Scott Cawelti

Hot off the presses--a little ditty that tells it like it is--Facebook is all about me, me, me.  "You, You, You" was a hugely popular song in the early 50s sung by the Ames Brothers.   Can't find it on YouTube, but I used to sing it as a kid.  And everyone knows the good old talkin' blues form that Woody Guthrie invented and used. Check out his "Talkin' Dustbowl Blues" to get the rhythms.  

I'll be performing this out and about, and will post a video here when I get to it.  

Me, Me, Me:  Talkin’ Facebook Blues

CHORUS:  (Tune:  “You, You, You”  1953 Ames Bros. song)

Me, Me, Me
There’s no one like me, me, me,
No that’s so cool and free
I’m in love with me, me, me.

V. 1:  [Speak, after Woody Guthrie’s “Talkin’ Dustbowl Blues”]

Once upon a time I had a life, dontcha know,
Gave my full attention to watchin’ the road
When I drove, and I knew how to concentrate
and “Textin” was a person from the Lone Star State.

CHORUS

V. 2:  
Now I wake up in the mornin’ and before I even eat
I’m openin’ a screen and I can’t wait to greet
All 600 of my Facebook confidantes,
And tell ‘em when I crap, what I think, and what I wants. 

CHORUS

V. 3:
I scroll through dozens of photos of cats,
Wise aphorisms, people wearin’ funny hats
Every so often, a photo of a comet,
And close-ups of food that look like vomit.

CHORUS

V. 4 :

Thanks to Facebook we know what everyone is thinkin’,
It’s a daily addiction, a lot like drinkin’
Just one question kinds bothers me, man—
Do any Facebook friends really give a damn?

CHORUS

Me, me me,
There’s no one like me, me, me
No tone hat’s so cool and free,
I’m in love with me, me, me,

I was meant for Facebook,
Sure as stars up above
I am committed to Facebook,
To have, to hold, and to love—

Me, me, meeeeeeeeee. 

Written and published in the Waterloo Courier in December of 1985, it tackles the question of who really works hardest.   (It sort of begs the question of what is "work,"  and whether mental or physical work makes the most demands.)  

In any case, this came up recently on Facebook when someone posted the list of 'least stressful jobs for 2013" and "University Professor" came up as #1--the very least stressful job.  

And I'm here to say:  Wrong.  Really wrong.  Dreadfully wrong.   Read on, from 28 years ago:   

Let’s examine candidates for the world’s hardest work.

Some of the obvious ones would be those that require hard physical labor. Welding, maybe. Or riveting. Or sand-blasting. Or tearing up streets with jackhammers. Or cutting down trees with chain saws. Hard, grinding work if done for hours daily.

Less obvious candidates are those repetitious tasks that require little mental involvement but have to be done right, the same way every time. Like soldering seams in registers. That’s a job that I did daily for weeks every summer, and it was hard. Actually, the hardest part was staying focused on the task, since the repetitions numbed my mind to the point of hallucinating.

High pressure jobs also have to be considered as serious candidates: piloting a 747, for example. That’s hard just because surely no one really believes those monstrous projectiles will actually fly. Or if they fly, that they will never get down except as flaming fragments. Someone once said that piloting a big plane amounts to “years of boredom mixed with moments of terror.” Hard.

Or life-and-death jobs, like battlefield generals and surgeons. Imagine having that much power over someone, knowing that with a flick of the wrist or a wave of a hand (the orders to charge) someone could die or live.

Then there are the decision-makers, those who sit in board rooms or behind legal benches deciding the fates of companies and criminals. Hard.

BUT NONE, my friends, none is as hard as the simple act for which so many remain so grossly underappreciated and underpaid. This act, performed daily in literally thousands of homes and offices all around the country, requires uncommon skills, extraordinary patience, the rarest of sensitivities, the most willing and open of minds.

It even requires enough physical effort that after just two steady hours of doing it, the hand and wrist ache for time off.

I’m talking grading essays and term papers. And not just slapping down A’s to F’s without comment, though that’s sometimes done as a shortcut by harried paper-graders.

I mean the act of reading other people’s attempts to make meaning – and commenting on how well they did. That’s the hardest work in the world, and those who are willing to spend time at it deserve nothing but praise, especially if they’re at all good at it. Maybe even a bit of adoration.

Granted, grading essays doesn’t look hard. The teacher just seems to be sitting and writing comments in the margins, at the end, or both. Naturally, pulling a knife across a human body, or lifting a 747 off the ground looks harder.

BUT EVERY COMMENT goes straight from the pencil of the grader out into the student writers’ heads as a judgment of their thoughts, their skills, their maturity, their style, their intelligence. Every comment, every final grade amounts to a judgment on their whole being, if they’ve take their writing at all seriously. And many students do, especially if the teacher does.

In the course of grading 25 papers – a common occurrence in a writing teacher’s life – hundreds of judgments have been made and communicated which have the power to make the student fly, or cut him/her to the quick.

So don’t talk to me about how hard those pilots and surgeons have it. The paper-grader both flies and cuts for a fraction of the pay and appreciation.