This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.
I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.
I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.
When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.
The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.
I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.
Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.
(Second Update - 1310.24. First Update - 1306.05 Originally Posted - 1304.25.)
T-shirt #38: GODLAND: "Violence is the new black."
Moods.
The T-shirt for today is dictated by my mood.
In my continuing series of providing justifications and rationalizations for wearing certain T-shirts, I want to share a bit about how mood often dictates the shirt. But first a bit about reasoning.
As I have previously addressed, different shirts have different uses. There are "dressy" shirts, which I am wear only when I go out of the house dressed to the "nines." I have mentioned that some shirts are for sleeping, and others are more or less exclusively worn when there's a chance they will get soiled. (I am ashamed to say that yesterday's shirt, T-shirt #37, is one of those shirts. I am so ashamed of this fact that I have "hidden" the fact here rather than in yesterday's entry. It is my logic that those Facebook friends who spot the shirt for Take Back the Night may just click on that post and not this one, and therefore, not be offended by this confession. I could be wrong.) I have described that some shirts fit the season, like my yellow shirts, such as KID FLASH T-SHIRT #30. And back in my media studies teaching days, I often wore a shirt for the musical artist that I was featuring in class that day, such as T-shirt #35: Joy Division. (By the way, I added videos to my former music blog entries, which I should have done in the first place. These can be found at T-shirt #35: Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures, T-shirt #36: Kraftwerk: We are the robots and T-shirt#6: Discipline. I provided the links here as a service to my daily readers, or randomly regular readers, who may want to dial back and watch the videos.)
I had the pleasure of being asked to speak at a rally for Take Back the Night in 2005.
When I spoke, I was teaching a course in media studies in the Gender and Women's Studies department at Western Michigan University.
I was a bit surprised to be asked.
I was humbled and honored to be asked as well.
My ten years of tenure as the instructor of the course Media and the Sexes (should have been called Gender and the Media) was the best job I have ever held. I did my best teaching work in that course. I feel like I made a difference.
T-shirt #36: Kraftwerk: Dedicated to GRADING ROBOT
I am Grading Robot.
Though I have been a college instructor for almost 30 years [gulp: how did that happen], and though I have graded my way through thousands of papers in my career, I did not start calling myself GRADING ROBOT until I started teaching for various online universities in 2009.
Currently, I teach for four schools, and three of them are online schools. With my current course load, I have a maximum of about 160 assignments to grade per week. This number represents a potential maximum, and actual numbers are much lower. For instance, this week I graded two sets of assignments for my main school early in the week. With 30 students in each class, I generated about 60 comments for those sets, but the comments are all much the same and the classroom activity system generates scores for me. Easy Peasy. Posting the comments for the first two sets takes around two hours total time. I had discussion assignments to grade at another school, but these can also be completed quickly. With lower enrollment numbers, I worked through about eighteen assignments for one class and ten for the other class; but not all the students completed the discussion, so actual numbers of comments I must concoct are probably closer to fourteen and six or twenty total. Next up, I had written assignments at the main school, which could be another sixty assignments, but actual numbers totaled only 30. Yes, HALF the students do not submit the written work (at least not on time). Still, this is the most time consuming part of my week. I still have three more sets of written work at the other school to grade by Sunday (though I am supposed to be done by Saturday but so far this has proven to be a soft deadline), and a new set of assignments at the one ground campus school (but this is a class of four people) to grade by next Wednesday. The second school has an extra set of assignments for the week, which will bring my total to around thirty-six assignments, accounting for attrition, to complete by Sunday (as I said, the soft deadline).
And then I get to do it all over again next week!
See what I mean? Grading robot. The only way to survive such a work load is to streamline the process, find ways to speed up the repetitive feedback, and watch the clock. It's all about rhythm, repetition, and a certain tempo. Even so, grading written assignments can be quite time consuming as each student receives individual feedback. Yet, the process is much like Kraftwerk's music. Clockwork grading machine. Machine, Machine.
"We are the robots."
GRADING ROBOT.
So, this Kraftwerk shirt really calls to mind the idea of my work as Grading Robot; this is one of Kraftwerk's robot shirts. (I have another; stay tuned.) The shirt's image is just the kind of thing I love. It would be even better if Kraftwerk's name was not on the shirt. The image speaks volumes.
Damn, I love this shirt.
I have reams of material to assault your senses about Kraftwerk, but today's post is dedicated to how I think of myself as Grading Robot when I wear this shirt (and often when I am not wearing this shirt). In perspective, I am operating on--at best--six hours of sleep. I got up at 5 a.m. this morning to finish grades due at 9 a.m., which sounds easy enough, and it is when I am not so exhausted. But the work is repetitive and only takes a small portion of my brain capacity.
To close today's entry, a few random Kraftwerk facts.
1. My first Kraftwerk album was a used copy of Trans Europe Express, though I may have heard Computer World at my friend Steve's house (Steve Curl as mentioned in T-shirt #32: D&D) before purchasing that LP.
2. I did not see Kraftwerk live until a few years ago at the State Theatre (now the Fillmore) in Detroit: June 3rd 2005. (I updated this date and the pic of the ticket on 1306.13.)
3. I own another Kraftwerk shirt though I do not like it as much as this one.
3.5. Kraftwerk's style of music and live presentation fits my geeky aesthetic perfectly.
4. Since the initial purchase in the 1980s, I have purchased the band's entire catalogue either on compact disc or LP.
-chris tower, 1304.26 11:58
Photo courtesy of Liesel MK Tower
This shirt features the cover art of the debut studio album by the band Joy Division (1976-1980) called Unknown Pleasures. The Manchester label Factory Records issued the album in June of 1979. The iconic image derives from radio waves imagery from the pulsar CP 1919. When the pulsar was first discovered, the regularity of its signal prompted many to propose that it may be a signal from a sentient civilization and thus was nicknamed LGM-1 for Little Green Men. A similar image was also featured in the 1979 film Alien by Ridley Scott, resonating with fans of both.
At the time of its release, Unknown Pleasures failed to chart and was a commercial failure. I did not discover Joy Division until much later, sometime around 1981-82 when the legend of the band had begun to grow and news of them to trickle into America. The band's second album, Closer, was my first experience with Joy Division. I do not have a T-shirt for Closer (at least not yet). Shortly after discovering Closer, I purchased Unknown Pleasures, Still, and the maxi-single for Love Will Tear Us Apart. These were all LPs back then, "in the day," as it were. I did not buy the T-shirt until much later.
I bought this T-shirt after seeing it advertised in a British music magazine. I am mad for British music magazines, such as Mojo and Uncut, the antecedents of classic music publications, such as NME and Melody Maker. I sent away to the U.K. for this shirt and a few other Brit-centric items that will surely be featured in this blog soon. I paid extra in pounds to dollars and shipping only to discover the Joy Division shirt being sold here in the States, even locally. I love the shirt's image and the meaning behind it, even though I love the album Closer more.
As I had shared before in these posts, different T-shirts have different roles in my life. Though this T-shirt, also from the Death of Superman stories back in 1992, has not always been worn at bed time, this is its role now. It's part of my pajamas.
I am not sure that I ever wore this shirt out of the house. It is a bit garish. Also, in the failing memory department, I am not sure that I remember where I was when Superman died since the Man of Steel's death was a story and not an event playing out in all-day, regularly scheduled TV programming pre-empted news broadcasts. It was a big event in comics, but it was hardly akin to the Challenger space shuttle accident or the attacks on the World Trade Center, events that I watched closely via my television.
I did have a black arm band, though. I would display the arm band for you here if I knew where it was. I still have it somewhere. I am sure it is considered a collector's item. Kind of a clever idea actually. DC Comics mass produced a free giveaway (at least, I think they were free) for comic book stores to promote the Death of Superman comics in the form of black arm bands with the Superman logo in glossy red. We could wear the arm bands in mourning for
I like the Golden State Warriors. Yes, you read that right.
Perhaps some Pistons fans will hurl invective at me: "Sacrilege!" and "Aren't you a DETROIT Pistons Fan?"
Can't I like more than one basketball team? Sure, I can.
Back in 2007, I joined the "We Believe" fandom for the Golden State Warriors while also cheering for my Pistons who made it all the way to the Conference Finals versus the Cleveland Cavaliers.
And why not?
The Golden State Warriors play in the West. Though the Warriors and Pistons play two games a year, for the playoffs, they were not yet in competition in 2007. I wanted to see a Pistons-Warriors finals. Instead we were treated to a Spurs-Cavaliers finals.
In 2007, I liked the Golden State players, and I really liked the sea of gold as everyone in the Oracle Arena wore this golden shirt featuring the "We Believe" slogan. It was a free giveaway shirt to anyone who attended the game (sponsored by Comcast). I bid on a short via eBay and won.
I was not totally a band wagon fan. I had always liked the Golden State Warriors, if for the name alone. Though I am not much of a fan of things in California (which may change if I ever actually set foot in California), "Golden State" just sounds cool, and when paired with "Warriors," the name has cool power.
Also, I like underdogs. Golden State was the ultimate underdog for many years. With the advent of the 2006-07 season, Golden State held the ignominious record of the longest time (12 years) without a playoff appearance in the active record (of teams then active).
I liked the players on the 2007 roster: Baron Davis, Jason Richardson (from MSU), Monta Ellis, and Latvian Andris Biedrinš. Then a smart trade created a run-and-gun offense with Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson added to the mix. (Though for the record, I am no Stephen Jackson fan given his involvement in the infamous "Malice at the Palace" event of Nov. 19, 2004.) I liked Don Nelson, their coach, one of the top ten best coaches in NBA history.
Warning! Today's blog entry must be short. It's Monday. Start of the work week. There's work to do.
I am playing Dungeons and Dragons again. This is somewhat of a big deal.
Okay, technically, I am playing PATHFINDER, which is a revision of the core source rules for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. But it is what it is. Gamers will stipulate that it is Pathfinder NOT D&D. But to the rest of the world, it's D&D.
Games are important. I need games in my life. This is part of self care. Luckily, there others who want to do some gaming, too. I am also gathering with friends to play board games from time to time. But that's a post for another time.
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