Thursday, November 5, 2009

Roy Bauer, signing off

I’ll simply repeat something I wrote earlier today:
In my experience—as a writer for what is essentially a newsletter in the "watchdog" tradition—one encounters the greatest pushback, not when one gets things wrong, but when one gets things right.

Things are getting dicey. Might have to lay low for a while. Maybe a long while. I don't want to do that. I haven't in the past. But I'm getting tired of this. Really tired. –R




From Christmas card, James Irvine II, ca. 1929
From Orange Public Library digital archive




James Irvine, II and friends, Irvine Ranch, ca. 1890
From Orange Public Library digital archive



62 comments:

AOR said...

Take care, and thank you for all you've done so well for so long.

Anonymous said...

A well-deserved vacation?

Anonymous said...

You get a lot of things right which is why I read the blog. Do you ever notice how much less they tell us these days than when we were first hired?
Night and day.

Keep writing. They don't want you to.

Anonymous said...

We're all tired but we like what you do. Don't stay gone for long.

Anonymous said...

You've been on the front lines for a long time and you have bravely said upfront what the rest of us have echoed anonymously. We have let you take the heat for us.

Give us blogs of canyons and cats and sunsets and sunrises.

Thank you for being our white knight for so long. Get on your pony and ride.

With utmost respect.

Anonymous said...

Are they after you again?

Anonymous said...

I object to your verbs. Please modify.

Bob Cosgrove said...

Roy,

Bob Cosgrove here. Thank you for your years of honest blogging regarding what you discovered about what occurs at IVC, SC, ATEP and the District.

You have been the descriptive and narrative voice of a decade of wonderful and awful activities at SOCCCD. And you have made a critical difference for most of us at IVC and SC.

Thank you from Saddleback.

Anonymous said...

Bob,

Thank him - but don't let him GO.

Hold the line.

Anonymous said...

After today's Day of Scandal? - come on.

They're running around trying to hire people by TOMORROW in order to meet the LAW...and avoid looking like they don't know what they're doing....and everyone's trying to pretend it's pennies from heaven (good movie btw) and acting GRATEFUL.

Sheet. Take a break - but not for long.

Anonymous said...

"Give us blogs of canyons and cats and sunsets and sunrises."
I agree. And old photos of OC, too.
ES

Anonymous said...

But give 'em hell too!

Anonymous said...

How awful that you are driven to this by forces for evil, and I do not believe that that's an exaggeration.

But we do need you to take care of yourself, protect yourself, and lay low when it is necessary to be safe. I've worried many a time about your professional and even physical welfare, at that place with more than its share of liars, cowards, lunatics, and jerks.

"With utmost respect" says it well. I hope this is just temporary, for you have helped people even well beyond the confines of the strange world of the SOCCCD.

MAH

Anonymous said...

I miss you already. Rest fast.

Anonymous said...

I don't think I'll be able to work at the college without the blog. You took the edge off.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for everything that you do. I find your blog to be a refreshing space in a place that can often make one feel completely disenfranchised and alone. I'm not faculty and need to keep my job, therefore I cannot speak out against things that happen at the colleges that simply astonish me. Thank you for speaking out for all of us.

Anonymous said...

Well said, Bob Cosgrove.

Someone please fill us in on why today was a Day of Scandal!

Roy Bauer said...

Thanks, Bob. Thanks everybody.

Anonymous said...

Take the weekend off - but then come back. Day of Scandal indeed. It's a goddamn decade people!

Anonymous said...

Rebel Girl isn't going anywhere, is she?

Anonymous said...

Ok, now we're all wondering what they did to get to you...

Anonymous said...

Don't go anywhere! I just found the blog!

Anonymous said...

At least could you write some philosophical musings and movie reviews?

Anonymous said...

I think the Day of Scandal (what that in French, somebody?)- is related to Roy's report about hires and the 50% rule. Scroll down - then ask around.

Scandal indeed.

Indefensible. And once again administration and district leadership is not held accountable for its incompetence.

By trying to solve this crisis in their usual slapdash fasion, they leave themselves wide open for discrimination lawsuits.

Anonymous said...

Rebel Girl is indeed still on the job. Roy might reappear as a voice (here) who does not report district news. (Dangerous business, that.) Roy wishes to thank all supporters of this blog for their appreciation and loyalty.

Bohrstein said...

Do what a lot of the great philosophers have had to do in the past: Flee.

Of course, your life ain't on the line but you've done something right long enough that you've pissed all the right people off.

So, I bow to you for your awesome cajones.

BS

Anonymous said...

Where I can apply for some of these full-time part-time jobs???? Where's the job announcement posted????

Bohrstein said...

Can I be an IVC professor? Would they allow that? What's in a degree anyways?

Didn't Mathur get his in a box of cracker jacks?

Anonymous said...

Calm down, people. All is said was that he was going to lie low. read it carefully . Jeez. The blog is still here. So are we. So's Roy.

Anonymous said...

This is what really happened: Roy, as you know, is a fan of muscial theater. This year he tried out for the college's production of "Fiddler on the Roof" and was made understudy for the male lead of Tevye. (A major triumph.)

This week, the lead actor came down with the flu and Roy has stepped in.

It's as simple as that.

He can't teach, sing and dance AND write the Dissent.

He'll be back as soon as the show is over or the lead actor is better.

Until then, you'll have to buy some tickets in order to see him.

mazel tov!

Bohrstein said...

I believe it.

Anonymous said...

Love the photos, as usual!
ES

Anonymous said...

That's so cool.

Anonymous said...

3:30, you schlemiel! It was supposed to be a surprise! -R

Anonymous said...

Opening night is tonight!

8 PM! Tickets are 11 general - 10 bucks for staff and students!

Anonymous said...

Roy IS a true Renaissance man.

Anonymous said...

3:06: it was the "signing off" caption that aroused alarm, sadness, and good-byes. That sounds more permanent than lying low "for a while."

But: I'm glad to hear you say this. Excellent.

Roy Bauer said...

Roy Bauer is gone. B. Traven—aka He Who Will Not Cover SOCCCD News—is on board. The cosmopolitan fellow will report from a, well, more cosmopolitan perspective.

Anonymous said...

Roy really is gone. (He's at the PAC, warbling.) He's been replaced by the mysterious B. Traven, who WILL NOT REPORT ON SOCCCD NEWS. He spends most of his time in Mexico, but he's been known to hang around with the Walter Huston family (Walter was Angelica's grandpa). He's writing a book about the Black Dahlia killer.

No, really. Bauer is gone. Let's see how this Traven guy does. We have high hopes.

Anonymous said...

I knew he liked music but I didn't know he sang, I mean, really sang.

Anonymous said...

Um, irony.

Anonymous said...

and the violin too!

Bohrstein said...

I wonder what Roy would do if he were a rich man.

Anonymous said...

What do you imagine he might do?
ES

Bohrstein said...

I'd guess it'd be something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc

Bohrstein said...

Rather, that'd be his answer if we asked. I dunno if Roy would invest in a farm so he could dance about the place.

Roy Bauer said...

If I were a rich man, few of my students would understand, owing to their failure to recognize the subjunctive mood.

Roy Bauer said...

Present company excepted.

Anonymous said...

Hahaha! Bohrstein! You had me going - I should have recognized the phrase - I blame the cold meds!
ES

Roy Bauer said...

I seem to be particularly slow this morning. Which phrase?

Bohrstein said...

B.Traven: Ever seen Fiddler on the Roof (FOR)?

Apparently Roy tried out for FOR. So I simply put forth the question "What would Roy do if he were a rich man?"

I was hoping someone would respond "All day long he'd biddy biddy bum," or however the song goes.

If you haven't seen FOR, all questions are answered by the link to the youtube video I posted above (and linked to here).

B to the S spells B^S.

Anonymous said...

Did anyone videotape the Fiddler production with Roy in the lead?

Anonymous said...

"...were a rich man..."
ES

Anonymous said...

If I were a rich man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
If I were a wealthy man.
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy rich,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.

Anonymous said...

Sorry BS, that would have been fun. I'm just too fuzzy headed today.
ES

Anonymous said...

B. Traven @ 11:38 is forgetting himself...
ES

Roy Bauer said...

I feel as though I am the ball in a ping-pong game, and the paddles keep changing. I must confess that I am a great admirer of the lyrics of that song. "Bum"--yes, that is quite good. If I WERE to play the violin, I'd want to play just like that--like in the movie I mean. I seem to recall reading about the fiddling of that film. I encounter it here and there--starting when I was just a kid--and it has always been the kind of thing that brings me closest to supposing that there are souls and spirits and divine things--that playing, those melodies. Startling! But, no, I have never actually seen the movie. The story about Roy Bauer singing in the FOR production is nonsense, of course, started by the perversely ironic Rebel Girl, who, like most women, enjoys tormenting men, only not too much; just enough. The other day, I was on the phone with her, and she called me "honey" as she dismissed something I had said. It reminded me of marriage. The truth is that the Reb secretly desires to stand upon the stage, belting out show tunes or alleged folk songs. It's all deflection, don't you see?

Anonymous said...

I do see.
It is such sweet torment, though, is it not?
ES

Anonymous said...

Joan Baez is an idol of hers.
ES

Roy Bauer said...

Yeah, not long ago, the Reb went to see Joan perform, and I do believe she even met with her after the concert. (Red and Reb seem to know everyone cool.) She returned to school the next day yelling, "She's a goddam midget!" --Well, no, that's what I would say. The Reb simply noted that Joan is a "tiny, bird-like person." It was startling, evidently. "She is quite beautiful," said Reb. --See, now me, I'd say, "Turns out she's a goddam bird, like a finch or something, but kinda a babe." But the Reb sees through all that bluster. To the mask underneath the mask.

Anonymous said...

Adios, pinhead ;-)

Anonymous said...

Are they really hiring a raftload of part-time teachers at full status with bennies and everything kjust to save their asses?

Why didn't anyone tell ME?

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...