People. People. PEOPLE. The last nine months here in Madison, Wisconsin has taught me one thing:
THIS PLACE FUCKING SUCKS!!!
No, I'm not going to defend it. No, I ain't gonna lie. It's just that my experiences here have been so uncannily bugged with synchronized resistance that I've even had emotional moments where I had to self check- in on my own sanity.
Fucking believe it.
I have driven across the country probably around ten times. No shit. I've done the 90, the 80, the 10, the 40 and all kinds of crissity-crossity ways to encounter the peeps and landscapes that make up this magical nation of ours. I had stopped in Madison exactly once. It was on my first trip driving by myself across the country on my way to be a professional musician in NYC. I was hungry, figured that Madison qualified as a city and that it would most likely have decent ethnic food offerings. I stopped at a place called Guadalajara some shit. I had a carne asada burrito. This burrito was mediocre at best, but oh well, I'm on my way to New York and this shit is temporary. All you cats that have driven across the country know there ain't no good food to be had no-how. Why do I bring this up? Because in a very real way I already had understood about the food, nay, the culture here: mediocre at fucking best.
When Tanya received her fellowship to school at UW Madison I was stoked. I do believe in the push and I do believe that experience trumps all other human choice. Money won't do shit unless you use it for experiences. You also don't really need much money to have a lot of great experiences. Maybe another post I'll expound on that. I started my research on Madison. Shit seemed pretty promising. The Berkeley of the Midwest, they say. Beautiful lakes. Bucolic acreage with farms, woods and water. Even people I knew in New York were saying that, damn, you lucky, son. That place has it all. It's progressive, liberal and diverse. There is great art. Great food. Great music. Sign me the fuck up, I thought. Tanya and I get another stop on our life-adventure together. And not only are they footing the bill for Tanya's MFA, they're giving her a stipend as well! Holy fuck!!! How can we lose?!
Here's where the Madison part comes in.
I have two major strength trajectories in my life: Music and Children. I have been playing the drums since before I hit double-digits and I've been working with kids in a lot of different capacities since my sister was born in 1984. Currently I'm forty-three. Do the math if ya wanna. My point is that I was fairly sure, and justifiably so, that I would be quite an asset and resource to the local community that is my new home. I'm a nice guy. I'm amiable, serious when I need to be, disciplined, hard working and honest. Maybe this is a wrong way to look at it, but I really did believe (still do) that for the work I'm accomplished at, I'd be a big fish in a small pond.
We move to Madison in August of 2012 and I hit the shits running. I was out at music shit pretty much every night. During the day I applied for hundreds of jobs, most of which I was hyper-overqualified for. I know the economy is tight. I know that America is still tanking. But I also know that there has to be a place for me. There has got to be a place that recognizes what I've done and what I can do.
Right?
Well, not yet anyway.
At this point I don't know how much detail to go into. I do not want to sound like a hater or a victim, because I'm neither. I also do not want to sound negative or bitter because I honestly don't feel that way. I guess I'll just pipe in that it is excruciatingly difficult to be in a place so seemingly homogenized in value and culture. I know Madison does not want to hear that, but I gotta tell you, it's fucking true.
A teaching analogy if I may: I started teaching in the public schools of Los Angeles in 1996. My second year was my first year of teaching special education. As the year progressed I noticed a distinct difference in the amount of work produced and the lack of accommodation in the grading system as applied to all student populations. That simply means that if in my special education class you were an A student, in the general population it was actually about a C. If you were getting a C in my class, you were failing in the general population.
In my opinion the art, music, food, weather and inter-personal relationships in Madison are getting an A. But that is considering that the city of Madison is my special education class. That translates as a C on the scale that is the general population of American cities.
Mediocre at best.
Fucking believe it.
