The Everlasting Yeoman

The times names and details are approximate or fabricated in order to protect those involved and due to pieces missing from my memory.

9:00pm- I have a feeling this is going to be a good night.

9:30pm-The night opens with a rousing game of “you got served”.

9:31pm-Contestant #1 vomits as a result of “getting served”.

9:32pm-Contestant #2 vomits as a result of Contestant #1 vomiting. I am now sure this is going to be a good night.

10:00pm-Depart for Wieland.

10:05pm-Arrive at Wieland.

10:06pm-Wonder why it took 5 minutes to walk from Coolidge to Wieland.

10:06pm-11:00pm-Dance on table.

11:00pm-11:15pm-Dance on cabinet.

11:15pm-11:20pm-Dance on stranger on cabinet. The night is going extremely well.

11:20pm-11:35pm-Give highfives from cabinet.

11:35pm-Get lazy. Begin Giving highfives with my feet and delivering them to heads.

11:40pm-See girl that cute girl.

11:41pm-Hide from that cute girl.

12:00am-Go up for high five. Failed attempt results in my spectacles being launched upon dance floor.

12:01am-I decide am pretty sure my spectacles will be safe until morning.

12:02am-30 people’s feet disagree. They crush my spectacles. I am unaware of this.

12:15am-I realize i should maybe look for my spectacles.

12:20am-See person who i only kinda know.

12:21am-Act like they are a person I know very well.

12:25am-1:00am-Find my left lens, find my frames. Find a cell phone.

1:00am-1:20am-Call the numbers in the cellphone. None of them know where my glasses are. All of them want to know where “Julia” is and why “I” have “her” phone.

1:20am-2:00am-Sit in the doorway to Wieland with my left eyeglasses lens pretending to be the planters peanut man.

2:00am-2:15am-Hear a hilarious story about a 21st birthday involving waking up outside wearing no pants.

2:16am-I decide that on my 21st birthday I want to wake up outside wearing 100’s of pants.

3:30am-Cops show up at Wieland. I ask if it is illegal to sell the worlds most delicious peanuts.

4:00am-Party ends. Numerous helpful souls help me to look for the final piece of the puzzle. Our efforts are unsuccessful. I however find a broken beer bottle and hope it is what I’m looking for.

4:01am-Slightly bloody eye ensues.

4:05am-Blind and heartbroken i return to my room to play Civilization 4.

4:07am-Ghandi declares war on Julius Ceasar.

P.S. thanks everyone who helped me out. For some reason my memory is missing some chunks of the night. If anyone saw me or saw the journey of my specs. Fill in the missing parts(or amend what is already there) in the comments.

Its been a long summer but finally the return to Amherst is just around the corner. I haven’t wasted a single minute of the summer and it would be socially irresponsible if i did not publish my works. I managed to acquire a research fellowship with Princeton University studying the effects of changing a single letter on the content of a sentence. (False, i did however work at Princeton University and spent much of the time sitting on a folding chair at a given table in front of said building over yonder so in the spirit of the higher learning institution at which i was employed i chose to do valuable research on my own time.)

INTRODUCTION

For billions of centuries people have been speaking english. The language is used almost every day, in various capacities, and is particularly valuable to the populations of the island known as America. Initial research suggested that the use of the language had almost no negative side effects(Yeats, W.B. 1923;Shakespeare, Billy 1617) and in fact had a strong correlation to a high standard of living (Wu, Tang et al., 1991). More recent longitudinal studies however have shown that certain words (fuckblaster, sackbagger cockmachine,Robert Wood Johnson?) “will not be tolerated in this house under this roof under these rules” (Cherry, Zachary 1987). The present study seeks to examine closely the syntactic and contextual effect of adding subtracting or swapping a single letter from a sentence.

PARTICIPANTS

1 incredibly bored(and sexy[as reported by onlookers]) employee of Princeton University.

PROCEDURE

Participant was given multiple sets of sample conversations and asked to alter the meaning of the sentences in whatever way he saw fit by adding subtracting or swapping 1 letter per sentence.The participant was asked to then giggle quietly to himself and quantify the magnitude of the change on a scale of 1-10. Attached are the sample conversations followed by the subjects changes.

RESULTS

SAMPLE 1

Reporter: President Clinton how do you respond to these allegations?

President: I have not had sex with any interns.

SUBJECTS VERSION

Reporter: President BLINTON how do you respond to these allegations?

President: I have not had sex with any interns.

(It should be noted that at this point the subject was given further instructions and asked to make more fundamental changes, his second attempt follows)

Subject Redo

Reporter: President Clinton how do you respond to these allegations?

President: I have not had sex with MANY interns.

SAMPLE 2

Son: Hey mom what can i help you with?

Mother: Could you please turn this lamp on?

SUBJECTS VERSION

Son: Hey mom what can i help you with?

Mother: Could you please turn this tampon?

(When asked to elaborate on the meaning of the second sentence the subject simply replied “We’ve all been there haven’t we” and shook his head)

SAMPLE 3

Guy:I don’t understand why i should do this. This makes me uncomfortable.

A Utilitarian:Ah, but it is for the public good!

Subjects version

Guy: I don’t understand why i should do this. This makes me uncomfortable.

A Utilitarian: Ah, but it is for the pubic good!

FINAL SAMPLE

Father: If i EVER catch you hunting a bear I’ll be furious.

Son: Fine dad.

SUBJECTS VERSION

Father: You are a terrible son.

(at this point the subject began to weep heavily and was asked to leave immediately.)

CONCLUSION

Nobody knows.

REFERENCES

http://amhpub.amherst.edu/zcherry10/

http://yalelawjournal.org/

http://pollypocket.everythinggirl.com/garden/garden.aspx

http://www.science.com

I may be an Ljst Major but i still love science projects. Here are some irrefutable scientific observations i performed recently.

I recently declared as an LJST major! Many of you don’t know this, or won’t agree with me, but i think LJST majors should be commended simply for their commitment to explain exactly what they are majoring in to everyone they encounter outside of the Amherst community.

“So you are going to be a lawyer?”

“Well not necessarily. (From the Ljst Website) LJST is not a pre-law program designed to serve the needs of those contemplating careers in law. LJST majors will be qualified for a wide variety of careers. Some might do graduate work in legal studies, others might pursue graduate studies in political science, history, philosophy, sociology, or comparative literature. For those not inclined toward careers in teaching and scholarship, LJST would prepare students for work in the private or public sector or for careers in social service.”

“Uh, I don’t understand. What do you study?”

“Well, (from the Ljst Website https://cms.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/ljst) The Department of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought (LJST) places the study of law within the context of a liberal arts education. The Department offers courses that treat law as an historically evolving and culturally specific enterprise in which moral argument, distinctive interpretive practices, and force are brought to bear on the organization of social life. These courses use legal materials to explore conventions of reading, argument and proof, problems of justice and injustice, tensions between authority and community, and contests over social meanings and practices.”

“Oh, so you are gonna be a lawyer?”

“Sure.”

While some find these conversations frustrating, I have had a good deal of training with them. Setting: Kindergarten playground. Javini doesn’t believe that I am black and white.

“So are you black or white?”

“Uh, not either exactly, (from the bi-racial identity website http://amhpub.amherst.edu/zcherry10/) My racial identity is not designed to serve the needs of those contemplating using binary racial categories in order to arrive at stereotypical generalizations”

“Uh I don’t understand, what are you?”

“I like to think of myself as an individual. (from the biracial identity website) Someone who offers opinions that treat race as an historically evolving and culturally specific enterprise in which moral argument, distinctive interpretive practices, and force are brought to bear on the organization of social life.”

“Oh so you are mexican?”

“Sure”

I was writing a little bit about my family earlier and I noticed that every time I input my fathers name “merkle” into the Firefox window a little red line would pop up suggesting that I had spelled something wrong. Naively assuming that Firefox had added Merkle to it’s dictionary I moused over and right clicked for some suggestions. The results were disheartening. Berkley, Berkley’s, sparkler, Berkly’s, sparkle. My first thought was obviously that this Berkley character must have some sort of advertising deal with Firefox, but you can’t really blame him, he probably owns a nice family tavern somewhere and is just trying to get his name out. What really insulted me was that firefox had the audacity to imply that in my attempt to tap out “sparkler” I had somehow ended up with merkle. I don’t know how many of you have keyboards in front of you, but a quick referencing of a standard qwerty shows that it would take an extraordinarily inept typist to confuse the two. I admit that I am no Mavis Beacon but I’m certainly not a Jarvis Brakon either.

This isn’t the only run in I have had with the bully that is technology. My phone of choice. Verizon Wireless SLVR(pronounced Sliver). This little phone, along with many others like it has a feature built in called “itap” variations of it may also be known as t9word. Verizon would have you believe that it is time saving feature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITap Actually it is an asshole.

Basically what this thing is supposed to do is minimize keystrokes for you the texter. After typing a few characters it “predicts” what you are trying to say, and lets you scroll through a list of possible options.

My first although minor beef with itap is that it fails at even simple words. The simplest. I. You or (I) would assume that advanced predictive technology would be able to guess that a single push of the 4 key should result most frequently in the pronoun I. itap has different plans. Here is a sample text if I were to let itap take control.

“Yo G need to get out of here. G just wanted to say whats up. G don’t need your attitude.”

Let’s ignore itaps direct attempts to undermine you by making you sound like a very aggressive and insecure third person known simply by his rap name, G, and consider another feature.

Most people don’t realize this, but itap remembers. It remembers words. Unfortunately for you it won’t remember helpful words like Merkle. This thing specifically chooses your most pathetic textual moments and reminds you of them when you are at your most vulnerable state, like the time you texted a former crush using her nickname, sweetybarn. My personal version of itap(who i refer to as Ken the douchebag) really enjoys sweetybarn. This guy Ken(a douchebag) would have me believe that in his honest opinion, every time I begin to type the words sweet, sweep, or sweden, that HIS BEST GUESS is SWEETYBARN? I mean maybe that is an honest mistake. He is a robot after all. How would he know that sweetybarn is not only not a common word, but also not a word. I got a little suspicious though when another word began cropping up quite frequently. Which I am pretty sure itap(Ken[the douchebag]) PLANTED. I have a good friend named Kevin. The guy has a lot of nicknames, Kev, Kevdawg, Kevan, K-vine, kerovingian, and according to my phone “jetcockticklemaster.” Yes this is not a joke. My phone actually suggests the word “jetcockticklemaster” to me frequently. Sweetybarn. A mistake. Jetcockticklemaster. Malicious.

I mean i wouldn’t complain except that this took place. A conversation that should have gone:

Friend: Yo. I got an extra ticket to the game on saturday. You want in?

Me: Sweet. I let you come last time, so you let me come this time.

Friend: Deal. Pick you up at 8.

Into a conversation that went.

Friend: Yo. I got an extra ticket to the game on saturday. You want in?

Me: Sweetybarn. G jetcockticklemaster you come last time, so you jetcockticklemaster me come this time.

Friend: Fuck you.

Some helpful facts about me.

-My immediate family can easily be separated into two categories. People with normal names/people with silly names.

The breakdown looks something like this.

Normal names: Zach Cherry(Me!Who is awesome.) Colin Cherry(My brother!Who loves burger King.) Juanita(My mom! Who is caring.) Spunky(My dog. Who is dead.)

Silly Names: Merkle(My dad! Who is Merkle?)

One could make the argument that in my mother’s case the name Juanita is silly. The name Juanita isn’t itself silly. What is silly is picturing old Mary and Curtis Cook out on the family farm in Illinois flipping through the days(1950’s) popular baby names and settling on Juanita.

Merkle however is pretty much an open and shut case. What makes this name especially silly is that my dad’s name is Merkle Cherry junior. Yes this means that two, TWO, people in my family were dead set on Merkle as the name of their kin. A lot of people think I am being tough on my dad when I say things like this, but to a guy who grew up with the name Merkle this is baby stuff.

-I went to the same school from first grade until I graduated highschool.

-A cucumber is MUCH wetter than a catalog.

-A pretty accurate description of the way in which i live my life:

When I got in to Amherst, a lot of people from back home assumed that I had a very specific skill set that got me here. Some common guesses were:

1. Sports(really?)
2. Maths
3. Learning Abilities

An uncommon but very real guess was:

1. Handjobs(Funny Dad)

None of these are in fact correct. I only have one ability. Depending upon how loosely you define the word ability i have two, but most people argue that taking slow craps is not an ability. If you want to take that cynical approach my only ability is luck, yes luck. Luck is a skill, or rather being smart enough to trust luck is a skill. For those of you who have ever seen a little show called Yugi Oh(i admit with pride to be a former yugi watcher), the main character always says “trust in the heart of the cards.” And he always is always right. Sometimes he will even play a card he has never seen before, he certainly doesn’t always know what the cards will do, but every week Yugi trusts the heart of the cards(luck) and his deck provides him with a little gem like “If you are named Yugi and you play this card you Win!”. Yugi never loses. I never lose.

Someone from the student recently sent me an e-mail asking for a few words on my beloved friend Daniel Cluchey. I hadn’t slept in 40+ hours. What follows is a case study on sleep deprivation and it’s effects on stream of consciousness e-mail interviews.

“Daniel Cluchey. The frenchman. Mc Yiddish surprise. How much is there to say about this guy? Pages. Scrolls even. Cluchey and I met a while back while I was auditioning for Mr Gads House of improv and he was auditioninging me. Once I got in the group Dan immediately took me under his wing and taught me many new things. He teaches me lots of words and phrases like “robert kennedy” or “took me under his wing.” He really has been a great “mentor” if I am using that word right, I will check with Dan later. You know how sometimes you just click with a person? you just know. The first time dan said “please don’t sit with me” “get out of here” i knew we were going to get along great. The guy is also a fantastic human lie detector. Early on in my time at amherst i had this fun game where i would tell everyone things about me, only none of them would be true. Some examples “my father was the first black astronaut” or “my mothers full name is Juanita Mexican Cook”. Each of those statements is only half true and Dan could always see right through me. Honestly he is like a brother to me. A true Judge Bro Brown. A BROken tivo always playing I bRobot. A perfect description of Cluchey in my mind, “he is like that guy you know, that is always named Dan Cluchey, no matter what.” Never lets you down. If i had to pick someone to play Cluchey in a movie about his life, it would be Anthony Anderson. Other facts about Cluchey,he is from maine,he plays sweet melodies on his guitar, his middle name is not norbit. A complete list of things Dan and I have NOT done together: Waterski. Put bluntly, i trust the guy with my life, my wallet, and the livelihood of my children.

A poem.

Dan Cluchey.

Dandy  Andy  Ndy

Clutch Le’ friggin sweet Understandably Cuddlebug HAPPY! Everlasting Yeoman ”

I don’t know what any of that means. I do know, however, that the yeoman is everlasting.