the voice

forget the mob, forget the rat pack, forget the amos and andy jokes. remember always that his first nickname was "the voice." listen to the tone, the diction, the sense of swing. notice the little things; how he bends the word "around" on "you go to my head." or, the subtle ending of "don't worry about me," or the second chorus of "our love is here to stay." the man is better than we know, as famous as he was. i don't mean the image, the celebrity, it's that voice.

listen to it, and learn.

two hour delay today. tried to sleep, but the guys going down the stairs kept waking me up. got to school a half hour early, and talked to p about world affairs.

had to kick two kids out of my mcas class. well, i didn't have too, but, you know. i give them half assed work, and they won't meet me half way. they kept texting each other and laughing. one of them is this annoying gay asian kid who thinks he can call girls cunts because he's gay. i hate to get tough, because i know it's all crap, but sometimes you got to do it.

history class today; they "learned" about john brown. the aide asked if he could really be considered an abolitionist since he killed people? later on, i threw in that "lincoln is considered a hero even though 600,000 people were killed in the civil war, but john brown is a "murderer" for killing five." a student objected..."that's different. lincoln was a president. he has the power to do that." my response? "tell that to the guys 6 feet under if it makes a difference." by the way, 120,000 people were killed in the civil war for each one that brown blew away.

i also threw in, while brown was being condemned by the mentally challenged that masquerade as educators, that "malcolm x used to say that if you were a john brown kind of white liberal, then he would listen to you, but that he didn't want to hear from the other kind."

in our culture, if you are willing to fight and die for black people, you are crazy.

much better to drop bombs for oil.

with a uniform, all is forgiven