Friday, June 03, 2005
The Glamorous Life
I was wandering around downtown today, picking up some hot-sauce and hot kicks that can’t be had in my neighborhood, and everywhere I went I kept seeing these dumpy, frazzled-looking folks huffing and hustling their weary ways through the streets and subways and all wearing these silly paper painter’s hats emblazoned with a big blue “Contract Now!” logo.
“Who are these poor working stiffs?” I wondered. “Custodians? Sanitation Workers? Hospital Cafeteria Staff?”
Finally, crowded onto the train on the way home, I got a good look at one of the flimsy little hats as it sat perched oh-so-rakishly atop the liver-spotted wispily-fringed chrome-dome of one very tired looking man.
Madison Square Garden. June 2nd. UFT. Rally.
Of course. How could I forget? (Perhaps taking the day off to nurse a post-Devin hangover had something to do with it?) There was a great big teacher rally today at the World’s Most Famous Arena.
Woo hoo. Fuck the man. Resist. Fight the Power. Shuffle home to your cramped apartment and your miserable children, get up again the next day and every day for the rest of your sorry career until the disrespect, the constant yelling, the bureaucratic morass, the dirty halls and the crappy food, finally get to be too much and you cash in your meager pension only to return the next year as a substitute, because you need the bread and besides you’ve figured out how to fire out these days and weeks and months and years without even thinking about anything but your weekend trip to Jersey to see the in-laws.
I have seen my sad-sack future, and it ain't pretty.
I was wandering around downtown today, picking up some hot-sauce and hot kicks that can’t be had in my neighborhood, and everywhere I went I kept seeing these dumpy, frazzled-looking folks huffing and hustling their weary ways through the streets and subways and all wearing these silly paper painter’s hats emblazoned with a big blue “Contract Now!” logo.
“Who are these poor working stiffs?” I wondered. “Custodians? Sanitation Workers? Hospital Cafeteria Staff?”
Finally, crowded onto the train on the way home, I got a good look at one of the flimsy little hats as it sat perched oh-so-rakishly atop the liver-spotted wispily-fringed chrome-dome of one very tired looking man.
Madison Square Garden. June 2nd. UFT. Rally.
Of course. How could I forget? (Perhaps taking the day off to nurse a post-Devin hangover had something to do with it?) There was a great big teacher rally today at the World’s Most Famous Arena.
Woo hoo. Fuck the man. Resist. Fight the Power. Shuffle home to your cramped apartment and your miserable children, get up again the next day and every day for the rest of your sorry career until the disrespect, the constant yelling, the bureaucratic morass, the dirty halls and the crappy food, finally get to be too much and you cash in your meager pension only to return the next year as a substitute, because you need the bread and besides you’ve figured out how to fire out these days and weeks and months and years without even thinking about anything but your weekend trip to Jersey to see the in-laws.
I have seen my sad-sack future, and it ain't pretty.
