A Cop-Out Blog

I know this is a total cop-out blog, especially considering how remiss I have been about posting in the last few weeks, but things are really busy here. I was in Moscow briefly this weekend and I'm busy now preparing lessons for the english classes I'm going to be teaching next week. So with out further ado I bring you "The Quote Edition"

The combination of translation issues and being in Russia has lead to some pretty worthwhile quotes. I thought I would share them with my lovely blog readers. WARNING: some of these quotes border on the inappropriate, that's what makes them so funny. Consider yourself warned.

QUOTE:"Think about it Craig, why can you buy a baseball bat in Russia, but not a ball or a glove"
SPEAKER: Vanya
CONTEXT: baseball and self defense

QUOTE:"then you must ask question: how come all these people who forced to take theology in schools then take pistols and going around killing all the priests? this big problem, yes?"
SPEAKER: History professor (voice similar to borat)
CONTEXT: rise of the intelligentsia

QUOTE: "I hope that you will let me stay in your house and not discharge on me."
SPEAKER: Russian student of Elizabeth's
CONTEXT: Writing a paper to a "host family" about living at their flat. Student didn't want to be kicked out of the apartment for smoking

QUOTE: "The minister of the region promised to provide them with three millions Jews"
SPEAKER: ME
CONTEXT: In class after reading an article on an Italian earthquake. The words Jews and Euros are very close in Russian.

QUOTE: "This is history, you much be precise and factual. We are not sociologist, toying around will silly intellectual masturbation."
SPEAKER: History Professor
CONTEXT: the factual content of my essay on silver age art

QUOTE: "Why you take picture like that? Look normal!"
SPEAKER: Asian family who wanted to take a picture with me at halftime of my football game.
CONTEXT: so i may have taken the first picture with a goofy grin, rocking peace signs with both hands, but come on. who tells the sports star how to pose in a picture.

I promise I'll post at least once or twice more this week. I owe you guys. I might even put up some pictures if you are lucky. There is a good one of me running from security at a park, HQ stuff.

ramble on,
craig

Being "That Kid"

In life there are a lot of "That Kid"s. They can be found in most aspects of life and exist in both negative and positive forms. For example, as a freshman in college you are warned not to me "that kid" in regards to over-drinking the first week of school or "that kid" who burns too many girls too soon and earns a reputation. Fortunately this trip is affording me a once in a lifetime chance to be "that kid" in a positive sense.

Anyone who went to high school in the suburbs post-1950, or went to a prep school ever has met at least one of this particular brand of "that kid" It usually goes something like this: the coach approaches the team on the first day of practice holding a kid by the collar as if to release the death grip would mean to lose him forever.

Coach: This is (insert name here). He just transferred here from (insert name of large urban high school) since his father changed jobs. He'll be playing (insert most athletic position on team) for us this year. Make sure you make him feel welcome.

Your "that kid" has no business playing with you and your team. He should be at home designing his signature sneaker and preparing for his press conference with Nike. Instead, for whatever reason he has come to your high school to be all-state at three sports, a killer with the ladies, and all but invisible in the classroom. Every year suburban teams are made and broken by the acquisitions of "that kid."

I know it may shock some of you, but I've never been "that kid". I was the "that kid" that everyone knew and thought was smart but still didn't ever do quite as well as anyone expected. I was "that kid" who didn't try as hard as you in class but beat you on all the exams. I know you hated "that kid" but you were vindicated, you got better grades in the class and anyways, somebody had to be "that kid".

I bring this up because on my new football team, the Neva Lions, I am "that kid." Most of my teammates actually believe that if I wanted to I could play in the NFL. I am no way joking either, they genuinely believe I am a good enough player to compete with Adrian "All Day" Peterson. I'm more like Craig "Rarely, if ever, but occasionally on alternating Wednesdays, before 2pm" Zevin. I I tried explaining to them that they are much closer to my skill level than I am to any NFL player, but they will have none of it, because I am "that kid".

The coach has already pulled me aside and asked me to call the defense from the field and help him with teaching. The only problem is people keep telling me that I pronounce things wrong. This astounds me considering they are all American words, but why would anyone believe me. I've installed a sexy gap control defense and a spongy, at best Tampa-2 in back. Its just easier to install defenses where the directions are "don't let them run the ball here, that's all you have to do. just look right there, and make sure that's not where the ball is. if the ball happens to be there, run AT it and do ANYTHING. I'll come help."

Our next opponent has three players who played semi-professional football in Europe, all of whom are skill position players. This is an added bonus for me because game time I wont have to actually match up with any of them 1v1. Our game plan is to put me a Nose Tackle (yes I have come full circle back to that position) and try to kill the QB every play, and if that fails, at least cause as much destruction as possible. According to coach, their QB likes to run the ball a lot and wears an inordinate amount of padding. Oh yah and he was a practice squad player in NFL Europe, but does he really stand a chance? After all, I am "that kid"

ramble on,
Craig

A Blog for Roman

LA needs to get a grip. For a city that spent the last too-long celebrating the life and death and possible, but maybe not entirely, but debatably ambiguous funeral of Michael Jackson, their pursuit of Roman Polanski is down right ludicrous. We get it LA, there is a chance that the man knowingly or unknowingly engaged in sexual activity with a minor. We know instead of facing it he ran away to Europe making him look that much more guilty. But don't you think after thirty years it might be time to give it up

Here's the way I see its: If you explained the situation and asked the average American what should happen, I see the average answer coming out something like this:

"he should be brought back to the States, put on trial, and have his pervert ass thrown in jail."

However if you asked that same sample of average Americans how they would feel about taking all of our rapists and pedophiles and sending them off to Europe for ever I imagine the answer coming out something like this:

"sounds good to me. better there than here. by the way isn't that kinda how they roll in europe?"

Therefore I think we got the better end of this deal. Leave him in Europe, its not like he can get any more of our children over there. And to tie this all together, the parents of the girl who let her go not once, but twice to Jack Nicholson's house for a photo shoot in the 1970's and didn't see a possible negative outcome were clearly the people who taught parenting classes to the parents of all of Jack-O's victims.

Now you might be wondering to yourself "where is this coming from Craig? Is there something you are trying to tell us?" Yes, in fact there is. For the sake of novelty I'm going to pull a "Memento" here and tell you the punch line first and then work backwards. Here it is "Two 13 year old girls saw me completely naked today for no less than 30 seconds while in a public school" Since you all have enough time to read this blog pleasure me here and get a watch and time out 30 seconds. Its a lot longer than you think. Now think about being naked, in a public school, in front of some minors for that long. Heres what happened.

I had football practice today at a new stadium (I am using that term increasingly loosely). My friend Коля met me at the metro station and we took a bus to the field (also used loosely). We get there and the coach tells us that there is no locker room so we can just change on the street. I give the one eyebrow raise saying "either you were joking or you are now. do better." He responds with "well there's a school there, you can probably change inside." We walk towards the school.

Now about Kolya. Great guy, but the only thing worse than his English is his sense of sarcasm and jokes. As we walk towards the school we are walking in behind two very young girls, say 13 or 14. The look back at us and then keep walking. Коля has this to say "We change inside, they may watch us." Lets dissect this broken English for a minute. "May" has the meaning of both possibility and allowability. "Watch" has the meaning of see, glance at, or stare in a fixated fashion. There is a lot of room for error with my man Коля's English, and this is a cause for concern.

We go inside and get permission to change in the hallway. There is a large lobby and then hallways leading from either side, so if you are on one side you can be seen by, say two girls on the other-side, but not the old lady in the lobby. We begin to change. The girls stare. Now I could be wrong on this one, but usually when young teenage girls see a moderately attractive (Коля not me) 20 something year old guy they giggle or blush or something. These girls just stared. And not in a "I just saw a car accident and can't look away" way either, this was a "those men will soon be naked and by God I will bear witness to it" way.

I see Коля drop trow and pull his compressions on so I follow suit. I gingerly pull my boxers down and before I know it I've been jumped. Коля, who already had clothes on grabbed all my stuff and ran down the hallway. The two girls can see this, the old lady cannot. I am stranded and bound by the time-worn adage "the only thing more obscene than a naked man is a naked man on the run" Seconds tick by. If I cover myself, I am only further acknowledging my nakedness. I am a deer in the headlights. I can't look up and face the beady eyes of the teenage girls, but I know they are there.

Finally some compressions are tossed my way and I can exit the limelight. I look down the hall, across the lobby, and into the other hallway at the girls, expecting chatter or a giggle. Nothing. No emotion, just a monotonous, deadpan stare. I may have just ruined sex for those girls for many, many years. Worse things have happened in the history of the world. Like the recent arrest of Roman Polanski, don't even get me started on that.

ramble on,
Craig

The Hangover

Went to Peterhoff yesterday. Probably the prettiest looking place I've been to in Russia. The fountains are amazing....too bad I forgot my camera at school or else I would have some awesome pictures.

Post Peterhoff, Dasha and I went to SPBGU (St Pete's State University) to visit her friends. Dasha Travels an hour and a half each way to get there three times a week. I complain when I have class on the far side of campus, but really we have tons in common. So Dasha figures that she'll introduce me to her friends, we'll talk for a minute and then head home. What she drastically underestimates is the inter-molecular man-force that I like to call "beer bonding." The law of "beer-bonding" states that "where by any two men drinking beer, sharing more than five words of a common language, and a sporting event meet in concurrence, friendship is guaranteed to ensue." We spent three hours there watching the Zenit match, drinking beer, and watching reruns of "How I met Your Mother", which is a hilarious show I should add. If you like sex-pun driven rom-coms about successful but emotionally inept thirty-somethings, you should really check it out.

So we head home around 5 because I need to grab my stuff from school so I can do bits of HW today. Кирюша and Артем come with us on the train back into the city. On the way they ask me if I want to go out for a beer. I sigh heavily and feign indifference for Dasha's sake (she's uber-Orthodox and dislikes when I drink...did I mention how much we have in common?) and then obviously, cordially agree. We find a nice Georgian bar to grab some shashlik and beer. We also manage to find the only bar in town where ЦСКА fans are hanging out. CSKA is one of the major Moscow clubs and the sworn enemy of Zenit. Now regardless of your fandom, would you really want to spend time hanging out in the only bar with Red Sox fans in the Bronx, or Yankees fans in Southie? (by the way that's some horrible New-England sports bias there, but I cater to my readers, what can I say?).

We order some beers and a big platter of shashlik. Shashlik is essentially just grilled meat and potatoes, but the beauty of it is that each of the post-Soviet countries that makes it makes it differently, with different herbs and sauces. This shashlik was Georgian and absolutely bomb. The problem is that service in Russia is horrible because so one tips. No one tips because service is horrible. Any way we go through three rounds of beer before the food comes, one round during and two rounds after. That's a good amount of beer.

During that time, a few really awesome things happen. I will put them in order numerically for you:

1) We make good friends with the CSKA fans and they decide that since we don't care who won (in reality we all rooted to Zenit, but white lies save black eyes) that they would pick up our tab. This was great.
2) I had enough beers that conversation between me and my two non-English speaking friends became more natural. I speak better, freer Russian when I'm drinking.
3) We realized that this Georgian beer was like 9% alcohol by volume and that if any of us wanted to make it home we had to cut ourselves off.
4) My program director called me. This happened immediately after number three, which is fortunate since had number three not happened I might have made the jump from jovially tipsy to well and good drunk.

Marina was calling me to tell me that she had gotten in contact with her former student who plays American football for the Neva Lions, who have invited me to come practice with them today. Obviously I agreed because it seemed like a good idea then. I'm not as sure of that now, but that's not the point. The rest of my night went smoothly, went to McDonald's for free wifi, got some salty beer snack and listened to the first half of the Colby game. Unfortunately none of that was able to put off the inevitable:

I am currently curled up in my warm bed with my laptop defending myself against the bright lights and loud noises of the outside world. My head feels like it weighs a ton and my tummy just feels sad. Its 11:30 so I think its time I brave out into the world. Fortunately Valentina is cooking up a storm of salty starchy food to ease my woes. I'll just keep fighting the good fight.

ramble on,
craig

Russia Proper

Russia has spent much of its lengthy history trying to find itself. Some of its rulers tried searched in eastern, Asiatic cultures while others looked for it in western, European cultures. Many of them looked for it in the Orthodox church, but to this day Russians only define themselves by very ambiguous ideas. These ideas can be split into one of four categories: Asiatic Russia, European Russia, Communist Russia, and Russia Proper. The first three are fairly self explanatory, however the fourth is just as ambiguous as the ideas it contains.

Asiatic Russia is Rurik and the unification of Russia, and the early wars with the Mongols. Russia was an ugly, outcast cousin of the booming European monarchies. It hadn't found itself yet as a European state, even though the feudalist system of Serfdom mimicked it quite nicely. The Orthodox church held a great deal of power but in a more cultural than political context.

European Russia came with the building of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great. It was going to be, in addition to a strategic port city not controlled by Turkish straits, Russia's "window to the west". The Romanovs brought meaning to the double-headed eagle as their crest; one head looking east, one head looking west. This was the time of Romanovs, Orlovs, and Stroganovs. Of massive palace's and intense decadence. To be a viable writer or artist in this time you simply had to mimic the west. These are the times that spawned Pushkin, Tolstoi, and Fabrege.

Communist Russia needs no explanation. Communism was not just the government but also the law, the culture, and the religion. What it could not understand or control it simply crushed. Those who stood against it were relegated to any number of less than desirable fates. The strange thing though is the way people talk about it now, as though it was worse than they realized but not as bad as they thought. For a nation know, for its oppressive cultural regime it did manage to pump out Проковиев, Кандинский, Шагалл, Блок, Горкий, Ахматова, Замятин, Бульгаков, Пастернак, и Маяковский. Thats an impressive list of writers, composers, and artists to come from what was often looked at as a culture-less society.

But it is Russia Proper that is the heart of this enormous country. It is an elusive thread that has stretched it self from the first Moscovy in Kiev to the day I first set foot in this country. It is an indelible mark that survived losing 20 million of its sons during WWII. It survived almost equally devastating loses against Napolean, the Mongols, and the Turks, even though they were "victors" in all of these wars. It survived Serfdom, Stalin, Gulags, Purges, and a three year blockade of Leningrad. Furthermore, it will survive regardless of whether or not its current government is a democracy, because it is not a rule or form of government. It is not a single idea or concept. Rather, Russia Proper is birch trees and borsch. It is onion dome churches and fur-lined hats, gold capped teeth and scarf covered women. It is слава богу, no matter when you last when to church. It is both peasants and intelligentsia but never Tzars or General Secretaries.

Russia Proper is not something you discover in history books, but an idea hidden deep within late nights drinking vodka or giving a cigarette to a homeless war vet. Its appreciating the tales told by relics of an older time, even if everyone's great-grandfather was an advisor to the Czar who lost everything during the revolution. It is sharing whatever you have with anyone you meet, even if its just a tall tale or bit of history. Its woven in the fabric of revolutions and crumbling governments,the icy winters and unforgiving land. Its woven most deeply in the culture's ability to endure through the hardest of times.

Unfortunately, the same Russia Proper that endures all the world throws at it, is the cause of much of its own problems. The same vodka drinking that warms the soul on a frigid Siberian night also leads to rampant alcoholism. The same dedication to Russian Orthodoxy that silently endured seventy years of Communism also breeds religious intolerance. The fierce nationalism showed during they most trying times in Russian history is also the cause of fierce xenophobia.

Russia Proper is something I long to understand, but even more to be a part of. Its is a way of life and ideology that is equal parts self-sustaining and self-destructive, but yet unsurpassed in curiosity. Russia Proper, as Potter Stewart would say; I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

ramble on,
Craig