from yesterday 3

“The Curious Incident of the Apathy at the College”

In April 2012, a group of college students in Santa Monica – protesting a new plan to sell courses to those who could afford to pay several times the standard amount for “high demand” classes – got pepper sprayed in what turned out to be a don't-just-sit-there-and-let-this-happen story about standing up for what you believe in. A bit further down the shoreline at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, I had mentioned in class (quite angrily) that I didn't agree with Governor Jerry Brown's plan to raise community college tuition from $36 to $46 per credit hour. As I finished my somewhat outspoken oration I noticed that the looks I had earned were those of bewilderment mixed with disbelief and sprinkled with apathy. The rest of the class was busy updating their Facebook pages and replying to texts that were assuredly important. It was at this very moment that I could no longer support the cause to fight for what I thought had been unfairly high tuition fees implemented by the community college system and its administrators. After I started to think about it, finding out that community college students were turds was like finding out there was smog in Los Angeles – no kidding.

In December of 2009 a California Community Colleges Chancellor named Jack Scott, told a room full of people (who live in mansions away from the problems of the poor) that cuts in school's budgets had increased class sizes while making it harder for students to actually get into the classes they needed in order to graduate on time. My daily experiences almost agreed with that. The part that ol' Jack left out was the part where students – after fighting harder than Mexicans trying to get across the border – settled into the American way of apathy and complacency. The part where the girl behind me in math couldn't go more than three minutes without sending or replying to a text message. The part where the masses of turds who couldn't make it to an 11AM class on time managed to leave 20 minutes early despite the class being only an hour and a half in length. The part where every kid with a shiny new Macbook was constantly updating a meaningless Facebook existence instead of paying attention to their instructors in the very classes they tried so hard to get into. I wanted to get behind the agenda to keep tuition fees down, but my motivation swirled down the drain like the sleeping guy with the headphones' interest in learning surely swirled down the drain that morning after taking a painful piss made up of the weekend's remaining regrets.

Before I was willing to dine on pepper spray at the next meeting of the administration I had to wonder if tuition was actually that bad here in California. What I found out was that California Community Colleges have one of the lowest enrollment fees in the United States. Even after the governors new tuition increases take effect this summer, California will still have one of the lowest enrollment fees in all of America. If you don't like paying $46 dollars per credit hour then you can always try one of the following challengers' schools : North Carolina weighs in at around $57, New York comes in at about $150, and Vermont tips the scales at a hefty $223 dollars per credit hour for in-state tuition. Eat that protesters.

Something I did find strange was how the word “rights” had been thrown around so loosely by students when they feared having to tell their parents that it would soon cost them more money to see their children fail and drop classes repeatedly. There was an almost smug sense of deserving the world for their meager contributions to the local street pharmacist's economic betterment. I felt like Mark Twain when he said, “ Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” Except I was more enraged.

Something about spending someone else's money to take a class (up until the first midterm) only to drop it and sufficiently screw everyone else that needed that class to graduate on time changed my opinion of student protesters. The problem is you. The problem is not the administration. The problem is not the governor. The problem is not some other entity that I'm sure you can place the blame on if need be. Until you are willing to do the following: put down the phones, pay attention in class, wake up, be on time, my eyes will remain free of pepper spray as I surpass students that just couldn't make it into the classes they feel they deserved so much. I am awake; my phone is off.

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from yesterday 2

“Italian Rottweiler”

When you're fifteen you do things like; wait until your family is asleep, grab the keys to the mini van off of the wall, quietly open the electric garage door by hand, put the van into neutral and quietly push it backwards out of the garage and into the street where your friend is waiting, before you start it and feverishly drive off into the night. Right? This was a typical weekend for me when I was in high school. I wasn't exactly the one doing all the sneaking around: I was the one standing out in the street hoping my friends parents didn't wake up in a fit of rage and kill us both. My friend was Alfredo.

The mini van was a 90's model Toyota Previa (not exactly a vagina magnet). The time was one when nothing seemed right and all the answers could be found in the minds of the boys behind the wheel.

When I was fifteen my four person family lived in a two bedroom apartment in Santa Ana. My mother was always a saint to us. However, I never felt like my father was anything but an arbitrary figure who taught me to be just like him, without actually trying to do anything of the sort. Because of this; coupled with something my English teacher called “angry young man syndrome,” – I never spent much time at home. Instead, I bounced around from one friends house to another like a firefly that couldn't decide which little kid's jar to die in.

That summer, salvation (or anarchy) came in the form of my friend Alfredo's learners permit. As was customary for Mexican families who weren't exactly familiar with the driving rules; Alfredo was now able to take the mini van to run errands and perform the menial tasks that parents want kids to do when they first are able to drive. We on the other hand, had bigger things in mind. Fast forward a few weeks and there I was, standing in the street waiting for the van to roll out far enough so the sound of the engine coming to life wouldn't wake anyone. When I sat in the passenger side of that van I felt like I was free. We were free. Driving down the 22 Freeway with the windows down and the heater on full blast – making the perfect mix of cool night time air swirl around the heat of going nowhere. I remember putting my hand out the window, the way main characters do when they're on road trips in the movies. Listening to “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman, knowing that we had to be home sometime; racing past streetlights so that they became streaks against the night sky; trying to be somewhere else.

By the time summer came along Alfredo and I had begun dating a pair of girls from Westminster. It was one of these girls who would deliver me – albeit violently – my first kiss. That night, after rolling the van out and picking up the girls we made our way to the pier at Seal Beach. The night was clear and just cold enough to where you could do the things that fifteen year old's do. She was an Italian girl who's daddy was a cop. I was a virgin who had never really kissed a girl – ever. We talked all night about the things you talk about when you're fifteen and eventually we had to go home before it was discovered that the girls had sneaked out. I don't remember much of the drive home (I may have blocked it out of my mind much like a trauma I have repressed). Although, I do remember pulling up to their house and leaning out to give her a hug as she got out of the van when I felt my mouth being violated by a foul monster of a tongue (one that apparently had never learned not to randomly jump down peoples unsuspecting throats). She kissed me for what seemed like hours in a way that I imagine boys who think they are good kissers kiss girls. I was never the same after that. But to this day, I remember the Italian girl with the slobbery technique. Sometimes in life, the “firsts” we play parts in aren't exactly as we imagined they would be.

In the following years Alfredo and I would have many adventures in that van: several girls, several heartbreaks, first trips, first wrecks, first close calls, first arguments; but the thing I always remember is that unexpected moment on a summer night when a girl I cared about showed me she cared about me – the way your rottweiler does when she hasn't seen you in a few days. I miss that girl.

from yesterday 1

 (A paper from a series i wrote for english class)

Dear God,

Your religion has crafted the very people you created into bringers of death and pervaders of hate; turned the very spreaders of your word into destroyers of innocence. Your followers have picketed the funerals of soldiers, brought violence against the homosexual community, bombed abortion clinics, sold religion on television, and raped children in your own houses of worship while using your name as a shield.

Why would the one who (lovingly) created us allow these atrocities to go on unchecked? The Westboro Baptist Church picketed the funeral of Matthew Snyder holding up signs that read “Thank God For 9-11” and “God Hates Fags.” This doesn't seem like something I learned in church. Another one of your followers – while proclaiming his Roman Catholic faith – blew up several abortion clinics, killing innocent people and hurting many others in his offerings to you. With one hand you threaten to banish us to Hell while you feed your priests more altar boys with your other hand. Something inside me will not let me believe that the grand plan for these little boys was to be raped by the men who are more closely connected to you than anyone else. Your book and word has bred hate into the hearts of people so successfully that gay bashing is an accepted after church activity. Since when is it right to beat someone to death because they are “living in sin”? Your churches have become hulking behemoths of capitalism built on the dollars of guilt ridden sheep in hopes of walking hand in hand with you and your son. There is no reason that money and faith should be connected in any way. Your method of religion is bought and sold while your leaders expand their own empires in a form similar to Hitler's Nazi Empire. Your allowance of these crimes against humanity itself have effectively refused people the very punishment bestowed upon them after being purged from The Garden Of Eden – and still you do nothing. The people who represent you have and continue to: kill innocent people, destroy lives, spread hate, dilute meanings, judge each other, and dine at the table of hypocrisy, all while wiping their disgusting mouths with your name; yet you do nothing to stop it.

If you ask Charles Manson if he ever killed anyone he will say that no, he never did. If you ask his followers why they did what they did, they will most certainly say he told them to do it; the same way your followers will say that you told them to do it. There is a greater good somewhere inside all men, but this cult following of a terrorist and his deity of a creator has all but extinguished the loving hand inside every man's soul; traded instead for a method of trampling on each other, praying on the weak and poor, pushing their terror with the pages of your book and using it as a shield to block their true intentions while maintaining your gracious support. You did this. You made us, then abandoned us when things didn't go your way. I believed there was something out there that meant for man kind to care for each other, instead I was force fed lies and told to behave or else I would burn in Hell for all eternity. What I wasn't told was that the very religion I was being force fed was the creator of all hate and war, and used as an unlubricated condom to buttfuck a twisted sense of enlightened morality into me. I want no part of that.

William Blake wrote, “When the stars threw down their spears, and watered heaven with their tears, did He smile His work to see?” Did you smile your work to see? I hope not.

Sincerely,

Alex Rowe

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