Coachean Life

Wednesday, April 08, 2015

If this is Wednesday it must be Nostrum

I'm still knee-deep in getting Volume 1 really ready for distribution, although it is now up on Amazon if you've got that hot ninety-nine cents burning the proverbial hole in your pocket. Mostly it's a matter of better web presentation on my end. Meanwhile, here's the Table of Contents. I've always felt that this was entertaining reading entirely on its own. If nothing else, it's a treasure trove of obscure references. Give yourself a pat on the back for every one you can identify.

Our adventure begins in New Jersey, with the Andrew Johnson Reconstruction Memorial (and the Little Johnson)

1 The Young and the Clueless
2 All My Debaters
3 Things to do in Denver When You're Just Feeling a Little Sickly
4 "Lucy, I'm Home"
5 Don't Cry for Me, Nighten Township
6 Bless Me Father for I Have Tabbed
7 Keep the Aspidistra What?
8 Reservoir Hot Dogs
9 The Rights Stuff
10 On the Road Again
11 Policy is the Best, Honestly
12 Them's the Breaks!
13 The Envelope, Please

Hiatus -- prepping for The Messerschmitt College Mess O' Forensics!

14 Don't Give up Your Day Job
15 Personally, I Prefer Werewolves of London
16 My Dinner with Buglaroni
17 In the Room, Forensics Come and Go
18 Sylvia? Who is she?

The Miami Messerschmitt Mess O' Forensics -- the first big college tournament of the year has finally begun. All we can say at this point is that there will be at least one arrest. Everything else is up to the judges.

19 It's a Debate World After All
20 Road Trip!
21 Do You Like Miami, Dear? Kindly Tell Me If So
22 Beware the Jabberwock, My Son
23 I Say, Jeeves, Pass the Komodo Steaks, That's a Good Fellow
24 You're Either On the Bus or Off the Bus
25 Brillig and the Slithy Tove
26 Moby Dick 2, Or, The Other Whale
27 Have an Eggroll, Mr. Goldstone
28 Because the Night...
29 What's Good About It?
30 But in the Morning, No
31 Sisterhood Forever!
32 Break, Rattle and Roll
33 PDA
34 One to Hold the Bulb and Five to Twist the Ladder

The Messerschmitt is over, but the debate season is just getting into full swing. The new LD topic is about to be released, there's romance in the air, and of course, there's the aftermath of the Messerschmitt to be unraveled.

35 A Most Excellent See, Your Excellency
36 Put This in Your Tub and Smoke It!
37 Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spammetty Spammmmmm! Spammetty Spam.
38 Tell Me On a Sunday, Please
39 I Don't Think They Mean SATs for Labrador Retrievers
40 Any Place I Hang My Hat is Holy
41 At Least It's Not the Christian Coalition
42 Paradise by the Dashboard Light
43 And You Call Yourself an Immortal?
44 A Pound of Flesh, Two Pounds of Carrots, and a Nice Baguette
45 Another Reason for Sticking with Bruce Willis Movies

This weekend it's a little tournament, an NDL/CFL at Toulouse-Lautrec High School for newbie debaters and all stripes of Speechies. Not much will happen...

46 So Is Teeny Todd Really Sweeney's Little Brother?
47 In the Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis
48 Mine I'll Leave to Chance and Chemistry. Yeah, Chemistry.
49 How Now, Kurosawa?
50 By George, I Think She's Got It
51 Song and Dance

The NDL/CFL is over. All eyes now turn to preparations for the Manhattan Lodestone OriginalVaganza (All Other Vaganzas are Merely Extra)!

52 Make Him an Aff Case He Can't Refuse
53 I'm in Love with IMs, Baby, or, What's the Story, MorningGlory@aol.com
54 I'm Calm, I'm Calm, I'm Perfectly Calm
55 Hand Me De Construction Paper / Papier De Hand Me De Construction / Paper De Hand Me Of Construction
56 You Da Man, Girlfriend!
57 Things That Go Bump in the Day -- A Nostrum Pot Pourri: Celluloid Heroes; The Seth Will Rise Again; Nancy Drew and the Missing of the Case
58 What Becomes an Invoice Most?
59 A Night at the Telephone: Welcome Back Kotter; Pass the Eggs Benedict, Arnold; The Fundamental Rules Apply
60 I Wake Up Screaming; Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, KICK!
61 And Quiet Flows the Don (Provided He has a Flow Pad) / Bunburying / Which Came First? The Chick or the Yegg?
62 Hooray for Hollywood! / The War Between Debates / Totally Moly
63 It's Not the Black Spot, but it Will Probably do the Job / Someday My Prince Will Come
64 Godsapoppin / The Old Dawg's Network / Old Trick, Young Pup Division / He Walks in Nightly, Like a Beaut
65 The Magnificent Sevens

66 Dialogues: When I Take My Saccharin to Tea / He's Back and She's Mad / Salome and the Dance of the Seven Veils (of Ignorance) / The Feline Dialectic

67 The Dons' Last Do
68 The Nostrum Musical Players Proudly Present the Round Robinskis in "On the Town"
69 But Is He Worse Than Her Bite? / Did Somebody Say Conversion?

The Manhattan Lodestone OriginalVaganza (All Other Vaganzas are Merely Extra) gets underway.

70 How to Run the Perfect Tournament: A Hands-on Guide for Average Humans Wishing to Achieve Forensics Immortality
71 Musical Chairmanship: Well, Maybe This Particular Lady is a Tramp / Keglers in the Night / If I Can't Make it There, I Can't Make it Anywhere, but at least I can Audit
72 Houston, We Have a Problem

Recorded versions of series one end at this point. You've got to read the rest of them yourself. Read them out loud, if you want to maintain some sort of consistency.

73 Awakenings
74 If LA's Such a Lady, Why are You Here? / Strangers in the Morning / Witchcraft
75 September Song, Give or Take a Few Months
76 Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week / Strangest in the Night
77 Here Comes Everybody: Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome / In Debate There are no Mortal Sins / Take a Train, Take a Boat, Take a Plane, Ride a Goat
78 The Other Imperative
79 Hey, Good-Lookin', or Words to That Effect, if I Could Only Think of What to Say, and if I had the Guts to Say It
80 Is This How Roy Met Siegfried? / Dazed and Confused
81 Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em / The Rough Guide to Forensics
82 Winning Isn't Everything / We Do Robert a Disservice
83 As the Sun Sets Over Beautiful Manhattan Lodestone...

As the Manhattan Lodestone OriginalVaganza fades into history, and the Round Robinskis conga back to Chickamauga, life goes on -- sort of -- at Nighten Day, Bisonette, and the rest of the northeast. The next event is a wee sma CFL Speech tournament, the Blessed Moly.

84 It Worked for the Lunts, Too / Birds Gotta Swim, Fish Gotta Fly
85 The End of Rico / Now Hear This!
86 Say It Isn't So, Jutmoll / Did He Who Made the Lamb Make Thee?
87 Not That Infernal Nonsense Pinafore! / Telephone, Telegraph, and Tell a Forensician
88 Where Are Those French Translations When You Really Need Them? / Computists of the world, unite!
89 The Truth Will Set You Back a Few Bucks / Eat Up. Shut.
90 The Best Part is the Seal of Approval on the Toilet / And Jupiter Aligns with Mars / Thirty Seconds Remaining
91 She Looks Askance With Arms Akimbo / The Designated Driver / Putting People First
92 Why Can't They Be Like We Were, Perfect in Every Way? / Chin Up, Shoulders Back -- You Call Yourself a Soldier? / What was that about Fast Cars?
93 The HPB Guide to Dating
94 Any Port in a Storm / Any Storm in a Port
95 I Came Here for the Waters / Down Dooby Do Down Down, Comma Comma / The Mint Jelly Would Have Been Messier / When the Swallows Return to Capistrano.com
96 Oh How I Love to Get Up in the Morning / The History of Religion, Part One, the Early Years; or, I Remember Moses / And Michael Ovitz Judges on Weekends, Not that he Needs the Extra Money, he's Simply Keeping his Hand in
97 The Road to Blessed Moly / The Road to Buglaroni / The Road to the COC
98 Seth Went the Strings of My Heart
99 It Could Have Been Alfalfa / Willow, Tit Willow, Tit Willow / Show Me the Way to the Next Little Boy / Is There a Femaledizione?
100 A Time for Reflection

NOTE: The following episodes were not updated for the 21st Century. The stories are there, but some of the links won't work. Stop whining and just read them, you yabbo!
101 A Star is Buglaroni
102 As Bill Said to Paula, You Make Monadnock / There Are No Small Roles, Only Small Buglaronis / What Does Moby Dick have to do with Coffee, Anyhow?
103 Home Alone / How Did They Get That Thing in There? / The Typical F.O.B. / A Horse Is A Horse, Unless of Course...
104 Work This
105 The Ugly Canadian
106 Gloria in Excelsis Gloriae
107 Welcome to Quilty!
108 And the Monadnock is Worth a Rosary? / Trouble in speech and debate land? We are shocked, shocked to hear it.
109 Wimple Weep For Me / Ratting on the Putz / I Have Often Stalked on this Street Before
110 No, No, Nymphet / Maybe She Knows Clarence Thomas?
111 So Much for Price Waterhouse
112 He's Just My Invoice / She'd Said Chad's in the Shed Eating Shad
113 Norman Bates, the Early Years / If Teeth Were Inches, Orthodontists Would Diet
114 It's Just a Jump to the Left / Cache or Charge?
115 From Pool to Pool / Well, Ah Declaim!
116 Ora Pro Speechibus / Expletive Deleted / These Precious Days / Harvard, on the Other Hand, Costs as Much as the Prom / Where Do You Want to Go Today?
117 By Their Films, Ye Shall Know Them

And finally, the Blessed Moly, a small Speech tournament, presumably for small Speechies.

118 You Must Remember This
119 Glory Days / Toujours Polyester / Scratch This / Humbert a Few Bars and I'll Fake It
120 Dr. Benway to EPR, Stat! / Where Do They Sell the Sprouts? / The Joy of Speech Judging
121 Kumar Tells All

Next up, we get our brains in gear for Massachusetts' legendary Algren-on-the-Beach tournament.

122 Nietzsche Was Right About Eternal Recurrence / Meow, Antimeow, Synmeow
123 Never Burn Your Bridges
124 Ten to One They're Eating PBJ Sandwiches at Veil of Ignorance / It Could Have Been Semi's Colons
125 Yale, Schmale
126 Advertising 101
127 The Nostrum Guide to Opera
128 A Cigar is Good, But a Woman is a Woman
129 The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Bus Token
130 Road Warriors / We Always Thought the Jarndyces only Fought Each Other
131 Ralph Kramden, Ralph Kramden, wherefore art thou Ralph Kramden?
132 Is That You, Ayesha? / Da Bus! Da Bus! / You Can Never Find a Guatemalan when You Need One
133 I See You Quiver With Antici-- / --pation
134 Would You Prefer a Novena? / Thank God for Pets Dot Com
135 No Exit, Part 2: He's Sartre and He's Mad
136 To the Lord, Praises Be / It’s Time for Dinner so Let’s All Eat / In Vedantic Tab, it’s a Dormouse
137 Any Place I Hang My Hat is Housing
138 Consider Yourself Part of the Family
139 Have Those Tickets for the Rolling Stones Alzheimer Tour Arrived Yet, Pumpkin? / And You Call Yourself a Chuzzlewit? / Whatever Happened to Cousin Ampersand and Uncle Underscore? / EconoHovel. Always the Same. People Come. People Go. Nothing Ever Happens.
140 The Lamb Comes Home to Roost / If there were any Justice, we'd Give Tickets to Handicapped People who Park in Non-handicapped Spaces
141 Passages / One First Mate is as Good as Another
142 Here Come Da Parent Judge, Here Come Da Parent Judge / This Guy Says the Horse Can Do
143 Compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary / Talkin' About My G-G-G-Generation
144 When I Say I'm in Love You'd Best Believe I'm in Love, L-U-V / Fugue for Debatehorns / My Anomie's Anomie is My Friend
145 What is this thing called love? / What? Is this thing called love? / What is this thing called, love?
146 Do You Come Here Often, What's Your Sign, and I Once Met Beck's Mother-In-Law / Is that Er, as in Uh, or ER as in Emergency Room? / If You Were Mexican, You'd Eat Mexican Food Three Times a Day
147 Fast Forward to 2017 / The Nicest Scient Insect
148 What Whine Goes with Ferrets? / Of the Tumbled, Speak No Evil / Swains a' Poppin'
149 Bow, Applause, Bow, Applause, Reprise, Applause, Bow, We’re Outta Here
150 This is the Way The Team Ends

With Algren-on-the-Beach -- and the Nighten Day team -- a thing of the past, we look forward to the Venerable Bede tournament in a forgotten corner of either New York or Pennsylvania, or perhaps New Jersey.

151 The Agenbite of Inuit
152 Guilt-Edged Bonds
153 Ask Not for Whom the Phone Rings
154 Saint Misbehavin'
155 Where Do You Want to Go Today? / Sure Thing One and Sure Thing Two / George? Meet Al. / The Self-made Man has a Schlimazel for a Creator
156 Well, My Favorite Amendment is the Nineteenth / Mr. Edo
157 The Rut Called Life / Camelia, Meet the Lama
158 And the Quenelle Happy Meal for Little Timmy /
159 To Whom it May Concern
160 Econ 101, Give or Take a Couple / Now that's an Odd Snuggle
161 How Things Work / M:I-LD / Another One Rides the Bus, Part 1
162 M:I-LD2 / Another One Rides the Bus, Part 2 / Fermat Never Had to Calculate Tournament Attendance
163 Another One Rides the Bus, Part 3 / M:I-LD3 / Tradition (or, Welcome to Anatevka)
164 Another One Rides the Bus, Part 4 / Morality on Paradise Island
165 Another One Rides the Bus, Part 5
166 Take a Letter / In the Morning, She'll Test the Porridge / Hot Patootie, Bless My Soul
167 M:I-LD4 / Lounge Lizards
168 Doing the Extemp Two-Step / One Hundred Forty and Counting
169 But It Does Move / If You Sell It, They Will Buy / God, I'm a Dancer
170 Here's Looking at You, Kid /Of All the Gin Joints in All the Towns in All the World / Camelia Maru and the Hill of Beans
171 Where is Peter Parker When You Need Him? / You Say Either
172 How Do You Hold a Wave Upon the Sand? / Or as Another Song Says, It's that Old Devil Moon / Is That Your Final Answer?
173 I'll Have the Knuckle Sandwich Happy Meal / And So We Bid A Fond Farewell...

With the Venerable Bede over, our next stop is the national circuit biggie -- Gladecreek.

174 My Breakfast With Abelard / The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Grump
175 I Dream Of Tenure With the Light Brown Hair / Joe-Ja on My Mind

And that's all they wrote of Series 1.

Tuesday, April 07, 2015

In which we discuss Big Bronx

I spent some time talking to Kirby C yesterday, and I’ve talked a bit to Diane S over the last few weeks, all about the Bronx. I've also talked to their administration. These conversations will continue, I’m sure. The underlying purpose of these discussions is getting the school over a rough patch, and keeping them in the game in every way, shape and form. They are our largest local contingent in terms of competitors in every aspect of forensics. And they run one of the biggest tournaments in the country, going back to a time long before any of today’s students were even born. Their administration is dedicated to keeping things going, which is as it should be.

My first Big Bronx tournament was probably 1995. For a bunch of years I was in the LD judging pool, sitting around that auditorium on those hard wooden seats, hoping that nobody would notice me when they were pushing yet another ballot. And if a ballot actually had your name on it, Levinson would find you no matter how low you sank in that seat. This was my first introduction to circuit debate, and I didn’t have to drive very far to see it. Sodikow, of course, ran things in true monarchial style. His legendary speeches and announcements always seemed to come from the heart (or, if they were, shall we say, bilious, from the liver); when he told people to close that door, he wasn’t doing it to be cute, he was doing it to get the damned door closed (although he was well conscious of the cuteness of the thing). When he would call for attention, and not get it from a small contingent near the back of the room, he would call on someone to find out what language they were speaking so that he could yell at them on their own terms. He always broke me up. He also announced, formidably (hell, he announced everything formidably), that he ran his tournament (his tournament) for itself, and not as an entrance to someone else’s tournament. My favorite thing of all was arriving Sunday morning for the first break round of that day. Soddie would be sitting at a small desk with all the ballots piled up in front of him to personally hand them to the judges and, more importantly, to personally note which judges didn’t show up. Did any judges dare not show up, knowing that they would inevitably have to face the wrath of Sodikow? That’s pretty hard to imagine.

Kirby and Robert carried on the tournament traditions after Soddie retired. I was still sitting on those wooden seats back then. The tournament lost a little of its national luster after Soddie was gone, probably because it was so intertwined with his personality. I mean, I was going to lots of circuit tournaments at this point, and most of them were interchangeable, and the only time any personality leaked out of them was when the tournament director showed up to announce the trophy winners. Otherwise you couldn’t tell Chicago from Boston from anywhere else, unlike the Bronx, where Soddie was it. And I think this was a bum rap on his successors, because after he was gone, the tournament was the same as when he was there, except without him. I think there were politics at play here that I still don’t understand, as Bronx started losing its TOC bids. I mean, this was when I was on the advisory committee. I was there for the discussions, and I just didn’t get it. Whatever happened wasn’t happening up front. Or maybe it was just happening under no one’s control, for no particular reason other than that change is inevitable. In any case, it had nothing to do with Kirby and Robert that I could see. And when Kirby and Robert left, the Bronx tournament lost its last connection to circuitry. It should not have happened.

This was when I moved into the tab room. I didn’t want to see this tournament disappear, whether it was an octos bid or a local jamboree—I didn’t care—and I worked with Joe G for a few years trying to hold things together. It wasn’t easy. I don’t think Joe’s heart was ever really into the idea of being a tournament director or a forensics director, which may be an indication of some inherent wisdom on his part. The first year he had, literally, over a hundred runners. I made him send the lion’s share of them home. It’s hard enough to run a tournament without also having to manage a running of the (novice) bulls. There were runners everywhere, with hardly any of them having a clue of what they should do. Hell, I didn’t have a clue to what they should do. Leaving seemed the best bet.

These were the Wilderness Years, and we somehow held things together. I don’t think we had any bids anymore, but then again, Soddie never ran his tournament as an entry to someone else’s tournament. We did what we could. When Cruz came on board, he rebuilt the tournament step by step, and did a good job of it. Before his Bronx career ended, he had brought Big Bronx back to being the tournament it was under its creator. This was no mean feat, as they say, and it can’t be taken away from him.

Now we are engaged in seeing what will happen to Big Bronx next. All the mechanisms are in place to have another great tournament. Most of the experienced hands are already committed to come back and keep things going, from tab to alums, including Kirby and the school administration. I’ve reached out to some coaches here and there and gotten their support. My chief worry is that once again some unseen force of politics will conspire to punish the tournament, and the school, not because of anything Cruz did—that wouldn’t make any sense—but for their own private purposes. The TOC committee meets in a couple of weeks. They can strip away bids and move them closer to home, or they can wait and see whether the Bronx can maintain a national caliber tournament in New York City. It is, after all, called the New York City Invitational. Otherwise, we might have to go through this whole thing again, where eventually a new director is hired, and they have to rebuild from scratch. Whoever that person is, that person will no doubt be successful, because the raw material of Bronx Science, the alums and the students and the administration, is so strong. But don’t those alums and students and administration deserve better, a continuation rather a punishment?

Monday, April 06, 2015

In which we recover from all that hard work

A television as big as the Ritz arrived on Saturday while I was outside busting rocks on the chain gang. I’ve put off getting an HD TV for an extremely long time, but when Roku told me that I was on the losing end of new content, I finally gave up. The TV is still in its box, waiting for the new stand on which it will sit. When that arrives, I’ll wheel the old TV into the basement (it’s free for the asking, if you’ve got the strength and 11 friends to get it into your car) and set things up with the new one. At some point I’ll also move the even older TV that also takes strength and 11 friends into the back of my car, somehow, to toddle off to the TV dumping ground. That one only works sporadically, unlike the present one that works perfectly well. That’s been why I’ve kept it for so long. It’s hard to move away from something that works fine.

But that’s the nature of technology these days, isn’t it? Everything works fine, but something comes along that finally demonstrates that it’s time to upgrade because you’ve fallen so far behind you think that MySpace is the greatest thing since sliced bread and everyone else just shakes their head whenever you walk by. That’s why it took me forever to get a smartphone, then forever to upgrade same. That’s why I don’t upgrade my old MacBook, because the new Macs, although they’re sexier than sex itself, don’t do anything noticeably better. In fact, lacking the odd slot, port or drive, they’re slightly less good, unless you’re firmly entrenched in the cloud. And I’m not there yet. I’ve gone over with music, though, and now swear by Spotify (if for no other reason that I am assured that I will never have to listen to Taylor Swift on it, a blessing if there ever was one). I still love my megapod and all the music on there for driving in the car, but the rest of the time, unless I want to listen to the Beatles, I’m good, if I have wifi. And, let’s face it, when don’t I have wifi?

I hope to get the new TV up and running before heading to LV and NDCA, but that may be wishful thinking. The stand that hasn’t arrived yet needs assembling, for one thing, and I’m the world’s worst assembler, I sadly admit. Last time I assembled something, though, I discovered the socket wrench in my toolkit, right after I discovered my toolkit, and things when swimmingly. And I did assemble a desk lamp this weekend, and that was pretty exciting. At the bottom, I guess I’m a software kind of guy. Or a writing kind of guy. Or any other guy than the handy type.

Although, as I began, I did spend some time doing hard labor over the weekend, busting rocks. Or more precisely, shoveling rocks that the plowmen (or ploughmen, which is how we English majors usually put it) managed to pile up while they were theoretically moving the snow off the driveway, whereas in fact, they were actually moving gravel. Sigh. Manual labor is just not my cup of tea. I would have much preferred playing the IOS version of BioShock on my iPad, which I did do for a little while until my head started spinning. But rocks don't move themselves, unfortunately. And the rocks must move.

Is this life after coaching?

Thursday, April 02, 2015

If this is Thursday, it must be Wednesday

Obviously, we had to step aside yesterday for the letter from Brigadoon. So we publish our (newly) traditional Nostrum piece a day late (and if you've already bought it for your Kindle, a dollar or so short).

For the life of me, I have no idea why this image of Mickey and Minnie was repeated at the start of a whole series of the Epistles of St. Jules to the Forensicians. (Feel free to wave back at them if no one is looking.) No mention is made of it that I have been able to find. Maybe I was just trying to find out how far the Disney folks would go to prevent copyright infringement. I mean, maybe if they were to allow Nostrum to violate their IP rights, the floodgates would inevitably open to the world at large, and the next thing you'd know (if this had happened 15 years later), there would be Mickey ears on your Griffyndor sweatshirt.

Maybe not.

Anyhow, the epistles are now completely edited. They start in the middle of nowhere and end in the middle of nowhere, but it's better than nothing. There are a few choice nuggets that I'll eventually pass along, but the biggest surprise was uncovering Good Guys / Bad Guys. I'm moving on to that next. Meanwhile, of course, if you have 99 cents burning a hole in your e-pocket, you could buy Volume 1, the complete original series, and immerse yourself in a debate world way less turbulent than the real one. It will be way more fun than the upcoming TOC, and you can take that to the bank.

It took forever to edit TOS, but after all, the thing is longer than the Canadian Pacific. I'm predicting that V2 will go much more quickly, unless I keep uncovering more forgotten side tracks like GG/BG. It's taking me as much time to find and format things as it is to edit them. Then again, I'm not attempting to annotate everything. Half the allusions go over my head, and I'm the one who came up with them. Anyone who read McPhee's recent New Yorker article on this subject knows that it's a doomed and rocky road at best. The good news is that, although all of this stuff once filled my head, said head is now almost completely empty of any of it. And a lot of other things, too. But you already knew that, you spalpeen!

And here's the last installment of the listing of that original cast:

Tarleton, Frick and Frank
The Tarleton Twins, Nighten Day LD Novices, often engage in conversations that only they consider any sort of communication.

Torte, Lisa
The not-unattractive, 22-year-old, five-foot tall Ms. Torte begins her Nostrum forensics career as an assistant to Mr. Lo Pat at Manhattan Lodestone. A former LD champ, she is a true believer in postmodernism, whatever that is, and possesses a coffee mug emblazoned with the slogan, "Narrative Isn't."

Toulouse Lautrec High School
A major forensics school with a stuffed monkey as a mascot. They're the closest neighbors to Nighten Day
Coach: Dan Ryan
Debaters:
Policy: Fab Beeter and Kush Behar
LD: Had Fleece

Veil of Ignorance Catholic High School
Policy Rules at this school.
Coach: Seth B. Obomash (original)
Debaters: Tara Petskin & Bill O'Connor
Principal: The Reverend Monsignor Harold Lloyd

The Vitellis
Don Angelo is the father of Don Domenick. Don Proscenio is the son of Angelo and half-brother to Domenick. The newspapers refer to him as Proscenio (the "Whale") Vitelli. The Whale lives a rather piscatory existence, while remaining a mammal, at least in name.

Walsh, Raoul
A dry old man with an eye patch, the principal of Nighten Day.

Warner, Trat
A Nighten Day senior, boyfriend of Ellie DiBella.

Wednesday, April 01, 2015

In which we discover a new tournament

The following appeared in my email this morning. And I thought I was finished as a debate coach...

Dear Debate Coach:

On behalf of the Brigadoon Debate Association, its heirs and assignees (if any), we invite some of you and your teams to the inaugural running of the Brigadoon College High School Inaugural Annual Invitational Speech and Debate Tournament sometime this coming season, as soon as we find a weekend where someone has quit in a huff, leaving an opening for an up-and-coming college like ours to move in, settle down, and start raking in the shekels. The tournament will consist of competition in Varsity Policy, Lincoln Douglas, Public Forum, a couple of random Speech events, and if we can find a couple of rooms where it’s far enough away that we don’t have to think about it, Congress. There is a slight possibility that we will also offer Third Grade Parliamentary Debate, if the local grammar schools can get their act together in time, but I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.

Although we are a new tournament, we have managed to ask some of the best tab staff in the country to help us run things. We’re still holding out some hope that at least one of them will respond affirmatively. We are offering them unlimited bagels and proximity to the rest rooms, which usually does the trick. Also, if they don’t tab, they’ll have to judge, and we all know how they feel about that.

Depending on our month of operation, we will be using all the applicable NFL (or NSA or NSDA or whatever the hell they call themselves this week) resolutions. As there is a good chance that we will be running in the dead of winter, and that a blizzard could erupt at a moment’s notice, we will be using the Harvard system, going directly from registration to semifinals in all divisions.

While we at Brigadoon encourage vigorous intellectual dialogue, we are also a nationally designated “nice” college, where professors are banned from discussing anything even remotely disturbing or controversial. This may be why we only offer courses in lawn care and advanced pedicure, but that is beside the point. As a “nice” college, we feel that we need to have “nice” debates. Therefore we will be disallowing any discussion in or out of rounds of race, gender, religion, nationality, science, morality, geography, geology, animal rights, the dialectic in any way, shape or form, Celine Dion, carminatives, mousetraps, the moon, memory or muchness or any other manner of thing beginning with M, etc. Additionally, all evidence, real or imaginary, legitimate or falsified, clipped or hirsute, will be subject to preapproval by our Evidence Preapproval Board, under the supervision of Professor Emeritus Milo Plotz, late of our chair-making department. (Or is it the late Professor Plotz, chair of our emeritus-making department? It’s hard to tell sometimes.)

We are requiring that all students bring a truckload of judges, as we wouldn’t know a good judge if we happened to run one down with a Conestoga wagon. Judges must meet the following strict requirements:

· English as at least a second language

· Mouth-breathing

· A first name other than Mr., Ms., Mrs., Sra., Srta, Mme, Herr, Frau, etc.

· An active account on tabroom.com and the ability to program in Perl in case things go kablooey with the system.

· Blood alcohol content under .04

· No visible prison tattoos

· A sweet and pleasing mien, and a lack of interest in bothering the tab room about, well, anything

We will be using Mutually Preferred Judging, or Mutual Judge Preferences, or Preferred Mutual Judges, or something like that, as in, some combination of the letters M, J and P, take your pick. Teams can rank the judges from 1 to 17 (1 being a debate god whose feet you wish to kiss until you die, and 17 being a parent). The tab room will assign judges in such a way as to keep the usual suspects who are always complaining that they got another 3 out of the tab room. Break rounds will be set so that no one gets a combined score of higher than 29, within a range of pi and/or phi calculated to the length of the blackboard.

In rounds, the decision of the judges is final. Those who wish to challenge the decisions of the judges will be sent to their rooms without any supper.

Speaking of supper, Brigadoon is proud to announce that we have acquired a brand new oil tanker from a nearby used oil tanker supplier (well, at least they told us it was brand new). We will be filling the tanker with a full load of debate ziti and parking the truck right in front of the General Assembly building (the Warren G. Harding Teapot Athletic Dome, just south of the Aaron Burr Presidential Library). We will be keeping multiple troughs filled with debate ziti throughout the weekend, 24/7 !!! (Do bring a spoon. And a napkin. Oh, and maybe a plate, if you’re into the whole dainty eating thing.)

Brigadoon does not offer any TOC bids. We tried consulting the TOC about getting bids for our inaugural event, but it turns out that last year’s tournament is still going on, so they couldn’t be reached for comment.

Our tournament is open to all students anywhere, any grade, as follows. Students must attend a real high school with a gym and lockers and cafeteria mystery meat, and be eligible to get a real high school diploma from said school. Said school must have some vague idea that the student is at our tournament and not on a trout-fishing expedition with a Girl Guides troop. Debate camps, drama camps, weight-loss camps, military bivouacs, Campe the she-dragon, baseball spring training camps, etc., are &#*@% out of luck. However, they can register under bogus school names, as none of us here have the time to check them out anyhow, although calling your bogus school something like Academy of the Wholly Unwarranted Assumption might raise a few eyebrows.

Our tournament hotel is The Enchanted Hunters, which is just down the road a piece. They are offering suites for $29; approximately 30 students can fit comfortably into each suite, although it might be hard to find a place to put their luggage. Complimentary breakfast is served from 6:00-6:15 every morning, after which there is a per head charge of $24.95 whether you come to the breakfast room or not. If The Enchanted Hunters is sold out (they’ve promised to set aside 11 rooms for the tournament), further down the road another couple of pieces is the Hunted Enchanters motel. Ask for Diana.

For our inaugural year we will be offering pay-what-you-think-it’s-worth registration fees. Our only upfront expense is that truckload of debate ziti, so once we cover the nut, it’s all gravy, so to speak. I mean, we’re not serving gravy with the debate ziti, if that’s what you’re thinking. We were speaking metaphorically. Jeesh! Anyhow, if there’s enough money at the end of registration, we’ll run out and get a reasonable number of trophies, or medals, or pins, or maybe we’ll just buy a box of nice paper and print up something. Whatever. In any case, win or lose, we promise you’ll never forget the first annual Brigadoon Invitational, no matter how hard you try.

Sincerely,

Rott Weiler, President, Brigadoon Debate Association

Sunshine Lipschitz, Vice President, Brigadoon Debate Association

Tugg Boats, Treasurer, Brigadoon Debate Association, in absentia (presently serving 2-5 years at Minnesota State Penitentiary for aggravated assault)

Yo-Yo Ma, Nothing to Do with the Brigadoon Debate Association, but he seems to be ubiquitous these days, so we figured we’d better toss him in for the hell of it