This chair is important.I have always believed that how you meet someone you date is important. I imagine some guys having a kid and the kid coming up to them one day after meeting some nice girl. The kid will ask them how they met mom.
“Well, I was at the club with my boys and I saw this fly ass bitch in this tiny skirt droppin’ it like it was hot and I couldn’t let that shit get by!”
Sounds sweet, huh?
I met three ex’s in high school and another at work. My current (and last) girlfriend I met at a party while drunk sitting in a baby ass lawn chair. No, neither of us plan on having kids but I like imagining what it would be like to tell a kid how I met his mom. I like that it didn’t involve a one night stand or some drunken night of sex that ended with his or her birth. I have never been into hooking up at clubs or anything. I have danced with strangers once at a club and disappointed one of them when I didn’t kiss her or give her my number (or ask for hers) after hours of dancing.
I have this weird thing about asking for numbers. I don’t do it. Even when I first met my girlfriend and was all hot and bothered by her I didn’t as for her number. I bugged her friend about her though. I tried to be her friend on myspace without knowing that she was doing the same thing. We met again for a moment after a gathering of this same friend. She was pretty much the only reason I went and she came as I was leaving. I was pissed because she showed up looking all kinds of hot. At this point we were friends on myspace but finally talked this night.
We chatted for hours late into the night and got to know each other. I made her laugh and that was cool. I love hearing her laugh. We finally had a date and went to see a movie, “Rendition.” Not exactly a date movie. A dude gets captured and tortured like fucking crazy while butt booty ass naked. During the movie I thought the popcorn was falling over and reached for it. She thought I was trying to grab her leg. She ended up taking my hand and holding it. I love that something as small as holding my hand gets me so happy.
We chatted on the rooftop of the parking structure of The Grove for hours and she took me back home. I asked her if she would slap me if I gave her a kiss. She said she wouldn’t so I planted one on her cheek. It was awesome. The rest as they say is history. A year and a half later and we still love each other.
I look forward to years from now living together and being happily married and thinking about the first time we met and how shy and cautious I was around her. I like looking forward to the future.
Rockets.
I had a very good day today. I asked my sister face Cam if I could come to the library where she works. She said of course and I did. It started with me catching the bus and having the best luck I ever had and caught two buses and got to her place in less than 10 minutes. This has never happened. I get there and feel bad because I was expecting to get there maybe half an hour later than I did.
I killed time by chatting with her as she finished up and reading Entertainment Weekly where they had an article about the best heroes and villains in movies. Sharon Stone compared her acting in “Basic Instinct” to Magic Johnson’s playing with the Lakers. I tapped out at that point. We hopped in her ride and we were off.
We get there and I meet one of her co-workers. Her library was not as small as I had pictured. She gave me a tour and I liked the place. I hadn’t been in a library since high school so it was very weird. We sit in the back and I have some cheesecake while she heats up her food in a music microwave that played “Oh, Susana…” Very odd indeed.
More people showed up but there was one in particular I waited for. He showed up later but was toned down from what I’ve heard. I was a bit disappointed. I helped Cam by cutting out words and sticking them to magnets to help with poetry month starting tomorrow. She was worried about me being bored or her working me too much. I liked it. I felt useful. Later we headed to this place to grab some food. I believe it was called Tom’s. Cam got a cheese sandwich and I grabbed a burger and fries that were tasty as hell. While I waited I got my ass kicked at Tekkan 4. That game gets harder each time.
We eat in the break room and have some shaved ice with lemonade. I am pleased. Afterwards we get Cam’s set up ready for reading for the kids. It was so nice seeing her with these little kids. I hate kids as you all know but I appreciate people who work with them as well as she did. I watched for the most part and kept adjusting myself since my legs fall asleep in less than a minute. At 4pm it was time for a drum fest.
This dude named Mr. Chaz brought drums for all of us to bang on. The guy who was in charge of bringing this guy in and helping out didn’t. I think me and Cam did most of the work. He vanished. At first there were just us and some kid. Then we harassed and smiled kids into joining. Even some parents joined in. It was cool. For over an hour we banged on those things to the point where my fingers and right wrist still hurt a bit.
Now we had less than an hour until it was time to leave. The day seemed to fly by after 11am for some reason. We sat with one of Cam’s favorite little kids and played with her and some other kids. We have fun as I marvel at how this one toy has balls that stick to its inside (static I am told by Cam). We clean up and leave as Cam cheers with excitement because she can watch “The Tudors” on DVD. We take off as I chew on some sour licorice and head home. Almost.
We get to the 99 Cent store and I get some stuff I have needed for a few days. I am eating my sunflower seeds right now and all kinds of happy. I thank Cam for a cool ass day and she thanks me. She doesn’t need to. She made me feel useful and I am looking forward to the next time I head back with her. Probably next Monday to help control the herds at the egg hunt. Wish me luck.
Oh, and I made Cam a little Pac-Man out of felt.
Rockets.
There is something that Black guys and crazy people have in common. No, not the police, you racist ass. There’s a situation I encounter most times I go walking around. I live in West Hollywood where I have been told that I am the 0.8% Black that occupies this city. This something is a natural part of life that happens to all of us. Walking behind someone.
Now this may sound odd to some of you. “What’s so bad about walking behind someone?” Glad you asked. I like walking. I don’t drive so my legs look awesome and I could kick a hole in a wall if I felt like it. But sometimes I get behind someone and you could cut the tension with a knife.
In fantasy land I have a conversation with these people. I’ll be walking behind them and they know a big Black dude is nearby and they stop and check their shoes, look at themselves in the nearest reflective surface, or inspect that spectacular crack on the ground.
“Excuse me. Uh, excuse me. Could I walk past you? I know you’re scared of me. I haven’t done anything to you and I don’t plan on it. I’ve never been in jail and haven’t committed any crimes. But I know that you are now watching your money and clutching your purse extra tight. I just need to get where I’m going without worrying about you getting crazy and using pepper spray on me. So if you don’t mind, just let me go by and you can continue about your day with your passive racism. Cool?”
Of course this will never happen.
Rockets.
There are a lot of people that say and think that you cant be just friends with someone of the opposite sex. Well, I am here as living proof to tell you that its not only possible, but necessary for understanding yourself and the opposite sex better. There are some rules and steps to take when making friends that don’t have the same genitalia as you. Hey, that’s a good place to start.
They just have different junk than you do. Once you get past the fact that chicks have tits and nice lips you’re on your way to being friends. We look at chicks sometimes (most times for some) and all we can think about is how they look naked. This isn’t cool. If you wanna be friends with someone you cant walk around thinking about banging them. Yeah, you can realize that they are attractive but once you get past that things get better.
Talk to them like an equal. This may be hard for some dudes. A lot of guys are taught that men are better at everything than women (and women are taught that they are weaker than men) and this keeps them from treating them as a friend. A guy can have a loser of a friend but still talk to and hang with him more than a woman. Women have the same thoughts as men do even if many don’t want to admit it. They think about sex and food jut as much as you do. Its not like things are off limits when talking to women. I talk about movies, sex, books, TV, childhoods, love, and anything under the sun.
Set the rules. This doesn’t have to be some kind of spoken out loud thing (“I wont touch your tits if you don’t touch my dick!”) unless you cant control yourself. Having female friends is way different if you’re in a relationship. I had an ex think that I had a thing for friends that were lesbian, married, and lived thousands of miles away. You have to make sure your girlfriend was secure enough in the relationship to trust you around chicks. I have almost nothing but chick friends. We hug goodbye but we aren’t running around kissing or holding hands. The same rule applies to male friends I have. Except the hugging goodbye part. That just doesn’t happen. It may not sound true but with chick friends it can get to a point where you don’t even look at them sexually. Shut up, its possible.
I’m still not sure exactly why I haven’t been able to have male friends as an adult. Yeah, there are some guys I talk to but it isn’t often and we aren’t all buddy-buddy. They tend to be so focused on money or pussy while I am “surrounded” by it but don’t get any. There are a hundred reasons why I became friends with chicks and didn’t date them. Bad timing, right place/wrong time, or something just didn’t click to push things past a possible relationship status. I don’t regret it or anything even though some of my female friends have been better than the chicks I used to date.
One of the best things about having mostly female friends is the differing point of view. When you get used to being around just your own sex your reality becomes skewed. The double edge catch 22 of the opposite sex thing is that its harder for girls to be friends with guys. I don trust guys for the most part. Whenever a guy meets one of my friends I am immediately suspect. Not to mention my own lady. I wonder what their intentions are and why I haven’t met them yet.
I am Dante’s insecurity.
I want my lady to have male friends but if she cant talk to them to ask me any dude related questions. There are things she could ask me that I wont know (but I doubt it). I have been around and grew up with so many different types of guys that there is nothing one can say where I’ll go “I did not know that.” One day I’ll make a more concentrated effort to make more friends of my own sex. Until then I’ll keep my hot lady and my cute friends and wait for some dude that doesn’t annoy the hell out of me and stays in contact with me.
Rockets.
A few weeks ago one of my best friends had a birthday at a bar. It was cool. There was a few people I had met before and my lady. I was set to get drunk, listen to music, and then chatter away like a lunatic. This is the part of the movie where a needle usually scratches on a record so get ready.
My ex showed up.
My friend pulled me aside before we ordered drinks and said “You’re gonna hate me.” I didn’t know what she meant at first. How could I hate her? She’s cool as fuck and we’ve been friends close to 10 years and I have known of her since I was 17.
“Whatsherface is coming.”
Whatsherface is my ex. I hate even saying her name. She and my friend used to be friends years ago but my ex decided to be an ass and stopped talking to her. She was coming with an old friend of mine that I had lost contact with years ago. I say “lose contact” but it means that my services were no longer required. Anyway, they were on their way and I no longer wanted to drink.
I wasn’t mad at my friend. I just had absolutely no desire to ever see my ex again. My girlfriend was curious to see what she looked like. In that tiny ass club I was somehow able to dodge my ex and still enjoy myself. My friend came around with the sweetest cupcakes I have ever had in my life that had little animals on top.
“Do you think I look better than her?” my lady asked me in regards to my ex.
Let me explain something, folks. I have never dated someone because of how they looked. My ex was not an attractive woman. She was dwarfish, mean, and pissy. So why did I stay with her? Because I was those things except dwarfish. So yeah. My girlfriend is the hotness. I fell for her because she read Dean Koontz books but the pretty smile, cool conversations, and sexy thighs are all just icing on the cake. My girlfriend beats my ex in every aspect and that is how it should be.
If you can date one person and never have to date ever again, keep it pushing, booboo. But if you do end up in multiple relationships you should always move forward. Even if its just physical as shallow as that sounds. I recently told my girlfriend that if she were ugly but still acted the way she does now I would still like her. And she’d probably be more loose. Ugly chicks are loose. Don’t act shocked, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.
Rockets.
"I'd move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack." - Russell Crowe.Fuck you, Russell.I get so tired of people talking shit about California. The messed up thing is that most of the people that talk shit about my state are people from other states and the people they are talking about are people that weren’t even born in my state! Its like a circle of stupid.
My state rocks ass. You can drive in any direction for an hour or two and experience desert, beach, or snow. How many other places can say that? We have floods but its usually in rich ass places so it doesn’t count. Some people are like “Oh, you guys have earthquakes!” And? I would rather sit around and have my state squeeze out a 5.0 fart than know that my house is going to get blown away every single year. We get forest fires every year but don’t have any friends that live in a forest so its all good.
We have action. Have you ever seen our news? High speed chases, bitches. There is nothing like sitting at home bored and then all of a sudden there is breaking news and you have a free show for the next couple of hours. How will it end? Will he crash? Will he get shot? Will he do something crazy like blow his brains out on live TV? I don’t know! Either way I am glued to the screen and waiting for the next chase.
Not everyone in California is concerned with how they look and all materialistic. That shit is a myth that is constantly being perpetuated by people, like I said, that don’t come from here. They think its what they are supposed to do and just keep it going. People that are born and raised in California are special. We can spot bullshit from a mile away. We’re not like New Yorkers constantly bragging about how tough we are. We have a calm type of crazy. We know how dangerous our streets can be. The last thing we need to do is walk around bragging about how bad shit is some places. No one is sneaking into South Carolina. Hmm. Maybe that isn’t something to brag about.
I can give you a list of places to go if you ever decide to visit my state. Fuck that. My city. If you’re ever in L.A here are some places to go.
1. Hollywood. Just to say you went. Nothing there but tourist traps and weirdoes. It is way dirtier than it seems on TV. And its really short. If you know where to look you can find some cool little shops to grab some stuff at.
2. Venice Beach/Santa Monica Pier/3rd Street Promenade. You can start at 3rd Street and make your way down to the Pier and mosey on over to Venice. Lots of things to see, a cool beach, and lots of folks looking really good or really bad.
3. Chinatown/Little Tokyo. Lots of cool shit to check out. They have some awesome places to eat and cool shops where everything is cheap.
4. Sunset. Sunset is cool if you have money to waste. I don’t so I only ride the bus on Sunset. Just take that bus to Westwood or stay on the bus and head to the beach. Yes, you can take a bus from Downtown L.A all the way to the beach in an hour. Cool, huh?
5. South Central. People talk shit about what is now known as “South L.A” but if you know where to go you can find some really cool places to shop. The best food is in or near the worst neighborhoods. Burgers so greasy you can see them through the bag. Ribs that will raise your blood pressure. I miss living in South Central just for the food alone.
Hope that helps you out some. L.A isn’t as glamorous as it seems on TV but its still cool. I love my city and state and never want to leave. You can keep your tornadoes, floods, snow storms, hurricanes, black ice, and volcanoes. I love L.A.
Rockets.
I was a late bloomer in every sense of the word. I got tall late. I drank late. I smoked late. I partied late. Not that its really a bad thing. By the time I had just started drinking everyone else had been doing it by their mid teens. I started all of this at 22.
The first alcoholic drink I ever had was some strawberry champagne. It tasted horrible. I then graduated to Mike’s Hard Lemonade or Smirnoff Ice. These things have 5% alcohol and after two of them I would be lit. Yeah, I was that much of a lightweight. Next came Corona’s, Heineken’s, and Bud. The funny thing with regular ass beer is that all it does it make me have to piss a lot or horny. I had wine a few times with mixed results. Sometimes it tasted so bad it did nothing since I couldn’t finish the glass. Other times it made me so mellow and all I would do is wanna sit and ramble about life or hours. It was the verbal equivalent to my blogs. Then one day I met hard liquor.
One day at a bar, The Short Stop in Echo Park, I had been waiting forever to get a damned drink. Thankfully the bartender, an attractive chick that was always getting hit on, spotted my big Black head and asked what I wanted.
“Gin and tonic!” I shouted/mumbled as I am ought to do.
She handed it to me and I tipped her too much. Yes, I had a reputation for being very polite and tipping well without ever hitting on her. And so the gay rumors continue. Anyway, I get to a table and watch everyone dancing. At this point I had finally danced, usually with the pack of females I ran with (gay…?), but that night they were busy hooking up and had no interest dancing with their “safe” friend. I had one sip and it was like that episode of The Simpson’s where Homer eats that baking soda out of the fridge. Why had I been wasting time with beer, wine, and all that other crap? Liquor is quicker.
From that day on I would get nothing but hard drinks. Not all places made good gin and tonics so I started thinking of all the crap I heard in moves. Vodka on ice. Martini. Red Bull and vodka. And then I met my new best friend, Jack Daniels. I had that with an old pal Coke and it blew my mind! I swore by it and that’s all I would get. One day I had Bailey’s with Jaegermeister (my friend Heidi turned me on to this) and it tasted so good I forgot I was drinking two strong ass things combined. I got lit.
A while ago my lady told me about something called Bacardi 151. She said it was crazy. I was like, “Please. I do shots of vodka. Seven being the most in a sitting. One night I drank two cups of vodka, three beers, a pint of Jack, and two cups of sangria. I can handle anything!” Mind you, I threw up that night but I blame that on hearing an ex’s voice. So she buys this 151 and I took a sip and my lips burst into flames. This stuff was made with the sweat from the Devil’s taint I tell’s ya! 75% proof. One shot and you’re cool for the rest of the night.
One cool thing about my drinking is that I don’t get hangovers. Even on that night where I threw up I got home in a cab, threw up blood, and woke up fine a few hours later and ate some cereal. I ask people what hangovers are like and it sounds like my headaches in junior high. Whatever. I can handle it if it ever happens. Booze can be fun to drink but make rules for yourself. My rules are:
1. No drinking while upset.
2. No drinking after a bad day.
3. Be mindful of who you drink around.
Rockets.
There were a few guys I knew growing up who were for lack of a better or more inappropriate term bullies. Now, bullies would tend to focus towards me for random reasons. Either because I was small, tiny, or nerdy. Take your pick. They aimed their punk ass sights on me and made their move.
The first one was this guy that lived down the street from my Grandmama. His name was Kerry. He should’ve been mad getting a chick name like that. Whenever we would go past his house he would chase me, my brother, or my cousins or any random kid that walked by. He was one of those kids that were big for his age. Not fat wise, but just tall. One day when we got to school he was just waiting for us. For some reason that day I was in a mood. It could’ve been anything. I could have had wrinkled pants on, the cereal was gone, or I got called a ugly motherfucker one too many times by my mother. Either way, I wasn’t having his shit this day. He started messing with my cousin first and then went to me. He started pushing my shoulder and trash talking until WHAM! I clocked him on the cheek and took off running. Yes, I ran. I wasn’t stupid. Dude would’ve beat my ass if he caught me. I ran to a teacher and turned on the waterworks. Man, I used to be good at forcing myself to cry. He got suspended and never bothered me again.
The next was this boy named Sherman Boyd. I hated this kid. He was this big boned fool that didn’t live in the area like most of us that went to the school. He would pick on me, Damien, and Tony. One day I was tired of him. I loved going to school but I hated dealing with this nonsense every single day. I was never one of those kids that would get older brothers or cousins to go after people for me. I could have though. One day I told Damien to go mess with him and have him chase him around the building. This part of the school was always quiet after the morning when the tiny kids were in class. So Damien’s crazy ass shoved him in the back and as he ran around the corner I shoved Boyd (yes, like a TV bully he went by his last name) and he went flying sideways to the ground. Me and Tony jumped on him and started wailing. He never said anything to us again let alone bugged us.
Bullies are pussies. They either get their asses kicked at home and take it out on you or they are just mean. Yeah, some people are just mean for the sake of it. I never had a tolerance for them and I still don’t. When I see someone pushing someone around all I can think is “Push back!” Sure, you might get your ass kicked but at least you did something about it. You might surprise yourself and beat their ass. It felt good to finally fight back and I always encourage others to do the same. Never let someone push you around just because they are bigger, faster, richer , or better looking. None of that matters. That’s one piece of advice my father gave me (pretty much the only advice).
One day while watching boxing he said that this one dude would lose. I thought he was crazy. This guy was buff as hell and looked like he wasn’t afraid to go back to prison. My father said, “It don’t matter how big somebody is. Anyone can be knocked out. Plus, being that big is gonna make him slow.” Sure enough this dude got knocked out in the 2nd round by a perfect body shot. A body shot to a stomach covered in abs. We are all tougher than we give ourselves credit for and its about time we all realized it.
Rockets.
I feel a bit better after a combination of things. In the past few days I have spoken or hung out with the people I consider the closest to me in my life. I have the possibility of working on the horizon. I will be able to pay rent early. I have been writing more. And I have a feeling that religiously I am close to making a breakthrough.
I read this book my girlfriend let me borrow called “The Shack.” In the book something horrible happens to this guy. Actually, his life as a child was pretty shitty and it got better when he had kids and was married until something they call The Great Sadness happens. Anyway, dude ends up speaking to God, Jesus, and The Holy Spirit and asking questions that we’d pretty much like to ask God if we had the chance. Why does he let good people die? Why doesn’t He stop wars? Why does he let us hurt? Things like that. The writer explains things in a way that made me feel like an asshole for asking those kind of questions.
One of the main things the book about is forgiveness. I have a hard ass time with this one. So much that happens in our life we never let go of. This is particularly true with me. Since I have memories that go as far back as 9 months old, I have a lot of shit that is fresh in my head that can still upset me even 30 years later. Its not like, “Oh, yeah. I think I remember that.” Its more like, “Fuck. I totally remember that and this is what the weather was like and what I was wearing…” Forgiveness is not forgetting. I tend to mix the two up.
Forgiveness: act of forgiven; state of being forgiven; disposition or willingness to forgive.
Forget: to cease or fail to remember; be unable to recall: to forget someone's name; to omit or neglect unintentionally.
You can forgive your father for beating your ass but you can never forget it. Well, some people are really good at repressing shit and really cant remember stuff like that. I digress. I am going to make an effort to start letting shit go. Not holding in so much anger. I don’t wanna be the guy that walks around mad at the world because mommy and daddy didn’t love him or hug me enough. I think I have spent enough time doing that. Its one of those things where it seems so damned simple that you wish you had done it years ago. I hate admitting that sometimes I do something stupid way after the fact. This is what keeps me from doing more things because I talk myself out of it before trying.
I can try to forgive the bad stuff that has happened in my life. I can try and forgive the people that have affected me in horrible ways. It will be very difficult but I am still going to try. Wish me luck.
Rockets.
Dante had always said that he would never go to a funeral. With all the people that had died in his family he had said that there was no reason to go. He went to this funeral. His mother actually called and told him so. As if she had to.
The funeral was held the Friday after his brothers death. Dante went to work that day to work a few hours before the funeral began. Even he knew this was odd but he had to feel some sense of normalcy. His coworkers walked around him like zombies, afraid to say anything to him.
“I’m the one going to a funeral” he said to them. “Stop acting weird!”
He went upstairs and put a suit on. His girlfriend came with him and they headed to his mothers house. They had moved in less than a month previously and Dante felt weird there. It was the first house they had moved into that he had not lived in. Everyone showed up and they arrived down the street to the funeral home. It was a place that Dante had seen hundreds of times but never thought he would visit.
Walking into the funeral home was strange to Dante. By instinct he decided to sit in the back as he would in church. Someone told him that family sits in the front. The front? He though. I have to sit right next to the casket?! Dante sat less than ten feet away from a beautiful blue casket with gold trim that was the new home for his brother. He noticed that one of the letters on the casket had fallen off and now said “Kev n Floyd Powers.” It bothered him.
As Dante was handed an obituary he noticed that everyone had written a poem or nice story about his brother. Would have been nice to have been included he thought to himself. He had no idea what the steps were and that he could’ve written something for his brother. He was also not included in the wake, something that bugs him to this day. After everyone was seated the casket was opened. People gasped and many others began crying loudly. Dante didn’t. He had cried enough.
“I barely got to know him!” his mother cried.
Really? Dante thought. You had 32 years to get to know him and you chose not to. You have known me for 22 years and you don’t know me. You don’t know any of us! Is death what it takes to get your attention?!
Dante looked at the body of his brother laying there and listened to his children speak about him. He listened to his friend speak abut him. He wish he had known about all of this. Dante felt alone and left out. At one point someone asked for everyone that had ever received something from Kevin. Everyone raised their hand. That’s how Kevin was.
Dante didn’t have a new view of his brother. That weren’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. He began drawing to be better than Kevin. Kevin got him watching wrestling. Kevin talked to him every week when no one else in his family would call to see how he was doing. Kevin gave Dante money to feed his Slim Jim and comic book obsession by having him iron his clothes. Kevin bought him a drawing board and a box full of supplies. Kevin took him to work once and spent the entire day with him. Kevin was like a father more than a brother. Kevin felt like a relative in a world where nothing did.
After the funeral, which Dante felt was far too short, they headed into a limo. This was Dante’s first time in a limousine and he figured that was weird. Of course it has to be under these conditions of course he thought to himself. They arrived at the Inglewood Cemetery. His mausoleum was not complete so they had to hold his body somewhere else until then. Dante, his brother Luther, his cousin Aziza, and a few of his brother Kevin’s friends he had not seen since he was 9 were there. A large elevator took them downstairs where he held Aziza’s hand. They wheeled the casket to a spot and elevated it and sealed it shut.
“You see all these flies?” his brother Luther said. “They eat dead people an’ shit.”
“You are so nasty” Dante told him. They arrived up top and everyone said their goodbyes. On the way to the car a girl ran up to Dante. She was followed by another one and a man.
“Are you Dante?” she asked.
“Yeah…” he replied hesitantly.
“I’m Consuela!” she shouted. He had not seen her since she was perhaps 7. The other girl was her sister, Vanessa. The man was his uncle Sonny Boy. They hugged and Dante left.
He got back to his mothers home and let the day sink in. His brother was dead. That’s the only thought that could run through his head. Would anything ever be the same again? Would he laugh as much anymore? Would family functions he would go to just to speak to his brother be the same? He had to wait and see. His father got drunk and yelled at by his mother and he was already beginning to see that nothing had changed.
A week or so later a second funeral was held. The mausoleum was complete and they were moving his casket there. A lot of the same people showed up and there were shirts made with Kevin’s face on them. His friend made a joke about the shirts and we all laughed. Dante has two of the shirts but has never worn them.
“He ain’t Tupac” he said.
After the funerals were done Dante was given most of his brothers clothes. And his car. Dante didn’t think he should take everything but his mother and brothers told him that he really should. That he had to. And he did. Even in death his brother was still giving to him.
Dante thinks about his brother daily. A few times following his death after seeing something funny on TV or cool while watching wrestling Dante would pick up the phone and start calling his brothers phone number. Then he’d stop. He’s dead. You cant talk to him.
Dante started laughing again eventually. He knew that he got his sense of humor from his brother and that the last thing he would want for him to become a miserable bastard. He still imagines a world where his brother lives. He wonders why God would take him away while leaving so many others alive. He wonders why a man that touched so many was gone while he still lived. He wonders about a lot. But he doesn’t wonder about how his brother felt about him.
He thinks of Kevin taking him to football games with friends when his other brother refused. He remembers his brother teaching him to drive as a child. He remembers his brother making him laugh during uncomfortable moments. He remembers his brothers goofy laugh. He remembers sharing a bed with his brother and being upset when Kevin’s allergies would make him click his throat and dig in his ear so hard the bed would shake. He remembers his brother taking him to get his haircut. He remembers his brother buying him “The Death of Superman” just like he said he would. He remembers comparing who had the worst job with his brother and winning by mentioning gay sex in the store. He remembers Kevin trying his best to teach his infant son how to call Dante Barney The Dinosaur. He remembers Kevin calling him Homer. He remembers wrestling his brother and never winning. He remembers just always wanting to be around his brother. He remembers his brother.
Kevin Powers died leaving behind his parents, three brothers, a sister, and two children. Dante is 2 years younger right now than when his brother was taken away. Kevin was one of those people that you either loved or hated but even if you hated him you would eventually love him. Its just the way he was. Kevin once told Dante “I’m gonna tell you ‘bout the birds, the bees, the black eyed peas, and gettin’ between a girls knees.” He never did but Dante believes he figured it out.
Well, except for the black eyed peas part.
Kevin F. Powers
Father, brother, son, uncle, newphew, cousin, friend.
1969-2001
I wish that I could hold you now. I wish that I could touch you now. I wish that I could talk to you. Be with you somehow. I know you're in a better place. Even though I can't see your face. I know you're smilin' down at me sayin' everything's okay. - I Wish
Dante wasn’t known for being emotional. He had experienced plenty of people in his family dying. It was very common growing up. But this was different. This was his brother.
He broke down. He hadn’t cried since he was 9 when he last gotten beaten by his parents. Something in him shut down that day and he decided that he was just not going to cry anymore. He cried every tear he had missed out on or held back this day.
His mother saw him cry and broke down. She didn’t have to say anything. Just by her look he knew what had happened. This wasn’t a case of his brother being hurt. His brother wasn’t missing. He was dead. He was not coming back. It hit him harder than anything he had ever felt in his life. Dante wanted to stop crying and ask questions. He couldn’t. His aunt began crying again. Dante actually felt bad. For some reason his tears made everyone else cry and all he wanted was to just stop them from crying.
“What happened?” he was finally able to ask.
“He had a heart attack” someone said.
Heart attack? Heart attack?! How in the fuck could he have had a goddamn heart attack?! Fat people have heart attacks. People who smoke for decades have heart attacks. People who don’t take of themselves have heart attacks. His brother who had lost weight, played sports, and didn’t smoke or drink did not have heart attacks! There must be something else going on he thought to himself. They don’t know what they’re talking about.
His other brother Jaron came in and they both cried. Dante had to get out of the hospital. Someone asked if he wanted to see the body. The body? He wasn’t even his brother anymore. He was this thing that had to be cut open, looked at, and then discarded. Dante hoped that this was just a stupid dream and that he would wake up in bed. He had just talked to his brother last week. Every Monday they would talk about wrestling and work. Just catch up. This was Tuesday and he had not called his the night before. Guilt started to build.
Outside his father had run out of cigarettes and wanted to head to the store. His brother joined them to the walk to the store. At first no one said a thing. Nothing had sunk in yet.
“This doesn’t feel real” his brother Jaron said.
“Yes, it does” Dante said. This was the most real thing he had ever felt in his life. After getting back Dante went and sat back down in the room with his mother and the woman and man he didn’t know.
It turns out that the man was a pastor that lived in the same apartment complex with Kevin. Apparently the pastor’s son found Kevin laying on the front lawn unconscious but alive. Kevin lived on the second floor. He was rushed to the hospital. The story as Dante was told was this.
While ironing for work and eating sunflower seeds Kevin had a heart attack. He stumbled to his balcony perhaps to catch his breath and fell over the side where he was found. Dante later found out that the year previously that he had suffered a smaller heart attack. He never told Dante about this.
Dante’s girlfriend showed up and Dante began to cry again. He explained that he could go and look at his brothers body. He just couldn’t do it. She cried as well. She had never seen Dante cry before and it caught her off guard. His cousins asked to look at his drawings. They knew that Dante was the closest to Kevin and that he would take this very hard. Eventually they left the hospital.
In the car Dante tried to control his emotions. Sadness would quickly turn to anger which then turned to guilt and then spin its way back to anger. It was a rollercoaster he could not get off of fast enough. Dante had not seen his now oldest brother at the hospital. He had left before Dante got there. Later that night he called.
“Hey” his brother Luther said to him. “This is fucked up…”
“I know” Dante said. “He shouldn’t be dead…” Dante said as he began to cry again.
“I gotta go” his brother said while breaking down and hung up.
Dante’s girlfriend began talking about her grandmother and how much her death affected her. Your grandmother? Dante thought to himself. How can you compare your 80-something year old grandmother that you never wanted to visit or talk to with my 32 year old brother that died suddenly of a heart condition that I didn’t know about? There is no comparison!
Dante knew it was wrong to think this way and felt guilty for it. He called his job and explained what happened and that he wouldn’t be coming in to work the next day. They told him to take as much time as he needed. How much time does it take to get over something like this? A week? A Month? A year? A lifetime?
Who knows?
It was your average day at a porn shop. Same freaks, different day as it was. Dante sat at the front counter bored out of his mind. He placed his Wizard magazine down and looked at the security cameras. It was never a good idea to keep your eyes off the camera for too long in a place like this.
After a while he started to feel strange. Not a bad strange but just…different. He called for an employee to come to the front counter and asked if he could leave. He didn’t ask really. He knew that he was leaving in about an hour anyway. At this point he was done with everything he needed to do. The strange feeling he had would not leave so he headed home, conveniently located upstairs from where he worked. He walked upstairs, laid down, and fell asleep immediately.
He woke up with the phone ringing. He thought that maybe it was his job asking him to come in for an employee who had not shown up. He looked down at his pillow and saw a large ring of sweat. He answered the phone and it was his mother. She sounded worried.
“Get to the hospital” she said. “Kevin got hurt.”
“Okay” Dante said. “Which hospital is he at?” Dante checked his wallet and saw how much money he had left. Enough for a cab ride. His girlfriend was at work still so that wasn’t an option. I need to get a car he thought to himself.
“Daniel Freeman” his mother said and hung up.
Dante did not know how seriously the situation was. He figured that while working at his new job that his brother did something stupid and got hurt. Dante got dressed, called a cab, and called his girlfriend to tell her about what happened and to meet him there if she could.
In the cab ride Dante talked to the driver. He joked that his brother got hurt at work. The driver said that his brother could get a lot of money if he got hurt while working. Dante agreed and said that the money could be used to ay him back for the cab ride all the way to Inglewood.
Dante showed up and saw a few cousins he had not seen in a while. That’s weird he thought to himself. I haven’t seen her or him in a while. Dante saw his father standing outside smoking and headed to an entrance. He saw one of his cousins and said hello. He had his drawing book in his hands and figured that he’d be in the waiting room for a really long time bored.
Dante entered a room where his mother, aunt, and two people he did not know were sitting. As soon as he looked at his mother he knew something terrible had happened.
He had no idea.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about how I have been socially and around women. This is someone that knew of me when I was little and through junior high. We didn’t hang out. She was a part of the popular group but she didn’t see it that way. I was a part of the nerdy group running around wrestling each other, drawing, and arguing over who would win in a fight between Batman and Wolverine. Chick magnet, I was not.
We got on the topic of me not chasing after girls. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to. I just was very good at talking myself out of pursuing folks. I would see a girl and know what kinds of dudes they were into and tell myself, “The guys she likes are tall, athletic, and have actually touched a boob and made out. I have not. And moving on…” She says that I wasn’t that bad looking in school but that I lacked confidence. I don’t see it that way. What I did was take a look into the future and saved myself a bit of rejection.
At various points I was really short, really short and fat, or really short, fat, and strange to everyone. I lost weight but then just looked hungry. After school I filled out (a bit too much) but I was in a relationship at the time. Even when I was single I wouldn’t run around chasing chicks. I’ve never been that guy. Even when I was horny as hell I couldn’t make myself just hook up with someone and mess around. I have been accused of thinking like a girl in that regard.
My height was a funny thing growing up. I remember my brother saying, “You’re gonna be short, fat, with bad teeth.” And I believed him. There wasn’t any evidence that pointed to me turning out otherwise. My family is short, had dental work done, and high blood pressure from being overweight. I was kinda like, “Fuck it.” I was funny to most people and could talk shit with the best of them. If someone made fun of me I could sit there and bring them close to tears. This was done without even cursing which most people will resort to when insulting folks. I was clever and knew it. That was my best weapon. My mouth and my mind.
Eventually I got taller, my teeth are perfect, and while my face doesn’t stop traffic its okay looking. The friend I talked to said that if I lived in L.A (South Central) that I would have been a different person. Like, if I had stayed I would’ve had more sexual partners or something. I doubt it. As soon as I open my mouth people realize that I’m not thug. I don’t use the N-word. Yeah, I curse (more than I should but less than I use to) but at least I’m creative with it. I’ll call someone a son of a ass or asshat faster than anything else.
When I hear kids complain about being made fun of in school and stuff I just wanna tell them that it gets worse when you grow up. It doesn’t get easier but you just have to learn to handle that shit and use it for fuel. The guys that made fun of me when I was young are either dead, in jail, or look like shit. I think I turned out alright.
Rockets.
Name: Da Rawkwilder (formerly Season Premiere)
Location: Los Angeles, Ca
Height: 6’1”
Weight: 201lbs.
Moves/Finishers: The Chain Link (rolling rear naked choke), Trespass’d (reverse Dragon Knee), Lockjaw (seated jawbreaker), SnN/“Spayed and Neutered” (STO/backbreaker), Put Down (fireman’s carry into reverse atomic drop), The Shock Collar (DDT/Front Facelock).
After the defeat of Season Premiere at the hands of Tha Stepdaddy, Season returned as Da Rawkwilder. A more quiet and violent man, no one has seen him in his new persona. Soon he will team with the man who almost killed him and took his title and Hector Con Carne to take on Tha Fantom, Kinky, and KC Jones (HATE Inc.). Every belt will be on the line at “Dead Man Walkin’!”
Ever since I was little I have had to watch these feed the children type commercials. If you’re home during the day (like my unemployed ass) you are bombarded with them. I love the happy, wealthy families they show that sponsor these kids. You send them a buck and some change, they send you a picture, and you paste it on your fridge and smile knowing you just allowed another child to live through hell in their country. Meanwhile your kid is upstairs sniffing glue and wondering why they hate you so much.
This is another case of throwing money at a problem and hoping it goes away. This reminds of a comedian (Richard Jeni) that was watching one of these commercials late at night. "We're all a little bit hypocritical and we could all help people more than we do. You know you're sitting there watching TV, it's late at night. Then you hear: "For $9 a week, you could help this starving child." Everyone has the $9, but how do you not give it to them? You gotta rationalize it somehow. You just go, "Ehh that kid doesn't look that hungry to me. Shit he's got a bigger belly than I do. How you can you feed a kid for $9 a week, that's impossible! Shit a Low-Fat, Low Carb latte is $4.50. Whats that kid gonna do with 2 giant cups of coffee? I'm actually doing him a favor not giving him any money, because there's nothing worse than being wide awake and starving. You're welcome Haboopoo." Its true. I hate being hungry and wide awake.
The pope recently said that condoms would not solve the problem with kids in poor ass countries. Well, the condoms are more for stopping the spread of disease but the kids that are spawned from these unions are a bigger issue to me. I have always been puzzled by the fact that people are still having kids right now. If you know you cant feed a kid why have a kid? This seems like such a simple question. Maybe its because I am not crazy. My family wants me to have a kid. Could you picture me with a kid that depends on me to live?! It’s a terrifying thought. Stop having hungry ass babies, people.
Rockets.
I am tired of the charade. Just sick and tired of it. Its been going on for far too long and its about time someone (me) spoke up about it. Julia Roberts is not attractive. There. I said it.
I keep seeing her in this new movie with Clive Owen (who is the fucking man!) and they showed this scene where she is twirling her panties at him and I tasted bile in my throat. Like, for serious bile. This woman has not ever been hot. Its not some thing like, “Eartha Kitt was hot 40 years ago!” thing. Roberts has never been hot.
Ever seen her brother Eric Roberts? Now he is an actor. If you have never seen him in “Best of the Best” or “Pope of Greenwich Village” you have missed out on the good Roberts in the family. I have never seen something with Julia Roberts and went, “Damn, that is some fine acting.” Not never.
Can we all just collectively agree that Julia is not cute, hot, or “America’s Sweetheart.” Just let her pump out babies and disappear.
Rockets.
LEXINGTON PARK, Md.- Some sexual experimentation landed a southern Maryland woman in a hospital with injuries tough to imagine and even more difficult to forget.Maryland State Police airlifted the 27-year-old woman to Prince George's County Hospital Center early Sunday morning after she was injured in an incident involving a sex toy attached to a saber saw blade, TheBayNet.com first reported. The man who called 911 about the incident admitted attaching the sex toy to the saw and then using the high-powered, homemade device on his partner, according to the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office.The saw cut through the plastic toy and wounded the woman, according to TheBayNet.com. The injuries were severe enough for medevac, but the woman was released from the hospital Monday and is recovering from her unusual injuries.Investigators talked to the woman, who told them she suffered the injuries during a consensual act and that she and her partner were trying something new and no crime was committed, the sheriff's office said.
At what point does normal ass sex become not enough? No, I don’t mean normal anal sex. See, when I first heard this story I thought, “Man, I have seen some wild shit before but this takes the cake!” I thought it was a drill that was used. But then I figured, why don’t I see what a saber saw is. I wish I hadn’t.
Now, I imagine that they placed a sex toy over the saw instead of just replacing the blade with a sex toy. Either way, this is some worse case scenario stuff. “What’s the worse that could happen from us doing this?” This. This is the worse that could happen. Everyone does stupid crap. At some point in our lives something dumb will happen and maybe we’ll get hurt. We wont wanna tell anyone or go to a doctor. In this case you have to. No band aid is gonna fix this. Its like when they dude let that horse destroy his…ass. He was too ashamed to go to a hospital and died from his injuries.
I worked in a hospital and the crazy thing is that people tend to lie to their doctors. The few occasions that I had to go to the hospital I was telling them everything they needed to know to make a problem go away. Thankfully I never had something happen so severe that I had to stay overnight. But with a saw slicing your vajayjay in two? At least they did something right that night. I cant believe she was released so soon. The miracles of modern science!
This is also one of those times where I wonder who initiated this. I have heard of chicks doing some stupid stuff and wondered how a guy could be that convincing. Because if the chick was the one to say, “Hey, baby. Go to the garage and get your saw…” then the world is way stranger that I had previously believed.
Rockets.
There is so much I’d like to know about myself when I was a baby. I have heard bits and pieces but for some reason bad memories seem to run in my family. Me and my Grandmama have the best memories but I wish the people I grew up in the house with did.
My mother said I was boring. That I didn’t cry or anything. I just sat there looking at people. My pa said that he liked me and held me all the time. Since there are only three baby pictures of me in existence I’ll have to take his word for it. Oh, and I call him “pa” because when I was little me and my brother called him by his first name. Then one day he told us to call him “daddy.” Once I got a bit older, like 10, I just never referred to him as anything. Its weird but to this day I will call him “pa” or nothing. On a birthday card years ago it said “From Ma & Pa!” and from the living room I shouted “Pa!” and he was like, “Aw, damn it…” He now had a name. Pa.
As I was saying, no one ever describes me as hyper, bad, or whiny. Its funny but my mothers description is pretty much how I would behave at parties as an adult. I’ll find a nice spot and just watch people like some sort of National Geographic where the animals can talk. I have a few memories from being an infant. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds. I remember being in a playpen and licking it to see the bubbles pop against the screen. I remember my mother taking me into the shower before I was 1 and freaking out at the water beating my ass. I remember my stroller and loving the ugly orange, brown, and red thing. I remember crying when my brother took it apart to use the wheels for a doomed go-cart.
That picture of me up there is one of three that exist. The other two were found looking for pictures of my late brother for his funeral. They were taken on the same day and I was standing and smiling. Like I am in this picture. That’s my Grandpapa in the back sitting on the bed. I had this picture for years until I noticed him back there. I look at baby me and wonder if I knew how my life would’ve turned out if I would have acted differently. Would I have given up or grown up tougher? Ah, who knows? But I like looking into my past face and seeing that even as a baby I could sit there with perfect eyebrows and laughing at something.
Rockets.
So I went to my first session of counseling. It went better than I had hoped. I got there on time and waited a couple minutes until she showed up. After that we sat down and started with the introductions.
Now, the thing is that I don’t know how to describe myself. Its pretty much what my profile says about me. I’m not exciting. I’m not loud or anything. I don’t go on adventures. I honestly consider myself dull and am amazed that seeing as how I am indoors at home 6 ½ out of 7 days in the week that I am still able to talk for hours on the phone everyday. So, yeah. Mr. Electricity I’m not.
So during the talk I start talking about my writing and how its easy for me. This is the most easy thing on Earth for me but it’s the most productive mentally and spiritually. She asked if I would ever consider getting paid for it. Yes, I would. But I would also feel bad since its so easy.
Huh?
After saying that I started to realize something. For some reason I feel bad getting paid or congratulated for something that isn’t hard for me. I cant accept compliments for things that come easy. Why is that? What is in my system that made me this way? Growing up I would get told how smart I was. I didn’t care, it was easy. I was told that I was funny. I didn’t care since I wasn’t trying to be. Hell, when someone tells me I am attractive I don’t believe it. That’s not because I think I am. I just have too many voices from childhood and my mother calling me an “ugly little motherfucker.” Maybe one day I will allow myself the simple joy of saying “Thank you!”
So one down and God knows how many to go. It was good and I felt better afterwards. Me and my lady were supposed to go to church after my counseling but they are doing a series of prayer stuff that we weren’t prepared for. We ended up at my place and had our own bible study. No, that’s not some sexual innuendo or anything. We actually studied the bible. It was nice. Thanks for reading this, ya’ll.
Rockets.
So later today I am heading to a church counselor. This is the first time in years that I have gone to any form of counselor. In high school they sent me to counselors and they were a joke. To call them counselors is an insult to actual counselors.
I was at Fairfax less than a month when I was first sent to counseling. Now, I’m still not sure what set it off. Its not like I walked around staring at walls or threatened people. But there is something inside of me that either draws people towards me or pushes them away. Maybe one day I will find out or perhaps when I hopefully meet my Lord.
Now mind you, I arrived at Fairfax a month into the school year. I knew no one and didn’t really try. By the time I had left my other school I was alone. My friends had left. I would just listen to my Walkman and draw. I was fine with this routine. My plan after school by this point was no longer to go to college and study to be a brain surgeon or a marine biologist. I just wanted to drift.
One of the counselors was a group. It was called Impact. Hmm. Maybe that’s why I don’t like TNA Wrestling. Impact was for stoners, cutters, and miserable bastards in general. I was none of these things. I never went to Impact. I had photography with a son of a bitch teacher (Mr. Spitzer) that ran the program. He would send me to the office when I refused to go. Now that’s good teachin’! He also called me gay and said I had ADD.
The next was this lady Ms. Razi. This was one on one. I only went to her maybe three times before she had to leave because she got knocked up. She barely looked at me. All I recall from her is looking at the half top of her head wrap and her light colored skin. Our conversations went like this.
“How do you get along with your parents?”
“Not good. But I cant change them.”
“Yeah, you cant change them…”
That was how it was. I was glad when she left. This was a waste of time and I was at school to attempt to get an education. My next was another group. The Black Man’s Support Group. Out of all of these this was the one I hated the most. It was just nothing but being told how the White man was not gonna help me. Nothing constructive. Just being told that the White man would keep me down but not saying, “But don’t worry because the Black man will!” Its like someone telling you that you’re gonna be shot in the face later but not by who. The thing I hated was that I would be pulled out of Advance Physical Science (a senior class I fought to be allowed in!) every Wednesday for this shit. I would be all sweaty from volleyball and just sit there for the first fifteen minutes with my head down and a towel on my head. This went on until I was in the 11th grade and told everyone at the office that I refused to waste anymore time going there. One of the lady’s in the office was pissed by my comment because she ran that program along with this random ass Black guy.
I am hoping that today goes well. I have so much shit that I need to get out of me. No amount of story writing, drawing, article writing, or movie making can ever get all the shit crammed into my skull out. I need to dig even deeper. Maybe I wont like what they have to say and what I’ll have to hear, but I have to do something. Right?
Rockets.
ALBANY, N.Y. – You might call it a "pole tax." The New York legislator who brought the nation its first law against driving while using a cell phone is proposing a $10 tax for patrons of nude and seminude dance clubs and strip bars.
Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, a Bronx Democrat, says the revenue would go toward helping victims of human trafficking at a time when government budgets are being slashed.
The bill doesn't have a Senate sponsor yet. In Texas, state lawyers are fighting to preserve their $5 "pole tax," a cover charge on strip clubs, is being challenged by business owners. The Texas Legislature approved the fee in 2007, hoping to spend the money on sexual assault and health insurance programs, but a judge declared it unconstitutional. The state is appealing.
Have you ever noticed what the government decides to tax and what they don’t? No taxes on things like medicine, expensive ass cars, or mansions. No, they head for booze, cigarettes, alcohol, and strippers. I bet if prostitution was legal that would be taxed. Same for marijuana. Now, I don’t ever wanna use a hooker and I don’t smoke weed, but I always noticed what gets targeted for taxes.
To sit and say some shit like the money being taxed would go towards helping to battle human trafficking is ridiculous. Its like when they make any other bill and slap something onto it that will make sure it does not get passed.
“Okay, so how are we voting on the Save The Children Act?”
“Excuse me, but I’d like to add the Wife Must Let Me Ass Fuck Bill also!”
“Nay!!!”
I’m sure strippers are having a hard enough time right now without adding this $10 nonsense to their lives. This is just another way to subtly stick another screw and twist it into regular ass folks. Those Congress guys don’t use strippers. They have call girls. The don’t smoke plain ass cigarettes. The smoke Cuban cigars. They never have to worry about how much their cars cost.
How about instead of wasting time on taxing strippers we get to more important things? This is some crap that shouldn’t even be brought up right now. Get priorities in order!
Rockets.
A long time ago I was gonna write a story. Not really a story, more like an autobiography. No, I don’t think that I have led such an interesting life that everyone should be clamoring to read about me. But in my 30 years I have somehow managed to cram in a lot of strange shit. My story was gonna start off with a certain incident in particular.
When I was about 7 years old my parents had split up for a couple of weeks. I guess one night my pa went a little too far and my mother had enough of it. I woke up thinking I was late for Grandmama’s only to be welcomed to a house with almost everything in the house packed. I asked my mother what was wrong and she pointed to this dent in the wall. Apparently a lotion bottle had missed its target and hit the wall. I can guarantee you that if it had hit its target someone would have been in jail and someone would’ve missed work.
So with everything packed but my fish tank, a couple of mattresses on the floor, and a table we were off. To where? A shithole. That’s the best way I can describe the place. Yes, we stayed with someone. It was someone I had no love for and couldn’t stand to look at. I wont get into who the person was here. But believe me: this person was an asshole.
The house was a shit house on a shit street in a shit part of Los Angeles. My oldest brother got his own room (which I would sneak into and steal his Mamba candy) and I shared with my two other brothers. I spent my time between the crap shack and my Grandmama’s house while my mother was at work. During this time while walking to the store (yes, as a child I would walk to the store all by myself; apparently I did it when I was 2 years old once).
I was crossing the street and all of a sudden I was on the ground. I remember hearing a crunch before I went down. I looked up and the light turned green. Two cars sped away and I tried to stand up.
“You okay?” a guy asked me.
“Yeah” I lied. I wasn’t okay. I was the opposite of okay. I was un-okay. I held my right arm and started walking back to my grand mamma’s place. My cousin saw me before I got there and asked me what was wrong. “I got hit by a car” I told him. “Don’t tell Grandmama.” He said he wouldn’t and ran home and told her. She called my mother and she proceeded to curse me out.
“What the fuck yo stupid ass doin’ playin’ in the street?! Keep yo stupid ass inside!” she screamed.
Nothing like a mothers love, huh? A few days after this my parents decided enough time had passed and we moved back in. It sucked. On the weekend while they were split we actually went to church. I got to see my pa’s side of the family and it was cool. We watched movies and hung out like normal fathers and sons. I watched “An American Tail” and cried like a little bitch. Good times.
When we moved back my father went back to drinking. As we moved everything back inside my father walked over to me and sat down next to me looking pissed off.
“So you got hit by a car, huh?” he asked me. I burst into tears. I still don’t know why I did. Maybe I thought I was gonna get hit because of it. Maybe I was hoping that he was gonna feel some sympathy. Maybe I thought that after all the bullshit the family had just been through that maybe the chance that your youngest son almost being killed would make some kinda difference. It didn’t. He wrapped my arm in sports tape and that was that. No doctor. No check up. No anything.
To this day my knee is still fucked up. I can make it click if I keep it tight and straighten it. My arm doesn’t bother me. I always wonder what I would be like if I hadn’t been hit that day. I had always thought that my parents weren’t too fond of me. Hell, my mother told me I was an accident. That day I knew they didn't like me. Today if you ask her about me being hit by a car she says it didn’t happen. She has a way of forgetting almost all of my childhood. I wish I had that luxury.
Oh, and the name of my autobiography was gonna be titled “Playing In Traffic.”
Rockets.
CANBERRA, Australia – When a dark intruder smashed through his bedroom window and repeatedly bounced on his bed, Beat Ettlin at first was relieved to discover it was a kangaroo. "My initial thought when I was half awake was, 'It's a lunatic ninja coming through the window,'" the 42-year-old told The Associated Press on Monday. "It seems about as likely as a kangaroo breaking in."
But his relief was short-lived. As Ettlin cowered beneath the sheets with his wife and 9-year-old daughter at 2 a.m. Sunday, the frantic kangaroo bounded into the bedroom of his 10-year-old son Leighton Beman, who screamed, "There's a 'roo in my room!"
"I thought, 'This can be really dangerous for the whole family now,'" Ettlin said.
The ordeal played out over a few minutes in the family's house in Garran, an upmarket suburb in the leafy national capital of Canberra.
Ettlin, a chef originally from the Swiss city of Stans, said he jumped the 90 pound (40 kilogram) marsupial from behind and pinned it to the floor. He grabbed it in a headlock and wrestled the trashing and bleeding intruder into a hallway, toward the front door.
He used a single, fumbling hand to open the front door and shoved the kangaroo into the night.
"I had just my Bonds undies on. I felt vulnerable," he said, referring to a popular Australian underwear brand.
I am still laughing even as I write this at the “lunatic ninja” line! Between this and that crazy ass monkey attack a few weeks back I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t get the jump on these animals. Here’s my plan.
I’m gonna head into a forest. Like, deep into the forest. I’m gonna just stand there and howl, growl, and shout. I want the biggest, meanest ass bear to come out of the bushes. I’m gonna be in his face like, “What? Say sumthin’.” And it wont because, it’s, like, a bear and everything. But it will growl. And I’ll just stand there like, “Whatever, dude” and punch it in the neck. They don’t like that. Next thing you know, I got a new jacket and feel even more manly.
Rockets.
I can wrap my childhood and my relationship with my parents up in one item: Smurf Big Wheel. Why would my parents buy this for me? What went through their minds when picking this gay ass toy for their child? Were they trying to be funny? Did they think I liked boys? I’ll always wonder...
I remember when me and my brother would get stuff growing up. If he got a bike, I would get a bike. If he got a toy, I would, too. When he got the Grammy Michael Jackson I got the Thriller one. Loved that thing. But when it came to this whole Big Wheel situation I was left scratching my head. You see, my brother got a Dukes of Hazard Big Wheel. It was awesome! Black tires with orange and red tassels on it. It looked like it went fast.
My Smurf bike?
It looked like it couldn’t crush a flower. The tires got dirty immediately. They were friggin’ white! Of all the colors to buy a kid like me. I ruined them the first day. Oh, yeah, I still rode the thing but you can damn sure bet I made sure no one that would laugh was outside while I was on it.
And my brother turned out to be the gay one.
Rockets.
“A morgue or mortuary is a building or room (as in a hospital) used for the storage of human remains awaiting identification, or removal for autopsy, burial, cremation or some other post-death ritual. They are usually refrigerated to avoid decomposition.”
I used to work at UCLA Medical Center moving corpses. No, that’s not all I did there, but its one of the strangest things I have ever been paid to do besides working at the porn shop. I was a Patient Escort, a name that sounds sexy, like if someone was in a lot of pain we would “relieve” them or something. No. We pushed people around.
I used to always wait for the day that a body would twitch or move or something. I would hurry up and do morgue calls really fast in case after a certain amount of time they would start twitching or some shit. It never happened but that never stopped other crazy crap from happening.
The best example of my job and the ineptitude of my supervisors was this one call I had to do. We were supposed to take this lady from the ICU to a Cat Scan. We showed up with a wheelchair and an oxygen tank. Now, I knew this was a bad start since I knew who this patient was and knew she could not be moved from her bed. But no one likes to listen to reason. So we get there and tell a nurse that we’re here to take the patient to get scanned.
“Oh” she said. “She passed Sunday.”
It was Tuesday.
How To Transport A Corpse
1. You get the call telling you where the body is and hopefully who will be helping you get it.
2. Contact your partner and figure out who is getting the morgue gurney. May not sound bad but there were only three gurneys there and two of them didn’t work.
3. Once you had the gurney you had to take one of the tiny ass elevators. You had to actually tilt the gurney to make it fit and pray that no one else needed to use the elevator. 9 out of 10 times someone did.
4. From there you’d take another elevator to get to the floor you needed. The entire time you’re trying to not look like you’re doing what you’re doing. Looking for a corpse. Its funny, but Latin families always crossed themselves when they saw it. There wasn’t a body on it yet but you couldn’t tell by the way it was made. It had a huge, white, holy sheet draped over it.
5. Once you found the room and hopefully not the family we would let a nurse know we were there. Its funny how we treat the dead in America. Even if the nurse was just talking to the patient an hour ago once they became a corpse they wanted nothing to do with them. We get our paperwork signed and then get to work.
6. Taking a sheet we'd roll the body up like a giant joint. Tight at the head and feet. Then we’d lift it onto the gurney and throw the cover back on. Imagine pushing an ironing board with wheels.
7. Now is where I start moving as fast as possible. I don’t wanna experience the twitching or farting that corpses tend to do. We’d take the elevators back down and head to the morgue.
8. Once in the morgue and signing in who we were dropping off we’d open the morgue up and see what we had to deal with. Some lazy ass escorts would just leave a body on the gurney for someone else to deal with. Or worse, the morgue would be so full of bodies that you’d have to start double stacking.
9. No matter how small someone is once they are dead they’re heavy as hell! I still don’t get it. We’d shove the body onto the giant bunk bed type slabs and then lock everything back up.
10. Wash up and pray that you didn’t have another morgue call for the rest of the day.
Now, that was a best case scenario. Sometimes the family wanted to stay with the body longer after you had spent half an hour just getting there. Sometimes a nurse wouldn’t have the body wrapped and you’d walk in and see a body staring at you. There was one in the ER I had to get and dude had just died less than 10 minutes ago. Another time the family didn’t want the body wrapped because it was against their religion. That was a long call.
Another time we had to grab a kid from the ICU and take them to the morgue. Now, with taking a kid to the morgue the best case scenario was that the family had already cried and moved on. This was the case. Now, this one was my first morgue call and I had to do it with this dumbass kid that was employed just because his mom worked there. We went through all the wrong doors. Made wrong turns. It sucked. We got there and the body was wrapped (something that isn’t always the case like I said) and rushed him downstairs.
Whenever I hear people at job interviews ask me about stress and how I work under it, I laugh on the inside. I moved corpses. Dealing with a bitchy client or a boss that needs things fast is nothing to me. I always said when I first worked there that I wouldn’t touch a dead body but that call with the kid happened less than two weeks into my training. Once you pop that cherry it does get easier. Sadly. So the next time you have a hard day at work just say to yourself: “At least I don’t have to move a dead body.”
Rockets.
I am a little bit drunk so I will just write whatever comes to mind with no regard to spelling until later in the morning. I love how when I am drunk I type faster.
My friend Michelle came by and gave me some wine for my birthday. It had my name on it and that’s awesome. She brought her kid by and its so crazy knowing someone you went to school with and now all of a sudden there’s a little person that came from them. That’s crazy. I don’t have many friends that have kids so I am still getting used to it.
Speaking of my birthday, I am kinda bothered by the folks that didn’t wish me a happy birthday. One of them in particular I went to their party for two years in a row and gave an awesome ass gift both times yet they have the nerve to not even myspace me or send me a message. Bullshit. You suck. Like, it doesn’t take much to just give me a call. Whatever. You stink and I’m not getting you shit this year.
I have cool ass friends. Like, a lot of folks have shown that they are true ass friends since I have been out of work. Some more than others. And its cool as fuck. When I am back on my Black ass feet I will be sure to take acre of them. I am so gonna make then proud to be my friend. When I look good, they look good. Kinda like the old shampoo commercial.
I remember that comedian Louis CK saying that his wife would have sex with him so that she wouldn’t “end up in the papers.” I gave up on all my porn a while back and feel sometimes like one of those pressure gauges that will explode. I also think this is why I can grow a decent beard now.
Self censorship is total bullshit and is only helping in the “pussyfication” of the planet! Yes, that’s a new word and you are free to use it. You may also use “stutarded”, “bitchwich”, and “shitarific.” Life is too long to be running around trying to be sensitive to everyone. Fuck that.
This wine is fucking awesome by the way. Look at the picture. That’s it. This shit will get ya drunk! You’ll be fuckin’ fat bitches in no time! Mmm-mmm, bitch!
Rockets!
