We Are the Champions!!!!

Colleagues!!!! Kudos to Our New State Champions!!!!!
Way to Go!!!!!!!!!!

We are pleased to announce that the IVC Lasers are the 2006 California Community College Commission on Athletics Competitive Yoga Champions.

The Lasers won a hotly contested Bikram semifinal match against Santa Barbara City College just last week only to face the undefeated Los Alisos Posers yesterday. As you know, this year, Irvine Valley College won the Orange Empire Conference (OEC) crown for the first time in school history. And, as the champions in a tough conference, we hosted the tournament, our home court advantage clearly energizing our team spirits. Thanks to those faculty, staff and students who joined team members on the Students Services lawn for a series of spirit-raising pre-game sun salutations!!!!!

Needless to say, there was a lot of momentum going into the final.

As you know, our team specializes in Ashtanga Yoga in the Vinyasa Flow Style. This focus, adopted just this season, has resulted in a leaner, meaner overall performance, according to sources. In the compulsory asana section, the team achieved record-breaking scores for a number of poses.

“No one could touch their Triangle Poses or the stability they achieved with their signature group pose: the Vrksasana or Tree Pose that we like to call the Grove,” bragged a clearly elated fan. “And their shoulder stands were amazing!!!”

Los Alisos, which trains using the more conservative Iyengar approach, were challenged by the grace and stamina of our team, especially in the independent floor intensive portion of the meet.

“We knew we had won,” one onlooker claimed, “when, instead of going into their next scheduled pose--their acclaimed Feathered Peacock--the entire Los Alisos team simply sank into Child’s Pose. I loved the way the stands erupted into cheers!!!!”

What makes our victory so special is that IVC doesn’t even have a competitive Yoga Team and neither does anyone else. “It’s a perfect sport,” quipped one administrator who declined to be identified. “No facilities, no equipment, no uniforms, no coaches, no students, no funding. And they win anyway!”

Join me in congratulating our latest state champs!!!!!!!

Namaste!!!!!
Om, Shanti!!!!
Go team!!!!!

It's about the students all right

"You truly captured the essence of what a college newspaper is about ...students."

Chancellor Mathur, in a letter to the Lariat, 5/11/06

In yesterday's post--"What Do Barry Bonds and Saddleback Ballplayers Have in Common?"-- our pal over at the OC Weekly, Matt Coker, commented upon our recent piece "Premature congratulation" (May 13).

In that piece, we noted that Lariat reporters (evidently) failed to get the IVC baseball coach's side of the story.

Back on the 11th, the Lariat asserted that, in recent years, student athletes on baseball teams at both district colleges have used and abused steroids.

Unsurprisingly, faculty at IVC athletics are hoppin' mad! They're saying that the story is baseless and that the student who is quoted by the Lariat as saying that the IVC baseball coach knew about but did not object to steroid use never said any such thing.

Stay tuned.

Premature congratulation

1. THE CURSE OF MATHURIAN PRAISE. In the latest Lariat (5/11/06), Chancellor Mathur writes to tell the Lariat staff that they're doing a heck of a job:

Dear Brownie:

I wanted to take this opportunity to compliment you on the outstanding April 25, 2006 edition of the Lariat. To see on the front page headlines: Students to Grade Classes; Students Help Irvine Celebrate; New Student Leaders announced; Volunters Gather to Brighten Campus was phenomenal. You truly captured the essence of what a college newspaper is about...students.

The quality of all the articles was excellent, but in particular I wanted you to convey my congratulations to Leah Sims for the thought provoking article Driving Under the Influence.

Congratulations to everyone on the Larat staff for a job well done! [OK, I made up the salutation. But the rest of this is verbatim, I swear!]

When I mentioned Mathur's praise of Sims' "Driving Under the Influence" to Rebel Girl, the Reb dryly asserted:

"I bet she's against it."

But get this! In the very Lariat in which Mathur praises the paper's recent bout of gratuitous positivity, we find a distinctly negative investigative piece. It concerns alleged steroid use among student athletes at our own colleges!

In "Lucky Swing" by Ryan Kuhn and James Haynie IV, we read:

Some players say steroids have been around the OEC [the Orange Empire Conference], including both IVC and Saddleback, since at least 2002.

Former Irvine Valley catcher Justin Meisner, who played for the Lasers from 2002 to 2004, witnessed the use of steroids during conference play.

"Some players from other schools would actually talk about using steroids," Meisner said. "Others you could see the affects first-hand."

OK, that's bad enough. But then we read:

Steroids have not only been a factor for the opposing team but also for the [IVC] Lasers. According to Meisner, there were four teammates who used anabolic steroids during his IVC playing career.

"The coach knew about it," Meisner said. "He didn't say anything as long as his players were producing."

Naturally, inquiring minds wanna know if Lariat reporters contacted the coach and asked for his side.

We're not told.

Evidently on the basis of Meisner's testimony, the Lariat concludes that anabolic steroids "have been a factor...also for the Lasers."

A similar approach is taken with regard to Saddleback:

...[S]teroids have reemerged, this time at Saddleback.

According to Saddleback sophormore outfielder Mike Elkerson, Winstrol [an anabolic steroid] has been used by a number of his teammates including one of the starting pitchers.

"I know a total of four guys on the team that have used or are using the steroid," Elkerson said. "There is one pitcher starting to use it again that has done it in the past."

Something tells me that the Lariat won't be getting more of those Warm and Fuzzies from the Chancellor for a while.


2. IT'S FINNISHed. In today's edition of What's New?, the always-reliable Bob Park reports on a flaw recently found in touch-screen voting machines:

The most severe security flaw ever found in a voting system has been discovered by a Finnish expert working for a non-profit group. A professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins told the NY Times that he, "almost had a heart attack," when he learned of the problem. This was not some innocent design error that wasn't caught. Diebold, the company that makes the machines, built in a secret "back door" to "update the software." It could be opened in minutes if someone knows the code. Don't worry, the code is a proprietary secret of Diebold. Of course, there was that 2003 fund-raising letter to Ohio Republicans from the Diebold CEO that said, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its votes to the President" (Park) .

At one of the events of the recent LA Times Festival of Books, Gore Vidal talked up a book on election fraud: What Went Wrong in Ohio: the Conyers Report on the 2004 Presidential Election, edited by Anita Miller. Check it out!

3. WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' TREES. Not long ago, Dissent reported that several trees at IVC were marked with a lurid orange graffitum of death.

Well, Paul finally brought his bunion, and now the trees have joined the angels. I'm told that Glenn smiled with satisfaction as various extremities of our inanimate earthly brethren fell upon the concrete. "Crack!" "Crunch!"

Snicker, smile.

Here are some pics, which document the arboreal atrocity. Picture 1: "before." Picture 2: "after." Picture 3: Stumpy.




They say that, if you count the rings, you get Glenn Roquemore's IQ.

P.S.
8:30 p.m.

One of the authors of the Lariat investigative piece on steroid use is one Ryan Kuhn. In the Lariat edition that Mathur singles out for praise (4/25/06), Mr. Kuhn participates in a "pro" and "con" article on "vegetarianism" ("Vegetarianism: love animals or eat them?").

Mr. Kuhn takes the "con" side (eat 'em). He writes:

There are some vegetarians that eat no meat whatsoever but instead eat foods that have lots of carbohydrates like bagels and pasta. Also cutting out met [sic] might shave off some pounds but they do eat cookies and candy, not balanced eating plans to say the least.

Morals and ethics have been a big controversy whether or not to eat meat. I do agree that some ways of killing animals are completely wrong but some hunting techniques have been around for so long they are viewed as OK. Fishing has become extremely popular....

No matter what reason a person has for not eating meat it is not mandatory for being healthy. Besides that the taste of a barbecue pork sandwich is so good, eating meat is just part of a balanced diet.

...Who wants to eat a veggie burger? Eat meat instead.

The end is near

"No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.”

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

1. WHAT ABOUT TOM? Did you see the article about Trustee Padberg in yesterday’s LA Times?

As you know, Nancy is running for Superior Court judge, office No. 4. She is running against a Superior Court Commissioner, Lyle Robertson, and a senior deputy DA—Sheila Hanson, Democrat.

Robertson has the endorsement of Robert Gallivan, the retiring judge, plus a gaggle of other judges.

But he seems to be without funds.

Plus his website is daffy. On his site's endorsement page (Robertson's website), Judge Chaffee is quoted as saying, "he's a keen guy!"

A keen guy?

I noticed that among Robertson's endorsements is one from Adam Probolsky. Probolsky is a card-carrying member of Team Fuentes/Schroeder.


anson seems most likely to win. Her campaign war chest is four times larger than Nancy’s. Plus Hanson’s been endorsed by Tony “Rat Bastard” Rackauckas, the DA. She's got the inside track.

Rackauckas, of course, has close ties to Trustee Fuentes. It is commonly said that Fuentes' crew--led by attorney Mike Schroeder--is very powerful in OC. Schroeder is a close advisor to both DA Rackauckas and OC Sheriff Mike Carona.

To Beelzebub, too.

Meanwhile, Nancy Padberg has been endorsed by the State California Republican Assembly—a very conservative body. Plus the OC Young Republicans. They're pretty conservative, too.

An impressive group of prominent Republicans has endorsed her. (See Nancy's website). Plainly, Nancy's the Republican choice, and the conservative choice, for this non-partisan office.

According to Nancy's website, all of our (SOCCCD) trustees have endorsed her.

Except for one. Guess who?


’ve been told (I’ll seek confirmation) that, in this race, if no one achieves a simple majority in the upcoming election (June 6), then there’ll be a run-off.

Further, I’ve been told that, if Nancy remains in the race at that point, she cannot also serve as Trustee.

Looks like things could get interesting, starting June 7.

2. ABOUT NANCY. Nancy Padberg’s website includes a section “about Nancy.” It says:

Prior to practicing law and nearly 20 years ago, I was instrumental in securing the arrest and conviction of a high school teacher who sexually molested his female students for nearly ten years. When school administration and local law enforcement were unable to protect our students, I was able to secure his removal from the classroom and end his access to students by getting his teaching credential revoked before his conviction and incarceration.

I did not know that. Inquiring minds wanna know more.

Here’s an odd factoid. Listed among Padberg’s endorsements is “Councilwoman Christina Shea, City of Irvine.”

But listed among Hanson’s endorsements is—you guessed it!— “Christina Shea, Councilmember, City of Irvine.”

Um, I don’t get it.

I guess voters have sex crimes on the brain. In her biography, Hanson emphasizes that she was:

Sexual Assault Prosecutor—Prosecuted Orange County’s most dangerous sex offenders while assigned to the sexual assault unit prosecuting rapists, child molesters and sexually violent predators for more than 5 years.

3. CAREER STUDENT. This morning's New York Times had an odd little story about “career students." It focussed on one student in particular:

Despite his 12 years as an undergraduate student, Johnny Lechner realized something was missing from his academic career: he had never studied abroad… And so, Mr. Lechner, 29, who was finally expected to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, withdrew his application for graduation on Monday, five days before commencement…Michelle Eigenberger, an editor at the student newspaper, The Royal Purple, said Mr. Lechner might have achieved celebrity status, but most students were tired of it…"It's getting old," Ms. Eigenberger said. "For the sanity of the rest of the campus, we want him to get out of here."

Many of us in the district have the very same feeling about Raghu Mathur.



4. THE END IS NEAR. Recently, at a birthday dinner, I sat next to the spouse of a colleague. This fellow, who teaches at a local High School, told me that a particular year of students—I’ve forgotten which one: maybe it was 16-year-olds—is significantly “worse” than anything before seen. He spoke about these students as though they were a cloud of locusts on the horizon.

“How’s that possible?” I asked. "Aren’t such changes usually gradual? What could explain a sudden drop in the quality [aka "preparedness"] of students?” I asked.

The fellow was adamant. He was not sure why this was happening, but it was happening all right.


Then, this morning, I came upon an article (in the NYT) about a mysterious drop in SAT scores:

…[A] new mystery has arisen over the college admissions exam. Many colleges are reporting that their applicants' average scores this year on the verbal and math sections of the exam fell significantly, some by more than 10 points. Usually, scores change glacially, a point or two a year. Colleges and board officials are unsure of the reasons for the decline, and no one points to scoring errors. But the declines have created jitters and puzzlement.

Lee Stetson, dean of admissions [and, no doubt, of hats] at the University of Pennsylvania, said he noticed the decline last fall. "It was only four or five points," he said, "but it was too much of a shift to be a coincidence…He added that at a meeting of Ivy League admissions deans yesterday "there was general concurrence that SAT scores had dropped a nominal amount."

That trend is being reported elsewhere. The University of California saw a 15-point drop in average scores. At the University of Washington, the decline was 5 to 10 points.

The article goes on to offer possible explanations. Check it out. (Colleges report mystery decline in SAT scores)

I sure hope that my High School teacher friend wasn’t onto something! Creepy, ain't it?

But enough about that.

Summer's arrived!

Plus: Happy graduation, graduates!

Diary of a Mad English Professor

“A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

—George Orwell
“Politics and the English Language” (1946)

oday was one of those days. Rebel Girl’s head cold continued to linger, a blizzardy winter in her skull occupying what should be a sunny So Cal spring but instead perseveres as a drizzle-filled season of no-name.

I drove home, picked up the mail, heated leftover pizza, and read Patricia J. Williams’ column in my latest issue of the Nation (May 15, 2006), standing up in the kitchen, warming myself by the stove.

Last March, Red Emma was in Chicago, attending the Conference on College Composition and Communication (aka the 4 C’s) courtesy of UCI and his own talents. He bought me Williams’ latest book, Open House: of Family, Friends, Food, Piano Lessons and the Search for a Room on My Own. I’ve been making my way through it in the evenings since.

It’s a wonderful and inspiring mix of the personal and the political. Williams is a professor of law at Columbia University and holds a BA from Wellesley College and a JD from Harvard Law School, but I know her mostly through her regular columns in the Nation, which appear under the heading: “Diary of a Mad Law Professor.”

This week’s column is titled, “The Deciderator” and begins with the epigraph below courtesy of President Bush, followed by the text I quote after:

“I hear the voices, and I read the front page and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense." —President Bush, April 18

“I wish I could stop over-analyzing everything President Bush says, but since his pronouncements so often require deciphering, I just can't seem to stop myself at plain meanings. For instance: What on earth's going on with his self-inflicted depiction as our fearless ‘decider’? A preference for Germanic rather than French suffixes? A penchant for verb-lers rather than noun-atives?”

A moody English professor who seems to be in perpetual despair, I identified with William’s tendency to over-analyze the President’s rhetorical stylings.

Naturally, I kept reading. A few lines later, Williams admits that her “worry is not solely about language.” She points out, “This Administration has circumvented the thoughtful, the consultative, the diplomatic with phraseology so twisted that one indulges the temptation to laugh at it as meaningless rather than to unpackage the purpose behind the mangled mots.”

She cites Bush’s endorsement of “affirmative access” over affirmative action during one of the presidential debates, describing it as “an artful dodge…a refusal to engage as well as a refusal to commit.”

“That maneuver,” she writes, “has in it the ingredients of so much of what I find troubling about this Administration: there’s a whole lot of decideration and precious little consideration. This is an Administration that has leaped without looking, that has prized efficiency (or the idea of it anyway) over equity and enshrined secrecy over communication at every turn. Competence is unquestionably sacrificed in that kind of bunkered, blinkered governance. And accountability—which is, after all, what we should be debating when it comes to Rumsfeld’s performance—is not even on the table.”

My impulse is simply to present you with her entire essay. But there are laws against that kind of thing, and besides you can pursue Patricia J. Williams yourself: buy the Nation, find it in the library or read as much as they will let you online at: www.thenation.com)

But some of you know where I’m going with this. Of course. Perhaps you recognize the syndrome too. For indeed, as much as I found myself nodding in agreement with Williams’ assessment of the Bush Administration, I also found myself seeing the sorry state of our college district reflected in her words:

“…there’s a whole lot of decideration and precious little consideration.” —Yup

“This is an Administration that has leaped without looking, that has prized efficiency (or the idea of it anyway) over equity and enshrined secrecy over communication at every turn.” —Oh yeah.

“Competence is unquestionably sacrificed in that kind of bunkered, blinkered governance.” —You got that right!

“And accountability…is not even on the table.” —Uh-huh.

And, in terms of the “mangled mots” uttered by our own local fearless leaders, well, dear reader, simply cast your eyes to the sidebar of this blog, where Chunk usually has the doozies posted. “Stop living in an ivory castle!” Indeed.

This regime—the board and Chancellor, the administrators in charge of the commonwealth, public education, our cultural and political lives—have done to language what they have done to our nation, our state (Der Terminator) and our county. They are foolish people for whom language is something less a tool than a destroyerator of tools. As Orwell claims, “Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

“Pure wind.”

Brrrrrr.

Oh, the indignity!

Last Wednesday, at 2:00, Chancellor Mathur met with the School of Humanities & Languages at IVC.

Now, it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that Raghu meets with Divisions/Schools for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to get leadership cred with Dave Lang and the other trustees.

Nevertheless, I show up to this thing, and I’m sitting there with the new and totally untenured guy, plus three or four female faculty—I’ll call ‘em the “Girl Scouts,” ‘cause they’re pretty dutiful.

I guess women are more dutiful then men when it comes to School meetings. Most of the time, when I attend an H&L meeting, I’m the only guy in the room, or very nearly so.

For about ten minutes, me ‘n’ the new guy and the Girl Scouts are just twiddling thumbs. I start looking at the door. But then, finally, Raghu shows, with Glenn in tow.

So, there we are: the dean, four H&L faculty (out of twenty-five or so), and Raghu & Glenn, sitting together in a goddam circle. The dean gets the new guy to explain about the new Religious Studies courses he’s written. That’s good for maybe 1 minute. After that, Raghu gives his standard speech about how he meets with all the schools and divisions.

Then he says: “Is there anything you’d like to share?”

Silence.

Right about then, Lisa, the chair of the English Department, joins the meeting, and she’s got something on her mind. According to the rules, she says, there’s no reassigned time, and so she’s gotta teach a full load plus all this chair stuff. Somebody’s got to do it, and it’s her turn.

As English chair, she’s gotta schedule and staff and evaluate part-timers and mentor them and who-knows-what-else! Plus: how’s she supposed to evaluate part-timers who are teaching when she teaches?

Chairs get a stipend, but them are measly bucks, which makes sense, because they’re for ten hours per month.

TEN HOURS PER MONTH? ARE YOU KIDDING?

This reassigned time ban, she says, is “completely unworkable.” Under the existing circumstances, the English chair job “simply can’t be done.”

Well, Raghu asked for sharing, and he got sharing.

Lisa made her points calmly, professionally. But if you know the Gooster at all, then you know that he flat hates women, especially women who’ve got something to say and they’re saying it to him. So, as Lisa ticks off her points, Raghu’s ears turn redder and redder until they're spurting blood across the room.

Then Jeannie says, “Yeah, the chair of Languages has the same problem.” To be a chair, she says, you’ve gotta be a martyr. You end up shortchanging your students, cuz something’s gotta give.

Mathur can hardly stand it. He’s got women coming at him from left and right. Oh, the indignity!

—But, for now, he holds his temper. He explains that this “reassigned time” business is a union issue, that he’s working with the union president, and they’ll be “collecting data.” Plus: lots of us (he means RAGHU) put in time “above and beyond the call of duty.”

—Not that he’s refusing to talk about this issue. “I’m open to the whole topic,” he purrs.

Open? OK, so Lisa pursues the matter. She reminds him that he was among those who advocated eliminating reassigned time. OK, fine. “So how is this supposed to work?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer the question. He’s got no ideas. We’ll be gathering data, he says. “I’m keeping an open mind.”

Then Brenda brings up another problem. There’s this new practice: when enrollments in part-timers’ classes fall below 22, they’re paid proportionally. Thus, in a class with only 17 students, the instructor is paid 17/22 of regular pay.

Others join the chorus of complaint. We seem to be alone in adopting this peculiar practice, they say, and so we’re losing part-timers to other colleges. “Let’s do what is ethical and good.”

Mathur offers: “We’re not violating the contract, are we? So what’s the problem?”

Glenn enters the fray. He explains that there’s the “humanistic” side and there’s the “business” side of the issue. During a time of declining enrollment, the business side is important. We’ve either gotta offer part-timers courses under these unattractive “contract” terms, or we’ve gotta offer them nothing.

Mathur, who makes about a quarter million dollars a year, explains that he is not “philosophically opposed” to keeping courses that fall below 22. But he fails to say what, if anything, he might do about “contract pay” for part-timers.

Someone notes that writing courses are capped at 25. And that means that, even when they are full, they can easily drop below the magic number, and then the “contract pay” business kicks in. That’s “unfair,” she says.

Steam starts whistling out of Raghu’s crimson ears. Didn’t he just say he was “open”? What is WITH these women!

Lisa raises the issue of summer. Chairs have duties during the summer, but they receive no compensation.

Glenn and Raghu commence blathering. One of ‘em refers to when they were a chair. So Lisa asks: OK, when you guys were a chair, what did YOU do?

For a moment, the two just stare into space.

But Raghu coughs up an answer: Well, he got a stipend. But that was in the old days, before summer stipends and such were eliminated. “I worked within the system,” says Raghu.

Yeah. But the new system “isn’t working well for me,” says Lisa. How are we supposed to make this work—without a summer stipend, without reassigned time?

At this point, Mathur’s temper begins to show: “I gave you my answer,” he declares, a tad too emphatically. “No system is a panacea!” he adds, grumpily.

Panacea? In Raghu World, evidently, to find fault is to demand perfection.

Raghu next asserts that reassigned time was eliminated because it is “expensive.”

DON’T THINK SO: In reality, in 1997-8, during its corrupt years, the Faculty Association secured the elimination of reassigned time for everyone but union officers. The Old Guard rejected reassigned time, not because it was expensive, but because it was a “scandalous system for the favored few,” or so said Bill Heffernan at board meeting (8/97).

During the same meeting, Tony Garcia declared that “the community should erect a statue to [Raghu] for his courage” in “condemn[ing] the obscene and immoral practice of release time.” Obscene? Immoral? Yes. According to the Old Guard, teachers should teach. It is “immoral” for teachers to administrate.

When Raghu became interim President of IVC in 1997, he had been the chair of his school for years. He received 80-100% reassigned time.

Suddenly, Raghu’s phone starts playing Bach’s Minuet in G. He inspects it and then shuts it off. Meanwhile, Lisa presses for an answer. What about these problems? she asks. What can we do about them? Things aren’t working now, that’s for sure.

“I gave you my answer,” says Raghu, peevishly. Besides, he says, making sacrifices “all comes with the territory.” “I’m listening, I’m open,” he adds.

So what. “Something needs to be done to make [the system] more reasonable,” respond the Girl Scouts.


“Nobody has all the answers,” responds Raghu. He commences speechifyin’. He asks a rhetorical question: how come faculty don’t come to board meetings and tell the trustees “Thank you”?

Raghu begins to describe his heroic labors on behalf of the colleges. He portrays himself as going up against miserly trustees. They don’t want to use basic aid money for ongoing expenses. But there’s a big problem: we’re $700-800 million short of what we’ll need to carry out the master plan.

Lisa asks: would the board support a bond measure?

Raghu yammers about that for a while. He seems to say that he’s trying to get the board to see that, sooner or later, they’ll have to pursue that option. I’m “trying to raise their awareness,” he says.

Lisa leaves. She’s got a kid to raise.

Frank shows up. He says, “I don't know what you’ve been talking about, but I think we need to do something to adequately support department chairs!”

Amour-propre

As I was leaving campus this morning, I came across a small group of people loitering near a pickup truck on the sidewalk. One guy was monkeyin' with a fancy hand-held camera. His T-shirt said, "MTV2--local VJ search."

Small clusters of students at varying distances stopped and stared.

So I figured that the MTV people were on campus to do auditions. I didn't ask questions. I just put my stuff down and took pictures.


My camera seemed to make these people come alive. A very tall fellow with exotic hair walked right up to me. He asked me for a cigarette. "Don't smoke," I said. Why ask me? Do I look like I smoke?

Then I noticed the mask in his hand. He stared at the camera in mine. I asked if he would don the mask. To my surprise, he immediately pulled it over his head. Pretty soon he was voguing:


I trained my camera on the pickup. Immediately, a gal in black--she was wearing some kind of ape or monster mask--jumped out and started posing:



'm reminded of the time that a film crew descended upon UCI to film Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie" (1976). Like many of my colleagues, I loitered at the periphery of the action (near the old "commons"). As I recall, the film crew spent literally half a day filming one measly shot: Brooks racing his motorized wheelchair around a corner. Mostly, they just stood around and waited.

I got a few glimpses of Brooks, who looked angry to the point of silence. He was like that for hours.

"Wow," I said.

Eight years later, I was a grad student, again at UCI, and this time a crew came to the campus to film a Peter O'Toole movie called "Creator." On the day I was there, they were filming a scene in which an enthusiastic Mariel Hemingway runs up to a group of huddling men, joining in the huddle. She did this maybe fifteen times over about two hours. Each time, she looked enthusiastic.

Between takes, she looked like she wanted to kill somebody. The crew kept away from her.

Ten years after that, I was living near downtown Orange. Tom Hanks and his people descended on the Orange Plaza to film "That Thing You Do," which was set in Pennsylvania, 1964. For several afternoons, I walked downtown to check out the action. I saw lots of people on the periphery, hoping to get a glimpse of Hanks or some other famous face. Mostly, they saw only the usual film crew loiterers--no movie stars.

It occurred to me that I was watching a group of people watching a group of people doing virtually nothing.

I took this picture and then I walked home.