Wednesday, March 13, 2024

The Mushroom Diaries - An Evening with Lucy

 It's been a while since i've dabbled in the more chemical side of things as they say... in fact i had to go back through the old mental calendar and think quite hard about when the last time i actually tossed a small bit of paper into my mouth and waited for the sun (as i used to say)... you see my early thirties were the last time i had actually taken acid and then it was the Night of the Ridiculously Strong Sugarcubes followed by the brief period of time, roughly a year or so, when i had somehow lucked into some purple microdots from a friend of the long gone Hippie Jack, a lovely guy with a white afro that would give a young Rob Tyner a run for his money... and since i hadn't seen them for a bit i of course bought ten hits to keep myself supplied for the near future... and of course great fun was had by all... or maybe just me because though i tried to share a few hits with friends no one ever took me up on the offer and so i spent ten nights/days tripping on my own... and it was a grand old time...

A very good friend of mine has come to the psychedelics game late, not that it's ever too late but he's now taken a keen interest in it, especially after discussing it with his brother and i over the past few years and it is that same brother, a guy a couple years older than me, who has found a connection (one has to love the restaurants of the world for they are truly a haven for scoring any number of substances, albeit some less harmful than others)... there seems to be an abundance of mushrooms and LSD to which my friend now has access... said friend being interested in relieving some of the stress and anxiety of his job and life in general he tends to want smaller doses and so his brother cuts the hits up very carefully and delicately... he's offered me a hit a few times but due to ride duties or having to work the next morning i have declined, shocking to the reader i know as there are very few moments in my personal history where i have declined any narcotic substance but let's just say as i skip merrily towards the void i've become a bit, dare i say, wiser? about things... and seeing how things are around the asylum these days i most definitely have to be.. 

--- side story-- the other day boyo numero uno (a name borrowed from the Kid), came home one fine Thursday from school... we were supposed to do some project, mainly cook this dinner and take pictures so he could make a short film for his food class, a class that should be an easy A but that said boyo is still fucking up... now let me state the boyos know nothing of my current explorations into inner/outer space but they do know that their parents are not novices when it comes to psychedelics, something none other than the BW let out of the bag one night at the dinner table... once at home said boyo was fucking about and not doing his work and when questioned by the BW he began having one of his patented tantrums but then a few minutes later asked to speak with me, he had now been home roughly two hours and i was in the middle of doing something so i said i'd be up when i was finished... the tenor of in his voice that told me something was up and so i went to his room to see.. he was standing there fidgeting and i told him to sit down and then he explained that a kid had handed him something at the end of school which he thought was a 5mg THC gummy but as it turned out was not... he admitted to trying mushrooms once or twice so he figured he might have taken a hit because while it wasn't exactly the same it was similar.. i calmly listened and told him to stand up and come look into the light... he did and he was fucking pie-eyed so i explained he most definitely did not take and edible and his assessment was correct... now seeing the last thing i wanted to do was send him on a bad trip i calmly explained to him that he needed to just chill in his room, relax, and ride it out... that while i was not going to say shit to him now that tomorrow we would have a little talk and he should understand that he was most definitely in deep shit with his parents... he said he understood and thanked me for being cool about shit to which i told him i'm being cool because i know how to handle people in this state but i wasn't exactly thrilled, i also told him how fucking stupid it was to put anything in his mouth without knowing what it was...  which of course is mighty rich coming from a guy who threw a ton of hits into his mouth not to mention the other illicit substances imbibed by our hero... do as i say not as i do... what i did explain to him was that i was a bit older when i got into this shit and that he and his pooh-butt friends had no clue what the fuck they were doing which is how people end up in trouble... now back to the post ---

And so it was one fine Saturday evening i went over to the Dub and Dabs night which on this night was Dead and Dabs night and took a tiny piece of blotter and placed it gently on my tongue... i then proceeded to to take a few hits off the pen while my good friend rolled a large and fine joint of a good indica... then i sat back and waited... and up came the sun... i can say from my vast experience in this field that this was a quality hit, clean as we say, not speedy and cut with bullshit but very high quality Lucy and while there was a moment when looking at the small plastic container with about eight little squares in it i thought about taking two and i can actually say that for once erring on the side of caution paid off... as this one little square turned out to be more than enough to set me off on a fine evening... 

To be honest i didn't set out to compare and contrast the merits of acid vs. shrooms, it's not really a contest as they are different but the same, the old yin-yang but not exactly... if you get my drift... as i sat hanging with my friend i could feel the lysergic acid begin to work it's magic... strangely my head was incredibly clear, even with the large joint we smoked and the number of rips off the pen, the mind remained quite limber, the ideas coming quick and fast and being easy to verbalize, which does happen on mushrooms as well but maybe not quite as easily, i'd say it is more a inner dialogue with mushrooms and more of an outer one with acid... the other main issue when it comes to this is the relative size of the dose, something that is much easier to ascertain when dealing with the fungus than when dealing with bits of paper or even a bottle of liquid and even then it is still not as precise as when taking mushrooms because unless someone has taken the same stuff it's still iffy... is that a pro? or con? don't really know but it's something i dwelled upon once back at the old house and sitting on the couch with Phat Paco... 

The old electric hum was still there but it felt slightly different... granted psilocybin and lsd are maybe a bit more like cousins than brothers when i think about it... call it the wisdom of experience (or something like that) but looking back on things i noticed the difference much more now than when i did when i was younger... the decade of my 20s and early 30s was spent getting fucked up for fucked up's sake... i liked to take huge amounts of just about anything, not the smartest move obviously but something when one is young, stupid and (thinks) slightly invincible happens... granted psychedelics, mushrooms in particular, are considered the safest of substances topping the list right ahead off cannabis, so in those instances i was never worried about "kicking it" more just an exploration of how hard can this psychonaut trip balls while wandering the various streets of Podunk U., then Ocean City and then North Oakland and the East End... but that hum... 

If there was one thing i noticed about the tiny piece of paper i tossed in my mouth that night it was the hum was there but it was tuned to a different station, or something of the sort, could i still feel the electric pulse of the universe? yes and no... now maybe i'm biased or maybe i need to do more research (nudge nudge wink wink) but while i greatly enjoyed my trip, dug the music, was probably more social than had i taken shrooms, there was something i couldn't quite put my finger on that seemed to be missing, the thoughts and ideas were there, the tingling of every synapse and nerve in the body was there, granted maybe i just needed to take a bit more but yet the dose felt comparable to a decent dose of mushrooms... so what was it that felt different? that is what i've thought the most about since that night.. 

The biggest and most obvious difference is that one substance is organic and one man made and if the the truth be told i'm a much bigger fan of the organic... not to be misunderstood, i enjoy them both but the mushroom seems to be of the universe, made from it, naturally occurring, a cosmic accident or a cosmic gift, it doesn't matter... science is a brilliant and beautiful thing and i fully believe that substances like lsd are invaluable for humanity (see Timothy Leary and his study of acid and alcoholism) but there is something about the mushroom that trumps them all... when the electric hum starts it is a different feeling and experience, of course one could argue that it was due to the dose taken but i've taken small(er) doses of mushrooms and there was still a difference... so what is it? 

The interesting thing about the acid was just how clear and concise my thoughts were, i was most definitely under the influence of it and the doors were open but it was different than taking mushrooms, it was more a constant hum so to speak, there was none of the rhythm, which is the only way to describe it, that one gets with mushrooms, what i love about the mushroom is the way it works with the body and mind and universe, yes i may sound like some psychedelic wastoid who has taken one dose too many but that's just how i see it... a long time ago i read that it takes about seven minutes for the blood to circulate through the body, what amazes and what i love about mushrooms is that they are tuned in, one can feel them, like breathing, as they rise and fall, the intensity reaching a crescendo every seven minutes where at the height of it there is no thought there is just being, that electric hum or song of the universe vibrating through you and while you can get that feeling somewhat with lsd it's not the same, acid opens the doors as well but in a different manner, maybe it's just me and how it affects me but the connection with the world around me feels and is much stronger on and after taking mushrooms than when i take a tab, granted at my age (nudge nudge wink wink) i would definitely say i could eat a tab and go out for the night at the same time but i've already done that with shrooms (see the fabled Flaming Lips show) but having dipped back into the lysergic pool i most definitely could have a good time with acid... another big difference, i could still drink beer on acid while when taking mushrooms it's strictly water... it could be my strange and warped view of things but the mushroom is a bit sacramental to me while acid is more like a party... though i'm sure with enough practice those roles could be reversed... 

And so i spent the night talking with my friend and riffing on any number of subjects, from the trials and tribulations of the boyos, to the meaning of it all, from politics and of course the futbol... i then got my ass home where i spent the next few hours wandering around the Cave, the downstairs room where i now reside for the most part, listening to music and wandering about, watching a bit of telly, talking with Phat Paco about how cool he is and in the end it was a fine evening with Lucy... something i most definitely look forward to trying again... Major Kono to ground control... over and out... 




Monday, February 19, 2024

The Longest Day 6.0

 Going back and re-reading it's interesting the things that seemed constant in this day... the biting, early morning Cleveland cold, the sound of the highway, the light in my father's front room, the icy steps to his apartment... year after year it's the things that stuck in my head... re-reading them i thought what have i missed? what have i forgot or more maybe more correctly chose to forget? i believe it was the original post where i talked about sitting on a bench in the hallway, the early morning sun of a blue-skyed winter day blindingly gleaming off the pure white snow of the courtyard outside, sitting on that bench and eating pretzels and sipping water as i was still working to shake off the remnants of the illness that had laid me flat a couple of days before... sitting on that bench and watching the doctors and nurses and people walk by, for some it was just another Tuesday at work, for some it was an appointment or a follow up visit and i'm sure there were some people just like me, waiting and wondering and hoping that the person they love was going to be alright... looking back now i know that i'm not the only one who will associate that day with the Longest Day... there were others there, kindred spirits, all keeping our fingers crossed... for some in that place it was the last day... 

The arbitrary names and numbers that help us count and keep track of things, even of things such as memories, they remind us not to forget, as if there is some crime in forgetting... but there is no crime because we don't forget, we know and remember and even if those memories warp and fade into something different they are still there... there is a comfort to them, even the painful or sad ones, because in the end they are another piece, another chapter in the story and in order to be complete we need all the chapters... even the one that's the hardest to read... 

Six years later and i still go over that day in my head, did i miss something? is there something i forgot? thinking back and remember how i barely slept, how i woke up at 4:15 in the morning and didn't get back to my dad's apartment until almost 10pm... the moment, as my big sister and i walked out of recovery where i finally lost it, where the tears streamed down my face and i said "he's the best friend i've ever had...." Looking back i understand that the time my sister and father had a bit of strained relationship, mainly due to politics, my father detesting the Orange Shitgibbon and his grand old party while my big sis had become a card carrying member... i know it bothered my dad, he couldn't understand how someone as intelligent as my sister could support these people, someone with a son on the spectrum, how could she back a buffoon and a party who would relegate her child as a drag on "their" system, a party that would like nothing more than to strip him of his rights, benefits, opportunities you name it... they hadn't talked as much over the last couple of years due to it and when my father spoke to me about it i could tell it bothered him... even that night, as i drove my sister home in our father's car she began talking about it, sadly i realized the latent racism and white privilege my sister exhibited, i think somewhere in my father's mind he didn't understand how his two children could be so different... but then again he probably could, we were two different people who experienced vastly different things, particularly between the ages of 18-27... years my sister lived at home (she is six years older) and years i spent at college and then walking into the Wilderness... 

Five times this day has come and gone since that first one... each time i get up and look out the window at the sky... not once has it been as cold and sunny as on the Longest Day... driving through the city that morning i try to remember what my dad and i talked about, it was nothing important, no philosophical debates on the state of existence, we just talked, mainly to keep our minds off what lie ahead of us, each mile bringing us closer to the inevitable... not that we knew it at the time but we also both understood, the 100-1 longshot doesn't come in that often... and these odds were even longer... so we talked about the mundane, mainly because it brought about some normalcy in what was decidedly an abnormal day, in a few hours my father would have his whole torso cut open and two highly educated and skilled surgeons would see if they could play god... and as we know they couldn't... but they tried... and that's all one can ask for...  

The Longest Day, version 6.0... it wasn't 4am but it was early enough, somewhere slightly south of 6am the eyes popped open, Phat Paco walked up for some morning head butts before plopping himself down on my chest and purring away while i stared at the ceiling... it wasn't lost on me that i've been sleeping on this couch/futon for over six years now as well, before it was sweet Syd who hung out and now it's Phat Paco, happy to lay around and keep me company, i tried to go back to sleep but mainly i just lay there thinking, i'm not sure anyone else remembers this day, maybe my big sis, possibly my aunt, i'm sure my father's older brother would have but now he is gone as well.. and so i took a deep breath and got up, stretched a bit and quietly walked around a sleeping house, the only movement the cats who eagerly anticipate their morning treats, i walked up the steps to turn on the coffeemaker and i could hear the light tap of their paws as they followed me around with expectant looks... 

The morning would go decidedly pear-shaped from there... it was the rare day that the I-mac was ready for school on time and as we drove towards the high school he was talking about basketball, mainly the NBA and about guys scoring 70 points in a game and if i thought it was easier today than it used to be, my reply was no, it's hard to score that many no matter what level your at and in the NBA even more so, it's just a testament to how skilled these players are... since he had watched a Tik Tok claiming otherwise he disputed this fact to which i replied, i kinda know cuz i actually watched the guys in the 80s... the problem is if one dares disagree with the I-mac a meltdown ensues, it started because he said i was getting shitty about it and the truth is i was, mainly due to the fact that he started being a shithead and disputing everything i stated based on a fucking Tik Tok clip of some guy who wasn't even born in 1986 or whatever the fuck... it was ridiculous to the highest degree and only went downhill from there as he began screaming and yelling before elbowing me while i drove to school... Disaster in the backseat rolling his eyes because he's seen this show too many times to count... i drop the youngest boyo off but now the oldest boyo refuses to get out of the car because he's too worked up and is screaming about all sorts of things unrelated to the topic that kicked it all off... yeah, we got issues...

(the I-mac likes to play this game, you see last week his mother was the most horrible person on the planet and he wanted only to deal with me, this week the roles have reversed and it annoys him when both the BW and i call him out on his bullshit, as previously stated the boy is a walking excuse for all his fuck-ups and assholery while claiming none of it is his fault and blaming anyone and everyone... at times he'll even blame the cats... nuff said.) 

We drove back home, the whole time him ranting away and me tuning out, he ran in and found his mother and i got ready for work... sometimes being a gig economy serf comes in handy, with no set schedule i can leave whenever and though i didn't have a batch i said i did and left... sitting in my car alone i thought about my father... i never treated my dad like this, i had too much respect, i understood the sacrifices he made even at 17 and though i had a phase where i was a right shithead that phase was short lived... i knew what i had to do and knew how to play the game... Pops always liked that about his only son, from a young age i had street smarts... he dug how i operated and kept out of trouble even if keeping out of trouble was basically just not getting caught... (little did he know what sort of shenanigans his adult son would get up to and though i gave him a small glimpse of my former occupation during the Wilderness Years i never told him the scale of which it attained... to be fair, Pops was no fool and figured his boy might have been into some things and now and then would mention it... i'd always give him my shit eating grin and a little shrug and tell him he might be onto something... as he once said to me during those years, you never asked for a dime or needed a place to stay, i don't know how you did it, i don't want to know, but i respect it... )

And so the day progressed... just another day, i worked the gig for a few hours, it wasn't a particularly busy day so after a small batch i kicked off and headed to the pool... the heater has now been fixed which means the days of walking into an empty pool and choosing a lane are over... a few days before the water was up to 71 degrees, still chilly to most but to those who paddled through the water when it was barely touching 60 it actually felt warm... now it's back to normal which means i can jump right in... there are certain days i always try to swim.... Feb. 13th, Jan. 21st, May 16th... all dates related to my father... Jan. 21st, Pops' birthday, was my last cold swim before they shut the pool down for repairs, call it serendipity... the water was freezing and i was the only one in the pool and i cranked out 1400 yards, the cold made it feel like two workouts in one and as i dragged myself out of the water i gazed out the large windows surrounding the pool, it felt good... after 16 days off i had gotten back in and this swim would be my fourth swim back, getting older the conditioning goes quick but i decided to do a mile, breaking it up into sets with certain number of lengths, as a tribute to Pops, it was one of the best parts of the day... 

It's an interesting feeling thinking back on that day as each year it gets further away from the now, just an arbitrary point on an imaginary line and yet it is fixed in my mind, how vivid the memories are, how on that day i can look at the clock and know exactly what i was doing six years ago, when i was eating, when i was attempting to diffuse an argument between my aunt and uncle on one side and my sister on the other, the pager going off as i stared at my chicken soup and my heart sank, the discussion with the surgeon, the waiting in various halls and rooms... it was around the time i picked up the boyos, (yes the I-mac finally went to school, driven by his mother) and stated that today was the day of my father's surgery and it was around this very time my pager went off and i got the news... i calmly and casually explained that this day was probably more difficult to navigate than the day he passed as it was this day that verified what we all know but pretend not to acknowledge... we'll all die, now and then we get an idea of how long we'll have, sometimes old death just shows up, cancer can kiss my ass but if there is one thing it does do is it gives you some time, time to spend with the person you know you're going to lose and when that person means as much to you as my father did to me you take advantage of it... 

(As is his way, Disaster randomly walked by and gave me hug after we had gotten home from school, i knew why, it is a markedly different relationship than the one i have with his brother and while the I-mac and i have deteriorated at the moment what i said in the car had struck a chord, slightly i'd say, as one of the things i often tell him is that the world is not just him, that other people have feelings, emotions, views, and a lot of times you'll not know what's really going on... unless of course they say something...) 

The Longest Day was the start of a month and change of some of the most cherished times i had with my dad... i knew it then but i understand it more now... we spent a lot of time, we learned a lot of things, but mostly we both knew that we had a brilliant relationship... during the divorce my mother once accused my father of being my friend, you're damn right i'm his friend was his response, i was a grown man at this point for all intents and purpose, finishing college and wandering off into the wilderness... he was my best friend... many days i look up towards the sky, not with any religious connotation but understanding the universe is made of energy and energy cannot be destroyed, we just become something else, born of stardust we return to those elements that we're made of... i talk to him, ask for advice, have a laugh... the Longest Day had come again... and yes it was long, by evening as i made dinner and folded laundry, washed dishes and felt the pull of an aching back it struck me how this day was understandably different yet also similar to the original, when i finally sat down on my makeshift bed, exhausted, i turned on the telly and of course a basketball game was on, just like that night six years ago, i couldn't help but smile... then Phat Paco came purring my way with his big shining eyes and plopped down next to me... he loves his Paco and Dad time as i call it... i lay down and pulled up the blankets, turned off the light behind me, listened to the hum of my big cat in the fluorescent glow of the television... i looked towards the ceiling and whispered, "i love you dad", and drifted off to sleep...



Monday, February 5, 2024

Fathers and Sons

 We all know what Oscar said about stealing rather than borrowing and while inhabiting the delusional world of a shut-in like myself i pretend to be a genius in my own mind while the rest of the universe knows, factually, that i'm a fucking idiot... luckily that doesn't stop me from getting out of bed in the morning but that's more because i have to than actually want to... if it was up to me Fat Paco and i would lounge about scratching our nuts and staring at the ceiling... so what, pray tell, have i stolen? mainly it's the title of this post but even that wouldn't be entirely correct... there's an excellent book written by Larry Brown titled Father and Son, hence where this title sorta comes from, there's also and equally excellent sequel to that book titled Fay... Brown was one of those writers that was classified as Grit Lit, a genre i didn't know existed and basically consists of writing about the working class... (unlike the previous post which references Easton Ellis and my own made genre of poor little rich kid lit)... Brown was a fireman turned writer who set his stories in the South and had a knack for writing about the plain spoken everyday fucking mess us commoners can make of our lives... something a great many of us can relate to...

But this bit is not a book review... it's about fathers and sons or more to be more specific a certain father and his two sons... and the trials, tribulations, joys, laughter, pain and the rest of the shit that goes along with said gig... to steal another line from a guy in an over-sized suit... sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night in the chilly dark of a downstairs room and wonder, well? how did i get here? which to be honest is not a question i spend a lot of time thinking about... you is where you is or more correctly i be where i be and what else is there to really know? it's been stated ad nauseum here on the lounge how the boyos basically saved their old man's life... it's no secret that over the years i've battled a variety of demons (see substances) that i've had a predilection for but luckily for me (and dare i say you dear reader... that's a joke) i'm as stubborn as i am stupid... having kicked all those habits not entirely unscathed but more or less still intact... taking stock of the situation i understand that had i not made the questionable choice of a wobbly union followed by the birth of the boyos i was most likely drastically increasing my odds of finding myself in prison or the morgue... given my activities at the time those two destinations  had much higher percentages than i would admit or even think about way back when but realize now how attainable they actually were... and yes i sometimes get that cold shiver followed by that belly laugh that says... life's a fuckin' trip innit? 

So here i am, ensconced in the suburban bubble, attempting to raise the boyos so as not to be assholes, so as not to act or be like some of the privileged shits who roam the tree-lined streets filled with McMansions, a conglomerate of whiteness where the children are all "special" and the autos all high end... how does a working class kid from the West Side of Cleveland acclimate to a place which is the antithesis to his strange and warped ethics while also trying to instill into his sons the same such moral code... a code that can be simply stated as such... don't be an asshole, don't dwell on the material, remember you are not the center of the universe but a miniscule part of it, that your existence is but the blink of an eye in the cosmic scheme of things so make the most of it and most importantly enjoy it... there are so many people shuffling through this life not seeming to grasp the finite, hung up  on the most trivial bullshit a culture can muster, head buried in the proverbial sand... i try not to make it too heavy because it really is all just a laugh... the alternative would be to try an indoctrinate them into a cult that believes in an all knowing, all powerful being with a silly set of rules, many of which pertain to said "being's" own vanity... or i can try and teach them not to be an asshole, seems the latter is the more pragmatic solution... 

There is nothing which drives home one's own mortality like their children... since the birth of the I-mac and Disaster it seems that time has been speeding up... yes i know it hasn't but as i watch the boyos grow up it seems like it wasn't that long ago when i was changing their diapers and feeding them from a bottle, watching first steps, hearing first words, and now here i sit with both of them in high school, the I-mac soon to be graduated and dipping his toes into the waters of independence... well with any luck, the I-mac isn't exactly excelling in the responsibility and accountability department but we're trying and it has been and ugly and frustrating process to say the least... it's something that the BW and i take full responsibility for, in short... we fucked up, not for lack of trying mind you but we've made mistakes and have done our best to learn from them... i've always had a theory about the first child (though i'm not sure if it pertains to the only child), the first child is the trial run, the experiment, one day they hand you this squirming ball that does nothing more than cry, eat and shit themselves, walk you to the car and say have a nice day... for those of us attempting to do a decent job at this endeavor it's fucking terrifying, i had no fucking clue what to do, one can read books and the like but until faced with it there really is no way to prepare... said child is showered with attention, most of it positive, very little negative, all the phobias, worries, concerns, quirks or what has commonly been dubbed, helicopter parenting are heaped on Kid One... note the difference between the first and second kid, not the difference between the first and fourth kid (if one is so procreationally inclined), it's staggering... 

To be clear the 16-17yr old Kono was no saint, in fact i too was a major shithead it's just that my shithead phase lasted a couple months not a couple of years... the spring of my junior year in high school i was dating Wendy da Wabbit (there's a lovely post somewhere about Wendy and how we used to screw in her blue Chevy Caprice after she got off work from Taco Bell, fucking young lust!), i had begun drinking and smoking weed, i was in a serious hardcore phase listening to nothing but Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, Suicidal Tendencies and the like... i was acting up and spreading the wings a bit and i was a right dipshit... i came home fucking blotto on a Tuesday (school night) and Pops was none to impressed or amused... shortly thereafter he sat me down and gave me a talk about me being an raging idiot and then stated that if i thought i was a man to let him know and we could go out back and he'd show me, the exact words were, "you think you can take me?" and he looked across the table with his steely gaze and i looked right back... ah the Gen X kids, the last of the feral children, the kids raised without seatbelts or bicycle helmets or cell phones to track us... yes i sound like the old man yelling get off of my lawn but it's true, it's how we came of age... when you got your ass kicked you didn't call from your cellpone you had walk to a payphone to call for a ride and explain what happened... the thing was i had massive respect for my dad, even as a shithead teen i knew he'd put himself through school and sacrificed a whole lot to provide the life i had... and that's the difference. Respect. 

I've been warned repeatedly by the BW not to ever talk about the Wilderness Years... sometimes i wonder if she thinks i'm stupid... maybe when the boyos are old enough i'll steer them towards the old man's ramblings but until then the less they know the better, particularly the I-mac... he may be the poster boy for what is commonly known around here as the Lebo Douche, a species of privileged suburban teen (and sometimes adult) who believe the universe shines out of their ass, horribly superficial know-it-alls who think they're hard guys when really the more apt description would be cream puff or marshmallow... the BW has spent countless hours worrying about him while i have tried to explain to her that helping him, see actually doing his schoolwork/projects, is not a remedy... failure is a remedy, failure teaches far more than success, failure will teach him that he can't just fuck about and think the world will lay down for him... i tried to explain this to him when it came to football (soccer) but it fell on deaf ears... and it wasn't like i didn't know what i was talking about, his old man played hoops in college until injury and frustration taught him it's more fun to go to school and enjoy it than be beholden to a coach he couldn't stand, but the fact was when i was in high school there was no doubt in my mind i'd play in college and i worked at it, on my own, to make sure it would happen though even i don't think i realized it... i was just driven... i played a sport in college that takes less than 5% of the players that played in high school, and that's all levels, i was recruited to play at the top and had offers from Division 2 schools as well... in short, i know what it takes... 

If there is one thing i can't stomach though it's the excuse machine... i was lucky, i had a coach in high school, that i later realized, believed i had a ton of talent, i should have been benched for my mouth and attitude at times but i never was, he also told me, well more correctly yelled at me, an important bit of advice one day, he said "i don't want to hear your damn excuses just get it done." It was my junior year... it hit home... and those words have stuck with me ever since no matter what i'm doing... i used to talk to the I-mac about practicing on his own, not in the pushy parent vicariously living out his dream but because he stated he wanted to play in college and i explained so did a lot of people and to get to that point one had to work at it not talk about it... that he had all the physical gifts one could want but that really it was up to him what he did with them... he ended up doing very little other than talk about it... 

The problem is this pattern of behavior permeates every aspect of his life and then when shit goes pear shaped he feels bad about himself... a classic case of the cover-up, he acts like a confident kid with high self-esteem but he's lying to himself... and sometimes he admits that to himself, the issue is he doesn't try to change it, he pats himself on the back for recognizing the problem and then does nothing to fix it... other than fly into rages, teenage temper tantrums that often have him lashing out both physically and verbally... it ain't pretty and i've now had him throw things at me, throw punches, spit and hurl any number of insults that would most likely bother a normal parent... but i ain't normal... i know what he says bothers his mother and since she spent her childhood dealing with an abusive father i'm not about to let her kid do it as well and so when he goes after her i make sure to draw his ire towards me... as my father once said to me, "you're a different animal kid", i know i am and i can be a hard and cold motherfucker, sometimes that's what it takes... ultimately what i've told the I-mac is what what Pops told me... it's his life and the only person he really owes anything to is himself... if he wants to do something or attain a certain status (a phrase i find nauseating) then he has to put the work in to do it, it doesn't just magically happen, in less than six months the bubble of the lily white high school pops and the beginnings of the real world will begin to beckon, his mother is worried sick, i'm what you call concerned but also of the opinion that when life kicks you in the fucking balls a few times one learns.. or at least they should... but for every yin there is the yang...  

Disaster is a typical teen and sometimes i worry that he feels like he has to be perfect because his big brother is such a raging pain in the ass, i also worry about what the outbursts and stress do to him when his big bro flies into one of his toddler-like shit fits... Disaster is his dad's boy, always has been, when we moved out to the burbs and the Big World Bank Machine laid me off i became the Big Hairy Carol Brady for a bit, (until the pandemic when the BW decided it would be good for me to become a gig economy serf), for a couple of years it was just me and him all day, he was a mellow kid and i was a mellow dad, we'd go to the park or lounge about at home, one can check the post about the night he got lost at the high school football game and the first words he spoke when we found him, "i was afraid i was never gonna see my dad again...", i honestly believe the boy loves basketball because of his old man and that he gave up soccer, which he was pretty damn good at, because he wanted to be like his dad... as anyone with multiple offspring knows it's a different relationship with each kid, you love them both the same but the relationships can be night and day... 

If there is one major difference it's in the sense of entitlement my two sons possess... the I-mac seems to think he deserves everything handed to him while Disaster is much more cognizant and appreciative of the the things people do for him, not that the I-mac is completely oblivious but one would be hard pressed to know that by his behavior... Disaster on the other hand is the polar opposite... how it happened that way? no one knows... or maybe we do but that's a lot of family therapy to sit through... one thing i can point to is a basketball camp Disaster attended over the summer, the camp was excellent on teaching the mental aspects of things and one of the things it taught was to appreciate and respect what people do for you, there was a session that discussed the cost and the time involved in said camp and how someone had to spend the money and take the time to get the player there and how that each player should recognize that and thank those people and how that just wasn't about the camp it was about life in general... Disaster was always a good kid but that lesson seemed to really hit home and since then he's been even more appreciative in a truly genuine way that is brilliant to see...

Recently Disaster had been hanging out with some kids from the next neighborhood over, there is/was a girl involved and one weekend when i was supposed to hang at Dub and Dab night with my friend (where his old man brings his dub and reggae records to his friend's place and they smoke/dab copious amounts of ganja) we had it set up that i would get him before i went over and drop him off at home... as things do sometimes it got a bit messed up, Disaster asked i he could stay later and i'll admit i felt bad about saying no, he's in high school now and should be able to hang and so we discussed things and i told him that sometimes when you make a plan you have to stick to it, i asked how he'd get home and his explained his friend would be able to take him back to his house which was right around the corner from where i was... i agreed and said to keep me posted... Disaster is more reserved than his brother but if there is one thing that bothers him if it's his old man is mad at him... not that i ever get that mad at the boy but it's funny how he worries about it... i've explained to him that he's a good kid and that it's cool but on this night he even stated that he didn't want me to be pissed and wanted me to go hang with my friend... it's an attitude of consideration and thought rarely seen from his older brother... 

So the plan was made and i waited to see how or if it would work out.. Disaster and his friend caught an Uber back to his friend's place (fuckin' kids these days, used to be we had to walk, ride a bike, bum a ride from someone or take the bus), his friend had already set it up and so Disaster caught a ride back with him and texted me when he arrived, when i pulled up ten minutes later he was standing out front and as i pulled up all i could think of was what a great kid he was... he got in and smiled and i told him i was proud of him, that i knew he was relying on other people to get back and that sometimes people can be unreliable but that he did what he said he would do, that it showed responsibility and maturity... i could tell he was quite chuffed at the compliments and we drove home and he talked about his night, how funny the Uber driver was, the girl he was hanging with, Disaster loves his drives with his dad, he'll even ask to go with me if i'm picking up food or what not, just to hang and talk and sometimes play songs, some made by his friends, which i good naturedly indulge... to steal from Bobby Pollard again, the things that i will keep, these conversations, these moments in time... i have a feeling it's what Disaster will remember too... and what i really hope is that Disaster and i maintain this relationship until i step into that void... 

It's a strange thing how two brothers can be so different in so many ways... raised by the same people, instilled with the same values, i understand the outside influences that creep in and how they can alter said kids' views and attitudes... and yes mistakes were made but as previously stated there is no handbook for doing this shit... one learns on the fly and hopes they don't fuck it up too badly... my research has given me the glimmer of hope that the I-mac will get his shit together at some point... most likely after good old life kicks him in the nuts a time or two... if he doesn't learn then? well i guess we'll take it as it comes... as for Disaster? i don't sweat it as much... i know they'll be trials and tribulations along the way but the kid reminds of someone i know... mainly his father... which does worry me a little bit knowing his old man like i do but i also know that his old man will do his best to help him steer clear of the dumb shit he did... or at least he's gonna try... (to be cont.) 





 





Monday, January 8, 2024

The First Rule of Swim Clulb


... is you don't talk about Swim Club... the second rule of Swim Club? well to be honest there is actually no Swim Club, it's just a name made up to describe the place i swim at and my fellow swimmers and of course the gaggle of elderly "walkers" who populate the pool... and by walkers i don't mean in the zombie like sense, though there is a case to be made for some of them, but the elderly folks who spend their time walking back and forth in the first lane which is often more of a social thing as they tend to stand and talk to each other more than actually walk but since that's the lane of last resort for the swimming set it works out pretty well... as is my usual i have taken a keen interest in making up back stories for my fellow patrons of the pool and yes i even have friendly, meaningless conversations with some off them... and why not? as Mr. Vonnegut said, the point of life is to fart around... and Kurt was right, i may be a misanthrope but i've always been a social misanthrope, a cultural anthropologist of a sort studying the inanity of modern society all so i can sit at a computer in the morning and spin yarns into the ether... it makes me feel productive or some such shite before i get on with the rest of the day in this trainwreck of an era known as late capitalism... 
For one who has lacked discipline for most of his life i am incredibly disciplined when it comes to swimming... what started and still is ostensibly for my aching back has now become something of my hour of Zen... i truly love the rhythmic movement of my arms and legs, the breathing, the feel of gliding through the water... i enjoy the feeling when i'm finished and the tired beauty of the muscles, my ritual of jumping in the hot tub for five minutes before hitting the shower... in fact i believe i've graduated to being (almost) a real swimmer... see i consider myself a half-ass swimmer, an ex-basketball player with creaky knees and a shit back who can no longer run so instead swims... the real swimmers, as i call them, swam in high school or college, can do the flip turns, wear the kind of swimsuits that a real swimmer wears... i show up in my old board shorts and goggles and just go at it, no bathing cap or fins (though i do like swimming with fins i've just never got around to getting a pair) and i'm afraid to learn the flip turn cuz the pool is a shallow lap pool and i'm convinced i'll smack my head off the bottom and knock myself out... i'm somewhat amazed when i have people ask me about my swims, when they mention how i seem to just cruise along, how i can swim for forty minutes or an hour at a decent clip.. there is a that brief flicker of accomplishment, the feeling that maybe i don't look like a jackass splashing my way down the lane... 

There is a culture at the pool, a set of unwritten rules that most of us follow, yes there is always the odd individual or the newbie who jumps in and pisses the regulars off... i on one occasion started yelling at a guy because i was swimming in a lane by myself and he just jumped in, now i'll gladly share a lane with anyone but at least let me know that you'd like to share and don't just jump in and start paddling down the middle of the lane... when i almost cracked heads with the guy i stood up and started yellling... "what the fuck are you doing? you need to say something if you wanna share and pick a side (of the lane) man, i mean what the fuck? i'm not trying to fucking knock myself out because of your ignorance..." yes one could say i was pissed and said guy looked shocked but it was bullshit, not only was it rude but it was fucking dangerous, for the novice they most likely don't understand that state of no mind that envelops when me when i'm cruising through the water, if i'm sharing a lane it's the same, i know i have my side and the "real swimmers" understand to stay on our side, yes sharing may not be as tranquil as when i have a lane to myself but when it's busy there is no use being an asshole... i share... though there are some who most decidedly don't or become annoyed if you ask... and those people can get fucked... 

The Swim Club does have it's fair share of annoying shitheads, there are a few walkers who regularly get on my fucking nerves... there is one woman who feels the need to tell you to move over or to share a lane with someone else so that she can have a lane to herself (or invite more of her walking friends) to slowly walk or sometimes float but mainly to stand around and talk... when she pulled this on me the first time i was sorta surprised and so being the nice guy i am i said sure, though the look on my face was one of bemusement, when i realized what she was doing i was a bit pissed and when she came in a week or so later and asked the same thing i smiled and politely declined and kept right on swimming, she wasn't very happy about it but little did i care, she has since taken to giving me the stink eye but has not asked me to switch lanes in the middle of my swim anymore... 

It's not all selfish assholes though and there are a good many people who are nice and pleasant, the Stock Broker is one of my swimming buddies, we have a bit of an unwritten rule that we'll share a lane with each other when it's crowded, he's one of those guys who swam in college, drives a black BMW and probably thinks like him i'm some successful type who can swim in the morning or afternoons though i am decidedly not... but he's cool... there is Turkish, a woman who is sweet and always shares a lane if asked, i believe she is of Turkish decent and has talked about her many trips to the country... there is Mamcita, a young Hispanic woman who always wears a two piece and can be quite distracting... she's quite attractive and it's funny to watch when she comes in with her kickboard and the men all do their best to take clandestine glimpses of her... there is the lesbian woman who i've become friends with, she sports a subtle triangle tattoo on her back but we share lanes and always joke about who is setting the pace when we swim together, she always saying she's trying to keep up with me and me saying i'm always trying to keep up with her, another very cool person to swim with... there is Open Water, dubbed so because the woman is an open water swimmer, her last of which she told me was an 18 mile swim in the rivers (see map of Yinzerville) that took almost 11 hours, i stared wide-eyed as she told me and laughed that i didn't feel so bad anymore when she was lapping me every two minutes, i told her it was a bit soul-crushing to share a lane and she said i get that a lot, which we both had a good laugh at... there's the Handyman, a retired guy who used to swim and does a workout that blows my mind, he's 67 and swims like a madman and then does sit ups in the water with his feet up over the edge of the pool before taking off on another few hundred yard set... i told him that when i grow up i want to be just like him... 

There is the Penguin, a little old man who looks like the Penguin character from the old Batman tv show from the late 60s early 70s, he shuffles to the hot tub and then wades slowly into the pool and usually is complaining about something under his breath, he looks miserable but is great to watch as he pulls his little suitcase behind him... and there is Paul, my favorite, an older guy who was an autoworker, one of those old card carrying liberals who always has to deal with the other old white guys assuming he's a member of the grand old party... Paul most definitely is not, he's got stories both heartbreaking and brilliant, he has talked about how he's lost both a son and a grandson to the opiate epidemic and tells tales about his days as an off-hours pool shark, how he won a Cadillac one night shooting pool in a bar near Flint, Michigan where he worked, how when he got the job he drove all night and showed up sometime close to midnight on a Saturday and the guard laughed and said, you early, and directed him to a motel while telling him to come back Monday morning when the bosses where in... we talk politics on the sly and both laugh and worry about the dumb shit we hear coming out of people's mouths, how if you're a white guy of a certain age other white guys automatically think you support a certain Orange Shitgibbon, how to deal with a latent racism that underscores white males when they think that only white males are around, a situation that is both disgusting and frightening, Paul is easily one of the most intelligent guys around this joint and it's always great to talk with him... 

And then there is my favorite case study... Bateman. As in Patrick Bateman as played by Christian Bale in the movie adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis novel American Psycho... and while i'm not a fan of what i've dubbed "the poor little rich kid" genre of which Ellis wrote extensively, the movie is a good laugh especially for the whole Huey Lewis scene where Bateman gives his overview of Huey Lewis and the News before taking an axe to an unsuspecting co-worker played by Jared Leto... Bateman was christened Bateman due to the fact he looks and acts uncannily like the character from the movie... he is meticulous in his appearance, his form in the pool, while somewhat odd, is both mechanical and perfect, he most definitely has a bathroom filled with products designed to keep his skin healthy and exfoliated, my bet is he spends hours admiring himself in the mirror while talking to himself, a conversation that vacillates between raging narcissist and loathing self hatred... he is most odd and there are days when i don't see him where i chuckle to myself, in a rather sick and demented way, that he had to dispose of a body this morning... he shows up with his bag of supplies and his Gatorade Zero, hates to share a lane, never appears to swim all that fast and seems to take breaks every lap or two where he proceeds to stare down the lane at all the demons in his head... or something like that... 

I'll be honest when i say i worry about Bateman, mainly because we got off to a bit of a rocky start... i was sharing a lane one day with a guy and as we both were finishing up we were talking for a minute at the end of the lane... Bateman was still adjusting to the new pool as his old one wasn't nearly as busy, when he rudely leaned across the lane and started barking orders at us as to which lane we would now be in and how the guy in his lane would come to mine and the guy in my lane would go to his and how he liked things to be a certain way and that we needed to stop talking (which is funny since Bateman spends more time standing at the end of his lane than actually swimming)... the guy i was sharing a lane gave me a look that stated, "what's with this fucking guy?" to which i gave him the same in return, since we were both done we informed Bateman he could have the lane to which he promptly told the guy in his lane to move... i do have to admit i slipped in a "i'll be done when i'm fucking done Patrick" to which Bateman gave me a surprised look.. i'm quite a bit larger than Bateman and thought about playing Out Asshole the Asshole and stopped myself from asking him about Huey Lewis and the News...

Then there is the Grove Crew... what is the Grove Crew? The Grove is a bar/restaurant/club not far from where i live that apparently has DJs every Saturday night... i've now had a few women tell me i should come down some Saturday night, in fact the one jokingly said she was going to stalk me until i showed up some night... let me clarify that the thought of this place frightens me... this is not the clubs of old where i spent my wasted youth tripping until the wee hours before going to an all night diner and having some grub before walking in the door as the sun came up... this is one of those places that play basically the same pop hits from the 70s and 80s, some disco tossed in for good measure, where many 50 and older white people drink too much and dance poorly, it would be akin to Sartre's No Exit if that was set in a suburban dance club that from the outside resembles something like a Siberian gulag... it sounds like pure hell... granted i'm polite as i smile and say "i'll have to check it out sometime" but there is really no fucking way i'm checking this place out... unless of course i eat some boomers and wander in for a laugh but usually i don't like to get off the couch when the fungus is involved... unless of course it's to ride the train to see bands at a certain venue... 
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These days the crowd at the pool has greatly thinned out... the heater has been broken for the past couple of weeks and the water temperature has steadily plummeted to temps that make one seriously question their judgement as they plunge in... and believe me there is no easing into this shit or i'd say fuck this and head to the hot tub... i'm still trying to work out if the best method is a freezing cold shower before plunging in or just jumping in and taking off... i've tried both and they both fucking suck... even once i'm going the water is still cold enough that i never feel even slightly warm and my toes are practically numb by the time i'm finished, the body does adjust a little and i still feel great when i'm done but my swims are now more like two workouts in one, the swimming part and the battling the freezing water part... the club has put up signs apologizing for the inconvienence and claims they are just waiting on a part... that sign also states the water is "approximately" 75 degrees (Fahrenheit) but that's being far to generous, i'd say it's closer to 70? which doesn't seem that bad for a nice fall or spring day but when one plunges their whole body in and then proceeds to subject themselves non-stop to that for 30 or 40 minutes it becomes a bit masochistic (most days i swim between 40 to 60 minutes).. needless to say getting a lane to myself has been rather easy and even the psycho Bateman seems to have halted his appearances, not to mention how all the walkers and elderly ladies who use the pool more as a social thing have completely abandoned the idea of getting in... so while i may not like the water temp i guess there are some advantages to the whole situation... and while it feels strangely good on the creaky old back i'm really hoping they get the damn thing fixed soon... but just like Tyler Durden weeded out the recruits with a test of will i believe i have passed said test... or as i said to one of the the few remaining fellow swimmers the one day, we have to be either crazy or stupid to still be doing this shit... the first rule of Swim Club is...  






Wednesday, December 20, 2023

The Final Whistle pt. 5

 The I-mac had taken to taping up his wrist before games, we never really knew why and he never stated there was anything wrong but he always popped up on the field with his wrist and thumb taped... on the day of the big game he had went to the trainer to get taped but the custodians had locked all the gates leading to the training room and so he had to hop some fences or take the long way around... and so the I-mac did what any 17yr old would do, he hopped the fences... there were two fences to hop about ten feet apart from each other... he got over the first one fine and for some reason switched his Crocs out of sport mode, a mode i didn't even realize they had but which means the little thing in back which flips over the heal was up instead of down which makes it more like a sandal... so on the second fence as he climbed over, Crocs in non-sport mode, his Croc began to slip and his leg was caught and he was in a weird position and worried about his knee so he somehow yanked his left leg free coming down hard on his right ankle and foot... so hard he said his body wouldn't even let him put his foot down after impact... he went to the trainer, they checked it out and said it felt okay and would probably just be sore tomorrow but everything felt good, the taped it up and off he went to warm-up...

And the kid played a blinder... the most dangerous player on the field, he played more minutes than anyone, 70 of 80, created chances, had the only dangerous shots on goal, was tracking back and winning balls, was physical, played brilliant one touch passes and created a half dozen chances for other players who promptly wasted them... and of course the defense got out of position and got scored on right before half, they were down 1-0... they now had forty minutes and needed two goals to have any hope... they didn't even get one... those playoff hopes were now nonexistent, mathematically there was still a chance but it would take the team above them to lose both games and those games were against the sections worst two teams, those teams had two section wins between them, mainly the one beating the other one twice... so basically, once again, no playoffs... 

In the car the I-mac told us what happened before the game and once home his foot was swollen and painful... the next day before practice he went to the trainer again and the team doctor just happened to be there, he took one look and immediately sent him for x-rays... the x-rays would show a broken ankle meaning the kid his coach thought was soft effectively played his last high school game on a broken ankle and was still his best player by far... the most telling thing though was what the I-mac said to me, he said "it's weird, i feel like i should feel sad but i'm not, i'm more relieved than anything...", it's something that someday i will tell Cageboy and let him know that it's one more huge reason why he should never fucking coach again... that statement spoke volumes... 

The BW had taken the I-mac for the x-rays as i had to take Disaster somewhere... i was back home when i got a text from a friend of mine, his son (who i coached in basketball) is a freshman like Disaster and played on the JV soccer team, he told me that Cageboy had called in the team, mind you with two games left, and announced he'd be stepping down at the end of the season... had there been no games left i'm sure a large number of players would have cheered but they all stood there and listened... honestly though the season was over as Cageboy would cancel most of the practices left while collecting his check and taking almost no interest in what was happening... the smart money was on the fact Cageboy was told he could resign and leave on his own terms or be fired... don't forget this was Cageboy's dream job, he was going to restore glory to the program, he was going to be a hall of famer like his shit mentor, instead in four years he had produced one winning season, one playoff appearance that resulted in a home loss and finished with a career record six games under .500... was that horrible? yes and no... most coaches would be given the benefit of the doubt and be allowed to continue, this is high school soccer not basketball or football and at a public school to boot, some districts are just happy to have someone willing to coach the team, but here in the lily-white, where we compete with all the other affluent bubble children, the community expected better especially given the talent... a couple of good players can make a huge difference in high school soccer, Cagebooy had those, I-mac was one, he had a team full of club players, yet still could not or would not set them up to be successful... any halfwit could have set this team up better than Cageboy... his firing/resignation was well earned... 

The last official bit of business was the team banquet... the I-mac being a senior both the BW and i went even though it wasn't something any of us were looking forward to and of course on the way there the I-mac began acting like a right shit to the point i wanted to drop him off and return home... luckily the players all sat together so the BW and i sat with a couple parents we knew... Cageboy, ever the fucking coward, showed up late after dinner had started... it was obvious he didn't want to have to speak to any of the parents mainly because you can't bully adults when you're a scrawny half-wit shit coach... i can say he most definitely did his best to avoid getting within earshot of me but i had been told before we left to be on my best behavior... it's funny because while i may be a fucking neanderthal i know how to navigate the world, now was not the time or the place no matter how disgusting i found Cageboy and his antics, though i've been told i can make people feel horribly uncomfortable without saying a word and the few times Cageboy made the mistake of glancing my direction he had to clench his sphincter a bit as he was met with an icy glare and quickly found somewhere else to look... 

Once upon the stage, sober, it was just as much a shit show as the drunk Cageboy... i'll quote his own words... a fucking loser, an embarrassment, a joke... and some of my own... a bitter and angry chickenshit who demonstrated even less class, something i didn't even think was possible... it was a veiled airing of grievances, he said nothing about the players but mainly praised all the hard work he had put in, he sounded like a spoiled child who had had his new toy taken away... by the time he was done talking, a speech mind you that was maybe five minutes unlike the hour of drunken rambling the year before, i had to remind myself to stay seated and not greet him as he walked off the stage with and uppercut to his chin... an action i'm sure would have been met with wild applause... he took his seat and at least stayed through the video presentation (excellently done by a player's father) but was sure to jump up and practically run for the door as soon as the presentation ended... Cageboy the Coward had always had good speed i was told... today was no different... 

It was quite ripe that a man who loved the word accountability, when faced with possibly having to take some or face some, was dashing so fast to his car that there was a trail of flames behind him... there's a word i save for special occasions, when it is both earned and called for and this was one of those... Cageboy was a cunt... pure and simple... maybe now the program could actually get moving in the right direction... it would be nice to say the story ended there but disgraced coach Cageboy has never been accused of being particularly bright... like the idiot who sat catatonic only to jump up and vehemently protest some inane call in the center of the pitch, Cageboy ran his mouth to one of his former players... and of course since there has only been maybe one or two that actually like the guy (this one not being one of them) the player promptly let the current players know what he said... 

If there is one thing Cageboy could be commended for it most definitely be his ability to sink ever lower into the realms of shit coaches... while i didn't ask if this conversation took place in a bar (the smart money is it did) Cageboy proceeded to whine about "kids these days", how they were uncoachable, how he had lost the team the last couple of years because of the kids, how they didn't listen, how they were soft and lacked the requisite toughness that a career benchwarmer apparently displayed when he had played... you fucking kidding me bruh? Mr. Accountability once again was on his soapbox preaching about how it wasn't his fault... it was everyone else but not him... Cageboy can go fuck himself in the ass with an unlubed giant dildo... it's astonishing, once again i thought my opinion could sink no lower but kuddos the the Cageboy, it did... i've coached the same kids in this community, usually in hoops, and yes you get the problem kid here and there but if one actually has a spine and some principles shit gets straightened out... when this shit happened i used to explain to the parents that one, i'm not a babysitter for a few hours a week, and two what i ask is commitment and respect to teammates, coaches and what we are trying to do... if that's a problem then feel free to contact the home office and bitch but also feel free to remove your kid from my team... since i've coached i've had nothing but overwhelming support and positive feedback from parents, their kid learns and gets better, yes i can be a bit animated but i know how to communicate and get things accomplished... i take full responsibility for how my team plays, give them players credit for the wins, i take the blame for the losses, i've had one or two kids pack it in but a couple dozen who have told me they loved playing for me and it was their favorite seasons when i was their coach... the exact opposite of Cageboy... it's the most gratifying part of the gig... 

As the banquet ended and we began to file out the exit, an exit which was easy to find due to the still smoldering trail that Cageboy had left as he dashed towards his FJ Cruiser, i ran into the JV coach... as previously mentioned he's an excellent coach, a guy with a PHD in education and a masters degree in nutrition, a guy who should have been hired four years ago if not for the Walrus putting his boy in place and promptly hitting the throttle and steering for the iceberg... he said it was looking good for him to get the job, i said that would be great as i felt he deserved it, that he was an excellent coach who knew the game, knew how to set up his team and get the best from his players... then i added, you should have been hired four years ago, he smiled a bit, i then said, this last guy was abysmal, i loathe to call him a coach because as someone who coaches he is everything i abhor but at least if they hire you the program could get back on track... i told him i would be writing the AD and recommending he get the job, he thanked me and said he appreciated the support... sadly, i said, it's too late for these seniors who had to suffer through the last four years but i'm happy for the kids coming up... we shook hands and then the I-mac, BW and i walked to the car... (to be cont.) 


 


Thursday, December 14, 2023

The Land

 I was zipping along I-79 when the song came on... i immediately thought of two things, the first was Pops, the song in question, Middle America by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, was off a record that came out two days after my father died, but this song had been the first single and had been playing on the old satellite radio for the last six months or so, Steve being one of my favorite musicians ever (i was an early devotee to the band Pavement) i was stoked to hear this new one and of course it became an integral part to the soundtrack of my life particularly at the time... the lyrics hit home in a way specific to me, a kid from a working class suburb who was now dealing with the terminal illness of his father, a man he loved more than anyone, his best friend, as it came on the satellite radio again i could feel my eyes well a bit thinking about hearing this same song as i drove back and forth from Pittsburgh to Cleveland to help my dad for all those weeks in February and March, in my car alone and singing at the top of my lungs as i'm prone to do when a song i love comes on... on this day with the boyos half-asleep in the backseat and the Breadwinner quietly sitting in the passenger seat my mind drifted to those days as a melancholy grin settled upon my stubbled mug... 

The second thought that sprung into my mind was from that old weirdo Robert Anton Wilson, the writer-philosopher-shaman and his thoughts and ideas on coincidence, how he felt there was more than a little coincidence in the coincidences that seemed to happen to people, mainly as if they were not coincidences at all but somehow willed into being whether consciously or unconsciously, an interesting theory and one i have varied thoughts about but it was interesting that how a song that was over five years old would come on the radio as i drove back to Cleveland for the first time since June of 2018 when i went to celebrate my Dad's life on the shores of Lake Erie, a summer day spent listening to stories and watching the sun set spectacularly behind the shimmering lake, there was something beautiful about the coincidence and symmetry of it all and though i'm not sure there is a word for it if there was i guess it would be called life... and death... and everything in between... (coincidentally, it was on Dec. 12, 2017 that my father told me he had cancer.) 

I'm not sure about the rest of the world because i really only know about my warped mind but i often have on ongoing inner dialogue that amuses and entertains me endlessly... we were driving back to my city to watch a basketball game, my hometown Cavs vs. the Los Angeles Lakers, now boasting Cleveland/Akron's favorite son Lebron James, it was a win-win, got to see my hometown team and the boyos got see their favorite player (as well as their old man's favorite player and his old man's favorite player)... and so i drove back to the house i grew up in, the house of Late Night Maudlin Street, the house where this man has put the demons to rest, where i've made amends with my mother and now have a good relationship with her, granted we don't talk religion or politics but there is no need to, neither of us is going to change our views so instead of useless arguing we just talk about other things, like an unstated rule... and it works... as usual my Mom had made chocolate chip cookies, some incredibly delicious and horrible for you concoction called White Trash which seemed to be some sort of sugar coated goodness made with all kinds of things thrown together... in true Rust Belt style, a dinner of beef brisket and everything that goes with it... the trip would be quick as we had to get back the next morning but having not been home in five years i was excited to see my hometown again... even if i kept it to myself... 

The trip got off to a rocky start mainly due to the I-mac being a specialist when it came to being a selfish, self-centered jackass which has become his MO these days... but the rest of us were still set on having a good time and we most definitely did... driving through my old neighborhood i felt a bit like a resident alien... as in a space alien visiting from what felt like another planet or alternate universe, it happens every time i return, all the things that have stayed the same yet so much of the landscape is changed, i look for things that aren't there, the buildings or businesses long gone, the bars i drank in underage, the budget movie theatre i went to as a teen, the mall basically empty, the Denny's where i hung out in my wasted youth scrounging change to buy coffee and toast or on a good night an omelet... and then without even realizing it, i drove by the place my dad lived... and subsequently died... i had forgot it was there but as i drove by i gazed upon it and felt my eyes begin to well once more (because i'm a fucking sentimental sort) before turning left and heading towards my Mom's place... 

The downtown of my youth has changed so much it's almost unrecognizable... the new bars and restaurants, certain streets now closed so that it's only foot traffic, new entertainment districts, the old clubs i danced in chemically enhanced until the wee hours now gone, but there was still Public Square and the Terminal Tower, the streets now filled with new businesses and bars to explore (if i had the time)... i was pleasantly content as i walked down the city streets talking with Disaster about the game and about his old man in his youth... and then of course there was the many times of smelling that sweet herb, the boyos and the BW even chuckled at how much weed was wafting through the air... my hometown, you can take the boy out of the city but you can't take the city out of the boy, i'd have fit right in blowing fat cones of the finest herb and wandering the city streets... like nothing had changed in 30 some odd years... Cleveland was still a rock and roll town... 

I missed my city... having not seen it in five years it had struck me how much i loved and always will love my hometown... from our pathetic and hapless sports teams, to the skyline, the lake, the neighborhoods i wandered and hung out in West Side and East, to my working class suburb and it's dwindling population, it's pink flamingos and pierogies, the brutal winter wind that blows in off the lake, these streets are like walking with ghosts, of myself and my friends and the people who have come and gone, of my father... pointing out places to the boyos (particularly Disaster) that was like giving them a history of their father's youth, of a guy they never knew but somehow still do... a character seen in old and faded photographs, i thought about my Mom's chocolate chip cookies, how she was now 78, how this river of life keeps flowing right  up until we go over the falls and into the void, how i loved these cookies, they were my childhood, a lifetime of memories baked into a few bites of deliciousness, how we all have these things (if we're lucky) that remind us in ways we can't put into words of our lives, things made out of love, i thought to myself how many more times would i enjoy these cookies? 

The next morning i rose to the sound of my Mom in the kitchen, i walked past my old bedroom, now and office... the old corkboard that covered the one wall was still there and in the upper left corner my masterpiece still hung, Sesame Streets Bert and Ernie done in chalk, done in roughly first grade, it's damn near fifty years old, it was the height of my artistic abilities, it has hung through my childhood, through my teens, through a divorce, a remodel, a remarry... i'm amazed it hasn't fallen apart... 

Standing in the driveway of the house i grew up in i took a long look around, as if i was soaking it in, not knowing how many more times i'd be here, understanding that at some point someone else would live in this house, the things we begin to deal with and understand as we walk towards that void, i still have friends here who want me to come back and hangout some weekend, something i'd like to do if i ever get the chance, to roam the city streets once again with the boys i grew up with, now men with their own families, it'd be a right laugh i believe as we sat around talking about where we were and where we are now, shit we never thought about back in those sparkling days of youth.. of course now i have a different home, in a different city, i'm not the son but the father (and one can apply any biblical references they'd like) and while my new home is my home, with the boyos and BW and cats, Cleveland will always be my home, spiritual and otherwise... even when i have no place to go... i love my city... always have... always will.. 


Monday, December 4, 2023

The Final Whistle pt. 4

 This post could be subtitled, how to lose your team in under five minutes... meaning, when your players hear the same dumb shit over and over they begin to tune out the coach, they also begin to lose respect for said coach especially when the coach is proving to be so fucking inept at his job that it's painfully obvious to all that they are good and fucked until said idiot is sacked... sadly, in high school sports, it takes a lot for a coach to get shitcanned during a season, equally sad is the fact these kids can't ask for a trade (it's high school) or transfer schools (where they'd have to sit out and then most likely be barred from playing in the playoffs as per state rules) so effectively they are stuck with what they got... and this very unlucky group of kids had a fucking nitwit... the word inept keeps coming up a lot but maybe i should just call him what he really is... and immature asshole who was fucking abysmal when it came to coaching... it really is hard to fathom how someone who has been around a game so long had managed to learn almost nothing about it... i'm not a fucking astrophysicist but i'm pretty sure if i'd spent thirty odd years around a bunch of people who were i'd have picked up a rudimentary and working knowledge of the subject... amazingly, Coach Cageboy had managed to learn nothing in all the time he was around the game... and even less when it came to running a program... 

There is a belief i have in coaching that the best coaches are not wholly fixated on their sport... guys like Phil Jackson who are reading philosophy and literature, yes they may relate the knowledge gained back to their sport but what it really points to is a level of intelligence, they are more than just a "coach", that's nothing but a title, they are humans, thinkers, problem solvers, they enjoy figuring things out... it's one of my favorite parts of coaching... if i scout your team i will figure out a way to beat you... if my team is weak in a certain area i will find drills and ways to practice our weaknesses so that my team gets better, all the while i'll explain why and how it will do this, how sometimes we have to do the shit work in order to get to the fun stuff, i get my team to understand the method to my madness... and my team's have always responded... part of that too is because i listen to my players, one of the biggest faux pas committed by Cageboy, he didn't fucking listen, if you don't listen and respect your players they damn sure aren't going to listen and respect you... it ain't fucking that hard, yes as coach you are the boss but a good boss knows the more information they have the better prepared they'll be... 

Cageboy's teams were shit when it came to passing, they had horrible movement, their shape was fucking awful... and why? because someone never bothered to correct the problems... after one of the rare wins they played American football instead of practicing... now i'm all for making practice fun and rewarding my teams but the fact is when the team is deficient in any number of areas, particularly in passing, i'd have used that practice to work on getting better... yes the team was coming off two games in three days, make it a light and fun practice, keep it to an hour or so, get shit done and then send the team home to relax... it's something i learned from my old college coach, he stated there was never any reason to practice more than two hours, we all knew how to play, practice was to work on certain things, to fine tune... he talked about not wasting time and energy, practice was posted outside his office down to the minute, by the end of the season (a season that was 35 games, our record was 28-7) we were practicing for 45 minutes, the guy knew what he was doing... Cageboy on the other hand couldn't organize a fucking one car parade without fucking it up and having a meltdown and blaming someone else... 

And yet the team hung around... they had slim playoff hopes and in the last four games it would come down to winning out, a daunting task considering that two of those games were against two of the top three teams in the section... they won the first game (which they should have as it was against the section doormat) and then came up against one of their biggest rivals, a team based in a community filled with horrible shitbags but that's a post for another time, the same team that had openly stated the year before how frightened they were of the I-mac, a high compliment coming from one of the best coaches around... and yet what would Cageboy do? he'd cut his minutes, which was interesting as when they played the best teams he usually played more mainly due to being the only credible offensive threat they had, he sat the team's best defender the whole game, the kid didn't even get on the field, he played his nephew and his boy crush major minutes, they had one good chance when the I-mac burst through and ripped a shot the keeper just tipped wide... they lost 1-0...

 At the half down one and needing a spark he came up with what might be the dumbest fucking formation in the history of football... basically moving the left wing into the center of the field to clog up his own striker's space because they felt it would give their left back a chance to get up the field more... what? anyone who has played FIFA on Playstation would understand this was fucking flat out stupid, it didn't create space it clogged space, i actually kept asking the I-mac, he meant to do this? it was beyond idiotic... and yet not only did he mean to do it he did it with two players who were basically useless, it was as if the last thing he wanted to do was win the game, as the I-mac came off for the last time with roughly 20 minutes to go he was visibly angry and stood in front of his coach and asked if he was going back in, Cageboy apparently stuttered and uttered some gibberish... he did not get back in... at the final whistle, the father of the defender who didn't play walked down behind the bench and let Cageboy fucking have it, he screamed he was the worst fucking coach he'd ever seen, that he was an abomination and should fucking quit and that the team deserved better... call it the first domino... 

It was after that game the defender left the team... it was after that game a steady stream of players started going to the athletic director and letting him know about their coach... a couple more parents let their feelings be known as well... for the record i had never said a word to Cageboy though i was never shy of letting my opinion be known and could only guess that Cageboy knew it... if asked i often said he was the worst coach i'd ever seen and lay out all the aforementioned reasons, then i'd state that given the info i had he was even worse as a human being, i would often state that this was not issued with malice, i was well aware of my son's issues and what effect that would have on any coach though a quality coach would have a better grasp on handling it and getting one of his best players on the right track, but given all this clown had spewed, not only was he a shit coach but a horrible human being as well... 

They were now on the outside looking in when it came to making the playoffs... as i told the I-mac, it was his junior year when they should have been a lock and had his coach not been an imbecile they would have had a chance this year... just not with nephew and boy crush as his main attackers, there was no chance of beating any good team, these two were like the invisible men in those games, one didn't notice them because they couldn't even get on the ball... the team now needed help to make the playoffs and had one of the best teams in the section up next, at home, a must win... a day before the game Cageboy had pulled the I-mac aside and told him he was going to start, Cageboy said the reason was because he wanted to win the game... think about that statement for a moment... 

In what could only be called a moment of clarity Cageboy had come the realization? had an epiphany? or maybe just inadvertently admitted that not only was the I-mac his best offensive player but that the reality was he had fucked him over but seeing now as the rumblings were getting louder and the guy's job i believe was on the line, he needed him to win... i told the I-mac i'd have laughed in his face and told him he's fucking joke as a coach and that if he really wanted to win he'd have logged the minutes he deserved all season... see that was the problem and one Cagebooy made sure to run from every time the I-mac tried to talk to him, every other player on the team was given the benefit of the doubt when it came to playing time they "earned" even when they didn't... boy crush was fucking awful and yet never lost substantial time, Cageboy would shove him back on the field somewhere as long as it didn't involve his nephew losing time, every time the I-mac brought this up to an assistant (as stated Cageboy would run away) he'd be told some bullshit excuse... he dribbled too much or played too slow... the fact was he didn't and the film (the games were all filmed) would prove him right, in fact he openly told Cageboy he'd be happy, in fact wanted, to sit down with him and watch the film but somehow Cageboy couldn't find the time... when it came to slow play and over-dribbling boy crush and nephew were the biggest offenders, boy crush usually dribbled away from goal, missed about a half dozen chances to pass the ball and then would either lose possession, foul or pass it back to the defenders... nephew wasn't much better... 

But when it came to making your own luck no one was as bad at making good luck as the I-mac... and once again he would somehow take one step forward and three steps back... (to be cont.)