leaders of the new school

any education past kindergarten should make us proud. our ancestors worked their tiny little fingers to the bone when they got the prime working age of five, shoveling our coal, tending the fields, and sewing buttons. and if you're shoppin' at walmart you're still supportin' that.

regardless, treat yourself right for gettin' some serious triple r's in your noggin past the days old workin' age of five.

you should pull my finger because it releases the alphabet, yo.

potomac, md, 1985

sdrawkcab eman sih daer nac kram .rm.

i missed the bus

does anybody else start their calendar year in september? i can't really get past thinkin' september is the beginning of the year. years and years of that panic, anticipation, renewal, and hope that one fine lady in my home room class would take my virginity has led to me greeting the big s month with the same degree of newness. i don't know if i'll ever get past it. i still sit on the metro in those first few days of september, hoping that a lady from my new "home room" will take my virginity. i'd substitute the location for work, but since i'm self employed, i've already already banged the secretary and the boss. usually around 3pm on wednesdays after tisha campbell pops her head in on a rerun of martin.

washington, dc, 1996

mr. mark would love to have his new home room in rio. as in vanessa del. nasty.

case of the pta

woody allen and groucho marx always bringin' up "never wantin' to belong to a club that would have 'em for a member." i'm thinkin' i wouldn't wanna belong to any club that would have me as a teacher. you don't have to be in a classroom to pass on guidance and whatever wisdom you possess. these kids out there...they're sneaky, yo and they grab any nuggets of info they can out of you. five of 'em will come at you with questions to which you have no answer. what are they trying to do? would i really know what the size of a white dwarf is? i don't know how to stop an epileptic fit. will i marry your grandmother? not without a picture first, dog.

it's called entrapment and kids mess will fuck with you time and time again.

washington, dc, 2008

mr. mark is waiting for any former students to come out of the darkness one day with their autobiography "nonsense: how mr. mark lied to me."

leaders of the new school

if i had my choice of early ed curriculum, i would come up with my coloring book of famous failures. we get told how wonderful people are and feel like we can't match up, yo. lincoln was an honest man and then became a president. benjamin franklin did a few experiments and then created a lightbulb. rob lowe just woke up pretty.
what's left out is the fact that people worked, failed, failed, and failed until they got somewhere. my man einstein spent decades on the theory of relativity. yet, my school books used to have him nailin' it out in one page. quick fix society, no wonder we're ready to give up at such an early age. teach failure as an investment strategy. don't invest in failure.

also, give kids free pumas to stop 'em from using those fuckin' wheelie shoes everywhere.

washington, dc, 2007

mr. mark would like to be your next calculator.

i'm the magnificent

as a kid, it was somethin' with a kung fu grip in the backpack. as a teen, it was usually a wethered condom in the wallet. as a young adult, it was a license carrying your own home address on it. now...well, we still got them things we keep on our person to showcase who we are, whether it's true or not. keys with some euro auto emblem blazin', a few pics of your kids, that same condom. shoot, maybe that'll never stop. you end up walkin' with a cane by the time you're ready to go and we all know the kind of stroll that's called.

i carried this joint in my back pocket my senior year provin' how cool my weekends were. hopefully, nobody smelled the bluff.

washington, dc, 1997

mr. mark carries his cell phone on him. he just wishes it would ring.

what more can i say?

when you talk to yourself, what do you say and who are you talking to? it gets late and i'm all alone, i start voicin' things to myself as a parent. it gets even later, i start talkin' to the technology that's keepin' me floatin' out of dream world. chidin' the participants of informercials for their choices. commentin' on the nursing home speed of my stovetop cookin' late night beans. and pleadin' with my computer to help me finish up somethin' that shoulda gotten started months back, young man.

wait a second, that's somethin' my mom would say. how did she do that?

mom's are like vampires, yo.

montreal, qc, 2000

mr. mark turned down late night term papers for late night bloggin'. the skillz that pay the billz, y'all.

flava in ya ear

if you had your name attached to somethin', what would it be? my instinct would say a school, just to be associated with growth and knowledge. but, what if kids are failin' and there are mad school shootings at the "mr. mark academy of knowledge and knowingness in all life's skillz and battledoms?" i'd feel pretty low. i'm thinkin' a mr. mark spice would work. the hint of it might make a dish better, and if it doesn't, one can blame the dish itself or say "there's a little too much mr. mark." i think i can live with that.

la paz, bolivia, 2006

mr. mark tastes a bit like taragon, but mostly cinammon.

da writing's on da wall

if walls were more constructive, then they'd really talk. it's up to us to give them their voices. inebriation and urination often help with that. but next time, take some quick thought and add the guidance to that pub bathroom wall that we all need in those careless moments-

"don't cheat on your spouse."

"call a cab tonight."

"she has a penis."

quince orchard library, md, 2009

mr. mark puts the words up to "you shook me all night long" on pub walls since no one can seem to remember them.

x clan

there's always some way of upping the game with your peers. back in high school it was all about a bit of shading on certain parts of your body. it claims the "what happened last night" label, and dammit if you didn't work to get your due. if you walked into school with dark bags under your eyes, scratches or dirt on your skin, or maybe, just maybe a bluish purplish lip stain on your neck...you got some respect. but if you were really lucky, you walked into school with a black mark or "x" on your right hand telling everyone that you are a nocturnal animal and the city is your bitch. and since most teens will give you the benefit of the doubt, you don't have to make up an alternative to the bare truth- spending the evening seeing amy grant with your grandparents. for the third time. in one year.

i miss the simple power of black ink. student loans, credit card payments, and mortgages don't really have the same effect on peers. ya feel mee?

washington, d.c., 1996

mr. mark's superhero power would involve a black rubber stamp.

treat 'em right

got beef? haven't had too much in my life, but there were some close calls. first real nasty one was in sixth grade. shakina was new to the school and mouthy as a lopez. got in my face and started making fun of my shoes (which she had a right to, since they were really red and had velcro). she walked away, but not far enough to miss "bitch" slip out of my mouth. oops. kinda the wrong thing to do. ms. mouthy had some fists and a few older brothers who were two steps shy of juvie. teachers got us into our class before heads started ringing and i didn't get too far before i heard "my brothers and i are gonna fuck you up after school." oops, again. made it to my bus without being seen and kept a low profile for awhile. when i finally ran into shakina at school, she offered me some gum and asked if was gonna hang out with everybody at the party that weekend. oops? no, she meant it. i don't know what to take from this, happiness or sadness? happy that she saw the real me and showed me respect for standing up for myself or the fact that that "bitch" was just a long line of labels which she would accept for the rest of her life. wonder where she is now. i'd let her know i just didn't know how to tell her she was pretty.

i'd call her "lady" if i ever saw her again.

cabin john middle school, 1991

mr. mark thinks velcro and sunny d could stop world wars.