“What is the purpose of Grades?” #2

I Zamboni have received my first ever in history complaint.

!!!

As stunning as it was to me, I did receive a voiciferous complaint from Jannush Warrenski. A few weeks ago, this bedruggled teacher sent me as he says it, “a cry from the mud” and because I myself did not answer but left his query to my human vessel, the quotidian Jordan Winer- the answer as he somewhat cryptically said, “did not HELP ME AT ALL!” (https://greatzamboni.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/what-is-the-purpose-of-grades/)

So now I greatzamboni will answer this question for him, “what is the purpose of Grades”

Grades are for meat. Special trained people in white coats look at all the meat in the world and they have special stamps with very pretty blue ink. With these stamps they stamp the meat. About 2% of all meat is stamped “prime”. This meat very good and marbled with nice fat. This meat is like Lawrence Summers and Henry Paulson.

The next grade down, like a “B” is “Choice”.

“Select” is like getting the gentleman’s “C” grade. It is chewy stuff you get in first class of Estonian Airways if you are lucky.

Mr. Warrenski, the purpose of all grades in to make people feel and be like Meat– and as we know from the sage Morissey who is so cool he needs one name only, “meat is Murder”- and so Grades are meant to murder the soul in a tiny way, day after day year after year, so the the student/piece of meat will begin to see life as just she is a piece of meat moving through a maze of twists in turns in a big factory heading for the final destination.

No school system will ever be truly revolutionary until like BF Skinner’s Walden II they get rid of Meatthink.

horizontal_meat_NEW — The tiny strip of mushrooms represent fringe freethinkers like Ben Franklin and Zamboni!!

God, that’s depressing even Zamboni- but since it come to me, it must be true. Remember, if its very sad or very funny- it is always true.

Complain on that!

Tear Gas

Greatzamboni never hears this from the underground metro driver over intercom before tonight: “This is 19th street station, the transfer point to the Richmond train. Your train is waiting on the opposite side of the platform. Please cover up as you cross the platform as there may be some residual tear gas fumes. Thank you and have a good evening.”

And before then: “We apologize for the inconvenience, we’ll be passing straight through the 12th Street station as we cannot stop there due to..the..uh, civil unrest.”

occupy oakland — Zamboni has been rudely woken up many times in his life- by rabid crows in Borneo, by Piranhas nibbling my earlobes in Peru, by a horde of Jealous sumos in japan- but i am very glad this was not me in this tent this morning in Oakland Ca at 4:30 am.

I know something is happening, but I don’t know what it is- do you Mr. Jones? Please tell Zamboni!

Will It Rain Tomorrow?

This question comes to me often including today and I have a definitive answer for you.

No. It never rains. As the Egyptian Lover said to his one-eyed concubine: “it only rains if you let it- pass the mustard.”

Rain is external, it is “beyond your control” – therefore since you cannot control it, you simply must control your response to it. The wise jump into puddles and smilingly get wet with glee. The glum bitch and bemoan their outcast state and wish they had an umberella or some-such silliness.

It never truly rains. You see.

Except in Portland. But there, the sun is looked at like a rain. As the old Estonian clockmaker said,”every two weeks a bitch in heat bites her leg.”

So remember, you hold the Rains!

2 Degrees of Kevin Spacey

The alarm goes off this morning and groggy, the first thing I hear is “Gadaffi is dead.” Exit Tyrant of the month, stage left even.

kevin-spacey-richard-III — since i cannot prove a lover, i'll prove a villain

The last thing I see is Richard III, played by Kevin Spacey, limp on in full Military garb exclaiming as he goes to his death in battle, “Blow wind! Come rack! At least we’ll die with armour on our back!” The stage is a vast slate grey emptiness, lined on either side with nine creaky doors. As Spacey explained after the show to the group of students I brought, “because so many of the characters make such untimely exits…”

I don’t know which tyrant is real and which imagined. Of course I do, but I don’t. Somewhere Gadaffi lies on a plank or a floor like the fictional Clarence in Rich III. What are his wounds like? The stage ones with the plum red gashes? Worse? Is he dismembered like Orpheus, spread out among the vast sands of Libya?

Spacey’s real voice was mellower, sandpapery. They’ve already been to several cities, (http://www.richardsrampage.com/), Hong Kong, Istanbul, and for ten months they are heading around the world. Would they go to the Midddle east I thought. No, the despots there would never allow it.

But things change, don’t they? Spacey’s villain was one I wanted to hug. I clapped for his ascent. I pitied his deformed back and imagined the hell he went through growing up alongside proper royal specimens. (He’s crippled for gods sake!). When an actual earthquake rocked the theatre, I prayed the play wouldn’t stop and held my breath with 7oo strangers.

The actors final thought to us was this, “right after the winter of our discontent can follow the Arab Spring”

Like Beckett said: I can’t go on. I’ll go on.

We go on.

-jordan

What Sign are You Great Zamboni?

This question I am asked often both by toothless hags in the dive bars of the Estonian night, as well as journalists, priests and the occasional cellmate I find myself familiar with while incarcerated.

Typically enough I was born during the Vernal Equinox of a leap year at the end of 1894, in a moment spliced directely between December 31st and June 21st, in a strange pocket of time lent to the universe from the Great Spirits and Zues in order to accomocate the strange and tercentennial birth of one such as Zamboni. Because I was split between the summer and the winter solstices (which was necessary for my knowledge of both Hades and the Above-world) I have no normal zoological sign such as Cancer or Tourist. I am actually born quite quixotically under the sign of Platypus.

Platypus (disambiguation).

Now before you say, “hey Zamboni, you are three figs short of a hairdo” let me profundicate to you. Like Zamboni, the Platypus is very cute and huggable. But, and perhaps you did not know this- the Platypus also has on one of its cute feet a very dangerous and poisonous spur. This is fact! Despite Zamboni’s cutness, I have -through my years in the Estonian Secret Service- a very lethal right thumb with which I have killed a grizzly bear and could do much worse.

So there you have it, the sign of Zamboni. And yet, should we really put any truck to all the astrology stuff? Is it not like fortune cookies; whatever they say you can apply it to anyone?

It is like my old friend BB King used to say after a long night of hooch drinking with me. “Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jivin’ too.” The fact is, whatver is outside you, it is outside of you. Whatever is inside, is inside….”

Watch the spur!

Zamboni Conquers OCD

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It is a motherfucker, no? You don’t know the half.

Zamboni knows and will share with you how he is conquering this gorgon headed she-bitch of a life-blood sucker quite soon. It does not even require mad dog of Brian Wilson, and perhaps even if you are not a sufferer of this dreadly acronym, you may still find perspiration and hope in the story.

wooden-small-house- — burning down the house no more

Tune in forthcomingly.

Brian Wilson Will Win Nobel Peace prize

Unabashedly true prediction #2 for next year:

Yes my friends, I the great zamboni have received this wisdom from the spheres, and despite the fact that it seems senseless; it indeed is rightness.

Brian Wilson, due to his unfortunate injury, will leave the baseball diamond for a year and take his awesome powers of staring people down intimidatingly to war-torn and conflict-ridden lands. Standing between fierce warlords he will switch on his frightening yet mesmerizing stare and like Derek Zoolander’s amazing Magnum look, he will freeze fighters in their tracks, and magically make them peacify with each other.

Could you look into the bearded face and continue your shenanigans? No, and neither will these bad people.

Now you may say, “hey Zamboni, you are three burritos short of a six-pack, you are stepping to the deep end now!” but remember, Obama won the prize himself, and really did nothing except just be cool guy. Well, Brian Wilson even a cooler guy! In Estonia I know a crime king pin who have Brian Wilson’s face tattooed on bottom of his foot, and when I ask why he say, “so when I stomp on my enemy this is the last thing they see, face of greatness”. I found this baffling (is he stomping barefoot?) but did not probe further as this man like to kill.

So there is the truth as as Zamboni see. Of course if his arm gets better faster than expected, consider all this void. Remember, every little thing is connected, and every affect is changed by any little change in the cause.

All the same- stare into those eyes, then try and be heinous – Ha! you cant!

Prediction1: Will Obama Be Re-Elected?

This prediction just came to me during the almost full moon as I am taking a sniff of Fernet Branca with my good friend John Huntsman. (Zamboni is GOP since Abe Lincoln who I knew personally) He ask me if he will be next president, and suddenly I realize, “no”. And I unfurl to him my vision as he laments into his cup of decaf:

Obama, who has alienated his fire-branding liberal base who elected him- who got into bed with the the same shlamiels like Lawrence Summers and Henry Paulson who helped give us the very financial shwindle and meltdown that Obama hired them to bail out- this Obama will have a radical change of heart and will be caught on a YouTube video throwing a Molotov Cocktail at the New York Stock Exchange. This act and the corresponding night in jail that it occasions will so embolden and engorge his followers that this waterfall of rage will loft him to the White House for a second term, despite many angry people in the blue belt who will be saying, “see we told you he was a terrorist!”

So maybe good news for you liberals out there, bad news for my friend. Now, one disclaimer- if he chooses not to throw Molotov than null and void is my prognostication.

You see even Zamboni predictions are influenced by free will.

The Tent

Last night I great zamboni wowed the audience at The Tent in the Temescal District of Oakland- many questions were asked of me there, including:

-Will it rain tomorrow?

-Who will win Nobel peace prize Next?

-What sign are you great zamboni?

I answered all these with surprising alacrity and translubrication. Tune in this week as I share those answers with you and more- plus the 5 ABSOLUTELY TRUE PREDICTIONS FOR THE NEXT COMING FEW YEARS that I shared with viewers last night as well.

http://www.tentisup.org/

Make sure to see the next Tent! Is free but sells out fast.

Jerks

As we’re walking down the street, she says to me, “you know, you’ve said so many nice things to me, but of all the nice things the one I like best was what you said tonight, ‘I was a jerk’… That makes me happiest.”

It’s true and I was. But here she is giving me a second chance. It’s amazing when someone gives you a second chance isn’t?

Men are jerks, that’s just a fact. Afraid and filled with secrets and lies. We’re watching TV and I turn to my daughter and say,”trust none of us…except me.”

“Huh?”, she’s confused

“Men,” I say.

“You’re a man?” she says? I don’t know what that means, I hardly know what anything means or what she thinks of anything. Will I have the right to be pissed at the boys who are jerks to her? Or will I look at them as they come crawling back for thier second chances – wont our eyes meet in some sort of terrible understanding?

There is the one that got away. Actually there are a few. Then there’s the one I pushed away, and then there are the ones who won’t give up on you either because you’re special or they’re just hardheaded.

What is my point here?

If it never feels okay to be a jerk, to lie, not call, not talk, pretend; then maybe you aren’t one.

Then what?