EIGHTY POUNDS OF CHAIRMAN MAO by Red Emma

[From Dissent 14, 12/15/98] 

  “He always hurries to the main event and whisks his audience into the middle of things as though they knew already.” --Horace 

     Writing an occasional column for and about part-timer instructors raises interesting existential problems pertaining to audience, this due in no small part to the nearly inestimable layers of full-time irony available in our divisive environment. To Horace’s critique of overeager dramatization, Red pleads guilty. Whisking is in fact a concern Red often explores with his beginning composition students, sitting in the Humanities Center on a Friday morning. To whom, I ask them, are you writing? What kind of readers? What do they know? What do they imagine? Who, finally, are they? Predictable political riddles often evolve from these queries, often paralleling that curious puzzler offered by newly elected SOCCCD Trustee Donald Wagner’s confusion over why a union local would actively support him, a rabid anti-unionist backed by the reactionary Christian Coalition and the Education Alliance. 

     Distance Learning Update: Sitting behind the desk at the Humanities Center last Friday morning, Red Emma observed the following: at about eleven thirty, soon-to-be ex-VP Pauline Merry arrived with, of all people, newly elected Trustee Nancy Padberg in tow. Merry seemed to wear on her face the official smile required of her position, though Red Emma sensed an effort on her part to disguise what must have felt like having a small knife stuck in her skull. 

     “Hi, Pauline,” offered Red Emma cheerily, sensing a perhaps singular opportunity to congratulate Ms. P. on her election and ask her my own funny puzzler about politics. On a televised debate, Padberg, you may recall, offered voters complete bewilderment re Frogue as her campaign’s defining platform point. Perhaps wisely, Ms. Merry steered Padberg away from your profoundly untenured part-time Ace Reporter and shuttled Trustee Padberg instead over to an admirably restrained senior faculty member who, although deeply involved with a student, was forced to shake Nancy’s hand and smile demurely.

      From a distance of only ten or twelve feet, Emma learned yet another important lesson about audience: an observer of this little scene might have seen nothing at all to suggest the staggering drama transpiring, yet all four players (Pauline with knife in her head, your glib red reporter, senior faculty shooting darts from her eyes, and Padberg as Garcia-Marquez’s General) understood completely the purpose of the spectacle. In short, you cannot make this stuff up. 

     Though Red Emma has in recent weeks delivered various provocative membership appeals in Adjunct Faculty mail boxes, only God and Ray Chandos know for sure what’s resulted from this effort, a campaign completely unaffiliated with the local. An urgent telephone call from CTA/CCA suggested “somebody complained” that the incorrect membership application form had been offered for processing. Upon double-checking with HQ, Red Emma confirmed this complaint to be baseless. However, in his continuing effort to locate his actual audience, Red Emma requested and soon received by mail a packet of different membership applications, these shiny brochures featuring a fetching group color photograph of either the King Family or typical union members, prominently displayed among them “President for Life” Sherry Miller-White. 

     Although recently promised a list of active part-time local members, Red Emma can only guess that perhaps a half-dozen of you have responded. Please let me know if you’ve joined, attempted to join, or met any obstacles in joining. My phone number is (949) 497-8776. Ask for Red. 

     Adjunct faculty union members should be aware that nominations for Rep Council and Alternate are open through January 6 for both IVC and Saddleback—one Rep from each campus. Red Emma nominated himself immediately and, thanks to management of the election by the CTA Board Saddleback Team, received hand-written confirmation of his candidacy within days, a response unheard of in the annals of the current local leadership’s election protocol. 

     Finally, there goes the neighborhood: Chile’s most unlikely export sits in a shabby manor outside London, upsetting the locals. For those of you unable to make the trip to the despot’s winter retreat, don’t overlook the General’s political and spiritual sponsor’s permanent residence in Yorba Linda. The Nixon Museum offers “Wassail Wednesdays” all month long and—be still my anarchist heart—Bruce Herschensohn’s “special” lecture. 

     Disappointingly, the General, beneficiary of RN’s CIA largesse, is noticeably absent in the life-size convocation of world leaders assembled in the library rotunda. Also absent are statues of the Shah of Iran, Franco, Somoza, Marcos, Duvalier. You say you’re struggling to find a fun holiday family outing? A jolly docent bragged to me over the telephone that the bronze statues weren’t really bronze at all, just papier-mache and epoxy sprayed with paint. “They only look like bronze. Why,” she explained, “Chairman Mao only weighs about eighty pounds!” —R.E.

Andrew Tonkovich