An End To Violence! Praise Be!

[Michael Bane]

You know, I wanted to be an academic once. I was trying to the the writer-in-residence at a Florida "suntan" private university....daddy's got enough money, you get a DEGREE! And a suntan. They'd hustled me because I actually wrote books that you could find in a bookstore and my articles were in big magazines, so they figured I was ideal to teach a senior level writing seminar. I went in an lectured a couple of times, and was I stoked! Here's a whole room full of perfectly formed, perfectly tanned kids with IQs hovering between iguanas and cocker spaniels. Spectacular women doing their nails (literally), sighing and crossing long tanned legs...I thought, this is the mother lode! Forty grand for stuff I could make up while I was bicycling to the class! I figured I could ride this writer in residence thing until I dropped dead of overexposure to faculty covered dinner party food. So I got a corduroy jacket with leather elbow pads, a fake pipe and a used copy of ATLAS SHRUGGED at the college bookstore to give me some emotional depth. Then I went to a faculty cocktail party, where I regaled the assembled professors and professorettes with humorous tales of The Writing Life. Then I hugely screwed up...someone asked me where my degree, or degrees, were from. "Degrees?" I said. "I don't got no stinking degrees! I got books. I got reviews in the New York Times. I got my name in Rolling Stone. But degrees? Nary a one." People started backing away from me as if I'd just started bleeding from the eyeballs like an ebola-stricken tribes-person. Next day, I was notified that I couldn't be a writer in residence unless I had a degree, as I was insufficiently marinated in knowledge to instrcuct the puppies. I was heart-broken. All I had to do was say, "Harvard, or Columbia, for their writing program or even the University of Grenada, for their goat studies cirriculum..." No one would have ever checked, and I would now have the best...tan...

Michael B (off topic as usual)

[Hazcat]

You know, I wanted to be an academic once. I was trying to the the writer-in-residence at a Florida "suntan" private university....daddy's got enough money, you get a DEGREE! And a suntan. They'd hustled me because I actually wrote books that you could find in a bookstore and my articles were in big magazines, so they figured I was ideal to teach a senior level writing seminar. I went in an lectured a couple of times, and was I stoked! Here's a whole room full of perfectly formed, perfectly tanned kids with IQs hovering between iguanas and cocker spaniels. Spectacular women doing their nails (literally), sighing and crossing long tanned legs...I thought, this is the mother lode! Forty grand for stuff I could make up while I was bicycling to the class! I figured I could ride this writer in residence thing until I dropped dead of overexposure to faculty covered dinner party food. So I got a corduroy jacket with leather elbow pads, a fake pipe and a used copy of ATLAS SHRUGGED at the college bookstore to give me some emotional depth. Then I went to a faculty cocktail party, where I regaled the assembled professors and professorettes with humorous tales of The Writing Life. Then I hugely screwed up...someone asked me where my degree, or degrees, were from. "Degrees?" I said. "I don't got no stinking degrees! I got books. I got reviews in the New York Times. I got my name in Rolling Stone. But degrees? Nary a one." People started backing away from me as if I'd just started bleeding from the eyeballs like an ebola-stricken tribes-person. Next day, I was notified that I couldn't be a writer in residence unless I had a degree, as I was insufficiently marinated in knowledge to instrcuct the puppies. I was heart-broken. All I had to do was say, "Harvard, or Columbia, for their writing program or even the University of Grenada, for their goat studies cirriculum..." No one would have ever checked, and I would now have the best...tan...

Michael B (off topic as usual)

I Knew there was something (besides guns) that I liked about you!  I too am proudly 'degreeless'.  160 credit hours and nary a sheepskin.

[texcaliber]

You know, I wanted to be an academic once. I was trying to the the writer-in-residence at a Florida "suntan" private university....daddy's got enough money, you get a DEGREE! And a suntan. They'd hustled me because I actually wrote books that you could find in a bookstore and my articles were in big magazines, so they figured I was ideal to teach a senior level writing seminar. I went in an lectured a couple of times, and was I stoked! Here's a whole room full of perfectly formed, perfectly tanned kids with IQs hovering between iguanas and cocker spaniels. Spectacular women doing their nails (literally), sighing and crossing long tanned legs...I thought, this is the mother lode! Forty grand for stuff I could make up while I was bicycling to the class! I figured I could ride this writer in residence thing until I dropped dead of overexposure to faculty covered dinner party food. So I got a corduroy jacket with leather elbow pads, a fake pipe and a used copy of ATLAS SHRUGGED at the college bookstore to give me some emotional depth. Then I went to a faculty cocktail party, where I regaled the assembled professors and professorettes with humorous tales of The Writing Life. Then I hugely screwed up...someone asked me where my degree, or degrees, were from. "Degrees?" I said. "I don't got no stinking degrees! I got books. I got reviews in the New York Times. I got my name in Rolling Stone. But degrees? Nary a one." People started backing away from me as if I'd just started bleeding from the eyeballs like an ebola-stricken tribes-person. Next day, I was notified that I couldn't be a writer in residence unless I had a degree, as I was insufficiently marinated in knowledge to instrcuct the puppies. I was heart-broken. All I had to do was say, "Harvard, or Columbia, for their writing program or even the University of Grenada, for their goat studies cirriculum..." No one would have ever checked, and I would now have the best...tan...

Michael B (off topic as usual)

Michael you shoulda hit them with the" yeah i am a grad of the TRU(a.k.aThunderRanchUniversity)
or maybe degree in F-F taught by the world renouned (now said fast) D.R. Middlebrooks to sound like Dr. Middlebrooks. Hmmmm? After a little thought all those tanned legs could of very well turned MB into a pacifist and want nothing to do with gun oil but be the athority on the top tanning oils and other beach products.
In hindsight I am thankful for the close-minded views! Srry MB.

[howlrwy]

You know, I wanted to be an academic once. I was trying to the the writer-in-residence at a Florida "suntan" private university....daddy's got enough money, you get a DEGREE! And a suntan. They'd hustled me because I actually wrote books that you could find in a bookstore and my articles were in big magazines, so they figured I was ideal to teach a senior level writing seminar. I went in an lectured a couple of times, and was I stoked! Here's a whole room full of perfectly formed, perfectly tanned kids with IQs hovering between iguanas and cocker spaniels. Spectacular women doing their nails (literally), sighing and crossing long tanned legs...I thought, this is the mother lode! Forty grand for stuff I could make up while I was bicycling to the class! I figured I could ride this writer in residence thing until I dropped dead of overexposure to faculty covered dinner party food. So I got a corduroy jacket with leather elbow pads, a fake pipe and a used copy of ATLAS SHRUGGED at the college bookstore to give me some emotional depth. Then I went to a faculty cocktail party, where I regaled the assembled professors and professorettes with humorous tales of The Writing Life. Then I hugely screwed up...someone asked me where my degree, or degrees, were from. "Degrees?" I said. "I don't got no stinking degrees! I got books. I got reviews in the New York Times. I got my name in Rolling Stone. But degrees? Nary a one." People started backing away from me as if I'd just started bleeding from the eyeballs like an ebola-stricken tribes-person. Next day, I was notified that I couldn't be a writer in residence unless I had a degree, as I was insufficiently marinated in knowledge to instrcuct the puppies. I was heart-broken. All I had to do was say, "Harvard, or Columbia, for their writing program or even the University of Grenada, for their goat studies cirriculum..." No one would have ever checked, and I would now have the best...tan...

Michael B (off topic as usual)

Well, another self made person.  I'm in the same boat.  For years I've had to train all those grads with their papers that say they went to college and passed a bunch of tests, but they don't know anything about the real world.  I trained myself in my field and I'm highly looked up to in the community across the country for my contributions.  My employer fortunately didn't care about the lack of a sheepskin because they knew what I could do, and still do, for them.  My brother is book smart, but he can't even maintain his car!