THE GREAT NORTHERN EXPEDITION OF 2006, PT. 1: Stinky Indy, Angry (Horny) Samoans, and Grandmothers Who Hate Digital Cameras

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (ZP) -- Boredom is one of the worst ways to begin a vacation, but, well, that's life.

Each day, millions of people across the globe begin their travels in much the same way as I began my quick trip to Minneapolis - sitting in airport, suffocating in a cold tomb of a concourse, drinking a six-dollar cup of bad coffee at an airport bar while some over-fragranced woman next to me shrieks office gossip and fashion woes into her Treo.

We're talking insanely-fragranced. My eyes were burning. This woman must spend thousands a week to smell this...powerful. Chanel No. 5? More like Chanel No. 5,000.

Does she bathe in the stuff? Is there some mysterious internal trigger inside some upwardly-mobile women that screams smell powerful, be powerful? The overwhelming scent could melt through just about any corporate glass ceiling invented by Man, if for no other motivation that to get this woman into her own, well-ventilated, executive office.

The woman, from what I could make out, was trying to track down a date after a business meeting in Chicago. Apparently, there's not a single guy in all of Chicago who wants to go out with her Saturday night.


Very attractive bottle-blonde, probably late 30s or early 40s. I can't help but wonder if the perfume played any role in her inability to get a date. Even sharing a cab would probably require Hazmat training and protective gear...

* * * *

CHICAGO (ZP) -- There are few words to describe my history with connecting flights through Chicago O'Hare International Airport.

But the phrases "Connecting in Hell," "Shithole Central," and "Goddamned Worst Airport in America" always seem to come to mind when discussing one of the world's busiest airports.

It is the place where good people turn into zombie-like vagabonds, thanks to missed connections, overbookings galore, and wrong gate assignments.

Jimmy Hoffa? Buried on a Michigan farm? Please. Has anyone checked ORD's Concourse L lately? I think I saw the former union boss wandering the food court, holding a crumpled Pan-Am boarding pass from 1975.

I won't even talk about the customer service, because, well, ORD isn't exactly known for providing the smoothest travel experiences.

Missed that connecting flight to Barbados? Well, be prepared to barter for favors like it's your first day in San Quentin. I'm almost certain I witnessed some guy at a rebooking counter trade two cartons of Pall-Malls, a copy of Hustler, and a pack of gum for a stand-by seat...

I sat at my gate in Concourse K, facing yet another ORD delay on my way to yet another destination, having my first-ever conversation with an honest-to-God, bona fide Angry Samoan.

Nope, I'm not talking about a member of the classic punk outfit, either.

I'm talking app. 330-350 pounds of normally jovial Polynesian, a very BIG man from American Samoa, traveling east to spend a few weeks with his girlfriend.

He was going to miss his girlfriend's birthday, thanks to a missed connection. The airline made him buy two tickets. And, per the details of our conversation, it was apparent that the pair hadn't had sex in a very, very long time.

And he was going to be sitting in O'Hare for another nine hours, waiting.

I was amazed by his ability to periodically apologize for his use of profanity during our conversation.

No apology needed.

This was his first layover in the Black ORD of Death, the pit of lost hopes and vacations, the village of the damned, tired, and even horny.

He won't be apologizing on the his way back west - if he ever made it out of Chicago.

* * * *

MINNEAPOLIS (ZP) -- I was only an hour late as the plane touched down at Minneapolis/St. Paul International.

My cohort/travel host, the ZenFo Mom, was on a flight later than mine that was already an announced delay, so I sat out on the curb by the baggage claim, chain-smoking and chatting it up with a rather energetic grandmother of two nice-looking grandkids.

The woman had just returned from a visit with her daughter and had what seemed like thousands of photos of toddlers - taken with a standard SLR and printed in triplicate before she returned to Minnesota.

The woman was adamant in her sheer hatred of digital cameras, refuses to work with those "damned computers," and doesn't IT to do what it says it promises to do.

Plus, digital photography just isn't as rewarding. Any idiot can use a digital camera, but how many folks still know how to use things like standard, analog SLRs?

Um, yeah. Sometimes old people are smarter than young people.

Apparently, her daughter is addicted to digital photography but never got around to installing basic antivirus software on her computer.

So here's my preservation tip of the day: keep a back-up of your digital photos. Invest in some high-quality analog prints and, if possible, analog negatives. Bare minimum, back up your data and install (and update) antivirus software.

One bad worm can eat a shitload of baby photos - and make for one pissed off Granny.

- MORE ON MINNESOTA THIS WEEKEND -

Thank Bad Religion, Black Flag, and the Airlines I'm Gone...

The ZenFo Pro needs a vacation.

Um...yeah.

Let's just say that if I were to go anymore hardcore at work, I'd be sporting gang colors, bumping Ice-T from my office, and wearing "wifebeaters" to work...

And to think... I used to be very good at keeping that side of me out of the workplace...

So I'm off to Minnesota for a few days, to keep my mom company on one of her business trips.

With any luck, I'll return refreshed and relaxed enough to return to a more normal blog schedule. I'm so far behind reading other bloggers - please accept my apologies.

Oh yeah...and feel free to steal this poster.

~ JASON, THE ZENFO PRO

Long Weeks Call for a Little Fun with Graphic Design Software...

Yup...

This sums up my morning. 'Nuff said.

Nothing like emergency bibliographic assistance at the asscrack of dawn.

But, hey, when computer files crash, somebody has to be willing to get outta bed and help.

I think this is probably a better approach to marketing libraries than those outdated READ posters.

Um...yeah. You know why I dropped my American Library Association membership?

Check out Reasons No. 665, 666, and 667.

What the fuck do celebrity reading patterns have to do with promoting 21st century libraries???

Sure, people dig a good book. I've even been known to read one every once and while. But c'mon...how about something other than books, for Chrissakes?

Britney Spears is supposed to save my profession's ass? She can't even remember to put a seatbelt on her kid. Orlando Bloom pitching Lord of the Rings? Sounds like somebody had a very saavy publicist- and it sure wasn't the ALA.

Bill Gates? Not even gonna go there. Having him pose with a Hemingway novel is sorta like asking Donald Rumsfeld to pose with a copy of the UN charter.



Anywho...

No girlfriends were actually stolen in the making of this poster.

Well...

None yet.

;)

How People Find Blogs: Tales of Booze, Electronic Information Retrieval, and Women

The images below are screenshots from actual searches conducted yesterday - searches conducted by Google users in which this very blog turned up as the No. 1 retrieved result.


That, my friends, is some funny shit.

It also demonstrates one of the biggest mysteries behind information retrieval. No matter how much a person - be they blogger, book or journal author, musician, or other content creator - tries to control their content, one cannot truly anticipate why that content will be found or what sort of individual search strategies go into locating information.

Sure, we can gather a shitload of valuable quantitative and qualitative information to make educated guesses as to how people - collectively - locate information online And, sure, that information can be used to design better and more accessible resources.

But individually? For every human being on this planet, there are an infinite number of ways a person can stumble across various online resources...

This weekend, I had a chance to spend some quality time with a recent MU alum/reader, in town for that institution's Reunion Weekend.

I won't say too much about it, but, apparently, there is some good that can come from blogging in a small, often fucked-up college town. The person in question went through a horrible last year in college...we'll leave it at that. I guess the ol' ZenFo Pro provided some comfort to this woman on more than a few long, lonely nights.

While out for drinks, and after we were both shitfaced enough to speak with a little less awkwardness, I asked her how she found my blog.

This young professional woman just stared into her umpteenth Jager Bomb of the night when I asked. She was visibly embarrassed by the question, so I did what I normally do when I ask something uncomfortable - I keep asking more questions.

Was she bored in class? Did she just stumble across the site while taking a break from writing a paper? Did she learn about it from a friend?

The dance club/shitty college bar we were in made it very hard for either of us to hear. The alcohol probably didn't help either. We stepped outside for a moment, to get some air, and she was able to put "zenformation-seeking behavior" into context...

Here's the gist of it:

One night, sometime during this woman's last Fall semester in college, she went bar-hopping with a few friends from class. At Skippers, some very cute but half-retarded frat boy quasi-stalked her. At the Stadium, she made the mistake of making out with some guy simply because she'd had too much to drink and, well, sometimes that's how you get guys to buy you free drinks.

Despite the attention, she couldn't find a single damned guy who talked to her like she was a human being - just a series of pick-up lines and less-than-subtle indications that she could get her groove on if she wanted.

But she still felt sad. So she left her group, made up some lie about how she wasn't feeling well, and wandered across town to my library - one of the only alcohol-free spots open late at night.

She did a bit of Facebook stalking, checked her e-mail, and just surfed the web for random shit.

She realized she didn't like going to bars and getting hit on by random guys. Sure, it was occasionally fun and could be rewarding. It was, well, boring...

After she prefaced her response, she blushed, giggled, threw in a few "Oh my God you're going to think I'm such a loser" comments, etc. I wrote down what she thought was the search phrase she put into Google to find my blog...

Hey, I'm a dork, drunk or sober. You would not believe the bizarre looks we were getting from drunken middle-aged alums or the Summer Session kids as we both swayed outside this bar on the sidewalk, leaning into one another and talking about search engines.

But I learned something.

Um...yeah.

Not to sound arrogant, but I don't think I have any problem whatsoever with being the No. 1 returned result using this sentence.

As an information professional, I know this isn't the best way to find information using a search engine.

As a guy, however, well, that's just fucking badass.

FEAR AND LOATHING IN CYBERSPACE: Bad IT Monkeys, Helping Africa Help Itself, and Chinese Democracy Problems NOT Linked to Axl Rose

THEME MUSIC:
Ministry of Disinformation [MP3]
The Cold Archives Experiment, June 2006
Note - The CAE is a quasi-scholarly endeavor (ha!) designed to test the limits of open source audio production software. And, well, the ladies just dig information scientists with a flair for downbeat noise art.

How to Hide the Tiananmen Square Massacre from a Billion People...

Yahoo censors more online content than other search engines in China, according to one watchdog group.

According to a Reporters Without Borders report, 97 percent of search results returned from the official Yahoo China portal linked to "authorized" content.

Eighty-three percent of results returned by Google China linked to authorized content, while 78 percent of links recalled via MSN China were officially sanctioned.

The organization reportedly tested the search engines using a list of subversive words and phrases believed to be restricted by Chinese authorities.

Apple Jacked, From Sea to Encrypted Sea
Denmark Finds Something Rotten in the State of Media Players

Former PC/current Geek-Gadget giant Apple has found itself under constant attack recently, with everyone from European governments to human rights advocates questioning the company's business practices.

France and Norway launched legal attacks earlier this year on the company's iTunes Music Store.

According to a report filed earlier this week by PC Magazine's Mark Hachman, Denmark and Sweden are gearing up to help turn these attacks into a multi-national war.

Apple will, one way or the other, be racking up some major legal bills in the near future simply to protect its DRM policies and legal contracts with the music industry.

Apple's iWoes don't just stop in Europe, either.

The U.S. International Trade Commission will reportedly open an investigation into possible patent infringements involving the iPod's navigation system.

Singapore-based Creative Technology Ltd. filed the complaint with the ITC, claiming one of the patents linked to their Zen media player was violated by Apple.

Apple has reportedly filed a counter-complaint.

And the iSweatshops allegations?

Who'd a thunk it?


No Matter How Many Charity Concerts He Gives,
Bono Can't Write Songs in Dinka:
Using Literacy and Language as a Peacemaker in the Sudan

As the politics of warfare begin to cool in war-torn Sudan, the world's focus must change as well.

For years now, citizens of the world have been calling for an end to one of Sub-Saharan Africa's bloodiest conflicts.

With well-intentioned activists in the West grabbing the headlines, it's easy to overlook the ideas being produced by, well, Africans.

For instance, New Sudan Vision editor Mading de Ngor Akec de Kuai produced this utterly stellar piece that takes a holistic look at the links between the loss of indigenous identity, postcolonial Africa, language, literacy, and the rebuilding of a continent.

I'd hate to break it to a lot of Industrialized World activists, but the people of the Sudan are the only people who can truly fix the Sudan. It won't be international peacekeepers, Western-based charities and action committees, or celebrities who change the way Africans think.

Sure, putting on concerts that raise money and publishing editorials that raise awareness of African issues are meaningful acts. But it's important for Westerners (including myself) to realize that outside compassion does not equate with speaking for a continent, especially when speaking the Queen's English.

Mading's commentary is a reminder that, yes, Africans can think for themselves and, yes, the Western World helped create many of the problems in the region, through colonialism, political manipulation, and resource exploitation.

Mading is himself a member of the Sudanese diaspora, a college student living in Canada. Before anybody calls Bono, I'd recommend reading what Mading and other Africans have to say.

Africans have minds, mouths, and can speak for themselves.

* * *

And on that note...

Celebrities and Africa...hmmm....

It sure was nice of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to raise the profile of the nation of Namibia, but I'll start reading the tabloids when they quit publishing this Brangelina garbage and start talking about the Namibians who welcomed the couple with open arms.

Are you a desperately-spoiled housewife, overly obsessed with Brangelina? Well...how about dumping those subscriptions to People and Us Weekly, saving those pennies, and planning the next family vacation around a trip to the Kavango Region? While Mr. and Mrs. Pitt's child will receive nothing from your purchase, your tourist dollars could sure help out a lot of children.

Or why not skip the stupid fucking t-shirt and support distance education initiatives for Baby Shiloh's countrymen?

Um...

Have I ever mentioned that I totally fucking hate America's obsession with Infotainment?

* * *

The responsibility of any compassionate citizen of a More Developed Nation is to support the natural progress of our brothers and sisters in Less Developed Nations - and vise versa.

Progress cannot be forced; it is grown like fruit on a vine.

And that fruit always tastes better when it's homegrown, plucked fresh from one's own garden.

SHORT TAKES AND SUCH...

So work's been kicking my ass the past two weeks.

I spent a portion of today, for example, removing steel doors, swinging a sledgehammer, and picking splinters out of my hands.

Let me put it this way, for those stereotypical Bunheads out there...

If you ever see my ugly mug sitting across the room from you in an interview at your institution, well, odds are I'm being interviewed because your institution needs someone who can cut through the red tape, get major projects revitalized, coordinated, and moving forward, and can literally smash library stereotypes.

That, my friends, is my sinister "What kind of librarian am I?" hint of the month.

God, I love my job.

I haven't had much time to make the Blogosphere rounds lately; I promise I'll be back on a more regular schedule sometime towards the end of the week.

Until then...

---

COMPLETELY WORTHLESS FILLER:

Breast Implants and PhotoShopping Clauses?

Okay, so I occasionally come across bizarre-ass celebrity slop when scanning the search engines for items about Information and Communication Technologies and their usage...

April MacIntyre recently posted an interesting, if not downright cryptic, item at Monsters and Critics June 10.

The way-too-short piece begins with a statement from some plastic surgery web portal regarding breast augmentation and implant procedures. Out of nowhere, the author name-drops Janet Jackson and Christina Aguilera, with no explanation whatsoever.

The piece ends with a rather off-the-cuff statement:

... Actors are getting savvy to "Photoshop" fixes for Film through digital intermediate post technology. They are scrambling to have their agents write their contracts to include "digital retouching" for every frame they are in.

Hey, don't look at me. No fucking clue, either.

---

FLASHBACKS AND MEMORIES DEPT.: Perfect Moments Can Stop Time Itself

If you want to go
where the rainbows end
you'll have to say goodbye
all our dreams come true
baby up ahead
and it's out where your memories lie.

- Tom Waits, "Yesterday is Here."
From Frank's Wild Years (Island, 1987)

There's a rainstorm raging right outside my kitchen window, the sky's slate-gray, and the trees are dancing black ogres against the horizon.

For some reason, 2006 stopped at a quarter past eight this morning, sometime between my first and second cups of coffee, between reading the Los Angeles Times and Denver Post online editions.

By half past nine, I'm stuck in the Summer of 1989.

* * *

I'm sitting on my old beat-up bicycle near Meherrin, Virginia, staring at three old black men as they drink Thunderbird and play dominoes in front of a tarpaper-and-clapboard shack.

Their skin is the color of pokeberries, tanned down to ebony leather, arms ashy and worn. They're hollering and laughing, smoking cheap cigarettes and shooting the shit over what appears to be nothing in particular.

A group of large women sit in front of a homemade picnic table (an old door held up by sawhorses), cackling like crazed chickens over songs on the radio, the air filled with Lawds and Oooo childs and Mmm-Hmms.

Sam Cooke's singing "A Change is Gonna Come" through old-ass speakers from beyond the grave. Freddy Jackson's wailing falsetto-driven R&B, singing "Just Like the First Time."

I have no clue how long I've been standing there, watching old men slamming bones and women gossiping over the remnants of a Saturday fried chicken supper.

There's a group of pig-tailed girls jumping rope by an old truck. One young woman, probably 16 or 17, is calmly breastfeeding a kid while sitting on the tailgate of the pick-up.

Three guys, stripped to the waist, are playing basketball a few yards behind the house. Their court is of red clay; the backboard is an old metal Mountain Dew sign.

Nobody seems to notice this white kid sitting there on his bike, in the middle of an old unpaved county road, dusty and sweating, breathless and late for a cookout at G'maw's house.

I can smell the tobacco growing in Lunenburg County fields, the smell of money reaching skyward. Honeysuckle and Carolina pine sweetens the aroma.

I can hear the whippoorwills and the crickets warming up in the woods for their evening performance. Fireflies dance in the thick, humid air. Even the mosquitoes whiz by in gleeful harmony.

For some reason, I don't want to leave. I can't make my legs work the pedals, though it's only a quick three miles back to the family farm.

And then it starts to rain. A good hard, steady summer rain.

The drops are heavy enough to send dust into the air upon impact. Thunder starts to roll in the distance...

Who says there is no such thing as a perfect memory?

* * *

The ol' mobile phone rattles across the kitchen table in 2006, and I'm drawn back into the 21st Century by a wrong number. I log into Yahoo Instant Messenger; there's five offline messages and three folks catch me within two minutes...

You know, I think I'm going to power down the laptop, turn off the cell, and put on some Sam Cooke.

I think I'm going to open the kitchen door, pull a chair right up to the threshold, and watch the rain.

I think I'm just tired of thinking, dammit.

Time is measured in moments. The more perfect moments one can catch like a butterfly in he desert, the less one will have to regret when this world is finished.

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- —that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

- John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn

No Sympathy for the Devil ... But I Wasn't Late for Work, Either

Normally, Tuesday mornings are pretty boring. Get up, drink my five cups of too - damned - strong, black - as - death coffee, eat my Lean Pockets, forget to shave, etc...

But this morning was different.

I woke up and realized Satan was sitting at the foot of my bed, reading the Cincinnati Enquirer.

"What the fuck, man...I'm trying to sleep."

"Dude, lighten up. I'm the Prince of Fucking Darkness... and I'm bored."

"No, seriously. What the hell are you doing in my townhouse?"

The Devil lit up a plump Honduran Maduro and sipped on the last of my Wild Turkey 101.

"Pfft...cable's out at my place," Mr. Morning Fucking Star explained. "Plus the old lady's got her Anti-Christian Ladies' Brunch this morning, the kids are screaming, and I think I've got hemorrhoids."

"Dude, I've got to be at work in, like, two three hours..." I explained. "And that is the cheapest smelling cigar I've smelled in years. Whadidya do? Steal that off a hobo?"

I quickly pulled on some underwear, not completely comfortable lying in bed naked with the Devil staring at my junk.

"Dude, where the fuck did ya get the banana sling there?" Lucifer said, staring over the Sports section. "The whole mankini thing is so not you."

"A friend."

"Oh yeah. I remember her. Do you remember when she used to --"

I interrupted him with a grunt.

"Dude, you were such a total bastard back then," Lucifer continued. "You used to ruin more good lingerie than a closet full of moths. C'mon... admit you miss me..."

"Dude, I really don't want to talk about it." I said. "Besides, don't you have something better to do than critique my choice of underwear?"

"Well, I do have that new Left Behind book launch later this morning, a couple of preachers to corrupt before 10ish, and my usual afternoon German scat porn viewing with my boy Karl out in Washington..."

"Karl who?"

"Oh you know I can't say. But, well...you don't think the political party goons have box seats in Heaven, do you?"

Satan winks. I hate it when he winks.

He follows me downstairs, through the living room, into the kitchen. As I'm fixing the coffee, Don Diablo's stealing Mp3s off my laptop. He walks over to the stereo and puts on Robert Johnson's King of the Delta Blues Singers.

I tried ignoring the motherfucker, but, well, it's damned near impossible to ignore a huge reddish man in a white suit, a virtual Tom Wolfe/John Waters clone who stinks of brimstone.

"So what the fuck do you want from me?" I ask.

"I want your first-born child's immortal soul."

Donnie D. just stares at me with this serious look on his face, then bursts into laughter.

"Dude, that's like so 1654. Besides, your soul ain't worth shit on eBay."

I'm not amused.

Lucifer walks into the kitchen, I hear the microwave door open, and helplessly watch as the Fallen One devours my breakfast.

"I need you to do me a favor"

"Oh, for fuck's sake...what? I'll do whatever you want...just leave me alone already."

The Devil picks up my coffee cup and takes a big sip of my first cup of the day. When he sits the mug down, I notice chunks of food floating in there.

Hell hath no fury like the Devil's backwash.

Satan let loose a ferocious belch before he spoke again.

"I need you to go back to being that fucking asshole we all knew and admired down in the Pit. We had so much hope for you, actually. You used to be such a fun guy."

I got up and poured myself a new cup of joe, in a clean mug.

"Remember that girl with the George Clinton dreadlocks in the port-o-john in Morro Bay? That hot waitress in Baton Rouge?

"How about that 43-year-old? You totally knew she was married, man - don't lie. The tanline on her ring finger, the "you're my son's age" slip-up, and, oh yeah, how can I forget, the fact that you'd just been shot down by her daughter...that was VENGEFUL SHIT..."

I turned on the T.V., put on Headline News, and tried to ignore Old Scratch.

"C'mon. Remember T__? The hood of that old Dodge pick-up you had? Back in '97? Right on the corner of 23rd Avenue and 12th Street in Greeley, all those people watching... that was pretty cool."

My ears perk up a bit. Recognizing this old trick, I get up and change the CD in the stereo. Good - the fucker forgot to take out Live at Folsom Prison.

Don Diablo stretches out on the couch, relights his Maduro, and stares at the television.

"Oh, and we can't forget about M____. Man, talk about a firecracker. I still can't believe you're STILL embarrassed that your roommate caught you guys using HER fuzzy handcuffs in HER bathroom....that was almost ten years ago, man..."

I can't take it anymore.

"Dude, either tell me what you want or get the flying fuck out of my life. I lived it and I don't need a history lesson from a wannabe antagonist. Go bug John Milton or something."

The Devil just laughed.

"You know, I laughed when you told that girl a few weeks ago that you don't really care about sex anymore," Donnie D. said. "That was the funniest damn thing I've heard come out of your mouth in months.

"Clock's ticking, my man. You're closer to 40 than you are to 14. And I know your sorry ass...."

I finally decided to do what I usually do when the Devil comes a-callin'. I picked up my mankini-covered ass and left him flipping through the channels, trying to decide between watching infomercials or VH1.

I went up to the bathroom, took a shower, intentionally forgot to shave, and went to work. And it was a very good day, actually.

---

Cross-posted at The Troll Potty Reader - One of the online homesteads of Stephi, winner of the 2006 Barbara E. Nicholson Prize for Best Undergraduate Essay in Gender Studies. Congrats!

Her choreopoem is found here.

Anyone wishing to join the TPR blog...er...cross-cultural brainfuck...um...blournal..., drop me a line.

AS I LAYETH THE PROFESSIONAL SMACKETH DOWN: Portrait of a Blogger as a Young Professional

I took ur advice and I'm chilling at the Chicago lib right now
OMG
the guy next to me is so dork hot...haha
There are alot of hot guys here actually ;) I know I must sound like a freak
but I'm done fucking with dumbasses
my pussy is now marked "information literate" only lol
lol...i can't believe i;m writing this to a librarian
you're not really a librarian are you ?
you're too young
but hey youre down you know what smart girls want
thats cool fucking shit man Thanks Mr. Zenpro
:)

- College Student/blog lurker, 20, [via Instant Messenger]*

*Before anybody freaks out, I asked the student in question if it was okay to repost the content of the IM. I'll ask before I divulge private IM conversations containing private or personal information...

* * *

A few weeks ago, I received a rather nasty email from a fellow librarian who called me "a self-promoting disgrace to librarianship." The person in question suggested that I take my "burlesque and tawdry personal soapbox" off the AltLibrarian listing. Apparently, my "misogynistic rants and accounts of violent personal history" and "excessive use of profanity and gratuitous disregard for standard practices" are causing harm to the "sense of professional pride and betterment" some librarians feel is needed to promote "a more democratic and informed citizenry."

Well, holy fucking shit. Ask me if I give a rat's ass.

The author of said email suggested that I needed to be "reminded that librarianship faces too many challenges as a profession" to be "distracted by topless women, oversexed co-eds, blatant exhibitionists, and women of questionable dedication to Third Wave Feminism."

Insult my blog friends and readers with obsessive-compulsive, overly academic diatribes?

Time to bring some fucking pain.

* * *

That email has been bugging me for weeks. I'd open up that correspondence, hit reply, and stare at a blank Yahoo window for hours.

Maybe I'm a bit over-the-top. Maybe I shouldn't share so much information in such a public forum. Could it be that my ramblings have been negatively impacting the public perception of libraries and their purpose? Is this stupid personal weblog misrepresenting who I am at work, what I do for a living, the J-O-B?

I've had patrons cross the Cyberspace/Offline barrier, users who've felt just as comfortable asking for help on research projects as they are discussing Casanova kisses and their sex lives (or lack thereof). Maybe that should bother me, but, well, I guess I'm getting used to it.

I figured out a long time ago that most bloggers, in the real world, don't like to admit they are actually bloggers. Likewise, quite a few blog readers would rather not discuss the fact that they spend time reading the online journals of others.

Blogger/reader relationships are, at the primordial level, simply discreet rendezvous of knowledge. It is an intimate, yet very public, affair. The secrecy heightens the experience; the mysterious illusions created by simple CSS and HTML builds an almost sensual, downright seductive corner of the World Wide Web, a world of lovers and monsters, brutes and poets, heroes and villains.

Sometimes, people forget that there is always a very human wizard operating behind the curtains, controlling their own Emerald Cities in this so-called Blogosphere. Those wizards are flesh-and-bone, honest-to-God folks. They blog because they're lonely, curious, or simply bored. They blog because they want to share, to network with others, to document their corner of the Human Experience.

To insult those who blog or read blogs insults the very nature of information-seeking behavior. Humans are naturally curious; we instinctively seek answers to our questions in the same way we seek companionship and intimate relationships.

Advocating the restriction of one's desire to not only build upon their knowledge but to also interact with a world beyond their own is a much greater sin than any use of the word FUCK on this stupid blog.

The human need to answer those Why? questions in life is as natural and beautiful as great sex. What can I say? People have a innate desire to FUCK just as they have an innate desire to KNOW.

* * *

I'd just about given up on responding to that crazy email.

Then I receive an email from another colleague, some stranger whom I've never met. The subject line read simply "Thumbs Up." The email reassured me, at least, that I'm not the only one fed up with some of the batshit aspects of librarianship.

At the same time I'm re-reading the guy's nice message for the hundredth time, I'm sitting in a WiFi-friendly cafe, sipping on my bottomless mug of fairly-traded coffee. I'm supposed to be working on an article for another peer-reviewed journal, a follow-up to my previous scholarly endeavor.

I'm clad in flip-flops (I'm learning to wear them), a straw hat, and baggy jeans. I'm listening to a mix of the Dickies, Fort Minor, Ice Cube, Social Distortion, Billy Bragg, Ministry, and the Alkaline Trio through headphones, reading up on telecentre projects in Nigeria, illiteracy in the Sudan, and NFL star Ray Lewis's recent humanitarian trip to Sub-Saharan Africa.

I log onto Yahoo IM quickly to see if anybody's online. I find that a girl I've never met, some faceless, nameless college student from a university in central Indiana, sent me a long string of IMs while I was offline. Portions of that string appear at the top of this post.

I still have no fucking clue what advice I gave, exactly. Apparently we chatted online several months ago - I helped her figure out how to locate older research articles using print indexes.

Sure, I'm a bit unorthodox in how I maintain this blog and how I do my job. Fine - feel free to hate my methods. But I get the job done - online or off.

If a young woman is sitting in one of the nation's largest public library systems, spending her summer vacation checking out "dork hot" guys and tying information literacy skills to her sex drive, well, I think I've done my job.

I finally found the inspiration to respond to Ms. Your Blog Offends Our Mutual Profession:

Dear Ma'am,
I'm sorry you find the views expressed on my personal web blog offensive or crude. I'm sorry you feel the content is detrimental to the information sciences.

But I'm going to be frank here. A college junior just sent me a message indicating that she's macking on guys in a public library and has tied info. lit. skills to a guy's chances of getting into her pants. That blows my fucking mind. And..um...I don't think she learned about information literacy through the READ campaign.

I'm sure your coworkers at your prestigious institution have been dying to say this to you, so I'll go ahead and say it...

Why don't you pull that high-and-mighty telephone pole outta your ass and find something productive to do with your fucking life. Try being a human being for once - it's kinda nice and I think library users appreciate librarians from THIS planet.

Sincerely,
Jason _. ________, MLIS
The Zenformation Motherfucking Badass Professional

Just so you know, that's how we roll around here at the ol' ZenFo Pro homestead. I'm finally taking the Library Bitch's advice and laying the smack down on folks who treat blogging as some sort of invitation to launch personal and professional attacks.

I think Pia also gave me similar advice a while back - hell, she's been featured in major dailies - regarding lurking bullies.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read Miz Bohemia's awesome Titty-Sucking Loverboy Tales and Cooper's Journey to the Center of Batshit Reader Land now...

I guess I'm just mysogynistic and tawdry like that...



Oh...what the hell...just to piss off the prudish, stereotypical librarian types...

FUCK FUCK FUCK SHIT GODAMN FUCK.

I Can't Believe I Forgot to Hit "Publish Post" Yesterday Morning...

Yes, I'm an idiot more times than not.

I remembered to send her an early morning e-mail. I thought about bombarding her with random Yahoo! IMs, but she rarely uses it.

But I forgot to hit post - dammit.

Twenty-five lashes with a wet noodle for me...

HAPPY

21st

BIRTHDAY,

COOPER!

Hey, she's been reading this stupid thing for almost a year -- and I know she's absolutely a blessing to those who know her online, and probably off as well...

To any Miami or other college students reading this, well, strive to be like Cooper. She is the model student....more like the supermodel student.

She's even somewhere near the top of my RILF list. C'mon -- what guy wouldn't put a cute, smart, savvy, sexy, brilliant, rebellious, compassionate, caring woman on their list?

So if you haven't checked her out yet, please do.