Seen

A dude, with Leather Tuscadero hair, tight jeans, a tight leather jacket, a soul patch under his lip, and aviator sunglasses that he never removed at 6:30 at night. Very much the hipster rock dude. This was seen in hipsterville. Dude had a hipster girl that was just one minor step away from goth, but she was also closer to Leather Tuscadero than Robert Smith. Dude is just a minor step away from glam. Which is a minor step away from poodle hair. I'm telling you. Might take a while. But it all comes back. I'm telling you.

Teodoro Traveled North This Year

Denali did not suck.

Random Year End Stuff

Best book of the year. The Amazon info is overwhelming, so I won't add to the din. Just read the book. Only took me a couple days.

Best academic book that I read this year. I linked this book back in May on the B**** Blog, but this one is worth linking twice.

(Anyone find it interesting that my favorite books of the year are about loss? Ah, but they are about recovery from loss. So I'm good with it.)

I'm so unhip these days, I can't even tell you a single favorite record release of the year, much less make a top 5. I suppose this is what I listened to more than anything this year. The link is for one DVD, but I listened to everything they recorded for a good chunk of the year. "Acadian Driftwood" was the undiscovered treasure song of the year for me. Track it down from one of your friends who likes The Band and check it out.

Favorite place to hang out this year. Best coffee in Chicago. Right around the corner.

more stuff as it comes to me through the new year...

Teodoro, Year in Review

I started this year with a broken heart, and I end it sharing a spoon.

In January, I had extricated myself from a whirlwind 2-month relationship in which nobody was healthy and nobody was well. I had fallen so hard and I couldn’t understand why this had happened again. So I did what most people do when they are depressed in January and February: I sat home, mostly alone, and ate ice cream. And while that is a bleak picture, if you think about it, that wasn’t so bad. I could have been doing much worse that sitting home eating ice cream. I made my meetings, I talked to people, I cried. I worked out, worked on my school. I got better. This happens in life.

March came and I got the good news that I would be placed at my top choice hospital for a year of training. My training site at the time, until then a brutal grind and anxiety provoking site, started to get a little easier and I started to figure out some professional kinks. Working in an ER with a desperately mean supervisor had not been easy. But that person lightened up, and I started to understand the ER work a little better, and the light was at the end of that training tunnel anyway. My individual clients were responding to the work, and I started to gain some confidence back that had been shattered a few months before.

April came, and like the temperature and sun, my mood rose a little bit each day. Not out of it yet, but on good days I could get on my bike and ride by the lake. The link between those days and my mood was not at all metaphorical.

May. I was enrolled in a class that changed everything about how I conceptualized loss, and thus, therapy. I was in that class. Read a book that knocked me out. I wrote a paper on The Deer Hunter that was one of the best papers I’ve written. When writing is fun, rather than a chore, things feel better.

June arrived with a new date. April and May had been good enough that I put myself back out there, and, like the mid-30s single guy that I was, I went to the internet and found a cool chickie to meet and get to know. Ice cream is better when shared.

I found myself in Alaska in late June, for a trip I’m still not sure actually happened. I’ll be back in Alaska sooner rather than later. Some would tell me to try someplace new, but I don’t see why I can’t go climb Mt. Healy and stay in Homer again. Seems like a perfectly perfect summer vacation to me.

In July, I started at my training site. Loved it right away, love it to this day.

July/August. Saturday night swimming and take-out Thai food with my date. That was pretty cool stuff. I helped her change a tire. She made me laugh. We started exercising together. What’s going on here?

In late August, we both started to figure out what was going on, and we both got pretty scared. I painted a bunch of rooms to stay busy/distant, and she traveled home and got ready for school, because she’s a teacher. Now the question of “What’s going on here” had a different tone and a more confusing answer. If there was one.

September school began for both of us. My semester started out brutally and stayed that way. Same for her. I began studying in August for my LPC exam in October. I worked every weekend. I had four or five papers due throughout October. This 8-week period is kind of blurry for me.

My date and I stopped dating. Wasn’t working.

Sad.

But with no choice about the school and work commitments, I had to push through. She and I kept talking. We developed a better friendship and started to develop some perspective.

I took the tests and turned in the papers. My papers were not my best work. I tanked a mid-term exam (a 69% on one of them!). I struggled. But I was starting to be close to someone at the same time. What do you work on in these situations? What’s most important? Schoolwork or people? Clearly, I can’t ignore my schoolwork. A mountain of debt and an entire life’s direction does not allow for failure. But if my personal relationships are neglected and continue to fail, who cares about any of that anyway? My solution: keep working on personal stuff, do as much as I can with school stuff. I still find no acceptable alternative to that formula.

December. I turned 37. I struggled in school...BUT...Leslie and I got back together. That’s right, I’ve just outed Leslie. LB as she sometimes calls herself. She makes me happy. And I’m working on being in a relationship the right way...all the way...while I do my best to keep the rest of my life in order. So far, so good. Things are new and different, and perspective gained is certainly a wonderful thing. I’m driving to Knoxville after my holiday in Cincinnati so that I can meet her parents. That’s something, ain’t it?

2006 will be ridiculous. Another practicum site search and interview process. Start, propose, and work on my dissertation. Full-load of classes. Transfer to new yet-to-be named site. Apply for internship (the single most anxiety provoking and pain-in-the-ass process of grad school). More classes. Less money.

And I’m working on sharing the spoon for the ice cream. Sometimes it’s the easiest thing to do, and sometimes it’s the hardest. Did I mention that sometimes it’s the hardest? But sometimes it’s the easiest. And I’m gonna keep working on that. For sure.

All in all, a remarkable 2005. I’ll take it.

My best to all my great friends who read Tres Hombres.

Big hugs to everyone! And I really was in a band called Big Hug once.

Christmas Spirit

I flipped by it a bit late, but AMC is showing the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol tonight. The one with Alastair Sim.

Single greatest verstion of this story. No other comes close. Really.

Watch for it and mark your TiVos. Better yet, drop the dime, buy the DVD, and make watching this version an annual event, along with A Christmas Story.

("Daddy's going to kill Ralphie!" "No, he isn't." "Yes he is. Daddy is going to kill Ralphie!" "No, Daddy's not going to kill Ralphie...")

Required viewing.

Final Exams

I'm giving a final exam right now. For those of you keeping score at home, I'm a full-time music/creative arts guy at a relatively big church in southern California and also a part-time faculty member at a junior college - at least until I finish administering this final exam, at which point I'll probably categorize myself as a former part-time faculty member. It's been a long and relatively unsuccessful semester for me as an instructor; one that has me thinking quite seriously about hanging up the chalk (or, in this case, the dry-erase markers) for a while until I get the passion - or at least the effectiveness - back.

I'm an interesting case with my teaching history. I was actually full-time, tenure-track at this school a few years ago and resigned to take a primarily administrative role at a hot-shot music school back east. My experience at the hot-shot school was instructive, insofar as I was able to obtain great clarity regarding what sort of job I should never have. (Specifically, that would be the sort of job where I am Mr. Administrative/Staff Support Person for the faculty who have the best part of education, which is the teaching and interaction with students.) So, after about four years, I left the administrative/staff job at the prestigious place to take a job as the music and creative arts director at a church.

And some have categorized me as rather foolish for the decisions I detailed in the preceding paragraph. They are not without some cause.

You see, many, many people apply for tenure-track jobs every year. I got lucky and landed one at the age of 27 (!). After two years, I got a little antsy at my school (a community college) and started looking for other jobs. When I interviewed at the anonymous school back east, I was convinced that being around music and education being done at the highest level would be good enough to make up for jumping out of the tenure stream, so I took the job. I was convinced that just being around great music and great education would be enough for me.

It wasn't, and it isn't. I know that now.

And, interestingly enough, being Mr. Full-Time Faculty Guy probably isn't a good fit for me right now, either. Much as I love - and I mean really, really love - teaching, I only love it when the following conditions are met:

1. I'm teaching well.
2. I'm actively involved in creativity outside of my teaching work.
3. I'm actually doing the stuff I'm talking about.
4. Students learn in a significant way.

Turns out, those are some tough conditions to meet. I thought I'd do well this semester, because I'm hitting conditions 2 and 3 in my full-time job, but I've discovered that I don't really have the time I'd like to meet condition 1...meaning that condition 4 has little chance of happening, at least as far as I can tell.

So, in the event that years from now I'm up for a full-time teaching job and someone figures out who I am and digs around and finds this blog post and gets nervous, I think what I'm saying here is that great - not merely good - teaching is significant and meaningful for me. And, being honest, I haven't hit that mark this semester, so I think I might jump out of the pool for a while.

I always dreaded taking classes from the profs who had long ago given up on their creative output, but I loved classes with the ones who had stayed in the game creatively (remember, I was a music major). When I was a full-time prof, I felt that my teaching largely choked out my creative life, although that may have been the result of some workaholic tendencies I had as a young prof. Now that I'm full-time creative guy, I find it hard to take the time necessary to think through pedagogy and give both the creative and the linear processes of instructional planning a go. I hope that sometime (soon, preferably), I'll find a better middle ground where I can be effective as a creative and effective as an instructor.

As I grade the students' final exams, I think I'll have to grade myself as well. And just like their grades, I'll keep mine private.

Between now and December 25, I have 11 church services to prep for and be a part of. So if you don't hear from me until Boxing Day, I hope you'll understand. Many good wishes to all of you, my friends Teo and Vinnissimo of course, but also to all of you other folks I've gotten to know a bit on the blog over the past few months as well. And also, to any anonymous folks visiting the blog and actually reading down this far, good wishes to you. And to quote Tiny Tim: God bless us, every one.

Pinata

Wha'd I Miss???

"Previously on Tres Hombres . . ."

Summary? Bullets?

Oh yeah, I can just read it. Pause that idea.

I'll be able to do just that next week while looking for a diversion from the off part of the "holidays".

Until then I'll be channeling you Hombres.

Plowing forward. Fondly.

Vinnissimo

Stay Tuned

The blog, sometimes, has a life of its own, and it sometimes has a non-life of its own. Apparently, we are currently in the later stage.

Stay tuned for a holiday/year-end wrap up from Teodoro. Kevlar and Vinnissimo have likely fallen into big boxes and inadvertantly shipped to Albequerque.

Friday Thought

Between The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, there are no more dependably outstanding, smart, hysterical television shows. This is not news. Took a few weeks for Colbert to find his groove, but if you haven't tuned in since then, I suggest you give it another shot.

But when flipping the other night, I fucking cracked up consistently when I came across this show. Man, that is some funny shit. Makes me far less worried that this country is in real trouble, because very, very few people can really take this shit seriously.

Friday Serious

I'm already way tired of Brokeback Mountain being used for every punchline of every joke told on the radio and television. Man, is that some old, tired, lame shit. Looks like it should be a really important, meaningful movie.

Friday Fun

This is where I live, from a satelite. Google is cool. Punch in your own address (or a nearby intersection) and zoom in and out. Feel free to share. With the four people on Tres Hombres.

(And we've been missing an Hombre lately. I'm feeling bereft.)

Opinion Alert

I hate everything about the death penalty.

It's reactionary, ineffective, inactive, defensive, immoral, close-minded, and small.

You all know that I like to try to see lots of angles towards issues. Nope. Not on this.

Pass!

Remember that big fat state licensing exam I took on October 18th?

I passed.

Which means that I am now:
Teodoro Callate, M.A., LPC

The LPC stands for Licensed Professional Counselor. It's not quite the LCPC that has that extra Clinical part thrown in there...that's the prize where I get to do this unsupervised...but it's a big step nonetheless.

So there ya go. So far, they're gonna keep letting me do this.

Ba De Ya

Went to the JDRF gala fundraser last night. I've said this here before, but what a fantastic charity organization this is. A minimum of 85% of all funds raised go directly to research. Not only that, these events include silent auctions and an event called "Fund a Cure" wherein 100% of the money collected goes straight to research. That's pretty badass stuff. Last night alone, over $600,000 was raised during the Fund a Cure, and $2.2 million was raised throughout the evening. 2.2 MILLION. One night. Damn right.

The evening's entertainment was none other than Earth, Wind, and Fire. I remember seeing EWF one other time in my life, in Miami with at least one of my fellow Hombres in tow. That performance was in the Miami Arena, a 15,000 seat behemoth that really didn't lend itself to a lasting memory of the band. Last night, I saw them in the Arie Crown Theater at this event, and we ended up in row M, which by my count is row 13. Right in the middle.

This was just lots of fun. The band only has three of their original members: Philip Bailey, Verdine White, and their original drummer who is no longer their drummer (he's now a percussionist and singer and is part of the "up front" people). Maurice White, long the heart and soul of the band, has some sort of illness that keeps him from touring (for 15 years or so). I'm sure I could find some details on this if I googled it, but I'm being lazy about that. What I do know is that Maurice White was always my favorite...he's the guy that always said "Yaaooooowwww" on their songs....and I miss him and wish him well.

But the rest of the band is great. Philip Bailey is the guy that always sang falsetto (think "After The Love Is Gone"), and he sings both his parts and most of Maurice's lower-register parts. There are also other people that take over Maurice's parts. They all do a great job. Philip Bailey and Verdeen White are clearly the torchbearers for this band, and Philip still has the touch. Great percussionist, and though he didn't hit every single note he went for, he still went for them and hit some incredible notes. He's clearly a talented, creative, passionate musician.

As for Verdine, he's still more of a comic strip than a badass bass player. He's very good, but he's more about personality than anything else. He's good entertainment, which is still the point after all, so good for Verdine. He's all teeth and long, straight hair (on a 55-year-old black man) and funny pants and crazzzzzy jumping and dancing. Good stuff.

The backup musicians were all great, and it was good to see this band up close and personal. Ba De Ya, Yaoow, Riding in the sky on our ship Fantasii doing something about the Kingdom of Doing. Love it.

Highlights: Serpentine Fire, Shining Star, September.

GET. DOWN.

Heartbreaking

This story that happened yesterday is the most heartbreaking story I've read in a long time. I read it this morning and there's just nothing good here.

There's way too much that we don't know about this situation, and I doubt that we'll ever know what really happened. I know that unmedicated bipolar disorder is dangerous (to the individual) and is one of the more complex disorders to treat psychologically, psychiatrically, and socially. Medicated bipolar disorder is very manageable. But nothing about the disorder is so simple that it could be discussed or understood in a couple sentences.

I've lost a friend to unmedicated bipolar disorder. I have friends who struggle with it. I have friends who manage it. I see patients all the time in various states of medication and non-medication. These are reasons that the story breaks my heart.

The guy sold paint. The guy had trouble.

And will we ever know what happened? The feds will force feed the "justified actions" or whatever about the shooting. And what do I know. Maybe it was justified. I'm not an expert there. I'm cynical, I know that, but I also know that just because I'm cynical doesn't mean I'm right. I know I don't want to hear Scott McClellan say anything about any of this. Because it's heartbreaking enough. And this didn't have to happen for about 45,000 different reasons.

And the reason that will get lost in the shuffle is that people need affordable mental health care, but I'm pretty confident that we won't put our resources into saving lives through building those types of resources.

These Young Kids Today

Through the speakers in the locker room downstairs at the gym: Marvin Gaye, "What's Goin On." Thank you very much, this pleases me.

Through the speakers in the workout area upstairs at the gym: Somebody singing the new hit song, "Laffy Taffy," featuring the chorus, "Laffy taffy, shake that laffy taffy, laffy taffy, shake that laffy taffy, girrrrrrrl shake that...". And this doesn't so much displease me as it confuses the hell out of me.

Is it age? Is it marketing? Is it the state of the music industry?

You know what? Don't answer any of those. I'm just glad that Marvin Gaye existed and that I know about him and can choose to listen to Marvin whenever the hell I want. Except when I'm on the treadmill at the gym, in which case I listen to Laffy Taffy, but I'm thinking about Marvin.

I am that guy

The family truckster has been a station wagon for a few years now. We've been a one car family for eight years, which is pretty amazing considering that we've both been working for the past four or five of those years. So we finally got a second car for the family.

I now can choose between driving a station wagon or a minivan.

I am that guy.

Insomnia, solved.

If anyone is having trouble sleeping these days, here's what you do:

Enroll in graduate school as a psychology student. Wait until your third year of school, and take a class called Research Methods. Read about seventy-three different types of validity indicators for fifteen weeks.

Then sleep.

Beautiful, Invaluable Instruments

I think instruments are way past beautiful.

I have two acoustic guitars and a bass guitar hanging on my wall, and they are on par with any artistic choice I could make for interesting wall hangings, as far as I'm concerned. And to be clear, the instruments are nothing "special," other than that they are instruments, and I think there is inherent beauty there. My two guitars are nearly identical, basic acoustic guitars, though one is a 6-string and one is a 12-string. No fancy finish or pearl-inlay neck or fancy bridge or headstock. Just instruments. Just plain ol' instruments that have the potential of creating beauty of sight and sound if the right person pulls them off the wall (Not me. I'm a hack.). The bass guitar is a gorgeously plain 1978 Fender P bass that is a natural blond wood. No sunburst or sparkle or decal flames. Nope. Just three plain instruments next to each other that I just love looking at.

I used to have one of those entertainment centers (thank god I outgrew that). But in the space where the stereo was suppossed to go, I set up a shelf and put one of my classic snare drums on display, like in a museum. The drum was an early 1960's chrome over brass Ludwig, and I retired it just because I played a different drum at the time. But the drum was a gorgeous metal drum, and I thought it was so cool to have it on a shelf behind glass.

I've got other percussion knick knacks laying around...not too many, but enough that they're there. Some ironwood drumsticks from costa rica, some Vietnamese and Turkish percussion items that my friends brought me from their travels.

I would buy a mandolin or an accordion (either chromatic or button) in a heartbeat, just cause I think they'd be cool to have. If I bought them, I'd learn enough to noodle around on the instruments, but likely I'd own them as prized possessions. My artwork. I'd buy a banjo for the same reason. Or a ukelele.

I'd probably steer clear of orchestral strings or any brass or woodwinds. I just don't have an ability to play those at all. But the others I could do. There is still a piano floating out there in the ether that I might get my hands on, and I'd jump on that right away.

On a related note, I'm giving away a drumset this month to a friend of mine who has a 13-year-old son who wants to play. It's not that I'm a good guy or anything. It's that instruments...my instruments...carry far too much value to me to sell them to a friend. And if I sold them on ebay or something, yeah, the couple hundred bucks would be nice, but they would be so empty. Empty dollars.

My first drumset was free, as it was my father's hand-me-down. That drumset changed my life forever. How could I sell something to a friend whose son wants to play?

I'll either put instruments on the wall or I'll give 'em away. Instruments are far too valuable to be put away, not used, or one or the other. Instruments are made to be played and loved and cherished. Given away if possible.

Carry forth.

One Stinkin' Sock

Turned dirt reddish.

But all the whites turned beige.

sigh

Merry Christmas

White Trash Christmas

Unease in Progress

As many know, I'm currently on a psychological diagnostic rotation for a full year at a local hospital. I've learned how to administer several psych assessments over the past three years in school, and this is my year to put the knowledge into practice.

A summary of my feelings as I learned these tests: cool! ick. ehh. okay. well maybe. not bad. pretty cool. cool!

I started learning how to give cognitive assessments a.k.a. intelligence assessments a.k.a. IQ exams. I hated them. That was two years ago, and the class (and assessment) felt like psychology for accountants. All standards and norms and standard deviations and categories, etc. I soon came to understand the value of the assessments, because they can really identify how one can best help a patient. So, if used right, I decided I was okay with that test.

Along the way I learned objective measures as well as projective measures like the Rorschach. Both types are fascinating. I have problems with both, but as long as one is careful to use the tests appropriately, they really can help people tremendously. I'm a fan of these.

Since July, when I started this rotation, I've given lots of assessments and gotten better at giving and interpreting them. But until yesterday I had not given a full IQ test. It was painful to administer, and hard to watch the client struggle with some of the subtests.

With objective measures, there is no right or wrong answer. Just lots and lots of true/false questions. Or maybe multiple choice. And the results are objectively quantified into codetypes which can be interpreted pretty accurately. With projective measures, there are also no right or wrong answers, and the responses are analyzed for content and themes and patterns. Patients need only to endure the length of objective tests and the weirdness of projective tests. Sometimes these case vague discomfort for the client, but generally the cost is far outweighed by the benefit towards treatment.

But the cognitive test? Ehch. The tests are designed to asses the full spectrum of many (though not all) types of intelligence. Thus, by it's nature, the questions start ridiculously easy and work up towards impossible. Therefore, everyone (except, you know, someone supremely gifted) will struggle with every part of this assessment. It's suppossed to do that.

So this process is not finished. Interpretation and treatment are still to come, so maybe I will see the benefit that will outweigh the cost. But watching that in action, with someone who just wants help and likely has some cognitive impairment, just flat out sucked.

The Number 37

Is way closer to 50 than 20.