"Role Models" and "Ending" Bullying

The Super Bowl is coming up soon and ever since I started working for the theater I've been thankful for the excuse of "I have to work that day" when people ask me if I saw something specific. But as I mentioned in my recent marching band post, I don't care much for football. Of course I'm in the minority here. But I'm not going to talk about that again.

A few weeks ago Seahawks defensive back Richard Sherman gave a rather aggressive interview after his team won the game (I don't know what game it was, I don't care. What's a football?). It was deemed by many people to be unsportsmanlike and just plain rude. Of course I had no idea who this was, but I was filled in by the kitchen crew at my restaurant. They were listening to a sports talk radio program, where a table full of sports writers argued about the interview (separate issue: people get PAID to talk about sports).

Sherman's interview.

 One writer made the point that Sherman is a role model to kids, whether or not he wants to be, and comments like that wouldn't do much to benefit kids and help them to "end bullying".

For one thing, I don't think it's smart to have a football player be a role model to anybody. Many players aren't very good students, a lot of them have multiple girlfriends, they make a career by slamming themselves into other people, and most of them stop working before age 30. I never understood the logic of making them seem like heroes. It is because they're bigger than us?

Before the sports lovers make this argument, allow me: the same is true for pop stars. Take Justin Bieber and his recent DUI. Everyone lost their minds when this 19 year old singer was caught driving drunk. It would be mildly scandalous if any 19 year old was driving drunk, but this boy is supposed to be a role model so the world flipped their lid.

Bieber's mug shot. I'll admit, smiling was a weird choice.

But think of the lives these people are living. Take Bieber: he's insanely famous and he'll probably be for the rest of his life, and he's not even twenty. He is loved by young girls all over the country, which has probably got to be annoying on some level even for him. People who own stadiums and concert halls want him to make tons of money. Advertisers know their sales will skyrocket if he endorses it. Everyone wants a piece of him and will do anything to get him. Imagine what kinds of things are getting shoved in his face: booze, drugs, women (did you see Wolf of Wall Street?) His life has to have an insane amount of pressure in it and he probably doesn't know how to deal with it.

Now I'm not totally defending him, driving drunk is incredibly stupid no matter who you are. But it's pitiful, the lives these people live are so outrageous and simply by living them they are given so many expectations. Sure he might have brought some stuff on himself with his "badass gangster" image he tries to project (or whatever he does, I really don't know what the appeal is) but overall who knows? He could be deeply unhappy with himself.

"Oh the poor millionaire pop singer, I feel so bad, boohoo." Yeah, I know guys. I'm not defending everything he does. My main issue is why do these people have to be the role models for children. Why can't it be a parent who works hard or something that makes sense? Why can't a parent say "it's nice that you love Justin, honey, but remember he's a flawed person like everyone else so don't try to imitate him." Or something like that, I don't have a parenting book.

Then there's the other thing that sportscaster said about ending bullying. Now bullying has recently become a big issue in this country and there are many organization out to stop it.

But they can't.

There's no way anyone can actually end bullying. You'd have to destroy the Internet first. Take Bieber again; how many people do you know on Facebook or Twitter that made a rude joke at his expense? Is that considered bullying or just mocking a celebrity? Rhetorical question, it doesn't matter. Because the internet has made it easy to lob insults at people. Hell, you can even do it anonymously so there's zero risk at all.

Obviously bullying leads to horrible things. Hearing about a bullied teen committing suicide is heartbreaking every time you hear it. It's awful to hear things like "you're fat", "you're ugly", "you're a fag", "go die", etc. No one should have to endure it, but mostly everyone will at some point in their life.

So what is the game plan? "End Bullying". Going to schools and explaining to kids that it's wrong to be mean to kids just because they're different. Which might seem like a good plan, but the thing about bullies is they usually know right from wrong but they don't care. Usually bullying is someone projecting something they dislike about their own life onto someone else, in an attempt to make themselves feel better.

Lots of comedians get called bullies for making fun of people. I'm sure I've been considered a bully before, because I tease people and make sarcastic comments. Usually I try to make sure people understand that I'm just teasing, but sometimes they don't always think I am. Because when I'm actually angry with someone, I'm not half as witty as I usually am.

My point is, you can't stop bullying from being a thing. The world is full of different people, and that leads to conflicts which can turn ugly. The goal I think we're aiming for is not to let them get ugly, but we don't have a surefire way of preventing that just yet. Now that we have organizations like One Million Moms who claim to want to make life better for their kids but are bullies themselves (said it, will say it again), it's clear the definition of Bullying is going to remain conflicted for some time.

I think that in addition to teaching kids not to be mean to each other it's also important to teach them how to deal with being a victim. I don't mean say "just tough it up!" I mean like rationally talk to them and help them overcome it. Even if we have to tell them to get off the Internet. The Internet can bring out the ugliest side in even the nicest of people, so if people are dicks to you on it when why do you even need it?

Anyway that's my PSA on idols and bullying. If this reaches any high school students that are getting bullied, here's some advice: just hang in there (I wish I could word that more originally). High school is nothing at all like real life and things usually improve once you graduate. You can do whatever you want after you leave; you can even move away and never see your bullies again. That's not called "running away", it's "making your life better".

Oh Deer

WARNING: This blog contains a few pictures that may be viewed as graphic. I mean, they don't bother me or anything, but I don't usually post pictures of severed heads so I figure I'd warn y'all.

I mentioned last time that I was making some jerky for New Year's and today I thought I'd elaborate more on that story. See a few months ago, around Thanksgiving, my father shot a deer. My parents live on a farm in West Virginia and so hunters in our family (and friends of family) like to come to our property and hunt in our woods. For my whole life growing up I was accustomed to seeing strange vehicles being parked along our lane for days and donning an orange vest for when I went on my walks (the orange was to prevent getting accidentally shot).

Dad with his deer.

Now this isn't going to turn into a pro-hunting/anti-hunting post. I personally have never gone hunting or have had any interest in doing so. I'm sure my dad might've asked at one point, but I think after a while he realized I'd get bored and start chatting nonstop so I wasn't a good asset to have along. Hunting seems to contain a lot of waiting, keeping quiet, and staying focused and for a hyperactive kid with ADD that probably wouldn't have worked out well. Also I can't see myself killing something that large and walking away unscathed. I'm not saying killing animals will lead to becoming a serial killer, but I'm worried in my case that would happen.

So hunting is what it is. I'm used to not seeing deer as sympathetic creatures, so I don't feel too bad for them. When you think about it, compared to chickens or livestock that are bred and kept in tiny habitats for meat, deers sort of get the better end of the bargain. And that's really why I'm writing this: it's about the meat.

I was proud of Dad for getting his deer, but also excited when I knew we'd be getting deer meat. See December is a slower month for me work-wise, so I have more time to cook things. So I agreed when my mom (probably joking) offered to send me some deer meat. I had to wait a while because the deer in question has to be skinned and gutted and all that pretty stuff. So my dad gave the deer to my uncle for all that happiness.

We got to keep the head of course.

For a while there I thought I wasn't getting any meat, and I got cranky. Apparently the people that clean the deer keep the meat. "You shot it!" I told my dad, "why don't we get to eat it?" He told me that the point of hunting was more about the rack (it had an 8-point rack, fyi) and he lost me there. You can't eat the rack, it would hurt going in and coming out.

But when Christmas rolled around my uncle brought me some gifts: 2 lbs of deer roast and 1 lb of deer hamburger. Hooray!

The deer roast, nice and bloody.

My first order of business was that I wanted to make deer jerky. So I looked up two recipes on allrecipes.com and got to work collecting all the ingredients. I had two recipes; one was more of a "basic" thing while another called itself "sweet and spicy". I thawed out the roast and cut it into strips. My cutting skills are not great, especially with meat, so instead of strips of jerky I was making chunks of jerky (but really, who cares?). Holding the roast I felt like I had a heart in my hands, and the blood of it left gross red juice on my cutting board. Also it stinks.

I marinated the chunks in each marinade overnight. Then, New Year's Eve, I stayed home to cook them. Now here's where things got shitty. We don't have a food dehydrator, which is the essential jerky-making thing. But the internet told me to keep the oven low and let it cook for hours, namely six. So I did. And after three, I had tiny black pieces of jerky sitting in my oven. "Shit." I said and took them out.

The raw drippy jerky going in...

...And the super well-done jerky that came out.

So, despite the overcooking and the misshapen pieces I was pretty proud of myself. First-time jerky all by myself with few necessary appliances? That ain't bad. This ain't a cooking blog anyway, bite me. We all ate the jerky and passed some around at the New Year's Eve party we attended. We all agreed it was too dry but the marinades made for some good flavor so everyone was happy enough.

But what to do with that hamburger? I thought about it for a while. Meat pie? Stew maybe? I couldn't decide. So I browsed some recipes and then found something awesome: Venison Meatloaf. And I already had the ingredients in the house. Score!

So I made that. It was a fun recipe, I got to put bacon on it which is always great. I forgot that bacon shrinks though so the effect wasn't totally great but I got to make a topping for it that was mostly barbeque sauce so, again, who cares?

Meatloaf pre-cooking.

Out of the oven, covered in sauce.

 I'll admit it's not the most visually impressive sight, but it tasted delicious. I ate it with mashed potatoes (store bought, I usually make my own, but I was busy that night) and was in heaven.

These pictures look better in my mind.

So that was that: my first foray into cooking venison. Fun fact, though, "venison" used to refer to mostly any game meat (like boar or rabbit) but now we just associate with deer. It's kind of a snobby word though, I think. I told someone I made deer meatloaf and they said "Oh, venison?". As if "deer" was incorrect. Like "venison" means something that's dead and "deer" means I shoved a live animal into a meatloaf pan. But then jerky is always called "deer jerky",  hardly anyone says "venison jerky" so what's up?

Anyway not sure how interesting this was, but I figured I'd share. Next time my father kills something and I get to cook it I'll probably share again.

Marking Time: My Memories of Marching Band

When I was in elementary school I took up playing the saxophone. My parents encouraged me to do something extracurricular and, not being at all an athlete, I picked music. Why the sax? I guess I just thought it was cooler, jazzier. Cool people played the saxophone, right? Bill Clinton, Lisa Simpson, they all rocked out. I kept with it all through middle school and high school, were I was a band geek for four years.

Then it came time to go to college. I was going to WVU because, frankly, we couldn't afford much else and I was going to college because it seemed wise to do so (in retrospect, it was sort of a mistake). My family was very excited because it meant I would be joining the legendary Pride of West Virginia: The Mountaineer Marching Band!!! And me, thinking that this was apparently inevitable, agreed.

The punchline here is this: I hate marching band. Now don't me wrong, in high school we had fun times, I made great friends, really came out of my shell as a person thanks to being in band. But the actual act of marching band just sucked. For one thing, I don't care at all about football. SHOCKING isn't it? It's not because I'm stupid or snobby or whatever, I have sat in front of many a TV and watched football and tried to get into it and I just can't. Perhaps I'm too cynical, I'm not sure, not getting into that now. (although last night I went on a Twitter rant about football to cure my insomnia. Lots of hateful things I probably need to touch on.)

It's common when a child doesn't want to play football to get them into band, but that makes no sense because the entire purpose of band is to encourage football. Support the team, even though "the team" never talks to me at school and most of the rest of the school will call me a band fag for my trouble. That's not so much the case at WVU, where the band is over 300 people large and gets crazy amounts of love and respect from the students and players. Respect was no longer a problem; the problem was the sheer act of being in the Pride of West Virginia when you had little love for the Mountaineer.

But it seemed important to join this band, more so for my family than me, so I did it. I was used to doing things because people told me to, which is why when I learned I "had" to go to college I reluctantly selected theater as my major because I liked it in high school. I don't really have regrets, although the interest in theater would significantly wane by the time I graduated  So there I was: a theater freshman in the marching band. Look out, world.

I experienced a few perks of being in the band. For starters I got to move in a week earlier than the rest of the campus so I avoided that mess of a process. Of course I moved in early because I had to go to band camp. And not funny American Pie sexualized band camp. This was "get ready to memorize all these songs/formations in the 80 degree heat for the next 12 hours" band camp. It was brutal. Admittedly I made friends during that time, and since there was no burden of class it was the only thing we had to worry about. But that was a damn long week.

Then it was time for the first home game, an important day for all band freshmen. If you've never been to a WVU football game, here is the legendary pre-show performance in a nutshell. The band hides out in the tunnels on one end of the field. The drumline marches out, plays a rocking intro (I wanna call it cadence, but I don't know if that's correct. Music people?), and then the band charges out onto the field. It's called "220" because that's how many beats per minute we're supposed to be marching at (but it's just running). Then we form the "Flying WV" and charge down the field. This leads to other songs and shapes, but youtube it yourself.

I'm technically in this video. Can you spot me? (I can't spot me.)

So we charge out onto the field and we're running and the crowd goes freaking wild! Somewhere amongst them my family is going just as wild, getting emotional and just so happy that I'm among this group I've been watching literally since I was 3. The world is a mess of yelling, clapping, and applause.

And I swear to you, I felt nothing standing on that field. I'm not a sociopath, it just didn't mean anything to me. I didn't have the Pride that the band was named after. I was a humble servant to the band and my saxophone was my tool. That stadium wasn't applauding for me, they were applauding for the band. They were applauding for the gold and the blue. They were applauding for football. And I don't give a fuck about football.

Looking back on those games I don't know how I got by, or didn't get thrown out. After doing the exhausting pregame show we would take our seats in the end zone. Fun fact about band uniforms: they're heavy enough to make fall games miserably hot but thin enough to not do anything against the chill of winter. We played many "stand tunes" during the games, and anytime we weren't playing we were supposed to watch the game but I would always try to see how much reception I could get on my phone (usually not much).

I wasn't an especially good band student either. Like I said, there are over 300 people in that band. The directors would encourage us all to memorize our music and play ouy because every voice was important. But if you're a cynic and a realist, then you know there are enough people there that half of them can phone 50% of it in and still be okay. Preshow was the same every game and I still never memorized all of it. Of course I was playing saxophone, and saxophone harmonies in marching band music usually give you the same four notes. Whenever I was unsure I would play G. No one said anything. I'm sure someone somewhere else was playing G.

Then there were these bus trips. Holy crap, how did Isaac do that? I do not travel well and we would have to go FAR away. On buses. With large groups of people. And then stay in hotels. Often with strangers because while I had friends, whenever there was pairing involved I tended to be the odd number. Which is fine, this is life, I was still kind of reserved, who cares?

Speaking of friends, I wasn't making many in the Theater department because band practices every evening. Which was problematic when you have to do things like work on a crew for a show. While I though I had a good schedule worked out with my crew assignment for my first show, it didn't turn out well. I actually failed my crew assignment and got a C in the class overall. The theater people hated me because I was "unreliable", I hated them because I thought they were being unreasonable, I hated the band for being such a time suck, and I hated football for being the cause of this mess.

 I watched more football games in those four months than I have in my entire life and I still don't get it. It didn't help that WVU had a good year that year and we won almost every game by a landslide, which is so boring to watch. The game we lost I felt a feeling of happiness as everyone else around me angrily screamed at the outcome. I'm a sick person, I know. Judge away. I think I just hated being unhappy while everyone else is so I enjoyed those moments were everyone could be miserable for a while (oooh, emo. We can look up psychologists in the morning.)

The end of football season approached. The team (and the band) were going to Arizona  for the Fiesta Bowl. Know what's in Arizona? I sure don't, because I resigned early from the band because there was no way in HELL I was flying (or busing, I forgot the options) across the country to watch yet another football game! So I turned in my uniform. But I had said I'd probably return next year.

In my spring semester I did some real thinking. I had time to do more theater things, actually made a few friends that semester, and did concert band which was great fun (once a week, awesome music, all I wanted). Then as that semester came to a close I realized there was no way I was going to return to that band next year. There were theater classes I really wanted to get into and I did not want to risk them hating me for my thousand band rehearsals and performances. So I decided to check out.

My family's group reaction was "Oh but whyyyyy?". I explained my very real fear that I wouldn't graduate on time, and didn't harp on the other "because I hate it" facts. I think someone even offered me money if I did it again. But I said no and broke a few hearts. Being an 18/19 year old, I went through a little fit and put the entire year behind me. Got rid of all the pics of me in the band (to an extent I can't find any for this blog), fell out of touch with all my band friends, and stopped playing the saxophone altogether (it's been about 6 years since I've touched one.) My ma (or maybe Nana) made a collage of the pictures she took of me in the band; it was on the wall for about a year and now resides in a corner in my bedroom at my parents' house.

The purpose of this story was not to shit on the band, mind you. They're great people and they do a great job. But it wasn't right for me and that was the problem the whole time. It was something I didn't wanna do that I somehow found myself doing and I just wanted to be angry about that.

My Nana loved to proudly tell her friends I was in the WVU Marching Band. "Oooh, I bet that's fun!" Little old ladies would say to me. "It's something," I'd said through my teeth. When I had finally officially quit Nana told me "I was disappointed when you said you weren't going to go back, but I'm proud of you for sticking with your guns and making that decision."

And that felt great to hear. It was my first post-high school big decision. It would be followed by many. Granted, some of these decisions might have been poor ones but they were mine to make. The band was a perfect representation of how I'd lived life before: suffering through things I didn't enjoy for the sake of pleasing others. I've since gotten over that and it's a good thing.

My one year in the band seemed to satisfy everyone. Technically I'm a marching band alumni (sounds better than "quitter"). Four years later my sister, who was majoring in MUSIC of all things, didn't join the marching band and no one really fought her about it. So "You're welcome" Sade, I took one for the team there. Every football game I've gone to since leaving the band has resulted in a loss for WVU; a clear sign that I'm a curse and a good excuse to never attend one again. Not that I need an excuse because, as we've learned from all this, I do what I want.