So the Kentucky Derby was a few weeks ago. I would not have known at the time, but I got an odd email from my mother “reminding” me that that the Derby was going to be on television later in the day. I am twenty-seven years old, and I have never watched the Derby or, for that matter, any other television program involving running horses with little people on their backs. Furthermore, I did not think my mother had either, so it was a strange email. At some point during the day, the Derby occurred. This is the first Derby since that horse Barbaro was destroyed, and there were many news articles about how everybody missed him and what a nice, inspirational horse he was. After the race, I saw that a horse called Six Cents won the Derby. That is all well and good, I suppose; however, there was something troubling about the news coverage that was to follow for the next month. I did not read too many of the articles, but the headlines all intimated that there was all this speculation as to whether Six Cents would continue his “run” at the Triple Crown. That was the common thread, that Six Cents was on a “run”. Now, I don’t know much about the horsing community, but this doesn’t make too much sense to me. Six Cents is not some ball player with a steroidally induced large head who has been chasing a record related to hitting a ball with a stick for years. Every year, the first of the Triple Crown races is the Kentucky Derby. My understanding of how a race works is that one of the horses will win the race, by default. That’s the way these things work. It is not any particular feat to win this one race. It could just mean that this horse is the least terrible of all the horses in the Derby that year. Yet, the horsing news refers to it as a “run” at the Triple Crown. That’s just not logical. In my mind, it is not a run until the horse wins the second race, i.e. Preakness.
This brings me to something else that bothered me. Preakness was this afternoon. I spent the morning and afternoon with my dad, and we were just on the couch watching television. We were not interested in the horse races; but every now and then, I would channel surf. I would pass NBC expecting that the horsing coverage would eventually end, but every time, the race had not begun and they were still devoting airtime to pre-race coverage. This went on for hours. Finally, I was surfing and saw that the race was about to start. It started and five minutes later it was over. Palabula beat out Six Cents for first place. NBC devoted seven hours of coverage for a race that lasted five minutes. Maybe I don’t know anything about horsing, horsing news reports, or television production values, but none of this seems logical to me. Then again, the head of FEMA was a dude who headed the Arabian Horsery Federation. Seems that nothing related to horses makes any sense.
One Saturday near the beginning of the year, Johnnie Porn sent me a message asking if I wanted to go meet this social group he had found on the Internet. Apparently, his girlfriend (V.V. Anne) had pointed him to this website built for the purposes of helping people organize social outings in a given city to make new friends. This seemed like a noble enough cause, though constructed in a somewhat artificial manner. It turns out that my apartment is somewhat isolated, so I have not met many people in the surrounding area as I had hoped. As a result, I was interested in at least investigating these folks. Johnnie had checked out the site and joined the Philadelphia chapter of the social group. There was a coffee shop get-together that morning, and he asked if I wanted to go. I figured I had little to lose. So, he came over to my place and we walked to an Olde City coffee shop.
Inside was quite a cast of characters. It appeared that most of the shop was dominated by people from this social group. Johnny and I went in and just surveyed the situation at first to get an idea of how this organization was structured. After a minute or so, the leader got up and introduced himself. More people began standing and chatting as Johnny and I endured a barrage of introductions. The Leader described the types of things this group does. They go to movies, rock climbing, road trips, city excursions, etc. The leader appeared to be just old enough to taking the first step on the path to baldness, though that is a deceptive trait since I know people younger than me on that path. I am not sure what profession The Leader worked in, but he was wearing a leather bomber jacket. His sidekick was some kind of consultant that frequently travels to Germany and has no time to make friends. They introduced us around and eventually Johnny and I settled into a conversation with a burly guy. I’ll call him Phil. Phil works for the social security department of the US government as a claims adjuster. I suppose he is the guy one might visit when a spouse becomes permanently disabled and has to go on disability. Phil talked about some of the weird aspects of his job that I don’t quite remember. When he asked what we do, Johnny and I told him we were both graduate students working as TAs to get paid. He asked if we thought our students were “hot”. I explained that I am only an assistant this year while Johnny is on special fellowship and not teaching for the first year. He pressed onward, asking if we thought we might ever have some carnal relations with our students, perhaps in exchange for grades. I explained that, first, students and TAs are prohibited from engaging in such activities while connected to the same class; and, second, I would certainly not exchange grades for any sort of reward because it is just wrong. Phil continued to press on, speculating that it would be hard to get caught. I explained that even if this was true and I was in the frame of mind to partake in such activities, it would not be worth the risk of losing my funding. Phil was undaunted. He wanted to know if there was any way I would sleep with someone in these circumstances. I think he was trying to live vicariously through me in a really creepy way. He was shaping up to be a really creepy guy. He then suggested a more unlikely scenario. A student wants me to raise her grade, so she offers up relations with one of her hot, willing friends, who conveniently is willing to go to bat for this girl in an extreme manner. Phil reasoned that this idea would not break any school rules. I reminded him that I would still be trading grades for relations, which still seems to be unethical and against the rules. Phil asked me if I would just think about it. I relented as just said “yes” to bring this subject to a close. At some point during this discussion, Johnny had disengaged and abandoned me to bask in the glory of The Leader. I could not blame him though, because the conversation got even weirder.
After a brief monologue on taking all sorts of drugs on the weekends, Phil delved into a cataloged of his recent strip club visits and how his drug use and strip club visits were okay. I am not really sure whom he was trying to convince. At first he mentioned a place that is near my apartment that I pass on the way to the grocery store. I recognized the name but initially could not remember what the establishment was. Fortunately, Phil was there to remind me. He told me about various clubs around town and their attributes and faults. He was quite open about how often he visited and what he did there. He further explained to me why this was all okay. Frankly, I agreed with him. I am a pretty liberal on personal conduct, but I kept wondering one thing: why did Phil feel the need to tell me, a guy he just met, intricate details about his strip club visits and drug use? I felt that if this was Phil’s A-game for making a first impression when meeting new people, what was he holding back that he felt was only appropriate to share after getting to know me. I shudder to think. Eventually I was just nodding and uh-huh-ing looking for my out from the conversation. Johnny was still talking to The Leader, while half paying attention to my predicament. He later told me he was secretly amused.
I finally extricated myself from that conversation and entered talks with Johnny and The Leader. I was beginning to have skepticism about this group, but I did not want to rush to judgment. The Leader was talking about a road trip for the following weekend to meet up with the New York City version of this group for some fun. Even though I was trying to be open minded, the last thing I wanted to do was ride a car with any of these folks or spend a weekend with them. It just seemed to soon. The normal social boundaries were not being respected. Eventually, Johnny and I ended up at a table with the German consultant sidekick, a stoned, hung over (by her own, repeated admission) girl, and the most socially awkward person I have ever encountered ever. The hung over girl kept talking about how much she had drunk the previous night and how hung over she was at 3:00 PM. The socially awkward guy was just so uncomfortable. He had a long-sleeve, collared shirt on, buttoned all the way to the top including the necktie button, but there was no necktie. He had the shirt tucked into his gray slacks, which were hitched up quite high. I don’t even remember what we talked about, but he seemed befuddled by the most basic conversational questions. As we talked, a slightly older couple walked up behind us and lingered for a few moments. Someone asked them if they were there for this social group, and they answered in the affirmative. Apparently they were married and the wife was trying to be a writer. Her husband was offering his support. She seemed to be a bit older than him and was sporting a number of large, barely hidden tattoos under her blouse. As we talked, he was standing behind her rubbing her arms suggestively. Part of me wondered if maybe this couple had mistakenly thought this group was something else. After about ten minutes of random discussion, someone suggested we play a board game. This seemed like a good conversation resuscitator. Johnny suggested Clue: The Game of Mansion Domination, and it was agreed that this would be acceptable. The socially awkward guy asked the married couple if they would like to play, but they declined. They had figured out that they were really meeting up with a different social group organized by a similarly named website. This other group was brought together by the common interest of writing. The couple moved to the back of the building to join their comrades. The socially awkward guy then began trying to weasel his way out of this game. The German consultant sidekick called him on it and made him stay seated. Johnny explained the rules of Clue to refresh everyone’s memory and inform the socially awkward guy since he had never played before. He nodded his head in understanding but I could tell he really did not understand. The cards were dealt and the game commenced. As had always been the case as a child, I was Mr. Green.
The socially awkward guy seemed to be unable to master even the simplest concepts of the game. He could not hide his cards from our view despite our repeated attempts to explain that our viewing them put him at a distinct disadvantage. He also could not master the simple concepts of the game. Certainly the rules take a little time to internalize, but his foibles were extreme. One aspect of the game is that when a player makes an accusation, the player to the left of the accuser must show the accuser a card refuting the allegations. The socially awkward guy repeatedly asked if I was the player to his left when it was clear that I was sitting to his left at the table. It wasn’t like he did not understand the concept of who was going to show him a card; he literally got confused about my position relative to him. I am pretty sure a combination of the tight collar and his extreme social nervousness was clouding his ability to engage in rational thought. He was clearly looking for a route of escape. Eventually he asked what would happen if he tried to solve the crime for real. Johnny said this would either result in a win or an elimination of the guessing player. Sure enough, the socially awkward guy proffered a hugely incorrect theory of the crime at his next turn and he was expelled from the police force. His cards were distributed to us and he was gone with the wind. Eventually, the German consultant sidekick and I were also eliminated. The hung over girl was still in the game despite her repeatedly reminding us how hung over she was and that she had been out drinking the night before. It was almost 4:00 PM at this point, so I was not sure if she had drank a really large amount of drink or had simply been drinking late. All I wanted to know is why she showed up if she felt so bad. Every time I have ever been hung over, I have stayed at home unless I was obligated to be somewhere like a class.
Johnny and this girl eventually called it a draw. We put the game away and the conversation turned to old 1980′’s television. During this time, hung over girl revealed herself to be in her thirties, and that she was quite sensitive about her age. To my side, I heard Phil showing off his new business cards. I wondered why a Social Security administrator would need customized (and quite loud, busy, and aquamarine) business cards. Someone asked him if they were for work. He responded in the negative and stated that they were for personal use and “the ladies.” I’m no Carnac, but I predict he will be holding onto the bulk of those cards.
I was starting to get tired of this scene and I sensed Johnny was as well. We started to say our goodbyes. The Leader extended his invitation for the road trip to New York City. I said I would think about it which was not a lie because I would certainly be thinking about it. We left and began walking back to my place. As soon as we were far enough away, we began debriefing with much laughter. Overall, this situation shows the danger of lowering the bar to an unnatural level when finding a group of people with whom to be friends. Rather than having anything in common, it ended up being a quite creepy group. Certainly, not everyone was creepy, but there was a much higher level of creepiness than in most naturally occurring groups, except for the naturally occurring creepy groups, which have a much higher level of creepiness than even these folks. Still, I am glad to have bore witness to this internet phenomenon, just so I would have a story to tell.
Well it has been a hectic end of semester, but I have finally finished my first year of graduate school. I will talk more about this later, but I have all sorts of information that has been produced and has been waiting in the queue until I had enough time to push it out. That time is now, so I will probably be trying to get this backlog of new knowledge out into the ether fairly soon. Many of the stories may cover things that have long since taken place, but don’t blame me; blame those taskmaster professors who seem to think that my graduate education in mathematics should involve a great deal of work. Who do these people think they are?