Bitter? Moi?

I read this morning about the separate Academy Award ceremony held over the weekend to recognize the special Oscars. A similar ceremony was held over the weekend in Montrose, New York, to recognize the special Bumps. This year, as always, the only special Bump was the Jon Cruz Award, which is given annually for no particular reason to Jon Cruz. This year’s winner, in a lack-of-surprise upset, was Jon Cruz. The award was a plastic bag filled with “I survived the Bump tournament” t-shirts circa 1995. He seemed thrilled to accept an award that was, for once, not some moldy old rat-eaten trophy that I managed to find under the golf debris in my basement, although most likely we will be returning to those next year. (He firmly believes he has gotten the last of the old Bump policy awards. How little he knows.) And why didn’t we award the JCA during the normal tournament? Well, the truth is, I forgot about it during the LD award ceremony until I was cleaning up and found the t-shirts. What can I say?

To tell you the truth, I’m lucky I didn’t forget the tournament was going on, it being that kind of weekend. You expect me to tell you about it here? Pull up a comfy chair. If you’re used to seeing the world through rose-colored glasses, you may wish to leave now and see what’s happening on Sarah Palin’s site…

I like tabbing tournaments for a number of reasons, and I just achieved clarity on one of those reasons this weekend. When somebody screws something up and I’m tabbing, I turn to the tournament director and tell him or her to get out there and fix it. I don’t have to deal with the people who are making a mess of things, all I have to do is solve the mess on the computer. This weekend every time somebody screwed something up, JV turned to me and told me to get out there and fix it. Confound it! I’d rather sit there telling him to fix it twelve times out of a dozen.

Registration for Bump begins for real when people board their mule carts and head toward Hudville on Friday morning. I ask them to text me changes so that we don’t waste time with them at the table, and most people do, except for the ones who actually call me for some reason, as if I am going to chat with them casually on the morning of a tournament. Text means text, I think, but I may be wrong there. Plus, try to understand a conversation with someone on a moving school bus. No, I can’t hear you now. Anyhow, these texts usually mean drops, but this year there were adds. Very unusual, to put it mildly. One school changed their registration three times, on the bus. The $25 fines were adding up. At the table, one school, represented by a parent, told me how the coach had set up all their changes during the week, insuring that their drops were accounted for and that they were getting housing, whereas in fact the coach had been incommunicado when specifically asked if he really really didn’t want housing and, of course, in the process of ignoring this, had indicated no drops. Other schools had no idea who their judges were, even if it was them, subbing in for someone else (“Oh, he’s not here now; I’m subbing in for him,” is the line we get about halfway through round two). The usual suspects at the table were, well, the usual. You’ll be happy to know that this year we made $405 for the Grameen Bank, beating last year’s $370. That’s the only redeeming grace of dealing with the screw-ups.

Other issues included things like the schools who don’t bother training their judges. I’ve had enough of this crap from schools who attend tournaments where there is judge training every week, and then they dump these poor untrained adults on my competitors. Never again. I will be asking for qualifications for judging in the future, and if any school—and it’s the same damned schools time after time, and this is the last time I don’t name names—tries it again, they will be forever unwelcome at the tournament. Enough is enough! Your school has been put on warning. You know who you are if you go to one of those schools. I’m tired of dealing with you. I just don’t want you. Go away.

My favorite conversation? “You should have judge training for PF. It would be very helpful for new people.” “We did have judge training for PF. I announced it during the opening.” “Well, I missed it. And it would be very useful, so you should have it.” “But we did have it!” “Well, the tournament would be better if you had training.”
Whatever. Obviously I’m happy to take untrained PF judges because we do, in fact, train them a little. Different animal from LD, obviously. However, I’m not quite sure how to handle people who missed the training. A lot of people were telling me that the person in charge of the tournament—literally, once, “the guy running both buildings”—had told them to do something. I kept wondering who this mythical person was. I was told point blank by one person that it categorically wasn’t me, and I can believe that, because whoever told this person what to do had told them something totally idiotic, and I was only telling people to do things that were half idiotic. If anyone sees this other Bump tournament director, would you please have him call me? I’d like to talk to him.

And then, of course, I sent out speaker point guidelines. I put them on the table with the ballots. “No one told me about them,” was the plaintive cry. Hey, coach, I send you this stuff; it would kill you to pass it along? You’re that busy that you can’t advise your judges for this weekend’s invitational on the rules of the game (i.e., send them the email link)? Jeesh. I wish I was that busy. I was running the bloody tournament and I managed to send it to all my judges. I guess I had less on my mind than you did, you schnook.

I seemed to spend half this tournament banging my head against the wall. Everyone wants a good tournament, but not everyone is willing to do anything to make it happen. Many do, but not the vast majority. It’s more like about 60-40 being good debate citizens and behaving themselves versus the schnooks showing up late, showing up wrong and showing up so full of themselves that their little brains are figuratively bursting with misguided self-esteem. I don’t ask much. I ask you to: read the invitation and do what it says, tell me who you’re bringing and then bring them and, while you’re at it, know who you’re bringing, and pay at the door. Do that, and I’ll love you. Don’t do that, and, well, you have a lot of explaining why I should uphold my end of the bargain when you’re not upholding yours.

So, yeah, for me this was a tough weekend. Thank God for the alum dinner! All new specials at India House, arguing whether Ozu films would be better with a car chase or two, trying to figure out what that hair-like thing is on top of Paul’s head, watching way more people than I would have expected flashing valid IDs in aid of their Taj Mahals—I could do that every week. Bump, on the other hand? Once a year is already more than enough.