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Thirty-Three Years Before the Class

Teachers are going back to school now and on the Facebook pages so many of them are expressing great joy about going back and great joy about meeting their students. What is wrong with these people?

Now I taught for 33 years. Since I’ve started posting on Facebook, many of my former students have written or emailed me saying that I was a good teacher (actually “great” is the word many of them used but I am a humble man; kind of like Moses who was the “humblest man in the world” so I won’t brag).

One former student mentioned that I really never had discipline problems in my class.

Well, that is true and not true. In 33 years, I never had to send a kid to the Dean of Students; I never wrote a disciplinary referral on a kid; and I don’t think I ever yelled at a kid. Of course, I did have some kids that were not easy to handle; two of whom I must say honestly I despised; a Neanderthal beast of a girl and a jittery, demented, poisonous snake of a boy.

The monstrous brute of a girl always tried to take the class away from me.

If you think of your class as a string orchestra, then I was the lead string instrument. I wanted everyone to follow my rhythm. A disruptive student, your average, everyday shit head in other words, would try to take that rhythm from you. If such a ploppy did that, you would lose control of the class and, perhaps, have a battle on your hands all year. No teacher wants to battle students though many feel as if they are forced into such battles.

I always felt that my problem students were my problems and I never wanted any administrators to ever (ever, ever) be involved with me. For two reasons, if I couldn’t handle a student, how could someone who fled the classroom handle that student? I also felt it was a sign of defeat to allow a student to defeat me. Two simple reasons.

So this bulbous female barbarian would always make comments and try to take the classroom rhythm from me and bring it to her. Keep this in mind. I never worried about a kid who cracked a joke at my expense. If the joke were funny I laughed. If it weren’t funny I just rolled my eyes, looked at a few other kids in the class as if to say, “God is he an idiot!” (That, of course, connected me to those particular students; gave us a bond so to speak.)

She — S-H-E — was hard to contain. I didn’t crush her until February. That was a long, long time. I was teaching something or other and she just shouted out, “Scobe, you’re a dick!” I could feel the tension shoot through the students. Would this be the moment I sent a disciplinary referral for being so insulted by such a hellhound? Hell no. When she said, “Scobe, you’re a dick!” I just turned to her and said casually, “Use my first name, Big!” The class exploded in laughter and this beast was finished for the rest of the year. (These were seniors, not little kids.) She could find no one who wanted to listen to her after that slaughter.

You can read more about her in my book “The Virgin Kiss” as well as some other interesting (and insane) students I taught.

The boy was off the wall. The brute of a girl picked her shots to go after me, but this guy was wired at all times. Tall and skinny, eyes blazing, he had no control over himself. Luckily, his string instrument was broken so he could not even attempt to dominate the class. In addition, not only did I despise him but so did every student in the class. Usually students enjoy watching maniacs acting like maniacs but no one enjoyed this creep.

Finally one day just before the Christmas holiday one of the football players in my class – a big and I mean a really BIG kid – turned to slinky and said, “You open your fucking mouth again and I am going to rip your fucking heart out of your fucking chest.” He meant it too because this football player had a reputation for being violent. He and I got along great. And what happened to wired-up slinky? He started cutting and finally never showed his face. No loss.

I will say that I did like most of my students – and I taught around 6,000 of them. There were only a few I truly disliked. I never let them know it. But in the car on the way to school I would act out scenarios so I wouldn’t act them out in class. “Timmy, you are the stupidest fucking jerk I have ever seen. Is your mother an ape or something?”

Of course, I never said this to Timmy. I never “looked it” to Timmy. As far as Timmy was concerned, I liked him. Generally the Timmys liked me or, at least, they were neutral towards me.

I do not deny that I now feel I had a meaningful teaching career thanks to my former students who have written to me. I didn’t always feel that way. Often I thought, “What the hell am I doing here? I’m throwing sand into the wind. I’m supposed to be a famous writer; not some teacher slogging through a mundane career.” Well, that sand seems to have had an effect.

But let’s be serious. Only a teacher knows the truth of the following statement: Teaching is a bitch! It is really, really hard work. It is draining. You are on the line every minute of every class – every second of every class.

One of my teacher friends, the late Gene Brown (who died way too young) used to say, “We are selling a product they don’t want.” For most kids that would be true. The kids on their way to Harvard often think of their teachers as stepping stones to good grades. The kids on the way to the streets thought of their teachers as idiots suppressing the students’ enjoyment of causing chaos.

The others? Just wandering through their teenage years which can indeed be very tough years.

I saw many people come from other professions into teaching; from business, law, nursing, law enforcement and then get their asses kicked. Kids can be sharks. They smell blood and the teacher gets eaten. It was not unusual to see some teachers – and some of these new teachers were prized at their former jobs – come into the teachers’ lounge and cry. Don’t think just women; mind you, men too – often real man’s man types of men.

You had to be damned good at teaching just to be competent. So those teachers expressing rapture at the thought of going back to the classroom also know, “Christ it is going to be some haul.” The best of the best teachers think this. Those who get daily buffets know this in a really, really profound way. Why? Because they can be torn apart and have been torn apart. They can be crushed by students just as I had crushed that brute of a girl.

So I do salute the teachers who are going back to one of the toughest jobs imaginable. I also know that many people who have never taught in a public school think what teachers do is easy. Well, come on folks, step into the lions’ den and see how you do.

I’ve spoken before audiences of 1,500 people. No sweat. I’ve written 35 books. No sweat. I’ve been on television plenty of times. No sweat. But I have also sat up on Labor Day weekend, knowing that the next week I would face young men and women that I had to teach; that I had to control; that I had to try to make their high school experiences worth their while. In short, I had some of their life in my hands. You bet I sweated.

So I salute all our teachers’ courage and dedication.

[Read my book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]

Kars 4 Kids: The Dreaded Earworm

I hate the Kars 4 Kids earworm – or as its website calls it – the “jingle.” This charity asks you to donate your car for a tax credit to help the kids. May they be damned!

I went to the site looking to identify the songwriter of this horrifying “jingle” (the ultimate earworm), but the site merely says it was written by a volunteer sometime in the late 1990s. That volunteer was probably some malevolent kid who well knew that his great creative moment would henceforth bring misery to the world.

I did some other research discovering that the charity is a religious one whose mission seems to be to raise funds so that non-religious Jewish kids can go to a camp that teaches them to be religious Jewish kids who drive cars. I have nothing against such a camp; to each his or her own – as long as no “jingle” is associated with it. However, the Kars 4 Kids company has been sued several times and has been fined by the courts. (I wonder if K4K was able to pay the courts in automotive parts instead of cash.)

I never found what I was looking for – the identity of the misshapen monster that composed the “jingle.”

When I hear the opening bars on the car radio early in the morning as we are returning from the pool from our daily swim, both my wife, the Beautiful AP, and I quickly shoot out our hands to turn off the radio. We have injured ourselves many times when our hands collided.

But we must (we must!) shut that damn “jingle” off before it possesses us.

If you have heard the “jingle” (unless you are short of intellect and a common humanity) I am sure you hate it too. I am sure it grates on you and might even cause you to have hateful feelings toward that songwriter and this charity too. If not, there must be something wrong with you.

I am a non-hateful man and I am not calling for any harm to come to that songwriting snake (just yet); nor do I want him to be guillotined (at the moment) or executed by firing squad (soon) or sent to Guantanamo Bay (tomorrow) as the terrorists are being released.

I simply want him to apologize for writing that “jingle” and promise to nevermore write another one.  And, please, take the damn thing off the air – or else!

[My new book is Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]

Income Inequality

The new buzz word is “income inequality” which simply means people don’t make the same amount of money or even close to the same amount of money for the various jobs they do or for the welfare and food stamps they get as other people do. In short, some people have a lot, some have enough and some income “equalists” believe others just don’t have enough.

The thrust of the argument is that the wealthy – meaning anyone who makes a lot more than anyone else – must fork over more of their money so that those who don’t make as much will start to catch up. After all, the heads of the giant corporations, domestic and international make a ton of money, far, far (add some more fars to this) more than someone flipping burgers at wherever-the-hell burger flippers flip burgers to earn their own burgers.

I recall when I was a young man – really young like 18 or 19, working in the New York City Housing Authority at a crummy housing project (Smith Houses) making $60 a week and the bosses, who wore suits no less, made far, far more than I did and just seemed to earn this money by walking around the projects watching people such as me and others breaking their backs.

Seriously, back to our burger flipper who might work exhausting 16 hour days (he’s madly motivated), seven days a week (he’s nuts), meaning putting in 112 hours of grueling effort (really, really nuts), more time spent than billionaire Bill Gates spends, but only earning (if he’s lucky) maybe $12 per hour. That comes to a mere $1,344 per week or almost $70,000 a year, far less than George Soros or either of the Koches. Come on. Is this fair to the flipper? Of course not. It’s income inequality all the way.

If we look at our flipper and realize that chances are he only works a 40 hour week (he’s sane) then his pay is a paltry $480 a week or about $25,000 a year. My Lord he must be starving on those wages as must his children – if he has children or if he’s even old enough to even think about having children since most burger-flipping jobs tend to go to the young, like high school and college young; that age.

Young people don’t make as much as older people so when you look at statistics that show you the fast-food industry or this or that company only pays thus and such an amount to their employees you do have to ask yourself this question: How old are their employees (on average)? Are these the type of people who 20-30 years from now will be quite comfortable in their lives?

Let me just point to myself for a minute as I am my own best example most of the time. When I was a little kid my family lived in a “cold water” flat. That meant exactly what it sounds like – a cold water flat. Indeed, two of the rooms were not heated in winter. Although both my parents worked, my mother and father really didn’t start making it until I was long-graduated from college. Thankfully my college was paid for with an academic scholarship. In point of fact, I was the first person in our extended family to go to college.

Still I did work during college despite having a scholarship because during this time my father and mother were in bad times, so I sent most of my paycheck home – in fact, come to think of it I’ve been working since I was 12 years old (I need a nap). Most of my jobs made me an income that was “in-equal” to all the people who hired me. Those people made much more money than I did.

And that’s the way it goes, to coin a phrase.

(My new book is Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!)

 

Free College is an Awful Idea

Some politicians (and student advocates) are proposing that we send people to college for free.

Dumb idea.

Aside from the obvious fact that it would cost a fortune and probably add to our almost $20,000,000,000,000 debt (did I get enough zeros in that? the number is so big I can’t comprehend it) it would probably add even more non-college-ready-students to the “how can such an idiot be in college?” ranks.

I am coming to the conclusion that we should eliminate about 50 percent of the college students from the college ranks. But what should we do with all those people?

Here is my plan (it does have some bugs I will admit):

*Anyone who serves four years in the armed forces gets four years of free college

*Anyone who serves five years in the military gets four years of free college and one free year in a master’s program

*Anyone who serves eight years in the armed forces gets four years of free college and one free year in a master’s degree program and three years in a PhD program

Who pays for all of this? The military through a (sort of) Medicare-type deduction from a soldier’s pay – maybe make it 50-50 with a government hand out.

I dismiss the idea that we would be dealing with individuals of more advanced ages in the general college population. Education at the highest levels should not be age specific. In fact, we could use more adults on our college campuses.

Now, we would have to come up with plans for married individuals and such but I think these plans could be easily worked out. Remember, we are having children later in life and we are living far longer than ever before. Going to college in one’s late 20’s or early 30’s is not a big deal anymore.

This plan would prevent those “I can’t believe that girl is in college” problem and probably cut enrollments quite a lot. When our members of the armed forces are ready to enter college they would actually be ready to enter college, having experienced the real world.

Rather than prattle on, that is my tentative plan. Could that work better than the absurd idea of sending everyone to college for “free”? Probably.

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]

 

 

 

 

 

The Trinity of Gambling Perceptions

  1. Purists: I guess if you are a purist all bets where the house has an edge over you is a “sucker” bet. Even of that edge is miniscule, your expectation is to lose – therefore, you make the bet and you are a sucker.

2. House Edgers: However, I think the common perception is somewhat different than the purist’s perception. The common perception is that low-house-edge bets are okay – such as playing basic strategy at blackjack; pass, don’t pass, come, don’t come, with odds at craps; baccarat’s bank or player bets would be “good” bets as well.

  1. Loss Per Hour: There is a third way as well, a wrinkle if you will – you must consider loss per hour. A mini-baccarat game can have low-house-edge bets but the speed of the game is such that this small edge can rip away at a bankroll. Playing $50 per hand in mini-baccarat will cost you a lot more than using the Pass or Don’t Pass betting $50 – although the house edges are relatively close on both games.

Loss per hour is rarely brought up when analyzing bets.

Strange as it seems, I tend to fall into all three categories. That’s my personal “trinity” of perception.

[Read my latest gambling books, I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps! and I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-play Blackjack!]

Is America the Land of the Haters?

I know that many of my Facebook friends are quite liberal, some quite leftist, some so far left they are almost right. Others of my friends are conservative, some quite far to the right, some so far right they think of the members of the flat Earth society with love.

Here is my set up for my serious question:

There is a constant litany cautioning about the evils of the “other side” by all of my political friends over the political continuum. If you were to take all the words I have been reading lately from my friends, then add them to all the words of the famous political “talking heads” on television and all the political “writing pens” of all the people in various newspapers and magazines in our country and then shot all those words into space to some alien civilization (the “aliens” are advanced, they can understand English – they don’t have to press “2” for Spanish), those aliens would think, “What is going on in the United States on planet Earth?”

They would continue: “Everyone of any worth in the United States must be evil; the President, the arch-henchwoman Hillary, Dick Cheney, George Bush, people who want to own guns, people who don’t want to own guns, people who don’t want the people who own guns to own guns, the Tea party, the Occupy Protestors, bloated Al Gore, bloated Rush Limbaugh, rapidly losing weight Frank Scoblete whose books can be bought on Amazon and in bookstores. Yes, all the corporate heads are evil; so are bankers, so are small businessmen who must pay their fair share or are these people just little corporate heads in disguise? Donald Trump, George Soros, Sean Hannity, Justin Bieber, Beyonce?”

The aliens might add, “America is a land of racists who don’t like blacks, whites, Asians and ‘none of the above.’ They are haters.”

I am so confused.

Many think of Obama as a far, far leftist – quite close to a communist, a deliberate destroyer of the American dream and the Constitution. Others consider Obama to be a middle-of-the-road Democrat and rail against Bush and his evil company? Some think the right is lunatic; they are “Nutzis.” Hillary’s people think Sanders is a “doofus.”

Those aliens reading all this stuff — and certainly Mark Zuckerberg must have those aliens hooked on interplanetary Facebook (called Tentacle Book) — have to be confused. It seems everyone who claims to love America is pissed off about living in America or about others living in America. Americans are pissed off at politicians, newscasters, writers, talkers, other writers, fast food servers. It seems the United States is the melting pot of discontent. That seems to be the thing most of us have in common.

If so — a serious question now — is our country the most villainous in the world? If not, where do we rate? Is our land filled with devils looking to destroy us for their own good, for their own gains?

So what is the most villainous nation on Earth? If there are better nations than America how come Americans stay here? If it is filled with devils why do we keep letting them burn us?

Please anyone, anyone, please answer this question. Here’s another? Are there any countries so much less villainous than America?

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic.]

The Four-Hour Erection

His name is Mr. Squeaky. No, that’s not the nickname for a man’s sex organ. It is the name for a Green-Cheeked Conure parrot; a parrot who is a sex fiend–a complete and utter sex fiend.

My wife the Beautiful AP and I have two parrots, Augustus, a Quaker Parrot, over 20 years old – a senior-citizen for his species – and the aforementioned Mr. Squeaky, about five years old, and horny as can be.

Augustus spends most of his day grooming, wrestling with a copper bell, eating, bathing and pooping. His nickname is the “stealth pooper.” Mr. Squeaky, on the other hand, spends a minimum of four hours a day screwing the top of his cage.

We assume that Mr. Squeaky (the name given by his first owners) is male since he has never laid any eggs. He has (to be blunt) laid his cage constantly. He is up and out in more ways than one, tirelessly humping a perch that definitely looks the worse for wear.

And loud! When he is going at it, you can hear him all over the house squeaking what we can only interpret as, “Whoopee! I am having fun! More! Give me more!”

One morning last week we parked the car in our garage and even before we could get out the Beautiful AP said, “Mr. Squeaky is having sex again!” (“Whoopee! I am having fun! More! Give me more!”)

Although we try to give him his privacy, when we do walk in on him, he will peek over at us and continue pumping away. He is not an exhibitionist but he is also not not an exhibitionist. I think he is more of an “I-don’t-care-ist.”

The Beautiful AP thinks that Mr. Squeaky is young and plucky (drop the “pl” and replace with “f”). She believes he’ll calm down with age.

He usually takes his bath first thing in the morning and then screws all day. This order of events would take him out of the running to star in a birdie Cialis commercial. For some incomprehensible reason, the Cialis couples take their baths after sex in separate tubs. Outdoors. Shouldn’t they clean before having sex?

Mr. Squeaky loves the perch atop his cage, but he is unfaithful. On some occasions he gets on top of Augustus’ cage while Augustus sits by his door pooping onto the floor. Mr. Squeaky pumps like a madbird on his neighbor’s perch.

Other times, he makes love to the inside of his own cage when he’s covered for the night. No, we don’t peek. We just listen. Eavesdropping, you might say.

If Green-Cheeked Conures were an endangered species, we could put Mr. Squeaky out to stud. But, alas, there is no dearth in that population.

Will time dim Mr. Squeaky’s ardor? Only Mr. Squeaky’s cage can tell.

The American People

I’m bothered.

I love listening to the talk and news shows — Fox News, MSNBC, CNN and so on. I often have these networks in the background as I write.

Politicians delight me, much as horror movies delight me, and good bowel movements delight me.

But all the politicians will say stuff such as this: “The American people want…” “The American people don’t want…”  “The American people would like…” “The American people don’t like…” They drive me crazy!

Okay, the “American People” want gun control; but they don’t want gun control. They want abortion; but they don’t want abortion. They want Obama; but they don’t want Obama. They want entitlements; but they don’t want entitlements. They want big government; but they don’t want big government. The American people want to eat like pigs; but the American people want to be slim.

They want whatever the hell they want and simultaneously they don’t want what they wanted because they don’t want it even though they want it. There are no American people!

Obviously, all of the politicians are blowing smoke up your “you-know-what.” The American “people” don’t want this or that — I might want this and you might not want this. There is no universal agreement on almost everything. (Okay, okay, I am guessing the American people don’t want the flu – except maybe your weird Uncle Utrech.)

So why do we allow politicians, newscasters and citizens to have the gall to say “the American people” as if there really is an entity called The American People? And worse, that somehow in some fantastic way these ploppies actually speak for “the American people.”

When someone says “The American People” I want to hit them over the head with anything the American People can hand me that is available or not available!

[My latest book is Confessions of a Wayward Catholic.]

The Captain Invented Modern Dice Control

The Captain of Craps, the Atlantic City legend, was responsible for discovering how to beat the modern casino game of craps with controlled shooting – which he used to call “rhythmic rolling” as well as “controlling the dice.” He applied this technique to beat the casinos from the late 1970s through 2007 – almost 30 years of constant play. Yes, he won millions.

Since 1998, some writers have tried to take away the dice control laurels from the Captain and assign them to other people who merely tried to build (sometimes incorrectly) on what the Captain had created. These pretenders to the throne are many, of course, since a good idea is always worth pilfering.

In 1993, my book The Captain’s Craps Revolution! was published and in it the Captain addressed the issue of controlled shooting – long before any of the pretenders came out of the woodwork to try to take credit for this brilliant technique and his brilliant ideas. Here is an excerpt from the above referenced book:

The Captain: “I don’t need to guess. I know that some people have trained themselves privately or at the tables to control the fall of the dice. ‘The Arm’ has had remarkable success fixing [setting] and controlling the dice. ‘The Arm” consistently has major rolls. Recently at the Sands casino in Atlantic City, during a Sinatra weekend, with the place packed with free-wheeling high rollers, and then several days later at the Claridge right across the street, ‘The Arm’ had monster rolls of positively legendary proportions. This isn’t coincidence or merely fluctuations in randomness. ‘The Arm’ controls the dice! [Bold lettering mine]

“Does it mean that every time ‘The Arm’ picks up those cubes, a big one is coming? Of course not. There are times when she isn’t at the right spot on the table or the throw is a little off. Having played with ‘The Arm’ for years, I can recognize the signs of an off night. So can she. But if the groove isn’t there, just like a pitcher, ‘The Arm’ leaves the game and does not roll.

“When we talk about fixing and controlling the dice, we aren’t looking for perfection. Pitchers don’t pitch perfect games every time out. In fact, each separate roll of the dice to a player who can control them is like a pitch in a game. The good pitchers will consistently throw strikes and have good games, not every time out, but enough that you can say this isn’t just randomness or luck. Also, you have to define what you mean by a good roll. My definition is simple: a good roll is one where the seven doesn’t show long enough to make me money or one where I can make a good profit because there is a rapid succession of repeating numbers. Fixing and controlling the dice has more to do with certain numbers being repeated than it does with monster rolls. You don’t have to have monster rolls to win. I’ve seen rolls by ‘The Arm’ where the four will come up four or five times in a row, followed by some other numbers, then another string of fours before sevening out. It’s a wonderful feeling to be up on only one number after the 5-Count and have that number hit repeatedly in rapid succession. People who can control the dice will tend to have certain faces of the dice appear more often than these faces would otherwise by chance.”

In the book, the Captain then continued about how one should practice to actually get control over the dice; how many rolls one should do to see if such control was actually there. He mentioned that he sometimes had control but other times he didn’t, but he denied he was very good at it. He thought of himself more as a rhythmic roller which is, I guess, the equivalent to “control light.” I also guess that assessment of himself was his humility talking because in my over dozen years of steadily playing with him (and ‘The Arm’) in the late 1980s and 1990s, he was damn good and had the prototypical roll that works best for most controllers. He was aware that using the word “control” meant a high degree of accuracy with the dice – so he considered himself more of an influencer. This coming from a man who rolled 100 times in 2004 and 147 times in 2005 before sevening out – the only player I know of who has had two hands of over 100 rolls!

To me the use of words such as dice control, rhythmic rolling and dice influence all mean the same thing. The shooter has the capability to get an edge over the casinos.

Unlike today when you can find controlled shooters in greater numbers, in the Captain’s early days they were few and far between. But they were there and the greatest of them was ‘The Arm’ and the most brilliant of them was the Captain.

The Captain was the first to fully understand dice control and its ramifications, and no amount of taking his words out of context or trying to give the laurels to someone else can take these achievements away from him. All the current vocabulary of dice control; all the analogies to baseball or golf or other sports; all the talk about being at the right spot on the table; all of our understanding of when to leave the table; the knowledge that repeating numbers can also be the way to win money even without monster rolls – yes, all the modern parlance of the dice control world come from him.

The Captain was the MAN then; he is the MAN now; and he will remain the MAN forever.

[Read more about the Captain in my book I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps.]

 

The Pelican Brief

The Pelican Brief

I call it Pelican Bay because there were literally hundreds of Pelicans flying, diving, floating and cavorting with each other as our cruise ship (the Fathom Adonia) slowly made its way through the water.

The Pelicans did not seem the least upset by our relatively huge ship sailing by them. Why should they? Who hunts Pelicans?

I had never seen a Pelican before these sightings in Cuba, although I have since learned that they are everywhere on the East coast. [My new learning: A group of Pelicans is called a pod.]

Pelicans rocket into the water to catch fish. They are greedy eaters too. I think I saw a few with more than one fish in its mouth, uh, beak.

I said to the Beautiful AP, “Put Pelicans on our list.” You see birders all make lists of the birds they see with the dates they saw them and I thought we should have our own list. I think there are some 900-plus species of birds. This would be our first one on our official list!

“I’m not making a list,” she said. “I have enough lists about my swimming mileage and workouts. You want a list, you make the list.”

“But I want you to make the list,” I said, defeated. I then whispered to myself dejectedly, “Then we won’t have a list.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said.