Today's word of the day is stop, get down, don't climb on that, put that down, and oh shit.
It's amazing how quickly milestones go from being celebrated to dreaded. In today's gremlin news, my daughter has figured out how to pull herself up. It's almost like watching one of those extreme mountain climbers. You know, the kind who have no ropes or tools, just a pocket of gripping chalk. Just as they do, my daughter finds the smallest nooks and crannies to pull herself up.
Prime example: Electric plug covers
Now who in the hell would suspect that a baby would be able to pull up on the cover that goes over the plugs in the wall? There are two stools over at the bar. She put her hand around the leg of the stool to lift up off the ground to her knees, and somehow gripped the socket cover and used that to pull all the way up. By the time I got to her, she was standing up flat against the wall crying for me to lower her back to the ground.
So now I find myself working on my speech to the child protective service people. Oh, how did she manage to get up on the ceiling light fixture in the first place? Well, that's a funny story...
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
GodWorld
I cannot believe in a god who wants to be praised all of the time. (Nietzsche)
My wife shared this quote with me today and immediately my insane train of thought took off. One of my beliefs as an agnostic is that god--in whatever form--is just too powerful and too "godly" to be swayed by someone's devotion. In my opinion, it's more of a humility builder for us than a pep rally for God. I think that whatever deity exists could care less if you pray, praise or thumb your nose his/her/its direction. But what if I'm wrong. What if God were a glory hog?
I could see God holding his own version of MacWorld every year. It would be held in a big convention center somewhere and people would sleep on the street to get tickets. There would be exhibits and the different religions would have booths set up. Of course, God would deliver the keynote address. I'm not sure who would bring him onto the stage. Maybe Jesus, maybe Muhammad. My money is on Jesus because he'd be more entertaining. Kind of like a magic show. He could multiply some fish, turn everyone's Deer Park bottle into a champagne. Maybe bring out a water tank and tap dance on it. Anyway, at the end of his opening act, he could say...
And now, the man that you all came to see. He hails from heaven! He is the inspiration behind three of the best selling books in history (Torah, Koran, Bible). GodWorld, put your hands together for the Alpha, the Omega, the one and only Goooooooood!
Then God would come out from behind the curtain--or they could do an Arsenio Hall thing with the vertical sheet of glass and funk band--and he would walk out with one of those headset mics. He'd have on a black shirt like Steve Jobs and instead of the Apple Logo in the back, it'd just be an atom or something.
Thank you, thank you! Please (thunderous applause). You're too kind (more applause). You know, when we first launched the Adam 1 millenia ago, people thought that I was crazy. They said 'God this will never work.' Then came Eve. Today, there are over seven billion people populating the planet. (applause) Wait until you see what we've got in store off-planet.
Then God would announce some new inhabited planet that he's been working on for the past year and everyone would go crazy. Shares of God would soar in the market and He'd be on every magazine cover for weeks to come. Then there'd be a flood or something somewhere and the tabloids would be abuzz saying God was falling off.
My wife shared this quote with me today and immediately my insane train of thought took off. One of my beliefs as an agnostic is that god--in whatever form--is just too powerful and too "godly" to be swayed by someone's devotion. In my opinion, it's more of a humility builder for us than a pep rally for God. I think that whatever deity exists could care less if you pray, praise or thumb your nose his/her/its direction. But what if I'm wrong. What if God were a glory hog?
I could see God holding his own version of MacWorld every year. It would be held in a big convention center somewhere and people would sleep on the street to get tickets. There would be exhibits and the different religions would have booths set up. Of course, God would deliver the keynote address. I'm not sure who would bring him onto the stage. Maybe Jesus, maybe Muhammad. My money is on Jesus because he'd be more entertaining. Kind of like a magic show. He could multiply some fish, turn everyone's Deer Park bottle into a champagne. Maybe bring out a water tank and tap dance on it. Anyway, at the end of his opening act, he could say...
And now, the man that you all came to see. He hails from heaven! He is the inspiration behind three of the best selling books in history (Torah, Koran, Bible). GodWorld, put your hands together for the Alpha, the Omega, the one and only Goooooooood!
Then God would come out from behind the curtain--or they could do an Arsenio Hall thing with the vertical sheet of glass and funk band--and he would walk out with one of those headset mics. He'd have on a black shirt like Steve Jobs and instead of the Apple Logo in the back, it'd just be an atom or something.
Thank you, thank you! Please (thunderous applause). You're too kind (more applause). You know, when we first launched the Adam 1 millenia ago, people thought that I was crazy. They said 'God this will never work.' Then came Eve. Today, there are over seven billion people populating the planet. (applause) Wait until you see what we've got in store off-planet.
Then God would announce some new inhabited planet that he's been working on for the past year and everyone would go crazy. Shares of God would soar in the market and He'd be on every magazine cover for weeks to come. Then there'd be a flood or something somewhere and the tabloids would be abuzz saying God was falling off.
Friday, January 28, 2011
You Aint Never Had A Slave Like Me
I'm sitting here watching Aladdin with my daughter and I realize now that I really need to get out more. Is there a predefined limit to how much children's programming an adult can take before he snaps? I know this sounds crazy but I feel like my subconscious is trying to relate to this movie on an adult level and that is totally ruining my feelings towards something that I loved as a kid.
When I was little, Aladdin was just a funny cartoon. Now that I'm watching it as an adult I'm thinking to myself, Somebody had to write this story and draw the movie. I'm 100% sure that it wasn't a kid. So what motivation did the adult have when they wrote it. I mean, that's the basic truth behind any cartoon, old or new. An adult wrote it. Shrek is great because it appeals to both kid and adult humor without the kids picking up on the adult message. So with all of this said, what are those bastards at Disney trying to say to me?
The way I see it, Aladdin is glorifying slavery. (I told you that I've snapped.) I keep telling myself that it isn't true but...c'mon! You have a guy who's been imprisoned inside a lamp for ten thousand years and the first thing he does when he gets free is become excited that he has a new master. He sings this elaborate song about how you aint never had a friend like me. Are we really calling it friendship these days? You've had several masters of the past few millenia and each time they use you like a wet wipe and send you back to your prison and you're happy about it?
I know it sounds crazy and I may be reaching but the whole movie mirrors American history. Aladdin is stuck in the cave and needs to get out. He tricks the genie into getting him out without using a wish. Didn't the Native Americans rescue the settlers scott-free one winter? They didn't get a single thing for it but smallpox.
Aladdin wants to become a prince so that he could get Jasmine. Princes have power, wealth and influence. Is it not true that America became a wealthy nation because of its free labor (slaves)?
Aladdin gets tossed in the river and almost drowns but the genie uses his second wish to save his life. Remember the Civil War? When the North started losing Lincoln switched gears and said that he'd end slavery altogether if they won. This got Europe to join our side AND incentivized slaves to fight too thus saving the country's life.
Aladdin reneges on his promise to free the genie. Lincoln freed the slaves but he got popped before they could get equal rights, land and education. This left free Blacks to work the same plantations while Jim Crow laws ensured that nothing changed.
The genie rescues Aladdin one last time and then he gets his long overdue freedom. Blacks fought in WWI, WWII, The Korean War and were in the middle of the Vietnam War before the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964.
Doesn't really sound like a whole new world anymore, does it? Yeah...I'm tripping. It's just a movie.
When I was little, Aladdin was just a funny cartoon. Now that I'm watching it as an adult I'm thinking to myself, Somebody had to write this story and draw the movie. I'm 100% sure that it wasn't a kid. So what motivation did the adult have when they wrote it. I mean, that's the basic truth behind any cartoon, old or new. An adult wrote it. Shrek is great because it appeals to both kid and adult humor without the kids picking up on the adult message. So with all of this said, what are those bastards at Disney trying to say to me?
The way I see it, Aladdin is glorifying slavery. (I told you that I've snapped.) I keep telling myself that it isn't true but...c'mon! You have a guy who's been imprisoned inside a lamp for ten thousand years and the first thing he does when he gets free is become excited that he has a new master. He sings this elaborate song about how you aint never had a friend like me. Are we really calling it friendship these days? You've had several masters of the past few millenia and each time they use you like a wet wipe and send you back to your prison and you're happy about it?
I know it sounds crazy and I may be reaching but the whole movie mirrors American history. Aladdin is stuck in the cave and needs to get out. He tricks the genie into getting him out without using a wish. Didn't the Native Americans rescue the settlers scott-free one winter? They didn't get a single thing for it but smallpox.
Aladdin wants to become a prince so that he could get Jasmine. Princes have power, wealth and influence. Is it not true that America became a wealthy nation because of its free labor (slaves)?
Aladdin gets tossed in the river and almost drowns but the genie uses his second wish to save his life. Remember the Civil War? When the North started losing Lincoln switched gears and said that he'd end slavery altogether if they won. This got Europe to join our side AND incentivized slaves to fight too thus saving the country's life.
Aladdin reneges on his promise to free the genie. Lincoln freed the slaves but he got popped before they could get equal rights, land and education. This left free Blacks to work the same plantations while Jim Crow laws ensured that nothing changed.
The genie rescues Aladdin one last time and then he gets his long overdue freedom. Blacks fought in WWI, WWII, The Korean War and were in the middle of the Vietnam War before the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964.
Doesn't really sound like a whole new world anymore, does it? Yeah...I'm tripping. It's just a movie.
The Heist
This morning someone tried to rob a bank near DC. Who the hell still robs banks? What, were stage coaches not available? Please tell me the last time a bank heist worked in someone's favor. For those who are short on time, I'll save you a click and just tell you what happened.
Idiot runs up in bank before they open, tries to rob the bank. Cops show up, he grabs an employee and uses her as a human shield. Fifty cops follow him with their guns as he tries to walk out and the dye pack goes off surrounding him in a cloud of smoke like a Prince concert. Then, get this, the fool trips on a mound of snow and lets go of the hostage as he tries to catch his balance. She hauls ass, he chases her with about as much speed as an octogenarian and those fifty cops that I mentioned earlier unload their clips on him. Game over.
I used to work at a bank, actually several. I was a floater which meant that I worked at a different bank basically everyday. Now I hope the FBI isn't reading this, but I'm about to break the teller rule and share with you the inner workings of a bank. First and foremost...
1) This is not a movie. Banks don't have millions of dollars in a vault sitting in neat stacks waiting for some criminal to shove into a duffel bag. The average vault looks like a closet on the inside. The big metal door is just to keep you out. In fact, we kept as little cash as possible just in case someone robbed us. Even if you had an hour alone inside a bank vault, you wouldn't get anywhere near a million dollars unless you hit some huge branch and those tend to be heavily monitored.
2) Tellers don't have any money either. Tellers keep their money in drawers. These drawers are about the size of a typical register at McDonalds. How much do you think you can fit in one of those? Keep in mind that the average person doesn't withdraw a stack of hundreds. They withdraw tens, twenties, fives and ones. That means more small bills than anything else.
3) The alarm button...I'm guessing that most people who rob banks say something like, don't push the alarm button or I'll kill you. Trust me when I say that no one outside of emergency and military personnel are willing to die for their job. With that said, you could go in a bank, slip a note and get the money with very little chance of the teller tripping the alarm. The cops will still come. Wanna know why?
3a) The alarm isn't just a button. Yeah there is a button to push and Lord knows I've accidentally hit it with my knee, hand, cell phone many a day. There are also buttons inside the drawer under the money. If you were to play Heat and jump over the counter, you could actually trip the alarm yourself by picking up the wrong stack of money. If you accidentally grab the dye pack, that could trip an alarm when it crosses the threshold of the bank door. Also, there are cameras inside the bank that lead to monitors all over the place including upstairs in the employee break room or downstairs in the bathroom. Guess what's next to those monitors? Alarm buttons! So basically you'd need to know what was a dye pack, what was bait money, what was the alarm button and where all the staff was at all times. Good luck with that.
4) If you thought the police were rough...have you ever dealt with the Federal Bureau of Investigation? They lock people up for downloading movies. Movies! What do you think will happen when you take their Uncle's money (Uncle Sam)?
Think of it this way: Everybody knows someone who steals from work. It could be something small like a stapler and paper clips from the office, sneaking a soda or sandwich from a fast food joint or something bigger like taking shoes from foot locker or CDs from Walmart. I'm not condoning any of that, but we all know someone who's done it. You NEVER hear anyone say that their bank-teller-friend stole five bucks from work. You know why? Because tellers know that shit is impossible. If they can't steal money and they work there...imagine what chance you have.
Good luck.
Idiot runs up in bank before they open, tries to rob the bank. Cops show up, he grabs an employee and uses her as a human shield. Fifty cops follow him with their guns as he tries to walk out and the dye pack goes off surrounding him in a cloud of smoke like a Prince concert. Then, get this, the fool trips on a mound of snow and lets go of the hostage as he tries to catch his balance. She hauls ass, he chases her with about as much speed as an octogenarian and those fifty cops that I mentioned earlier unload their clips on him. Game over.
I used to work at a bank, actually several. I was a floater which meant that I worked at a different bank basically everyday. Now I hope the FBI isn't reading this, but I'm about to break the teller rule and share with you the inner workings of a bank. First and foremost...
1) This is not a movie. Banks don't have millions of dollars in a vault sitting in neat stacks waiting for some criminal to shove into a duffel bag. The average vault looks like a closet on the inside. The big metal door is just to keep you out. In fact, we kept as little cash as possible just in case someone robbed us. Even if you had an hour alone inside a bank vault, you wouldn't get anywhere near a million dollars unless you hit some huge branch and those tend to be heavily monitored.
2) Tellers don't have any money either. Tellers keep their money in drawers. These drawers are about the size of a typical register at McDonalds. How much do you think you can fit in one of those? Keep in mind that the average person doesn't withdraw a stack of hundreds. They withdraw tens, twenties, fives and ones. That means more small bills than anything else.
3) The alarm button...I'm guessing that most people who rob banks say something like, don't push the alarm button or I'll kill you. Trust me when I say that no one outside of emergency and military personnel are willing to die for their job. With that said, you could go in a bank, slip a note and get the money with very little chance of the teller tripping the alarm. The cops will still come. Wanna know why?
3a) The alarm isn't just a button. Yeah there is a button to push and Lord knows I've accidentally hit it with my knee, hand, cell phone many a day. There are also buttons inside the drawer under the money. If you were to play Heat and jump over the counter, you could actually trip the alarm yourself by picking up the wrong stack of money. If you accidentally grab the dye pack, that could trip an alarm when it crosses the threshold of the bank door. Also, there are cameras inside the bank that lead to monitors all over the place including upstairs in the employee break room or downstairs in the bathroom. Guess what's next to those monitors? Alarm buttons! So basically you'd need to know what was a dye pack, what was bait money, what was the alarm button and where all the staff was at all times. Good luck with that.
4) If you thought the police were rough...have you ever dealt with the Federal Bureau of Investigation? They lock people up for downloading movies. Movies! What do you think will happen when you take their Uncle's money (Uncle Sam)?
Think of it this way: Everybody knows someone who steals from work. It could be something small like a stapler and paper clips from the office, sneaking a soda or sandwich from a fast food joint or something bigger like taking shoes from foot locker or CDs from Walmart. I'm not condoning any of that, but we all know someone who's done it. You NEVER hear anyone say that their bank-teller-friend stole five bucks from work. You know why? Because tellers know that shit is impossible. If they can't steal money and they work there...imagine what chance you have.
Good luck.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Punk Ass Parents
A friend of mine took off work Monday and Tuesday because her four year old daughter had a fever as a result of a sinus and ear infection. She's a horrible parent. What kind of parent keeps their kid home from school because they're sick? It's just shameful. When I was growing up, you had to be shot in order to stay home and unless they couldn't get the bullet out (and it was resting near a major artery) my mother wasn't taking off to stay home with me. Parents these days are just soft.
I remember when I was three years old (by now you should know that I have an insanely good memory) and I ate a few handfuls of Arm and Hammer laundry detergent. My mother made me drink three big ass glasses of water and then told me to go to sleep. There was no emergency room visit--not even a call to the poison control hotline. My family strongly believes in survival of the fittest. Now, why did I eat laundry detergent? I wasn't a stupid child. My stomach hurt and I thought it was baking soda. You're thinking, what? I know you're wondering what baking soda has to do with a stomach ache. Well, in my family baking soda is penicillin.
When I was eight I ate some undercooked bacon. It caused me to throw up violently two or three times an hour for about six straight hours. Some would call that food poisoning. My grandmother called it a job for baking soda. She stuck a butter knife in box, pulled out a large mound of soda and told me to eat it. Then she gave me a small cup of water and told me to let that sit on my stomach for a while. She left and went around the corner to the liquor store and came back with a bottle of Rock Creek Ginger Ale. For those unfamiliar with the brand, Rock Creek sodas are native to the DC area. They are a mixture of high fructose corn syrup and battery acid. In fact, the Chilean government used three two-liter Rock Creek sodas to cut through the ground to free those miners last year. Anyway, I drank the 16 oz ginger ale and about ten minutes later I threw up one last good time and passed out. I woke up 20 hours later feeling like sunshine.
That not doing it for you? Okay, here's another example. When I was nine I closed my finger in the door and shattered the entire nail bed. My entire finger turned purple. After two days, it appeared to be getting worse. My grandmother soaked my finger in some peroxide, held a sewing needle over an open flame on the stove for a few minutes and then came back and (while simultaneously holding me down) surgically removed the fingernail herself. She bandaged my finger and the next day it was like Jesus with the lepers...I was healed.
I have a lifetime of these stories and none of them involve going to a doctor even though we had full medical insurance. I saw a doctor only for required vaccines and school physicals. If something small happened like, I don't know, falling off my bike without a helmet and slamming my head against a concrete curb, waking up a few minutes later with a bunch of people standing over me asking if I was okay...then my grandmother would just tell me to go sit down somewhere and try not to fall asleep.
The point is ladies and gentlemen of the jury...only bad parents involve doctors in their personal matters. If something hasn't fallen off that can't be sewn back on, then a doctor visit is just a waste of a copay (and PTO).
I remember when I was three years old (by now you should know that I have an insanely good memory) and I ate a few handfuls of Arm and Hammer laundry detergent. My mother made me drink three big ass glasses of water and then told me to go to sleep. There was no emergency room visit--not even a call to the poison control hotline. My family strongly believes in survival of the fittest. Now, why did I eat laundry detergent? I wasn't a stupid child. My stomach hurt and I thought it was baking soda. You're thinking, what? I know you're wondering what baking soda has to do with a stomach ache. Well, in my family baking soda is penicillin.
When I was eight I ate some undercooked bacon. It caused me to throw up violently two or three times an hour for about six straight hours. Some would call that food poisoning. My grandmother called it a job for baking soda. She stuck a butter knife in box, pulled out a large mound of soda and told me to eat it. Then she gave me a small cup of water and told me to let that sit on my stomach for a while. She left and went around the corner to the liquor store and came back with a bottle of Rock Creek Ginger Ale. For those unfamiliar with the brand, Rock Creek sodas are native to the DC area. They are a mixture of high fructose corn syrup and battery acid. In fact, the Chilean government used three two-liter Rock Creek sodas to cut through the ground to free those miners last year. Anyway, I drank the 16 oz ginger ale and about ten minutes later I threw up one last good time and passed out. I woke up 20 hours later feeling like sunshine.
That not doing it for you? Okay, here's another example. When I was nine I closed my finger in the door and shattered the entire nail bed. My entire finger turned purple. After two days, it appeared to be getting worse. My grandmother soaked my finger in some peroxide, held a sewing needle over an open flame on the stove for a few minutes and then came back and (while simultaneously holding me down) surgically removed the fingernail herself. She bandaged my finger and the next day it was like Jesus with the lepers...I was healed.
I have a lifetime of these stories and none of them involve going to a doctor even though we had full medical insurance. I saw a doctor only for required vaccines and school physicals. If something small happened like, I don't know, falling off my bike without a helmet and slamming my head against a concrete curb, waking up a few minutes later with a bunch of people standing over me asking if I was okay...then my grandmother would just tell me to go sit down somewhere and try not to fall asleep.
The point is ladies and gentlemen of the jury...only bad parents involve doctors in their personal matters. If something hasn't fallen off that can't be sewn back on, then a doctor visit is just a waste of a copay (and PTO).
She's Been Here Before
I swear this damn girl has been here before. The things she does and the way she moves around is like a combination of Chucky and the brain gremlin from Gremlins 2. While washing dishes in the kitchen this morning I made sure that I peeked over the bar periodically to keep an eye on her. I picked up a plate, washed it, rinsed it off and placed it in the dishwasher to dry. That took maybe 30 seconds. I looked up at her and she was on the floor near the DVD shelf pulling out DVDs. That's fine. It'll be more work for me later but for now it's keeping her quiet. I washed another plate, rinsed, put it in the dishwasher and then looked back to see what she was doing. My Xbox is standing up beside the entertainment center. She crawled over from the DVD shelf and made her way to the Xbox and was trying to pull it over.
That didn't bother me because I wised up a long time ago and carefully placed it between the entertainment center and the DVD shelf so that no matter how hard she pushed/pulled left or right...it couldn't fall over. I went back to washing dishes. I washed another plate. That's 30 seconds in Earth time. I don't know how much time that is in alien/gremlin baby time because when I looked up, my daughter was standing up holding on to the entertainment center about six feet away from where I'd just seen her.
She's only six months. She can't stand up on her own, but she's figured out how to pull herself up. I had no clue how the hell she did what she did so I had to recreate the scene. I put her back on all fours and in front of the DVD shelf and I waited. It took ten minutes for her to do it again, but I didn't care. I had to know. Remember, my living room layout is as follows...DVD shelf--one inch of space--XBOX--one inch of space--TV Stand/Entertainment Center.Here's what she did:
Using the bottom shelf on the DVD stand, she pulled herself up onto her knees. She couldn't reach the shelf above that one so she held on to the bottom shelf and "walked on her knees" four feet to the right until she got to the inch of space. She then pulled the Xbox closer to her and then used that to pull herself a little bit higher. She then lunged forward (dangerous as hell I might add since my TV stand is made of glass) and grabbed the middle shelf on the TV stand that was slightly higher than the Xbox and pulled herself up into a full standing position. From there, she walked the four foot length of the TV stand until she got near the subwoofer which is where I came in.
Now why was she doing this? As I write this I notice that there is a pack of Peanut Butter M&M's on top of the subwoofer. I believe the red wrapper caught her attention and she wanted to know what it was.
It starts with getting a pack of M&Ms. In no time she'll be plotting casino robberies a la Oceans Eleven.
That didn't bother me because I wised up a long time ago and carefully placed it between the entertainment center and the DVD shelf so that no matter how hard she pushed/pulled left or right...it couldn't fall over. I went back to washing dishes. I washed another plate. That's 30 seconds in Earth time. I don't know how much time that is in alien/gremlin baby time because when I looked up, my daughter was standing up holding on to the entertainment center about six feet away from where I'd just seen her.
She's only six months. She can't stand up on her own, but she's figured out how to pull herself up. I had no clue how the hell she did what she did so I had to recreate the scene. I put her back on all fours and in front of the DVD shelf and I waited. It took ten minutes for her to do it again, but I didn't care. I had to know. Remember, my living room layout is as follows...DVD shelf--one inch of space--XBOX--one inch of space--TV Stand/Entertainment Center.Here's what she did:
Using the bottom shelf on the DVD stand, she pulled herself up onto her knees. She couldn't reach the shelf above that one so she held on to the bottom shelf and "walked on her knees" four feet to the right until she got to the inch of space. She then pulled the Xbox closer to her and then used that to pull herself a little bit higher. She then lunged forward (dangerous as hell I might add since my TV stand is made of glass) and grabbed the middle shelf on the TV stand that was slightly higher than the Xbox and pulled herself up into a full standing position. From there, she walked the four foot length of the TV stand until she got near the subwoofer which is where I came in.
Now why was she doing this? As I write this I notice that there is a pack of Peanut Butter M&M's on top of the subwoofer. I believe the red wrapper caught her attention and she wanted to know what it was.
It starts with getting a pack of M&Ms. In no time she'll be plotting casino robberies a la Oceans Eleven.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
No Swimming...or Diving
Today we continue yesterday's post:
After the second near drowning I took a four year break from swimming. No pool parties, no trips to the beach, not even as much as a slip n slide. Then I graduated elementary school...
It was the sixth grade class trip to Kings Dominion. There was a girl that I liked. (There's always a girl.) She wanted to get on the water slides. I thought that she was feeling me a little, so in all of my 11 year old coolness, I decided to give water another shot. We stood in line for about forty-five minutes to get on what looked like the water slide to hell. Lucky for me (or so I thought) this was a dual slide. There was an easy one and a gateway to hell one. The girl kept talking about how she couldn't wait to get on the daredevil one so secretly I was doing cartwheels like, Thank God!
We get all the way to the top and just as we're about to sit down, she chickens out. Women have an In Case of Emergency voice that they can break out to get men to do stupid shit. She batted her eyes at me the right way and convinced me to be the big, strong man and switch slides with her. I went down the slide and for the first few seconds, it wasn't half bad. Then a stream of water went over my face and I panicked. I did a huge no-no for a tunnel-type water slide: I sat up. I hit my head on the top of the slide which dazed me for a second. I started choking on the water and my reflexes made me try to sit up again. This time there was no tunnel wall. I opened my eyes just to see myself approaching the end of the slide and nearing the five foot drop into the water.
There was a huge splash and I started choking even more. I kicked my legs and flailed my arms. I started screaming for the life guard and the whole time I'm yelling with my eyes closed, Help, I can't swim!!! A woman in a bathing suit came up beside me and yelled for me to calm down. All the while I'm screaming. Finally she yelled back, stand up! I stood up to find the water at my waist and the girl was just staring at me like I was a damned fool. It would be sixteen years before I'd see her again on Facebook.
After that I left swimming alone for a LONG time. Eight years to be exact.
I needed an elective in college, so I figured that I'd finally conquer my fears. Here I was, twenty years old and still afraid of water. This time would be different. This time, I was paying out of pocket to learn to swim. I knew damn well that my cheap ass wouldn't let that money go to waste. For three quarters of the semester, I was right. I was the perfect student. Everything the instructor said was gospel to me. I knew that my life depended on it. Then, something happened. He fell ill for a week. He had a substitute come in and he was out of his fucking mind. He told us that we were behind so he wanted us to just skip a few things. The way he saw it, our instructor was holding our hand too much. He and I had words, so I sat on the side of the pool everyday that week refusing to do anything.
When the real instructor came back, he was on some other shit. The temp teacher must've gotten to him because he said something similar like, I have been going too slow and in order to pass the final, we're gonna have to speed up. We left the safety of our five-foot maximum depth pool to go to the other pool...the one with the 15 foot depth and the diving boards.
Jump in from the side of the pool, when you reach the bottom just kick off and ride the momentum to the surface. That's what he said out of his mouth. No joke. Last week, we were learning to float in four feet of water. This week you want us to do what!? I took him the entire class to convince me to do that shit. Have I ever let you down before, he said. I will be here the whole time, he said. I decided to trust this man because he even had his teaching assistant--who was a lifeguard by the way--get in the pool with me as backup.
I jumped in. I went down. I almost made it to the bottom. To this day I don't know what went wrong. All I know is that I came to an abrupt stop about four inches from the bottom of the pool. Time slowed down and my brain turned into a boardroom with different parts of my mind debating what to do next. The board agreed that I should exhale the last pocket of air from my lungs and use my arms to push myself downward. It worked well enough to get my big toe to touch the bottom of the pool. Despite my best effort, the big toe just wasn't strong enough to push my body back up. I moved maybe a foot. So I tried again. Still nothing. By this point, I'm looking up toward the surface expecting Aquaman to come rescue me and all I saw was that scary ass image of light rippling off the surface of the water.
I freaked the hell out. I tried one more time to make it to the bottom and when that didn't work, I just started kicking and doing my best to swim to the surface. I don't know how much time passed on land, but under the sea...according to mermaid time, like a whole week passed while I tried to stay alive. I was out of breath, out of energy and with my last bit of strength I pushed upward and then I felt my hand touch the air right before my head popped out the water.
I took one long breath of air and immediately exhaled it with curse word after curse word for the instructor--Aquaman was actually walking toward the platform when I broke the surface with a big stick that had a hook attached to it. It took no time for me to process what was going on and even less time for me to verbalize it:
Are you JUST coming to help me. Do you have a fucking hook!? What happened to you jumping in? Why the hell didn't the lifeguard/ assistant swim down to get me?
His response:
I wanted to see how you handled the situation. I know CPR so I was prepared to revive you if the situation called for it. Look at the bigger picture...you're treading water!
My response (as I doggie paddled to the side of the pool and climbed out):
I didn't come to this class to learn to tread, I came to learn to swim. I already knew how to tread.
I stormed out of the pool, made my way to the locker room and haven't been in a pool since. Oh...and I failed the class due to not taking the final.
After the second near drowning I took a four year break from swimming. No pool parties, no trips to the beach, not even as much as a slip n slide. Then I graduated elementary school...
It was the sixth grade class trip to Kings Dominion. There was a girl that I liked. (There's always a girl.) She wanted to get on the water slides. I thought that she was feeling me a little, so in all of my 11 year old coolness, I decided to give water another shot. We stood in line for about forty-five minutes to get on what looked like the water slide to hell. Lucky for me (or so I thought) this was a dual slide. There was an easy one and a gateway to hell one. The girl kept talking about how she couldn't wait to get on the daredevil one so secretly I was doing cartwheels like, Thank God!
We get all the way to the top and just as we're about to sit down, she chickens out. Women have an In Case of Emergency voice that they can break out to get men to do stupid shit. She batted her eyes at me the right way and convinced me to be the big, strong man and switch slides with her. I went down the slide and for the first few seconds, it wasn't half bad. Then a stream of water went over my face and I panicked. I did a huge no-no for a tunnel-type water slide: I sat up. I hit my head on the top of the slide which dazed me for a second. I started choking on the water and my reflexes made me try to sit up again. This time there was no tunnel wall. I opened my eyes just to see myself approaching the end of the slide and nearing the five foot drop into the water.
There was a huge splash and I started choking even more. I kicked my legs and flailed my arms. I started screaming for the life guard and the whole time I'm yelling with my eyes closed, Help, I can't swim!!! A woman in a bathing suit came up beside me and yelled for me to calm down. All the while I'm screaming. Finally she yelled back, stand up! I stood up to find the water at my waist and the girl was just staring at me like I was a damned fool. It would be sixteen years before I'd see her again on Facebook.
After that I left swimming alone for a LONG time. Eight years to be exact.
I needed an elective in college, so I figured that I'd finally conquer my fears. Here I was, twenty years old and still afraid of water. This time would be different. This time, I was paying out of pocket to learn to swim. I knew damn well that my cheap ass wouldn't let that money go to waste. For three quarters of the semester, I was right. I was the perfect student. Everything the instructor said was gospel to me. I knew that my life depended on it. Then, something happened. He fell ill for a week. He had a substitute come in and he was out of his fucking mind. He told us that we were behind so he wanted us to just skip a few things. The way he saw it, our instructor was holding our hand too much. He and I had words, so I sat on the side of the pool everyday that week refusing to do anything.
When the real instructor came back, he was on some other shit. The temp teacher must've gotten to him because he said something similar like, I have been going too slow and in order to pass the final, we're gonna have to speed up. We left the safety of our five-foot maximum depth pool to go to the other pool...the one with the 15 foot depth and the diving boards.
Jump in from the side of the pool, when you reach the bottom just kick off and ride the momentum to the surface. That's what he said out of his mouth. No joke. Last week, we were learning to float in four feet of water. This week you want us to do what!? I took him the entire class to convince me to do that shit. Have I ever let you down before, he said. I will be here the whole time, he said. I decided to trust this man because he even had his teaching assistant--who was a lifeguard by the way--get in the pool with me as backup.
I jumped in. I went down. I almost made it to the bottom. To this day I don't know what went wrong. All I know is that I came to an abrupt stop about four inches from the bottom of the pool. Time slowed down and my brain turned into a boardroom with different parts of my mind debating what to do next. The board agreed that I should exhale the last pocket of air from my lungs and use my arms to push myself downward. It worked well enough to get my big toe to touch the bottom of the pool. Despite my best effort, the big toe just wasn't strong enough to push my body back up. I moved maybe a foot. So I tried again. Still nothing. By this point, I'm looking up toward the surface expecting Aquaman to come rescue me and all I saw was that scary ass image of light rippling off the surface of the water.
I freaked the hell out. I tried one more time to make it to the bottom and when that didn't work, I just started kicking and doing my best to swim to the surface. I don't know how much time passed on land, but under the sea...according to mermaid time, like a whole week passed while I tried to stay alive. I was out of breath, out of energy and with my last bit of strength I pushed upward and then I felt my hand touch the air right before my head popped out the water.
I took one long breath of air and immediately exhaled it with curse word after curse word for the instructor--Aquaman was actually walking toward the platform when I broke the surface with a big stick that had a hook attached to it. It took no time for me to process what was going on and even less time for me to verbalize it:
Are you JUST coming to help me. Do you have a fucking hook!? What happened to you jumping in? Why the hell didn't the lifeguard/ assistant swim down to get me?
His response:
I wanted to see how you handled the situation. I know CPR so I was prepared to revive you if the situation called for it. Look at the bigger picture...you're treading water!
My response (as I doggie paddled to the side of the pool and climbed out):
I didn't come to this class to learn to tread, I came to learn to swim. I already knew how to tread.
I stormed out of the pool, made my way to the locker room and haven't been in a pool since. Oh...and I failed the class due to not taking the final.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
No Swimming
My apartment complex sent out an email reminding us to take advantage of the indoor pool across the street. Let me explain my philosophy on swimming. There are two rules of Swim Club.
#1 First rule of swim club... You do not go swimming in 16 degree wind chill. Even if the pool is inside, you still have to come OUTSIDE to get back to your apartment.
#2 If you're me, you stay the hell away from swimming pools.
Number one is self explanatory. Number two requires a little background.
My first experience with swimming came at the ripe old age of three. My Head Start class went to the indoor pool and I'll never forget the man giving us all the basic preliminary information about how fun swimming was. He convinced us to get on the little board and kick across the pool. If you slip off, it's okay. I'll catch you. I put my faith in this man. I haven't trusted anyone sense. I made it about two feet from the wall before I slipped off the board. I expected the man to catch me. He wasn't paying attention because he was talking to some woman walking by. All I remember is waking up on the side of the pool. I'm not going to say I got CPR. I don't know what happened. I think my subconscious blacked that part out. I just remember the man telling my grandmother, I'm so sorry ma'am. You really should make him get back in the water. If you let her leave now, he'll be afraid of water for the rest of his life.
He was right.
Flash forward to 1990. I was eight. I'd been to a few swimming pools since my near drowning, but I limited myself to bouncing up and down in the shallow end and putting my head underwater for five seconds when I really wanted to be daring. My father took me to Wild World, a water park in Maryland. My father shelled out ten bucks for one of those big yellow tubes. I didn't want to let him down. We didn't live together so he didn't know that I was terrified of water. I decided to get in the pool called The Wild Wave.
Keep in mind: This was my first time at a water park. I had no idea what a wave pool was. I sat on the tube near the shallow end and I floated around for a while. In my head I'm thinking, This isn't so bad. Why was I afraid of water for so long? While I enjoyed the float around the pool, I noticed that I was moving further toward the deep end. There were life guards on a little tower in the center of the pool but they probably assumed I could swim. Rather than risk embarrassment, I decided to just paddle with my had until I made it to the back of the pool by the big picture of the wave. My plan was to kick off of that and make my way back to the shallow end. That's when it happened.
A bell started ringing and people started getting excited, bouncing up and down, while other people were swimming away from the very direction I was going. I was about a foot away from the back wall when the water started rising. My little ass was perplexed. What's going on? Then the water started getting higher and higher. The idea finally popped into my head, Are these waves in a swimming pool? How are there waves in a swimming pool??? That's when I put two and two together: Wild Wave, picture of a wave, people running away. Oh shit! I started paddling with my hands like there was no tomorrow. Everytime I moved a foot, a wave would come and pull me right back to the same spot. I panicked and that's when my tube flipped over.
If you thought I was panicking before on the raft, imagine what happened in the water. I tried my best to swim and everytime I made it up to the surface of the water, a wave would come and knock me right back under. I screamed for the lifeguards but they miraculously disappeared from their perch. My survival instincts kicked in and I realized that all I had to do was just hold on to the tube. I came back up, saw my tube and kicked and flapped my arms until I got to the tube. I was like an inch away and I used my last bit of energy to fling myself onto the tube. Thank God! I'm safe. Nope.
This was PG County, Maryland where broke ass people flocked to Wild World for recreation and apparently the sight of a seemingly-unoccupied tube was like finding a free ten dollars on the ground. Some little bastard grabbed my tube and snatched it right out of my arms. I screamed, Give it back!!!! At least I tried. I went right back under the water and with no more energy and no lifeguards coming my way, I gave up. I stopped trying to swim, I stopped trying to get the raft and I just let my body go limp. I opened my eyes--something I never did out of fear that the chlorine would burn my eyes from their sockets or something--and I exhaled what little air I had left in my lungs. In all seriousness, I made the decision to inhale and just give up. In that same moment, something yanked me out of the water.
I felt myself lift up out of the water and I looked back to see a middle aged Hispanic woman looking at me like only a worried parent would when they see someone else's kid in trouble. She held me in one arm and grabbed the raft from the little bastard who had it and she pulled me all the way back to the shallow end. She didn't speak much English, but she managed to kind of tell me in sign language what I already knew...Get out of the water, you can't swim.
For the next four years, I stayed away. Part two tomorrow...
#1 First rule of swim club... You do not go swimming in 16 degree wind chill. Even if the pool is inside, you still have to come OUTSIDE to get back to your apartment.
#2 If you're me, you stay the hell away from swimming pools.
Number one is self explanatory. Number two requires a little background.
My first experience with swimming came at the ripe old age of three. My Head Start class went to the indoor pool and I'll never forget the man giving us all the basic preliminary information about how fun swimming was. He convinced us to get on the little board and kick across the pool. If you slip off, it's okay. I'll catch you. I put my faith in this man. I haven't trusted anyone sense. I made it about two feet from the wall before I slipped off the board. I expected the man to catch me. He wasn't paying attention because he was talking to some woman walking by. All I remember is waking up on the side of the pool. I'm not going to say I got CPR. I don't know what happened. I think my subconscious blacked that part out. I just remember the man telling my grandmother, I'm so sorry ma'am. You really should make him get back in the water. If you let her leave now, he'll be afraid of water for the rest of his life.
He was right.
Flash forward to 1990. I was eight. I'd been to a few swimming pools since my near drowning, but I limited myself to bouncing up and down in the shallow end and putting my head underwater for five seconds when I really wanted to be daring. My father took me to Wild World, a water park in Maryland. My father shelled out ten bucks for one of those big yellow tubes. I didn't want to let him down. We didn't live together so he didn't know that I was terrified of water. I decided to get in the pool called The Wild Wave.
Keep in mind: This was my first time at a water park. I had no idea what a wave pool was. I sat on the tube near the shallow end and I floated around for a while. In my head I'm thinking, This isn't so bad. Why was I afraid of water for so long? While I enjoyed the float around the pool, I noticed that I was moving further toward the deep end. There were life guards on a little tower in the center of the pool but they probably assumed I could swim. Rather than risk embarrassment, I decided to just paddle with my had until I made it to the back of the pool by the big picture of the wave. My plan was to kick off of that and make my way back to the shallow end. That's when it happened.
A bell started ringing and people started getting excited, bouncing up and down, while other people were swimming away from the very direction I was going. I was about a foot away from the back wall when the water started rising. My little ass was perplexed. What's going on? Then the water started getting higher and higher. The idea finally popped into my head, Are these waves in a swimming pool? How are there waves in a swimming pool??? That's when I put two and two together: Wild Wave, picture of a wave, people running away. Oh shit! I started paddling with my hands like there was no tomorrow. Everytime I moved a foot, a wave would come and pull me right back to the same spot. I panicked and that's when my tube flipped over.
If you thought I was panicking before on the raft, imagine what happened in the water. I tried my best to swim and everytime I made it up to the surface of the water, a wave would come and knock me right back under. I screamed for the lifeguards but they miraculously disappeared from their perch. My survival instincts kicked in and I realized that all I had to do was just hold on to the tube. I came back up, saw my tube and kicked and flapped my arms until I got to the tube. I was like an inch away and I used my last bit of energy to fling myself onto the tube. Thank God! I'm safe. Nope.
This was PG County, Maryland where broke ass people flocked to Wild World for recreation and apparently the sight of a seemingly-unoccupied tube was like finding a free ten dollars on the ground. Some little bastard grabbed my tube and snatched it right out of my arms. I screamed, Give it back!!!! At least I tried. I went right back under the water and with no more energy and no lifeguards coming my way, I gave up. I stopped trying to swim, I stopped trying to get the raft and I just let my body go limp. I opened my eyes--something I never did out of fear that the chlorine would burn my eyes from their sockets or something--and I exhaled what little air I had left in my lungs. In all seriousness, I made the decision to inhale and just give up. In that same moment, something yanked me out of the water.
I felt myself lift up out of the water and I looked back to see a middle aged Hispanic woman looking at me like only a worried parent would when they see someone else's kid in trouble. She held me in one arm and grabbed the raft from the little bastard who had it and she pulled me all the way back to the shallow end. She didn't speak much English, but she managed to kind of tell me in sign language what I already knew...Get out of the water, you can't swim.
For the next four years, I stayed away. Part two tomorrow...
Gosh Darn It!
I'm on Facebook this morning when I see a comment on my Newsfeed that irks me: Look at that nicca. He was...
The rest of the comment is irrelevant because the offending part was the avoid-a-word, nicca. I also find myself irked when people say ninja too. Stand-in words just bother me. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not really that upset. It's just eyebrow furrowing for me.
We all know what word you're substituting when you say dang or dag. The same goes for heck or h-e-double hockey sticks. I've always had an issue with cursing. Back in my church days, cursing was one vice for which I caught a lot of flack. While I didn't try to justify it, I did take issue with people denouncing me for saying damn when they said dag. The way I see it, cursing was supposed to be wrong because it wished ill intent on people as in I damn you to hell. That's totally different than letting out a quiet damn in frustration to something.
Now let's assume that their logic is right and mine is wrong. God has a list of words he doesn't like. I'm not an etymologist, but I have a strong hunch that our modern day curse words didn't exist thousands of years ago. Also considering the different languages, one man's curse word is another man's random nonsensical sound. When you consider this then there must be something to tie all of our curse words together. Emotion. Emotion or the meaning behind the words is the common denominator that makes a word a curse. Anything less is just public opinion. So if you assume that God deems a curse to be anything that has a negative or inflammatory tint to it, then dag and damn are the same damn thing.
So what does any of this have to do with nicca from the Facebook post? Nicca and ninja are people's roundabout way of saying nigger. There's much debate these days about the new use of the word, but I'll save that for another post. I feel that whatever word you have in mind, go with that one. Don't find another word that starts with the same letters, has the same number of syllables, makes the same sound and try to treat it like it isn't the same thing. Dag-damn-darn, shoot-shit-shucks, hell-heck, nigger-nigga-nicca. They aren't that different unless you're smoking the peace pipe.
"Peace pipe, crack pipe...same thing."
The rest of the comment is irrelevant because the offending part was the avoid-a-word, nicca. I also find myself irked when people say ninja too. Stand-in words just bother me. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not really that upset. It's just eyebrow furrowing for me.
We all know what word you're substituting when you say dang or dag. The same goes for heck or h-e-double hockey sticks. I've always had an issue with cursing. Back in my church days, cursing was one vice for which I caught a lot of flack. While I didn't try to justify it, I did take issue with people denouncing me for saying damn when they said dag. The way I see it, cursing was supposed to be wrong because it wished ill intent on people as in I damn you to hell. That's totally different than letting out a quiet damn in frustration to something.
Now let's assume that their logic is right and mine is wrong. God has a list of words he doesn't like. I'm not an etymologist, but I have a strong hunch that our modern day curse words didn't exist thousands of years ago. Also considering the different languages, one man's curse word is another man's random nonsensical sound. When you consider this then there must be something to tie all of our curse words together. Emotion. Emotion or the meaning behind the words is the common denominator that makes a word a curse. Anything less is just public opinion. So if you assume that God deems a curse to be anything that has a negative or inflammatory tint to it, then dag and damn are the same damn thing.
So what does any of this have to do with nicca from the Facebook post? Nicca and ninja are people's roundabout way of saying nigger. There's much debate these days about the new use of the word, but I'll save that for another post. I feel that whatever word you have in mind, go with that one. Don't find another word that starts with the same letters, has the same number of syllables, makes the same sound and try to treat it like it isn't the same thing. Dag-damn-darn, shoot-shit-shucks, hell-heck, nigger-nigga-nicca. They aren't that different unless you're smoking the peace pipe.
"Peace pipe, crack pipe...same thing."
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Warrior Baby
Sooo, I took my daughter to get her ears pierced at the doctor's office Friday. If there was ever any doubt before, today's events removed it; My daughter is a mutant. No one believes me when I tell them that she doesn't cry during her vaccinations. She throws jabs at the nurse administering the shots, but the most you'll ever get out of her is one single, solitary tear drop a la Denzel Washington in Glory. It's like her pride won't allow her to cry.
Anyway, today I just knew that having two metal rods forced through her ear lobes would do it. I was right...and wrong. She was all smiles going into the office. She even let out a few giggles when the doctor had me lay her on the table. But the minute that the doctor came at her with the pen to mark the puncture locations...my daughter's Blackness kicked in. You know that feeling that you get when you see a group of dudes walking your way on a street in a neighborhood that you don't live in? The look that goes with that feeling...that's what my daughter had on her face. It was like, "What the hell do we need three people in this room for, Daddy?"
She cried before the doctor even touched her. It wasn't a punk-baby cry. It was more of a "here we go with this shit" kind of cry. So the doctor motioned towards her and my daughter reached out and grabbed the pen like "don't even play with me like that." The doctor tried to hold her hand and my daughter swung on her like "bust a move!" So that's when we decided to just immobilize her. I held her arms and put my body weight down on her legs while the nurse held her head steady. The doctor then came in for another approach.
I'm a pretty strong guy so when I tell you that it was difficult to hold her down, please know that it's coming from a sincere place. The girl was like Jack-Jack on The Incredibles. She just turned into this creature. The whole "Wonder Baby" Afro-Spartan strength didn't shock me as much as what followed. She cried like a modern day lynching when they did the first piercing. That I was prepared for. What I didn't anticipate was her reaction to the second piercing. She just stopped crying. It was as if her mutant healing power adapted to the pain and she seriously calmed the hell down. She started speaking to us in some language that's apparently native to her but foreign to us. Perhaps it was Aramaic, hell it could've been Latin. It sounded like whatever that little girl in The Exorcist was speaking. I know for a fact that it wasn't jibberish because she repeated the same series of sounds again. I told myself, that if she levitated in any way that I was safe-dropping her right there in the office. "She's all yours!"
Anyway, the doctor finished and left the room and my daughter actually started laughing as if to say "Is that all the hell you've got?" They gave her some baby Tylenol for the pain (What pain?) and maybe it doped her up a little. All I know is that the whole car ride home she had periods of laughter followed by her growling and gnawing away at the little dangling car seat toys. Whether or not Zool has possessed my child, I don't know, but I've had this bottle of Deer Park sitting on this Bible (homemade Holy Water) for the last three hours and I'm WAITING for her to start quoting the book of Revelation to me.
Anyway, today I just knew that having two metal rods forced through her ear lobes would do it. I was right...and wrong. She was all smiles going into the office. She even let out a few giggles when the doctor had me lay her on the table. But the minute that the doctor came at her with the pen to mark the puncture locations...my daughter's Blackness kicked in. You know that feeling that you get when you see a group of dudes walking your way on a street in a neighborhood that you don't live in? The look that goes with that feeling...that's what my daughter had on her face. It was like, "What the hell do we need three people in this room for, Daddy?"
She cried before the doctor even touched her. It wasn't a punk-baby cry. It was more of a "here we go with this shit" kind of cry. So the doctor motioned towards her and my daughter reached out and grabbed the pen like "don't even play with me like that." The doctor tried to hold her hand and my daughter swung on her like "bust a move!" So that's when we decided to just immobilize her. I held her arms and put my body weight down on her legs while the nurse held her head steady. The doctor then came in for another approach.
I'm a pretty strong guy so when I tell you that it was difficult to hold her down, please know that it's coming from a sincere place. The girl was like Jack-Jack on The Incredibles. She just turned into this creature. The whole "Wonder Baby" Afro-Spartan strength didn't shock me as much as what followed. She cried like a modern day lynching when they did the first piercing. That I was prepared for. What I didn't anticipate was her reaction to the second piercing. She just stopped crying. It was as if her mutant healing power adapted to the pain and she seriously calmed the hell down. She started speaking to us in some language that's apparently native to her but foreign to us. Perhaps it was Aramaic, hell it could've been Latin. It sounded like whatever that little girl in The Exorcist was speaking. I know for a fact that it wasn't jibberish because she repeated the same series of sounds again. I told myself, that if she levitated in any way that I was safe-dropping her right there in the office. "She's all yours!"
Anyway, the doctor finished and left the room and my daughter actually started laughing as if to say "Is that all the hell you've got?" They gave her some baby Tylenol for the pain (What pain?) and maybe it doped her up a little. All I know is that the whole car ride home she had periods of laughter followed by her growling and gnawing away at the little dangling car seat toys. Whether or not Zool has possessed my child, I don't know, but I've had this bottle of Deer Park sitting on this Bible (homemade Holy Water) for the last three hours and I'm WAITING for her to start quoting the book of Revelation to me.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Who Am I?
I'm really proud of myself. For the past week I've managed to post at least once a day. That's huge considering the months of gaps on my old blog. Maybe paying $10 a month for web hosting was all the motivation I need.
I still find it difficult, however, because I don't know how to write on this thing. Similar to Facebook, blogs expose all sides of you--At least if you do it from the heart. For a while I had this bitter feeling toward Facebook until I realized the reason for my disdain. We, human beings, are different things to different people. At work we carry one persona while we're completely different at home. It doesn't mean that we're fake, we just adapt to the requirements of different situations.
When I was a manager, I had a somewhat unpleasant conversation with my boss who stumbled across my very old Myspace page where I'd listed my occupation as phone slave. Anyone who knew me personally--or had an ounce of common sense and/or humor--knew that I was joking. Still, I was admonished for putting up something so unprofessional. Well John, it is my personal page.
Facebook, like this blog, is open to everyone. Sure, you can set privacy restrictions but the fact remains that I'm friends with church-folk, former teachers, my mother's friends, my white as snow pure friends and my ignorant-heathen-drunkard friends. I associate with them because they each appeal to a different part of my persona. The conflict arises when those worlds collide.
To date there are only a handful of people who frequent this site. That's pretty much by design. I haven't figured out how to balance the different personas on paper as well as I do in person. It's a work in progress.
I still find it difficult, however, because I don't know how to write on this thing. Similar to Facebook, blogs expose all sides of you--At least if you do it from the heart. For a while I had this bitter feeling toward Facebook until I realized the reason for my disdain. We, human beings, are different things to different people. At work we carry one persona while we're completely different at home. It doesn't mean that we're fake, we just adapt to the requirements of different situations.
When I was a manager, I had a somewhat unpleasant conversation with my boss who stumbled across my very old Myspace page where I'd listed my occupation as phone slave. Anyone who knew me personally--or had an ounce of common sense and/or humor--knew that I was joking. Still, I was admonished for putting up something so unprofessional. Well John, it is my personal page.
Facebook, like this blog, is open to everyone. Sure, you can set privacy restrictions but the fact remains that I'm friends with church-folk, former teachers, my mother's friends, my white as snow pure friends and my ignorant-heathen-drunkard friends. I associate with them because they each appeal to a different part of my persona. The conflict arises when those worlds collide.
To date there are only a handful of people who frequent this site. That's pretty much by design. I haven't figured out how to balance the different personas on paper as well as I do in person. It's a work in progress.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
You Can't Go Outside But...
Yesterday I wrote about not being able to go outside as a kid. I started thinking about the weird contradictions to the rules that I never noticed. I couldn't go outside the yard to play mostly because my grandparents didn't trust the kids in the neighborhood. They were right for the most part as a lot of them either ended up in jail, pregnant, or just didn't turn out too well. All other reasons seemed to be okay.
First, I started walking to school by myself in the first grade. Now granted, the school was at the corner, still it was light years away from the tree that was my iron curtain. Second, the liquor store was the yellow brick road. When I turned about six, my grandmother realized that my little legs could run errands for her. It was nothing for me to run around the corner to the store and pick up a soda, some candy, ice cream or something else for her. By seven the Asian lady running the place had already established that it was okay for me to come pick up a "package" for my grandmother as long as I had a note. I now know exactly what I was picking up, but at six I really did think that the postman left a glass bottle of fancy water (Seagram's if memory serves me correctly) for her at the store by mistake and I needed to go pick it up for her along with a pack of Parliament cigarettes and two books of matches. The lady at the counter would always say, "Go straight home, walk slow and don't open this bag for any reason. You're such a good young man to pick this up for your grandmother."
Also interesting is the freedom to go to the movies that came at age ten. No one ever believes this, but when I was ten years old they dropped me off at Union Station to go see the movie Dave. A week or two later I went to see Stargate. By the time Mario Bros and Jurassic Park came out, I was going to the movies all the time by myself. Strange enough, I was never carded for anything. I had a full mustache by the time I was in the fifth grade anyway, so I guess I looked old enough for a PG-13 movie.
We wont even go into when I started catching public transportation. I caught my first bus alone at age five. Always the schemer, I used to keep the money by pretending to be with another adult getting on the bus. I'd then use my money to buy candy at the store on one of my trips to pick up a package of water for my grandmother. lol
Good times indeed.
First, I started walking to school by myself in the first grade. Now granted, the school was at the corner, still it was light years away from the tree that was my iron curtain. Second, the liquor store was the yellow brick road. When I turned about six, my grandmother realized that my little legs could run errands for her. It was nothing for me to run around the corner to the store and pick up a soda, some candy, ice cream or something else for her. By seven the Asian lady running the place had already established that it was okay for me to come pick up a "package" for my grandmother as long as I had a note. I now know exactly what I was picking up, but at six I really did think that the postman left a glass bottle of fancy water (Seagram's if memory serves me correctly) for her at the store by mistake and I needed to go pick it up for her along with a pack of Parliament cigarettes and two books of matches. The lady at the counter would always say, "Go straight home, walk slow and don't open this bag for any reason. You're such a good young man to pick this up for your grandmother."
Also interesting is the freedom to go to the movies that came at age ten. No one ever believes this, but when I was ten years old they dropped me off at Union Station to go see the movie Dave. A week or two later I went to see Stargate. By the time Mario Bros and Jurassic Park came out, I was going to the movies all the time by myself. Strange enough, I was never carded for anything. I had a full mustache by the time I was in the fifth grade anyway, so I guess I looked old enough for a PG-13 movie.
We wont even go into when I started catching public transportation. I caught my first bus alone at age five. Always the schemer, I used to keep the money by pretending to be with another adult getting on the bus. I'd then use my money to buy candy at the store on one of my trips to pick up a package of water for my grandmother. lol
Good times indeed.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Can I Go Outside?
Spring can't get here fast enough. I hate being trapped in the house. I'm an outdoorsy person. Actually, I'm just a damn fool. I walk everywhere and, for some reason, feel cabin fever at the thought of staying in the house for even one day. When it was warm, the baby and I were all over town. I actually need a new stroller because the tire treads are worn down to the plastic rims.
My fascination with outside started at a young age. You see, I grew up under Soviet rule. My mother had me at fifteen so during the day she went to school. In the afternoons she went to her Federal Government "Stay in School" job and in the evenings and nights she worked a part-time job. That left me to stay with my grandparents, architects of the iron curtain.
My grandmother worked at night, so from the time I got out of school until five o'clock, I tried my best to cram in as much "outside time" as possible. It wasn't easy though because they treated our neighborhood like Berlin. First off, I was not allowed to go outside the gate. My grandmother lived on the outskirts of Capitol Hill. That meant that it was nice enough where people weren't getting shot left and right, but it was close enough to the hood where those people walked by on occasion. She also believed that every other child in the world was up to no good and thus I had to stay inside the fence.
I don't know if you've seen the average row house in DC, but the yard is usually 5 square feet at best. My fun games included:
Good times.
As I got older, my privileges expanded. Around seven years old, I was allowed to go as far as the tree. Sadly this was only about four houses down or twenty feet. Still, it gave me plenty of room to fly my kite. I'd run full speed for the whole twenty feet and then turn around and run back. I was fat as a kid so this game didn't last long. Eventually I convinced them to let me go to the other alley. That meant that I could now ride my bike. What fun I had riding forty feet or eight houses and then turning around and riding back.
This, of course, only lasted until five o'clock. That's when my grandmother went to her night job and my grandfather's dictatorship took over. I couldn't go outside at all once my grandmother left. I was able to sit in the window and on really really nice days, he'd let me sit on the step. I couldn't go down the stairs, but I could sit at the top steps. Whenever he wasn't looking, my defiant side would kick in and I'd sit on the second or third step from the top (just to show him who was boss).
Considering all of this, it is no wonder that when I turned about twelve (and they started letting me actually cross the street) that I took off for hours at a time. I'd tell them that I was going to the playground around the corner, but I'd be downtown at the monument or one of the museums. To this day, the Smithsonian remains one of my favorite places to go. The exhibits aren't that interesting, but everytime I cross the door I remember how free I used to feel.
My fascination with outside started at a young age. You see, I grew up under Soviet rule. My mother had me at fifteen so during the day she went to school. In the afternoons she went to her Federal Government "Stay in School" job and in the evenings and nights she worked a part-time job. That left me to stay with my grandparents, architects of the iron curtain.
My grandmother worked at night, so from the time I got out of school until five o'clock, I tried my best to cram in as much "outside time" as possible. It wasn't easy though because they treated our neighborhood like Berlin. First off, I was not allowed to go outside the gate. My grandmother lived on the outskirts of Capitol Hill. That meant that it was nice enough where people weren't getting shot left and right, but it was close enough to the hood where those people walked by on occasion. She also believed that every other child in the world was up to no good and thus I had to stay inside the fence.
I don't know if you've seen the average row house in DC, but the yard is usually 5 square feet at best. My fun games included:
- See how many steps you can jump down without hurting yourself
- See how many steps you can jump up without hurting yourself
- Throw the ball to the top of the stairs and watch it roll down
- Throw the ball up in the air as high as you can and then catch it
- Throw the ball up in the air as high as you can, spin around and catch it
- Try not to cry as the other neighborhood kids laugh at you because you can't come out the gate.
Good times.
As I got older, my privileges expanded. Around seven years old, I was allowed to go as far as the tree. Sadly this was only about four houses down or twenty feet. Still, it gave me plenty of room to fly my kite. I'd run full speed for the whole twenty feet and then turn around and run back. I was fat as a kid so this game didn't last long. Eventually I convinced them to let me go to the other alley. That meant that I could now ride my bike. What fun I had riding forty feet or eight houses and then turning around and riding back.
This, of course, only lasted until five o'clock. That's when my grandmother went to her night job and my grandfather's dictatorship took over. I couldn't go outside at all once my grandmother left. I was able to sit in the window and on really really nice days, he'd let me sit on the step. I couldn't go down the stairs, but I could sit at the top steps. Whenever he wasn't looking, my defiant side would kick in and I'd sit on the second or third step from the top (just to show him who was boss).
Considering all of this, it is no wonder that when I turned about twelve (and they started letting me actually cross the street) that I took off for hours at a time. I'd tell them that I was going to the playground around the corner, but I'd be downtown at the monument or one of the museums. To this day, the Smithsonian remains one of my favorite places to go. The exhibits aren't that interesting, but everytime I cross the door I remember how free I used to feel.
Where is Obama?
Today is the two year anniversary of Obama's inauguration. One question: Where is the guy that I froze my ass off for over six hours just to watch on a jumbotron? Two years ago I went down to the National Mall at about three in the morning with five layers of clothes and about eight hand warmers. I forced my way onto an already full subway car and stood so close to someone that I was not only in front of them, but behind them as well. I then walked two miles to the Capitol only to go into the beginning stages of hypothermia within two hours.
Several hours later the inauguration began and people that I would normally punch in the face in any other situation hugged me as if I was a long lost brother when he finished taking the oath of office. I went home freezing, hungry and seriously wondering if my bladder was going to rip open at the seams. I walked eight long miles back to my house and you know what...I felt great. Not only did I watch history unfold, I actually believed in Obama. Not like, "hey he's a nice guy and I like him" but more like, "HE CAN CATCH BULLETS WITH HIS TEETH!"
My question to you is: Where the hell is that guy at these days? This isn't an Obama bashing post. I have a lot of respect for him, I just notice a change. Realistically, it will take years for things to improve in this country. There is no magic wand that he can wave to make things better, but dammit the guy who I froze my ass off to see on his first day of work had the gift to at least make me think that there was a magic wand.
The dude that I see on TV these days looks just as beaten down as the rest of us. He went from being Bruce Leroy to Lamont Sanford real quick. I've never done anything nearly as prestigious as President of the US, but I was SGA President back in high school and let me tell you: I see similarities.
I ran for President promising a bunch of things that I thought were within my scope of power. "I'm going to work with the principal to get better lunch options." It turned out that the city government budget decided long before I took office that we were only going to eat two-day old pizza and tater tots. Breakfast would be a hybrid bastardization of the two. "I'll take your issues to the teachers and school administrators!" Yeah I'll bitch and moan on your behalf but they won't listen to me either. By the end of my presidency, I just wanted to graduate and hand the pretend position to someone else. I feel your pain Obama.
He really believed the stuff he was saying, now he has to keep saying it to make us believe. It's like Santa Claus. Each iteration of new parents keeps the myth alive with their kids because they remember what it was like to actually believe in something. The truth is that Obama can only do so much and the few things he can do get pounced on as soon as he lifts his finger.
I feel for you Obama...still, can I get a good old fashioned "Yes we can" with some feeling...just for old times sake. You've been saying it in your press conferences, but I'm not buying it. Pretend I'm Joe Clark and you're singing the school song. Sing it with some feeling and sing it expeditiously!
Fair East Side, by thy side we'll stand and always praise thy name...YES WE CAN!
All aboard...
Several hours later the inauguration began and people that I would normally punch in the face in any other situation hugged me as if I was a long lost brother when he finished taking the oath of office. I went home freezing, hungry and seriously wondering if my bladder was going to rip open at the seams. I walked eight long miles back to my house and you know what...I felt great. Not only did I watch history unfold, I actually believed in Obama. Not like, "hey he's a nice guy and I like him" but more like, "HE CAN CATCH BULLETS WITH HIS TEETH!"
My question to you is: Where the hell is that guy at these days? This isn't an Obama bashing post. I have a lot of respect for him, I just notice a change. Realistically, it will take years for things to improve in this country. There is no magic wand that he can wave to make things better, but dammit the guy who I froze my ass off to see on his first day of work had the gift to at least make me think that there was a magic wand.
The dude that I see on TV these days looks just as beaten down as the rest of us. He went from being Bruce Leroy to Lamont Sanford real quick. I've never done anything nearly as prestigious as President of the US, but I was SGA President back in high school and let me tell you: I see similarities.
I ran for President promising a bunch of things that I thought were within my scope of power. "I'm going to work with the principal to get better lunch options." It turned out that the city government budget decided long before I took office that we were only going to eat two-day old pizza and tater tots. Breakfast would be a hybrid bastardization of the two. "I'll take your issues to the teachers and school administrators!" Yeah I'll bitch and moan on your behalf but they won't listen to me either. By the end of my presidency, I just wanted to graduate and hand the pretend position to someone else. I feel your pain Obama.
He really believed the stuff he was saying, now he has to keep saying it to make us believe. It's like Santa Claus. Each iteration of new parents keeps the myth alive with their kids because they remember what it was like to actually believe in something. The truth is that Obama can only do so much and the few things he can do get pounced on as soon as he lifts his finger.
I feel for you Obama...still, can I get a good old fashioned "Yes we can" with some feeling...just for old times sake. You've been saying it in your press conferences, but I'm not buying it. Pretend I'm Joe Clark and you're singing the school song. Sing it with some feeling and sing it expeditiously!
Fair East Side, by thy side we'll stand and always praise thy name...YES WE CAN!
All aboard...
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Shoot for the Clouds...Not the Moon or Stars
I came across these a while back and thought they were funny as hell. These are actual toys and I hope that no one ever buys my daughter these:
First on the list of "Set Your Sights Low:"
Baby's First Workstation
[caption id="attachment_486" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Baby's First Cubicle"]
[/caption]
Enjoy that lemonade stand now son, because it's as close to entrepreneurship that you're gonna get. Yeah, you'll spend four years in college and another two in grad school just to become a number. No falling asleep now...you'll have plenty of time for that when you're an adult.
If $2500 isn't in your price range then perhaps your kid will do better with one of these...
Baby's First Cleaning Cart
[caption id="attachment_487" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Hotel Sold Separately"]
[/caption]
Just when you thought the sky was the limit...in comes the glass ceiling. The offensiveness of this toy was spared thanks to the nice non-minority baby modeling the toy. If this had been a Hispanic baby, then people would be outraged. Who are we kidding though, you have to know somebody to get a job cleaning offices. So this brings us to the final toy on our Lowered Expectations Christmas List...
Baby's First McJob
[caption id="attachment_488" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="You want pride with that?"]
[/caption]
Let's face it, this is the best some of our kids will ever do. Why drive yourself crazy with twelve years worth of report card pep talks when you can just accept your kid's fate today? It is a tad bit ironic that the McDonald's toy is cheaper than the cleaning cart which is cheaper than the cubicle...it's as if they're appealing to certain classes with their price structure.
First on the list of "Set Your Sights Low:"
Baby's First Workstation
[caption id="attachment_486" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Baby's First Cubicle"]
[/caption]Enjoy that lemonade stand now son, because it's as close to entrepreneurship that you're gonna get. Yeah, you'll spend four years in college and another two in grad school just to become a number. No falling asleep now...you'll have plenty of time for that when you're an adult.
If $2500 isn't in your price range then perhaps your kid will do better with one of these...
Baby's First Cleaning Cart
[caption id="attachment_487" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Hotel Sold Separately"]
[/caption]Just when you thought the sky was the limit...in comes the glass ceiling. The offensiveness of this toy was spared thanks to the nice non-minority baby modeling the toy. If this had been a Hispanic baby, then people would be outraged. Who are we kidding though, you have to know somebody to get a job cleaning offices. So this brings us to the final toy on our Lowered Expectations Christmas List...
Baby's First McJob
[caption id="attachment_488" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="You want pride with that?"]
[/caption]Let's face it, this is the best some of our kids will ever do. Why drive yourself crazy with twelve years worth of report card pep talks when you can just accept your kid's fate today? It is a tad bit ironic that the McDonald's toy is cheaper than the cleaning cart which is cheaper than the cubicle...it's as if they're appealing to certain classes with their price structure.
Get Well Steve!
Here's wishing Steve Jobs (and Apple's stock, aapl) a speedy recovery. I watched this video years ago and it inspired me to set out on my own ventures...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
Monday, January 17, 2011
Swing for the Fences
When I was young I was afraid of everything. Bugs, dogs, people. It didn't matter what it was, I was scared of it. Around the third or fourth grade I tried to toughen myself up in an effort to not grow up to be a punk. (See previous entries for more examples) One such attempt occurred at an amusement park...
The year was 1991. I was nine years old and Amusements of America came to the Stadium Armory Parking lot as they did every year. This year I promised myself that I would get on all of the rides that I was afraid of the year prior. First, let me give myself some credit: I got on the roller coaster, the high slide and the swings. Now that doesn't sound like defying death to the average person, but you have to consider that the carnival came to the 'hood. Ghetto carnivals and official state fairs are two totally different creatures. The latter is a well-funded, annual tradition that has a substantial budget and a certain expectation of safety. Hood carnivals are the exact opposite.
While a state fair usually sets up at the state fair grounds, a hood carnival sets up shop in a mall parking lot, abandoned field or anywhere else they can fit the trucks. I doubt that they really send an inspectors to the hood carnival and half the time they hire neighborhood people to help assemble and dismantle the rides...people with zero experience. With all this said, give me a little credit. The merry go round is the equivalent of russian roulette. Don't believe me? See this article where someone was electrocuted on the bumper cars back in 93.
So back to the story...
I had four tickets left and saved the best ride for last...something that went upside down. I chose the Pirate Ship. You've seen something like this at Kings Dominion or the fair: It's a long boat looking thing and maybe twenty or thirty people can get on. It swings back and forth and some of them go upside down. I met the "You must be this tall" sign exactly. The guy was like..."Go ahead and get on." I sat down, strapped in and he pulled the harness down over my shoulders. Then the ride started.
We swung backwards and then forwards while random people screamed for no reason. We hadn't even lifted up more than three feet off the ground. Some people just like to scream whenever the ride starts. I'm sure the ride operator was used to it...which is why he ignored my screams of "STOP THE RIDE. STOP THE RIDE!" Immediately after he started the ride I heard a pop. My restraints loosened. If you've ever been on a ride, you know that's not supposed to happen...at all...not even slightly.
I'm no expert, but let's assume that the boat ride swings back and forth fifteen times before actually going upside down. In the case of our example, back and forward equals one complete time. The first time it swung, my harness lifted about an inch. The third time it swung my harness moved another inch. By the fifth time it swung, my ass was screaming at the top of my lungs because the restraints were completely up in the air over my head and I was pulling them down with both hands.
Now I was a little ghetto kid. I wasn't whimpering "Please stop." I was yelling every curse word imaginable." By swing number 10 I'd started plotting which part of the ride to try to land on that would hurt the least. Around swing 6, the woman next to me noticed what was going on and began screaming. Luckily, by swing 12 the whole row I was on was screaming at the guy. Remember: 15 swings and the joint flips over. By swing 14 I had the people on both sides of me using their hands to try to hold me the best that they could because we knew what was coming. At the height of that swing, the ride jerked to a stop mid-air and slowly lowered to the ground.
I jumped off that damn thing and the only thing that the man said to me was "You probably were too short for this ride."
WTF!?
The year was 1991. I was nine years old and Amusements of America came to the Stadium Armory Parking lot as they did every year. This year I promised myself that I would get on all of the rides that I was afraid of the year prior. First, let me give myself some credit: I got on the roller coaster, the high slide and the swings. Now that doesn't sound like defying death to the average person, but you have to consider that the carnival came to the 'hood. Ghetto carnivals and official state fairs are two totally different creatures. The latter is a well-funded, annual tradition that has a substantial budget and a certain expectation of safety. Hood carnivals are the exact opposite.
While a state fair usually sets up at the state fair grounds, a hood carnival sets up shop in a mall parking lot, abandoned field or anywhere else they can fit the trucks. I doubt that they really send an inspectors to the hood carnival and half the time they hire neighborhood people to help assemble and dismantle the rides...people with zero experience. With all this said, give me a little credit. The merry go round is the equivalent of russian roulette. Don't believe me? See this article where someone was electrocuted on the bumper cars back in 93.
So back to the story...
I had four tickets left and saved the best ride for last...something that went upside down. I chose the Pirate Ship. You've seen something like this at Kings Dominion or the fair: It's a long boat looking thing and maybe twenty or thirty people can get on. It swings back and forth and some of them go upside down. I met the "You must be this tall" sign exactly. The guy was like..."Go ahead and get on." I sat down, strapped in and he pulled the harness down over my shoulders. Then the ride started.
We swung backwards and then forwards while random people screamed for no reason. We hadn't even lifted up more than three feet off the ground. Some people just like to scream whenever the ride starts. I'm sure the ride operator was used to it...which is why he ignored my screams of "STOP THE RIDE. STOP THE RIDE!" Immediately after he started the ride I heard a pop. My restraints loosened. If you've ever been on a ride, you know that's not supposed to happen...at all...not even slightly.
I'm no expert, but let's assume that the boat ride swings back and forth fifteen times before actually going upside down. In the case of our example, back and forward equals one complete time. The first time it swung, my harness lifted about an inch. The third time it swung my harness moved another inch. By the fifth time it swung, my ass was screaming at the top of my lungs because the restraints were completely up in the air over my head and I was pulling them down with both hands.
Now I was a little ghetto kid. I wasn't whimpering "Please stop." I was yelling every curse word imaginable." By swing number 10 I'd started plotting which part of the ride to try to land on that would hurt the least. Around swing 6, the woman next to me noticed what was going on and began screaming. Luckily, by swing 12 the whole row I was on was screaming at the guy. Remember: 15 swings and the joint flips over. By swing 14 I had the people on both sides of me using their hands to try to hold me the best that they could because we knew what was coming. At the height of that swing, the ride jerked to a stop mid-air and slowly lowered to the ground.
I jumped off that damn thing and the only thing that the man said to me was "You probably were too short for this ride."
WTF!?
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Mama's Gun.
These last few posts have been about my mother. She's a bad mother...shut yo mouth. My mother is the only woman that I think could've won the heisman trophy if she went to college. At 4'11", my mother can probably beat the shit out of any man alive. I've cursed out a lot of people in my life and I've run my mouth so much despite my small frame, but none of that compares to the stuff my mother has done.
We were in the movies watching Another 48 Hours once and I remember someone talking in the movie. My mother turned around and said something like, "shut the hell up" or whatever it was. All I know is that someone pulled out a gun and fired off a shot and I only think she ran because I was with her.
I remember going up to the basketball court once when I was like eight and a group of guys chased me off the court. This was like 1990 and everyone was in their New Jack City attitude. We lived in the heart of the ghetto and people got shot all the time for stupid stuff. Knowing this, my mother still made me go back up to the court. I told her that the guys looked dangerous and I think they might have a gun. My mother went in the kitchen and came back with a damn 2 X 4 and told me to take that and use it if any of them tried anything.
Let me remind you that these dudes were like 15-18 years old, there were like ten of them and one of me and I was only EIGHT! With this kind of influence, it's no wonder that I was cursing out my teachers in the third grade. Lady, I almost died yesterday over a basketball, hell no I aint do my damn homework.
We were in the movies watching Another 48 Hours once and I remember someone talking in the movie. My mother turned around and said something like, "shut the hell up" or whatever it was. All I know is that someone pulled out a gun and fired off a shot and I only think she ran because I was with her.
I remember going up to the basketball court once when I was like eight and a group of guys chased me off the court. This was like 1990 and everyone was in their New Jack City attitude. We lived in the heart of the ghetto and people got shot all the time for stupid stuff. Knowing this, my mother still made me go back up to the court. I told her that the guys looked dangerous and I think they might have a gun. My mother went in the kitchen and came back with a damn 2 X 4 and told me to take that and use it if any of them tried anything.
Let me remind you that these dudes were like 15-18 years old, there were like ten of them and one of me and I was only EIGHT! With this kind of influence, it's no wonder that I was cursing out my teachers in the third grade. Lady, I almost died yesterday over a basketball, hell no I aint do my damn homework.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Don't Run pt 2
So yesterday I told you about Nate punching me and how I ran. Today we're gonna talk about how I got up the courage to not be a punk.
A week or so after I got punched, Nate and I were friends as if nothing happened. See, this new kid named Dupree moved in and Nate needed all the friends he could get. I was seven and Nate was nine, but Dupree was thirteen. Dupree had just moved back to DC after being in juvenile hall for a year. That made him the Deebo of the block. Nate and I were best friends at that point.
I've always been able to get along with people, so me and Dupree were cool. That made me and Nate cool. Anyway, me and Dupree were buddy buddy for about a month, then one night we stayed out til about ten or eleven (this was the hood and it wasn't uncommon for seven year olds to be out that late) playing football, ninja turtles and trying to skateboard. Anyway, his mother told him to come in the house so I was like, "Aight man I'll see you later." He was like, "Yeah man, you got me with that skateboard today."
Trying to be cool and use what was "new" slang in '89-'90 I said..."That's right, word to your mother." He said, "What did you say?" I repeated it and laughed thinking I was cool and then went in the house. The next day my mother sends me to take the trash to the dumpster waaaaay up the hill in the center of the complex. I run into Nate and say what's up. He takes off running to the back of another building and yells, "Yo Dupree, he right here!"
Dupree comes running up and behind him is like fifteen of the neighborhood kids. He says, "What's that shit you said about my mother last night?" I'm confused like hell. He pushes me down to the ground is towering over me like, "What did you say about my mother bitch!?" So I get up and two things are going through my head
#1 What the hell is he talking about?
#2 Don't be no punk.
I tried to explain to him what "Word to your mother" meant but he thought I'd made the shit up. Apparently his family didn't have tv or radio so the phrase was lost on him. So I gave up trying to explain and moved on to #2, Don't be a punk.
"Man I aint say nothing about your mother, leave me alone."
I put the trash in the dumpster and tried to walk away without anyone seeing how fast my heart was beating through my shirt. Now, remind you...Dupree was 13, I was 7. That's when Benedict Arnold--Nate chimes in with "Fuck him up. He trying to say your mother's a bitch."
"WHAT!?"
That's when the big 13 year old fist comes flying. I dodged that one and was trying to look tough. "Stop playing Dupree." I didn't run. I'm thinking to myself..."Good job. You're not a punk." That's when fist number two, three and four made contact with my face. Dupree had been in Juvie Hall and apparently this nigga was the golden gloves of thirteen year olds. I was dazed and then I saw three or four other boys coming in to take shots and that's when "nigga run!" popped in my head.
"Fuck this!"
I hauled ass. I turn the corner around one of the buildings and this nigga had a fucking enclave where some more dudes were blocking my path. It's almost like he KNEW I was gonna run that way. So these other dudes grab me and start punching me and try to back me into a wall. I hit some Jet Li/ Jackie Chan escape shit and climbed over this brick wall and up onto this platform thing and then jumped down over them and ran full speed back to my house which by now was like a block or two away. No lie, it looked like the beginning of the Bombs Over Baghdad video where Andre 3000 is running from all those kids.
I ran for my damn life back to my building, locked the door and ran up the steps to my apartment. My mother was luckily in her bedroom watching TV and didn't know what happened. The next day, however, she saw my swollen face and...you guessed it...sent me right back outside to defend my honor.
As terrified as I was, I held my ground when Dupree came running across the street. In his exact words (or as best as I can remember)
"Don't worry man, I'm not gonna hit you. I'm sorry about that shit from yesterday. Nate is a bitch. That nigga told me you were talking about my mother and I believed him. After you went in the house, I was thinking that you never said anything bad about me before. Me and you is friends. We cool, but imma fuck Nate up the next time I see him. I didn't hurt you did I?"
From behind a swollen jaw, eye, chest and gut I said, "Naw, it aint hurt at all, but it was so many of yall that I was like, let me run in the house."
He believed that shit...then again, if a 13 year old is playing with a seven year old...he may not be "all there" in the first place.
A week or so after I got punched, Nate and I were friends as if nothing happened. See, this new kid named Dupree moved in and Nate needed all the friends he could get. I was seven and Nate was nine, but Dupree was thirteen. Dupree had just moved back to DC after being in juvenile hall for a year. That made him the Deebo of the block. Nate and I were best friends at that point.
I've always been able to get along with people, so me and Dupree were cool. That made me and Nate cool. Anyway, me and Dupree were buddy buddy for about a month, then one night we stayed out til about ten or eleven (this was the hood and it wasn't uncommon for seven year olds to be out that late) playing football, ninja turtles and trying to skateboard. Anyway, his mother told him to come in the house so I was like, "Aight man I'll see you later." He was like, "Yeah man, you got me with that skateboard today."
Trying to be cool and use what was "new" slang in '89-'90 I said..."That's right, word to your mother." He said, "What did you say?" I repeated it and laughed thinking I was cool and then went in the house. The next day my mother sends me to take the trash to the dumpster waaaaay up the hill in the center of the complex. I run into Nate and say what's up. He takes off running to the back of another building and yells, "Yo Dupree, he right here!"
Dupree comes running up and behind him is like fifteen of the neighborhood kids. He says, "What's that shit you said about my mother last night?" I'm confused like hell. He pushes me down to the ground is towering over me like, "What did you say about my mother bitch!?" So I get up and two things are going through my head
#1 What the hell is he talking about?
#2 Don't be no punk.
I tried to explain to him what "Word to your mother" meant but he thought I'd made the shit up. Apparently his family didn't have tv or radio so the phrase was lost on him. So I gave up trying to explain and moved on to #2, Don't be a punk.
"Man I aint say nothing about your mother, leave me alone."
I put the trash in the dumpster and tried to walk away without anyone seeing how fast my heart was beating through my shirt. Now, remind you...Dupree was 13, I was 7. That's when Benedict Arnold--Nate chimes in with "Fuck him up. He trying to say your mother's a bitch."
"WHAT!?"
That's when the big 13 year old fist comes flying. I dodged that one and was trying to look tough. "Stop playing Dupree." I didn't run. I'm thinking to myself..."Good job. You're not a punk." That's when fist number two, three and four made contact with my face. Dupree had been in Juvie Hall and apparently this nigga was the golden gloves of thirteen year olds. I was dazed and then I saw three or four other boys coming in to take shots and that's when "nigga run!" popped in my head.
"Fuck this!"
I hauled ass. I turn the corner around one of the buildings and this nigga had a fucking enclave where some more dudes were blocking my path. It's almost like he KNEW I was gonna run that way. So these other dudes grab me and start punching me and try to back me into a wall. I hit some Jet Li/ Jackie Chan escape shit and climbed over this brick wall and up onto this platform thing and then jumped down over them and ran full speed back to my house which by now was like a block or two away. No lie, it looked like the beginning of the Bombs Over Baghdad video where Andre 3000 is running from all those kids.
I ran for my damn life back to my building, locked the door and ran up the steps to my apartment. My mother was luckily in her bedroom watching TV and didn't know what happened. The next day, however, she saw my swollen face and...you guessed it...sent me right back outside to defend my honor.
As terrified as I was, I held my ground when Dupree came running across the street. In his exact words (or as best as I can remember)
"Don't worry man, I'm not gonna hit you. I'm sorry about that shit from yesterday. Nate is a bitch. That nigga told me you were talking about my mother and I believed him. After you went in the house, I was thinking that you never said anything bad about me before. Me and you is friends. We cool, but imma fuck Nate up the next time I see him. I didn't hurt you did I?"
From behind a swollen jaw, eye, chest and gut I said, "Naw, it aint hurt at all, but it was so many of yall that I was like, let me run in the house."
He believed that shit...then again, if a 13 year old is playing with a seven year old...he may not be "all there" in the first place.
Excellent Work Officers
Let's play a game called What's the Point.
According to CNN A 71 year old man was arrested after being on the run for 30 years. The guy was wanted on a Canadian warrant for smuggling 500 pounds of marijuana. He faked a heart attack before extradition and escaped from a hospital.
What's the point of arresting this guy? At 71 years old, what life can you possibly take away from him? Further, he's managed to stay out of trouble for the past thirty years. Isn't the point of prison to rehabilitate people? Looks like he found a workaround. I think they should just punch him one good time in the gut for making the cops who let him escape look bad and then send him back on his merry way. Instead, they'll bother with a trial, put him in jail and make him a burden on the state.
What's the point?
According to CNN A 71 year old man was arrested after being on the run for 30 years. The guy was wanted on a Canadian warrant for smuggling 500 pounds of marijuana. He faked a heart attack before extradition and escaped from a hospital.
What's the point of arresting this guy? At 71 years old, what life can you possibly take away from him? Further, he's managed to stay out of trouble for the past thirty years. Isn't the point of prison to rehabilitate people? Looks like he found a workaround. I think they should just punch him one good time in the gut for making the cops who let him escape look bad and then send him back on his merry way. Instead, they'll bother with a trial, put him in jail and make him a burden on the state.
What's the point?
Friday, January 14, 2011
Don't Run
Yesterday I wrote about running, today I want to talk about standing your ground: Don't do it. When I was little my mother was obsessed with making sure I didn't grow up to be a punk. I don't know what it is with single Black mothers, but they're determined to make sure their sons don't grow up to be no punks.
When I was seven we moved into a new apartment complex and my mother made me go outside to make friends. This place was maybe a step and a half up from the projects. You could tell because projects are often named something grandiose like "____ Terrace/Manor/Gardens/Farms." This place was named the George Washington Carver Apartments. Being named after GW Carver made it ghetto, but "Apartments" made it kinda nice.
Anyway, like most ghetto places, there were a million kids in the neighborhood playing outside at all hours so I had plenty to choose as "friends." I met these three kids, Nate, Ramen (yes, like the noodles) and Po-Po (real name Napoleon). They taught me to play football and we got along great for about a week. One day we were playing ball and it was time for me and my mother to leave so I had to take my ball back. My mother was in the car and heard me say, "Hey I gotta go, lemme get my ball." Nate responded, "say please." I said "please" and he gave me the ball.
When I got in the car, my mother had a fit. "You let that little boy punk you like that. You don't say please, that's your damn ball. Next time you just take your ball." She was outraged at what she witnessed and I had to hear about it all the way to the store and all the way home. So the next day, same thing, only this time my mother was in the house and I had to go in to eat.
"Lemme get my ball."
"Say please."
(Inner voice: Remember what your mother said) "Man, I'm not saying please, give me my ball."
(Fist comes flying and hits me in the right eye)
I took off running. I ran home, all the kids laughed and I went home crying. I run in the bathroom to see my face because I'd never been punched before. My omnipotent and omnipresent mother says, "Did Nate hit you?"
"No."
"Don't lie to me. Did Nate hit you?"
"Yes."
"You take your ass right back out there and beat his ass. Don't let nobody hit you and you just run away."
Now in my mind I'm thinking, "How in the hell did you know and if you saw it happen why the hell did you just spectate?" Out of my mouth I said, "Okay."
Nate was about two years older than me and for a nine year old I swear he trained with Maximus in Gladiator. I sat my ass on the steps in the hall and didn't even bother going back outside. A few days passed and by the time I ran into Nate again it was as if nothing happened, although I still felt like a punk for running. So the next time someone stepped to me, I had made up my mind that I wasn't going to be a punk...
Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow...
When I was seven we moved into a new apartment complex and my mother made me go outside to make friends. This place was maybe a step and a half up from the projects. You could tell because projects are often named something grandiose like "____ Terrace/Manor/Gardens/Farms." This place was named the George Washington Carver Apartments. Being named after GW Carver made it ghetto, but "Apartments" made it kinda nice.
Anyway, like most ghetto places, there were a million kids in the neighborhood playing outside at all hours so I had plenty to choose as "friends." I met these three kids, Nate, Ramen (yes, like the noodles) and Po-Po (real name Napoleon). They taught me to play football and we got along great for about a week. One day we were playing ball and it was time for me and my mother to leave so I had to take my ball back. My mother was in the car and heard me say, "Hey I gotta go, lemme get my ball." Nate responded, "say please." I said "please" and he gave me the ball.
When I got in the car, my mother had a fit. "You let that little boy punk you like that. You don't say please, that's your damn ball. Next time you just take your ball." She was outraged at what she witnessed and I had to hear about it all the way to the store and all the way home. So the next day, same thing, only this time my mother was in the house and I had to go in to eat.
"Lemme get my ball."
"Say please."
(Inner voice: Remember what your mother said) "Man, I'm not saying please, give me my ball."
(Fist comes flying and hits me in the right eye)
I took off running. I ran home, all the kids laughed and I went home crying. I run in the bathroom to see my face because I'd never been punched before. My omnipotent and omnipresent mother says, "Did Nate hit you?"
"No."
"Don't lie to me. Did Nate hit you?"
"Yes."
"You take your ass right back out there and beat his ass. Don't let nobody hit you and you just run away."
Now in my mind I'm thinking, "How in the hell did you know and if you saw it happen why the hell did you just spectate?" Out of my mouth I said, "Okay."
Nate was about two years older than me and for a nine year old I swear he trained with Maximus in Gladiator. I sat my ass on the steps in the hall and didn't even bother going back outside. A few days passed and by the time I ran into Nate again it was as if nothing happened, although I still felt like a punk for running. So the next time someone stepped to me, I had made up my mind that I wasn't going to be a punk...
Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow...
Thursday, January 13, 2011
We Run.
I can't write a serious post about the Arizona shootings without implanting a little bit of humor. Watch the video and then scroll down for my own story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNA-jgdXBL0
This is so true. I remember testing this theory like a day after I saw The Original Kings of Comedy. I was walking down the street with three of my friends and for no reason I shouted "Oh shit" and just took off running. Two out of three of my friends hauled ass too. After I stopped they asked, "What happened?" LOL
It reminds me of a time that I was in a now-defunct store called Drug Emporium. My mother used to let me hang out by the children's books section while she shopped. On this particular day I was reading an Alvin and the Chipmunks book when I saw maybe twenty grown adults run pass me and towards the back of the store. I was about seven and I remember the feeling of having several +150 lb people push me out of the way and onto the ground as they stampeded by me.
Too young to know the rule of "run too, stupid" I got up, walked towards the front looking for my mother and the place was deserted. I walked around that entire store and couldn't find a soul. I headed towards the back to see where everyone else had gone and out of nowhere someone grabbed me from behind, put their hand over my mouth and carried me back into the warehouse area. I kicked, screamed and bit their hand but they wouldn't let go until we got back by the emergency exit.
It turned out to be my mother and apparently some guy with a gun chased his girlfriend into the store. Being a 'hood store, the emergency exit was chained shut so we had to just wait it out. The guy eventually left after firing a few shots. What always stands out about that day is how it was every man for himself. I learned that day...when someone else is running, you run too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNA-jgdXBL0
This is so true. I remember testing this theory like a day after I saw The Original Kings of Comedy. I was walking down the street with three of my friends and for no reason I shouted "Oh shit" and just took off running. Two out of three of my friends hauled ass too. After I stopped they asked, "What happened?" LOL
It reminds me of a time that I was in a now-defunct store called Drug Emporium. My mother used to let me hang out by the children's books section while she shopped. On this particular day I was reading an Alvin and the Chipmunks book when I saw maybe twenty grown adults run pass me and towards the back of the store. I was about seven and I remember the feeling of having several +150 lb people push me out of the way and onto the ground as they stampeded by me.
Too young to know the rule of "run too, stupid" I got up, walked towards the front looking for my mother and the place was deserted. I walked around that entire store and couldn't find a soul. I headed towards the back to see where everyone else had gone and out of nowhere someone grabbed me from behind, put their hand over my mouth and carried me back into the warehouse area. I kicked, screamed and bit their hand but they wouldn't let go until we got back by the emergency exit.
It turned out to be my mother and apparently some guy with a gun chased his girlfriend into the store. Being a 'hood store, the emergency exit was chained shut so we had to just wait it out. The guy eventually left after firing a few shots. What always stands out about that day is how it was every man for himself. I learned that day...when someone else is running, you run too.
Gotta Love Me
Since we last spoke, the baby has grown drastically. Little mama now has two bottom teeth breaking through the surface, she can army crawl around the floor and she is working on standing up on her own.
That means that there is more suffering coming. As the Empire gets stronger, our forces will be less effective. Yesterday I held her in my arms, she reached over, grabbed my face and in a small endearing moment...grabbed my ear with her talon, pulled it into her mouth and began to chomp away with her new teeth. Now there are two teeth prints in my ear as if some deformed vampire had its way with me.
She's the baby...gotta love her.
That means that there is more suffering coming. As the Empire gets stronger, our forces will be less effective. Yesterday I held her in my arms, she reached over, grabbed my face and in a small endearing moment...grabbed my ear with her talon, pulled it into her mouth and began to chomp away with her new teeth. Now there are two teeth prints in my ear as if some deformed vampire had its way with me.
She's the baby...gotta love her.
Healing...
I love you Barack Hussein Obama, but that speech yesterday looked very political.
<Insert politically correct disclaimer>
The loss of life is tragic regardless of class, race and social status.
<End disclaimer>
Based on statistics from the past five years, an average of 45 people are murdered each day in the United States. I just want to know why is it that we only get a primetime special report from the President when the victims include a federal judge and a congresswoman. Seven people were killed in PG county last week alone, bringing their total to 11 murders since this year started.
What's more concerning, the fact that we have one nut killing nine people at once or that we have several nuts killing seven people in as many days? I'm not naive. I know how this world works. People need a spotlight to focus their attention, and whatever is in that spotlight better be relevant and relatable to all. A person being murdered at a funeral in DC doesn't appeal to someone in Wichita, and a person being stabbed to death in Norfolk, Nebraska has no affect on my day to day affairs here. It's just disconcerting to me that the guy who represents all of us chooses to speak out...now.
The events of this weekend were tragic, but no more or less painful than the things I read about in my local newspaper everyday. We need healing too, or at least a nod of condolences in our direction Mr President.
<Insert politically correct disclaimer>
The loss of life is tragic regardless of class, race and social status.
<End disclaimer>
Based on statistics from the past five years, an average of 45 people are murdered each day in the United States. I just want to know why is it that we only get a primetime special report from the President when the victims include a federal judge and a congresswoman. Seven people were killed in PG county last week alone, bringing their total to 11 murders since this year started.
What's more concerning, the fact that we have one nut killing nine people at once or that we have several nuts killing seven people in as many days? I'm not naive. I know how this world works. People need a spotlight to focus their attention, and whatever is in that spotlight better be relevant and relatable to all. A person being murdered at a funeral in DC doesn't appeal to someone in Wichita, and a person being stabbed to death in Norfolk, Nebraska has no affect on my day to day affairs here. It's just disconcerting to me that the guy who represents all of us chooses to speak out...now.
The events of this weekend were tragic, but no more or less painful than the things I read about in my local newspaper everyday. We need healing too, or at least a nod of condolences in our direction Mr President.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Not miPhone
Talk about a shitty day in toontown.
I lost five grand in the market today. My nephew was born and the hospital parking garage was full so I couldn't go in to see him and, to add insult to injury, the Verizon iPhone is announced at the ridiculous price of $699.00.
I hate being right all the time.
Flashback a month and a few days ago...
The wife has been begging for a new cellphone for maybe two years. I'll admit that having a flip phone in 2010 is a bit Flintstone-ish. The agreement was that we'd wait for the iPhone to come to Verizon because we knew AT&T was the Wal-Mart of networks...25 registers cell towers and only one or two actually working.
Anyway, three years later there was still no iPhone and she was starting to lose faith. That's when my jackass friends came over with their fancy smancy Droids. They let me play Angry Birds for the first time and that was the bait that lured me off my perch. My wife convinced me to go to the store and just window shop for some phones. Ten minutes later we had matching Droid X's. Before we signed on the electronic dotted line I told her, "I bet they'll announce the iPhone the day after the 30-day return policy expires. That was December 5th. January 7th (30 and two days later) it was all over the news that Verizon was making an announcement the following week.
So here I am sulking in the reverberating "I told you so" that's playing in my head right now. To add insult to injury, I got the price of the non-discounted iPhone. Now, I was expecting something Droid-like. Hey, it's 200 with a contract and 400-500 if you get one outside of the New Every Two. Steve Jobs has lost his damn mind if he thinks I'm paying $699.00 BEFORE TAX for a telephone. It's cheaper to string some cans together and throw them to the people I want to talk to.
Let us not forget that I'm already on iPod number five. At $300 a pop, he's already in my pocket. The Macbook (which I love dearly) was 1500 and now he wants the last few pennies in my pocket. No sir!
So after running the "just be patient" course for three and a half years, I trip a month away from the finish line and the best that Steven Jobs can offer is $700 plus 6.5% sales tax, $30 bucks for a case, $30 for a screen protector, $30 for a phone charger and $8 a month for insurance...not to mention the $30 data plan. You know what Steve-O...kiss my ass.
I lost five grand in the market today. My nephew was born and the hospital parking garage was full so I couldn't go in to see him and, to add insult to injury, the Verizon iPhone is announced at the ridiculous price of $699.00.
I hate being right all the time.
Flashback a month and a few days ago...
The wife has been begging for a new cellphone for maybe two years. I'll admit that having a flip phone in 2010 is a bit Flintstone-ish. The agreement was that we'd wait for the iPhone to come to Verizon because we knew AT&T was the Wal-Mart of networks...25 registers cell towers and only one or two actually working.
Anyway, three years later there was still no iPhone and she was starting to lose faith. That's when my jackass friends came over with their fancy smancy Droids. They let me play Angry Birds for the first time and that was the bait that lured me off my perch. My wife convinced me to go to the store and just window shop for some phones. Ten minutes later we had matching Droid X's. Before we signed on the electronic dotted line I told her, "I bet they'll announce the iPhone the day after the 30-day return policy expires. That was December 5th. January 7th (30 and two days later) it was all over the news that Verizon was making an announcement the following week.
So here I am sulking in the reverberating "I told you so" that's playing in my head right now. To add insult to injury, I got the price of the non-discounted iPhone. Now, I was expecting something Droid-like. Hey, it's 200 with a contract and 400-500 if you get one outside of the New Every Two. Steve Jobs has lost his damn mind if he thinks I'm paying $699.00 BEFORE TAX for a telephone. It's cheaper to string some cans together and throw them to the people I want to talk to.
Let us not forget that I'm already on iPod number five. At $300 a pop, he's already in my pocket. The Macbook (which I love dearly) was 1500 and now he wants the last few pennies in my pocket. No sir!
So after running the "just be patient" course for three and a half years, I trip a month away from the finish line and the best that Steven Jobs can offer is $700 plus 6.5% sales tax, $30 bucks for a case, $30 for a screen protector, $30 for a phone charger and $8 a month for insurance...not to mention the $30 data plan. You know what Steve-O...kiss my ass.
Monday, January 10, 2011
You got knocked the...
A video surfaced last week of a guy getting attacked on the Metro by a teenage girl. The victim says the girl was around 12 years old, but after watching the video I figure that shew as at least fourteen or fifteen. 12 or 15, it doesn't matter. My question is:
How in the hell does a 12-15 year old beat up a 40 year old man?
Now I'll admit that some of these kids are huge thanks to the hormones in our food, but I just can't conceive of a kid whooping my ass. In the video you see the guy get hit and then scream at the girl, "What was that for? What did I do to you? Stop it! I'm not playing with you, stop it!"
Now, let's review what went wrong here. I'll give a play by play and then tell you what should have happened.
*Punched in the face for seemingly no reason*
The guy: "What was that for?"
Me: (While cracking three of the bones in her face with my fist) "BITCH! What the fuck is wrong with you?"
The guy: (As she keeps hitting him) "Stop it!"
Me: (If the little girl is still standing, then I'm giving body shots) "Don't nobody put there hands on me."
Me: (If the little girl is not standing, then I'm using my body weight to hold her down while I call 911) "Hey, I just knocked a little girl out for punching me on the subway. Look, I need yall to get her fast and record this conversation because I don't want it coming back on me that I hit a little kid for no reason. The bitch walked up and stole me in my face so I clocked her two good times. Yall need to send an ambulance for her and her little friend that's now walking up on me like he's gonna do something too."
The guy: (While the little girl is still hitting him and now taunting him) "I'm not playing with you"
Me: (If the girl is still standing and swinging) "It's all fun and games until somebody gets thrown on the third rail." (Then I proceed lift her chunky ass up and shot put her over onto the third rail)
Me: (If the girl is not standing and her little friends tried to intervene) "Yall think it's all fun and games until somebody gets thrown on the third rail" (Then I proceed to rush those little bastards onto the tracks one by one)
"You Win--Fatality"
How in the hell does a 12-15 year old beat up a 40 year old man?
Now I'll admit that some of these kids are huge thanks to the hormones in our food, but I just can't conceive of a kid whooping my ass. In the video you see the guy get hit and then scream at the girl, "What was that for? What did I do to you? Stop it! I'm not playing with you, stop it!"
Now, let's review what went wrong here. I'll give a play by play and then tell you what should have happened.
*Punched in the face for seemingly no reason*
The guy: "What was that for?"
Me: (While cracking three of the bones in her face with my fist) "BITCH! What the fuck is wrong with you?"
The guy: (As she keeps hitting him) "Stop it!"
Me: (If the little girl is still standing, then I'm giving body shots) "Don't nobody put there hands on me."
Me: (If the little girl is not standing, then I'm using my body weight to hold her down while I call 911) "Hey, I just knocked a little girl out for punching me on the subway. Look, I need yall to get her fast and record this conversation because I don't want it coming back on me that I hit a little kid for no reason. The bitch walked up and stole me in my face so I clocked her two good times. Yall need to send an ambulance for her and her little friend that's now walking up on me like he's gonna do something too."
The guy: (While the little girl is still hitting him and now taunting him) "I'm not playing with you"
Me: (If the girl is still standing and swinging) "It's all fun and games until somebody gets thrown on the third rail." (Then I proceed lift her chunky ass up and shot put her over onto the third rail)
Me: (If the girl is not standing and her little friends tried to intervene) "Yall think it's all fun and games until somebody gets thrown on the third rail" (Then I proceed to rush those little bastards onto the tracks one by one)
"You Win--Fatality"
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Memory Lane: Ghetto Pizzas
As the new year rings in, I find myself thinking back over my life and the thought occurred to me...I've lived in some shitty places in my life.
I live in a pretty decent area now, but it was a long walk to this side of town. There are some things that you just "accept" in your life growing up in the hood and when you get to a nicer part of town you just feel that something is missing.
You know you really live in a jacked up place when one of two things happens:
A) You call Domino's and they tell you point blank, "We don't deliver to that neighborhood." See, it wasn't that the neighborhood was too far away. The damn store was a block down the street. They don't deliver to this complex cuz they keep getting robbed. The messed up part about it is that they didn't even ask me for my address. They had some kind of caller ID that picked up the prefix of my number and automatically raised a red flag. That makes me think, how often are yall getting robbed that you had to take precautions to buy a system that could do that. Someone somewhere had to sit and map out the neighborhood, tally up the number of times they'd been robbed in each part and then say, "We aren't going over there anymore." Damn.
B) Domino's comes to your area but they don't send someone alone. I lived in one spot where they used the buddy system. Two people rode together and get this...they still wouldn't get out the car. They would call from the car and say, "We're outside, please come to the vehicle and pick up your pizza." I have no doubt that while I was paying the guy through the car window that he probably had a sawed off pointed at me from the other side of the door.
To this day it still feels weird going into a liquor store that only sells liquor. The one down the street from me sells wines and spirits. I'd never heard of a liquor store that didn't have potato chips, popsicles, ice cream sandwiches, now and laters, lottery tickets, hats, DVDs, cigarettes, Redskins scarves, passport photos and honey buns. And get this: They let you get your own stuff. You know how it goes in hood liquor stores. You walk in the door, stand in line and talk to the person behind the bulletproof glass. You tell them what you want and they go get it from behind the glass. They have aisles and aisles of stuff but your broke ass aint walking to get it. I even went to a beauty supply store like that. "Yo let me get a wave cap. The one over there. No, the other one. Down on the bottom. Yeah that one."
I always wondered who was the pioneer of the bulletproof glass carousel. You know, that spinning cylinder that they put your stuff in and then spin it around to you. The updated stores had the bulletproof box that has two doors but only one can open at a time, so when they are putting your food/wigs/whatever into it, you can't open it and let off a few shots. Who makes those things? Let's say I want to open a store tomorrow, who would I call and what exactly do I ask for or do they recommend these to you when you go get your small business loan from the bank? "You're opening the store where? Oh, we suggest you go with the platinum ghettotized security system. It comes with a metal gate to pull down outside the store, bulletproof everything and life size cardboard cut outs of the Schlitz Malt Liquor bull."
It's just weird how different things are.
I live in a pretty decent area now, but it was a long walk to this side of town. There are some things that you just "accept" in your life growing up in the hood and when you get to a nicer part of town you just feel that something is missing.
You know you really live in a jacked up place when one of two things happens:
A) You call Domino's and they tell you point blank, "We don't deliver to that neighborhood." See, it wasn't that the neighborhood was too far away. The damn store was a block down the street. They don't deliver to this complex cuz they keep getting robbed. The messed up part about it is that they didn't even ask me for my address. They had some kind of caller ID that picked up the prefix of my number and automatically raised a red flag. That makes me think, how often are yall getting robbed that you had to take precautions to buy a system that could do that. Someone somewhere had to sit and map out the neighborhood, tally up the number of times they'd been robbed in each part and then say, "We aren't going over there anymore." Damn.
B) Domino's comes to your area but they don't send someone alone. I lived in one spot where they used the buddy system. Two people rode together and get this...they still wouldn't get out the car. They would call from the car and say, "We're outside, please come to the vehicle and pick up your pizza." I have no doubt that while I was paying the guy through the car window that he probably had a sawed off pointed at me from the other side of the door.
To this day it still feels weird going into a liquor store that only sells liquor. The one down the street from me sells wines and spirits. I'd never heard of a liquor store that didn't have potato chips, popsicles, ice cream sandwiches, now and laters, lottery tickets, hats, DVDs, cigarettes, Redskins scarves, passport photos and honey buns. And get this: They let you get your own stuff. You know how it goes in hood liquor stores. You walk in the door, stand in line and talk to the person behind the bulletproof glass. You tell them what you want and they go get it from behind the glass. They have aisles and aisles of stuff but your broke ass aint walking to get it. I even went to a beauty supply store like that. "Yo let me get a wave cap. The one over there. No, the other one. Down on the bottom. Yeah that one."
I always wondered who was the pioneer of the bulletproof glass carousel. You know, that spinning cylinder that they put your stuff in and then spin it around to you. The updated stores had the bulletproof box that has two doors but only one can open at a time, so when they are putting your food/wigs/whatever into it, you can't open it and let off a few shots. Who makes those things? Let's say I want to open a store tomorrow, who would I call and what exactly do I ask for or do they recommend these to you when you go get your small business loan from the bank? "You're opening the store where? Oh, we suggest you go with the platinum ghettotized security system. It comes with a metal gate to pull down outside the store, bulletproof everything and life size cardboard cut outs of the Schlitz Malt Liquor bull."
It's just weird how different things are.