My History of Avarice -- O Lady Bird, Where Are You?

Back in the 1960's, we had a few heroes to be sure, but at this moment I must honor and perhaps call on the spirit of Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson, thus making her First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. (Texas delights in odd names for its womenfolk. Turn of the century Governor Hogg named his daughter “Ima.” My wife, hailing from Houston, Tina at birth, goes by Tunafishheadface. I go to the her dentist with her just to hear them call her name.) We have far fewer billboards in America thanks to Lady Bird and if you regard billboards, or most of them anyway, as large impediments to what might otherwise be an interesting vista, then you have to appreciate the work of First Lady Lady Bird.



Just before her husband LBJ started incinerating much of the Vietnamese countryside with carpet bombing, Lady Bird took it upon herself to protect the American countryside from being bombarded by billboards. Because of Lady Bird and her work on behalf of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, we all drive America’s interstate highways no longer defaced by messages of buy, buy, buy. So when you're in those lovely stretches of, say, Utah or West Texas or Big Sur, you can thank Lady Bird that you're looking at countryside, majestic or modest, instead of one billboard after another breathlessly informing you of the proximity of the next McDonalds.




Now consider a blog: Gracefully constructed, a blog is a meandering backroad through the hills and hollows of a variegated mind. A roadtrip of sorts through someone else’s thoughts will bring you to: little monuments of serious, even profound thought; whimsical stops for charming souvenirs; restful, rejuvenating vistas and meadows to explore; peculiar locales with odd customs; even a few troubling sites like wrecks on the side of the road or moments exhibiting poverty of thought.

My blog used to be beautiful! Modest little writings, photos of whimsy and photos of grandeur, some charming videos worthy of consideration, some artwork . . . all of it like a lovely cultural landscape, a vista, created by my own musings and eclectic interests. Some of it . . . perhaps boring for you, perhaps evoking the child’s entreaty “Are we there yet?!!?”

But then capitalism reared its ugly commodifying head and offered me filthy lucre to place ads on my blog.

So did I strike it a blow? Did I tell it to crawl or ooze back into its den of all things tawdry?

No, I can't say as I did.

Once I heard that TLH had "monetized" her everso modest blog about her Univ. of Illinois graduate student life which she even restricts to a precious few readers and earned $20 last month, I couldn't resist the millions that would certainly come MY way . . . and with which I will do beaucoup good. I might even sponsor the cleanup of a portion of Route 66.

So . . . forgive me, though I know full well what I've done.



Yes, I've "monetized" my blog. And now it is strewn with ads like so much litter thrown from cars on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Now, as you travel the byways of my mind, look to your right; look below. And please . . . click on the ads! I'm not supposed to click on my own ads, but I couldn't help clicking on the "SAT site" which I was afraid would be some "add 300 points to your score" outfit, but turned out to be the College Board. I was prepared to demonetize my blog, but . . . it seemed harmless and wouldn't it be great if the College Board paid me, albeit indirectly, for using my blog. (Kids! My blog is great for improving your vocabulary!).

And look at the ad below. For days now it’s been an ad for a microfinance operation that provides small loans of $10 or so to women starting artisanal craft operations in India! Here’s an ad that might save a life!

Still, it’s an ad. Who knows how hideous my once-graceful, uncluttered blog will become.

My blog has been monetized for about 4 days now and LW already wants to know how much dough I’ve raked in. “How much? How much?” she pleads.

I'd certainly support a generalized prohibition on blog ads of all kinds! But until that happens, I'm going to put up some billboards and sell the space! First Lady Lady Bird might even be okay with this. After all, I defy you to find a blog anywhere in the blogosphere over the last month or so that praises and provides a lovely photo of Lady Bird Johnson.

Surfing Lying Down -- I Can Do That

Time to Go in the SEA! from allan wilson on Vimeo.

You CAN'T Go to Quickly's!!! A One-Act

Jane is a student in Harry’s class. They meet in Harry’s office now and then to discuss Chinese History and whatever else comes to mind. Jane’s ethnic heritage is Chinese. Harry’s, European of some sort.


Jane: There's a secret student group that goes to Clement St. to drink bubble tea.

Harry: Is that the stuff with tapioca pearls?

Jane: Yes. Do you like it?

Harry: Never had it.

Jane: You've never had it?!!?

Harry: Seems a little off-putting, but I should try it. And it's the second time it's come up for me in the last 2 weeks or so. Other reputable sources recommend it.

Jane: Were they Asian?

Harry: Half of 'em were.

Jane: I swear to God, I was with the boring cousins in Hong Kong last summer and one day I had two bubble teas cuz Hong Kong has the BEST, but two is about all I can do in a day, but my boring cousins had EIGHT each in one day and you know what . . . they also ordered McDonald's delivered to the hotel room which I found out is the normal way to eat McDonald's there and over there, McDonald's is gourmet, but it's still gross.

Harry: Eight seems like a lot.

Jane: It's so stereotypic . . . bubble tea and Asians. Kinda' like busting out peace signs when you're photographed. . . . Who told you about bubble tea?

Harry: Do you remember Molly Reid, the blonde girl?

Jane: Yes.

Harry: She was apparently introduced to it by Rachel Wu.

Jane: I LOVE Rachel Wu! Well, her voice anyway is so cool.

Harry: Yeah, well, they're all about a chain called Quicklys.

Jane: NO!!!!! You CAN'T GO to QUICKLYS!!!!!

Harry: What's wrong with . . .

Jane: I can't believe anyone as cool as Rachel Wu goes to a QUICKLYS!

Harry: It could be one of those things for which she ironically exhibits some affection without really being authentically committed to it.

Jane: I hope so!

Harry: So what's wrong with them . . . other than the vat of boiling oil you can bring in things to fry . . . .

Jane: Yeah, they've got that.

Harry: Is it just a nasty chain?

Jane: It's not even real! They use a powder. It's all so fake. We go to ________ on Clement.

Harry: I'll tell Rachel.

Jane: Do.


The girl upon whom Rachel Wu is based has shared this disclaimer:

"My original favorite bubble tea place was owned by a friendly elderly Asian couple and used real fruit and ice cream in their drinks. After it was bought out by Quickly, I went into mourning and stopped drinking bubble tea altogether for approximately three years. 

"Eventually I caved, found something I liked on the Quickly menu, and became a regular Quickly patron. I realize the quality of Quickly drinks is very poor, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that Quickly has a monopoly on the bubble tea industry. Think of it this way: Quickly is the McDonald's of bubble tea, in a world where Wendy's/Burger King/In-N-Out don't exist. If you, Greg, loved hamburgers and the only place to get a hamburger was McDonald's, you might pay a grudging visit to McDonald's. After a few McDonald's hamburgers, if there continued to be no other option, you would probably become accustomed to the Big Mac and begin frequenting McDonald's, all the while dreaming of something actually made out of beef. 

"This is my relationship with Quickly." 

Going After the Easy Money – Monetizing My Blog!!! Readers as Clickers!!!

A friend tells me that her sister, TLH, recently “monetized” her blog. Putting aside for the moment this exciting new word that so enriches our language, let’s consider, instead, the consequences of monetizing her modest blog and how I might profit by her example . . . .

As my friend tells it, immediately, on TLH’s blog, two ads appeared for Google and . . . something else. A bit unsightly, to be sure, but it wasn’t KFC or an ad for one of the those time and effort saving devices like chairs that exercise you while you lounge about, so no real harm done.



TLH received $1.14 from Google for the access to her blog space. Initially, I had thought that someone at Google, using fancy math, determined that the company should make an investment of $1.14 in TLH’s blog on the assumption that one of the readers of her blog – a blog mostly devoted to the intellectual amusement park known as “contemporary literary analysis” with the added attraction of a few peeps into TLH’s exciting life – would see the Google ad and suddenly remember something that needed to be googled and insofar as TLH’s blog wasn’t riveting enough to keep the reader anchored (imagine that!), away he went to Google for whatever it was that seemed more compelling at the time. (What, no interest in current controversies surrounding Derrida’s critique of 19th century French diarists?) And then, of course, he bought something advertised on Google.

But no, Google doesn’t make an investment. How absurd! They wait to see how many people visit a blog . . . it’s all based upon the number of clicks on the blog. (Hence, TLH, the $1.14.)

So . . . do you understand what I’m getting at here?

Clearly, I gotta get after some of this easy money. After all, I have nearly 9 million readers (as scientifically demonstrated by demographic studies using algorithms with which we can confidently extrapolate 9 million readers from my 25 “followers.” (See “Blog Readership vs. ‘Followers’: A Demographic Study Using Algorithms to Extrapolate Readership from ‘Followers’” in the May, 2009, issue of “Journal of the Institute of Blog Studies.”). So I should be able to attract a sizable amount of clicking out there. In fact, if you’re reading right now, stop. Leave. Come back. Stop. Leave. Come back. Stop. Leave. Come back. Eventually, you’ll finish whatever it is you’re reading.

See if you click . . . a LOT, I will earn enough to write more than once a week. Everybody wins!!! Based upon TLH's experience, I should earn $1.14 . . . per click!!!

But I see difficulties with this easy money scenario. Chicken/egg difficulties. At least that’s what I’m told by another young friend of ours who is a VP for a Madison Avenue advertising and PR firm. I told her about TLH’s blog and her meager earnings (TLH: Are you reading this? Stop. Leave. Come back.) and that I may need a PR campaign to acquire more readers thus seriously monetizing my blog. Nine million is nothing compared to the Home Depot blog, the blog of the Swiss Cultural Exchange program, Godzilla’s Bike Training blog, and, well, so many others.



Of course, I knew what my bigwig VP friend was going to say.

She said that to attract clicks (readers are now “clicks” for my purposes) I have to post blogs not once a day, but two and three times a day . . . AND, she continued “you have to find blogs you like and comment on their postings,” and then there was something about a “tag” that easily takes readers from other blogs where I have posted comments to my own.

Two or three times a day?

Okay, I can’t say that I’m “on it.” I have a day job!



So what she’s saying is that I have to write every day so that I can leave my job and write every day, but I’d have to leave my job to write every day and I don’t have the money to leave my job (by the way, I “get paid” at school; my work is not “monetized”).

Buzz ruined!!!




One friend, in the ed business like me, suggested I post every bit of advice I give to kids and parents every day in my work as a Dean. Talk about diminished utility! Writing about problems people don’t think they have! Who gives penicillin to healthy people or someone with a broken toe? Only we teachers think that everything we say is so universally prescient and timely all at once.

So I’ve a conundrum. I write only once a week. But isn’t that enough? That’s good enough for your favorite show on television, for the Sunday New York Times, for Saturdays in the park!

“Whatever happened,” I asked my PR exec, “to ‘less is more’? ‘Leave ‘em wanting more’? And, anyway, are there really people out there with so little in the way of ‘having a life’ that they read and comment on (!!!) blogs all day long?”

Basically, how do I find those losers?

And can I comment here about how remarkable they are! Total strangers reading my musings! Even the musing that just called them “losers”! (You, dear clicker, are clearly NOT a loser. It’s some of the other clickers I’m thinking about.)

Are you still there?

Amazing!!!

Stop. Leave. Come back.

You know, my own wife doesn’t follow my blog. Says she's busy.

Wonderful Bits of Prose from Students

"I have no life, nor anyone to drive me to the nearest one." AV

Words, Words, Words

The next three posts deal with words: A bad one, a creative bit of slang, and a word that has lost its meaning temporarily.

Bad Words: Hearing "N________r" in a Hip SF Restaurant

A letter written recently to a San Francisco restaurant:

January 3, 2010

Dear _________ Owners:

I enjoyed a wonderful meal at [your restaurant] on the night of January 1st, but it was marred by what I thought was an irresponsible music choice. My friend and I were eating dinner and suddenly the hip hop that we weren’t paying that much attention to was littered with “n____r” throughout.

Now, I like some hip hop; I have about 20 artists on my iTunes. I know “n_______r” can be heard in a lot of hip hop. I know that some will argue that some African-Americans have appropriated the term for their own purposes. But there are other African-Americans who take issue with that strategy.

I also know that [the restaurant] was filled with white people that night. I certainly didn’t see any African-Americans. Certainly didn’t see any in the kitchen.

Hip-hop littered with “n________r” is problematic for me. So, yeah, I don’t play it and I don’t have to go where it’s played. And, no, I didn’t say anything to anyone at [the restaurant] in the middle of my meal. I knew I’d need time to explain myself and your hard-working staff has a lot going on.

But I’d argue that choosing this particular hip hop artist (I don’t know who it was) is problematic for me in that setting and it might be for you, too. You might argue that a place like [your sophisticated restaurant] doesn’t cater to racists, that your customers and staff can contextualize the “n__________r” they hear repeatedly in the music. I wouldn’t be so sure. By playing this music in your restaurant, you surely help to normalize the use of the word for those less sophisticated, those not very well versed in history. And those people are everywhere, even in the uber-hip Mission.

You might argue that white teenage boys are the biggest market for hip hop so the artist must know that this music will be played, quite often, in predominantly white settings. Yes, that is certainly true, but I think that artist decision is quite probably market driven, in any event irresponsible, and I think that for 4 minutes or so [your restaurant] was facilitating that irresponsible decision and thus making its own irresponsible decision.

The lamest argument I sometimes hear is, “That’s just how we talk to one another.” Language is powerful and it’s especially powerful when we think it’s not. The nursery rhyme is wrong: names do hurt.


After the Great Migration, African-American men in northern cities would greet each other by saying “man” as in, “How’s it going, man?” They chose “man” because they were suddenly surrounded by men like themselves who had escaped the American South where black men were called “boy” and “n_____r” – a word I can’t even bring myself to write much less have amplified in any space filled with strangers. To my ear, “man” celebrates the dignity of being human. “N_____r,” despite the effort to take it and thus declaw it, is a sad replacement.

Should I, a white guy, tell African-Americans how to communicate with one another? That’s not really the question. The real question is whether I want to be complicit in the dissemination, no matter what the intent, of a disgraceful term? And how much more pronounced is this issue if the intent of the artist is mostly market driven?

You’ll note that I have not expressed an objection to how often the terms “fuck” and “motherfucker” occurred in the hip hop selection that evening. This coarsens the setting, but I fear I’ve grown inured to these terms. “N_______r” is more profound, weighed down by historical baggage, and requires, at the very least, a conscious decision and I would encourage you to decide against its dissemination in your otherwise wonderful restaurant.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,



Greg Monfils


I received a call 2 days after sending the letter. The management and staff of the restaurant read the letter and agreed. I was invited to call the executive chef which I did. He apologized and I thanked him for his time.

Good Words: "Bling"

Though I don’t find myself using it much, I’ve long admired how “bling” oddly seems so perfectly appropriate for the kind of over-the-top jewelry we see not only on hip hop artists and athletes, but on anyone whose jewelry seems a little ostentatious or somehow out of place. I was at a party recently -- okay, about a hundred years ago -- kind of a casual backyard sort of thing, but one guy had a bracelet of what looked to be jawbreaker-sized gold nuggets going around his wrist. When he raised that arm to greet a friend just arriving, that friend yelled back, “Ricky! Man, careful with that serious blingage before the sun reflecting from it blinds us all!” Many of us laughed, not just because of the perfect, if perfectly ironic, use of slang, but also because, at least for me anyway, “bling” has a cartoonish quality that fits the visual nature of what it describes. So “bling,” in an odd way, sounds like what it describes. It’s not onomatopoeia, but it feels like it. Is that because for many years the word “bling” was often placed next to fancy jewelry in comic strips? It describes that kind of ornamentation that says something about the wearer’s immodesty or pride or maybe just Ricky’s need to wear a gift given him by, who knows, maybe his wife who was there with him. Whatever it is, the jewelry seems to pop out at us: BLING!!!!

Overused Words: The Commodification of "Artisanal"

An accounting firm "honoring artisanal principles"?

Of course, we've always heard of artisans. They were . . . artists, craftspeople, who could fashion functional and lovely artifacts, shining with the obvious human touch. Labor and human dignity mutually uplift each other in the act of creation.

We've all thought of a world in which we could all be artisans of some sort. Well, if you can't slow down and sell your wares at some farmer's market, why not just appropriate "artisanal" for your own work? We should be surprised that it took the rest of us so long to become artisans in our own right.

I gather that this still smokin' hot marketing term began with "artisanal" cheese, pizza, wine, and cocktail makers, i.e., amidst the culinary arts. It lends an air of secular sanctity and indisputable quality to any endeavor to which it is attached. It has not the slightest negative connotations unless you prefer fast-food and other slipshod vulgarities; it's redolent of the elegant aesthetic arising from time-honored craftsmanship carried out . . . by hand!!!

So, sure . . . cheese, pizza, cocktails and wine. Maybe bookbinding, stained glass, landscape architecture, etc.

But then someone in a marketing firm or an ad agency -- professions that often hollow words out, extracting their meaning and leaving only a shell that can be commodified -- must've said, "Hey, why can't, say, uh, credit default swap creation be a craft? Aren't they created . . . by hand . . . sort of . . . so . . . YES!"

And, sure enough, like a meme, "artisanal" soon attached to goods and services not normally associated with the hand-crafted care of some craftswoman working in her studio or workshop. I read of an accounting firm "guided by artisanal principles."

"This space-heater, featuring a design handed down for years by artisans of the craft, is . . . ," well, it's artisanal!!! What else do you need to know?

Soon, we'll all be doing artisanal work: I'll teach and administrate using artisanal principles, my dental hygienist will purr about her artisanal teeth-cleaning , the TSA people at airports will work to secure air travel with time-honored artisanal practices, my stockbroker . . . no, my securities artisan will . . . well, you get the idea.

Teens don't use "artisanal" unless they grow up in foodie households. The teenage equivalent? "Amazing."

Next overused word, especially overused in marketing: "passion."

Song of the Month or Week:

My History of Violence

I took no consolation in my handiwork as I approached the paddle -- the paddle I’d made in woodshop – that would momentarily be used for my whippin’. Coach Tigner slapped it against his calf as I drew nearer to him at the front of my 7th grade PE class. I did not ruefully reminisce at that moment that I’d been the one who carefully sawed, sanded and stained that paddle to Coach's specifications: He liked a longish paddling area, maybe 16 inches by 5, about 3/4ths of an inch thick, and rounded at the end. A tapered handle, maybe 2 inches wide, descending about 8 inches from the paddling area to a rounded knob through which a hole had been drilled to allow for a leather strap to wrap around the wrist. Three 1/2 inch holes bored at the end of the paddling area for ornamentation or, more likely, to allow for greater paddle speed. It would have been unseemly to ask “Why the holes, Coach?” upon receiving the specs. (Legend had it that Coach liked to leave three little spots on your butt, but in reality no one using these paddles ever hit anyone that high up on the paddle. No, we always got good wood right in the thick of the middle.) The best feature, the piece de resistance of which I was most proud, was the rich, beefy gravy-meets-bourbon stain lovingly applied with long brush strokes for the same seamlessness that graced the little bookshelf I'd made and which I still have on my piano. Yes, fine artisanal paddle crafting.

My bookshelf:


My 7th grade PE class featured a bunch of boys doing exercises in maybe 5 columns 6 boys deep, when I decided that my jumping jacks (Coach preferred "side straddle hops" in the jargon of his profession) would jump arms and legs out on the count instead of the missile-like up and down. I did it twice maybe, oh, and I’d also moved off the line some, happy with my little stunt, when Coach suddenly took up his whistle quick and blew a short staccato burst like he meant to puncture the sound of thumping, shuffling tennis shoes in that gym.

We all stopped. I don’t remember my initial reaction, but knowing myself at the time, I suspect I might have been looking around discreetly and smiling a bit. I do remember, and I remember this distinctly, that I expected a “Get in line, son, and stop your foolin’!”

But no. Coach pointed that paddle right at me, its leather strap straining at the wrist.

“’M’ere boy!” he commanded.

Well, that meant only one thing: He was going to test the aerodynamics of my design on my ass.

“That’s right, boy, YOU!” I must’ve displayed the international gesture of disingenuous uncertainty – eyes wide open, head thrust forward, my finger turned and pointed to my own torso – as if to get some clarity which no other being needed in that gym. All eyes were on me.

“There's nobody else clownin’ around so get on up here like I tol’ you, boy!”

He knew my name – sonofabitch lived down the street from me – but at the time it wasn’t his “boy” which disturbed me. What pained me was that he must’ve had no idea I’d made his paddle. Lovingly.

I considered, for a moment, telling him I’d made that very paddle. But the only thing worse than one’s fate in these moments would be a public effort to forestall it with some weak offering. What could’ve been weaker than, “You know, uh, I made that paddle myself in shop”? Any boy within earshot of that would have laughed derisively and with cause. “Supposed to just take your whippin’” . . . and be a minor hero for the balance of the day. Lame efforts to humanize the situation for purposes of a commutation of sentence or even just for a shorter backswing would result in obloquy and worse in the schoolyard.

I seem to remember looking balefully at my handiwork as I approached Coach who bid me bend over in preparation for what I knew would be 1 or 3 swats. You never knew in advance, there not being some sort of spreadsheet of offenses with the requisite swats drawn up somewhere. Still, you try to assess the situation because if there’s one thing for sure it’s this: if you get 3, your heart will jump and lodge in your throat and you will cry and that crying will be humiliating and that humiliation will be far worse than the pain which, let there be no doubt, would be considerable.

I spread my legs shoulder width apart and reluctantly grabbed my ankles. Or maybe I just put my hands on my knees. Whatever it took to give him a target. By this time I'm past quietly praying for only one swat and instead I'm trying to, as I said, assess the situation amidst panic.

So, here, made more coherent, is what was initially the furiously rushed and tumbled assessment I made as I grabbed my ankles: On the one hand, this just had to be a one-swat whippin’ because I hadn’t done anything all that godawful! What’s more, my whippin’ was going to be a public affair – in front of the gym class! Three-swat whippins always occur outside of class! On the other hand, the fact that I was up there at all for an offense that was surely de minimis portended darkly: Obviously, Coach must be maniac! Can’t know what to expect.

Thwack! Then . . . Coach stepped away.



One swat. And it stung. Heart bounced up into my throat, but settled back down without my humiliating myself.

“You’re gonna do this right from now on, isn't that right, boy?”

“Yessir.”

“Back in line, then, and be sure you do.”


No boy was ever paddled again that year in PE. My example scared maybe 40 boys into Marine-like unison in our calisthenics for the better part of a year. The event took on legendary proportions, but not because of anything I did – that wasn’t memorable or even worth a mention as we boys recalled the swing and thwack of that paddle. It wasn’t even Coach’s psychosis that haunted us.

No, it was the paddle. The paddle served its purpose. No one ever wanted to get hit by that paddle. My paddle. Did its job.

Over time, I became prouder and prouder of my handiwork and thrilled to the reports of its subsequent use.