Monday, September 24, 2007

WITH APOLOGIES TO PUCCINI

Without question, the University of Florida has been on a roll lately. The most conspicuous success has been the championships in football and basketball, but it was something that happened outside of athletics that makes me prouder than ever to be a UF alum. Just when America is in desperate need of a new national catchphrase to distract and amuse us, the Gator Nation rises to the challenge.

And gives us "Don't Tase me, bro!"

Those four monosyllabic words express one of the deepest longings of youth -- to act like a jackass without punitive correction from a Taser -- but they also embrace a universal hunger for freedom and love. Who among us does not wish to avoid being Tased? Who among us does not fear the stigmatizing and isolating consequences of being Tased? Would Juliet have been able to love Romeo had he been Tased when he crashed the Capulet party? Would Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry have stirred us so had it been "How would I Tase thee? Let me count the ways"? In time, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to see a young bride at the altar look into her groom's eyes and with lovest purest voice say, "Don't Tase me, bro."

Such a statement cries out for deeper artistic expression, and only one art form can capture the grandeur of the passions engaged: opera. And so I am taking my first stab at writing a libretto. I hope it works.

ACT I
Our story is set in a college town and begins with an argument (Ucciderò quel gatto se defeca ancora sulla mia base -- "I'll kill that cat if it craps on my bed again") between off-campus roommates Riley, the level-headed pre-med student, and Zach, the brooding and rebellious political science major. Just as the two are about to come to blows, another roommate, Calvin, shows up to say he has gambled away the money he was supposed to use to pay the heating bill. Just as Riley and Zach begin to grasp that they face a shivering winter yet before they can turn their wrath upon Calvin, the fourth roommate, Sebastian, enters and says that he knew Calvin was going to screw up paying the heating bill, so he took care of it himself after getting money from his parents (La prima Banca nazionale del mama e del papa è sempre aperta -- "The First National Bank of Mom and Dad is always open"). They decide to celebrate by going down to Ziggy's, their favorite tavern. Zach stays behind to finish an op-ed piece he is writing for the college newspaper and promises to follow soon. As he opens the door to leave, he recoils in alarm and fright upon finding an 8-foot python coiled in front of the door. Hearing him shout, Mimi a student who is stripping her way through college and lives in the apartment above, comes down the stairs. She gathers up the snake and explains that it is part of her act and it must have escaped its cage. Zach is stunned by her beauty, too stunned to say anything before she takes the snake back to her apartment. She returns shortly to apologize for the scare. In an awkward silence Zach and Mimi's eyes lock on each other. He invites her in, and she accepts. In two arias, (Zach's Che gelida manina, ma quel corpo caldo fumante -- "What a cold little hand, but what a smoking hot body" and Mimi's Sì, mi chiamano Mimì, ma tre notti un la settimana sono Desiree Tempesta alla Casa dei Babes -- "Yes, they call me Mimi, but three nights a week I am Desiree Storm at House of Babes") they tell each other about their different lives. Zach's waiting friends call for him, and Zach suggests that she come along. She agrees, and they sing of their newfound love (Duet, birra fredda, allora sesso caldo -- "Cold beer, then hot sex").


ACT II
It is two months later. Mimi sits alone and bored at Ziggy's as Zach is at the bar, passionately defending Eugene Debs to a group of Young Republicans. Mimi sings of her loneliness (Jeez, non un altro causa -- "Jeez, not another cause"). Riley then walks in with Sebastian and a friend of Sebastian. Riley sees Mimi sitting alone in a booth and goes to sit with her as the other two go to speak with Zach. Like Riley, Mimi is a pre-med student. She tells him of how hard it is to balance her schedule (Vita della medicina, vita del ballo del palo -- "Life of medicine, life of pole dancing"). Riley sympathizes, and tells her that her struggles will be made good in time by a highly remunerative salary ($2 milioni all'anno? Quello è duro sorpassare -- "$2 million a year? That's tough to beat"). Mimi begins to see that she might have more in common with Riley than with Zach. Meanwhile, Zach is at the bar deep in conversation with Sebastian's friend Victor. The two of them are discussing a plan to bomb the ROTC offices on campus and foresee themselves as heroes (Non facciamo un errore come Che Guevara ha fatto -- "Let's not screw up like Che Guevara did"). Zach and Victor get up to leave, and Mimi asks Zach where he is going. She tells him that if he leaves her at the bar, they are done. Zach explains that he must go to serve social justice (Se non inizio la rivoluzione, che? -- "If I don't start the revolution, who will?") and storms out. Mimi turns to Riley, and the two see a future together (Una casa alla spiaggia, una casa nelle montagne, una casa nella città -- "A house at the beach, a house in the mountains, a house in the city").


ACT III
Zach and Victor place a ladder against a building to climb into a third-floor window. Zach is having second thoughts about breaking up with Mimi (Si è preoccupata piccolo per la rivoluzione, ma era buona in base --"She cared little for the revolution, but she was good in bed"). But Victor reminds him of the glory that awaits. They climb up the ladder. Once they are in the building, there is a piercing female scream. The building, as it turns out, is not the administration hall but instead a girls' dormitory. There is a clattering sound of people tumbling over furniture, and Zach and Victor scamper down the ladder with coeds' undergarments stuck to their clothes. Zach starts to yell at Victor (Senso piacevole di geografia, voi idiota -- "Nice sense of geography, you idiot") when a campus policeman runs up to investigate the disturbance. He sees the two men with panties and bras hanging from their clothes and accuses them of staging a panty raid. He chases after them and is able to catch Zach, who protests his innocence (Sono un crociato per la giustizia sociale, non un pervertito -- "I am a crusader for social justice, not a pervert"). The policeman is not interested in Zach's protestations and tries to subdue him. Zach begs for mercy to spare him the shame that is reaching to grab him (Non Taserlo, il fratello! -- "Don't Tase me, bro!"). But it is too late. The policeman uses his Taser to stun Zach, who in the distance hears Mimi and Riley singing of getting matching Porsches.

THE END


Of course, that can be changed. We could shift the setting to a college campus during the '60s, which might allow for greater drama. Two romantic rivals, one goes to war, one stays home to protest that war. A young woman with a heart divided. And one really good poster promoting such an opera:



And that's what's opera, doc.

With grateful thanks again to Erin Ivanov for the artwork and Wikipedia for the plot summary of "La Boheme."

Thursday, September 13, 2007

THE WEEK THAT WAS

Routine nurtures and protects the American family. The rich soil of the predictable is what allows us to grow into the humdrum people that make this the most dynamic country in the world.

Don't believe me? Look, I could never have achieved fame and fortune as a layout/copy editor had my father not been the sort of dad who came home from work about 6 or so and my mother had not been the sort of mom who had dinner ready shortly thereafter. All the time. If Dad had come home at, say, 11 with two strippers and a "Do Not Disturb" sign, I would have spent the rest of the night taking guns and meat cleavers away from Mom (or not, depending on the state of my allowance). My schoolwork would have suffered, and I would have had to take drama class to keep my grades up. Then I likely would have been consigned to the dreary life of a movie star. Fortunately, I dodged that bullet.

A work family is much like a nuclear family in its dependence on routine. So it was a major bump in the road recently when we went to a consolidated news desk. The consolidation meant that the layout/copy editors from features -- I'll call them "Lola" and "Gustav" -- brought themselves and their work to us. In return, they take on some of our tasks. And we all switch our work weeks from five eight-hour days to four 10-hour days.

But the path to one big, happy work family has gone a little haywire, as this journal shows.

First Day, 1 p.m.
I come into work to find Lola cleaning her work station, which is next to mine, as though a plague victim had staggered into the paper and expired on her desk. She is wearing a hazmat suit, scrubbing every inch of her cubicle with ammonia and scouring powder. And she is using a pressure cleaner for good measure.

1:10 p.m.
Lola turns the pressure cleaner on me, knocking me ass-over-teacups out of my cubicle. She explains that she is appalled by my work station's (entirely relative) filthiness, so she launched a pre-emptive strike to keep the filthiness at bay. Though cleaner, I am not happy.

1:12 p.m.
Lola brings in a Wiccan priest and Zen Buddhist monk to complete the purification. This is a little over the top.

1:30 p.m.
With the last echo of chanting fading, I begin reading features copy. Features writers! use a lot! of exclamation points! The faux cheerfulness! and enthusiasm! make me want! to force them to undergo! colonic irrigation! and a root canal! at the same time!

2 p.m.
Florabelle, Kiki and Olaf (names changed, of course) arrive. With our ranks for the night filled, I start doing what I do best: passing off work and surfing the Web.

5:35 p.m.
Lola begins to have questions about the doings of the desk. This poses two problems: The answers to these questions might mean that I have to quit watching Frisky Teen Cheerleaders on the Web, and Florabelle and I might butt heads. Florabelle and I have both spent nights running the news desk, and we both have our ideas about how things should run. She thinks the desk should operate as efficiently as possible. I think it should run like a pickup truck without brakes rolling downhill backwards. We both begin to answer Lola, yet there can only be one dominant today. The struggle to be top dog between Florabelle and me is on.

5:35:30
It's all over. Florabelle has kicked my ass and for good measure chased me up one the trees outside. I am forced to stay there the rest of the night, explaining to gawking passers-by that I am fact-checking a story about squirrel mating rituals.

Second day, 1 p.m.
Gustav is already at the paper, sitting in the cubicle behind mine. There has been bad blood between us ever since I played a joke on him by using his sign-on to crop the "l" from "public defender" in a 45-point headline. That was some years back, and surely he is over that by now. Oddly, he has a crowbar with him. He says the desk drawers have been sticking a little.

2:34 p.m.
I bend down to pick up a pen I dropped. Just as I begin to bend, I feel and hear the whoosh of something scything through the air just above my head. I look up to see Gustav holding the crowbar and grimacing like Casey at strike three. Guess Gustav ain't over it.

4:27 p.m.
Kiki is humming Funky Town. Kiki has been humming Funky Town for the past three hours, an exercise in perky torture. The tune has bored its way into my brain like a meth-addled termite, and I can't get rid of it. Must find more annoying tune to exorcise Funky Town. But first must pour scalding hot coffee down Kiki's throat to sear her vocal chords.

8:42
Kiki has sailed into her eighth hour of Funky Town. The coffee had no effect upon her at all (I forgot that she is a seven-gallons-a-day coffee drinker), except to speed up the tempo of humming. I am beating my head upon the desk.

12 a.m.
My shift is over and I head out to a bar to see friends and try to forget the night I've had. But all I can do is talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it.

Third day, 1 p.m.
Gustav will not look at me as I arrive at the news desk. He is staring intently at his screen and laughing softly in a sinister way. A cobra is curled in my chair, its head raised and ready to strike. The serpent and I begin swaying and staring at each other, yet he gets the better of me. At first. His lightning quick attack strikes me on the shoulder, but then something unexpected happens. Once the venom comes in contact with my DNA, instead of coursing through my veins in the blink of an eye, it sulks about the wound for a minute or so. Then it slides listlessly out of the wound, and I can almost hear the sigh of indifference escape my shoulder. The cobra strikes several more times, with similar results. Up against a tower of sloth, the snake surrenders to the inevitable and curls itself (almost affectionately) around my shoulders for about 10 hours of Frisky Teen Cheerleaders. Behind me, Gustav weeps.

6:51 p.m.
Kiki has embraced Total Eclipse of the Heart. I feverishly look to escape. I try tunneling out.

8:09 p.m.
Oh, yeah. We're on the second floor. That must be why I landed with a thud in classified advertising. The cobra glares at me.

Fourth day
Lola has built a hermetically sealed sphere around her cubicle, Gustav has rigged my desk with dynamite, a guillotine and tripwired shotgun. Lord knows what Kiki will hum today. I decide to avoid work and co-workers by having a mannequin made to look like me and installed with an audio device that randomly plays the following statements:

"Sorry, I can't help right now. I'm doing Web stuff."
"I'm having a little trouble with this page. Can you help?"
"I think the centerpiece is more in your line of expertise. Would you mind doing it?"
"I'm going to take a break now."

And the desk rolls on without missing a beat.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

HOW I ALMOST TRIED TO GET FIRED RECENTLY


Like most professions, the path to fame in journalism is lined with accomplishment. You win a Pulitzer or two, write a series of articles of book that exposes government malfeasance or host a talk show in which high-ranking officials beat each other senseless and you justly earn the acclaim of the public and your peers.


Such laurels always go to reporters, but there is a back door to glory for copy/layout editors. When we gather, we tend to talk about our mistakes. Much laughter ensues, but some blunders are first met with the awed, slack-jawed silence of tourists seeing the Great Pyramid at Giza or the Sistine Chapel for the first time. There is a grandeur to such gaffes that defies mortal explanation, and we see the perpetrator in a supernatural light. "You're the one who put 'balling' in a 48-point 1A headline instead of 'bawling?' You must be touched by God!"

These mistakes achieve legendary status quickly, and for people who toil close to fame yet in constant anonymity the lure of celebrity can easily overpower reason. Which is why I was recently at my work station in a cold sweat, my hands trembling above the keyboard.

I was editing one of the stories about the Warner Robins Little Leaguers' world championship. A woman was describing what a thrill it was for her. "I had the greatest feeling of euphoria I've ever had in my life," she said of watching the team on television. And I saw an opening that only comes along once a year or so. A few keystrokes would be all it would take, and fame would be mine. All's I had to do was change the sentence to "I had the greatest feeling of euphoria I've ever had in my life," she said of watching the team on television, much to the obvious chagrin of her husband.

Yet I did not. I haven't decided whether it was a moment of sound judgment ... or weakness.