YOU LIKE ME, YOU REALLY LIKE ME!

I’ve got to stop whining now. I’ve been susceptible to professional jealousy for years but Friday evening provided me with the medicine I need to alleviate its nasty symptoms.

But I’ll begin on Thursday, May 7, 2009. That afternoon I got a call from my dean, Mary Jeanne Kuhar.

“I hear you’re not going to be at the Convocation tomorrow night,” she said. The Convocation is an administration-sponsored COCC event that celebrates faculty achievement with speeches by the college president and a local newsmaker followed by the presentation of the Faculty Achievement Award. This prize is like being named “Teacher of the Year”. After hearing the accolade, faculty remove their robes and enjoy a no-host bar and free dinner.

I have not been able to attend the Convocation for a few years because it often falls on a Friday night when I’m teaching. This year was no exception.

“Yeah. I work,” I told the Dean. “I sent in my RSVP no show months ago. I’ll be in Redmond.” It was the third Friday of my two weekend Public Speaking Bootcamp.

“We’d really like to see you at the Convocation. It just won’t be the same without you. I mean we really need you. Is there anything I can do to make it possible for you to be there?” Is she offering to find a substitute? To substitute for me herself? I could think of only one reason she would want me to abandon students to be at the yearly gathering. I was getting the award this year. Of course, she couldn’t tell me right out but the smile in her voice let me know.

I assured her that I would not only be there but that I would stay for dinner.

When I hung up I pumped my fist and butt-danced in my chair. “Yes, yes, yes!!!”

I spent the next few hours trying to find a substitute for Friday night. The people I trust to hear and grade twenty-four impromptu speeches – Lilli Ann Linford-Forman, Jon Bouknight, Lou Eckert and Michelle Barry-Franco – were all out of town or busy. Plus, there was the whole problem of the key exchange. So I spammed a cancellation to the class and on Friday morning called everyone who hadn’t replied to the email.

Friday I spent the day working at home and prepping for the evening. I re-dyed my hair to the strawberry blond I’m sporting these days. I went to Costco and bought a Flip video camera. On my way home from Costco, I kept thinking that I needed to go to T.J. Max. I mean, I twice turned in the direction of the Bend River Mall and turned back toward downtown then the third time I made it out to the mall. It took me 15 minutes to find a dress that matched the stiletto-heeled silver sandals I bought at DSW in Eugene last month.

When my friends Stacey Donohue and Mike Van Meter picked me up that evening, I didn’t tell them that I already knew. I couldn’t celebrate until I was officially announced. I sat near the front on the aisle so I could sit the Flip on my lap. After COCC President Jim Middleton spoke warmly about faculty while sharing budget updates and local prosecutor Mike Dugan stood in for his wife Judy Stiegler, offering us a mixed medley of personal reminiscence and praise for education, Kathy Walsh, our Vice President of Instruction started her introduction of the winner of the Faculty Achievement Award. I turned on the Flip.

Even though I knew I was the object of her encomium, I couldn’t recognize myself in her words. She always begins with a build-up, encouraging us to guess who the winner is. (Lots of folks are nominated each year.) She does this very well and I think she enjoys constructing this speech. Friday night she quoted from peer reviews and student evaluations that spoke about someone very serious and dedicated. Could Mary Jeanne have been misinformed? Could this be a moment of mistake? (Stories of mistaken walks toward the Oscar stage flooded my brain.) I couldn’t remember ever reading any of the comments I was hearing. I only remember the criticisms I’ve been given over the years.

Finally, when she got to the part about the winner having “a sense of style all her own, sartorially and in all other ways,” I knew for sure that Mary Jeanne hadn’t made a mistake. So my heart rate went up and I started to sweat, knowing that I’d have to go to the front of the room. Yes, I have TERRIBLE communication apprehension!

On my way up to the lectern, I forgot half of what I planned to say. That wasn’t a problem since I wasn’t supposed to know ahead of time anyway. I just muttered something about Rob McDilda, our dude overseeing COCC’s response to the flu hysteria, calling me that morning to tell me all my students that night had temperatures over 100 degrees and that I needed to cancel class. Then my mind went to, “Yes, dammit, finally!” But I was circumspect enough to avoid saying that out loud.

Then I got the plaque with my name on it. It’s the second one in the 24 years of the award and my name is below those of three people I really like: Michael Gesme (2006), Robert Reynolds (’07) and Stacey (’08), who was in Italy last year when she won. As you can see by these names, I’ve never doubted that the people who received the reward before me deserved it. I just felt that I’ve been around a long time (20 {expletive deleted} years), have worked hard to create a person who succeeds in the classroom, and that, well, yes, okay, by golly, I deserved to win. Perhaps that’s not a very attractive admission. But, hey! I’m human! (And I've got the X-rays to prove it!)

And almost as good as the wonderful things Kathy said about me, is the check for $2500 with the taxes already removed. The remaining two grand will buy my new dog from Seacrest Poodles as well as an outdoor kennel.

Both the VPI and our publicity guy, Ron Paradis, told me stories before dinner about why they realized so late that I wasn’t planning to attend. Something about switched paperwork and big behind-the-scenes last minute panic. It’s all good, though. If I had planned to attend I would have been surprised and wouldn’t have bought my Flip.

I had a great time at dinner, chatting with Dianna Glen, Ken Mays and his spouse, and three science guys, Eddie Johnson, Jim Moodie, and Bob Reynolds. (If you’re remembering the “Lone Gunmen” from X-Files you’d be wrong – my colleagues are all much better looking.) During the evening two folks bought me drinks, so I had Maker’s Mark on ice with my tri-tip beef stroganoff. I got lots of hugs, congratulations, several comments about my silver stilettos and the dress, and got to laugh and go “blue” with those who might appreciate it and not be offended by my love of a certain four letter word.

It was one of those rare moments when I felt like my different selves – Doc Huck, Kake, Karen, the Huckster – were able to be in the same place at the same time.

As we used to write at the end of stories for the Los Gatos High School El Gato, “A delicious meal was served and a delightful time was had by all.”

Starting Soon

So, it's about to start again. I'm entering my twentieth year at COCC and my 25th year as a speech comm. teacher. This quarter I plan to ask my students, AFTER they've received their grades back, if they mind me mentioning them by name in the blog. I also hope to deconstruct at least one commercial every couple of weeks. So far nothing's excited me like the Fritalians or Pepsi Max. But we'll see what comes up. There's so much political crap-trap right now. I find most political ads stultifying and annoying. I've been irritated by political advertising since the famous "daisy ad" which, as a fan of LBJ (when I was in, what, 6th grade?) I believed in that ad.

One of my favorite jokes. An old guy is asked, in 1966, who he voted for in the last election. He says, "People told me that if I voted for Goldwater in 1964 we'd be in a war. So I did and we are." A little historical humor. Just to remind all of us that the future is a mystery.

Or, as Criswell once said in some Ed Wood movie, "The stars do not compel, they only impel."

WAKE UP FRITALIANS! Part 2 What is Love (of our jobs)?

If you haven't seen the Diet Pepsi Max commercial, see it on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJEVxfWpm7c

I am certainly not the only person who fell in love with the Diet Pepsi Max commercial first aired during the Superbowl. On youtube there are thousands of posts about the ad, most articulating, briefly, the work's LOL stimulating qualities. Both the faculty and students of the University of Southern Carolina's School of Journalism & Mass Communication scored this as the best of the superbowl ads (see http://www.jour.sc.edu/news/isite/08superbowl/index.html ). At a computer science blog site, Graphics@Illinois from the University at Urbana-Champaign, Jason Hughes wrote

"The best of the night so far. It starts off innocently enough with Troy Aikmen commenting on the action in the first quarter when Joe nods off and bangs his head on his mic. Queue music ("What is Love?") and we then get a montage of people across all industries nodding off at their jobs, at dinner, at awards shows, on game shows. I'm pretty sure that's Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J and Macy Gray nodding off while they were up for "Song of the Year." This keeps up until Diet Pepsi Max comes along on a mail cart and everyone starts doing "The Roxbury," or the head bopping made famous by Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell in the recurring SNL skits. The bit ends with Troy staring at Joe as Joe bops along. But the best part is after the blurbs about Diet Pepsi Max and the slogans, we get a quick shot of Chris Kattan shopping, yelling "Stop it!" to two girls doing the head bop." https://agora.cs.uiuc.edu/display/graphics/SuperBowl+XLII+Recap

So, now you know what I'm talking about. I don't need to explain to you why I love the video. But I will tell you my reading of the people "across all industries" that aren't REALLY across all industries. There IS a WWII military or Star Trek "diversity in the cockpit" theme here, but the jobs chosen, while different, all help to sell the product through humor but also through hinting at the dangers involved in falling asleep on the job. There are MANY jobs that aren't shown, of course. What we do see is American success (entertainment) and American boredom (the white collar workplace, the blue collar workplace) and we learn that all American workers, from foreign transplant (sushi chef) to the core of American masculinity (cowboys, mechanics) get bored at work and need some help to enjoy what they do.

Now, in any setting in which we have a "diverse" cluster, we can understand the meaning of each piece by comparing it to both what the audience member might know of the thing or action involved (in this case, the workplace) and also to the other pieces that make up the totality of the work.

The full length commercial begins with two Superbowl XXVII announcers, one using the word comfortable as the other starts to nod off, banging his head on the microphone. Both men are white, both wearing dark suits, one blue, one gray. Behind them is the tv studio's blue curtains and some kind of scaffolding holding the sign. So we begin with white, middle age, middle class, American sports business -- High, masculine, ruling class.

Then, when the music starts, "What is love? baby don't hurt me" we are introduced to the other players in our cinema of diversity.

First, we jump cut to a gentleman at a lunch-counter, nodding his balding head into his soup. It's midday (see the sunny street outside). He's on lunchbreak. He's wearing a brown suit (not as formal as blue or gray). He's got a gigantic Adam's apple and his wrinkled suit isn't fitting him all that well. He is a parody businessman! He is the worst of the ordinary middle-class work world. He might be us, or might be the others we work with. He is nodding into his soup because his job is not interesting to him, because he works to hard, because he may be burning his candle at both ends. Check out those Elvis sideburns! And, OMG, is he at a mall in California? Check out the oak tree sprouting tall behind the patio umbrellas outside the windows.

Then we jump to another office scene, this time a hallway where a young white woman in white blouse and black skirt, a young white man in white shirt and black slacks, are standing and nodding in a hallway. The camera is behind another person who is walking down the hallway. at the level of a person sitting down, this time suggesting that we are at work in the same space as, possibly, a bored twenty-something observing our fellow workers. Seated on a horizontal file cabinet is a woman in a suit with big hair. She may be African American (very tan legs in nylons) but hard to say at this time.

Jump to two men who park cars for a hotel or restaurant. They are in uniform. One is middle aged and Asian or Latino (hard to say with the head's nodding). Unlike the middle aged white guys, he is working at a menial job instead of an office job. The other is a younger, bearded white guy. He isn't clean-cut like the office workers. Maybe he's an artist or student who is just doing this work until he can make a go of it in another world. It's clear he exists in world different than the office world. We look at both across the top of a car (as though we are USING their services, not inhabiting their world).

Jump to real life cowboys, two middle-aged white guys on their horses within a herd of cattle. One is kind of chunky. Both wear beige jackets, plaid shirts, jeans, boots. One has a cowboy hat, the other a ball cap. This is about cowboying as a chore, not as the fantasy world of the rodeo. They AND their horses seem very tired. They are NOT looking at the view of amazing high mountain thrusting out of the plains behind them. (Sierras?) This shot tells us that even the John Wayne world of the cowpuncher is permeated by boredom.

If the cowboy, that quintessential American character, can be bored at work, then it's not so strange that the Pop star, another American icon, can also nod off. Jump to our cluster of singers, seen by the camera as though on the TV screen at the Grammies. They are all African American, because this is how American's like to see our Black Folk -- as pop stars. Not as cowboys, certainly. Success as a singer or dancer has been a way for individual African Americans to defy (and defy the existence of) American racism since Bojangles Bill Robinson held hands with Miss Shirley Temple as they danced down the stairs of a Hollywood set over sixty years ago.

Now we return to brown suit as his head flops back and we see his comb-over. Wow. Here is a parody white guy for sure. Deeply uncool.

Jump to two white ranch workers nodding in the middle of a sheering, the half-trimmed sheep, it's sheered butt bright compared to it's dirty thick wool, standing to the right of them. They are both in dirty jeans and shirts. With a background in American history, a viewer knows that cattle and sheepmen were at often at odds. So this image works with the cowboy image to cement that "unity in diversity" theme. And what is unifying these old enemies is that both are now, in the 21st Century, bored of their jobs. This image is funny in part because these men are handling sharp tools and something could go wrong.

Jump other people who handle sharp tools -- three male(?) Japanese(?) sushi chefs (if I recognize their attire, I must myself have gone to such a restaurant -- meaning that I am middle class or have seen this image on TV). The question mark means that the image goes by so quickly that only the front chef is obviously male and Asian. They are in white uniforms with hats. The cleanliness of this image contrasts with the filth of the sheep image.

Jump to nerds! Yes, these people LOOK like they are at a Star Trek convention, though slowing the commercial down makes it clear that these are parody trekkers. In front, a guy at a check in desk wears a Star officer uniform of some kind. The three facing us wear "V"s of red. One is a tall, glasses-wearing red-headed young woman -- pretty but can't get a "regular" date because she is shy. Beside her is a fat white boy who probably spends his days on his computer in his mom's house. Beside him is short haired African-American, proving that blacks are not only the traditional pop star but also geeks. This is a positive move toward more contemporary racial imagery. And, to bring our diverse images into the Future, to the far right of the frame is a model of a "Gray," one of the traditional types of extra-terrestrials. They are in a meeting room with a few other chatting people, also in costumes. On the wall behind is a sign reading something like "Galactic ...." The room looks like a small hotel conference room. Trekkies, nerds, are people whose lived are absolutely wrapped up in their love of fictional worlds. These are people so bored or fearful of real life that they live vicariously in a world of adventure and romance.

Jump to rows of bobble heads seen in close-up. SYMBOL! We, American workers, are bobble head dolls, nodding our agreement, nodding our boredom with our work lives. Cut to the guy at the bobble-head plant nodding over the passing line of dolls.

Jump to a student IQ quiz program and an African American girl in what could be a parochial school outfit is nodding as the tall white boy across from her racks up 9200 points. The announcer is another white guy in a suit. The image behind them in the TV studio is a night city skyline.

Jump back to brown suit. (He's our recurring gag of recurring gags).

Jump to mid-shot of muscular stocky thirty-something guy in an orange shirt with rolled sleeves nodding off in an outdoor area. Cut to long shot as child on swing flies back and knocks this guy on his butt. Here is Dad being bored and letting himself get hurt. The father who experiences taking care of the kid as a job. (Would a woman be as funny in this image?)

Jump back to close-up of black pop star.

Jump to heavy-set, white, nodding truck driver. (He could kill someone if he goes to sleep at the wheel.)

Cut to midshot of skinny, white, cap on backwards mechanic with a full beard and long hair, falling asleep at the switch as (cut to long shot) car rises to be crushed against a pole on the ceiling. This image expands on the hint of danger in the truck-driver shot. We see a car destroyed (as we could imagine with the truck) but with no-one actually hurt. Nevertheless, we are asked to notice, subconsciously, the serious danger of our boredom (as was hinted at with the images that contained the knowledge of knives).

Jump to bobble head factory. Jump to two sushi chefs (where there is a shoulder between us and the chefs). Jump to black pop star. Jump to parking valets. Cut to brown suit and his face goes right into the soup and we see the big bald spot under the comb-over.

Jump to office corridor where a young, short woman in a dark and light argyle vest pushes a cart of bottles between our nodding office workers. We go from the hallway shot to a shot looking up from the cart to the heads of the two women, blond and black as they bounce down. Shot of the Diet Pepsi Max bottles on the cart. Group closeup of three workers, two white and one black (the young man is now, suddenly, in a continuity error, on the right side of the cart) as they tilt back the bottles at the same time.

At this point the mixed, off-beat nodding turns, through the miracle of caffeine, into DANCE MOVES! and the Night at the Roxbury parody commences...a parody of a parody. Cut to a shot of the entire office and our three Pepsi drinkers are bouncing, not nodding, heads flipping sideways in time to the dance anthem.

Cut to black pop star, Pepsi in hand, bouncing his head and pointing at us! Hey, he wakes up and now he LIKES us! He KNOWS us! Smiling! And Mr. Brown suit with the moustach is smiling at us too, drinking Pepsi with his soup! His eyes are open. As are the eyes of the nerds, now smiling and happy as they bounce. Cut to another black pop star, his head moving sideways in an action recognizable as African American in form. Cut to the three people in the TV IQ quiz, all head bouncing in unison. Then we return to where we began, with the Superbowl announcer bouncing his head (badly) and his colleague making eye contact with the camera as though to say, "What's with this guy?"

Cut to our sales line, "Wake Up People!" in read and blue sans serif print, WAKE UP in red and PEOPLE in blue, the letters outlined in white. Red, white, and Blue. In voice-over the announcer tells us that the drink has ginseng and caffeine and zero calories.

The "cute" conclusion has two young women in modified dress-up outfits (denim but with jewelry, one wearing a low-cut tank top) at a clothes cleaners, with glistening plastic in the background, bouncing their big hair (an eighties theme) as Chris Kattan, original star of Night at the Roxbury, walks between them and yells, "Stop It" His character is supposed to be thinking that they are making fun of him (what self absorption) when actually we know that everyone is dancing because Diet Pepsi Max carries its dance anthem with it.

As an aside: I bought two versions of Haddaway's What Is Love from ITunes in March and let me tell you, it's not a good idea to sing along with your IPod and bounce your head while walking across campus, not if you want people to respect you as a senior professor.

Gotta get to work now...so I'm gonna plug in my tunes.

WAKE UP FRITALIANS! Part 1 Dunkin

Ok. So right now I am obsessed with two commercials -- the Dunkin Donuts Fritalian spot and the Pepsi Max head bouncer with "What Is Love?" as its driving tune. What these ads share is hooky music that shot its tendrils deep into my cerebellum and a humorous take on American diversity.

So let's take a look at each one.

Dunkin Donuts "Must be Fritalian"

This ad takes aim at Starbucks and those businesses that try to match the global corporation's pseudo-European linguistic universe. In the commercial we, the viewers (intended audience) are represented by a cluster of singing heads that show their confusion about the words on the wall menu of a coffee shop.

Their faces are twisted in confusion as they say in a deadpan monotone, "Ocho half-caf latte chino mocha due avec moi." We begin with the back of a short haired white head and then look, syllable by syllable, at a collection of faces. After seeing them individually, we see them as a line of eight people who stare over the head of the barista at strange word formations as they sing (in a melody line that could have been ripped from a 90s Seattle grunge band, another slap at the Starbucks fantasy of its beginnings), "My mouth can't form these words. My mind can't find these words. Is it French, or is it Italian. Perhaps Fritalian."
At this point I want to share my ideas about who these people are supposed to be and why we are supposed to "identify" with them. (I always suppose that makers of commercials are trying to "establish consubstantiality," as my hero Kenneth Burke would have said.) (For more about Burke, see http://bradley.bradley.edu/~ell/burke.html ) I believe that this commercial is about not just Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks but a particular vision of what it means to be American.

So, who is trapped in Starbucks and would, in the vision of the commercial, be better served by Dunkin Donuts where they speak English? First I should note that all the singers and the Barista are wearing gray, white, black and gray-green to stand out from the yellowish background of the coffee shop wall but also to blend together and give us the impression that they inhabit a bland world of sameness. The ten characters in the shop are the following:

#1 Normal Young-Guy. In his thirties, wearing a muddy green t-shirt over a gray undershirt. He's nice looking but not spectacular (his features are even, hair clean, face oval, eyes hazel). He's our jogger, bicyclist, grad student type. The sort who isn't yet at work in the morning of a workday. Maybe he e-commutes. Average guy, though.

#2 Biz man. In his early forties. He too is not bad looking. A bit plain but still even featured; has all his hair (and its full if not styled). His brown eyes are a bit small but the lines on his face are friendly. He has a tie and bluish shirt. He's on his way to work. He stands in for those normal working people who once-upon-a-time had coffee perking on the kitchen counter but now have coffee outside of home on their way in to the office.

#3 Grunge dude (skate boarder?). Blond hair shaggy flip over cut stacked under thick as though teased or dirty. Empty stoner gold stoner eyes. Very dry lips. He's been smoking pot somewhere and wandered in for his morning treat and now stands confused before the sign. He is us in our youth, before we started earning money. Or, he represents the actual stoner watching the commercial.

#4 African-American woman. Representing American diversity. She wears her natural tied back and up on top of her head. She is going to work. Has tiny hoops in her ears, suggesting, along with her skirt and shirt, that she works in a conservative office environment. So she represents not only American diversity but also cubical workers. Because her hair is natural but controlled, we understand her as seeking authenticity in a bureaucratized world. (If she had bleached or ironed hair she would represent giving in to dominant authority.)

#5 Thin Blond. Her long blond bangs reach down to her pale blue eyes. She has long straight hair. Her chin, in this ad, is a bit too pointy so her beauty isn't perfect. In my youth she would have been a hippie. Now she may be a housewife, soccer mom, or rich woman on her way to the spa. Her face is pretty and she has a full lower lip. But she is not played up as beautiful. She is an ordinary but especially nice looking woman. The typical too-thin American blond. (She wants a skinny double latte.)

#6 Curly red hair guy. Plaid shirt over undershirt, receding hairline. Could be another guy who works at home or a contractor. He has a receding hairline and pale eyes. Nice enough looking but certainly not handsome. He can represent those who still work with their hands for a living OR someone from a family with that background.

#7 Asian (Korean?) business guy. Wearing a gray tie and suit with an over the shoulder bag. He's another representative of American diversity, also stands in for those bound to conservative offices. Has plenty of hair but well back on his head. Possibly thirties, forties. There's something odd about his hairline when you look at it closely in a freezeframe -- almost as though he's wearing a wig. I'm not sure if this is intentional.

#8 (after a pause while the group sings) Red headed woman with twisted mouth. Now, she's been trashed on You Tube for being ugly. She's not. She has an evenly balanced face that she's purposefully wrenching for this commercial by curling her upper lip and acting like she's going to spit. She has large hoop earing than African-American woman and a gold chain. I don't think she's going to work. She may be going shopping. She has gray eyes and her hair is poorly or barely styled. Because she and plaid shirt guy have similar hair, and are standing next to each other, it may be that we are intended to link them, so they represent a married or dating couple.

#9 Short guy. He has a nice face but we never see him in close-up. He stands between blonde woman and Asian biz guy, making both look taller.

#10 Barista. Oh, my. His black hair has this nineties style flock-of-seagulls haircut. When he turns toward the camera in a midshot we see he is wearing expensive glasses. He himself sings along with "perhaps Fritalian" with a sarcastic turn to his lips. He reads a bit gay, a bit goofy nerd.

So, this is an image of the folks Dunkin Donuts hopes will visit their shop -- harried workers, drive by exercisers, wannabe wealthy, and the stoned.

And who already goes to Dunkin? The eleventh character: chunky, white, next-door neighbor workaholic with a big-gulp size latte. We see him first in his reflection and then in his actual physical form. He also is harried -- we see that he has TWO bag straps over his shoulder. His sleeves are rolled up (he's working) and yet he has no tie (he has some freedom in his job).

The announcer proclaims, "Delicious Lattes from Dunkin Donuts. You order them in English, not Fritalian." Our average guy is smiling as he looks into the Coffee A shop and the customers stare back at him in jealousy and aw (check out grunge dude's open mouth).

"America runs on Dunkin" the graphics say at the end, emphasizing the commercial's link to national identity and the Calvin Coolidge's claim that "the business of America is business."

Well, looks like I've got to shower and get to school. No time to deconstruct the Pepsi commercial right now. But stay tuned to these, our stations.