Bachelor of the Arts Part I: Where I've Been and Where I Am Going
I have been a writer since my preteen years so I knew that English was a degree that I wanted to pursue... well, that is not completely true, before I moved to Los Angeles, after getting into the University of Washington and choosing not to attend, I enrolled in Seattle Central Community College and began to pursue a Pre-Law degree. I took a few Pre-Law classes but as I was maturing and began to gain a greater understanding of the justice system of which lawyers are the much-ballyhooed officers, I decided against becoming a lawyer (that explains my affinity for argumentation). Not only would a degree in English help improve my knowledge and understanding of the English Language and all of, or most of, or some of, its conventions. I wanted intimate knowledge of the language, I essentially paid to read a myriad of different texts and write essays, to train very arduously in the language that I masochistically love. I masochistically love English because I do understand how and why English is spoken not only by me, a black man but by people all over the globe. Even though this is gross, considering that fact, I unequivocally love the language, it's the most beautiful language on the planet.
I am 33 years old and I began my English undergraduate degree when I was 21 at Los Angeles City College. After six semesters at LACC I graduated with my Associates of Arts, then I applied, was accepted and transferred to UCLA. I was 24 at the time. I do not want to go too much into my experience at LACC. It was a super gnarly experience worth documenting and I do have a strong affinity for that school but LACC's greatest contribution to my life is that it is the place where I met my lover, partner, and beautiful mother of my children. Plus, the focus of this essay is going to be my time at UCLA and what I feel I gained from my education.
WHERE I'VE BEEN: MY FIRST YEAR AT UCLA
I moved into campus housing, Sunset Village, in September of 2011. But my UCLA reality began two months earlier. during Summer Session C. I got an A in a course on Race and Ethnicity in the Educational System and I got an F in my first English course on Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The A I received in Professor Malone's Education course because I had great attendance in the class, I paid attention in lecture because the professor was not only outstanding but also the material fit my political leanings. Professor Malone to this day still has a profound effect on my thought processes. She had some of my same sensibilities, she had a revolutionary mindset. She was for black progress and empowerment but was also realistic. She was and is a passionate educator who has helped mold my thought-processes about this society and the world. What she really represents is that some of the greatest minds in this universe are aligned, somewhat, to my line of thinking, rather I'm somewhat aligned with them.
That always reminds me of one of my greatest regrets about my time at UCLA. I did not cultivate any real relationships with members of the faculty. I will go into this in part two, but UCLA's faculty, I am not an ass kisser and never have been (that's probably why I never cultivated relationships with the faculty not saying that ass-kissing is necessary just saying that thought process has influenced why I did not build the relationships I wish I would have if they were willing), are some of the most brilliant minds you will encounter, brilliant and sophisticated minds swarm that campus, from the students, administration, and other staff, but especially in the faculty (who am I to judge? I'm pretty sure there are some degenerates in the faculty but I don't judge what I don't know).
After that Summer Session, in Fall Quarter of 2011, I received my second F in English 4W. A very general English class that I also failed because I refused to show up for the Midterm and the Final. In Spring of 2012, I received my third F in Spanish 5.
I outline the F's because they are my first year at UCLA. A failure...
Despite that critique, the grandest take away I have from my first year is not the three F's. I took a class with Professor Huehls, Literary Cities: Los Angeles, which is where I was introduced not only to Thomas Pynchon but many other incredible authors who made works whose landscape was Los Angeles or Southern California. The works we read in that class as well as Professor Heulhs Final Project assignment in which he charged us to create something artful that would ingratiate itself with the Los Angeles landscape, I was influenced to begin working on my book of short stories, Bad Stories. I took Professor Huelhs' Critical Theory class in my first year back (more on that later). Another takeaway, hindsight my guide, is that I was in the beginning stages of discovering that my mind was beginning to betray me. I was depressed and did not find any true or actual value in my education because my mind would not allow me to.
After Spring Quarter 2012 I dropped out of school. Luckily, my GPA was just above a 2.0 so I did not flunk out. I was still eligible to complete the formality of re-applying if I would ever become ready.
LIFE AFTER MY FIRST YEAR
I think one thing I learned from that experience is that people are people and that I connect with anyone. I connect with drug addicts, sex workers, drug dealers, producers, actors and actresses, other writers, musicians, painters, LGBTQ, scumbags, just about anyone. The circles I found myself in during that time period to me are revelatory. The conversations I've had and the experiences we've shared prove to me that I'm on the right path. That I have to keep being who I am. No acquiesence, I don't have to, my thought process has already been validated. Just because all of us could rage and have fun, not judging each other. The conversations that I've had with people from all walks of life tame these blog posts. Me espousing the same points I have espoused on this blog and people as diverse as the universe rebutting and or agreeing with me.
In April 2014 my son, my firstborn, my heart, my heir, Nathaniel Jacob was born. I then secured a good job and was performing daddy duties as I imagined I should. Attempting to be a father despite never having a model, despite my destructive behavior and thought-processes. My grandpa is my model for a father but that is to say that I do not have a personal model as I have never been able to call the man who gave me my blood (and my light skin) father. I've never looked him in the eyes or even heard his voice.
I published my first three books after I dropped out of college. Maybe that was the blessing, I dropped out but never stopped reading and I never stopped writing. I never stopped exercising my mind and investigating different modes of thinking and diverse ways of thought. I published myself because that is how a lot of writers that are now canonical came to prominences, either that or they had the help of a small publisher willing to take a risk. I actually developed a much stronger affinity for writing, poetry especially, outside of school (I chose my major because I'm a writer, duh!). Or maybe I'm scared of rejection.
I do not like making excuses, my therapist told me that I am very self-deprecating, I am also introspective, but I have to seriously avoid becoming enraptured in my own mind. Similarly, to liberalism, I have this innate ability to turn my mind into an echo chamber of personal philosophy and ideology. I cannot get trapped in my mind. Unbeknownst to him, I am always in control of my thoughts and I am very aware of that ability (and use it to my advantage) I just was not aware of what my thoughts were manifesting.
THE NIGHT I DIED
Well, I did not actually die but I almost did. It was because of the negative and bad thoughts I was manifesting and projecting. I know that how I interpret and feel about the most insignificant of ideas to the most grandiose are influenced by my interpretation of my life experiences, and at that time my I thought that my life experiences had led me to believe that I was worth something... that something was nothingness, even though I was never a nihilist.
An aside: The universe has blessed me with the devolution of relationships. That deterioration has helped me gain more understanding of myself as a human and citizen of this society. It has also helped me gain more understanding of what I perceive is the nature of humanity. Humans are not inherently anything. We are a blank slate and I am willing to accept that. I wrote and wrote and wrote to try to mask or absolve some of the pain I perceived was etched on my surface. Sometimes the pain is solely perception or a construction of the mind. And maybe the mind is programmed not to recognize certain constructions. Maybe I should have taken delight in the stark changes, that I did not anticipate happening in my life. In retrospect, I was meant to feel all those corrupt but necessary emotions for me to be here to finish this sentence.
That is one of the greatest takeaways I have from finally attaining my Bachelor's, I could not have been here to ever achieve it. Without that event would I have ever thought about pursuing my undergraduate degree again? Again, because of my own masochism, my obsession with death and its proliferation its inevitability, it is the one and only connecting human principle/experience that led me down paths I did not understand, would I still be a graduate of one of the top 10 greatest universities in the world? I did not anticipate or understand that what I was reading and writing was infecting me (as it still does not in the same manner). Actually, what I was reading and writing was a sign of my eventual suicide attempt.
In my mind, my suicide attempt is a line of demarcation. It delineates between two versions of my being. But I do not like to think about that event too often as it is still pretty shameful to me, but I do understand, more so every day but still confused, about why I did it and why I would not do anything like that again. I did not leave a note, it was random, unanticipated, supposedly, but in hindsight, I had been writing about that night for years prior.
Actually, I have a manuscript about the events surrounding The Night I Died... but first things first.
UCLA THE SECOND TIME AROUND
In the Fall of 2017, I was back on campus. The previous summer was emotionally debilitating as I spent a month in Seattle burying my grandmother, the reason I prefer to be called Jonathan, the reason I truly chose to re-enroll. She told me that it was something that she wanted me to do, she wanted me to finish my degree. She was so proud when I got into UCLA and understanding, but a bit disappointed when I dropped out. Still, I was happy to be back on campus.
Even though I was very excited and motivated to do well, my first quarter (and entire first year) was very mediocre. I received an A- a B+ and C- in my Fall Quarter classes. I received the C- in Ancient Egyptian History. Now, this is going to be a big excuse but it is just too difficult for me to accept what academia and this society believes and teaches about Ancient Kemet. I'll leave it at that. Professor Simpson was great, very entertaining, and she showed Marvel film trailers before class which was awesome, she was quirky and obviously brilliant, I just felt she had signed some blood sacrifice not to reveal the true secrets she has probably even personally discovered about Ancient Kemet.
The rest of the year was lackluster, I think that I truly had to adjust to being a parent, having a job, whilst studying. I had to learn time management... time management is hard because when you have children and you don't have the resources to pay a babysitter or procure a nanny time can easily slip away from you, children are a 24 hour a day job. That is not an exaggeration or hyperbole, every parent understands this. That is why I attack feminism but I understand that shit. Because taking care of a home is thankless very exhausting, endless, and tiring work, it is rewarding but I understand the feelings of alienation and the feeling of being taken advantage of. I also think that is what is wrong with our society, no one chooses to take over the invaluable role that the woman once held (I think to help fix our society we have to monetize parents taking back over the home). The woman was responsible for our diet, our education, what we watched on TV, making sure our homework was done (knowing what the school system is teaching the children). Now she is exhausted from working a bullshit job all day. I think if and when a Universal Basic Income is instituted that homemakers should get paid the most. Because great mothers prevent hospital visits and bad grades and criminal activity. I'm sorry to put the onus on the mother but I believe that is biological. If the mother can provide breast milk she needs to be available to the child for at least a year uninterrupted. The father does have a huge responsibility to the mother and the child and he does that by providing a stable environment for the mother and the children to grow, by going out into a chaotic world and making it home. More on this in subsequent essays because I understand that thought process could be and has been deemed sexist and this post isn't about that. I just want to outline that I also understand why most people in our generation aren't having kids. Parenthood is fucking tough! But let me quote Plato, "The most important part of education begins in the nursery."
Still, I could have gotten straight A's if I wanted to. I always believe that no matter how hard I try and what grade I receive. I did not do something right, or maybe I'm just being honest and recognize that I did not allocate the time necessary to master the material.
I had to retake English 4W and I had the great pleasure of taking the amazing Professor Underwood who I also took her for American Literature since 1945. She suggested one novel that will always stay with me and that is Zadie Smith's Swing Time... My partner, the mother of my children is pursuing a medical degree. I keep urging her to read that novel so she understands how her children might perceive her. That is the power of literature, its power intangible, but very real.
The Dorner Protocol my forthcoming first novel was born during my first year back in a course on Literature in the American West. Professor Cheung's syllabus included many works by Asian American and Latino American writers. One of my favorite works was Marilyn Chin's Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen. Professor Cheung's midterm assignment was to write something creative that pertains to the themes of the class. I wrote a short story entitled The Dorner Protocol. The day the Professor was to return our works she asked me to read my short story in front of the class, I did, they laughed and when I returned to my seat, she told me that I should publish the story. So I am.
Before Professor Cheung's advice, I was working on another novel entitled Fake Death, but The Dorner Protocol story is not only more fun for me to write but will also be more fun for any potential readers.
My first-year back culminated with a trip to England. I took the opportunity to study abroad to fulfill the mandatory Shakespeare requirement (it isn't labeled that but it should be). Other than a trip to Vancouver, Canada with my mother, grandmother, siblings, and cousins, and a one-day excursion to Tijuana in which I was almost detained at the border, I had never been out of the country. That year I was able to spend two months away from home. I found out I was having another child on a Thai Island at the end of a two week vacation in that gorgeous, hospitable, and wonderful nation, and I watched Shakespeare's greatest plays performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in England for a month, then spent a week in Madrid, Spain and then a week in Rome, Italy (more on how that summer influenced my education in Part II). As a caveat, I really want to write a play or many. Theatre is another enormously powerful art form and is something I truly want to be involved with at some point in the very near future. If only I write a play that sits on my computer forever.
One of my favorite essays that I have ever written is The Bastard Children of Empire Part I: The Mulatto I wrote that piece for Professor Sanchez' Seminar entitled, Topics in Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies: From Empire to Global World Order. A Seminar that focused on "British" Literature, we also read The Wild Irish Girl (I'm only qualifying this because I understand how the Irish, Scots, and British are different and want to be distinguished). This class along with his Early Romantic Literature course cemented my love for British Literature. I know that if I pursue a Graduate degree that I want British or Irish Literature to be my focus.
I took a class specifically on Harold Pinter, the great British playwright, and author, with Professor Goodwin. Now if I were to ask my muse to write like anyone (other than myself) I would beg to write like a mixture of Pynchon and Hemingway, gotta add a dash of Harold Pinter now, and if I love Pinter I must be enamored with Samuel Beckett. I love dialogue, no matter where it goes, I love simplicity, I love complexity but I love that there doesn't always have to be some inherent political message in your art. Life is about instances and moments, and awkwardness and confusion, and crassness, and a myriad of different takeaways I perceived by reading and watching many Harold Pinter plays. In Professor Goodwin's class, we read the superb Waiting for Godot but in Professor Jeuretche's Modern and Contemporary Irish Literature Research Course we read Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, The End, and First Love which cemented the love for theater I gained in England. Also in Professor Jeuretche's class, I was formerly introduced to James Joyce. He has been sort of a throughline for my undergraduate English career. A professor or many have mentioned his work as seminal or vital. In Jeuretche's class, we read Dubliners and The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (more on Joyce in Part II). Professor Jeuretche ushered the Irish Literature distinction into my life. The Irish Writers were definitely disproportionately brilliant and William Butler Yeats is a neo-Romantic, further strengthening my love for the Romantics and Romanticism.
I performed better and by June of 2019, I brought my GPA from the doldrums of a 2.0 to a 3.0 cumulative in all my university coursework and a 3.4 GPA in my major. I retook English 4W and Canterbury Tales (not with Allen) and received, an A and B+. I retook Spanish 5 and received the most intense and fought for C- of my goddamn academic career. I can read Middle English pretty well now, especially after I took a Medieval research class on Piers Plowman and other Middle English works, a class which also afforded me a very hard-fought C+. The Medieval research class with Professor Fisher gave me arguably my most valuable skill set, the ability to perform high-level research. The class also taught me not only how to perform high-level research but how to validate the scholarship.
There are many takeaways from my last two years on campus. I could mention Professor Decker introducing me to Stuart Hall and helping to strengthen how I view not just television programs and film but all media. Professor North having us read The Lonely Londoners also strengthened my love for British Literature and continued the understanding that the English language has many dialects. It can be a very strict and formulaic language, but it is very malleable, adaptable, and lawless.
I am not trying to dick ride or anything I just want to relate how the campus affected me most and that was through lectures and discussions with the brilliant minds. I know that they may disavow my thought-processes and may not want to associate with how I think but the Professors in my major had a profound effect on my thinking. Look at the monster you helped create!
Thank you for helping me happily walk across that stage.
WHERE I AM GOING: FAMILY AND BAD THOUGHTS PUBLISHING COMPANY
I am going to continue to build Bad Thoughts Publishing Company. The direction I want to take the company is as an artist Co-op. That is one way I want to combat not just capitalism but white supremacy, although I understand that I am writing to create a product to sell, I believe that artists sharing the profits to feed their families is a small way we can combat what is probably already too late to deal with, and that is the scourge of greed in this society. I want to set the example though. I want to create art that is beneficial and valuable and then be able to ally with other artists on creative and business ventures.
I am going to continue to update this blog with more frequency. I love to talk about race and be crass and flaunt the black moral high ground but there are many other topics I am going to write about that will help illuminate not only my thought-processes on race but on matters that are more "universal." Black people are my first concern but I think that we must realize what is preponderant within the confines of what is corporeal and incorporeal. We are not only subjugated because of our status but because we are deemed useless in the ever-changing economic landscape. And they don't want us hanging around tempting all their women because even as vagabonds black men can secure a woman because some women understand our essence and power and why this society has to suppress us and oppress us. We must come to grips with the larger world that has already ostracized us and has proven to only have, connatural, intrinsic, antipathy towards us.
All that racialist bullshit aside, before I publish part II of this post I am going to publish an essay on Representation in the Media and how begging for representation from the corporate media or anyone, in general, is absolutely absurd, it is half-witted. The media is only trying to perpetuate itself by forcing the idea of representation onto the masses... I also love music and film. I will be writing my experiences with the art world and the universe in general. I will be posting my experiences at restaurants and bars and wherever I am. I will be posting recipes, I will just be writing more.
This is most importantly my legacy to my children. Whatever becomes of my writing or me they will have this diary. They will have my paintings and the photos I took. They will figure out more about their father through this website and all my other work than maybe they figure about me right by their sides. I constantly think about what my children are going to think about me when they are my age when they have lived some life and have life partners and maybe children. Maybe, I'm still here to witness them read what I've written, to judge me based upon the mores of their society.
My children will know that their father graduated from a school that the world found prestigious. They will understand that giving up is not an option, that if you say you're going to do something you do it, you complete it, then figure out the lessons. My children will understand that they have a father if nothing at all. I am going to continue to take care of my family the best I know-how.
I ain't going anywhere just keep reading.
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