In the last three years, I have seen…

…great talent ruined by drugs, the pursuit of drugs and crippling drug addiction.

…what happens when you let a woman destroy a friendship.

…friends and family die, some before their time, but was only able to attend one funeral.

…what Oregon and northern California look like, after years of doing it in my imagination.

…a picture of myself and Ronnie on a rollercoaster, the first time I ever rode one.

…my friend Adam and Jessica get married, gain careers, build a house and make me an uncle.

…my dad’s health go down and level out and go down and level out and his demeanor change with each, but at least he’s not afraid to tell me that he loves me anymore.

…my relationship with Ronnie run hot and cold, and hotter still, and now I’m going to marry my best friend and live happily ever after, and hang out with Cyrus because we’re on the same level.

…the independent publishing world from the inside out, published five comics through Wowio (almost six now), made a little bit of money but not enough to offset production costs and learned what it really means to follow your dreams.

What the Hell else did I see these last few years in Ottawa?

Online classes suffer the same burdens of any technology—of the web, nuclear fission, etc.—in that their value is only as good or bad as the people who take them.

Guns don’t have to kill people, computers don’t have to hack the Department of Defense and neither do online classes have to act as a haven for the apathetic, the dishonest and the lazy. But they do.

In an ideal world, bullets are used to put dinner on the table and e-mail helps us communicate with long-lost friends and relatives, and busy students try to earn an education while working around a schedule that includes careers, babies and mortgage payments.

But let’s be honest with ourselves. We don’t live in an ideal world and Mother Culture doesn’t use the word “earn” like she used to.

Now an education’s simply “something we get,” another hoop we have to jump through before getting on to the “next stage” of our lives, and hardly anybody appreciates the benefits of wisdom because the effects aren’t always readily apparent.

(Bud Lite, though, man, there’s a strain of causality we can really appreciate.)

Few work for an education because few really want it—learning not for learning’s sake but because of that flammable little sheet of compressed tree fiber that supposedly enables us to “do what we really want to do with our lives” (which typically only amounts to languishing in a cubicle and being a good little Capitalist, dedicated to all of our possessions and the incessant need for more, more, more).

Knowledge isn’t power; it’s a speed bump in our Sisyphian quest for instant gratification and the Hedonist bent of an office Christmas party, and online classes are just one more way for us to downgrade the learning process into something quick and easy—though I hear the real buzz word now is “accessible”—with a negligible impact on our social lives predicated on alcohol, sex and mindless minutia (also known as “the really important stuff”).

It’s not the technology that’s flawed. It’ not online classes that are the problem: it’s us.

We don’t understand that education isn’t a microwave. You don’t just punch in a few numbers and wait for it to ding, and we’re abusing the technology. Learning is something that should be cherished and shared, something lifelong we seek to enrich ourselves (and our children and the world around us) with but it’s not. They tell us it is but we all know that “they” are lying.

The path of least resistance leads colleges (like Ottawa University) to continue adding online courses to their books out of a necessity to cater to a culture that values shortcuts and illusion more than it does the tenets of a liberal arts education.

Thanks to the web, class curriculums from colleges all over the world can be viewed and saved, books can be ordered online and—with tools like Wikipedia, Sparknotes and Google—the only thing keeping us from pursuing a life of independent learning is our tendency to be dependent.

(Hate on Wikipedia all you want to but research indicates that this nexus of all information is more accurate, word for word, than most modern encyclopedias and the dedicated souls who moderate and edit the website are some of the most aggressive and detail-oriented around—especially in math and the sciences.)

The fact of the matter is, anyone with the Internet and a drive to learn can know what anyone else knows, can do research and interact with others in the field and belong to peer groups who will evaluate one’s work and offer support. And they don’t have to pay $20,000 a year to do it.

What I’m saying here is, we pay a lot of money for the privilege and opportunity to sit in an interactive classroom situation with (multiple) degree-wielding professors, to use the excitement of class participation and the fluidity of conversation to our advantage, and no online class could ever hope to replicate this precious experience.

Sure, there is a handful of non-traditional students who are going to go above and beyond and learn for the sake of learning, and those are the ones who benefit from online classes—you know, the ones who are outwardly motivated already.

But what we have now are online classes mostly just serving as a cop-out for people with an embarrassment of cop-out riches. They’re diminishing the value of learning, not just a degree, and facilitating an entire subset of students to lower the bar because “all we gotta do is make it through.”

The following is a streamlined, more coherent version of some criticism I did of “Heart-Shaped Box” in December of 2005, slightly restructured and far cleaner than the original, which was used for an oral presentation in my Literary Criticism class on Wednesday out of pure panic.



"Heart-Shaped Box" by Kurt Cobain

She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak
I've been locked inside your Heart-Shaped box for a week
I was drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black

Hey! Wait! I've got a new complaint! 5
Forever in debt to your priceless advice.
Hate! Haight! I've got a new complaint!
Forever in debt to your priceless advice.
Hey! Wait! I've got a new complaint!
Forever in debt to your priceless advice... Your advice. 10

Meat-eating orchids forgive no one just yet
Cut myself on angel's hair and baby's breath
Broken hymen of your highness I'm left black
Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back



The goal of this presentation is to place “Heart-Shaped Box” culturally through a New Historic reading and shed some light on life in the Seattle grunge movement of the late 80’s and early 90’s, which was essentially the poetic sensibilities of 70’s rock combined with the revolutionary spirit of mid-80’s punk.

“Heart-Shaped Box” is a pseudo-love song written by Cobain for his wife Courtney Love and “In Utero” was the album on which “Heart-Shaped Box” first appeared.

A New Historic note on the style: The cut-up or decoupage style of the lyrical writing comes from Cobain’s youth reading S.E. Hinton, William Burroughs and T.S. Elliot. Kurt spent a lot of time in the library as a teenager and also acknowledged Jack Kerouac (anti-establishment), Samuel Beckett (postmodern minimalist) and Camille Paglia (dissident feminist) as influences.

Line 1: In Astrology, Pisces are best known for their sensitivity, compassion, selflessness and sympathy so, if Courtney was looking at Kurt “like a Pisces” when he was weak, she must have been good to him in his times of weakness—irony, as you’ll see from the rest of the lyrics.

Cobain was himself a Pisces (b. Feb. 20, 1967) so he could have also been saying, “She looks at me like I look at me when I’m weak,” with possible disdain, because the singer was known to be a wild manic-depressive.

Pisces are also characterized as being easy to control so we can also read the opening as: "She eyes me like [I'm] a Pisces [and easily controlled] when I am weak [and therefore exploits me].”

The liner notes from Nirvana’s 1992 album “Incesticide” show that Cobain was already struggling with control issues prior to 1993’s release of “In Utero”: "A big 'f*ck you' to those of you who have the audacity to claim that I'm so naive and stupid that I would allow myself to be taken advantage of and manipulated."

Line 2: The book “Come As You Are” by Michael Azerrad tells us that Courtney literally sent a heart-shaped box to his hotel room as a gift so at least this part of the poem is biographical and not metaphor. Inside the box were several strange objects, including a severed doll's head.

There are reports that the heart-shaped box Courtney gave to Kurt was a re-gift from her former lover, Billy Corgan, the frontman behind Smashing Pumpkins. If this is true, once Kurt learned about the box’s origins, he’d have plenty of reasons to resent its existence. Being locked inside the box, as the lyrics suggest, is a symbol for the love-hate relationship Cobain had with his wife.

Line 3: Kurt being drawn into a “magnetic tar pit trap” is a reference to Cobain’s three year addiction to black tar heroin before he died, a substance that many biographers believe Love introduced him to during their courtship. This interpretation is supported by Kurt’s (now-published) journals and the prominence of poppy fields (where heroin comes from) in the video.

He felt trapped by addiction and it’s possible that Courtney’s pregnancy further complicated an already claustrophobic situation. Francis Bean Cobain, a girl and Kurt’s only child, was born on August 18, 1992 while her mother was still taking heroin herself (according to a Vanity Fair article). “In Utero” was released in September of the next year.

According to Charles Cross, the original title of the song was “Heart-Shaped Coffin” so Kurt was thinking about the consequences of his addiction and loving Courtney Love.

Line 4: Because of “Pisces” in line 1, we know that Cobain has knowledge of the zodiac. When he says, “I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black,” that’s really Cancer with a capital C. Courtney Love was born under the sign of Cancer (b. July 9, 1964). Cancer’s are known for being possessive and vindictive, both of which could overwhelm a good-natured Pisces.

“I wish I could eat your Cancer,” he says, “take away all those qualities you have as a Cancer that are making me miserable.” Courtney Love is a Cancer (the sign). Courtney Love is a Cancer (something that will kill you).

The word “black” symbolizes Courtney’s lunatic behavior as well as the color of Kurt’s lungs now that she’s introduced him to black tar heroin.

Lines 5-10, the Chorus: These lines are Kurt reaching the breaking point, insistantly wanting to confront Courtney about their relationship though he’s obviously been ineffectual.

There is some evidence to suggest that “forever in debt to your priceless advice” is a sarcastic jab at one of Cobain’s friends who counseled him to stay with Courtney despite all their problems.

The other “Haight” in the chorus (not the “hate” as in “I don’t like you” hate) could be a reference to: Kurt’s affinity for the bohemian music scene on the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco (which Cobain must have respected) or the drug and alcohol rehabilitation center with the same name in the same area (though there’s no evidence to say that Cobain ever checked in). These were things on his mind as he went through his life as an addict and musician.

Line 11: This is Kurt being at odds with mainstream society. More irony. Mother Culture says that men give women flowers to say “I’m sorry” or reconcile differences—orchids, in this case—and there’s no amount of flowers that could save Kurt and Courtney’s relationship. These flowers are carnivorous and evil, and they certainly don’t grant him any kind of forgiveness.

Line 12: Baby's breath and angel hair are common plants grown to compliment flower arrangements. Yet again Cobain is confronting us with the typification of how men and women are supposed to engage one another in contrast to how he and his lover behave. He's "cut" himself on what amounts to social convention. Popular logic has wronged him or is of no use.

Line 13: The ideal of a young woman being a princess, such that Courtney was “your highness,” is a chivalric and prevalent notion but the pairing of this with the concept of a broken hymen, no longer the virginal princess we thought she was, creates a kind of cognizant dissonance that sinks Kurt further and further into a state of depression. Whoever’s fault it is, Courtney isn’t what he thought she was going to be and we go back to the image of blackness to describe his Self.

Line 14: The "umbilical noose" is indicative of Courtney making Kurt feel like a child with her possessive and vindictive behavior, hence the image of a newborn being strangled by the very thing that gives it life—Kurt and Courtney’s love-hate relationship.

Cobain was struggling with the exhaustive responsibilities of being a celebrity and he wants to get away from the circus, go to some place away from media scrutiny (the womb) and forsake the chains of responsibility (as a child would).

In Freudian context, Courtney is Kurt's displaced mother figure and he sees her as the one to take him in and protect him from life’s horrors—despite her being one of those horrors herself.

The birth of Francis Bean has obviously imprinted itself on Kurt’s creative consciousness and this line could also be viewed as a psychopathic wish for infanticide, a desperate and trapped man’s only option for freedom.

Listening to a bunch of freshman girls try to defend Feminism is a lot like listening to nails scrape across a chalkboard. It’s not that they lack the feminine experience (like I do) but because they’re still trying to separate Radical Feminism from Moderate Feminism, from Socialist Feminism and all the other branches of a complicated and centuries-old movement, and not everything they say is coherent or even manageable, let alone realistic.

(Today I heard: “And men don’t even think women can ride horses!”)

The whole thing is like little thought cars bumping into one another, jamming up the airwaves, like someone’s thinking out loud without ever having read “A Literature of Their Own” or the criticisms of Feminism found in Queer Theory—like the perceived authority granted to them by virtue of being female is somehow a good substitute for education and/or common sense.

(From Charles Bressler’s book, “Literary Criticism: an Introduction to Theory and Practice,” one of the few bits of that monstrosity that I actually found helpful: “[Judith Butler] asserts that feminism made a mistake when it declared that women were a special group with common interests. By so doing, feminists, maintains Butler, reinforced the patriarchal culture that assumed the masculine/feminine and male/female binary oppositions.”

That is, you take a line in the sand and make it bigger, and dare people to walk across it, and all you’re doing is perpetuating the problem—which is the same argument I made years ago in my much-maligned blog, “Why I Hate Black History Month.” Huh.)

Tangent aside: Yes, I cede a lot of authority to the feminine experience and am not attempting to invalidate that but it’s not the only tools a Feminist needs to articulate her (or his) points. I hear it over and over again: “Sometimes you have to leave yourself and your surroundings to truly understand what’s happening in yourself and your environment.” Sometimes you don’t even need to go very far.

What these so-called Freshman Feminists do is cobble together an ultra-sensitivity to criticism (“as a man, you can’t possibly understand the tenets and necessity of equal rights so therefore shut the fuck up”) and go on the instant offensive at every available opportunity, as if any dissection of their methodology is an effort to destroy it completely. Not true.

Defend feminine rights! Validate the sex! Push on, great warriors of the Vag, but please be aware that you’re attacking a doctorate-wielding professor of philosophy for saying that the Feminist movement has changed over the years and runs the gamut of emotions from militaristic anger to peaceful and loving reconciliation!

(The exclamation points are mine. The main idea remains the same.)

In other news, I won some awards at the Kansas Associated Collegiate Press convention (though I didn’t attend the actual event) so that should make some people back home (who care about these sorts of things) very happy. I won first place in Editorial Writing (with Will Allison, apparently, because that’s how we were entered but Will himself admitted to Kara that he didn’t write the article); a solo third place in Editorial Writing; and honorable mention in Headline Writing and Review Writing (for my “Rambo” review, which probably suffered because all those stuffy academic types don’t like action movies).

(I finally see how this could be helpful on a résumé.)

In addition to the KACP honors, at Spring Convocation, I was presented with the 2009 Ottawa University Excellence in Writing and Literary Studies award, which meant much less to me than the speech that Andy gave to introduce it—partly because I think awards are arbitrarily and useless but partly because he made me believe that I’ve made a difference, even for a moment.

I sometimes feel that what I do is worthless and I’m just spinning my wheels, that nobody gives a shit and I exist inside this lonely bubble, away from everything important, but for three minutes I felt like I actually mattered, that I was doing something and touching people’s lives. And it wouldn’t have meant a damn thing if Andy wouldn’t have meant what he said, but he did, and I’m more grateful to him for that than he’ll ever know. I was proud of myself, do you understand…? I’ve been proud of myself maybe three times in my entire life and I was proud.

Barb talks a lot about guilt and how it presents itself in our culture, how it’s omnipresent and scary, and for a moment I was free. I wasn’t scared that people didn’t like me, I didn’t have to crack a joke about being fat if you couldn’t take fat jokes, I didn’t have to worry about being white trash or a man or at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder; I didn’t have to feel sorry for not being someone else’s religion or a shitty boyfriend (soon to be a shitty husband and a shitty father) and I was okay. Not the greatest thing since sliced bread, not the greatest show on earth, but I was okay. It was okay to be me and for once, outside of graduating from Coffeyville or being with Ronnie, I wasn’t insecure and scared.

These small moments, they’re the ones that matter.

Like on Friday, I missed all (two) of my classes to be with my dad and all I did was check the oil in his trucks and ride with him to town a couple of different times and pump (smelly, smelly) gas; and filled his lawnmower up from the one-gallon gas can; and sit there with him and ate lunch for the first time in years, leftovers; and played with his dog; and listened to him bitch about this or that; and see him smile when he talked about my baby or my wedding, or my finally getting a Bachelor’s degree when he’d lost hope long ago that I could actually do it.

It’s the most we can do, these small things, because we’re from so totally different worlds and have little else in common but our DNA. And maybe it’s the speech Andy gave or maybe it’s “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy that I’ve been reading, or maybe because I know how easy it is to avoid someone when they’re dying, how not to call or not to stay on the line very long because, if you move yourself from them—if you can just be away, try to deny their impact—if you can—then maybe you can avoid the hurt and. And. It’s all we have sometimes. Just to keep going, keep pushing, keep fighting, keep everything. And.

I spent Thursday night in Bartlesville not understanding how important wedding invitations are to a bride. I said I didn’t get it, all the fat books they had or how they charged a hundred and twenty dollars for fifty invitations—but only if you get ‘em sent off—or what beveled paper or raised ink might matter, or why the envelopes had to be a certain size. I didn’t understand. I still don’t but I’ll never do it again, like tip-toeing around the rules you don’t know about, how much certain things can mean to someone else but how little other things that you thought would be important even factor into the equation. I just want to make her happy and all I did was piss her off. She’s easy-going and level and I tried—Lord, I tried—but nothing I said came out right except “I love you,” because I did, I do, and so it was.

Lots to do today, none of which included this mess of writing. Back to it, then.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

"What I was walling in": a Queer Reading of Robert Frost's "Mending Wall"