| Jesus Christ Almighty the Way Things Should Have Been: Shiny Disco Compensation and the Short Road to Fictional Ethnographic Hell Justin Welch isn�t what you�d call a �nice� person. Sure, he�s nice looking, and sure, he�s nice when you�ve got your mouth on his penis, but we�ll just go ahead and chalk those up to self-preservation. No, Justin is a conniving demon in a gay manorexic body that may or may not be Puerto Rican and/or Lebanese, depending on how many tanning sessions he�s been to or what kind of �multiracial� crap he�s trying to pull at the moment. What makes Justin a great topic for this second of ethnographic papers is his experience with the topic of compensation. When I told Justin I wanted to write about him in an anthropology paper, he told me to �throw me in there everywhere�you know, dead mother, sisters in Connecticut, social prostitution.� When he found out the paper was in fact ALL about him, he got even more excited and encouraged me to write also about CVS, the Gap, and the incidental compensation he had received in the form of, shall we say�stolen goods? But I digress. Justin has had more experience with compensation at this point in his life than many of us will ever have, unless it�s something we feel we can randomly bring up to make a conversation grind to an awkward and uncomfortable halt. For Justin, compensation is all about desire�do you really want to give this kid money? Do you really want to get in his pants? Do you really want him to then wake up the next morning, take YOUR pants, his pants, any tiny ironic tee-shirts you may have lying around, and the contents of your wallet? Rarely has he encountered anyone to say no to these desires, and that�s just the way he likes it. Justin was born in 1994 when he moved to Washington, Pennsylvania to attend Trinity Middle School, the Wall-Free Training Ground of Satan�s Minions. He once attended Mrs. Racunas�s seventh grade English class, in which he was required to write �really gay� journal entries, which would later inspire him to also become �really gay.� During eighth grade, he totally sat at the other end of my lunch table with Robyn Mast, Tara Silich, Lindsay Kesnick, and Jessica Salko, as far as I can remember. The turning point in his slightly effeminate youth came when he reached Trinity High School and joined the speech team, led by Mrs. Mary Ann Berty, who compensated him for the massive amounts of time he put into looking like the best person in a round by humiliating the living shit out of him at every possible opportunity. He learned to talk; he learned to scream; he learned to walk nicely with appropriate hand gestures and not continually grab himself. In short, he learned to be a fairly good orator and a mediocre to corrupted human being. More importantly, he met J. Louise Dye and his best friend and sometime lover/policy debate �partner�, E.C. Dye. Perhaps the first encounter Justin REALLY had with loss (who really counts dead mothers these days, anyway?) came at the infamous Viliger Speech Tournament in Philadelphia, PA in the fall of 2000. After two days of grueling people-watching and NIMBY-shuffle-running, Justin overcame the odds to achieve what only a true Buettler illegitimate heir could�win measly fourth place. Woohoo! How EXCITING�right? Wrong. They were supposed to mail his trophy; while they mailed E.C. and J. Louise their semi-finalist plaques, never did Justin receive that trophy. Justin immediately and continually brought this loss into discourse�in slightly less anthropological terms, we�ll call this �whining and bitching.� There was no compensation. Maybe there was never a true recognition of loss on the side of the tournament coordinators, as it is doubtful that Mary Ann Berty (�Grandma� or �Shaniqua�) ever really faxed them to ask for the trophy. Perhaps it went the way of our All-American Academic Awards and point totals, as we�re not sure that accurate records were ever deemed necessary. I digress. To be honest, it�s really only because Justin is currently undressing me with his eyes via his picture on my wall, in which he is wearing teeny-tiny underpants and giving me the �big lips winky face� smile. Justin then went on to win, in a stunning performance brought to us all by the words �Pickles�like that other girl�s speech�right�� the National Championship in Expository Speaking, beating out the friendless and dorky of the nation for such a high title. Unfortunately, as would befit the story of such a screwed-up life, the results were misread, and they announced him as having won third, though an examination of the ballots would later show that he did, in fact, win. What compensation did Billy �I Just Ate A School Bus!� Tate and his NFL porkers come up with? Showing a picture of a tear-stained and nerve-wracked Justin, holding his 80-pound trophy as though it alone could save his botched self-tanning job (it couldn�t). He remains bitter, though staring at his trophies and cookies have managed to get him through. More recently, Justin has decided to become a social prostitute. His �friend� Chris gives him clothes, food, and coloring books in exchange for�well, not to get too detailed, but �everything but.� Everything but sex, he means, which may or may not include blow jobs, hand jobs, rim jobs�should I go on? Unfortunately for Justin, he does not really like Chris. He does like Chris�s money, which leads him into the odd position of being a 20-year-old gold digger. A trophy boyfriend, if you will, with quite a trophy rack. My puns are entirely lame and out of line. But I digress. What it comes down to is that Justin is much hotter than Chris. He is probably better-dressed, as he has more friends and thus more closets to raid. He will continue with this farcical relationship until Chris runs out of money or Justin can no longer please him, or in the horrible case that Chris dare ask for exclusivity. But in the subject of compensation, we see that Justin is essentially masochistic. He likes the exchange of loss for money and/or favors. But what he likes more is getting to wallow in his own misery. What good would having two underachieving sisters in Connecticut be if he couldn�t bitch about them to his friends? I mean, come ON. What good would winning a national championship be if there couldn�t be an accompanying diva fit? Most importantly, what good would paying CVS back for the goods stolen be if he didn�t plan on doing the exact same thing once the trauma of community service has worn off? Short answer: there is none. Justin likes to bitch. He likes to be bitter. Most of all, he likes to call me 3247982739827398 times a day to let me listen to the Syracuse wind blow and him scream above it, �LIZ????? CAN YOU HEAR ME???? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU�RE HANGING UP???� To summarize, Justin has had experiences with potential compensation; but more than that, he�s had experience with out-and-out loss, and he likes it. He�s like that little bird that flies into the window over and over again until it falls, unconscious, and one of my cats eats it; that metaphor is more clearly illustrated by my experience with Justin when we all went to the (godforsaken) junior prom, and he walked right into my glass patio door. I think that sums it up. Jesus Christ Almighty Justin Charles Welch: Where is The Zone? And Why Can�t I Touch It? i know it's lame. welcome to anthropology. more importantly, welcome to my life. |