Sunday, May 12, 2013

Regarding The Mothers: A Look Back


A true story...
After I no longer worked at Home Depot, it seemed to be the perfect time to go back to school.  It had been 4+ years since I had first dropped out of college.
(I think.)
Despite being labeled as "smart," "intelligent," "a good student," and "sexy as hell," I've never been a fan of all of the work that was involved with education--and maybe it was because my method of learning wasn't in sync with their methods of teaching--but all the chatter I kept hearing was telling me that without a college degree, I'd be doomed to toil through life working the kind of shit jobs that I had just left, a less-than-thrilling prospect for my future.  
As it had been some time since my last adventure in higher education, I concluded that it would be best to not rush back in.  Slow and steady wins the race, after all.  Fortunately for me there already existed an invention for this method of education: community college.  And for those of us who are worried that even community college might be too overwhelming after a sojourn away from education, there also exists an invention: part-time community college.
During my second semester at Pima Community College, I was taking an astronomy-like class.  I can't remember exactly what the course was called, but it was something along the lines of Life in the Universe.  
 (Again, I think.)
It essentially explored what it took for life to develop on Earth and what it has grown into, and explored the idea of whether or not any form of life might be possible elsewhere in the universe, even if it was just the most basic, primitive form: _________ (Note to self: go back and insert a group of people there before you publish, something that will be funny.  Don't say, "Jews," though, because the internet doesn't know that you don't have anything against Jews, but they can't read sarcasm through their computers and will likely misunderstand.  So, instead, make it something like "people who don't rewind movies before they return them to the rental place" or "people with beepers that go off during the opera."  Something like that.  Oh, and make sure you remove this note before you publish).  I really enjoyed the class, and didn't mind the homework.  I don't know if I actually read the textbook (which I still own, because fuck you, selling-it-back-and-only-receiving-$7.49-for-a-book-that-cost-me-$80), but I quite enjoyed the lectures.  
One of the ongoing assignments we were given was to complete a series of outside projects.  Of course, at this point, I can't recall exactly what the parameters were for the assignment, but they didn't require a lot of work.
(I don't think.)
The example the professor demonstrated was to play Jack Johnson's song, Constellations.  So clearly an option was we could share a song related to astronomy.
Now, if you weren't aware of it, long before there were dinosaurs, grass, old people, or Twinkies on Earth, there was a whole lotta nothing.  Seriously.  It was basically just a big rock.  Which made me think to myself, "Self, I bet we could get away with sharing Help, I'm a Rock by The Mothers of Invention."  And I pulled this off because I introduced it by saying that this was likely what was racing through Earth's mind at the time, having little else to do for entertainment. 
Being 24-years-old at the time actually made me one of the older students in the class, but I knew that even students my age (or older) were unlikely to have been familiar with The Mothers of Invention, let alone fans of the group.  And this was confirmed when the professor played the song in class.  All around me, a sea of confused and bewildered faces looked at one another, as if their equally puzzled neighbor might have an answer for them.  But there were no answers that day.  There was, however, a singular question that arose, a question that represented the mood of the entire classroom, save for myself and the professor:
"What the fuck is this?"
And that's my story about The Mothers for Mothers' Day.

What do you mean, "wrong mothers"?

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