WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.590 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.590 --> 00:00:02.420 align:middle line:90% Other requests? 00:00:02.420 --> 00:00:05.060 align:middle line:84% Because some of you were forced to read the book, 00:00:05.060 --> 00:00:06.260 align:middle line:90% you poor dears. 00:00:06.260 --> 00:00:07.340 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:00:07.340 --> 00:00:09.005 align:middle line:90% A captive audience. 00:00:09.005 --> 00:00:09.505 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:09.505 --> 00:00:13.780 align:middle line:84% "The Ballad of Student X" is a great place. 00:00:13.780 --> 00:00:14.840 align:middle line:90% Did I hear something? 00:00:14.840 --> 00:00:16.610 align:middle line:90% "The Ballad of Student X." 00:00:16.610 --> 00:00:18.680 align:middle line:90% "The Ballad of Student X?" 00:00:18.680 --> 00:00:20.180 align:middle line:90% You want to hear that? 00:00:20.180 --> 00:00:20.790 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:20.790 --> 00:00:21.560 align:middle line:90% It's very funny. 00:00:21.560 --> 00:00:22.060 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:22.060 --> 00:00:23.410 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:23.410 --> 00:00:24.530 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:24.530 --> 00:00:26.420 align:middle line:90% "The Ballad of Student X." 00:00:26.420 --> 00:00:29.330 align:middle line:84% I know, yeah, we're teachers, and this 00:00:29.330 --> 00:00:32.960 align:middle line:90% is a composite character. 00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:36.680 align:middle line:84% I used to teach this class of 200 students 00:00:36.680 --> 00:00:40.520 align:middle line:84% at San Diego State, and it was filled-- 00:00:40.520 --> 00:00:43.490 align:middle line:84% I guess, the news got out that I was a easy teacher 00:00:43.490 --> 00:00:47.810 align:middle line:84% and it was filled with fraternity boys. 00:00:47.810 --> 00:00:51.620 align:middle line:84% And they'd come to class on their skateboards drunk, 00:00:51.620 --> 00:00:54.560 align:middle line:90% and you know how the-- yeah. 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:57.170 align:middle line:90% What page is that? 00:00:57.170 --> 00:00:58.130 align:middle line:90% OK, let me find it. 00:00:58.130 --> 00:01:03.120 align:middle line:90% 00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:05.090 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:01:05.090 --> 00:01:06.530 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:01:06.530 --> 00:01:08.940 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:01:08.940 --> 00:01:11.880 align:middle line:84% It's an old-fashioned story ballad, 00:01:11.880 --> 00:01:16.150 align:middle line:84% so I'm going back to doing old-fashioned stuff now. 00:01:16.150 --> 00:01:18.020 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:01:18.020 --> 00:01:18.520 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:01:18.520 --> 00:01:23.400 align:middle line:84% It's called "The Ballad of Student X." 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:27.710 align:middle line:84% It's a composite character, and a bit exaggerated. 00:01:27.710 --> 00:01:30.530 align:middle line:90% 00:01:30.530 --> 00:01:37.430 align:middle line:84% "And T.J., he downed eight shots of mezcal, ate the worm. 00:01:37.430 --> 00:01:41.150 align:middle line:84% Two prostitutes and a hellhound stole his skateboard 00:01:41.150 --> 00:01:43.280 align:middle line:90% and hundreds in cash. 00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:47.690 align:middle line:84% Stabbed his friend while he blacked out in a ditch. 00:01:47.690 --> 00:01:52.100 align:middle line:84% His mother wired me 5000 to bail him out. 00:01:52.100 --> 00:01:57.500 align:middle line:84% He's an animal, a jackass, but he's my student. 00:01:57.500 --> 00:02:03.410 align:middle line:84% If he dies in a T.J. prison, he'll be on my conscience. 00:02:03.410 --> 00:02:07.640 align:middle line:84% She said, He got straight A's and decent SATS, 00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:11.670 align:middle line:84% captain of the football team in junior high. 00:02:11.670 --> 00:02:14.820 align:middle line:84% After my divorce, he went through a bad patch. 00:02:14.820 --> 00:02:16.800 align:middle line:90% Could have been All-American. 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:20.860 align:middle line:84% He's exceptional, give him a break. 00:02:20.860 --> 00:02:25.610 align:middle line:84% He wrote from rehab, I found god. 00:02:25.610 --> 00:02:30.600 align:middle line:84% A tweet from a halfway house, he saw Krishna. 00:02:30.600 --> 00:02:35.720 align:middle line:84% At a dude ranch he shouted, Allah, on a mountaintop. 00:02:35.720 --> 00:02:40.400 align:middle line:84% He cried for salvation, world peace and love. 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:45.520 align:middle line:84% Some 12-step blather, don't believe a word of it. 00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:49.750 align:middle line:84% Spring break, he smashed into a tuk tuk in Chiang Mai. 00:02:49.750 --> 00:02:55.960 align:middle line:84% Maimed an old pedestrian in Phuket. 00:02:55.960 --> 00:02:59.710 align:middle line:84% Plied them with cash, no questions asked. 00:02:59.710 --> 00:03:03.460 align:middle line:84% Can you give me an incomplete and comment on my poems? 00:03:03.460 --> 00:03:06.820 align:middle line:84% There's one about my grandmother who died of COVID. 00:03:06.820 --> 00:03:11.330 align:middle line:84% We shared a virtual hug, teared up on Zoom. 00:03:11.330 --> 00:03:16.180 align:middle line:84% Next week he drove his Beamer off a cliff. 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:20.140 align:middle line:84% Lucky he landed on a giant banyan tree, got away 00:03:20.140 --> 00:03:22.480 align:middle line:90% without a scratch. 00:03:22.480 --> 00:03:27.940 align:middle line:84% Instagrams of frat parties, sake bombs at Yuki's. 00:03:27.940 --> 00:03:32.410 align:middle line:84% Arms around bronzed girls in bikinis and sunsets. 00:03:32.410 --> 00:03:37.360 align:middle line:84% Please professor, two more days, I'm blogging about MLK, 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:44.500 align:middle line:84% writing an opus, hand rolling Maui Wowie for social justice. 00:03:44.500 --> 00:03:47.188 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:47.188 --> 00:03:48.090 align:middle line:90% 00:03:48.090 --> 00:03:51.330 align:middle line:84% Last week he came to me in a dream 00:03:51.330 --> 00:03:55.740 align:middle line:84% dressed for Mortal Kombat, lizard green. 00:03:55.740 --> 00:03:59.670 align:middle line:84% After decapitating a jihadist and three cleaver wielding 00:03:59.670 --> 00:04:04.440 align:middle line:84% ghouls, he emerged from a flaming school bus showered 00:04:04.440 --> 00:04:06.810 align:middle line:90% and shaved. 00:04:06.810 --> 00:04:11.460 align:middle line:84% How we heal this nation, I do not know. 00:04:11.460 --> 00:04:16.500 align:middle line:84% Primal sins erupt through tortured souls. 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:20.820 align:middle line:84% He graduated with his brothers magna cum 00:04:20.820 --> 00:04:27.850 align:middle line:84% laude, chanting, Liberté, égalité, fraternité, or death." 00:04:27.850 --> 00:04:29.230 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:29.230 --> 00:04:31.990 align:middle line:90% [CLAPPING] 00:04:31.990 --> 00:04:34.890 align:middle line:90% 00:04:34.890 --> 00:04:39.870 align:middle line:84% That's an old-fashioned ballad with off rhymes. 00:04:39.870 --> 00:04:42.810 align:middle line:84% Forgive me students, it's a composite character 00:04:42.810 --> 00:04:43.950 align:middle line:90% I just have-- 00:04:43.950 --> 00:04:47.460 align:middle line:84% it's not what you know, it's an exaggerated character. 00:04:47.460 --> 00:04:50.010 align:middle line:90% But they really-- yeah. 00:04:50.010 --> 00:04:50.640 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:04:50.640 --> 00:04:55.980 align:middle line:84% That's what happens, that's how we poets get revenge, we 00:04:55.980 --> 00:04:59.810 align:middle line:90% write about you and exaggerate. 00:04:59.810 --> 00:05:00.310 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:05:00.310 --> 00:05:02.270 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:02.270 --> 00:05:03.374 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:05:03.374 --> 00:05:04.170 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:05:04.170 --> 00:05:04.710 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:05:04.710 --> 00:05:07.440 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:07.440 --> 00:05:08.990 align:middle line:90% OK.