How to Have a Successful and Rewarding (Writing) Life

May 22, 2011 By Patricia V. Davis 11 Comments

Oscar Wilde, 1882

So a number of people have written to ask me for tips for a successful writing life. (Yes, believe it or not, they have. Why they’re asking me and not JK Rowling is a puzzle, but there you go.) In response, I thought I’d post my rules for doing that here. In fact, on pretty much every point, the points below are most likely the way I’d lead my life even if I hadn’t chosen to be a writer:

1)    Work hard.


2)    Have a supportive spouse/partner and family. If he/she is not supportive consider that this person may not be the person for you. (I’m serious.)  If your family (parents and other relatives) are not supportive, ignore them completely. If your children are not supportive, unless they’re under age 18, ignore them, too. Don’t let other people’s discontent with their own lives taint your perspective, even if you happen to love those people. You giving up your dreams will not make them any happier.


3)    Work even harder.


4)    Remember every single person who helps you get a step up ─ the people who give you blurbs, the people who leave comments on your blog, the people who review your book, your agent, your fellow writers who show up at your book events, the book seller who hosts your events, the local newspaper columnist who does a story on you, the editors who critique your work (they’re your friends not your enemies) ─ and even if that person never does another thing for you, try to help them at least twice as much as they helped you whenever you can.


5)    Keep working hard.


6)    Take no notice of anyone who is jealous of you and/or seems to wish you harm. Don’t be offended by those who trash your work, who say “no” to any requests, who ask to be taken off your mailing list, who give you an *unrealistically negative review. If you expend energy worrying about these people, that is that much of your energy used up in a negative way and ─ believe me ─ you will need all your energy. (See points 1, 3, 5, 7, 9.) Also, don’t be jealous of other people’s success. Don’t compare yourself to others, ever. Because what you’re comparing are two very unalike things; what you’re comparing is your inside to what somebody else’s outside appears to look like to you. Again, a big fat waste of energy.


7)    Keep working. Now is not the time to get discouraged.


8)    In point six, I say ignore the “unrealistically” negative review. But if someone takes the time to critique your work and make a criticism or two that you keep hearing over and over again, it’s time to silently thank those detractors and look over your work with a more critical eye. They took time out of their busy lives to write about your book. Heck, they even spent money to buy your book, and if they’re telling you something, perhaps you ought to mull over. This is a positive, not a negative thing.


9)    The more successful you get, the harder you work. Yes, that part sucks, but that’s the way it is. If you have one book out, you should be marketing it, but at the same time, you should be at least thinking about your next writing project. Can you say, “10-hours-a-day workday, 6 days a week?” Better be able to do more than say it.


10)    On point #9, if you want to have a life outside of writing and still be successful at it, plan every moment of your day to get the most out of your time. 10 hours a day includes your marketing time as well as your writing time. The rest of the day includes your sleep, your dinner time, exercise, your hobbies, your chores, your time with your family and friends. So plan it out well. Savor it. Don’t waste it.


11)    Embrace your workday, don’t resent it. You will be extremely unhappy if you can’t do this one thing.


12)    Take time off when you need to and do not feel guilty about it, ever. Want to spend time with your young children, even several years of time? Do it. Want to go away with your partner or some friends? With few exceptions, don’t make it a working holiday. (Unless, of course, you’re in the middle of book tour. Ahem.) Embrace your time off as much as you embrace your work day. Because the definition of “success” is being able to look back on your life without too many regrets.

Anyone care to add their own ideas on the above? I’d love to hear them.

:-D

(P.S. Isn’t this a wonderful photo of Oscar?)

Filed Under: On Writing and Publishing, Social Commentary, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

When I Was Eight

May 18, 2011 By Patricia V. Davis 12 Comments

When I was eight, in the summertime my mother had to call me in from playing outdoors at least twice before I even acknowledged I’d heard her voice. Then I’d beg her to let me stay outside for a while longer, until she issued dire threats if I didn’t “come in right this minute.” It was only at that point that I would petulantly stomp back into the house.

Once inside, she’d grab onto me and try to hold me still as she “pre-cleaned” me before setting up my bath. She knew if she didn’t, my bathwater would turn muddy within minutes of my being placed in it. That was because when I was eight, I played in dirt ─  sat right down in it, made mud with it, dug up some very fine rocks and wiggling earthworms hiding beneath it. And so, my mother would put my hands and arms in the bathroom sink and attempt to shake off some of that dirt which had caked onto my arms, into the crevices and lines on the palms of my hands, around my cuticles and under my fingernails. After that, she’d lean down and attack the skin on my knees with a washcloth. My knees were literally black with grime, sweat, and tan. In fact, my skin was so dark from my playing out in the sun so long that she could never tell when she’d rubbed hard enough to get down past the dirt and just onto bare flesh, so I’d end up with raw skin from her efforts. I’d never even heard the word “sunscreen” back then, and when I was eight, I wouldn’t have cared if I had.

When I was eight, I wore my hair to my shoulders the same as I do now, except back then I was too busy being a kid to keep it neat. It stuck out and up in the way only coarse, thick hair can, and I was forever pushing my dirty hands through it to keep it out of my eyes. That’s why my mother also had the nightly task of pulling bits of branches out of my hair that I’d picked up from climbing trees or crawling through the woods in the “forts” we made. My hair was so wiry and tangled that once, a brush my mother was trying to force through it snapped right in half at the handle. In frustration, she had my hair cut pixie short. It did not look trendy, but it was convenient, and instead of being traumatized, I loved how my shadow now looked on the cement patio when I moved my head back and forth and wiggled my arms out to my sides ─ sort of like one of the dancing skeletons in my favorite cartoons. I looked like a shadow skeleton somewhat, because even though I ate three healthy meals a day and all the sugary candy I could buy with 25 cents a week, (which was a lot) I was downright skinny from moving so much, using my body so much for the things it was meant to do.

When I was eight, boys were just more people with whom to climb trees and have racing contests or rock-throwing contests. They were sometimes annoying because they were stronger and could beat me more often than not, and of course, I wanted to win. Some of them seemed to like bugs more than I did, too, and most certainly they often smelled bad. So, why would I care if creatures like that thought I was pretty or not? Why, with so much fun to be had, like running and climbing and sticking my hands in dirt, finding baby birds that had fallen out of trees and nursing them back to health, would I care myself, if I were pretty or not?

When I was eight and if for some reason we couldn’t play outside, my sister, cousins, and I made up games like “Spy” or sang songs out loud in the basement so we wouldn’t bother our parents who were upstairs, smoking, drinking coffee, and talking about stupid, boring stuff we had no interest in knowing about whatsoever. We held plays, and sometimes we could get our parents away from their stupid, boring stuff to come downstairs to watch them. My cousins, sister and I were all bossy, and we all argued about who was going to play what part. Our mothers would tell us to behave. We didn’t listen.

We didn’t meekly submit. Not to our mothers, not to our friends, not to anybody else’s idea of what we were worth. In that world it would have been unfathomable to know of another eight-year-old  girl who would hold in her tears while her mother put needles filled with poison in her face, just so she could “be beautiful.” In that world it would be unfathomable to want “boob jobs and nose jobs”, because we felt we were perfect the way we were.

We were real. Life was real.


Filed Under: Contests, Divas and Harlots, Food for Thought, Parents and Children, Social Commentary, Telling it Like it Is, Women's Issues, Women's rights Tagged With: , , ,

Yes, Things are Changing—Deal with It! (Or, What I Learned in New York City)

January 29, 2011 By Patricia V. Davis 9 Comments

This weekend, I had the pleasure of being in New York City, which despite the January onslaught of snow and wind, is always a wonderful place to visit. I was speaking at The Writer’s Digest Conference, and when I tell you it was an honor to be doing so, I don’t say that just so the organizers will read this and think I’m gracious. (But I hope they do.) I say it because the speakers were amazing, and I feel I learned more than I taught. But the two paramount things I learned, the two most fantastic things, were not taken away from any one particular talk or speaker. Here they are:  20-somethings and 30-somethings are marvelous, and the salvation of the human race will come from our advances in technology.

How did I get all this from a writers’ conference? I’m so glad you ask. There are those of you reading who would be well within your rights to assume that we writers are a stuffy, insular, snobbish and introverted lot. Well, okay…maybe some of us are. But those farty literati types seemed in short supply at this particular conference. At this conference, what I noticed was that the majority of the attendees were upbeat, democratic, and brimming with passion for their craft. Though the older people were no slouches in exhibiting these characteristics, naturally it was the younger set who displayed them most. But it wasn’t because of their naive optimism. Quite the contrary — their confidence in what the future holds for them in regards to the success of their writing careers, stems from something they have on their side to help them succeed that those of us who started on the writing and publishing track in the 1970’s did not ─ the internet and the technological leaps and bounds springing from that forthwith.


Last weekend, I listened as speakers talked about e-book sales, (Amazon sold more Kindle books this past year than paperback), making books into phone apps, publishing on Scribd and Smashwords and more.  It was a cross-generational meeting of the minds as the younger writers instructed the older writers on how all this stuff works (and work it does!) and older writers became excited at the realm of new possibilities to share their art. I saw one 70-year old get up and ask a 40-year-old speaker who’d written his book as a phone application how she could do that with her newspaper column.


But what I also loved was how the younger writers still crowded into rooms to hear older writers speak about what we knew, too, solely from our years and experience. Yeah, that’s right ─ the young’uns weren’t a bunch of little ‘know-it-alls’ — uninterested or unimpressed with what we older lot had to say. I heard from them many references to works by writers long dead, and you know, you can’t get any older than dead. There was respect there, coming from the young for the old; but equally important, from the old for the young. They wanted to speak to each other and learn from each other, in fact, were eager to do so.


I admit I was more than flattered to see some of the younger people ‘tweeting’ my remarks from my lecture room out into the world in real time. How ‘bout that? Hmmm... So, if there were fifty people in each room where that conference was held, how many more still who weren’t there physically still got to ‘hear’ what each speaker had to say?


So this is what I’m envisioning from all of this ─ a world where, if you can’t be at the place where the Dalai Lama is speaking, (or he’s been banned from your country) you can still just pick up your phone and get his words from your Twitter feed as he speaks them.  And if a politician spews out lies during a speech, you can fact check what he says on your iPad right there and then, and fire right back at him with a rebuttal via his email address or website. (It’ll be keeping high school teachers on their toes, for sure, when their students do this during their classes.)And when they tell us that we should be bombing this country or that, none of us anywhere in the world will buy into it, because one of our online poker buddies will be from said country, and we know what a good guy he is. We know his wife, his kids, and his worries, and guess what?─ Even though he’s wearing a rather odd-looking hat, we know he’s still just one of us. Is it any wonder the Chinese are trying to suppress Google?


The part I like best is what this means for any writer, in fact, anyone who has something to say – you can still say it with flowers, or you can try saying it in e-books, online websites, and blogs. You can get your word out without it being censored or spin-doctored by the mainstream media; you can gatecrash the publishing world without one nod of condescending consent from any literary agent or traditional house. You can browse the internet for hours looking for just the right book, because it will be out there and available to you immediately in some format. Same goes for films, art, and music. There will be no reason to try to put Julian Assange in jail, because Wikileaks will be obsolete. We will become a world of no secrets and therefore, no fear of the unknown or of each other. It will be just as ordinary via Skype to have a conversation face-to-face with a beloved friend in South Africa or Toowoomba as it is to have one with your next door neighbor.


We, the little people, will finally be able to have our say without dozens of blockades put up for our ‘protection’. There will be one god for everyone, and that will be the god of kindness, respect, and caring for all, because we will all know each other, and we will all learn from each other, whether a different nationality or a different generation.


On the day of the 25th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger fall, oh, how I hope what I write here comes true. We mustn’t be leery of technology and scientific advance; we mustn’t hold it back, because despite any perceived and real risks involved in its development, it can save humankind.


Do I know what’s going to replace hardback books, or even if they will be replaced? No. But if they are replaced, will whatever replaces them be the “same”? Probably not. Just as printed books are not the same as scrolls, and when they updated Coca-Cola it no longer had cocaine in it. I’ll bet both those facts disappoint many. But I’m not one who looks in the rear view mirror while I’m trying to drive forward.


Did I tell you I’m learning to ‘tweet’?

—

Filed Under: Food for Thought, On Writing and Publishing, Patricia Volonakis Davis' Blog, Podcasts and Technology, Religion, Social Commentary, Social Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

In Danger From the Outside World* Part II

January 28, 2008 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

In Memory of Gregory Randall Davis

May 9, 1983 – January 29, 2002

Greg
Greg

What does it mean to go from being boy to man?

As a former high school teacher and a mother of five sons and stepsons combined, I’ve witnessed many boys struggle with that question. Some figure it out, others never do and remain in a limbo – an ‘adult boy,’ stuck in a time warp of adolescence, where ethically, spiritually and intellectually, the centre of his universe will remain forever anthropocentric; where he will never figure out how to look beyond himself, what his role in society is and how he can make the world a better place just by his existence in it.

In The United States of America, where I live, society is not geared to guide our boys through this effort. At its best, it relegates this important life passage to a period labelled “teen,” which has become a synonym to adults for a time period in a human being’s life that’s met with condescension, irritation, derision or treated as though it’s a sickness that will eventually pass. And at its worst, the media here paints a vivid picture for a boy that to be a man means to lie your way into money or power (“thank you,” Enron executives, “thank you,” George Bush), wear flashy clothing and behave with the opposite sex as though they are tasty pieces of barbecued chicken (“thank you,” hip-hop and gangsta rap), and/or pick up a rifle and blow yourself or somebody else up (“thank you,” John Rambo).

In American society, a boy who is eighteen years old, can vote for the next leader of the free world or go fight a war that leader designates. But he cannot order a beer to enjoy with his pizza. That’s a privilege the law reserves for when he’s twenty-one. Is this the only Rite of Passage we offer our young men, then?  Go to a bar and get pissed, legally – it proves you’re a man, at last?

Since there are no formal rites of passage and few mentors offered by society to help navigate the path to manhood, boys band together to create their own. Sometimes this has disastrous results that  parents, even devoted, loving ones, can be helpless to prevent.

How do I know?

Today is January 28. It marks the sixth year anniversary of the evening my stepson, Greg, along with 25 other boys, set out on his own rite of passage, devised by other, older boys, the heads of the fraternity ATO, for which Greg was “pledging.” He never returned to us. On January 29,  in the afternoon here in California, we got a phone call from a police officer who was standing in Greg’s mother’s kitchen in Colorado, that Gregory was dead. I was the one who took the call. I was the one who had to tell my husband that he would never see his son again.

How did it happen?

Despite rules that forbade any initiation rituals to include automobile trips or travel off school grounds, the president and vice-president of the ATO fraternity at Occidental College in California, sent twenty-five freshmen ‘pledges’ on a road trip to Las Vegas. They were to return to the college with “proof” that they’d made the trip. Though the act of putting twenty-five boys into five cars for a road trip of that duration and then to specify a length of time within which they had to return, was a recipe for disaster and though this particular fraternity were already on probation with the college due to infractions against pledging rules, the alumni of the fraternity, grown men over forty years old, who were aware of the planned trip, turned a blind eye to it.

“We did this sort of thing all the time when we kids and nothing ever happened,” was what one said.

The other cars made the trip to Las Vegas and returned safely. The car with my stepson in it did not. They left the university at nine o’clock that evening, after baseball practice, for more than eight hours of driving at a reasonable speed to Las Vegas and back, with intentions of arriving back at school in time for an eight a.m. class.  The lunacy of the plan was intensified by the fact that they did not switch off drivers and the driver hadn’t slept for more than thirty hours previously before they began their trip. He was drinking Red Bull, a drink that contains caffeine and sugar and is sold as a combat to mental and physical fatigue.

And that’s the irony. When the boys were found, no alcohol or drugs were in any of their systems, but the driver had been chugging an energy drink to stay awake while he sped back towards school. The Red Bull didn’t work as he’d hoped. The other four boys had already fallen asleep, (though they’d promised him they’d stay awake) and the dark, long stretch of Interstate Fifteen lulled him to sleep, too, at the wheel.

I will spare you the catalogue of injuries, except to say that Greg was the only one killed and though the driver suffered the least physical damage (a broken arm) the harm to him was as lifelong as was the physical damage to some of others who survived, because he and others will always remember he was the one who drove.

And was he to blame for this accident? He was nineteen at the time. Or maybe it was the driver’s mother’s fault, as she herself believed? It took my husband and me months of communication with her afterward, desperate emails and letters that she sent, begging for conviction against, or vindication of, her mothering skills to convince her we did not hold her or her son responsible.

What about Red Bull? Should Red Bull be held responsible for its zippy adverts that promise one drink will help you grow wings on your feet, the same way Popeye’s can of spinach helped him beat Bluto?

What about the fraternity itself? The alumni? Or Occidental College, that knew the fraternity had previous infractions, had placed the fraternity on warning for them, but had not let the parents of the pledging freshmen or the freshmen themselves, know that the fraternity was on probation?  There was certainly some blame there. But when Greg’s mother and several of the other parents sued them, (mostly as a warning to other parents and as way to defer some of the astronomical medical bills incurred by three of the survivors,) they were told that the school has ‘immunity’ and that the insurance the fraternity retains for accidents has an exclusion for any accidents which occur during initiation rituals.

I was there when the lawyers told Greg’s parents that. I was also there when one of the same lawyers asked Greg’s mother, “The jury will wonder if you were at fault. Why didn’t you know where your son was going that night?”

And I wanted to hit that lawyer then. I wanted to hug my husband’s ex-wife – how’s that for another irony? – and tell her, “I know you were a good mother to Greg. All your sons are bright, enthusiastic, loving and respectful. They didn’t get that only from their father. You helped with that. I know that with my whole heart,  just as I know you will always think about the question this lawyer just asked you. But what eighteen-year-old boy worth his salt would tell his mother that he was embarking on a dangerous quest? Wouldn’t that defeat the whole purpose?”

But, I could say nothing.  Just like I could say nothing during Greg’s memorial service, when his father and brothers did their utmost to choke back their tears. Just like I say nothing every January 29 since, when I sit home next to my husband and we both think back, wondering if it could have been prevented, wondering if we should call our other sons or if they will call us. Wondering if they will watch the Super Bowl together, without Greg, just as they did for the first time, six years ago.

And wondering what Greg would be doing now. He was extraordinary probably only in that he was ours. But he was a good student, hardworking and he was sensible. Believe it or not, he was very sensible. He had a terrific sense of humour like his dad and he loved his brothers,even if he did sass them too much now and then. He loved his parents and he was a devoted friend. He was a top-notch pitcher and that’s not wishful thinking. The baseball team at Occidental will never know what they missed when he didn’t make it to play with them that year.

He is missed by everyone who knew him. He will always be missed.

Greg Pitching for Pine Creek High
Greg Pitching for Pine Creek High

 

*The title comes from Robert Bly’s poem by the same name.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Filed Under: Parents and Children, Social Commentary Tagged With: , , , , ,

In Danger From the Outside World*

January 14, 2008 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment


Part I

of Three Parts on

Boys and Men

Our sons. When they’re born, we hold them in our arms, stroke them, soothe them and take them to our breasts. It’s the only time in their entire lives that they are permitted to be openly content in their helplessness, universally approved of in their total reliance on another human being and a female, at that.

By the time they’re two, they’ve heard it at least once, even if it’s not their parents who say it:

“Boys don’t cry.”

GI Joe 1964
GI Joe 1964

Little soldier by thats_verynice on Flickr
Little soldier by thats_verynice on Flickr

Little soldiers
Little soldiers

If they haven’t absorbed that message by the time they’re seven, even the most nurturing, liberated parent begins to worry: “Other boys his age seem so much ‘tougher.’ What if there’s something ‘wrong’ with my son?”

By the age of nine, for sure, he’s got it down – the adults say fighting is not good, but they can handle that so much better than if they see him cry, any day. He’s also learned that in order to be a boy, he can’t just be. No, there are things at which he should excel, and other things he must deny, in order to prove he is what he is: a male. Throwing a ball hard is good, being afraid of bugs is bad. He can always hide the fact that he’s afraid of bugs, but the boy who can throw the ball fastest, will always be the better boy…every time.

By the time he‘s thirteen, society’s expectations have completely rent his psyche in two. He’s understood for years he’s not allowed to cry, but now he also knows, not only from his parents and teachers, but from his friends and even the girls who have become a big part of his life, that he’s not allowed to show when he’s sad, worried, or scared. By any means possible, he must never show he’s scared. Far better to be alone in fear and heartbreak, than be taunted for displaying these same.

Somali Islamic Militia
Somali Islamic Militia

Soldiers
Soldiers

He longs for affection, but that’s another outlet of sentiment he’s denied. His mother doesn’t holds him anymore, hasn’t since he was a young child. Not because he doesn’t want her to, but because he mustn’t let anyone see that he still needs her touch. And now, just the smell of the young woman sitting next to him in school, stirs longings. Of buried memories, long-ago contentment and new desires he’s only just beginning to recognize run deep inside him. But he has to suppress those, too.

By the time he’s seventeen, what it is to “be a man” is so set in him, he no longer thinks about it. He has completely accepted his only two choices: to be impenetrable, or just pretend, with all his might, to be. He also thinks about war. What it means, and whether or not he should, or will be forced to, fight in one.

And by the time he’s thirty, when the woman by his side, his love, asks him, “What do you feel for me?” He so much wants to tell her, but he can’t, because he’s never learned how.

Or maybe he no longer knows.

Young soldiers asleep
Young soldiers asleep

Robin Williams by Sam Taylor-Wood
Robin Williams by Sam Taylor-Wood

*** ****

* The title, “In Danger From The Outer World” is taken from the poem of the same name by Robert Bly.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Filed Under: Parents and Children, Social Commentary Tagged With: , , , , ,

Look Harder

December 12, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

First day of school foversouls on flickr[1]
First day of school foversouls on flickr[1]

“Look harder.”

Gee…did I just hear you say that again? You’re an English teacher. Surely you must know that one can’t look “harder” at written words on a page.

One can look “longer,” delve more deeply into the meaning of those words, if one can read them, that is, but one can’t look “harder.”

Yet, at least once a week, with distaste and fury layered through your voice, you say it to one of your first-year (seventh grade) pupils.

A girl today, I see.

A twelve-year old girl, whose life is already a misery. On the edge of puberty, her breasts feel sore all the time and, much to her constant mortification, one is growing faster than the other. No matter what blouse she wears to school, this is noticeable. The boys in her class often point to her chest, whispering and laughing behind her back. She hears them and wants to die. She feels she has nothing to balance this physical “anomaly” because to her mind, the other girls in her class are so pretty and sophisticated compared to her. The other girls in her class know how to flirt, while she just gets tongue-tied. And while the other girls in her class still maintain that smooth, soft complexion of their baby years, her face is already always breaking out.

Apart from her uneven breasts and pimples, her feelings of social ineptitude, she’s “stupid,” she’s been told.

By her older brother, when she can’t read the ingredients on their box of breakfast cereal, or when, in a rush of shyness, she’s struck mute when his friends come over to visit. “Don’t pay any attention to my sister. She’s stupid,” is his way of explaining her silence to them.

Her mother agrees. Oh, not that her mother actually says the word out loud, she just looks at her daughter pityingly when shown her marks. “Well, honey,” mother sighs, “I guess not everybody can be good at school.”

But, this young girl is not “stupid.” She has dyslexia.

When you, her teacher, place this before her:

“…after he was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared…”

This is what she sees:

“…after he saw ushereb otni this worlp of worros and rtoudle, by the barisp noeqrus, ti remaineb a rettam of consiberadle boubt whether eht chilp pluow survive ot dear yna name ta all; in which esac ti si tahwemos more than bropaple taht these sriomem woulp reven have addearep…”

Yet, all throughout her seven years of schooling so far, not one person in her life has noticed. Her brother, being a child, couldn’t notice. Her mother, not having had much education herself, might not notice. But you – her teacher? Why didn’t you notice?

I know why. You really didn’t want to be a teacher, did you? You wanted to be…hmmm…let me guess…a writer? …An actor, maybe?

And because the agents didn’t knock down your door in their enthusiasm, because the studios didn’t shower you with movie contracts, you “fell back” on teaching, didn’t you? Someone, some career counsellor somewhere, or even another teacher perhaps, advised you, “You can use your M.A degree. You just need to take a few education courses. It has great benefits and you get your summers off,” didn’t they?

And you thought about it. You thought that the salary wasn’t too bad, especially for the amount of effort you were planning to put into it. Better than being a waiter, anyway. You also realised that the teaching day, ending at 3 p.m., would give you just enough time to play at your real interests. And on a subconscious level, you knew that if you didn’t succeed at them then, you could always blame it on the fact that you, “had no time, you had to teach.”

Then the years went by, faster than you could have believed. You never got that publishing contract and Johnny Depp got all your good roles. So your disgust with Johnny, with Random House and with yourself, grew.

Eventually that disgust manifested itself into an abiding revulsion for your pupils. In particular, this little girl in front of you now, who is flushed through with agonized humiliation because, on top of everything else she thinks she should be and isn’t, she can’t read Charles Dickens and she knows you loathe her for it.

In your loathing, you’ll go one step further. You will make sure all her classmates detest her for it, too:

“I can’t believe this. Are you just going to sit there? Read it. We’re all waiting for you to say something.”

I understand you believe you should be able to express what you feel, at the very least. At least, here – in a classroom full of twelve-year-olds, you are in charge. You can say whatever you want and no one can stop you, because you have tenure, another job perk of your insufferable ‘career.’ So the worst that can happen is that you’ll get a lecture from the headmaster if any one of your pupils, or their parents has the temerity to complain. Which they hardly ever do.

Last week, it was a boy. You really outdid yourself there. You managed to make him cry. In a room full of other boys his age, he cried, because of you.

And now his life at school is effectively over. He’d already been having trouble. He’s the smallest male in his class and he can’t hit, pitch, kick or dunk a ball. However, he was managing to get through with his wry sense of humour and his ability to run pretty damn fast. Now he’ll never fit in, thanks to your public, verbal flogging.

There’s good news, though. For you, anyway. You know how you so wanted to make a social impact with your literary and/or theatrical endeavours? You have. Your words and your performances will never be forgotten. You are immortalised in the minds of your pupils.

This little girl today, for instance. She’ll will always remember and be affected by you. The first time she meets someone who calls her “friend,” she’ll be so surprised and grateful, that she’ll probably be misused. Her first job promotion, she’ll feel a clenching in her stomach, as she wonders if she’s really capable of handling it. When a man tells her he loves her, there’ll always be doubt whispering in her mind, that he can’t possible mean it. And if she becomes a mother, she’ll worry far more than most, that she’s making a mess of it.

As for that boy, if he has a supportive family, he’ll make it through the next five years of school, though they’ll be hell for him. The girls will always roll their eyes when they see him coming and sidle away. He might come to hate women because of it and himself, too. And if he doesn’t have a loving family, he might decide life is not worth it and take himself out, along with some of his classmates and teachers, probably. Possibly you.

All because you and so many others like you, couldn’t respect yourself, or your pupils or the job you were hired to do. It’s a job you’ll always despise, yet one from which no one will ever be able to pull you away. And every day you’re in it, you make my job harder for me.

Haven’t you figured out who I am?

Well, maybe you should look harder, too.

I’m the English teacher across the hall. And I hear you every day.

——————————————

credits – excerpt from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, photo from ‘foversouls’ on Flickr- “First Day of School”

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Filed Under: Civil Rights, Divas and Harlots, Food for Thought, Social Commentary, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Senators, Thank You for Your Support

November 8, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

 

 

Our Civil Liberties Beng Waterboarded
Our Civil Liberties Beng Waterboarded

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Bernard Mukasey  is an impressive man. His alma mater is Columbia University and Yale Law School. In 1987, Mukasey was nominated as a federal district judge for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan by President Ronald Reagan. He served in this position for 18 years, including tenure as Chief Judge from March 2000 through July 2006. Mr. Mukasey is also is a teacher. He began teaching at Columbia Law School in the Spring of 1993 and has taught there every Spring semester since. In addition, he is well-connected politically. Mukasey and his son are justice advisers to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign. And, on top of all this,  as of yesterday, November 6, 2007, Michael Mukasey has been appointed by our “democratically-led” Congress as 81st United States Attorney General.

For those who are not familiar with the title, The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government.

Quite a notable resume, don’t you think? Yet, despite all of Mr. Mukasey’s accomplishments, you might be surprised to learn that he, The United States’ top law official,  doesn’t know how to use the internet. When Mr. Mukasey was asked by Senator Whitehouse, “Is waterboarding constitutional?” Mr. Mukasey replied, “I don’t know what’s involved in the technique. If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.”

But, he said, “if.” Which means, he can’t be sure.

Mr. Mukasey, I can help. Go to your computer and type in “waterboarding” on any search engine. Here’s what comes up on Wikipedia:

“Waterboarding is a technique that simulates drowning in a controlled environment. It consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face to force the inhalation of water into the lungs. Waterboarding has been used to obtain information, coerce confessions, punish and intimidate. In contrast to merely submerging the head, waterboarding elicits the gag reflex and can make the subject believe death is imminent.

Waterboarding’s use as a method of torture or means to support interrogation is based on its ability to cause extreme mental distress…Although waterboarding in cases can leave no lasting physical damage, it carries the real risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries as a result of struggling against restraints (including broken bones), and even death.”

Wikipedia also states that, “Numerous experts have described this technique as torture.” Funny, but somehow I don’t think it tales an expert to figure that out, which is why I can‘t understand why Mukasey is having so much trouble with it.  Some nations have criminally prosecuted individuals for performing waterboarding. In the past, The United States has been one of those nations.

Why am I talking about this? “Waterboarding” – a euphemism that sounds like a fun sport, instead of what it actually is, got renewed attention September 2006, when reports claimed that the Bush administration had authorized the use of waterboarding on extrajudicial prisoners of the United States. ABC News reported that current and former CIA officers stated that, “there is a presidential finding, signed in 2002, by President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft approving the ‘enhanced’ interrogation techniques, including water boarding.”

Waterboarding became an issue in the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to be the next U.S. Attorney General because of his wishy-washy stance on whether he approved of waterboarding or not. Several Senators indicated that they would not vote for him without a more definitive answer.

Yet, his nomination was confirmed by the Senate yesterday.

My thanks to Wikipedia for providing most of the material for my VOX blog this week. But my biggest thanks goes to The United States Senate for upholding my beloved Constitution.

Good job, people.

 

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

 

Filed Under: Civil Rights, Divas and Harlots, Politics, Social Commentary, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

An Open Letter to a Pyromaniac in Greece

August 30, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Perhaps one of the ‘conspiracy theories’ is right. You might be a “domestic terrorist” seeking to overthrow the government by creating chaos, as the officials, like officials everywhere, every time there’s a disaster anywhere, ‘chicken-little it’, shouting, “the sky is falling…but it’s not my fault!” You might be a landowner who got screwed by one of the capricious government edicts, that says you can construct a home one day and then declares your building site a ‘forest-protected area’ the next. You might even be a cold-blooded opportunist, who expects you can now purchase ruined land on the cheap and build hotels upon it.

Or perhaps you just like to see things burn. Maybe you’re one of the pathetic few in this world who imagine that you, who can only destroy, are as magnificent as those who can only create.

None of this matters. Because I’m writing to tell just what you really accomplished and just who you really are:

NOTHING.

You are NOTHING to the Greek spirit that has conquered thousands of years of famine, strife, oppression and natural acts of god.

You are NOTHING to the descendents of those who rebuilt the Parthenon after the Persians destroyed it. It was made even more astonishing and awe-inspiring the second time around.

You are NOTHING to those whose ancestors in Messolonghi, danced the “Zallogos,” then jumped off the cliffs to their deaths, rather then endure capture by their enemies.

 

You are NOTHING to the children of the children, who parents taught them in hidden caves, when tyrants occupying the land tried to squelch the Hellenic culture, history and language.

And to the ghosts of the students who stood in front of tanks and to Mikis Theodorakis, whose music is still the voice of the Greek Resistance, you are NOTHING.

Like the flame you created, you were here for a short time, “full of sound and fury,” but in the face of our determination, indomitable love of land and country, you are reduced to ash. That ash, which you left behind, we’ll use it to till the soil. It will fertilize the seeds of the beautiful red poppies of Hellas. And they’ll grow again.

Where you thought you’d left Greece barren, flora and fauna will grow again. Though we may not live to see it bloom to its complete beauty, our grandchildren will and their grandchildren, too.

Where you’d hoped to destroy a mother’s love and her four children, you unwittingly multiplied it, by the love of a hundred million mothers on every corner of this planet, who wept for her and hers, holding our own sons and daughters all the tighter that night.

Those of us privileged and safe in our homes, saw your flames from our televisions and cried,too. But the men and women in the villages we watched, remained stoic as they stamped you out with nothing but sticks and prayers. They’d lived through it all before – fire, earthquakes and conquerors - and still live, to pass on their valour to the next generation.

Philhellenes and Hellenes everywhere across the globe, like devoted, grown children tending to an ailing parent, will nurture Greece back to health, as she had always nurtured us. And Greece will thrive again, as she has in the past, as she always will.

That’s why I say you are NOTHING.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Filed Under: Civil Rights, Divas and Harlots, Greek Culture, Politics, Social Commentary Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The Emperor Has New Clothes

July 31, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Barry BondsIt’s never been proven that Barry Bonds takes steroids.”

That’s a statement I hear a lot in the San Francisco Bay Area and it brings to mind another statement I heard a lot a few years back:

“There are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

The connection between these two statements is this: depending on whether they were for Bonds or Bush, people rebutted them both with this declaration:

“All evidence points to the contrary!”

We can all be so clear sighted, can’t we? As long as we’re talking about ‘the other team.’ But if he’s one of ‘us,’ we’re capable of ignoring facts that are as obvious as an elephant on a bus. We don’t accept “reasonable doubt” when it’s not convenient for ‘us.’ We are a nation in denial.

Like the woman with the black eye who says, “He only hits me because he loves me,” we defend the guy we think is on ‘our’ team, because we think he’s on ‘our’ team.

Here’s the catch - the guy we’re defending doesn’t think he’s on ‘our’ team. He knows he’s on a team of his own, a team that benefits only one person - him.

But that’s something else we don’t George Bushwant to believe and so when Ann Coulter calls ‘us’ “godless” ‘they’ go out and buy her books and when Al Franken calls ‘them’ “liars,” ‘we’ go out and buy his books. That’s why Coulter and Franken are both getting rich.

And when George Bush, who says he’s a ‘Republican,’ told us all that we had to invade Iraq, Republicans supported him, because they think he’s ‘theirs.’ That’s why The United States military is still looking for those weapons, whilst piling up thousands of dead, more than a few of whom, I bet, were Republicans.

And when Barry Bonds denies any wrongdoing, ‘we’ support him, because we think he’s ‘ours.’ Have Giants fans been watching Bonds carefully, or are they too dizzy from following all those baseballs flying into the stands? Barry Bonds hasn’t done one thing for The Giants, but he’s done everything he can get away with, for himself. That’s why we’ll have more and more of our young athletes taking steroids. Because every cheer for Mr. Bonds is a shout to our kids that we think any lie is okay, great, in fact, as long as it’s for ‘our’ team.

Lastly, now that our nation is so fragmented, it’s a good time to remember that breaking up into teams and fighting with each  Chris Benoitother, is how the Native Americans lost the country to the white man in the first place. The natives had many teams. The English had one. And everybody learned the hard way, that going along with whatever ‘your team’ does, is not just bias, it’s lazy and deadly.

Instead of choosing teams, why don’t we ever choose facts? I’ll start:

‘Your’ emperor and ‘mine’- whether Bonds and Bush, or Bush and Bonds? They’ve both been walkingaround NAKED for a long time.

Kostas KenterisPhotos- Barry Bonds ‘before,’ G.W. Bush and Iraq war veteran,Sgt. Dobbs,Chris Benoit, wrestler and Kostas Kentelis Greek runner. Credits listed at www. patriciavdavis.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Filed Under: Patricia Volonakis Davis' Blog, Social Commentary Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Poker Part II : Nurses, Pimps, Prams and Rita

July 19, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

So I flew to Las Vegas to be with “Poker Pete” for the last few days of the WSOP. Las Vegas is a perfect spot for an ‘A’ type personality like myself to go on a short holiday. There is nothing else to do except relax and have fun. After all the work the past mon

The first day, I hung out by the pool and just soaked up the sun. I had one of those frozen drinks that they stick a fresh strawberry in, so that you can let yourself be deluded into thinking that you’re only having fruit. But I didn’t let myself worry about the calories, or how much it cost (twelve dollars for a tiny little cup, which is ridiculous) because I was on holiday.

I also went for a nice long swim. In between laps, I met this very nice couple who were just hanging out by the side of the pool, Steve and Janelle, from the east coast. We got to talking and they declared they’d had a midlife crisis, up and quit their high-paying, high-stress jobs and were now both training to be nurses. I was impressed. How much guts does it take to do something like that? I did comment that I thought nursing could also be stressful and Steve said, “Yes, but at least it’s worthwhile stress.”

Good point. Anyway, we talked for so long that I didn’t realise my sunscreen had washed off. Now I have a nice toasty feel to my skin on only the left side of my body, the side that was not under the water whilst I was chatting with Janelle and Steve. As my skin peels, I’ll think of them and hope that their schooling is going well. Steve also said he writes poetry and I invited him to join VOX, which I hope he does.

Another person I met on this little getaway, was Rita Rudner. There she is in the photo with me and Pete standing next to her. But I have to say, she doesn’t look like she does in that photo at all. I only posted it, well… because it’s the only one I have of her with me in it, which is obviously the point. You’re supposed to be standing next to the celebrity in the photo, so you can impress your friends. And if they’re good friends, they’ll say, “Wow, is that you standing next to Rita Rudner?” So that’s why it’s posted. I’m giving you all the opportunity to be good friends and ask me that. But as I started to say, this is not a good photo of Ms. Rudner, because Ms. Rudner is actually stunningly beautiful in person. She definitely needs Ross Pelton to be her photographer. I’ll have to tell her that, next time I run into her, since she and I are such good friends now, as we’ve had our photo taken together.

The reason I went out of my way to meet Rita Rudner, is because she is also quoted in my new book, along with my husband, Pete (As I mentioned in my last blog) and a few dozen other people. Many of them, apart from Pete and Rita that is, are long dead, so they probably won’t mind if I quote them. I’m pretty sure Pete doesn’t mind, either, because I’m his wife and he gets certain benefits from me that predispose him to being amicable to it. But Rita gets no benefit at all and just because I am a fan of hers doesn’t mean I shouldn’t at least ask her if its okay. So that’s what I did and I’m waiting to hear what she has to say, after she finishes reading what I gave her. If you see her quotes in my book, you’ll know she was cool with it. She seems like a nice enough person.

In addition to that, she and I certainly share some similarities. For example, both of us are very curious to know why people bring infants into the casinos in Vegas, when it’s so clear that that’s the last place they belong. In her act, Rita asked, (see now, I’m quoting her again) “do they let you cash them in for chips?”

Brilliant question. I’ve got a few others to add to it along the same lines and maybe some of you know the answers. Why is it that that the socio-economic levels of the patrons of Vegas are so clearly marked like this: The less income the patrons have, the more infants they have with them, the more they play the slots, the more they eat at the buffets and the more they weigh?

Conversely, the rich, particularly the women, who hang out at the high stakes blackjack tables and at The Bellagio and the Forum shops at Caesars, are just the opposite – gut-wrenchingly, ‘wince-inspiringly,’ painfully thin. Why? Is all their money going straight to costly card games and retail-priced jewellery? Some of their diamond rings weigh more than do. They are so thin and so weighted down by necklaces, earrings, etc, that they have to clutch onto their husbands, just so they can stay upright and take steps.

I know I sound terrible, but it’s what I observed. The more expensive the hotel, the skinnier the people are in it. The cheaper the rooms are, the heavier the clientele. And I want to know – are the rich keeping skinny so that, instead of being envious that they get to stand in the VIP line at the cafes, we’ll feel sorry for them and want them to not have to wait in a long queue for breakfast, like the rest of us? As for the poor, is the money they’re saving on their hotel bill going straight to feed them? Are they storing up food like squirrels do, in case they’re in for a tough winter?

The poorer and heavier clientele have the most children in strollers with them, too. Even if I wanted to get near a buffet or a slot machine, I couldn’t. My way was blocked by prams, babies and very large people. And they never put those babies to bed, either. Here’s what happened on this trip:

Poker Pete and I were walking outside on the main strip one night very late, so late it was early morning, in fact. On the main strip, of course, you’ve got those blokes who hand you the little cards with the photos of the naked women on them. (Rita mentioned them in her act, too.) In other words, what they do for a living is hand out cards that have names and phone numbers of prostitutes on them. One of those guys, just as he’d handed me one of those cards of all things, shouted this out to yet another large couple who were walking with their three, tiny, exhausted children, “Hey – know what time it is? Be parents, why doncha and get those poor kids to sleep!”

I’m not joking, this really happened and so I have one last question to ask:

Ladies and gentlemen – if a pimp in Vegas starts criticising our parenting skills, do you suppose maybe its time for us to rethink a few of our priorities?

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Social Commentary Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Posts

Switch to our mobile site