I Was in Grad School: That's Sort of Like Being Homeless (Only More Humiliating). Where's My Book Deal? Oh. I Forgot: I'm Not a Writer

Cadillac Man has been homeless in New York City for about a decade. But now the Queens street dweller is banking on an unlikely ticket off the street: a book deal.

Sounds crazy?

Tell that to his agent.

Cadillac - who is 56 and won't reveal his birth name - caught the eye of the book industry after Esquire magazine published parts of his memoirs in May....

One ...former Esquire editor, befriended the street dweller last year and connected him with the magazine. Executive Editor Mark Warren was intrigued by his story and came out to visit Cadillac last year. Warren was blown away by his manuscript.

"The more that we got to read, the more we became convinced that this was a story worth telling," he said.

The magazine paid Cadillac $7,500 and dedicated 10 pages to his writing.

"I have lived homeless in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens, all the boroughs of New York City save Staten Island," Cadillac wrote. "I have been urinated on because some people find that amusing and I've been shot at for the same reason, I have been given food mixed with bleach and food with scouring powder as garnish, I have fought dozens of fights using fists, feet, knees, elbows, blackjacks, ice picks, tire irons, chains, pipes, bricks, cans of soda, rocks, M-80 explosives, garbage cans, and even other people as weapons, never guns."

Well done, Cadillac. Way to draw the line.

But don't take this opportunity to tell everything about life on the streets. While you may be moving on up, your homeless buddies are not, and I'm sure they would sleep better -- by which I mean "have a greater chance to sleep through the night urine-free" -- if those "normal people" out there who treat homeless people like urinal cakes suspected just a bit that said urinal cakes were packing heat.

But you know them better than I do. Follow your heart.

"It Was a Darky and Stormy Night..."

The Bulwer-Lytton Awards are out, and although I thought this year's entires were not as awful in the creative way they are meant to be as they have been traditionally, they're still pretty good.

My favorites include

Looking sideways at Thomas, Mireille slowly removed her scarf, waiting . . . hoping . . . praying that when he came close enough to smell the delectable fragrance of her long, luscious waves that he wasn't going to start sneezing or sniffling or rubbing his eyes, because those were tell-tale signs of his allergies acting up, and if they did, he would know that she had been out rolling around in the lavender fields with Luc again.

Keriann Noble
Murray, UT"

and

As soon as Sherriff Russell heard Bradshaw say, "This town ain't big enough for the both of us," he inadvertantly visualized a tiny chalk-line circle with a town sign that said 'population 1,' and the two of them both trying to stand inside of it rather ineffectively, leaning this way and that, trying to keep their balance without stepping outside of the line, and that was why he was smiling when Bradshaw shot him.

Kerriann Noble (Again: Talented Woman)
Murray, UT

Giournalistica might find this one amusing:

Inside his cardboard box, Greg heated a dented can of Spaghetti-O's over a small fire made from discarded newspapers, then cracked open his last can of shoplifted generic beer to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his embarkation on a career as a freelance writer.

Lawrence Person
Austin, TX

Check 'em out if you've got nothing better to do.

It's "Rucksack," not "Fucksack" It's a Blurry Photo, Not a Quaint British Expression

It doesn't say, "Violators Will Be Shot," but it's implied.

"Do It Before I Get Old Testament on Your Bike-Riding Ass"

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.
A time to celebrate, and a time to unclog your gaping mangina.

Dude.

Seriously.

(Thanks to The Hot Librarian for posting that shot.)

We Now Return You to Your Usual Programming

Amy: Her popsicle MATCHES HER BRA, people. God, I love her.

"Trying to Strike Sparks in Minds that Held No Flint" -- Thomas Wolfe

I wanted to be the kind of teacher I’d always wanted; as I said, I wanted to inspire them. ...

What I didn’t anticipate was the monotony of their academic inquiry: ‘Can I go to the bathroom?’ ‘Do we need our books today?’ ‘Is this gonna be on the test?’

On the first day of class I was telling them about myself – that I liked theatre, that I sometimes reviewed theatre for the local paper – when a hand shot up. The hand twisted in the air, shook with impatience.

‘Do you have a question?’ I finally asked.

‘What’s theatre?’ he asked.

I couldn’t believe it.

‘Duh,’ said the girl beside him. ‘Theatre is live movies.’

In that moment, I realized something crucial: Those kids were so stupid.

...Could anybody be this dumb? After all, I went through college terrified to speak up in group discussions because I thought my opinions about literature and politics didn’t sound as good as everyone else’s. But these kids spoke without a filter, like drunken babies."

As a graduate student at a fairly-large university, I was charged with teaching undergraduate courses in political philosophy to a lot of these drunken babies, a few years removed from her setting. I didn't mind.

For every 10 drunken babies, there was usually 1 genuine student, amounting to 3 to 4 a semester in my classes of 35 - 45, and that was enough for me.

I loved teaching them: I loved guiding them through the difficult passages of the core texts of my discipline, helping them engage the ideas, express their own, and training them in the necessary skills and methods to find the truth as we political theorists saw it. I loved it so much, that dealing with the drunken babies was a minor inconvenience at best.


It's a different experience than what she was going through, teaching at the university level. At the university level, you're not required to teach anyone that doesn't want to be taught. They paid tuition. They can invest in a good education or they can mark time until the keys to the American economy are handed over to them. That few took the path of a good education made me bitter -- like most things -- but it didn't take the joy out of being in the classroom. And it didn't prevent me from nodding and laughing through that essay: I recognized a few of the experiences and sympathized with the others.

Before I left graduate school, I was offered a job teaching in a private school in Northern Virginia, and I passed on it to continue waiting tables. Somehow, I knew it would be totally different from teaching university classes, and I suspected that my head would've been in the oven by fall break. Reading about her experiences, I think I made the right decision.

Reports of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

Last Friday, the Seattle Times got wind of an Associated Press item about a local man who died after having sex with a horse."

Although posting infrequently -- busy at work -- I'm not dead. I'm fine. Thank you for your concern.

Well, Duh!

You are a Black Coffee

At your best, you are: low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty You drink coffee when: you can get your hands on it Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

Never Underestimate the Power of the Sentence "Why, yes, I do mind if you search my trunk."

The Sign Says, "What Do You Think the Cops Are Going To Say When They Find That Corpse You've Got in the Trunk?"

Never mind what they're going to say. Focus on what you are going to say: "I'd like to speak with an attorney." You can't go wrong with the Classics.

Dorothy Gibson Cully, R.I.P. (Carol, Burn in Hell)

I don’t know how they write obituaries where you live, but in the N.C., this is how they roll:

[Extremely edited.]

On June 3, 2005 at 10:45 p.m. in Memphis, Tennessee, Dorothy Gibson Cully, 86, died peacefully, while in the loving care of her two favorite children, Barbara and David. All of her breath leaked out.

She was born the second child of six in 1919 as Frances Dorothy Gibson, daughter to Kathleen Heard Gibson and Calvin Hooper Gibson, an inventor best known as the first person since the Middle Ages to calculate the arcane lead-to-gold formula. Unable to actually prove this complex theory scientifically, and frustrated by the cruel conspiracy of the so-called 'scientific community' working against his efforts, he ultimately stuck his head in a heated gas oven with a golden delicious apple propped in his mouth. Miraculously, the apple was saved for the evening dessert. Calvin was not.

At the time of her death, Dot was visiting her daughter, Carol in Memphis. Carol and her husband, Ron, away from home attending a 'very important conference' at a posh Florida resort, rushed home 10 days later after learning of the death. Dot's other children, dutifully at their mother's side helping with the normal last minute arrangements - hospice notification, funeral parlor notice, revising the last will, etc. - happily picked up the considerable slack of the absent former heiress.

Dot graduated from Eastern High School at 15, worked in Baltimore full time from 1934 to 1979, beginning as a factory worker at Cross & Blackwell and retiring after 30 years as property manager and controller for a Baltimore conglomerate, Housing Engineering Company, all while raising four children, two of who are fairly normal.

Opinions about the details of this obit are not, since Mom would have liked it this way."

I left all my bitter feelings toward my siblings and most of the family’s dirty linen out of my dad’s obituary. Live and learn.

Oh, well, there’s always mom.

That's How Good It Is To Be Oprah

"People were in the store and they were shopping. Oprah was at the door and she was not allowed into the store," Gayle King, a friend of Winfrey who witnessed the incident, told syndicated TV show "Entertainment Tonight." "Oprah describes it herself as `one of the most humiliating moments of her life.'"

Yeah, being denied the privilege of purchasing $350 scarves and $6,000 handbags after hours is pretty much the zenith of the humiliation pyramid. Being pulled on I-395 on the way to your cousin's wake and frisked on the hood of your car while your mother gets watched like a hawk for any sudden moves she might make in the passenger seat pales in comparison.

Happy Monday!

Young guys look at that picture and think, "That guy's got the bull by the horns." Older, wiser fellows, guys my age, look at that picture and think, "Fuck. Is it Monday already?"

"Tell Us about the Two-Pump Chump, Grandma! Tell Us about the Two-Pump Chump!"

She is one of 10,000 prostitutes in Berlin and 400,000 in Germany, where prostitution is legal. Dolle said she tried to work in a popular red light district nearby recently but was chased away by younger competitors.

Well, that'll happen when you work the streets without a pimp. Say what you will about the abuse and exploitation inherent in the pimping system, but the protection it offers can stop this sort of ageism from occuring. If Dolle had had a pimp, she would be tea bagging and corn-holing her way to a fatter IRA right now, because a pimp would have gone gansta' on those young ho's, pimp-slapping the lot of them until his geriatric groin grinder was the last ho' standing. You grandmothers out there take note.

I -Heart- the British

I'd remind my foreign readers that, although it's been a while, this sort of thing is not something we're unused to over here. There's not going to be a lot of freaking out from the generations that remember explosives in litterbins and bomb threat drills in office blocks. It was part of the fabric of life for a very long time.

Yeah, they hit us. But we didn't go down. Londonist's sympathies go to the victims, and we like to think of the hot sweat that is breaking out across the brows of a fair few terrorist nutters right now - we're coming for you, you fuckers."

Apparently, stiff upper lip doesn't mean "Live and let live."

"Damn, These Pickle Jars Are Cold." "Yeah, Deep, Too."

Now, why Dan would need such a book is beyond me. He's the only person I've ever met who washes all his groceries when he gets home from the store. Not the produce--the glass and plastic containers. 'You never know who's touched them,' he tsk'd me.

(It turns out he was right, because the next time I went grocery shopping, I did witness two drunken, homeless gentlemen stuffing steaks down their pants and relieving themselves on the pickle jars.)"

That? You mean, the fire and smoke. Oh, it's nothing -- just my pantry and freezer. I soaked them in kerosene and set them ablaze a little while ago. Ignore them. They'll burn out soon.

Can You Believe Gay Men and Women Want In on This?

“Being Bobby Brown,” the reality show spotlighting the R&B singer whose rap sheet might be longer than his catalog, is undoubtedly the most disgusting and execrable series ever to ooze its way onto television.

...

What gives “Bobby” that dismal distinction?

Is it the lionizing of a lowlife convicted of failing to pay child support for his out-of-wedlock kids, drunk driving and a cocaine-related parole violation? (And let’s not forget his spousal “slap-boxing” arrest.) Is it his insufferable ego (he calls his son, Bobby Jr., “special to me because he carries my name”)? Is it his constant crude comments (he tells wife Whitney Houston to “bring that ass in quick. I’m going to show you what I’m going to do with it.”)? Or is it just his disgusting persona as, in the second episode, he speaks of removing excrement from his wife’s derriere? (No, I’m not going to quote him.)

It’s all that, and then some."

Sometimes, it takes more than just love to make a marriage work. Sometimes, it takes a relunctant bowel, a little lube, and a lot of pharmacy-grade cocaine. Don't judge.

"When in the Course of Human Events..."

Congratulations!
You've won 90 total points out of a possible 110.

Right now, my AP U.S. History teacher is weeping.

Theirs Is the Superior Society

A family eats at a toilet-themed restaurant in southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung June 29, 2005. The Martun, or toilet in Chinese, restaurant in Kaohsiung boasts lengthy queues on weekends as diners wait for a toilet seat in its brightly colored tile interior. Food arrives in bowls shaped like Western-style toilets or Asian-style 'squat pots'.

I hear the water fountain is a bidet.