Paul the lil' misogynist

Hey! Thanks for reading! Just a reminder that I wrote this some years ago, and may have much more complicated feelings about this topic than I did when I wrote it. Happy to elaborate, feel free to reach out to me! 😄

The longer I'm away from home, the more I forget about where I come from. I'm on Spring Break now, and usually when I'm home I spend some time digging around the house for archiving material. During my last Spring Break I put some kiddie pictures on Facebook that was met with much enthusiasm from my family. This time, I have a video.

My school had a tradition of putting 4th graders in little skits, and I was in one called Sammy Carducci's Guide to Women. (based, as I just found out, on a terrible-looking novel for middle schoolers).

The director of these shows recorded them, and gave to me a DVD he'd made as a graduation gift.

The second half of the scene is below (the first half is out of focus, you need to wait a few seconds on what I've embedded below). Lord, what a strange thing to look back on.

Highlights are at 2:13 (I make some really amazing, kind of demonic throat sound), and the freak out at 3:10.

Transcript of the scene appended at the end...

Unrelated, but cool links I found this morning: a concise prediction I agree with on where computers are headed (differentiating between 'people' computers and 'geek' computers).

Bullet points on why smart people fail to be successful. While the choice of words is muddy, I found a lot of his points resonated with me. Arguably the best thing I learned at Brown was the hard experience of occasionally failing, which was absolutely necessary to (stealing his jargon) 'leave the sandbox.'

Finally, having front-end web dev skills went from being able to navigate awful w3schools tutorials into a proper science of its own. Even if you know CSS and basic Javascript, there's pitfall after pitfall in the trenches of the real world. I found this list of requirements for new hires to be a good primer on what are contemporary considerations.

For the record, I tried adding these to the video, but YouTube captioning is a mess of horrors. Vimeo doesn't even support it, lame sauces.

As promised, the transcript:

Sammy Here, I'm gonna give you some background information on women. You might want to take notes.

Gus Uh, notes? Oh, did I show you my new pen? It writes in four different colors! What color do you think I should use? Maybe red, because it's like blood! But my brother likes green. Some people like blue, but black is easier to read!

Sammy Oh, Gus, are you finished?

Gus Red, definitely red!

Sammy Try to concentrate.

Gus Hey, this thing is jammed!

Sammy Okay, first off, women tend to cry a lot.

Gus (writing) Cry. A. Lot. Is this okay?

Sammy Yeah, fine. Most of the time all they do is think about mushy romantic stuff. They do things like write letters to Mel Gibson, and memorize the lyrics to their favorite love song. Women are always going on diets, but they have this uncontrollable urge to bake chocolate chip cookies. It's one of the mysteries of modern science. Women are always in groups, so they have someone to listen to while they inaudible, which is all the time. And when they're not together, they're usually on the phone. Basically, they're weak, and they're looking for someone strong. That's where the two of us come in. Okay, you got that so far?

Gus Yeah.

Sammy WHAT IS THIS?

Gus Oh, its a rocket ship taking off into outer space, see!? The rocket ship is black, the earth is green, the sky is blue, and the rocket's flames are red.

Sammy GUS!

Gus This pen is great for rocket ships!

Sammy Let's try a new topic, huh?

Gus Can I still take notes?

Sammy Yeah, but you might want to start a new page.

We're gonna call this "Tips for Impressing Women." Okay, number 1, NEVER ever carry an umbrella. It's a sign of weakness.

Gus Hey, I never knew that!

Sammy Number 2, always use an after shave, even if you don't shave. Number 3, never say "I don't know."

Gus But what if you don't know?

Sammy Pretend you do. Number 4, talk in a low, soft voice. This is called the Voice of Love. Women go nuts for it!

Gus What does it sound like?

Sammy Umm... I'll do it for you later. I don't want anyone to bother me right now. And number 5, and this is the very most important one of all. "Dare to be different."

Gus You mean look preppy like you do?

Sammy No! That wouldn't be different, that would be the same!

Gus So how do you know what to do?

Sammy It's up to you. That's the whole point. Come on, let's get on with the survey.

Gus inaudible

Sammy Just take notes! We're going to be checkout out the women in the cafeteria and looking for things that might be important. I tell you, and you write it down. For instance, stuff that would drive you crazy.Like Marsha Brennan would be fine, but has that habit of picking her ear with a paper clip. Debbie Watterstein's great, until she laughs, and sounds like a pig. And that one over there, she's way too skinny, and the person she's with, she's...

Gus Sammy?

Sammy She's beautiful! GUS! GUS GUS! SHe's looking at us.

Gus What are you doing?

Sammy Just nod and smile! Pretend we're like student architects checking out the building.

Gus Hey! Quit chewing on my pen! You might have germs!

Sammy "Yes! Of course! I see!"

Gus You see what?

Sammy She looked away, we're clear. C'mon, let's go get candy bars.

Gus But what about the survey?

Sammy It's FINISHED!