Tag Archives: Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride

Motivationally Speaking

14 Nov

from February 5, 2008

I had the extreme displeasure of bringing one of my classes to be yelled at by a motivational speaker. What is a motivational speaker? I don’t know. I thought I knew.

Way back, long ago, many of you may not believe this, but there was a time in antiquity when Saturday Night Live was funny. Some of your parents may have spoken of this time in hushed tones befitting myths and legends, but take it from me- that show was once funny. Really, I’m being serious.

Anyway, there was a man named Chris Farley. Large, rotund in fact, he had the girth of three men and did the drugs of five. In fact, many is the time, it is said, that he would do drugs only available for sick elephants and imported from the Philippines. But I digress. Farley also did a hilarious character, motivational speaker Matt Foley. Here I quote liberally from Wikipedia for the sake of my sheer laziness:

Matt Foley was a motivational speaker character performed by Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live although he had performed the character in other comedy groups before being a cast member on Saturday Night Live. Essentially, Foley was the very antithesis of a good motivational speaker: abrasive, clumsy, and down on his luck. Foley appeared in eight Saturday Night Live sketches, and the sketch usually started with Foley being brought into a specific situation by someone to speak to a group. In addition to appearing disheveled, overweight, and unstylish, he would yell, disparage, display cynicism, and give a clearly negative motivational message. Foley’s trademark line was warning his audience that, like him, they could end up being “…35 years old, thrice divorced, and living in a van down by the river!” When members of his audience claimed any kind of accomplishment he would respond with a drippingly sarcastic “Well, la-dee-freakin-da!” or something similar. The sketch would often include Foley giving wildly exaggerated gestures and falling (or jumping) onto a piece of furniture, destroying it, or injuring himself in the process. At the end, he would usually be quickly herded out of his speaking location, where the people left behind would huddle together and comment on him, usually bemused and fearful. Though his speeches always backfired, the end results would usually be successful, in that the recipients did not want to be associated with Foley.

 SAMPLE MATT FOLEY MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH: Once, there was a boy who liked to throw things. He started out throwing eggs. Then, he threw the big game. Then, he threw back a shot of whiskey. Then he threw up. Then he got thrown out of the house, and then he moved into a van down by the river!

 SAMPLE MATT FOLEY MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH TWO: You kids are probably saying to yourself, “Now, I’m gonna go out, and I’m gonna get the world by the tail and wrap it around pull it down and put it in my pocket!” Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re probably gonna find out, as you go out there, that you’re not gonna amount to JACK SQUAT!” You’re gonna end up eating a steady diet of government cheese and living in a van down by the river!

 SAMPLE MATT FOLEY MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH THREE: You’re gonna be doin’ a lot of doobie rollin’ when you’re living in a van down by the river!

 So I had some high expectations for this motivational speaker.

She didn’t meet them.

This speaker spoke ALL IN CAPS. EVEN WHEN SHE WAS NOT YELLING SHE SOMEHOW MANAGED TO TALK LIKE THIS. Often, she managed to underline her speech, LIKE THIS, and often SEEMED TO USE AN INORDINATE NUMBER OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!!!! In fact, she motivationally spoke in a manner that makes it very easy for me to write.

Unlike Matt Foley, she didn’t fall over or pass out or die of an OD, she just yelled and abused the kids about things they didn’t know and probably shouldn’t be expected to know, like “how many accounting classes do you need to graduate from Briaircliffe College?” Really, she asked and expected an answer. BTW- her name was “Ms. Mona” and I guranteee that is a fake name.

I’m not really sure what she was there to motivate them to do, but here are my impressions copied directly out of my notepad, written as it happened in convenient (lazy) bullet point format. Reporters in world War Two did the same thing when filing  their reports, but they were seldom as funny. What was wrong with those guys?

* “Ms. Mona” cannot be her real name. I bet she appears as “Ms. Moaner” at batchelor parties. I bet she does an act with a donkey that has to be seen to be believed.

* “Ms. Mona” (Ha!) is still angry that she has only a 3.946 GPA. Or as she said “I HAVE A 3.946 GPA AT BRIARCLIFFE COLLEGE AND I’M STILL NOT OVER THOSE TWO A MINUS’ THREE YEARS AGO!!!!!”

* I can be a motivational speaker. I can yell and bullshit too.

* Whoever paid her for this got ripped off. She intimidated the kids, yelled about stuff they don’t need to know, and badgered them to the point of insensibility. (Mine.)

* She screamed at about the same speed, volume, and wavelength as a star going supernova emits RF. I believe the SETI Project picked her up. (Google that, kids. It is real sciencey-type stuff.) For me, the high point had to be when the bust of Lincoln sitting on a shelf behind her actually got up and committed suicide by tying a window-shade cord around its neck and jumping off the shelf. Only quick action by the Shakespeare bust saved Honest Abe’s life.

Now, in the name of fairness, and you know I am all about the fairness, I did learn two very important things from “Ms. (bullshit) Mona”- Number one- if you are not a morning person do not take morning classes. Number Two- If you take night classes expect to meet a lot of old people.

That’s about it. She yelled at the kids and demanded to know why they waited to see their advisor until 2012 when the graduation requirements changed in 2010. Yes she did.

She told them a lot about what classes an accounting major needs to graduate from Briarcliffe College, and when asked if they offer courses in Psychology, she said “No, Briarclifffe isn’t for you” and made the kids fill out info cards so Briarcliffe could send them lots and lots of ads and come-ons, I mean college info.

She was loud and abrasive. She didn’t tell them one single thing. When I asked the kids what they learned I  heard such gems as “I don’t want to take five classes in one day” and “where is Briarcliffe College?”

They also learned that Briarcliffe offers a direct shuttle from Atlantic Avenue to Briarcliffe and back. Wow.

I managed to fill nine pages of her crap in my notepad, so it was not a total waste of time. Oh Hell, I take it back, those were 45 minutes I will never get back and I truly believe that I aged about six months sitting there. It really was a total wate of time. The only thing sadder than the speech was the fact that the students walked out thinking they had learned something. They all liked her because “she was loud and funny.” What a freakin’ racket Ms. Moaner has. SHE GOT PAID FOR THIS!!! What is wrong with me that I’m not yelling all the way to the bank? And why do I insist on giving you this blog for free???????

MATT FOLEY TRIVIA: In the first Matt Foley sketch, most of the actors had to restrain themselves from laughing. David Spade spent most of the sketch with his hand over his mouth to keep from bursting into laughter.

 

I kept my hand over my mouth to keep from telling her to go jump in a lake.

 

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My Humiliating Experience, or “You Look Just Like My Father.”

14 Nov

from February 20, 2008

No, my humiliating experience was not my date Sunday night. That went very well, thank you very much. It better have gone well considering how much I spent on dinner, but especially in light of the fact that I broke one of my dating rules.

I only have two rules about dating. Rule Number One- don’t date co-workers, or as I usually put it, I don’t shit where I eat. Now in the past I have been stupidly tempted to break that rule. I’ve skirted the line, I’ve approached the line, I’ve danced on the line, I’ve peeked across the line, and I’ve been accused of crossing the line, but I’ve never broken that rule, despite the fact that I am so often so stupidly smitten.

Rule Number Two is never date a teacher. This dovetails nicely with the first rule, as I work with teachers, and it also excludes all the teachers in all the other schools. This is the rule I broke. In fact, I also broke Rule Number Two A- especially never date a math teacher.

But this is about my humiliating experience. That happened today.

I was buying a birthday card in the Hallmark store on 86th street. It was pretty quiet and I was the only one paying.

I was pretty laid back. It was one of those days where I was just doing my thing, like the post office, birthday card, lunch, all without the benefit of iPod so it was just me and my thoughts, and my thoughts were just as laid back.

I went to the counter and there were two girls there, both around 21 to 23 years old. They were kind of cute. Both of them looked like the kind of wholesome girls you usually only find outside of the city. One was blonde with straight hair and one had dark curly hair. Something about the dark one nagged me, and I realized that she looked like Janan Eways, only attractive and without the crazy eyes. (That’s an LHS reference some of you won’t get.) But they were young and I wasn’t interested.

I’ve never been interested in younger women, no mater what my own age. If I was 16, a 15 year old meant nothing to me. When I was 23, I wouldn’t care for a 21 year old. I’ve always been attracted to women my age or older. There’ve been a few notable exceptions, but that has pretty much been my way. I never planned it, that’s the way it was and the way it is. I like older women, or at least women my same age.

But as I paid I noticed the dark one, the one who rang me up. She was dressed in a blue top with a black apron, a part of her uniform. The blonde one had an apron too. She was not in anyway dressed provocatively, and even if she was the apron would have hidden it, but somehow, between her apron and shirt, a little fringe of frilly pink bra peeked out.

While I may not have been particularly interested in this young girl, she was legal age, and I had a few idle thoughts going through my head. Nothing dirty or lewd, but I am a healthy man and when confronted with a cute girl showing a flash of frilly pink bra the healthy man’s mind tends to wander a bit.

So as I handed her my money I was in a particularly better, though still laid back, mood, when the blonde one said “you look like my father.”

When no one answered her I turned around to see who she was talking to. There was no one there. She was talking to me.

“Um, oh?” I said, and it was the most coherent thing I could think of.

“Yeah, you look just like him.”

“Oh, OK.”

The dark one said “she’s a very random person,” and was not helpful at all.

“He had a moustache,” the blonde said.

At this point I managed a small grasp on things. “I used to have a mustache.” Pretty much everything in my head had gone screeching away in a cloud of dust. Bye bye, mellow mood. So long, pink bra.

Hello old man.

Had I had one at the time, this would have been a real erection killer.

I got my change and the girl said, again, “wow, just like him.”

“I guess that’s a compliment,” I sort of blurted.

“Oh yeah, my father is a good looking man.”

“Um, OK.”

And I left.

So I guess that wasn’t so bad, but I am only 37, not nearly old enough to be her father. I was just recently told by a teacher at LHS, (in the men’s room, and didn’t that make me want to zip up and leave?) that I have a youthful face.

But by God, being told that you look like a 21 year-old’s father while you are idly speculating about her friend’s pink frilly bra is a jolting experience.

So I’m at an age where, despite never being attracted to younger women, it is now a fact that younger women will not be attracted to me, except in a fatherly way?

Needless to say I am a bit confused about the whole thing, and I am now remembering times when I was told that I was just like someone’s father because I bought batteries on sale, (and yes that sounds old to me too,) or when Bonnie read my bio in Raphael’s Journalism class (the one where I was sexually harassed by a gay, beret-wearing Canadian- why the hell haven’t I ever blogged about that?????) and Bon said that I reminded her of her father.

So I’ve usually felt as though I was 37 going on 18, but just today I’m starting to feel like I’m 37 going on 58, with a couple of kids and a minivan.

So unless you are 37 or older, don’t flash your frilly pink bra when I’m paying for a birthday card, and never tell me that I remind you of your father unless we’re playing a spanking game in bed and you’ve been a bad bad girl.

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