sometimes i'm an idiot

Temping is hilarious. I’ve spent the last week and change in a 2nd floor classroom at Fordham University’s School of Law, stuffing potato chips and bottled water into white gift bags. We did other things, too. It wasn't all chips. Cleared out lockers, alphabetized student IDs, that sort of thing. Fordham's Orientation is next week. When the well-coifed Teds and Nancys receive their goodies on Monday morning, there's a one in four chance I was the dude behind the curtain transferring their Fritos from box to bag. See, I'm indispensable. Without me, the whole damn farm goes to the hens and everybody starves.

Fordham hired four male temps for the job. Could have been an ugly situation. Quarantining a group of (poor) men in a claustrophobic room for more than seven hours a day serves only to antagonize their vilest demons, ‘specially if one oblivious soul in the bunch doesn’t know when to zip the yap. And then there's the problem of the No Women. Tempers (pun intended) tend to run a bit thin when you're earning a wage somewhere beneath the poverty level and, uh, dealing with potato chips. You can cut the testosterone with a knife.

That said, I lucked out. Couldn’t have asked for three better fellas to share in the experience.

The four of us came from different worlds, so to speak:

a) me: suburban chicago
b) dave: rural nebraska
c) john: detroit
d) vince: brooklyn

John, particularly, deserves mention. At first glance, I wanted nothing to do with him. He struck me as quiet, reserved, boring. As for that slumbering elephant in the corner, let's expose him: John’s also a) gay and b) very effeminate. Regrettably, the following revelations probably demonstrate that I’m less open-minded about matters of orientation (pun not intended) than I'd like to believe.

To clear the air, I am not a homophobe. Quite the opposite. I champion the gay cause. In fact, if there’s one major political/social issue that gets me all worked up, it’s the debate surrounding legalization of gay marriage. I fail to understand how and why we’re still discussing this. No one ought to infringe on anyone else’s sexual choices, period. Private matters between consenting adults are not your business, or mine—and most certainly not the government’s. Actively restricting their right to wed is inexcusable, plain and simple. I’ll fight you to the death on that one.

I have no issue with the gay populace.

Upon reflection, though, it seems that I preach far better than I practice. Just as varying degrees of racism lie dormant in all of us, I’ll admit to some skepticism and blind ignorance of the gay lifestyle. I certainly held no ill will against John from the start, but I did foolishly assume that he had nothing to offer me, nor me him. Choosing not to exert any efforts to befriend him, I initially pursed my lips and pretended he did not exist.

Predictably, I learned an invaluable lesson in humility. John proved to be one of the more engaging individuals I’ve encountered since moving to the city. His intelligent musings and self-deprecating sense of humor took our minds off the bolt-turnings. We talked about women, and men, and men and men, and women and trannies. Laughed a lot, learned a lot.

Our classroom had computer access and a stereo system. Most of the first day was spent streaming AOL’s radio stations and digging up the most obscure feeds we could find. Each of the four felt compelled to offer his $.02 on every passing track, whether a recognizable 80's New Wave hit or a long-forgotten prog number. Musically speaking, John is more knowledgeable than anyone I know. For all the nonsense I broadcast about me being a sonic guru and all (Lester Bangs came up with the best descriptor for what I'm trying to convey: "verbal styrofoam"), John quickly put me in my place, and definitively so. Take tonight: I’m looping Gillian Welch, The Church, Tricky and The Radio Dept., all of whom were curiosities to me before our iPod exchanges. I was a pupil from the start.

Yesterday John and I trekked to the 72nd Street McDonald’s, discussing life and death and our families—and God. Made for a great lunch hour. Here’s a guy that I wrote off for being too gay, too weird, too much of a Mark David Chapman look-alike (you wouldn’t believe the resemblance, though John is a bit slimmer), too quiet, too dull.

There's a saying about books and their covers...
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