First Impressions

Hey there Internauts, been a while.

I remember being told--probably as early as kindergarten--of the incomparable weight of first impressions over all other interaction I may have with another person.

"First impressions are very important," they would say, often with the implication that a bad first impression could ruin everything. Everything.

Upon further reflection, it becomes quite obvious why we instruct our children with this bit of social advice. They need to know as early as possible how little anyone else will care about them. Oh sure, mommy and daddy love you (maybe, if you're lucky enough to have both a mommy and a daddy and even if they love you they might not love each other, so...), and certainly their teacher loves them (or at least has to put up with them for more of the day than anyone else, but yknow there are so many students in the class and which one are you again...).

We must learn early that other people won't give you the benefit of the doubt. They won't take the time to get to know your story, much less let you merge into their lane on the highway. They certainly won't imagine all the complex reasons why you didn't greet them with eagerly pleasant servitude and jump right to meeting all their needs when they were truly just too busy caught up in something much more important than your whatever-it-is. They don't care. They won't take the time to care.

Be important, right away, because first impressions matter. This is what we teach our kids. And whether consequentially or coincidentally, it ends up seeming quite true. You will become a utility of society's needs for you, we tell them, because we recognize the weight of our usefulness or lack thereof. We can feel it on our back when we clock in at work, pay our taxes, pull up to the gas pump, check out at the grocery store, or answer the phones with that same rehearsed line for the billionth time ("Hello, thank you for calling Cogs in a Machine Incorporated, how may I assist you in a task you could perform easily online but still felt the need to call and hear a human voice trained to sound like a computer?"). That is, of course, if you can get a job.

We're all doing what we need to just to get by. Life or death is hoping that the check won't bounce, that our card won't be declined, or that the coupons we put in a drawer somewhere haven't expired yet. Then one day, you realize your entire life is spent living within a system where you're just shoving numbers back and forth.

You're sitting at work, essentially a warm body in a chair, and your memories float back through all those first impressions--every step, every handshake, every missed and made opportunity that led you into this place of routine, of mediocrity, of fitting into a society that doesn't really care about getting to know you beyond a first impression. Applications and interviews and a dusty diploma somewhere are just stand-ins for report cards and a red letter at the top of a pop quiz.

First impressions are very important...

...because when I pressed the button to unlock that door and let him into the lobby, I was doing my job. My first impression was that he was just another guest who didn't have their key card or one of the two reservations left to check in that night or maybe someone looking to see if we had any vacancy.

First impressions are very important...

...but then he pulled out this big, silver revolver that looked like something out of the movies, and at first I thought it was fake; but of course it wasn't fake, and so when he asked me for the money, I did as I was told. And when he told me to kneel down on the ground. And when he told me to give him my wallet (empty as it was). And when he told me to lay down on the floor. He looked so very angry, but I don't really remember his face or much besides the gun, because...

First impressions are very important...

...but I have no idea why he did what he did. I don't know the series of events that led up to that night. They're pretty sure this wasn't his first robbery, which was pretty obvious if you'd been there. I have no idea who he is or what he cares about or why he felt like this was the best option for how to spend his Friday night.

We teach kids that first impressions are very important because we know they'll be faced with a lot of people who don't ever go beyond a first impression. We know that they'll be used and cheated and objectified and passed over in this society, and so we hope to give them a fighting chance. However, I would propose that the best way to do that is to exemplify how to be someone who does care about more than the first impression.

1) Of course, it was his choice to use violent means that night when there were most likely many other options.

2) However, I recognize that as a white working class man who grew up raised by two white middle class parents, the amount of options open to me are significantly higher than the amount of options open to a young black man in this country no matter how he was raised. I am benefiting--even now after everything that's happened--from an oppressively racist system that deprives people of color from having the same amount of options. For more on what white privilege is for those of you don't know or need a refresher, check here.

3) I do not know his story and wish I did, but I do know that I cannot simply blame someone else for the harm they have inflicted upon me without asking the question of why. What can I do to examine ways in which I'm participating in systems of class and/or racial oppression? How am I benefiting from or in any way a player in cultural constructs that lead folks to think they don't have any other options but to commit violent acts against another?

As far as I know, I never personally attacked this young man, but I do know that in my life, it's very likely I've been given more opportunities to move past first impressions and him less.

I don't know the events in his life that led to us meeting the way we did that night, but I'll be damned if somewhere along the line, someone taking the time to get beyond a first impression of who this young man is couldn't have changed things for the better. 

Anyway, here's some live music: WATCH HERE.

To the Top

Just met a cab driver named Solomon.


Tall, crooked teeth, one missing in the front.


Moved to the states from Somalia fifteen years ago.


We talked about Nashville and the tourist season.


He told me about how folks like to immigrate to places that “give handouts".


He said he can’t stand that and people shouldn’t just sit around, having kids, not looking for work.


He asked if I agree, and I said, sure folks maybe shouldn’t be having kids if they can’t afford to, but it is pretty hard to find work sometimes.


"What you mean?" he asked, critically scanning my uniform.


I told him about when I first moved down here, living in my car, trying to find a job, stuff like that.


He said, “but now you’ve made it to the top" and laughed.


Guess so, I replied with a shrug.


He asked me my name and we shook hands, revealing a second degree burn, undressed, on his right arm. He’d gotten it making tea, from the steam. Even as he told me how it hurt, gazing down at the pink splotches, the jagged smile from when he first mentioned his house a few blocks from here full of family and love, it did not fade.


Soon, a large group of white North Dakotans, part of a church or a school group or something, bustled in, loud and anxiously grumpy.


Their leader smiled at me as she checked out, grabbing a brochure for a souvenir and letting me know how many times their flights had been canceled or delayed.


I wished her safe travels, and they all piled into Solomon’s yellow van.


My mind swims back to earlier this evening when the drunk man in the pink polo called me an asshole ‘cause I didn’t have a lighter. I’m pretty sure he thought he was whispering.






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Hey Internauts!



For those of you in the PA/DE/NJ/MD area, I'm playing a show with Whitney McCombs and New Shields on July 16th to Benefit the Bridge! Check HERE for more info!

Polytix: A Poem

politically, I guess I’m independent.
and not just because of how much I so resent that
whenever someone subscribed to a party tries convincing
me of their rightness, I can’t help but start wincing.
see, it’s not necessarily your strongly held ideals
or the way that talking ‘bout them gives you all those feels
but that if your ideals were all there were, then that would be fantastic
‘cept instead we get reality and the actuality is drastically
unacceptable in an ignorant, us-vs-them, and kinda racist sorta way
at least its mad classist so don’t ask me to be okay
with how you can say the state is far too big or far too small
or how it’s doing too much or not nearly enough at all.
because for all your talk of liberty and all your talk of community
the talk builds up to naught but talk and binds with such disunity
that i don’t give a single thought to what you say it’s all supposed to be
‘cause what is is what is and that’s all that matters much to me
to love the most those who are loved the least
justice and hope spread through the whole like yeast
and give rise to a revolution of the heart and the mind
and throw aside the privilege that makes those in power so blind
and turn guns into shovels, so we can finally bury the hatchet
and turn bombs into classrooms, and cigarettes back to matches
and take all that paper we used to use to write our bills
and make a planet-sized canvas, until all the color spills
and then wipe down our souls, and pay reparations with a smile
till justice flows like lemonade and there’s a place for every child
around the dinner table of ingenuity, and the human creative spirit
says to mother earth and father sky and anyone else around to hear it
i’m sorry.
i love you.
let’s eat.