I Refute You. Thus! (Kick)

Because we were all post grads starved for something to argue about, we AmeriCorps kids decided to form a reading group. We were also lazy, so we decided the pieces had to be short. So, every week we would designate someone to host and choose a story, essay, comic, or whatever. We called ourselves the Swimmers because that was the first story we read and discussed. And because we usually drank a lot.

One week, R decided to join us. R was in charge of making the warehouse more efficient and was outstandingly successful at it. He was also taking a break from an MA in philosophy at Ole Miss and since we hadn't read any philosophy yet  he volunteered to provide.

At lunch, we were sitting in the dwindling shade underneath a rusted, sheet metal structure that served as a volunteer orientation spot. Anyway, I asked, "What are you thinking for a philosophy essay?"

I admit that I didn't particularly care what he was going to choose -- I just wanted to hear him talk. R has a fantastic academic Mississippi drawl and so at lunch I would usually try to prod him into a rant so he'd keep going.

R shrugged. "I don't know. What would people like to talk about?"

"Well, your specialty was ethics, right? Why not bring up something from that?"

"Nah, I'm taking a break from that and I don't think anyone would really want to hear me talk about it because I've researched it so heavily I slide into minutia. What about you? What would you like to talk about?"

"Well, I'm really fascinated by Allan Turing's 'The Turing Test.' We could talk about that."

R gave me a horrified, baffled look. "Why would you want to talk about that?"

"Why not?" I asked, falling back on that age-old rhetorical last-stand question. "It's interesting. I think it could be fun to talk about the idea of humanness and talking about other minds."

R shook his head. "No, it's not. I find that entire debate dull and ridiculous. Why would you bother to ask if a computer can think? Of course it can't. It's a programmed machine."

"But-"

"And why bother asking if someone else has a consciousness outside of yourself. Of course they do. If they didn't, why would you bother trying to communicate with them. Go down that road too far and you end up in solipsism and you've lost the whole game."

I suddenly realized I'd brought a English major to a philosophy fight and looked for an escape route.

"Isn't that poor sportsmanship?" I asked. "Just dismissing someone's argument outright. Isn't that called straw-manning?"

"No, straw-manning is when you misconstrue someone else's argument to be weaker than it is and then tear it down. I didn't do that - I just said your argument wasn't worth my time."

"Again," I said, feebly. "Sportsmanship. What do they teach you at Ole Miss?"

R laughed. "Actually, they encourage you to do that. If you can't argue with someone then you just dismiss it outright and say, 'I'll tell you how wrong you are by ignoring you and starting at the beginning.' Bertrand Russell did it all the time."

Lunch was over. We started to retreat back to our respective offices. "So, what would you like to talk about?"

"'The Apology,'" R said, and proceeded to explain. I considered it a successful lunch break.

Stalled

AB's car had broken down, again. In fact, everyone's car had broken down. In the final couple weeks at my job, every single person in the office, except our boss, at one time lost the use of their vehicles for one reason or another.

Luckily, TC was still at the office working after hours, Everyone did there. We walked in to the cinder block building and sat down in the cool air. TC consulted his watch. "Where do you need to go?"

"To my place. It's in the Irish Channel," AB said.

"Oh, that's great. I have to be Uptown, so I can just drop you guys off and go right to the meeting," TC started to shut down his computer and gather up his manila files and plastic binders.

"Do you have to meet a client?" I asked.

"No," T said. He bowed his head sheepishly. "Happy hour."

We went to his car and I sat in the passenger's seat and AB in the back. Inside, before we opened the windows, it was an oven. How did people in Louisiana survive before air conditioning? All the old pictures of politicians and gentlemen, ladies, business people with their layers of wool and elaborate fabrics smothering them, temperatures rising to unbearable levels to generations raised in shorts and central AC.

People, they say down there, have figured out ways of escaping the heat. The high ceilings are one method. All the heat rises so that your surrounded by relatively cool air. Shade, too. You learn how to find shade in the South. Nothing much gets done. Everyone admits defeat for a few months and waits until October, when the oysters are good.

#

Pulling out of the drive and onto the long road leading from the Parish back to Orleans, Judge Perez, TC asked me about my plans.

"Don't have any right now, really. I'm applying for jobs and waiting to hear back from Tulane. If they give me a job, I'll stay. If they don't, I'm going back north." This is more or less what I told everyone verbatim in the second to last week I spent in New Orleans.

"I hope you get it," TC said.

"So do I," AB said.

We talked about job prospects and whether we would stay in New Orleans or not. Both AB and TC intended to stay another year. TC wasn't sure if he'd stay where he was, but AB wanted to find a case management job, which is what she'd gone to school to do in the first place.

#

"What if you can't find a job?" TC asked. "Do you have a back-up plan? Can you stay with family?"

"I can," I said. "I mean, I want a job and an apartment and it makes me nervous that I haven't found anything yet."

"That's good, though," TC said. "You're lucky. I know some people who don't even have that. They live pay check to pay check and some of them are even helping their parents out. If someone can't come up with a couple hundred dollars that month, then everyone's screwed."

"Yeah, I am lucky," I said.

"We all never really know how lucky we are," said AB, looking out the window at a two story building with a partially collapsed roof and vines growing out between the slats in faded and peeling shutters.

"I won't starve and I won't be homeless," I said. "That's more than a lot of people have."

#

Sitting in IB's living room with CS one night talking about jobs, CS said, "I tried and I'm still trying to find case management work, but I just can't find anything. No one calls me back. I have experience. I even had a master's degree. And I work on projects and volunteer all the time. It occurred to me the other day that I'm lucky to be a petty cab driver..."

#

TC asked me if I'd do AmeriCorps again.

"Not if I can help it," I said. "I like the program. It's great for service and supporting good nonprofits that need the help. But I want something more stable. And where I'm actually earning money."

"I hear you," TC said. "I think I could do this another year, but after that I'll move on to something else."

AB said, "I may, I may not. I haven't decided."

"I promised myself," I said. We were on the I-10 elevated interstate driving through the 7th Ward and curving in to follow the unseen river toward Uptown. "That I would spend my twenties going from one to two year obligations from one to the next. But I'm already sick of that. I want stability and I think I'm ready for it."

"You have to do what's good for you," said TC.

"But, isn't it arrogant?" I asked. "What privilege I have that I feel like I can choose to get a stable, salaried position and move wherever I want to? And can I really? That's what I've been told my whole life. That it's just a matter of trying."

#

"Last summer," said AB, "I applied for everything I could and eventually just needed a job. So I applied for waitressing and bartending jobs figuring that I could at least get that, but I couldn't. And, I mean, I have experience. I've worked as a waitress and a bartender for years and nobody even called me back. There are no jobs out there. None."

#

"I miss working in a coffee shop, actually," I said, "But I don't feel like I can go back to that if I ever want to get out it."

"I know," said TC, "It was great being able to leave work at work."

"And the tips," AB said. "And people are made to feel that not wanting more than that isn't right. That what they want isn't worthy."

"Yeah," said TC. "I mean, my grand father worked every day of his life from the age of eighteen. He got married and had kids at nineteen and got a house and that was enough for him. I sometimes wonder why that isn't enough for me."

"Maybe it was enough for him. But that shouldn't mean that you need to live the same way."

#

TC pulled up to AB's house. "Good talk," TC said. "Good talk, you guys. Have a good night."

Trash

In this heat, the trash can't sit. At my office this basic fact has become a sacred duty.

My coworkers and I find Evidence of vermin every morning. Droppings. Dead cockroaches. Things. Combating the fruit flies is a full-time job. At one point, a former colleague threatened anyone who dared leave food in the office overnight with the punishment of being tied up Gulliver-style, covered with cheese, and left until morning. The trash must be taken out. And that full-time job goes to me.

When I worked at the Java House in Iowa City I never minded taking out the trash. It was a duty universally despised by my coworkers, but for some reason I found it zen. Remove the bag, march through the back past the studyers, the coffee junkies, the people Ignoring you walking by with a gigantic bag of coffee grinds and filters, depositing said bag in a dumpster and, magically, the place is cleaner. That's why, before I leave work every day at the office, I don't mind taking out the trash.

Actually, I do this Everywhere.

At my house, I am usually the one carrying the trash can to the curb every Tuesday and Friday morning. Whenever there's a construction project that I am compelled to attend because of work, I'm always glad to clean up the site, tie up the garbage bags, and throw things into the giant green bins for Disposal.

Often, at parties, I find myself Carrying out bags of red cups, beer boxes, half-eaten slices of pizza, dirty plastic plates and silverware, scribbled notes, cans, bottles, wrappers, moldy food, broken electronics, and the debris of late furniture. It's a compulsion.

And I'm not Opposed to sorting out the Refuse either. My Green and German friends have Educated me. Plastics, glass, paper, and bio-degradables all belong to separate containers to be taken Other Places, Somewhere Else.

It's easy. A zen gesture. Probably something that, under proper scrutiny, Reveals Something about my personality, upbringing, and identity. I am, however, too lazy to make metaphors or go too deeply into self-introspection today. So, take from this what you will. In fact, take it out. Forget about it.

#

My friend, Paul "Canada" Nemeth, the man who saved my life once in high school, is now a poet. And he knows it, apparently. Check out his Facebook page.

Stipend

"Have you ever really thought about the awesome implications of ten dollars?" asked G. He stared at a tremendous, fire-engine red container of Folgers coffee.

"Right now I'm thinking about eating," I said. There was a pre-made salad in my hands. Sort of a guilty pleasure since pre-made food isn't really in the Spirit of food stamps.

"A guy in the street a few days ago asked me for a dollar. He used the bill to snort something in front of me. Imagine what ten dollars would do? I wonder if that does affect the quality of the experience? G I need to borrow your money - this needs to be tested." M said. M held a sandwich and a six pack of Tin Roof.

"How much do you think this costs with tax?" G asked, inspecting the Folgers.

"Ten dollars should cover it," M said.

"And this will go for a few weeks," G said, pondering. "My last ten dollars. It seems like a valuable investment. Without coffee, I can't function. I wonder how long I can go without food."

"It's a lousy experiment," I said, "I can buy you food. I've got food stamps."

"We get paid tomorrow," M pointed out. "Four hundred and ninety-five dollars."

"Three-fifty goes to rent immediately," G said. "But I can still afford food with a hundred and ninety-five."

"But then you have to take into account fifty dollars week for entertainment and drinks," M countered. "And then there's miscellaneous expenses, like flat tires, bribes, gas, insurance, taxes, medicine, more coffee. So, realistically, you have fifteen for food. Maybe fifteen fifty."

We walk to the counter. "I'm buying you sushi," I told G. I actually couldn't afford it since I only had seventeen dollars left on my account and I was in the middle of reapplying for further funds.

"Want me to throw in for the beer?" I asked M.

"Who said you're getting any?" M replied. "Nah. If you want to."

I gave M two dollars, bringing his contribution down to ten. We paid and went outside. We were in the French Quarter Rouses at the corner of Royal and St. Peter. Outside it was a cool early Spring evening just getting dark. Doreen Ketchens was giving a performance.

"Wouldn't it be great to be musician?" G asked as we walked to the levee. "They are the happiest people in this town. Who's seen a starving, tortured artist since they came down here?"

"Beer tax," M mutters to himself. "Did you know that between the three of us we make one very poor salary?"

"I wonder how much they make?" G said. He glanced over his shoulder at Doreen, considering. "Do you think they earn more than we do?"

"Definitely," I said. "Fun fact -- it takes Mitt Romney four and a half hours to earn our annual income."

We climbed up the levee and sat on the rocks below the concrete walkway. It's impossible to see water from anywhere in New Orleans without climbing -- hence the joke that the river is the highest point in the city. M distributed the beer and we ate our food.

"How far are we from your apartment?" G asked M.

"About twenty minutes from here," M says.

G held up the can of coffee contemplatively. "Do you have access to water?" he asked.

"That's a pretty damning question in this city," M said. "Thems fightin' words."

"Well, if you have water then we could make coffee," G said, undaunted.

"Amazing!" M said. "We could make coffee."

G elaborated. "And then we would be in the Bywater, where we would have access to Things. The coffee would get us through the evening."

"Well maybe," I said. "You know, I've found that Nodoz are more cost effective."

#

Holy shit, I've kept this blog running for a year solid. I'm permitting myself that this is a triumph.

Grandfatherness

During the AmeriCorps orientation our employer told us about the landlord for our business office.  It's part of the Spiel.  Anyone on the development team must be able to tell volunteers about how Mr. F was a fireman for 20 years, then a fisherman for another 20, retired and opened up an appliance repair shop so that he could spend his old age tinkering with things.  He lived within five minutes of all his grandkids.

Katrina hit and his home - now our business office - flooded to the second floor.  He was picked up by another local with a boat and taken to the roof of a bank where he and two hundred others awaited Rescue.  It took five days for help to arrive in the form of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  It's as much a depressing story about America as it is a sad story about one person's trial.

Meeting Mr. F was surprising.  He's a heavy, crass, old man who loves to wander around the office, hassle us, hit on the women, and give us all nicknames (I'm Uncle Sam, or Mark, or Simon, I'm not sure which).  He speaks with a thick New Orleanian accent that sounds more Bostonian than Southern.  Backwards, a little racist, perpetually telling strange stories, and somehow amazingly endearing he reminds everyone of his or her grandfather.  The man embodies some sort of platonic form of Grandfatherness.  He reminds me of my grandfather and there is absolutely no resemblance.  For one of the other AmeriCorops members, Leisl, the resemblance to her deceased grandfather is so strong that she told me when she first met Mr. F she nearly started crying.

Leisl told me recently how she spoke to another New Orleanian, M, about the future of the city.  M told her, "New Orleans is dead," and that sooner or later another storm will come through, destroy the city again and no one will have the energy to come back.  This is, evidently a common feeling among the natives.

But, Leisl asked, then why bother rebuilding?  Why come back in the first place if it's just a lost cause?

"Because," M said. People have lived here for generations and generations.  New Orleans has been a music and culture center for America for three hundred years.  People have lived, loved, worked, and died on this land for centuries.  There are so many bones and stories here.  That's worth the effort.  And it struck me, as Leisl told me this, that the people who come down here to rebuild, and those that came back, too, all talk about New Orleans like a Grandfather.

So, You're the Grant Writer

My landlord introduces me to everyone saying, "This is Sam, my housemate.  The grant writer."  At first, I found this flattering, but lately it's becoming a little unnerving.  My identity, it seems, is inseparable from my duty as an Americorps member.

The past week has been a Harrowing trial of orientation and job training.  My colleagues are all, predictably, very well educated, adventurous individuals with some pretty impressive stories.  Whenever we have to introduce ourselves, we do so going around the room, rattling off some personal details and stories and then fading in with the rest of the exceptional lot.  This has not been the case for me.  It seems every time I say my name, one of my superiors looks at me with an intrigued, hungry look and says, "So, you're the grant writer."

When I worked for the Iowa State Seed Lab a few winters ago I remember being introduced to all the researchers and staff.  All of them were middle aged professionals in white coats.  The HR woman then pointed into a corner office where a young woman in a blue bandana and grungy clothes sat slouched over her computer wearing gigantic headphones.  "And that's our grant writer," said the HR woman.  The grant writer waved without looking up.

That's what I feel like I'm supposed to be.  Some harried goblin, squirreled away in the corner who has worked out an understanding, a pact with the world around him.  Leave me the fuck alone and I will bring you Money.

My week has felt much like I imagine life must be for a priest at Notre Dame.  Called to a position of peace and contemplation and surprised to find Americans at every turn.  Unable to find Solace anywhere else, I've mostly locked myself in my room with A Dance With Dragons, my notebook and trying to avoid listening to Simon and Garfunkle's "I Am a Rock."

But, I have a Desk.  And I've found coffee shops, bananas, bars, and Bourbon Street.  Mostly I'm very happy to have a desk for the first time in my life, one where I shall conduct Work and Business.  Furthermore, it is not as hot here as I thought it would be.  I mentioned this to one of my colleagues, the PR woman.

"Yeah, it's a cultural thing, really.   Everyone loves to complain about the heat even though it's the same heat every year," she said.

These are my very muddled thoughts right now.  I have sequestered myself in the Who Dat Cafe and have spent the afternoon writing and reading.  A good day by any measure.  Still, this is a poor excuse for a post.  Please forgive me.

I have faith that in a few weeks I will get my barring and suddenly everything will become clear.  But last night my landlord told me, laughing, "You're in New Orleans now!" as if to negate all further discussion on subject of clarity.  He added, "One thing I will say about this city is that it's a great place to grow.  To find yourself.  It's a free place.  As far as the nightlife goes, alternative lifestyles, music, sex, drinks, all that stuff."  Now I have a mental association between being young in New Orleans and an erection.

A few minutes later, the musician who moved in next door, also my landlord's tenant, texted him.  The guy hasn't been paying rent.  The landlord is prepared to change the locks.  My landlord stared at the phone, baffled and angry, and then looked at me saying, "Do you know what he did today?  When I asked him for rent, he gave me a poem!"

This evening I shall go out and sing karaoke.  I only hope they have the Gin Blossoms, Oasis, and Counting Crows.