "Hey JP, why don't you have life goals?" "Hey JP, why don't you have a girlfriend?" "Hey JP, why don't you lose weight?" "Hey JP, why were you raping that rhesus monkey?"

Grad school can only provide excuses for so long.

Thanks for following along with my grad school rants everyone. But fear not! Rants about summer boredom, job interviews, and a probable crappy job are surely forthcoming. I'll miss parts of grad school, but cynicism, sarcasm, and snarky comments can find a home just about anywhere. Look out job market! Here comes JP!!

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Unemployment: Proving to be the comfortable status of graduating English grad students ever since Homer gave up his profitable career as an Ithacan cheesemonger to write some stories about a man killing a cyclops.

Approaching the Finish Line

The second most-famous groundhog in West Virginia doesn't have a cushy lotto job like the one in Pennsylvania, but even he's excited to see the finish line.

Five days left bitches! Grad school will soon be nothing more than a painful repressed memory that will be brought out in a moment of violent outrage thirty years from now. Keep all sharp cutlery away from Future JP.

I have ZERO interest in continuing my education right now. I make no commitments about the future. I have no idea how unpleasant any forthcoming jobs will be. Going back to school a few years from now might be preferable if I'm working with an office full of crazies who take turns shitting in the corner wastebasket every day at noon. And when you're working with failed English majors, that would be a promising mindset.

For right now, though, I don't want to keep trying to make research about a fictional work sound important. Yeah, other folks are working on cures for cancer, saving people from burning buildings, or making nifty gadgets that function as an egg beater and nose trimmer at the same time. But my explanation for why a prostitute catalog from 1793 that compares penises to machines in a sexist manner is so much more important than that. Sadly, that's actually what the final paper in my sodomy class is about. (And I think I'll be happier when I don't cavalierly throw the phrase "my sodomy class" into casual conversation.)

I will miss the friends that I've made down here in Morgantown. Mutual disdain and apathy for book-learnin' can create strong bonds of friendship. I should be able to stay in touch with a lot of you, with all sorts of technological stalking tools like AIM and Facebook at my disposal, but it'll never really be the same again. Of course, most of my friends seem to be losing their minds lately. I think the stress of final papers and an uncertain future is getting to them. I have been oddly calm though. I feel like I'm in some sort of weird Jedi zen mindset. I still have the papers to finish, but my laissez-faire attitude just won't let me care.

The weirdest part about having only one week left for grad school is that I have no idea what to do when it's over. I've applied to four jobs now, but I haven't heard anything substantial from any of them. I'll be gainfully unemployed in five days. I'll probably spend most of my time in Kittanning, since it's much cheaper to live at home (no income remember), but I'll make my way to Morgantown a few times. My lease doesn't end until July 31, so my time is mine to do with as I please. It's just somewhat unsettling to know that the future can hold anything. A more worldly man might have some philosophical insight on that point, but I'd rather compare it to the end of Terminator 2, where Sarah Conner muses about the unknown future rolling toward us as the camera focuses on a dark road being traveled by a wildly swerving driver. Hopefully my unknown future will consist of sentient machines trying to gun me down because Future JP becomes an ass-kicking rebel freedom fighter!

Your ass is mine, Skynet!

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The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug. JP is there to write ironic musings about the forthcoming apocalypse.