A Free Man

…but these things don’t.

1. Recycling, South Australia style.

2. History podcasts. Two of my favorites are Dan Carlin’s “Hardcore History” and Mike Duncan’s “The History of Rome”. The latter is up and running again after a hiatus that went on far too long. Check out my interview with Duncan from a few months ago and look forward, hopefully, to one with Carlin in the not to distant future. These guys tell history the way it should be told.

3. This weekend, while driving through the beige plains of South Australia, I had an epiphany: the music that I enjoy the most, the stuff that always turns my crank when it pops up on the iPod, is Americana. Call it Country & Western, alt*country, hick licks, whatever - if it’s got a bit of twang, strong songwriting and a loping beat, I dig it the most. Runaway Dorothy is a Tarheel quartet that ticks all the right boxes for A Free Man. They were kind enough to send me their debut LP, “The Arc”, a while back and the more I listen to it, the more I like it. They’re unsigned and blogger friendly, so check out the track below and if you like what you hear buy the record!

4. Saxondale. A new Free Man commenter (and old friend) introduced me to this BBC comedy starring the incomparable Steve Coogan a couple of years ago. Watching Season 1 again on my iPod has been making my commute shorter for the last couple of weeks. Got Season 2 Captain Sensible?

5. To rip off Time Magazine - you. For inexplicable reasons, your underwhelming correspondent has been the recipient of a flurry of blog awards lately. Thanks to Father Muskrat, Strange Scottish Girl, My Boyfriend Is A Pirate, Mongolian Girl, and Trooper Thorn (though his was misguided). Thanks a lot to these guys and all of you that take some time out of your day to waste it with me.

6. A day off with this monkey.

That’s not Timmins, Boy Z.

Back with you properly soon, I’ve got all sorts of good things planned for you. Why, oh why, did I give them essay questions on their exam?

 

 Runaway Dorothy - "Abilene": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 21% [?]

There’s no football this week, well no Georgia football this week. But I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with having a guest do my job for me on Friday - I am, like the Dude, a lazy man. In fact, in an effort to improve the quality of writing here at A Free Man, I’m thinking of inviting a weekly guest poster after the football season ends, probably on Tuesdays when I spend the day with Boy Z.

This week, I’m happy to have one of my favorite lady bloggers holding down the fort. She’s got every teenage boy’s dream job and is the mother of my future daughter-in-law but beyond that, she’s one of the sharpest writers around. If you’re not reading her blog then you should be. I hope y’all will give a warm welcome to Chris from Formerly Fun who has managed to nicely fit into 90’s week:

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When Chris asked me to guest post of course I said yes and went about thinking about what I would write. He gathers a pretty intelligent crowd, many of whom are parents, so I thought I might expound on a recent fixation of mine, the consumerization of children. Of course, maybe you dear readers need a break from the serious and would rather hear about my days as a Brazilian bikini waxer. Still, this site, while not highbrow, maintains a certain standard that no doubt precludes talking about the ins and outs of chacha waxing.

Later, I got a second email from Chris narrowing my choices, the theme would be 1995. 1995? Color me stumped, I didn’t know what to write. In 1995, I was twenty-one, finishing my last year of college. I had taken the LSAT and scored in the top 7%* in the country, I had limitless options as far as law schools went but I could not get my head around whether or not I actually wanted to be a lawyer. Did I want to travel? Tired of being poor, should I get a job? I know one part of me wanted to write, even then, however, in my family “artistic” pursuits got shelved for “real jobs”. I never really thought it was an option. I had so many people telling me what I should and shouldn’t do that I couldn’t hear myself think.

I look back to those days, really not that long ago and hardly recognize myself. Those were probably some of the most difficult days for me, that tumultuous transition between childhood and adulthood. Not legal adulthood mind you, but adult in the sense that you truly take care of yourself and make your own decisions. I was terribly unsure of myself back then. I was still living under the roof of my very opinionated mother, running almost every decision past her because I didn’t trust myself. I was, and continue to be, the extroverted introvert. Shy and slightly uncomfortable in social situations, being funny and gregarious is my defense mechanism to overcome that anxiety. I only appear socially adept.

I thought about how much of what I know now I wish I had known then. I imagine sitting down with my twenty-one year old self. What would I tell her if I had the chance? How could I better prepare her? I’m sure the things I’d say will continue to evolve, but at thirty-five, this is what I’d pass along.

1. You are not the only one who is insecure and unsure of yourself, in this regard, you are just like everyone else which should be comforting.
2. Don’t be ashamed or embarrassed about being smart, later on you’ll find the best men like the smart girls.
3. You need some breathing room away from your family to figure out who you are and what you want.
4. With regard to said family, just so you know, they’re not always right.
5. Tennis? Volleyball? Ballet? So what if you’re hopelessly uncoordinated? Especially since really, you’re not, your just so self conscious that you get yourself all torqued up and forget how to move your body. These are things you want to try, so what if you look silly, what do you care? Guess what? Most people are too self-absorbed to care what you’re doing anyway.
6. Stop being so afraid of failing. You think half the people out there are misguided and misinformed anyway so why do you care what they think?
7. You think you’re not pretty and you need to figure out why you think that because it’s not true.
8. Go easy on the carbs and you’ll lose that babyfat. Stop eating salads with ranch dressing and cheese, in spite of what you think, this is not going to help you lose weight and frankly, it tastes awful.
9. Your parents can only give you the tools they have so you are not going to be armed with everything you need. Some things you’ll figure out the hard way, other tools you can get through some keen observation, the latter is far easier.
10. You got the short straw in the dad department. His behavior has absolutely nothing to do with you. You don’t deserve it, you didn’t do anything to cause it. You are not difficult to love and in time, you will figure out how to trust men again.
11. With regard to men, you seriously have to expect more.
12. That thing you do, you know the thing I’m talking about, you need to stop doing it on the first date.
13. Get yourself a good therapist(see #9 & #10, and really, probably #11 & #12 too)
14. Clean up those eyebrows already, bushy brows are so 1995.
15. One word, sunscreen.
16. Quit smoking today.
17. Trust your gut. Whether it’s school, men, friends, you know more than you think you do.

*I never actually attended law school so that 7% is the sum of my bragging rights.

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This Green Day track was Chris’ choice and I think I see why. “Dookie” came out in ‘95 and I love it now as much as I did then - it’s just masterful pop-punk. Buy the album from or, even better, your local independent record store.

 

 Green Day - "She" [2:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 70% [?]

Just a wee break in the 90’s flashbacks this week, stay tuned for more…

It rained yesterday - Australian drought my ass. It rained on A Free Man and Boy Party Day, which meant that we were house bound for the bulk of the day. Boy Z has risen to toddlerhood proper and I just want to say that I now have sympathy for all you stay-at-home-parents. The boy is an insubordinate destructicon (he gets it from his Mother). Here’s hoping that this mythological Australian summer kicks in soon or I may go back to working five days a week.

My sanity was preserved by  the arrival of two overseas packages yesterda. First, in the morning mail, was a box of Georgia schwag from Just Jessie containing more paraphenalia to make Boy Z the best dressed Little Dawg in the Southern Hemisphere. Even better, though, was DVDs of the first four games of the year - back when we still thought we were good. Watching the Bulldogs run all over Georgia Southern kept Boy Z quiet for a good two minutes.

With the afternoon post, my sanity was at a breaking point - the terrorist was on the verge of winning.  Then my hardworking postman rang the bell again, this time with a box full of Obama paraphernalia kindly shipped my way by Alice of 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera - her campaign leftovers. It was a veritable treasure trove of all things Obama, including some t-shirts, stickers, buttons, posters (one of which is my favorite campaign image) and even Democratic mints. There was a notable shortage of Obama gear in Oz, so Alice’s package was a great treat for a fervent supporter of the president-elect. Plus, the stickers and pins distracted Boy Z for a fair few minutes. Although, I suspect that I’ll be finding Obama-Biden stickers stuck about the place for a few days.

My most heartfelt thanks to both Jessie and Alice!

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In lieu of an accompanying track, I’d like to point you to the Aquarium Drunkard who has a whole album of a show played by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash in 1969. Two of my favorite artists of all time - magical. Check it out here.

Popularity: 80% [?]

A Free Man and Boy Party Day has been changed to Tuesdays so we can go to music classes. Fortunately, my favorite Gator fan has stepped into the breach with his second (of hopefully many) guest posts. Before I turn it over to Jamie, I just want to say that his post was unsolicited - lest you think that everything is all about me:

Chris had asked me if I wanted to guest blog a bit for A Free Man, and while excited by the possibility, I initially demurred, because 1) I am lazy, 2) writing has become an exercise in terror and self-loathing since I am an academic (and more writing did not seem like a fun way to spend my time), 3) my best non-academic writing is rants which I recognize are tiresome to most people, and most importantly, 4) the pleasure of reading A Free Man seems to lay with Chris’ personality and persona in general.  However, his post of yesterday inspired me to churn something out, since it would be about Chris himself and perhaps, therefore, not try the patience of this blog’s loyal readership.  I read the post having just gotten back from a cocktail party, where a thirtysomething female colleague of mine regretted having spent her twenties in graduate school, instead of “partying and having lots of sex.”  I knew how she felt.

Chris came down pretty hard on himself in his last blog post, for his life of dissolution while living in Seattle.  And since he had to live through it, I cannot really blame him, but allow me to offer another perspective.  Chris and I had been best friends since meeting in sixth grade, and our lives ran pretty parallel through high school and starting college.  Then he got kicked out of college.  Then he started a new college and quit that.  None of this seemed too abnormal, lots of people leave school after all, but then Chris announced one day he was packing up and moving to Seattle, our generations’ not quite Haight-Ashbury.  I was finishing school at the time, and had a big decision to make about my “future.”  I was planning on starting a Ph.D. in history, which is a miserable seven year (at best) slog.  Which meant I would have been going to school straight through K-12, four years of university, and seven upcoming years of graduate school – that is 24 years of schooling without a break.  As Chris was sending me rapturous letters from Seattle (the optimistic early years there), I decided to put a break on my career path and drop out for a year.  Note this was no titanic shift, just taking a year off before continuing my graduate work.  I was going to move to Seattle too, get a job in a bookstore (ha-ha- no doubt impossible as that was every geek’s plan), and just enjoy life for a while without the stress of being perfect (I can count the number of Bs I have ever gotten on one hand, and I do not think this is a good thing).  Basically I wanted the life of libertinage and irresponsibility Chris described in his post.  I felt free for the first time since I has spent a summer in Mexico (studying of course).  I was getting ready to tell Chris my plan (he would not have been thrilled, I suspect), when I got a letter stating I had won a major national fellowship for graduate study.  I called to see if I could delay it for a year; they said I could if I had a good reason.  My usual facility with bullshitting failed me, as I could not spin wanting to do nothing for a year into a good reason.  I chickened out and accepted the grant.

I did pay a visit to Chris before graduate school started that summer, and my worst fears about my decision seemed confirmed.  Chris lived in the hippest neighborhood in Seattle, he had what to me seemed like a cool “special lady friend,” and we spent a few days in various states of intoxication.  Good times to a 22 year old.  I left that to start a life of reading three to four books of 200 to 500 pages each week.  Unless you are a speed reader, which I am not, this means you basically spend all your free time reading.  Now I love to read, but as someone said about writing (Bob Dylan, perhaps?) which I think applies, “When you are writing, you are not living.”  Chris seemed to be living, and while I constantly regretted not taking that year off, knowing that my friend was doing it somehow made things better, not worse.  As years of graduate study stretched on, following Chris’ picaresque life inspired me to try to live better in what few ways a graduate student of history can (mainly regarding a certain woman I pursued in a manner uncharacteristic to my nature).

Chris has always been a great influence, whether it be introducing me to new writers, certainly to new music, but most especially to thinking about life in new ways.  I’ve always loved his willingness to search for happiness instead of just wallowing in misery, his ability to remake himself, his courage to give up his current life and make a new one—and as this blog’s readers know, this latest move to Australia was certainly not the least momentous.  In spite of my exploits over the years (swimming into Mayan ruins at night, huddled in a van while risking guerrilla roadblocks in Colombia) I have never been able to work without a net like Chris, and have excruciated over every possible choice in life, making sure every step was well-planned (at times leading to disaster nevertheless).  I have often envied Chris his daring, but I would not now want to change radically my life of  happy domesticity and tenured academia, and thus, cannot really regret missing out on Seattle.   His travels and travails influenced me the way reading about a different life in a good novel can:  you may not want to have lived that life yourself, but you feel as if you discovered something about living by having spent some time in its company.

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If you’ve not heard Warren Zevon then your life is not complete. He was a ray of light in a what was otherwise a pretty dark time in rock. He died too young, of mesothelioma, in 2003. Buy his Greatest Hits at  .

Image credits:

Seattle 1995

Studying

 

 Warren Zevon - "Mr. Bad Example" [3:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 60% [?]

Well, there have been a lot of strong words and emotions thrown around in these Deep South Smack Talk posts this year. We’ve had Alex call the Dawgs “Pop Warner wanna-be’s” and The Vol Abroad question my parenting skills. This is to be expected when debating the merits of SEC football teams. I don’t think anything has aroused so much passion from Southerners since Sherman torched Atlanta. But, in character for a Gator fan, no one has struck so ruthlessly as Jamie did this week. Taking a cue from the Republican playbook (one that he attests to loathe) he has thrown down the ultimate gauntlet – he has questioned my patriotism, has cast aspersions on my citizenship in the Bulldog Nation. Karl Rove would be proud.

Jamie, exhibiting a way with words surprising for a Florida alum, aptly describes the panorama of fans found in our north Florida high school. He is correct in his statement that the amount of red in the team’s uniform was directly proportional to the amount of red in the fan’s neck. He is also correct that I was not a Georgia Bulldog fan in high school. If the truth be told, and this is shameful, I was a casual Gator fan in high school. But upon graduation, I bolted north for college and have not looked back since.

But what he fails to mention is that high school was two decades ago and I think that Jamie and I are both proud of the fact that we are nothing like the people we were in high school. Hell, we were both Republican supporters in high school and I suspect that he cringes in shame as I do when he recalls working to elect George I in 1988. I’ve evolved since high school, I’ve made the transition from the boy I was in 1989 to the man I am today. But, like the mascot they revere, most Gator fans have sat in evolutionary stasis since the Cretaceous period (thanks for the talking point, Gypsy).

When did I become a fan, Jamie? How many games did I attend? I feel as if I’m under some sort of political inquisition - I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Wait, wrong topic. I became a fan some time after I enrolled in the University of Georgia in 1996 as a “mature” student. I’d urge Jamie, and anyone else inclined to question my loyalty to read this post for more detail about my evolution as a Dawg fan. I didn’t get to take my seat in Sanford Stadium as many times as I would have liked because I worked two jobs while studying at the university full time. I spent virtually every game day serving coffee, beer or checking the IDs of red and black adorned fans. I became a lifelong fan on a June day that I did get to take a seat between the hedges. This time wearing a black gown and a mortar board. On that day the University of Georgia, the finest university in the South (I’m not winking, Gator boy) became my alma mater. As Jamie no doubt knows, that Latin translates to “nourishing mother” and questioning my loyalty to the University of Georgia is equivalent to insulting my own mother.

Damn, I hate Gator fans.

Now that we’ve cleared things up a bit, let’s talk about Saturday. Up until last year, Gator fans liked to throw around a lot of numbers – 15 of 18 was one of their favorites, referring to the number of times that Florida had won the game in the last 18 years. What’s funny is that you don’t hear a lot of numbers coming from Gator fans anymore. I think that even Gator fans, with their simple reptile brains, realize that what happened in the River City last year was a transformative experience. When the Dawgs drove for the first score and the whole team took the field in celebration, the Gators’ death grip on this series slipped. When the scoreboard read Georgia 42, Florida 30 at the end of the game a new day dawned for the Bulldog Nation.

Jamie’s given you a borderline apocalyptic version of what he predicts will happen in Jacksonville. Sounds more like the Book of Revelation than a Saturday in northeast Florida, but I’ve got to give him credit for pretty words. But pretty words aren’t going to do much for his alma mater this weekend. The simple fact is that Urban Meyer and his unevolved reptiles fear their canine tormentors. Tim Tebow, last year’s Heisman Trophy winner and the Florida quarterback, had his worst game of the year against the Dawgs. This is largely because he spent most of it on his back. What do you think is going to be running through Tebow’s head as he faces up against the Georgia defensive line for the first time on Saturday afternoon? A defensive unit that made him their bitch last year?

This game rarely has much to do with the superior football team and I’m not sure which team has more talent this year. It is a game of passion and history and hate. The team that brings the most of those three things typically wins.  Last year’s pounding has made the Gators angry, but it has also filled them with fear. Florida Coach Urban Meyer was so shaken by the game last year that he now speaks only in the third person. When the two teams take the field on Saturday in Jacksonville what we’ll have is a quivering band of nervous little boys, with their reptilian brains playing back their humiliation of 2007. On the other side of field will be a proud and confident legion of men in red and black ready to strike another blow for all that is right in the world.  

It’s time for the big dog to eat, Jamie. Saturday’s menu features one of those Sunshine State specialties – fried gator tail.

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Georgia vs. Florida kicks off Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern (6:00 a.m. Adelaide) in Jacksonville on CBS. Expat fans can watch the game online by using a loophole to get around CBS’ U.S. only regulations. Send me an e-mail if you want to know how.
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Athens, Georgia’s own Vic Chesnutt seems a fit for this post. The legendary songwriter has recently released a new album done in collaboration with fellow Athenians Elf Power. “Dark Developments” (Orange Twin) was recorded over last winter in Chesnutt’s home and the album has the feel of a winter day spent inside in front of a fireplace. Chesnutt and Elf Power are blogger friendly artists, so if you like what you hear, buy the whole album here.

 

 Vic Chesnutt and Elf Power - "And How" [3:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 52% [?]

In celebration of the imminent humiliation for the state’s flagship university, I’m happy to present an expanded Florida Hate Week edition of Deep South Smack Talk. Speaking for the evil swamp lizards, we have my oldest friend and occasional A Free Man commentor, Jamie. He and I went through high school together and despite his questionable academic pedigree, Jamie’s one of the sharpest folks I know. He’s currently a professor of history in the heart of Mormon country. I’m hoping to convince Jamie to be a periodic guest blogger here at A Free Man, so let’s show him some love. Or, more appropriately, hate. 

Of Chris’ many wanderings and meandering through life, no turn has surprised me more than his (recent) emergence as a fan of the most miserable Georgia Bulldogs.  Allow me to explain.  Chris and I grew up in a wretched little town in North Florida and attended an even more wretched high school, about which Chris has blogged of late.  Academics were of almost no import at said institution, and of the graduating class of over 400 (more than 600 were in our sophomore class), less than 20 (perhaps less than fifteen) went on to a four-year college or university right away.  Only two or three went out of state, one being Chris, but he did not initially go to UGA.  College was simply not expected, and no guidance was given, the counselors more concerned with stemming the massive drop-out rate.  I ended up at the University of Florida because it was close by and I really had no idea that there were other options.  (Now this was a good thing, as in all seriousness, UF is by far the best public university until you hit UNC to the north and UT to the west.  I could whip out all kinds of stats to demonstrate this, but I won’t bore you).  The point is that I did not choose UF (and I will leave it to A Free Man to tell how he ended up at what he, with a wink, calls the finest educational institution in the South), and I certainly did not go there because of UF football, although I was already a fan of sorts, as were about 1/3 of the town.

What I can assure you is that Chris was not a fan of the Dogs in high school, although about 1/3 of the high school population were, the other 1/3 being Florida State U. fans (with a sprinkling of mutant Miami fans thrown in).  In a town and high school with so little connections to higher learning, how did people choose their team?  Well, I did have some relatives that went to UF (and also FSU), but I think it was probably pretty random why one choose to root for UF or FSU.  However, it was not random if you chose to wear the red and the black (in complete ignorance of those colors’ historic and political significance).  You chose UGA to proclaim you were the biggest, dumbest, most profane redneck of them all.   You picked an out-of-state school, much further away, precisely because no one you knew had ever gone to school there, in fact, it had no connection to school what so ever.  You just thought it marked you as a bad ass, and its relation to the Deep South (more so than any Florida school) bore all the unfortunate racial connotations you might expect.  So imagine my surprise years later when my friend started blathering about the glories of going “between the hedges” (which must also be slang for some bizarre sexual practice).

I would be curious to know when Chris actually became a fan of the Dogs and how many games he actually attended, because it did not really seem his style while he was living in the, I admit, most pleasant town of Athens.  I suspect, like myself, he became a true fan years later after having left Athens.  My first year at UF I went to all the games like any other stupid newbie, but a trip to Mexico and the lefty political types I hung around with soon convinced me that football was for the brain-dead, plastic-fantastic mainstream.  I started scalping my tickets after that (I was also desperately poor, so that made it easier).  And while I was more likely to find myself being asked to leave a political rally by a smartly dressed law enforcement agent (I like to imagine it was Secret Service) for yelling to Dan Quayle “Can you spell “cat”?” than attend a football game, I still went to a game or so a year for old time’s sake.  But I was no longer a fan, even the indifferent one I had been in high school.  I became a true fan again only after I had moved away, and as a Florida boy, was freezing my ass off experiencing winter for the first time in Pittsburgh and wondering why people thought I talked funny.  It took a few years, and by then I was way too lefty and, I imagined, hip to publicly admit I cared about football. But I did; it gave me a connection to home, and to my surprise I found myself depressed after a UF loss (next year!) and elated after a victory.  So I should forgive my friend for his apostasy, I suppose, as the heart of the college football fan is a strange and unmapped territory.

Okay, I know this is supposed to be smack talk so forgive the digression above, and let’s get to it.  Umm, let’s see….GEORGIA SUX…no, no, I can do better, just give me a second…

On the first day of the eleventh month of the two thousand and eighth year in the Faulknerian fever swamp of Jacksonville, two forces will meet, one representing good and the other the most foul and pestilential evil.  Our beloved Gators will come for vengeance.  The force of arms shall be our only ornament-our only rest, the fight.  Upon entering the arena, as Urban Meyer brings forth the machine he has constructed of the blood and sinew of mere mortals, he will turn to the assembled Bulldogs, shaking but perhaps still confident in their arrogance, and proclaim: “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.”

And then we shall see the Evil Creature known as Uga gathering his forces and armies to fight against the wise Urban Meyer and his army. And the Evil Creature will be captured, and with him the False Prophet, Mark Richt, who could do mighty miracles when the Evil Creature is present—miracles that deceive all who have accepted the Evil Creature’s mark [G], and who worship his flea-infested, mange-ridden carcass.  Both of them—the Evil Creature and his False Prophet—will be thrown alive into the Lake of Fire that burns with sulfur [also known as losing by three touchdowns].  And their entire army shall be killed with the sharp sword of Tim Tebow and all the Gators of the heavens will gorge on the flesh of the dog.

And when the battle is complete and the tableau is one of the dogs’ utter ruin, the Gators will leave the field triumphant, the pride of having vanquished a scurrilous foe their only reward, with none of the pathetic parading the dogs embarrassed themselves with last year.  The dogs will lay on the field destroyed, defeated, and in despair, weeping at their own futile efforts and gross inadequacies—the only sound the groans and cries of the beaten dogs and the lamentations of their women.  And they will finally know their place and bow their heads before their betters.

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Well, Jamie’s certainly raised the bar for Deep South Smack Talk - Courtney, Angel you’re going to have to take it up a notch. Your underwhelming apostate is currently constructing his defense of the Georgia Bulldog Nation and, apparently, his place in it. 

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I can’t think of a more appropriate artist to accompany this post than Hank Williams III. The son of Bocephus and the grandson of the godfather of country music, Hank III has a new album, “Damn Right Rebel Proud”, out on Curb Records. It’s a pure, old-school country stomp with a bit of punk ethic thrown in to differentiate it from your Grandaddy’s country music. Hank III is blogger friendly, so if you like what you hear, support him by buying his new album.

 

 Hank Williams III - "Me And My Friends" [3:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 57% [?]

Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking
When I said I’d like to smash every tooth
In your head.

Oh … sweetness, sweetness, I was only joking
When I said by rights you should be
Bludgeoned in your bed.

I don’t know how we got there, but Dr. O’C and I were talking about bullying the other day. I think I expressed my concern that Boy Z could be the victim of bullying one day, to which Dr. O’C responded, “I’d rather that he be a bully than be bullied”. This kicked off one of our trademark “debates”, with me speaking eloquently for the position that bullies, ultimately, are worse off than their victims. The bullying eventually stops, leaving the bully-ee to get on with life, but the bully has to live with themselves for the rest of their life. Now, I know that this is presuming some sort of emotional maturity to people who are little more than burly thugs, but I stand by my position.

Mike, who blogs beautifully at The Newborn Identity, got me thinking about my own experience in school with a post about similar fears around bullying and his little girl. I’ve got a whole shed full of anxiety about Boy Z’s future and can certainly relate. It’s part of being a parent, we’ve got a biological imperative to protect our progeny at any cost.

I don’t think fondly of my time in middle and high school, but I didn’t really have it that bad. As you can probably guess from the photo above, I wasn’t really in the upper social strata of high school. Nonetheless, I didn’t have it that bad on the bullying front. I mean, I took a fair share of verbal antagonism, but I was never stuffed in a locker or anything.

One of my survival instincts is that I can blend in to my environment. I’ve always been able to avoid the line of fire. I sorted high school out pretty quickly - you were either predator (football player, cheerleader, prom queen), prey (stuffed in a locker) or one of the herd that just got generally ignored. I aspired to the herd. The worst moments of high school for me were when I stood out, when I became the slow wildebeest - the one you see being dragged down by lions in nature documentaries.

I’ve already written about one of these incidents in which I found myself at the edge of the herd (involving glasses, P.E. and appendages), but I’ve got another for your carnivorous pleasure. The closest I ever got to being physically bullied is when I made the mistake of aspiring to a predator’s place in the high school food chain. I was crap at ball sports but was a pretty decent swimmer. I earned a high school letter in swimming in my junior or senior year. That was fine, but I made the mistake of deciding that I would like to dress in wolves clothing - I ordered a letterman’s jacket.  On a day that, unsurprisingly in hindsight, resembled that day in P.E. class a few years earlier I proudly walked through the doors of my high school wearing my shiny new purple and gold letterman’s jacket. With my head held high I wandered the halls of my high school for aI don’t remember how long it took for a couple of football players to corral me against a wall. They explained to me, very clearly and none too politely, that only proper athletes - football, basketball or baseball players - were permitted to wear letterman’s jackets. They convincingly expressed their opinion that if I wished to keep my limbs fully intact that I wouldn’t wear the letterman’s jacket in their presence. The jacket stayed in my locker for some time*, fortunately without me in it.

Now, these were not pleasant experiences by any stretch of the imagination, but I still stand by my assertion that I’m better off than these guys (and girls) are. I can laughingly tell these stories 20 years later. I’ve gotten past high school, grown, developed, become a happy and content person that lives largely without fear of being stuffed in a locker. They have to live with the fact that they were, and in most cases likely still are, dickheads. Even if they’re not dealing with the remorse of treating people like crap, even if they’re not self aware enough to know that they were/are nothing more than a self-loathing goon, they will still have karma to deal with somewhere along the way.

In a vaguely ironic 21st century twist, a number of these people that at best ignored me in high school have discovered Facebook. Some of the people who went out of their way to make my high school years unpleasant have asked to be my friends. I’d like to suggest that in addition to “Add As A Friend” and “Ignore”, Facebook add a “You were an asshole to me in High School and now you want to be my friend? Sod off.” button.

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This cover of The Smiths’ classic is one of my favorites ever. Treepeople were an Idaho band that used to tear up the Seattle clubs back during my time there. They were led by Doug Martsch, who subsequently went on to form the outstanding Built To Spill. If you like what you hear you can buy Treepeople’s records from C/Z Records.

Images:

Lion and wildebeest

Lettermen

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*A few years ago and I don’t remember why exactly, probably as a result of a rant like this one, my friend Alex got in touch with my parents and had them send him my letterman’s jacket. He then “gave” it to me as a birthday present. There exists a picture of the two of us in our high school lettermen’s jackets. One of us with a big grin and the other slightly chagrined. If we talk real nice to Nichole she may be able to come up with it.

 

 Treepeople - "Bigmouth Strikes Again" (Smiths cover): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it? But whether her life’s worthy of a country song or not, the Coal Miner’s Granddaughter provided the latest moment of joy in what has been a joyful week for your underwhelming correspondent. A bag chock full of Georgia Bulldogs paraphenelia swag chugged/steamed/flew its way from North Georgia to South Australia  just in time for the homecoming game on Saturday. We’ve got flash new gear for the game against an annoyingly decent Vanderbilt team. We’ve got onesies, a track suit*, board books and even a calendar for yours truly. It is a bountiful Bulldog bonanza. Boy Z is now, without a doubt, the biggest and best dressed Dawg fan in Oz.

A Free Man, Boy Z and the entire Bulldog Nation would like to offer our most delectable thanks to the Coalminer’s Granddaughter.

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“Loretta Lynn: All Time Greatest Hits” is available from .

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* She even got our upside down seasons right!

 

 Loretta Lynn - "Coal Miner's Daughter" [3:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Welcome to a new feature here on A Free Man: Deep South Smack Talk

With the SEC Football season moving in to full swing this week, I thought I would give the enemies, er opponents, of my beloved Georgia Bulldogs an opportunity to sing their team’s praises before the Dawgs take them apart. It’s just good sportsmanship, really. It was a bit of a challenge to find an Alabama fan who could form sentences well enough to put together a post, but I’ve found a fan of the Tide who was lucky enough to be educated at a proper university. Inexplicably, he retains his love for the University of Alabama. 

We’ll give the visitors the first shot. Writing, surprisingly eloquently, for the Alabama Crimson Tide is Alex from esmon dot net:

I was born where the red tide rolls and the sun droops low over the rose-colored skies at twilight.

I was born on the balmy shores of Alabama at the height of the era of terry cloth shorts and big plastic-framed amber vision sunglasses. Mobile is my hometown, perched right on the Gulf of Mexico. When I was one, Hurricane Edward roared through our city — as the story goes, I slept right through it. We lived there until I was three. The Gulf is a pretty neat place full of great seafood dives and a very, very slow pace of life.

But there are a few things that make people in the great state of Alabama get off their collective asses and shout for something that’s not just half-price night at an all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet. Football in Alabama means one thing (and I don’t care what the Auburn fans think, because who cares about them anyway): The Crimson Tide.

There are few teams that can match the storied history of ‘Bama football. I mean, come on — Paul “Bear” Bryant. Need I say more?

I will anyway. Here’s a number to mull over: 12. And no, that does not stand for the collective football team IQ. That’s National Championships, my friends. And honestly, what’s more intimidating that a team named after a harmful algal bloom of phytoplankton containing photosynthetic pigments?

Now, there are those from Georgia (you know – that state that borders us to the east and blocks our view of the Atlantic) that think they have a decent football squad. They may have had a few decent seasons, and I think they have even managed a few SEC crowns. But don’t be fooled — those Pop Warner wanna-be’s are nothing compared to the thundering herd that is the Crimson Tide. They talk about the great years in the 80s when some guy named Walker won a Heisman. Then they talk about the great teams under the current regime of Coach Richt. Then when they are reminded that none of those great teams under Richt have won a championship, they turn into Cubs fans — It’s all “Oh well, next year will be the year.”

Seriously, how many next years can there be? (Actually, as a Cubs fan, I know there can be quite a few “next years”)

And how many National Championships for the Dawgs? Two. Now I may be a simple boy from Alabama, but even I know that two is less than 12. But don’t worry Chris — The Gym Dogs have won nine gymnastics National Championships. I hear they do a mean halftime show.

So Chris, after the dust settles on Saturday and the stadium has emptied and your  “Dawgs” have been thoroughly throttled and washed into the Gulf, you can call me and we will talk all about next year.

Roll Tide.

And in reply, your underwhelming narrator:

Thanks, Alex, that’s very well said for a Bama fan, but you betray yourself as being the alum of a better school.

I’ve got a number for you too: 13. That’s the number of years that have passed since the Tide last beat Georgia. I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be 14 after Saturday.

Alex, all those purty words cover up one essential fact about your boys in crimson. The truth that they are pure evil.

Bama didn’t used to be evil. In the days of the great Bryant, when they won all those National Championships, they were the pride of the South. But things have been rough in the past couple of decades in Tuscaloosa and a couple of years ago, the powers that be in Tuscaloosa quite literally made a deal with the devil. They hired away the pretty much universally loathed Nick Saban from Miami’s NFL team for some obscene amount of money. I hope it’s worth it for you guys, but I don’t think it will be. There’s only one letter separating Saban and Satan and the bad guy always loses in the end.

So as the manifestation of pure evil rolls up into the north Georgia hills on Saturday, there will be a band of brave Georgia boys waiting between the hedges of Sanford Stadium They will be waiting to represent truth, justice and Good in the face of a crimson and white onslaught led by Satan incarnate.

Fortunately, that brave band of boys is one of the finest football teams to come out of the South in quite some time. Lovers of peace and freedom can breathe a bit easily knowing that they are proudly defended by a Georgia Bulldogs team that is getting better every week. The Tide are bringing in some unholy 400 pound demon called Cody to try and crush the Dawgs offense, but if they stop our dynamic tailback Knowshon Moreno then we can go to the air with quarterbacking phenom Matthew Stafford. We’re ready in every way for the demonic invasion.

The Tide is going to find Athens an unwelcoming place, a place for these evil upstarts to be put in their place. The players have called for a Blackout, replicating conditions under which we spanked another little team from Alabama. It is times like this that I really miss the States. A September Saturday night in Athens, Sanford Stadium packed and roaring for their heroes.  I can almost hear it already as the Dawgs burst out of the tunnel in black ready to tear the Tide down, bit by bit. This time the good guys are wearing black.

Oh, and Alex, this is next year. (For the Dawgs, don’t know about the Cubs)

A Free Man’s pick: Georgia 28, Alabama 14.

Georgia-Alabama kicks off at 7:45 p.m. Eastern (9:15 a.m. Sunday in Adelaide) on ESPN. I’m pretty excited because Boy Z’s great-aunt is going to let us watch the game over at their house. This will be the first time I see a game live on TV since 2004. Just seems right for my boys to win, doesn’t it.

Go Dawgs! Sic’ em!

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Neil Young’s “Harvest” is available from .

 

 Neil Young - "Alabama" [4:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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“I said, ‘I like Fidel Castro,
I think you heard me right,’
And ducked as he swung
At me with all his might.”

Z, at just shy of a year old, got in his first fight at day care yesterday. Unfortunately, it wasn’t because he was espousing his Dad’s (and Bob Dylan’s) socialist  notions. Nor was it because he’s taken to wearing girls’ sunglasses (thanks Arizaphale). Nope, he tried to steal some kid’s dummy (pacifier) and the kid responded, impressively, by going for Z’s eyes with his/her claws. I haven’t seen the other kid, but based on the scratch marks, I’m guessing Z came out second best. I’ve got no idea what’s going on in that day care, seems to be filled with battling feral children.

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Z’s birthday is in just over a week, and we’re planning the party. First birthday parties are, in my limited experience, only tangentially about the birthday boys or girls. For me, it’s a celebration of my success in avoiding major catastrophe whilst in charge of another human being for 365 days. That, my friends, is something to celebrate.

You’re all invited, by the way. Nichole looked online and found that she and the family could get down to Adelaide on short notice for $34,000 (U.S.). So, I’m looking forward to seeing her and Alex again. Don’t worry about a present, Nichole. Can’t think of a reason that the rest of you won’t be there as well.

Speaking of presents, Z’s gotten his first birthday gifts from his Grandparents in Florida and as with kids of his age, enjoyed the box as much or more than the contents. Among the contents, though was a great little piece of childhood memorabilia, a Tonka ambulance that has been playing the role of madeline for me since last night. It’s amazing how much you forget about childhood and how much can be brought back with a little bit of metal and plastic. You know what else is amazing - those old Tonka toys. Just indestructible, and Z’s giving it a good go.

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I took today off to spend with my son and I find that when I do that my brain goes a bit abstract and I start invoking Proust and shit. But among the partying that Z and I did today, we had to go and get another in the endless string of childhood vaccines. All the researching and posting and comment fielding that I’ve done about vaccinations and autism really got to me. Not because I had a slew of Luddites chiming nonsense and even some nut job compare me to Hitler. Nope, it was the thoughtful and valid points that people like April, NATUI and Joe and others made about the number of vaccines that kids are sometimes given at once. Since then, Dr. O’C and decided that Z would be fully vaccinated but that he would receive one jab at a time with a few weeks between jabs to let his immune system recover. Before you point it out, I recognize that we’ve made this decision in a very unscientific manner. But I’ve been parenting largely on instinct so far and, as I mentioned above, the boy’s still around. (One year, woo hoo!)

At any rate, the slightly thuggish nurse tasked with jabbing Boy Z tried to bully me into having the MMR and two other vax today as well. I told her no and explained my reasoning. I anticipated, and would have respected, an argument from Nurse Ratched based on the extra monetary burden on the health care system. One of the things about a socialized health care system is that you sometimes have to try to minimize costs and high maintenance parents demanding deviations from standard operating procedures cost money. That makes sense and if she had made this argument, I would have offered to pay the excess. But her case was that the kids get more upset with the more shots that they have to go through so its better to do them all at once. Bogus. Z barely whimpered with this one, which is about his 14th, and I doubt that he’ll be fazed by a few more. I’m always willing to stand on principle and Z will get his shots one at a time.

“As his fist hit the icebox,
He said he’s going to kill me
If I don’t get out the door
In two seconds flat,
You unpatriotic, rotten doctor commie rat…”

 

 Bob Dylan - "Motorpsycho Nitemare" [4:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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