truth – Brunomad

Santa Fe Delenda Est

Howdy comrades,

Well, if you’ve been following the news or you find yourself a captive of the Land of Entrapment, then you’re well aware my state has gone full pants-on-head-retarded over this Coronavirus nonsense. While I will admit that precautions are certainly necessary to prevent a full-blown outbreak of the Angry Flu™, I would also counter that washing your goddamned hands and not fucking sneezing on motherfuckers is an acceptable strategy over complete public shutdown for three weeks.

But because we’re not content being 51^st in education, our governor decided – after a few I-40 octogenarian yankees contracted the Angry Flu™ – that, in the interests of public safety and preventing further cases from sprouting up across the state, we’d best cancel school for three weeks. Never mind the virus only afflicts the weak and infirm (a natural process of biology); we must act – in the interests of public safety – to prevent an outbreak!

Never mind that we’re a full five hours from this non-issue virus: public safety!

Never mind that we’re one of the largest states with one of the smallest populations – a relic of the Wild West: public safety!

Never mind that a healthy, young person – like teenagers attending public school – might be miserable for a week but remain unscathed; it is more likely symptoms won’t manifest at all: public safety!

Never mind that the Public Education Department has banned public education: public safety!

Never mind that the War on Terror continues without pause, the War on Drugs continues to suckle billions from the federal teat, that accusations of governmental corruption continue in that fetid swamp of DC, that the Democrats and Republicans are tearing each other apart for yet another go at the coveted Ivory Tower, that the stock market is tanking, that the oilfield is suffering, that people have been whipped into a frenzy via media flagellants, that idiocy reigns supreme over logic and reason: public safety!

Never mind the state of fear bred by elected officials, media personalities, and your tia on Facebook: public fucking safety.

Basically how I feel about Santa Fe and the media at this point.

On Thursday evening last, comrades, after the news of our educational demise was announced by those pompous asses in Santa Fe, ah, how I went into a fury: three weeks. Not even the camaraderie of our staff book club and ample pints could dampen my rage. Indeed, I’m still absolutely livid with this Dolchstoss.

Three full goddamned weeks stolen from my charges; ripped, like babes from a pleading mother, by the grotesque hands of barbarians who neither understand their reason for slaughter or its long-term consequences. How – how, comrades! – can this woman in Santa Fe run on an education platform and then gut us so severely this late in the term? Et tu, Lujan?

Yes, yes, I’ve heard it: public safety. Again, certainly, precautions must be taken – that is not in dispute: it is the methodology that irks me. This knee-jerk reaction to the most miniscule of illnesses; have we forgotten how much deadlier the humble flu is than this cheap Chinese knockoff? We have ne’er banned school for three weeks because someone had a cold. You know why?

Because you can wash your goddamned hands and not fucking sneeze on motherfuckers to prevent its spread. Ah ha! Look at that – the simplest solution to the simplest of issues! Where’s my goddamned Nobel Prize for Medicine?

Yes, I understand we needn’t have an outbreak, but I must counter that the blackguards in Santa Fe went about this all wrong. They are burning down the house to kill the rat. Indeed, they have created a lie from nothing in order to do what, exactly? Prevent the spread of the Angry Flu™, a marvel that targets the weakest members of a biological pool (ya know, like literally every other virus, plague, disease, what have you)?

Consider me cold. Consider me callous. You are justified in such sentiment. But have we considered that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Let the weak, the infirm, the elderly try their hand with this overhyped nonsense: we live in the United States, the most powerful nation in the world. The odds, like in the Hunger Games, are in their favor.

What the governor did not consider – the raison d’etre – were the thousands of students who now must suffer the loss of formal schooling for three weeks. These same students who must now watch their parents descend into media-induced barbarism as they scramble for toilet paper because some fuckwit on the television told them to. These same students who are robbed of the chance to pull New Mexico out of the educational cesspit it’s been languishing in for so many decades. These same students, comrades, who now must look agape at what their futures hold given they’ve been forced into this uncomfortable state of fear.

State of fear: that’s what this has done. The shelves at the grocery store are empty – like my classroom – because people are afraid. And people who are afraid are easy to control. The enemy isn’t at the gates, comrades, shouting their bellicosity from afar; no, they hold court in Santa Fe and Washington. And if you disagree, consider this has been hyped up past 11 right when the primaries were heating up. Nothing like a good scare to convince Americans to vote this or that because our leaders promise safety. McCarthy must be grinning in hell.

Fuck.

Certainly, in this 21^st century of ours with all the technological know-how and what have you, we can resort to distance learning: put everything on the line and let the kids teach themselves.

Ah, fuck it all; what a dreadful idea. Without human interaction – an encouraging instructor to point out errors and praise success – robots are a poor excuse for education. If it wasn’t, well, there’d be no need for boots on the ground. And yet you cannot replicate the classroom setting on the line in full: you can try, with varying degrees of success, but it will never be the same. Having kids in the classroom is one of the greatest joys of this calling. To believe otherwise is foolish and ignorant (you can probably find a job in the governor’s retinue with those qualifications, however).

Now I will admit I am heated as evidenced by my inflammatory rhetoric (you get the allusion in the title, right?) and my desire to bite my thumb at my so-called superiors. Certainly, I am bellicose and impassioned with ire; how could I not? My calling, comrades, is to teach, and to be neutered in a single swipe of a governor’s pen; it’s maddening.

On Friday – my last full day with my charges – I launched into an epic fury, such was my rage, as I railed against this educational injustice, public safety be damned. Indeed, one of those moments you look back on and think “I might get in trouble for saying this.” And then – in the cold clarity of carefully constructed choler – I came upon the realization that I’ve been given a golden loophole: I can’t teach at school.

But I can teach where’er the fuck I want.

To that end, comrades, I must report with certain satisfaction that the inaugural Corona High’s first session went well-enough. Despite being denied a pre-promised conference room and Mother Nature seeing fit to literally rain upon our parade, we held class and continued our studies as if nothing had occurred. Indeed, it felt far more promising and enriching given the small class sizes and genuine interest of the participants. For all my rage, I did not forget my raison d’etre: my kids. For all these setbacks, those kids didn’t forget their studies.

Comrades, the reasons I take fault with this hyperbole is because it directly affects our students, and thus, by extension, our future. By robbing our kids of valuable school time so late in the semester, we are dropping our low bar even lower. Indeed, it’s no longer a pole vault but a limbo. By allowing kids to see that fear is more valued than logic or reason, we indirectly encourage them to simply go with the flow and not make waves.

But I have faith in my kids – in those kids who are refusing to bow to fear or kowtow to distant disturbances – to carry this beacon forward.

We’ll continue to have class, Corona – and Santa Fe – be damned. Education is far more important than so-called public safety, for indeed, an educated populace is a safe one. An ignorant one, well, go check out your local grocery store to see how they fare.

Class at noon tomorrow, kids. At the park. Bring the goddamned thunder.

This is why we lionize revolutionaries. Love him or hate him, he truly believed in what he fought for.

Farewell Address to My 2018-2019 Goombas

Posted on the final exam for this year’s Sophomores:

Continue reading “Farewell Address to My 2018-2019 Goombas”

When Wasn’t I Awake?

Fuck, I love Tobacco

There is something to be said about vices and how they keep us human. After all, comrades, how are we to trust someone who has ne’er indulged themselves beyond the Dark Stream?

I first started smoking at 16 when I was punished for fighting at NMMI. I was only a Sophomore in high school, but my heavy boots and quick tongue found me in a moral quandary my young mind wasn’t capable of extricating itself just yet. My squad leader – a loveable chap who shall remain nameless – recognized my errant behavior and my uncouth attitude toward rules and regulations. After receiving my duly (and justly) fit punishment for breaking the rules, he and I stole away to an insecure power bay and there – on those hallowed grounds of cavalry stomping – I indulged myself for the first time.

Ah, how flitting is the smoke.

I went cold for five years when I found myself sworn to a girl I was for certain to marry. But, if you know my story, comrades, you know that weren’t the case. After five years of biting a hole into my cheek, of swallowing my tongue, of putting on the Richard Cory face, I watched as Rome burnt afore me; I hadn’t even a fiddle to play.

These days – far from that five years – I find myself with a couple of proper pipes and an endless supply of fine American Spirits. There is something to be said about addiction, comrades, for I find it humanizes me. After all, when one compares themselves to Beowulf’s greatest foe, it is reassuring to relate monstrosity to humanity. Am I not flawed? Am I not imperfect? Ah, yes; so very much so. All courtesy of a finely wrapped and packaged death sentence I all too happily indulge: we all die. Enjoy it.

The Longest Journey by Ensiferum has been on repeat for at least an hour – quite possibly more – and though I have listened to this song a thousandfold, each new reverberation brings a new realization. The Dark Stream; pray tell, what is it?

On the morrow I am to teach the Allegory of the Cave by a Mr. Plato. Some Greek blowhard who had some good ideas and unintentionally spawned Christianity. My faithful readers, I implore you to remember we are born of pagan ideals mixed with the blood of the Savior. The Allegory is a stark reminder of this. We escape toward Truth. We must cross the Dark Stream lest we let it consume us.

To my students who are reading this drivel, foremost: stop. Read something of substance. I shan’t quiz you on what your loony instructor writes, but that of what truly matters: this ultimate quest for Truth. And certainly don’t take up smoking; we all die, but at least die knowing you made a contribution aside from being a lung cancer statistic.

Back to the Allegory for I find it a most provocative piece: we delight in our ignorance. It is humanity’s universality. I have some kids who are dumber than a sack of hammers and are destined to make a killing in the o’lfield one day swinging said hammer, but is Life merely an amount of zeros following a dollar sign? No, comrades, far from it.

Beyond that Dark Stream – the proverbial End – and far beyond the Cave of Ignorance, a whole world yearns for our touch. Our gentle boot to the ass. The slap of indignation across the face of realization. To think – to fucking think! – that we are to merely exist to swing hammers and collect a paycheck; ah, how that irks. How it perturbs. How it disturbs. Disrupts. Defiles. And, most damnably, distorts.

We, my comrades, are not put upon this sphere of influence to collect magical pieces of paper with a monetary value in constant flux; render unto Caesar and fuck all. We were not put upon this globe to work until our hands shrivel in dotage and our ungrateful children retire us to homes of the walking dead. And we certainly weren’t put upon this earth, comrades, to labor for no higher purpose.

Are we not to serve as reminders?

Ah; education. Education – that bridge across the Stream, straddling the Cave – to enlightenment. My little bastards have but a taste of it; far more is to come as Real Life swings the proverbial Dick of Life into their wholesome faces, but let it be clear that it is with the best of intentions. Certainly, a dick in the face is frowned upon in polite company, but if you can learn something – for Good or Ill – is learning not worth it?

Years ago I learned I found relief in stimulants, my beautiful tobacco, and mastered the art of keeping an addiction under control for self-betterment. With each new high, I found the dragon e’er out of reach until I stumbled upon that one high replicated e’ery 49 minutes. Teaching, ah blessed Teaching, how you, like my tobacco, keep me humble, alive, and awake.

We all die, comrades. We all struggle with addiction. Self-doubt. The cancer of the soul that one day will claim us as another statistic of whatever egress you fancy. But, comrades, but, we aren’t there yet. Make something of yourself. Make something of yours. Embrace your mistakes and realize you were simply the Escaped Prisoner from the Cave the entirety.

If, dear reader, these words are lost upon you, then I fear you ne’er left the Cave. Rethink yourself. Rethink the Cave. The Dark Stream. Rethink you. What have you to offer, after all?

I am a near-alcoholic, chain-smoking, foul-mouthin’, fucking crazy.

But at least I am Free.

Grössi

It was Swiss National Day. 1 August, when the original three cantons swore blood oaths against foreign aggression and the hated Hapsburgs. It was unlike any other Erste August they had celebrated before.

He sat across from her, a diminutive woman from centuries past, a veritable peasant milkmaid once upon a time who most certainly hurled boulders on the invading Austrians at Morgarten. She might have been a shade, her stature so small against the massive wooden chair she found herself seated upon. His grandmother – his father’s side – who was approaching her 85^th birthday.

Grössi. Swiss shorthand for grandmother.

He looked upon her gnarled hands – worn well with ages of manual labor – and remembered the tenderness behind those curved fingers. How she would comfort his father when he was sick – a shot of grög to cure any illness (warm schnapps with water, lemon, and sugar to hide the bitterness) – how those very same hands once fended off a rabid fox using only a wooden pitchfork before his grandfather – Opa – shot it with a rudimentary (possibly flintlock) shotgun. The very same hands that knitted water-tight wicker baskets, carved planks from felled trees, sowed corn in the Alpine climate of Fribourg, cut beans, made salbe to cure wounds and prevent infections, swatted misbehaving children and grandchildren, and toasted fortune and misfortune alike with a hearty Sante and a fiery schnapps. Those very hands, rough as talons, that would pat his head and remind him – even well into adulthood – he was still just a little boy. Hepschabübe.

Apart from his full-blood Swiss cousin who was destined to inherit the family farm, he was the only grandchild who spoke enough of her odd dialect to engage in genuine conversation; the trouble with immigrant parents. He recalled the times she would badger him about his American girlfriends, when he would settle down and find himself a nice Swiss girl.

Üb’ die Berge, she would say, passing him chocolate and sweets, forcing him to sit in the shade and rest as she labored in the fields, refusing to accept his help. Over the mountain, indicating a potential Swiss bride was just over the next Berge for her wayward American grandson.

Nay, Grössi, i’ wie nicht, he would respond a thousandfold. No, Grandmother, I don’t know. His catch-all response for matters of the heart.

Schön, schön, she would sigh gayly, returning her attention to fields needing plowing and hay needing turning. Good, good. It was a waiting game for her – a means of conversation – and even though he dreaded explaining himself in a foreign tongue to this family relic, he found solace in their brief, practical conversations.

She was no taller than five feet, coming to his shoulder on a good day, but with a perpetual crick in her spine, as if the weight of the farm and family constantly caused her to tilt to and fro in either direction. Despite her size – this elderly ragamuffin – she was worth every ounce of her salt, easily outpacing him in plowing fields, harvesting hay, gathering roots, or chopping wood. She was a metronome, and he, in the prime of his Life, found himself wholly inadequate in her maternal, enduring presence. She was carved from the very stone of her mountainous homeland; part of him was certain she watched the granite blossom from nothingness.

He had visited the farm several years ago, intent on exploring Europe via foot and backpack. For a week, whilst his luggage languished in Germany – Düütschesland, she’d mutter – he helped about the place, trying to earn his keep, to show her that not all Americans were fat and lazy. Even though he awoke before dawn and helped milk cows before herding them to the hills, she was always there before him. It seemed Time was afraid of her and merely responded to her bidding. Geh’ du Lese’, Professor, she would say laughingly. Go back to reading. Farm work was no place for a boy outpaced by an octogenarian.

Once, many years ago, she asked about his American interests and what sort of music he enjoyed. Though he did take a particular liking to traditional Swiss polka and yodel, he confessed he admired Rammstein. She swore in rapid fire Swiss, crossing herself thrice – a good Catholic woman – before chastising him for his lack of taste and affinity for megabrutal music. Mein’ Gött. When they visited Rome together later that summer, she entered the Vatican on bended knee, crawling through St. Peter’s gate as a true Pilgrim. The heavens sang.

When his mother was stricken with breast cancer, the very same diminutive woman (who had only left Switzerland three times before) made an immediate pilgrimage to Lourdes to pray for healing. His uncle, who ran the farm, protested at the loss of his most valuable hand for a near week: how would he get by? Soga’ Ketzer brauche’ Hilfe, the good Catholic would laugh. Even heretics need help, she said with love. His Protestant mother had been cancer-free for several years.

He thought of the old woman he and his missionary comrades had served in Santiago de Chile. Abuela, they had affectionately called her, a tiny woman who was easily 80 years old, yet cared for her American hijos and hijas as if they were her own babes. He saw his grandmother in this woman – the very same spark of Life and vitality no hardship could extinguish. She kissed the ground as they left for the last time, falling prostrate, rising for each child, kissing them on the cheek, and whispering Spanish prayers into their ears as they hugged goodbye. He wept that day, finding his Grössi in the slums of Chile.

His thoughts returned to 1 August, a day of celebration and fest. Here they were, assembled as a family: grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, daughters, sons, the whole mess of them drunk on wine, schnapps, food, and family.

His father raised his wine glass and the table silenced themselves – the chatter and laughter coming to a hushed close. “I wish to make a toast,” he said in his heavily accented English, “to Grössi. And to Switzerland.”

The quiet table burst into raucous cheers of hear, hear’s and Sante’s as they clinked crystal wine glasses against one another, ensuring they made eye contact with every individual at the table (and never crossing arms; taboo and bad luck) before supping the fine French wine.

Amidst bread, blood, and drink, all was well.

He looked at his father, a proud, strong man who seized the American dream by the throat and throttled every meaningful promise into existence for his family. He held back tears – plain enough to see – as he smashed his glass again and again.

“Für Grössi, Vater,” he said as their glasses met.

Grössi raised her own glass, her petite bird arm cradling the fine schlöcki as she toasted her fellow well-wishers.

“Für dich,” he said as he met Grössi’s strong, patient eye. “Mein’ Grössi.”

“Mein’ Kinde’,” she replied warmly, the sound of cascading crystal reverberating throughout the room. My child.

She had passed away some 12 hours before, approximately 3,000 miles away, in the comfort of her bed.

My Grandmother in Switzerland passed away during the early hours of 1 August. I last saw her in 2014 when I started Camino Primaris, still the strong, implacable woman of my youth. Her image of strength, tenacity, and willpower will ne’er leave me.

Geh’ mit Gött, Grössi.

Go with God.