Office Work and Treasure Hunts: Another Week in the Rockaways

This is your humble chronicler's weekly report from the Rockaways, where Summit 5 has taken up residence on behalf of the FEMA folks that are in charge of Queens: 

The team remains split up into its component parts. Katrina and John are out with Neighborhood Task Force Initiative (will explain that soon) teams, basically performing normal CR work and getting Katrina unholy hyped up with caffeine (apparently her Reservists like to keep her jitterbugging). Shingirai, Chelsea, Joe and Malinda have been installed in a FEMA trailer, doing IA work, at least some of which involves looking for rental properties (I did not do much research for this post) and making calls. Tiffany and I are still ensconced in our own FEMA trailer, working for the Planning department. The idea is that the NTFI teams have spent the past few months embedded in their specific communities, so they know the area really well. Our mission is to figure out how to use them to help out with FEMA's long-term recovery effort in the Rockaways. 

To that end, we've been making lots of plans but not using them, at least not yet. I created and my bosses have refined a "matrix" of current problems in the Rockaways, based on the NTFI teams' reports, and Tiffany and Ray (our co-worker) made a giant database of virtually every important contact in the Rockaways. Local governmental figures, religious leaders, community leaders, heads of voluntary organizations, we've got 'em all. The problem is figuring out what the Joint Field Office wants us to do with 'em, which is still in the works. 

That's the work-related news from Lake Woebegon. Off work, we survived Giant Snowstorm #2, dubbed "Nemo" by the Weather Channel (which is a cop-out of a name, by the way), without major incident. We had an awesome week of PT; first an impromptu zumba class on Monday (which resulted in everyone doing the Cotton Eye Joe dance in a hotel staircase landing with random strangers wandering through) and then I finally, finally, finally got to do my treasure hunt! And since I am the kingpin of this blog, you get to hear me brag allll about it. 

I'd been waiting to do this thing for weeks. Here's the plan: Split our eight-person team up into two sub-teams. Each one has five clues to find and solve, each one of which will lead to the next clue. One team runs around outside and does calisthenics, one scampers around inside the hotel and does push-ups, sit-ups and so on. Once you've found all the clues, the last one instructs you to find the other team's PT coordinator, steal their ID badge and run and touch our van, Hildegaard. First team to do that wins a get-out-of-jail-free card for each member: one free pass from any chore they choose. 

After waiting weeks for the proper time to do it--early afternoon, no precipitation, not too cold, everybody there--I finally got my chance on Tuesday, when we went to the JFO for tech support and headed home early. Fellow PT coordinator Joe and I hid the clues around the hotel and around the neighborhood (which included press-ganging the hotel front desk lady into participation) and led our teams into battle! (We both knew the answers to our respective clue-sets, but were honor-bound to give hints at most.) After a lot of running around like crazy and solving clues and doing exercises, my downfall came fast and hard (literally). My team had been just a little slower to get their clues, you see. While they were doing the final physical exercise in a stairwell, John Q. Dillinger burst out of nowhere, hit me with a door, snatched my badge and disappeared down the stairs. I gave a spirited chase, but was too late to prevent victory. 

Much more important than winning or losing, though, was this: everyone had an excellent time AND got some exercise AND enjoyed PT for the second time in forever. We've got a round of yoga dialed up for this week, and Katrina's agreed to lead a belly-dancing class. I don't see any way that this won't be hilarious (mostly watching the boys try and do it). Will post things throughout the week as per usual!

Below are the locations and clues, if anyone's interested. 

Inside Team
1: Complete a fairly mundane bit of doggerel by rhyming the next location with "flyers", "criers" and "spry...ers". (Answer: under the dryers.)
2: Solve a word search, then run to that place. (Answer: EZPass building next door.)
3: Answer several team trivia questions, then rearrange highlighted letters to spell out FRONT DESK. 
4: More unscrambling letters; this time ELEVATOR MIRROR.
5: A final round of trivia questions, both team-related (What is TL Chelsea's middle name?) and not (Complete this phrase: I R A N-Contra scandal) spelling out GENERATOR OUT BACK. 

Outside Team
Not sure of the order, because I was inside. The types of clues were the same, but the locations were not: the Babies 'R Us building a few blocks over, the baseball field in a nearby park, the creepy rabbit statue in the same park, Hildegaard and the elevator roof. (Have I mentioned I love making treasure hunts?)

In Which I Curse A Lot

Editor's Note: This is Andy Tisdel, proprietor of Tisdel's Tirades, talking. This post probably has nothing to do with FEMA Corps, and does not reflect the opinions of a majority of FEMA Corps Team Summit 5; it is nothing more or less than an ordinary blog post.

I have a thing about swear words, and I suppose about words in general: they don’t mean a whole heck of a lot, really. There’s nothing intrinsically shocking about the word fuck; we’re just used to it being a bad word, so we use it like a bludgeon. This fucking guy. Fuck him. Fuck his life. But the thing is, while the meaning of ‘fuck’ lends it some of its value, part of the power of a cuss is the minor taboo you break when you use it. It lends strength to the emotion you’re trying to get across. Use a 'dirty word' too often and you devalue it of its power. I had a housemate once who must have dropped a cuss once in every ten or fifteen words on average; she never seemed to understand that the words had become no longer shocking, but commonplace and dull, when they exited her mouth. I believe in conserving one’s cusses for the proper occasion for maximum effect. Let me put it this way: there are many times when curses will not do, but there are some times where no other word will do.

That whole long introductory mindset is kind of how I feel about the overuse and abuse of superlatives. They’re tossed around so frequently in this culture that they, too, cease to impress. Great, excellent, amazing, awesome, fantastic, wonderful, superlative, glorious, triumphant, overpowering, magnificent. They’re applied to the most trivial accomplishments, tossed around in everyday conversation where ‘good’ or ‘average’ should be—and I’m as guilty of this as anyone. In the world of NFL journalism, calling someone a ‘star’ used to denote exceptional play. Now there are so many so-called ‘superstars’ in the NFL cosmos that the whole cluster will surely explode within a few hundred million years. (On the bright side, so to speak, the elements they release will surely populate a whole new generation.) The unique meanings of each superlative are also sanded down over time, interchanged until they’re indistinguishable from each other. When I say amazing, I mean something that does amaze me. Awesome is worthy of awe, fantastic like a fantasy, wonderful full of wonder, excellent truly excelling. It’s a less fun and less interesting language, to say nothing of conversations, when those are swapped out for one another without a thought.

These words are essentially shortcuts. They have an agreed-upon definition, bland and pasty like so much linguistic oatmeal, and you can use any one of them and evoke basically the same emotion. There's no passion, no meaning behind them. And superlatives are far from the only offenders; clichéd phrases follow a similar path, as does bloodless, sanitized corporate-speak ("I want to have a discussion about how our new initiative is going to impact the situation with our resources"). All of these sources lack authenticity. They lack originality and clarity of expression. One might even argue that they are nearly devoid of deeper meaning; instead of standing in for concepts, they are vehicles by which we can avoid thinking about the deeper issues that they raise. 

This is the paradox I always run into with language. I believe that words don’t have intrinsic meanings to them; they’re just sounds or collections of letters that follow certain rules and that we’ve agreed represent particular ideas or symbols in the real world. It’s the concepts behind the words that are really important, which is why I have a certain impatience with sanitized language—we all know what you mean, it doesn’t matter which words you’re using!—and attempt to describe ideas and experiences with the words that I feel fit the best. It’s all about trying to get across the underlying concepts. 

But I do care about those words, because each is a highly specialized tool that comes with its own unique meanings and connotations. It’s the lightning and thelightning bug, as Mark Twain said. There are those times where no other word will do. This fucking fucker's fucked. But clichés and undeserved praise and inoffensive blither are part of our everyday language, so what the hell do you do with them? Throw them out? Too simple. Just mean them. Own your words, as one sports journalist put it. Counter meaninglessness with authenticity. Put yourself into what you say, because guess what? Your words define you. It's up to you to define them. Use crazy insults. Play with your language. Avoid throwaway phrases or sentences. For fuck's sake, let the things that come out of your mouth mean something. If nothing else, your conversations will get considerably livelier. 

A Biased Article Is A Lousy Article

Editor's Note: This is Andy Tisdel, proprietor of Tisdel's Tirades, talking. This post probably has nothing to do with FEMA Corps, and does not reflect the opinions of a majority of FEMA Corps Team Summit 5; it is nothing more or less than an ordinary blog post.

 

What does it mean to say that something is ‘the best American science writing’?

Should one judge every piece of writing on pure aesthetics and writing skill? On the pure ability of the writer to communicate an unknown topic to a popular audience in a novel, interesting fashion? Or should these two traits be coupled with pure journalistic ability, the presentation of a complex and contentious issue in a way that is fair, not to both sides, but to the issue itself?

If you believe that last element should be a crucial part of any determination of ‘best’, then your name is clearly not Michio Kaku, this year’s editor of The Best American Science Writing 2012. Nor is it Jeff Goodell, author of the blazingly anti-nuclear Rolling Stone article “The Fire Next Time”, which describes the American nuclear industry as a fiscal hole in the ground and a gigantic disaster waiting to happen. Kaku put Goodell’s diatribe into the aforementioned compendium. This does not sit well with me.

My disapproval, of course, is irrelevant to Mr. Kaku. I own the book, so from a publisher’s standpoint, it really doesn’t matter what I think of it. And it’s also true that the Best American practice of getting a new guest editor every year allows for constant and healthy turnover in the articles selected. Kaku’s tastes are not those of the 2011 editor, nor will they mirror those of the 2013 editor, and that’s perfectly fine.

Having said all that, I still take issue with the inclusion of a flagrantly one-sided description of a complicated issue in a collection of the best anything, unless it be polemics. Goodell does a superb job excoriating the industry’s many flaws, of which there are plenty to go around. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is widely perceived as toothless and in the hip pocket of the industry that funds it, and Goodell doesn’t spare the rod in his analysis. But in an article with six interviews, the author also doesn’t spare so much as a sentence for a defender of the industry. No current NRC commissioners, no power company or nuclear plant executives, no nuclear energy lobbyists or members of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future are interviewed. There’s not even a halfhearted attempt to be fair to the issue.

Goodell’s writing drips with disdain for any positive information about nuclear power. The NRC’s oversight is “lax”, “haphazard” and “safety-last”, its relationship with the injury “cozy” and “an unholy alliance”, and the reactors themselves are described as “aging” three times and “crumbling” once. But here’s a problem even worse than blatant bias: Goodell’s information is at best incomplete and at worst full of holes. ,For example: when the first generation of nuclear plants was built, no one knew how long they would last. Goodell writes “Nuclear reactors were built to last only forty years,” but that’s simply wrong; the forty-year restriction was for political reasons, not technical ones. As NRC spokesman Scott Burnell told me in 2010, “the 40-year original term of a license was set by Congress more for financial and antitrust considerations then it was for any technical basis.” There’s no technical reason why the NRC shouldn’t have granted the 63 extensions that Goodell decries; reactors are no less safe at 41 than they are at 39. All Goodell had to do to find this out was interview a NRC spokesperson, but apparently he did not.

In addition to occasionally being flat wrong, Goodell's information is also woefully incomplete. To hear him tell it, nuclear reactors are just one quick blackout away from Fukushima II. He tells the presumably horrified reader how 93 U.S. reactors have backup batteries that can last just four hours, while only 11 can last eight hours, and leaves it to our inference that catastrophe will follow. He does not, however, mention that U.S. reactors have emergency backup generators in addition to the batteries! Nor does he mention emergency shutdown systems that allow for near-instantaneous shutdown of the reactor core, or the multiple systems of carrying excess heat away from the plant! “There is no way you’ll have a single failure of any component or system that will jeopardize your ability to cool the plant down. Even cutting off the power”, Tom Kauffman told me in 2010. Kauffman is a spokesman for a pro-industry lobbying group, the Nuclear Energy Institute, so of course he’s biased. But if you’re going to have one side of an issue overwhelmingly represented, the way Goodell did, it’s at least worth considering the counterarguments of the other side. 

Now, it’s perfectly within Goodell’s rights to do shoddy, biased research, and it’s perfectly within the purview of Rolling Stone’s editors to greenlight such an article. It’s not as though they have a reputation for unbiased reporting, nor is such reporting what people expect from that publication. It’s just disappointing to see that Kaku’s definition of the “best American science writing” includes an article that simply isn’t fair to the issue at hand. Instead, he chose an article that overwhelmingly supported his point of view, judging by his introduction to the book.

The kicker is, it’s not as if Goodell isn’t right; the industry has a terrible public image, the NRC is not exactly a harsh regulatory body, and there are plenty of flaws for it to regulate (most of which Goodell details: spent fuel pools in need of better cooling, well-publicized near-accidents at nuclear plants, plants on fault lines, etc). There are plenty of problems with the nuclear industry, but any serious critique of the industry should take its positives into account along with its flaws. Don’t give equal time to each side if the sides don’t merit equal time, but be fair to the issue.  It’s too bad Kaku didn’t put that on his list of values.

Musings About Culture and Being a Fan

Editor's Note: This is Andy Tisdel, proprietor of Tisdel's Tirades, talking. This post probably has nothing to do with FEMA Corps, and does not reflect the opinions of a majority of FEMA Corps Team Summit 5; it is nothing more or less than an ordinary blog post.

Can we get rid of the idea, once and for all, that there is some kind of master list of cultural touchstones (in movies, literature, music, television, anything else you'd care to name) that everyone should immerse themselves in? And can we boot the equally stupid implication that if you haven't been dunking your heads in the same basin of presumable ecstasy that everybody else has, you've clearly been wasting your time?

Above: something that came up when I Googled "vile soup". I have no idea what's in it.

 Yes, that's deliberately overstated. I'd like to introduce the idea the way it comes across first, then backtrack and explain where it comes from. Let's commence with the backtrack and examination.

There's nothing wrong with exposing people to bits of the cultural galaxy that you've been immersed in. We all do it all the time. 'Hey, have you heard this song, watched this video, seen this movie? OMG! You totally have to! It's soooo gooood!' The part that bugs me is when somebody mixes in a spoonful of mock outrage with the recommendation. 'How on earth could you grow up without watching Aladdin? Did you even have a childhood?' That last sentence, which comes up quite a bit, is as good as a declarative statement by the speaker: 'I believe that there is a certain set of cultural bits that everyone should be exposed to, and the fact that you haven't been exposed to these constitutes a flaw that must be cured as soon as possible'. 

In jest or sincere, the implications are still really creepy. For me, it starts out with the implication that there's some kind of objective ranking of cultural bits. There's not, and it's not news, and there's really no point in listing all the reasons why (people are different, and there's no agreed-upon value for "good"). The best you can do is a pile of statistics, Rotten Tomatoes-style, but even that only gives you what the members of a culture (or all cultures, or any middle ground) think of a bit, not an absolute value that quantifies the bit. Critics can place a bit among its companion bits better than the rest of us can, but they can't tell us that something is objectively good, or objectively better or worse than similar movies, any more than I can. Everything's about the subject, which makes sense, since all of this is art.

No objective good means there's no true list of best bits, but what about making a list of cultural bits that are most important? Same problem. Important to whom, and in what ways? Can you really nail down a short list of bits that are more vital than any other, without defining a topic or otherwise delineating what you’re talking about from the great mass of culture? I don’t think you can. I don’t think anybody really can. There is so much out there to explore, and so much of it is subjectively awesome (depending on your viewpoint). Saying that there are these five or six things that everyone should see, and thereby concluding that the rest are at best secondary and at worst irrelevant, seems comically arrogant.

Of course, questions of subjectivity and objectivity tend to be submerged in debates like this in a sea of fandom, which is something I truly don’t understand. There are many, many cultural bits that I happen to love, and that I recommend to friends and strangers at every opportunity. But I don’t say they’re the best thing in the world; I say they’re really, really good. I don’t understand the rush to lose yourself in fictional characters, to care about their needs and desires and flaws with a passion that approaches violence. Do I enjoy the story and acting and characterization and a thousand other aspects of a show like Breaking Bad? Hell, yes. Do I spend hours debating motivation and morality with fellow fans of the show? Hell, yes. Would I consider temporarily abandoning my own identity by actually taking on the appearance or identity of one of those characters, i.e. cosplaying? Should I engage with them on a primarily emotional level, as cosplayers do, instead of a primarily reasoning one? That just isn’t for me. At the end of the day, they're just characters; you can make your own if you like, which is in my opinion a better use of your time.

Deep emotional involvement with characters (not even necessarily the broad sweep of a show, but individual characters) is where obsessive fandom—covering your walls with posters, breathlessly awaiting each new episode, spending endless hours on Internet chat rooms—comes from. To me, you can be a fan—enjoy and engage with and comment on a cultural bit—without descending into fandom—composing increasingly excessive odes to said bit. And by the way, fandom doesn’t have to be positive; you can put just as much passion and time and energy into denouncing Twilight or Nickelback (two favorite Internet punching bags) as you could affirming Disney or Doctor Who (two favorite Internet snuggle-buddies). 

Speaking of Twilight or Fifty Shades of Gray or any other piece of pop culture widely panned as garbage, here's one more disturbing idea that's out there: the notion that the cultural bits that you enjoy somehow define you as a person. I get that reading into someone's tastes and favorite bits can tell you things about that person; I'm not arguing against that. But to argue as some do that watching Twilight or listening to Justin Bieber means you have poor taste or are being aggressively vapid or are just plain stupid... I don't see it. Your bits can tell other people about you, but they can mislead as easily as not, and they certainly do not define you.

Cultural relativism, to steal from someone wiser than I am, is about examining and appreciating the nuances of other cultures without losing the set of moral values that came with your own. That's for national and ethnic definitions of culture. In this case, you might say that accepting relativity in pop culture is about accepting subjectivity, being willing to engage with new cultural bits that you come in contact with, without losing your personal sense of what's good and what's not. Again, this isn't difficult; we do it every day. It's giving up the pretentiousness inherent in talking up your particular culture at the expense of everyone else's that's the trick.

Our Interview With Joe "Cornflake" Light, Part III! (The Story of the Chinatown Watch)

Editor's note: Because Mr. Light had a long interview and talks ridiculously fast--during the 23-odd minutes, an average of 2.6 words were said every second, a figure which includes "dead time"--we're splitting it up into three parts, which will air Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday of this week. It also means that each of these parts will be rather long for this blog, but hey, at least you don't have to listen to me talk.

Joe Light: Once upon a time, there was a homeless Cornflake, who desperately wanted a Chinatown watch, ‘cause the first time he came to New York City he spent all his money before he got there and did not have the opportunity to buy one. So one day, he made his way into the city and walked into Chinatown, and within the first block he was propositioned like a man who wanted to know if he wanted a Rolex. He responded positively and was walked a short distance to a very shady-looking streetcorner, where another man showed me a list of watches. And, ah—

Andy Tisdel: We’re changing tenses now.

JL: Showed him a list of watches and asked him which one he would want (much laughter), and he responded “I like gold. I want something gold.” And they produced the world’s most gaudy-looking, ginormous, fake gold Rolex. They wanted fifty bucks, and I talked them down from it. They wanted about two hundred fifty dollars, but I’m pretty good at haggling. At the time, I was really just buying it as a souvenir. I’m never going to wear it anyway. Plus it’s fake, and I mean, if I wore it it might break, and I just wanted a Chinatown Rolex for a memory. And then I got back to the ship that we were living on at the time, and I was showing it to my roommates and they were all noticing how thuggish it looked, and I started to think the same thing. And I thought, there were other watches on that list he showed me, that pictogram or whatever you would call it, that looked very nice. And, ah, that I could actually wear it if I could buy one, but I didn’t want to spend another fifty dollars. So I was headed to Chinatown a couple of weeks later, and I decided to bring the watch with me and see if I could trade it. And, uh… is [the camera] off?

AT: Nah. I just wanted to check it.

JL: So I decided to trade it, and I made a lot of Chinese people very unhappy with me in the process. I had to talk to four different people, all of which I think—I couldn’t tell if they were working together, or if they were just competing for my business. And when three of them realized that I didn’t want to buy a watch, I wanted to trade one I’d already bought from them for another one, they just got mad. So then I was like—he was like, I can give you an extra ten bucks or something like that for this watch, plus the new one, and the first three people didn’t go for that, so I kinda just gave up and started walking back—HE gave up and started walking back towards the 6 train, and a completely different one chased him down, thrust the watch he wanted into his hands, took ten dollars and the other watch and ran away. (more laughs) And he was pretty happy about that… *pauses to think* …Let’s see. Other fun experiences I’ve had in New York.

AT: Or anywhere.

JL: Well, last week I went to a Broadway play with some friends from my team, my team leader and another Corps Member. And I was pretty excited. I’d been to one Broadway play before, but it wasn’t what I wanted and with really crappy seats and I really wanted to see Wicked! So I treated myself to some front-row seats and my colleagues also got tickets, and… We decided to leave about five hours prior to the showing and got lost in Brooklyn for the first of those five hours we were supposed to leave, so that took away our lead time by a good chunk. And then we looked at the bus times, and we waited for the bus, and when it got there it skipped our stop. And we were like, well, maybe he didn’t see us. It was an express bus, which means it doesn’t make very many stops, and therefore instead of stopping every ten minutes like the regular bus system, it comes around every hour. So we waited outside in the cold for an hour for it to come ‘round again, and it skipped us again! (laughter) Right as it skipped us I chased it, I chased it down the street, and right as I chased it this old guy on a bike—he was reading a newspaper or something like that—was like “Did you want to get on that bus?” And I was like “Yes! Why am I chasing it?!” “Well, that bus doesn’t stop here on weekends. It stops at the one down by the mall, in front of the movie theater." A mile away. And one of the girls that went with us had some pretty vicious asthma, and so obviously sprinting a mile to the mall to get on that bus was not really realistic, but I did it and they walked it. And I was about a block away when the bus stopped, and I was just freakin’ out, screaming, flailing my arms, and I didn’t know what I was going to do when I got there because everyone else was way behind me, so I called one of my roommates. At this point we were two hours—no, three hours—into the five hours we were supposed to be there. Two hours until showtime. So we were freaking out, and we had a lot of money invested in the show, and we couldn’t even get into Manhattan. We didn’t know what we were going to do. I knew there was a—from my recent travels, I knew there was a subway station right next to Citi Field, and if I could just get a ride there, we could hop on in and be in Manhattan in half an hour. So I grabbed one of our roommates, he grabbed a van, showed up, picked us up, dropped us off at the subway, we took off towards Manhattan and, ah, there was construction on that subway, so without warning it took off and headed in the opposite direction! So we had to get off, find another one headed back into the city, get on that and finally got to our showing an hour or so early.

AT: And was it worth all the hassle?

JL: It was. I got spit on by a Broadway actor. It was fantastic. It tasted like glory. Zest. Talent. What else…

AT: Well, it’s now like twenty-three minutes in.

JL: So seven minutes to go… hmm..

AT: No! The last interview was fifteen minutes. I don’t need that.

JL: I’ll sing Free Bird, how about that. HMMMMM

AT: Any final thoughts on life, on FEMA Corps, on team life, on the penny under your butt?

JL: Aaaaahhhh! My penny! Oh, yeah. Pick up change wherever you find it. It’s all over the place in disaster zones. And we don’t get a lot of money, so I suggest that. Also, read Andy’s blog, it’s fantastic. (laughter)

AT: Well if they read this the whole way through, they probably don’t need the enticement.

JL: Continue reading his blog. It’s fantastic. [Editor’s note: he actually said these things; this is not a thinly disguised advertisement, I swear.]

AT: Thank you. Thank you. You flatter me, sir.

JL: Also, I bro-hugged Obama. (laughter) Actually, no. He just sorta side-hugged me.

AT: Did he, though? ‘Cause you were the first one in the queue.

JL: Well, he shook my hand [demonstrates] and the whole time he was talking to me, he had ahold of my hand. And I was like, “This is a really long handshake! But there’s nobody else in the world I’d rather have a long handshake with,” and he was touching my shoulder and then he kind of pulled me around like this [demonstrates more], so I’m counting it as a side-hug.

AT: Okay.

JL: And it was like, whoa. Presidential boobery.

AT: You know, this is going to be a straight transcript.

JL: Nooooo!!

AT: Well thank you for sitting down with me!

Our Interview with Joe "Cornflake" Light, Part II!

Editor's note: Because Mr. Light had a long interview and talks ridiculously fast--during the 23-odd minutes, an average of 2.6 words were said every second, a figure which includes "dead time"--we're splitting it up into three parts, which will air Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday of this week. It also means that each of these parts will be rather long for this blog, but hey, at least you don't have to listen to me talk. 

 

-->

Joe Light: One thing I really liked about the program, I know it’s something that bothers a lot of people, is that yeah, I don’t like that there’s things that go wrong. But I think it’s cool that, since we’re the first class. We’re the learning curve. We’re shaping this program for future classes. And you know, it all depends on how we handle it. We can sit back and cry about it and throw tantrums about how things aren’t going the way we want, or we can strive to make ‘em better. And when we find things that don’t work so well, bring ‘em up so that way they can be fixed, and make ‘em smoother for future FEMA Corps classes.

Andy Tisdel: And you just had an example of that, right? Something that didn’t work so well, so you brought it up and it got fixed?

As far as—you mean today? [By now, this is like a week ago.]

AT: Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Um… I kinda don’t know how to talk about this without sounding angry, ‘cause that’s really been my only bad experience with FEMA so far.

AT: Well you don’t even have to talk about it. I just thought it would be a good segue.

Um… Here’s a way I can put it. One thing that’s important about this program is that it allows young, ambitious people to kinda come in and act as eyes out in the field with FEMA for things that don’t quite run as smoothly, and we can then report those things back to FEMA, and not necessarily make suggestions, just kinda point out ‘this is what’s happening and this is how it’s being worked, wouldn’t it make more sense for it to be done in this way.’

AT: In a diplomatic way.

Exactly. Exactly. Through the right channels. That would be the nice way of saying it. *both laugh*

AT: Readers, you won’t be able to see this on the transcript, but he’s grinning hugely.

Usually I am, though, so that doesn’t really mean much.

AT: That’s true. Why don’t you… tell us about your personality. What do you like to do, how do you like to be.

I’m bubbly. As one of my high school friends used to say, I’m ‘bubbular’. That’s not a word, but hey… I’ve been told I’m always happy, although when we’re riding in the van I’ve been told I make angry, pissed-off faces whenever we hit a bump or something, this has been caught on camera multiple times. But I’m not really angry, I’m probably just really into the episode of New Girl I’m watching or something like that, or… I dunno, something I’m reading. I really thrive off being around people, I’m a huge extrovert, that’s where I get my energy. I like to be alone sometimes and kinda recharge when I get tired, but… I feel like I get my energy, my motivation, from being around people. I feel like-I don’t want to say that I have to please them, but I feel like—I don’t know. Just who I am. As I mentioned earlier, I’m very into the outdoors. I like to fish and hike and shoot guns at things… *laughter*

AT: Baseball.

Baseball! Baseball is awesome. Go Yankees. And I guess the Mets. *laughter*

AT: Just on account of being New Yorkers?

Yeah. On account of my New Yorker-ness.

AT: Talk about that. Talk about that.

Living in New York?

AT: Yeah.

Well, when I was a senior in high school, I took a spring break trip to New York City with some friends, and it was just awesome. Yeah, we hired a tour guide, and so they kinda only took us to the nice parts of New York, so our first impression wasn’t exactly an accurate one. I mean, we got into the Broadway, Manhattan, the clichéd kind of New York experience, and I had this kind of glamour-y image of what New York must be like. And of course, at the end of our week in New York City, we all vowed “I’m going to live and work there someday.” And I was one of ‘em that said that, and I legitimately meant it. I even added it to my bucket list, to live in New York City for six months, and I have since moved to New York City and started working here! We are working on four months of being here, whatever, so hopefully we’ll make it to six?

AT: Eehh, we had like six weeks in, uh, in November and half of December. So still got a while to go.

JL: I still think New York is pretty awesome I admit that the first time here I was not required to drive. So I thought it was pretty great when my cabbie started flipping off people and making U-turns on the interstate and stuff like that, but, uh… now that I’m having to do that—no! Not flipping off people, but now that I’m having to deal with people being less than courteous on the roadway—

AT: *laughter* Such a diplomat.

JL: It’s trying, but, you know… We’re so close to everything. I don’t know. I just can’t help, like, looking out my window before I go to bed and being like “The Empire State building is staring at me. The Chrysler Building is right there. The Freedom Tower, which is in downtown Manhattan, is in plain view of where I am sleeping tonight.” That’s just really cool to me. And I dunno, think of all the historical and great things that have happened in New York City, think of all the amazing people that have lived here. I don’t know. They call it the, what is it, the greatest city in the world. And it’s so close to everything. I mean, I can literally just walk out my door right now and walk to a Major League Baseball stadium if I wanted to. I mean, I could hop on a train and go to the Empire State Building, go to Chinatown and buy a fake Rolex.

AT: *laughs* Oh, that’s a story. Tell that story.

JL: Once upon a time, there was a homeless Cornflake, who desperately wanted a Chinatown watch…  

...and since we here at Tisdel's Tirades don't get to do a cliffhanger very often, we're doing one today. Tune in tomorrow for the story of Cornflake and the fake Rolex!

Our Interview with Joe "Cornflake" Light, Part I!

Editor's note: Because Mr. Light had a long interview and talks ridiculously fast--during the 23-odd minutes, an average of 2.6 words were said every second, a figure which includes "dead time"--we're splitting it up into three parts, which will air Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday of this week. It also means that each of these parts will be rather long for this blog, but hey, at least you don't have to listen to me talk.

Andy Tisdel: Tell the world your name.

The Undersigned: My name is Joe Light.

AT: What’s your real name?

JL: My name is Cornflake—

AT: That’s better!

JL: Vagrant Cornflake, Homeless Cornflake, really any variation on that that isn’t hurtful.

AT: Ah, that’s where the line is. So Pornsnake is out.

JL: Do not call me Pornsnake.

AT: Okay, uh… tell us a little bit about yourself.

JL: I am from Des Moines, Iowa. Grew up in a small town in the suburbs. Pretty easygoing kinda guy. I like being outdoors, I like helping people, I like being around friends… I like working hard. Before I came to Americorps, I was working on a farm, and as a local meat clerk, cutting meat at a local grocery store. I had just finished my two-year associate’s degree, an Associate of Arts, and, then I came here.

AT: What was your degree in?

JL: It was an Associate of Arts. So basically, not General Studies, but just kinda general education devices. Get that out of the way before I went to university.

AT: What are your plans about that? Where do you want to go?

JL: I was originally an education major, actually, and in my last semester of college I changed to biology. I took a biology lab that I really loved, and that’s the way I looked at it.

AT: Do you have a specific university you want to go to?

JL: Probably somewhere in Iowa. I don’t mind. There’s three state schools there, it doesn’t really matter to me which one.

AT: So are you planning to go straight there after FEMA Corps?

JL: No, actually. After FEMA Corps, there’s another program that I want to do in six months. So I’ll get a job for those six months, but after that, the next program I want to do is the Minnesota Conservation Corps.

AT: Is that for sure?

JL: Well, I applied for it and was selected for it this year, but due to the start date I had to turn it down. But they said they’d look forward to hearing from me next year, so I’m fairly confident that I’ll be able to get it again next year.

AT: Okay. What about being a TL? Is that still something you want to do?

JL: In the future, yeah. I like FEMA Corps. I like working with FEMA, and I think the work is very meaningful. It’ll be a really good program to be in, in the future…

AT: You don’t have to sugarcoat it.

JL: No, no, I really do feel this way. I’m not sugarcoating it. Obviously originally I applied for regular N-triple-C, and, I don’t know. I feel like the Conservation Corps is an extreme of NCCC, so that’s why I want to do it. And then potentially go back and be a team leader for FEMA Corps. More than anything, I want to get more experience working with FEMA, because I want to apply to be a Reservist.

AT: Really!

JL: In the future. Whether it’s when I go back to school, or just to have it on the side, and then if I get called to do something, see where it goes from there.

AT: So why a Reservist?

JL: Well, like I said, I really like the work we do, especially in CR, I’d like to do the things we do as a CR Specialist as a Reservist. You know, getting out in the communities, talking with people that were affected by the disaster, you know, being kind of that first wave of people that’s getting out there and helping, the first face of people they see. You can tell that they really look to you for information, help, stuff like that, and it’s very rewarding.

AT: Okay. What are some moments in your career as CR so far where you’ve been out in the community?

JL: Well, I feel like getting both ends of the spectrum is important. You’ll get some people who are extremely happy to see you, especially if they feel like they have a question they can’t get the answer to, whether they can’t get through on the 1-800 number or they don’t want to stand in like at the DRC for eight hours, and you show up at the doorway, and you give ‘em the perfect answer that kind of puts ‘em at ease, you know, and at the same time you won’t always have the answer, so you end up knocking on somebody’s door who’s not had a good experience with FEMA, or they’re upset, or something like that. And while that is kinda difficult, and it’s gonna stink to deal with people when they’re really crotchety, I think it is important—it’s an important experience to have, to experience both of those.

AT: So can you talk about a time where you had a specific CR experience that was meaningful to you? No names, obviously, but…

JL: We had one woman who hadn’t registered with FEMA yet, She didn’t really understand the process yet, and her house was very, very messed up, and her son had just gotten back a few days before from a deployment with the Air Force. So obviously she was more concerned about having her son home then all this, but like I said, her house—she had just bought her dream car the year before, she’d been working her whole life for it, and her insurance was only going to cover a tiny amount of it. It was completely destroyed. She had a half-dozen rescue dogs, and easily another dozen miscellaneous rescue animals that was living in her house. Very sweet woman. She was just, you know, very confused about the process, was very worried about her options, she didn’t know what FEMA would be able to do for her, how it would work with her insurance and all that. I was probably there for a good hour, answering all kinds of the questions she had. And at the end, she started crying, and then she gave me a hug and kissed me on the cheek, and… it felt pretty good. That was… that was a good moment.

AT: Glad to hear it. Um… Let’s talk about being on a team. What do you-what are your favorite things about being on a team?

JL: My favorite things about being on a team are a lot of the… Just the kinda aspect of a team where you’re all working together. It’s the same as in sports, one person can have a bad game or a bad day, and the rest of the team can turn around and—they’re a support system. They can turn around and pick up the slack, and make sure the other person knows that sure, we’ve got your back. They act as a kind of accountability net. Especially for me. I feel that I’m more, more inclined to work hard and to achieve things when I’m around these like-minded people on my team, who are driven to achieve and to go out and work really hard.

AT: I think you’ve said as much when we’ve talked previously. Um… *pause* I actually don’t have any prepared questions. I’m just winging this. *both laugh* So… what do you want to talk about? Is there anything you’d like to tell me?

JL: When I was living in Atlanta, I had a strange rash in my armpit—

AT: (Laughs) I remember that…

JL: For two months…

AT: And I shared a bed with him, by the way, for most of that time (he said, pointing at the camera).

JL: Um… Give me a moment to think…

AT: This is going to go in the transcript as just dot-dot-dot, dot-dot-dot. 

Which seems like an appropriate place to take a breather. Tune in Tuesday for Part II!