Layers Of Earth

(Editor’s note: This entry is from my son Jeremy Zhen. I believe this is his first-ever blog entry of any kind beyond FB status updates.)

I have made this for no particular reason. I was bored and I had free time. It has been a topic of discussion in my house for some time now. So, I decided to make it. Here are the most unique/obscure/hilarious college mascots/nicknames that I could find. However, I have to give credit to these teams because they could have been another generic Tigers or Bulldogs, but they chose to be the odd ones out. So I have come up with the top 10 most obscure out of all of them.

1- Long Beach State Dirtbags
Long Beach State prefers to be known as the 49ers. But there baseball team could care less. They have gone as the Dirtbags; dirt because of the baseball dirt and bags is what they call the bases, since the 1980’s.

2- University of North Carolina School for the Arts Fighting Pickles
The name of this college was created by 3 undergraduates in 1972. It was entered in a contest. The submission was just the “Pickles” with the slogan “Sling ‘em by their warts!”. Every year they held a touch football game versus Wake Forest, and, yes, of course the innuendos. They evolved into the “Fighting Pickle” in later years.

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“Where’s my driver? What the fuck. I don’t have time for this!”

That is the kind of thing that runs through my mind often when waiting on my paratransit ride. Unfortunately, it is the reality of this situation. Scheduled pick-up times are really just a window of approximation, a good ballpark idea of when you will actually be picked up. Initially, I used to think it had everything to do with the skills and abilities of the drivers to navigate their way efficiently through South Florida. I soon learned better. It is the nature of a system that has to be flexible enough to accommodate people with doctor’s appointments and therapy sessions.

So you learn to be flexible yourself. Some days, your driver may be early, sometimes they may run nearly an hour late. Once you start lowering your expectations, once you start to release even THAT measure of control, it becomes ok. Plus, for someone like me who is thankfully healthy, a few trips with someone coming back from chemotherapy or a dialysis session will ground you pretty quick.

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I should have written about these adventures long ago. It is something of a secret world, these Para-Transit adventures of mime. Let me explain with some background first.

Para Transit services are available in Broward County, Florida where I live. PT services enable people like me, people with disabilities that prevent them from driving a car, to get around town for $2.50 one way. You schedule a ride, either one way or round trip, 24 hours prior and they come and pick you up in a white car, van or wheelchair van. These rides can be very unpredictable in terms of timing and the people you’ll be riding with.

Again, I don’t know why I waited until my final week of work to start telling these tales.

So anyway, I usually have a ride home from the shop scheduled daily. I usually ride into work with my father-in-law Jerry, so I only really need a ride home since he cuts out early because it is a long, hot day for him in the shop. But today, since Jerry is out of town, I had to schedule a pick-up in order to arrive at the shop at 9AM. The folks at the PT provider told me to expect my driver to arrive between 7″30 and 8 AM.

And at 7:45, a white van pulled into my driveway.

Now when a PT vehicle arrives, you can tell a lot about how your experience is going to play out immediately. In this case, it was a wheelchair van which can be a mixed bag. If it arrives and there is no one on board, you may get lucky with a direct ride to your destination. But mornings are notoriously unpredictable with people going to work, school or doctor’s appointments. Upon closer examination, I noted there was already someone seated in the passenger seat aside the driver. Crap. This is gonna suck.

I am in a situation where I am about the most functional person who has to use PT. I am legally blind, but I really kinda see the world around me ok. My vision is best described as being really blurred and uncorrectable with lenses. But I can see people. I can see cars. I know South Florida like the back of my hand, so I usually know where I am in a car. So, I really hate wheelchair vans, especially when I have to sit in the back. That is because the process, for me at least, is kind of embarrassing.

The only way to get into the back of a wheelchair van is to get onto a hydraulic lift and get “lifted in” in a ceremony befitting a king or queen. You know, it’s one thing when you need to be lifted in because of an infirmity. I am perfectly able to climb in, so it is kind of humiliating. The really should play a fanfare, though, It would add some pizzazz to the moment.

Anyway, I find myself waiting helplessly as the driver, a fingerless gloved Haitian man of about 40, efficiently lowers the lift and waits for me to climb onto the grated surface. Man this sucks. I hope my neighbors aren’t watching, especially Jose, because he’ll give me shit next time I see him. I climb on and, as is habit, I refuse to wait for the hydraulics and make the big step right in to the back of the van in my own rebellious way. There are fold down seats that run along the side, so I take my place there, strapped in by a simple lap belt (which I have to tighten a lot as the previous occupant was obviously quite large). I place my lunch bag on the floor and ready myself for today’s journey. Read more

Ever have one of those evenings, afternoons or life segments where you have absolutely nothing positive to say about anything? That’s me right now. I can go on about…

Those idiot race fans. Man, sometimes I think they are not watching the same thing i am. They see wonderful racing, I see pure shit on the track. They see excitement, I see stark incompetence. Moron drivers in cars beyond their understanding, or on a track beyond their talents, racing, bumping, grinding, wrecking to the delight of fans remote and in person. Cheers, screams of delight as idiotic pilots brake too late, hurdle into turns beyond the bounds of grip and adhesion, ripping sheet metal and dollars out of the pockets of team owners and crew. No skills on display, just controlled chaos. Pointless. Rewarding nothing but circumstance. Tickles the over-stimulated masses. Where has my racing gone?

Radiohead has a new song. I am supposed to like it. I hate it. Read more

I first met Gabriel Spitfire in a session in Miami several years ago. He was fumbling with a song on an old blue Telecaster. The lad had obviously spent many years in the shadow of Bowie and Lennon based on his chord-play; Descending progressions in G that modulated into some E-Flat variant before long. He was mumbling a melody in his migrated London drawl, verbally scrawling words like “dirigible” and painting vibrant images of lost cities and love. He was immediately interesting, cigarette stuck to his lower lip and eyes rolled back in a moment of distant conjuring.

“That sounds nice,” I venture, worried that I may somehow flip a switch on this wisp of a man/boy and that he would lash out at my rudeness.

“You think? I’m just fucking about here a bit,” he replied in nearly a whisper. His accent seemed a bit odd at first, as if at some point he had tried to adapt to a local flavor and failed. He flicked his ash onto the floor, stood up and stuck out his left hand.

“Gabriel Spitfire at your service,” he said in an almost humorous way. Read more