The Polaroid above was taken of me about this time last year, during a University event. It communicates eloquently my feelings about working at a large Midwestern university during that sentimental, beer-soaked week known as Homecoming.
We didn't have Homecoming at Harvard, so it wasn't part of my college experience. We had one football game that anybody cared about, against Yale. The hoopla lasted for a couple of hours, one afternoon in the fall. And then we went back to, you know, studying.
I liked it that way.
But part of adjusting to my job has been trying to learn the culture of the institution that pays my salary, and I've tried. Sweet Georgia Brown, how I've tried. Yet nobody has been able to communicate to me what exactly Homecoming is for; nor why it excuses behavior that, were it indulged in by people of color in a poor neighborhood, would be considered rioting.
This weekend is going to be a test of what effect, if any, zazen will have had on me so far. Am I learning to observe the world like an old man bemusedly watching children at play in the park? Will I react to ignorance with compassion?
When, for example,* an alumna who has been told my name four times calls me "Chico" because everyone with swarthy skin and a nametag is to her a Generic Mexican Servant, will I calmly correct her (again) and silently pity her narrowmindedness? Will I empathize with whatever secret sorrow leads her to treat fellow humans thus? Or will I haul off and smack her until her entitled jowls reverberate?
I'll let you know on Monday. Unless I'm in jail awaiting trial for beating a society matron to death with a Canon zoom lens.
On the Other Hand
This is what I look like when I'm doing work in which I am allowed to exercise my skills to the best of my ability, and with dignity. (The polar opposite, in other words, of what my day job has become.)
It's a test shot, snapped just before my first-ever wedding job. I was assisting a friend who's been in the field for ages. I was honored that he asked me to work with him.
I've photographed a lot of events, but a wedding is a special and many-headed beast. Say the word "bride" in just the right way and seasoned pros who have covered wars and revolutions will wet their pants. Shooting a battlefield has its challenges, I'm sure, but at least at the end of the day nobody will care if the general looks fat in every frame.
After eight intense hours, I had nearly 1,000 shots about 300 were keepers. Three or four are good enough to go into my portfolio. A very respectable haul, and the boss was pleased. I'd share a few with you, but I'm not sure the bride has even seen them yet.
Now I've done it, and done it well, and it's one less thing to fear, and that feels good. I'm going to try to remember the feeling when an alumnus shoves his kid's half-eaten corn dog into my hands, and orders me to throw it away and fetch the boy another Coke from the bar.**
*A true and representative example, sad to say.
** Also true.
77 comments:
Oooh... You're a cutie when you're dignified!
(And yesterday's post had me giggling for hours...)
This is the first time you've identified your alma mater in your blog.
Here in Ontario, my alma mater (situated in a university city on the St. Lawrence River) has achieved a reputation for the crassness of its Homecoming. I find the matter of this weekend drunk-fest -- with the accompanying media attention -- to be so puzzling -- and embarassing -- that I will not support this institution, and I do my best to even avoid identifying the school.
I think that you had to really get into the "rah! rah!" mentality of university to understand the point of Homecoming. I never did, so the current raison d'être of Homecoming is a complete mystery.
It's so sad that those quotes are true - could you bring someone along to do the thumping for you while you remain 'calm?' ;)
I shot one wedding - never again! But it wasn't the bride that filled me with dread, it was working the ceremony while trying to be 'invisible'- one wrong move and you're the center of attention, yikes.
Fantastic photo BTW, very attractive!
Looking good, Franklin! I think I love your lens, there! I have a Nikon, purchased in the '70's, with three lenses, one of which zooms. One day, maybe I will get a Nikon digital so I can use the lenses with it. Until then, our little Canon digital will have to do, most of the time. Yes, I know, film is still made.
Ruth
Hello Franklin -- First post from a big fan. Thanks for your smart, clever, funny, and always interesting blog.
I want to compliment you on your proper usage of "alumna" and "alumnus." My HS Latin teacher would weep with joy.
if you're mexican, i'm martian. dorks. and i've never really understood homecoming either. i never attended a college that had homecoming either (i cheated, lol, and got my associates at a local community college, then took an accelerated program at a local university, where i was not required to attend the main campus, lol), but i recall high school, and some of the crazy things we did. . . oy. and yes, i said we. if you didn't go along, you were a social pariah, and i was too much of an outsider as it was. oh well. (sings zyxwvu....)
Homecoming can be about seeing friends and exploiting the social expectations. For example, you could plop the homecoming guests on one of the Carnival "party ships" and charge them $25 a drink, and they'd booze it up while drunkenly humming the fight song off tune.
Perhaps it is the opportunity to relive "Glorious Youth" for those too old to act like drunken college students (their children are doing it for them).
The "Chico"-ers deserve to have a photo taken of them, taking special care to highlight their sagging jowls and wrinkles. Don't mess with the photographer.
Franklin, I have 2 things to say.
First: Good luck! I truly understand.
And Second: Damn, do you fill out a suit nicely! Smokin!
Try to think of Homecoming as a microcosm of everything that's wrong with this country. Still depressing, but at least this perspective affords an opportunity to look on the event with some critical distance, and that may keep you out of jail.
Really, you should switch over to U of C. They have that nice Frank Lloyd Wright house to work in, and instead of Homecoming they have a Humanities Open House, which, many years since I last attended and despite more than seven years of affiliation with A Real Ivy, still represents to me the absolute best that the American academy is capable of (as long as you skip the obligatory boring and slightly incoherent Bevington lecture).
Of course, there are some down sides to the U of C. Staggering social ineptitude and the long trek to the south side being chief among them.
I worked for 8 years in the Dining Service of a small Massachusetts college and nothing can give me horrible flashbacks like the words "Alumni Weekend".
Although I do have fond memories of charging a group of drunken alumni for the remains of a couple of bottles of booze at the end of the night at the same amount as I would have gotten for that many mixed drinks. They didn't like it but I said "That's how much this bottle is worth to me. We're not a wholesale liquor store."
Oh and another thing I enjoyed - dropping a big metal tray outside the dorms as we set up their continental breakfasts at 6 a.m. WHANGGGGGGGnnnnnnngggggggNNNNGG!!!!
Hey, you take joy where you find it.
Oh honey you are gorgeous!
You can always put up a paypal button to raise bail!
Homecoming is supposed to be just that - a homecoming, or calling, to gather those farflung with ties to the school to come home for one game to celebrate the institution.
Every group has its reprobates, if I'm not mistaken.
But, of course, in my opinion, a very pleasant fall afternoon is one spent tailgating before a college football game with family and friends who share your allegiences.
And Liz is right - you're smokin'.
Homecoming is right up in there with hunter's cabins and tailgating and wrestlemania. Lots of testosterone (doesn't matter which gender)and supposedly politically correct rambunctiousness. Where's Delores when we need her?
Well, amigo mío, I do not envy you one bit, and you will be missed by many this weekend. You so badly need to tell them to take their corn dogs and shove them up alongside the other stick they've already got up their collective arse (along with their collective head) and leave that place. Zazen may help with the coping, but it'd be better not to have to cope in the first place.
Ai Ai Ai.. looking good.
Like Kate said, no Homecoming down at U of C. I remember once seeing football players and being really surprised that we actually had any!
I like the idea of taking very unflattering pics of the matron. Or just call her Bertha, because isn't that what every over-70 battle axe is named?
I want you, you hottie.
I'm serious.
I'm sure I could bring you over to our team.
Or die trying.
With a smile on my face.
1)My goodness, you're handsome!
2)I find the degree of shameless racism and ignorance in your environs both appalling and astonishing. Bummer.
Please just smack the society b****. You would be doing us all a favor. (Alum of a much smaller school that also, thankfully, didn't do Homecoming).
My Italian grandfather was called Poncho by friends. So I am not terribly surprised by the chico even though you do not look at all Hispanic.
Kate and Elizabeth--U of C may not have a Homecoming weekend but it does have the joint Biological Sciences Division and Medical School hooding ceremony which, if I want to have a PhD hooding, I will have to attend. New medical doctors with their medical doctor parents smiling condescendingly at those poor fake doctor PhD candidates. Lovely.
Well, as a long-time lurker and alumna of that very same (not so large, relative to the rest of the Big 10) Midwestern university, I must apologize for the ignorant behavior of my brethren. But I assure you, we are not all complete boobs!
The thing I always liked best about it, aside from how pretty it is, and perhaps from my professors and friends, was its proximity to Chicago. Which is probably where I went whenever Homecoming came up.
IMHO, here at a different Midwestern Big 10 in the cornfields of Indiana, homecoming has always been for the frats and football fans, but having worked in this town they sort of run the gamut from really nice, gracious alumni to horribly spoiled and rude children(you know, ranging from 2 to 92)... I'd almost guarantee that the people who treat you like that at these functions treat everyone like that... proving yet again that money doesn't translate to class. Good luck on keeping the Zen frame of mind!
The bride could not be better looking than that stunning photographer!
I too grew up with the mild Harvard fall celebration (Cabot House '89)--and am now looking at Gallaudet's homecoming this weekend. In a nutshell: 135 protestors were just arrested for closing down the school this week so homecoming (this weekend) has been "cancelled" by the administration. Of course, alums are coming anyway. Very exciting times!
At yet another mid-West U. celebrating homecoming this weekend we expect similar poor behavior from our fans and alumni. Unfortunately we're big enough that their behavior makes the national, even international news. And I've had the unhappy experience of having being on the other side of the world and having friends say, "wasn't that your University that rioted after that game? Will the campus even be there when you get home?" You have my sympathy.
Fortunately I'm not in a public relations position. My prep for home football weekends consists of making sure that anything that could be thrown, or burnt is safely locked up or behind a fence and that all construction fences are buttoned up tight.
My game day ritual is to stay as far from campus as possible. I'm not the only one that's noticed that the best time to shop is during the game.
Congrats on the wedding photos!
Oh yeah, I hear you about Homecoming.
Chico...WTF??
First, "mmmmm, beer."
Second, howsabout, "Call me Chico again, Dame Edna, and I'll file a harassment suit."
Third, DAMN. No wonder Dolores sticks around.
Clearly Ted lives in the same town I do. The "party" for homecoming drives families out of town for the weekend and cause property damage in the thousands of dollar range. I do not understand why it is necessary to have a drunk fest. In additiom, many of the people at this homecoming "party" are not even students or alumni of the university. They come in from out of town to riot. er,sorry, drink.
Yes, bride. Just one letter shy of being a four-letter word. As a caterer, I know this first hand.
You look simply smashing in the 2nd photo. Congrats on the fun work day.
Well Frankie, ya clean up well...
Aw, just kidding, you look great all the time.
I wish I'd had a photographer that I trusted at my wedding - would have made a world of difference.
1) Yes, you do clean up quite nicely.
2) What other commenters have said is absolutely correct. Boors at Homecoming are likely boors everywhere. I work in investment management and the "entitled" amongst our clients are often the most challenging.
3) Ted & Carol - you must be talking about Qu***s?!?! I didn't attend but did live in K for a while. My husband spoke severely to students who figured they were such hot commodities that they could be rude to the waitresses at Morrison's. Not on our watch!
i still prefer the one of you at ruskin's grave.
love jean
Huh? I always thought homecoming was about football? Shows how much I paid attention to it. I think the big state universities here on the west coast don't have as many society types? I generally avoid all things having to do with "school spirit" at my Univ. (UCLA).
So sad those quotes were true. Couldn't you get some convenient appendicitis at homecoming each year?
And if someone asked me to throw out their corndog I'd point them to the nearest trash can, or speak "mexican"! and pretend I don't understand.
And by the way, you look very handsome, and happy, in your suit...
I wish you a calm zazen attitude this weekend, or much strength behind your arm. Whichever you end up needing most. :)
As others have said, you do clean up nicely.
Alas, your tales of bad behavior from Homecoming attendees ring very true; we get'em here in Orange land too. Although I am both alumna and employee, Homecoming is one weekend that I stay as far from campus as I can get!
Franklin, that's an awfully big...lens you have there. Looks like a nice set up.
I've always been intrigued as to what homecoming is. Coming home from where? why are Kings and Queens necessary? And Huh? in general! (Not in a bad way - anthropologically intrigued, you could say).
I spend a lot of time wondering if I had only been courageous enough, could I have stayed at my first college choice, earned the degree and entered glamorous employment that makes me feel as you did in the second photo, rather than being where I am now? Then I have the amazing experience of communicating with current students of that university, or reading posts regarding working with alumni of that university, and am suddenly reminded that I made the right choice to get the hell away from the school/environment/boyfriend I followed there.
My point is to say thank you for encapsulating a great deal so eloquently. That is exactly how I feel.
Great picture - dignified is the perfect word. Very professorial...
I would ask her for her business card, take a lot of vidoe of her inapproriate behaviors and then email the mpegs to the IS department at her work for distribution.
But that's just me-
Am I staggeringly socially inept? Well, I suppose it's possible. I mean... I wouldn't know, would I? ;) But, the fact is that my alma mater is at the other end of the train line from you, has no football team that I know about (although there is reputed to be a marching kazoo band), and I never heard of a homecoming, either. You might be happier....
Who's coming home, exactly? I've really never understood this custom.
Sounds a lot like Halloween at O.U. in Athens, OH. Good weekend to stay home and knit.
If the photos you take are as good as the photos you *take* I'm sure she'll be one happy bride. Snappy!
I don't get homecoming either but then I'm often outside the loop of current "culture."
I liked the idea of responding as if you were Mexican but then I thought, "no, respond in French." Of course, do say everything politely, don't stoop to her level, but my guess is you'll enjoy watching the Chico-er's face as her sterotype under goes a nuclear explosion.
Use French with the corndog idiot and the name-caller.
Explain in French that public health laws would not allow you to handle eaten food and then fresh food. Unfortunately, you have forgotten your gloves and hair net. You will go get the maitre d'hotel to assist. Explain in French that there appears to be a mix-up and, since you want her to visit with her friends, you will go look for Chico.
Decide right now how you will reward yourself for living through this at the least, or plan for your next job, at the most.
The world seems full of idiots only because they are louder.
We don't have homecoming in Aus, thank goodness, so this all academic to me. :) It doesn't stop students behaving badly, but at least they don't have a weekend to focus it on. As for the Chico woman, spill something on her. Accidentally. Something sticky. From the rear so she won't notice for a while.
Ugh. I'm sorry that you have to be nice and polite to people that treat you like dirt. I think that every person who has to deal with other people in their place of work has to go through that experience at some point.
Remember, deep cleansing breaths. Also, you can't change how other people act but you can change how you react to them (both inwardly adn outwardly.)
I'm gobsmacked that this archaic behaviour still exists. If you spoke like that to someone here (in Australia), paying their wage, for example, for domestic duties, wouldn't save you from being told where to go, explicitly and colourfully. It sounds a hideous trial for you.
As the child of a former wedding photographer, and the victim of many 'test shots', that's a very elegant one!
And totally agree with you on the behaviour; if most of the boat club antics at my former college had happened on public premises somewhere else in town, they'd have all been loaded into the back of police vans very quickly; and good riddance...
Dearest Franklin,
Is this what money and privilege will do to people? Gads! Like mini Jack Abramoffs! You HAVE to write a book about your job.
I'm not licensed in IL, but if you do land in jail, call me...I'll help post bail and find you the best criminal defense attorney in the state. Obviously, based on those remarks, any action involving your camera lens would be justifiable.
Judas jumping priest on a silver pogo-stick. And here I thought being a secretary had been bad. (You have no degree, are doing scutwork that only enables an office to *function*, so you're obviously stupid, right? Surely that was why you didn't attend college. It couldn't possibly be for reasons of finance, for instance. And lousy counsellors who never brought up SAT scores garnering scholarships. Or--) Um. Pushed a button, there. Looking back, though, now I'm glad I didn't. The standard mindset that all too often results bores me silly. And produces events like Homecoming.
At least we have blogs now; you can bitch about it to friends and acquaintances. ;) This is allowed under conditions of extreme frustration. Don't start castigating yourself for doing it once in a while. We're reading and commenting like crazy, aren't we? You resonate. Really so with me; I *did* work in Ad/PR. Gahhh.
And you look mighty fine performing your true calling! Plus I *love* Anonymous's idea of responding in French. It should work! My version was using 'Dominus vobiscum' with the Hare Krishna/Rev. Moon/Rajneeshi sets, and it definitely worked with them. Utter bafflement. [veg]
(And why does Blogger always refuse to accept my HTML tags, that *are* bloody well closed, thankyoukindly, on italics?! What, it hates Netscape? Scheisse.)
You calmly take a picture of the "Chico" person (notice I didn't call her lady) and then later that night have grand fun photo-shopping her likeness. Orrrr make a picture of her really large and put a bulls-eye on it and shoot darts at it - people like that make me nuts.
And I must say you sure are cute when you are all dressed up and looking so professional. And what is really sad is I am probably old enough to be your mother or her younger sister so your aunt at least. ;)
Ah, I remember the days when waitressed an alumni event and was told by an inebriated old coot "I like giving money to a school that can throw a good party." Soon there after we sent the waiter to serve that table as there was a wee too much ass patting going on for the girls....it was either that or haul of and smack the guy. Had they tried ass patting the waiter, he would have hauled off and hit them - since we sent him over with specific instructions to do so. That was the same party where a guy keeled over of a heart attack into the arms of a heart doc - causing barely a blip in the festivities while the ambulance came and hauled them off, and the other docs in the room critiqued the CPR technique of the heart doc. Strange but true. And that was a school WITHOUT Homecoming, which I am truly thankful for.
I would suggest that clothes maketh the man in this situation. Chinos = person to order around. Suit (not the wedding suit natch) = guy who will quietly stare at your request. Buddhist robes = very interesting choice and I might just suggest it unless it would get you fired.
And BTW, if you ever want to try action photography, we could use more good dog agility photogs.
I'd pretend not to understand English so that they shout at you, as only English speakers can when they think they are talking to someone who speaks another language, and then wait for someone else to point out you are neither "Chico" nor the help.
It should make you feel somewhat vindicated that the bloggers are falling at your feet even more when you're all duded out in a suit than when you show off your chest hair.
I, for one, choose to see the dignified, suited you as the real job of the two. I sincerely hope that your real jobs, the ones you love and do so well that people clamor for you to do them again, are the ones you get to keep. Ditch the ones that make you put a hand in front of your face and cringe, okay?
You thought I was going to post a lewd comment about swinging you to the other camp, didn't you?
And no, I'm not going to tell you how white my knuckles are right now. So there, sugar.
(Is there a chair in this room? Because the floor I fell on is getting a wee bit uncomfortable...)
Thump her! Thump her! Plead sanity. I'd let you off.
--Recovering University Employee
Wow, you look so respectable! I seem to have lost that ability in the last few years...if I ever had it.
Why do universities have to have football anyway? I resent that I have to pay attention to the University of Michigan's football schedule, but if I'm not aware of when the home games are, I'll get stuck in football traffic. Grr...
I went to grad school at Princeton, and as a gradate student I never participated in such fun as the Nude Olypics (held the night of the first big snowfall). At least that had cute, naked 20 year old boys.
What I really hated was alumni week, when idiots from around the country showed up, drank too much, and donned tiger tails, tiger jackets, tiger pants, etc. THESE are the elite of America? Captains of industry? Ugh.
Franklin,
first...wowzer!!! Is that really you?
second...right attitude and right breathing, remember the eight-fold path.
third...stay away from the beer tent, that's where the majority of loosers go. If you are not there, then you can't be mistake for 'Chico'.
You look sorta spanky when you're all dressed up.
I love the idea of responding in French to La Rich Bitch. I was gonna say you should respond in Latin, but she's undoubtedly so ignorant she wouldn't recognize it.
My son applied to the U of C, and iirc, the essay question he chose to respond to in his application was something like, "Write about Wednesday." His essay was a hoot and he was accepted, but decided instead to attend NYU (which, ironically, also does not have a football team; tells you where his priorities are). Although he admitted that he would probably get a rather better education at the U of C, he chose NYU because "how can Hyde Park compete with Manhattan and Greenwich Village?"
All this is my way of saying, change jobs, Franklin. Life is way too short to subject yourself to the kind of abuse you get at the "overpriced finishing school" (your words!) you are at now. Think of the damage it is doing to your energy and your soul. You deserve far better.
It sounds like it's time to look for a new job. It's so true that money can't buy class.
let me chime in in favor of the "respond in French" reply. I am loving it.
lest we think no one will know what you're talking about, keep in mind Eddie Izzard's comedy routine, which has a section performed all in French for English speaking audiences. One can be quite .. ehem, expressive in any language!
I'll also hop on the "You gorgeous man you!" boat. Thanks for the eye candy!
Wetexit
Franklin, I just have to say that I think you are totally adorable, and looking damn fine in your dressy attire. Personally, I think you should bitch-slap the woman, and when the dad tells you to toss the kid's dog in the trash, put it in his lap...unless you need to keep the job, in which case those two suggestions should only be fantasized about.
That explains it . . . after 26 years of marriage, I have finally realized the problem our photographer had at our wedding!
He thought it was homecoming which might explain why he was drunk (and drooling over my 19 year old niece) by 9:00 (and our wedding was at 7:00) and only took 30 pictures (half of which weren't any good).
The advantage of returning to college (to get the degree) at the ripe old age of 46 is that you don't give a rat's arse about such things as homecoming (well my age and the fact that my youngest was 6 months old and I just didn't have any energy!).
P.S. You look really spiffy! Dolores must be so proud when you put on your Sunday-Go-To-Meeting Duds!
p.s.s. As for the Chico lady . . . it is right up there with the people that wander around calling everyone "darling" or "honey" or "sweetie," makes me crazed, but my favorite way of dealing is to just turn away and ignore them . . . it is amazing that they will incredibly remember your name.
Oh, well, the tolerance of day jobs leads to better things. You look very nice all jazzed up in the second photo. I thankfully, instead of working at the "team spirit" store for NIU (my weekday job)this homecoming weekend, will spend the afternoon at my other job in the comfort of tea, yarn, and fixing dropped stitches for our customers at the Yarn Exchange. I will pray to all gods for your sanity and compassion to hold out until you can at least get back to those stray balls of yarn.
Dear Chico-
I learned a very important lesson from my darling brother in SF. When all else fails and the stereotype bars are all around you, DON'T SPEAK English. Latin is fine. German is fine. Tagalog is also suitable. Pick one and stick to it. Pretend they know it. And dress UP for the occaision. But not with a white shirt and black tie, because they'll think you are the wait staff.
And you coulda gone to Rheinbeck....
Regarding *, she needs to be bitch slapped and regarding **, that corn dog should be put where the sun don't shine.
DANG, YOU'RE HOT!!!
Isn't that the Shakespeare Garden at NU? My mom lives 2 blocks from there and was married there 9 years ago. I took the photos that day.
Great photo of you!
Gotta say, Franklin, you clean up nice. . .this shot is even nicer (to me) than your profile pic (maybe it's just that distinguished touch of gray in the beard that does it for me).
Sorry to gush, but seriously. Cute.
So professional, so adorable.
Portrait #2
WOOF!
My son is a wedding photographer, after years of being a news journalist, marraige and 3 kids required a larger income, so the job he swore he would NEVER do is the one he does. He is in business with another fellow, and they are quite busy. Its amazing the amount of extra work that goes into that particular job!!
Last time I went to Harvard Yale they were loading the rich kids into the paddywagon. Poor things. The Chicago rich kids have it much easier.
Nice second photo!
As for the rest, wow, can you GROWL! At least Stephen Colbert is the Grand Marshall.
I was fortunate to go to 'art school', in New York City. We were too busy trying to be professionals, to have time for such nonsense. But considering OUR alumni––Calvin Klein, Stephen Burrows,etc., some OTHER things happened, but I'll tell you about that when I see you.
I'm always amazed that folks are still surprised. What has changed?
As a person of color, race and class are of no matter. I've had wealthy AND poor folks do the same thing to me. And NO, the boorish aren't boorish to everyone. We supposedly only exist to serve them. After all, the only contact they probably have with people of color, are their servants.
As for drunkeness, my father claimed that he'd hit a drunk, for "a drunk man speaks a sober man's mind."
Cameras are expensive. Perhaps you have an older lens you can part with, to hit someone.
Hey, you scrub up well ;0)
India
ummmmmmmmmm, photos to dream on..........
anne marie in philly
PS - those people deserve a boot to the head with a camera lens and a splash of latin on the side
Wait a minute, wait a minute, Steven Colbert led the parade? I may have to rethink my complete and utter contempt for university Homecoming, cuz honey I love that man almost as much as I love Dolores
Post a Comment