A 13 Year Old Get It Right, Why Can't America?

Amazing what self education can do. An open mind and objective mind is the key sound reasoning. It is odd how so many cannot figure such things out and a kid can.

Fright Night

I was a bad kid. And at times a mean kid. The fact that I did something wrong, failed to listen or blatantly defied doing what I was told to do always resulted in one; an ass whoopin and two; me being pissed that I had yet again managed to get myself in trouble.

One Friday night a month all the kids were allowed to stay up as late as we wanted to watch horror movies. It was the big thing, reason alone for me to actually try to remember to keep my behind out of trouble for a day.

On one of these Friday’s I decided to act out. It really was not my fault, it was the cat’s fault!!! The damn thing was harassing me. I would walk through the livingroom and it would attack my ankles, I would sit on the couch and it would jump on me. That little bastard simply would not leave me alone! An hour of scratches later and it is time for this festering feline to go away for a while and I decide to lock it the basement. I snatch it up, open the basement door and sling it down the steps slamming and locking the door behind it - the whole time forgetting my aunt was down there doing laundry!

She was the cat lover, not me. And these cats were not to be mistreated. Throwing one down a flight of steps was a very bad idea, especially on a Fright Night!

Shit!

This was going to leave a mark! But after all, my aunt was locked in the basement too so if I had anything, it was time. Time to go eat some ice cream (I knew I would be getting none later). Time to hide some toys in my room (I was definitely going to have some alone time after my beating). And time to get some good old fashioned licks in on my little cousin.

My aunt had come up to the top of the steps and demanded I unlock the door - she was hardly in a position to DEMAND anything given the fact she was locked up and I had full access to the house. She banged away beneath me as I made my way up and down the steps going in and out of my room and savoring my fleeting time.

A flaw, my little punching bag of a cousin opened the door as I was coming back down the steps. I turned the corner only to find her standing in the living room looking for something to beat my ass with! I knew that’s what she was looking for and be damned if I was going to give her a chance to find it. The rational thing to do was make her act fast while her hands were empty. And that’s just what I did, I took my shoe off and threw it at my cousin to force her to beat me with her hands and not a belt.

She was like the Tasmanian Devil laying hot stings to any portion of my flailing body she could get her hands on! To that point in my life it was the worst beating my aunt had given me. "Have you lost your cotton pickin mind?" My behind was on FIRE! She had me by the arm and swatting me in circles until she tired out.

And then it was over. "You are going to make me kill you one day Terry." And she walked away. (Hmmm, she had never said THAT before. I think I just messed up).

The whole time my cousin Mark and his friends were in the back yard peering through the window watching me take this beating - and of course laughing. He came in with all smiles mocking my flailing and screaming act; which of course did not sit well.

I found myself pissed at my older and much larger cousin and wanted nothing more than to even the score; but in a safe way. He could kick my ass at the drop of a dime so I had to catch him off guard.

The movies start and we are all gathered around the television and my attention is more on him than it is the movie. Staring, contemplating when I hear... "Terry! Were you in this ice cream?!"

Damn it! I had forgotten about my little reign of household terror!

"Yes, Aunt Pauline! I only had a little bit though."

She made my scoop everyone’s ice cream and take it to them - I of course got none. Mark being the ass he was being that night demanded that I place his bowl on his lap. Me being the child I was; dumped it in his lap and instead of waiting for him to stomp a mud hole in my chest I jumped on him to get my licks in early. My aunt watched the entire thing and snatched me up (probably saving my life) and sent me to my room because I was so out of control that evening. On the way up the movie kept going through my head; one scene my cousin had jumped to when it came on. Perfect!

We lived in an old three story row home. To get to my room you had to walk through the bathroom on the second floor. To get to Mark’s room you had to walk through my room. (He was waaaay back there).
Sent to my room I immediately went to my bed and stuffed it with everything I could find to make it look as if I were sleeping in it and crawled under Mark’s bed. My reign of terror for the night had ended but my reign of horror had just begun.

Hours later Mark entered the my room and made a comment. "That’s right, you better be sleeping little punk!" (Yep, I’m sleeping alright! Let’s see who the punk is about to be here in a few minutes)!

And like clock work Mark falls asleep and as always his arm falls off the bed and hangs to the floor. Just as in the scene from the horror movie I grab his arm and start pulling him under the bed while I let out this crazed scream!

His reaction was sheer self pissing panic! LITERALLY! Pulling with all of my might I slowly begin to actually drag him under the bed. I decide to really make him panic and bite his arm and with the creepiest voice I could muster "mmmm Bloooood!!!"

You would have thought some one was being hacked to death in that back room!

Problem. This was actually going on for a little while and I never thought how to end it. I really could not eat his arm and once he figured out it was me I am stuck under the bed. He had locked the bathroom door and went back into his room (my uncle’s pet peeve)! The entire family was trying get through to the back room but could not. All they hear is Mark screaming bloody murder and my cries for blood. I am sure they were all as terrified as Mark was!

My uncle broke the door down and drug Mark out with such haste that I came flying out from under the bed with him.

Opps!

I saw my uncle man handle my oldest cousin once. He came home drunk and tried to pick a fight with a steel worker - my uncle. He picked my cousin up by the neck with one hand and pressed him against the wall. His feet were literally dangling. With the other hand he gave him a nice little love tap too the ribs. And for good measure, he threw him across the room. (That love tap broke three ribs); and I just got this monstrosity of a man out of bed in a panic at 4 in the morning!

"Hi Pops!" What else could I say? He looked more relieved that it was me under the bed than anything; to not ride that wave would be foolish. We all know that parents go from relieved to pissed in no time flat. Every now and then that can be offset by the right play.

"Hi Pops" was no such play. The huge hand was rapidly descending on me when my aunt saved me by rushing in the room. Once he heard her I think he realized what the out come was going to be had he actually picked me up.

"I am going to kill Terry one day!" And he just stormed out of the room.
(Hmmm, that was twice in one day. I think it is time to chill a bit; not a chance).

Mark was in a little urine soaked ball crying. Not only did I scare him, I almost sent him into shock. It took my aunt about ten minutes to calm him down and explain that "it was just Terry playing" before he actually looked around and realized he was alright. Of course there were bite marks on his arm but he was none the worse for wear.

It was then he realized the extent of the scare I had just put on him. Kids at that age show embarrassment through rage. It is their pride developing and anything taking a stab at their fragile pride has to be hostilely and hastily vanquished. Not me, not on this day. I had just terrified my bully of an older cousin into a urine soaked, weeping fetal ball. For the first time I maintained a strong advantage. To come after me from this point on meant you had to deal with me on my terms and I had proved that my terms were extreme and it would not end well.

As fast as he started to spring on me, he stopped. The thought of the consequences for the few licks just were not worth it. My aunt just shook her head and said, "Great." and took the traumatized Mark to get cleaned up.

Quickly I was moving up the food chain.

The more clever aggression I showed and the more I committed to the aggression, the more space I would have, the more I would be left alone and the more I could rule by consequence; not force. My older cousins began backing off because it became obvious that even though they were larger and stronger, I would stop at nothing to even the score; making it worse was the fact that there was no way to predict how or when I strike back.

I would be tested in my new found resolve but the consequences would be dire.

-T

Political Deception

OK, look. I realize that here I am in the midsts of “Liberal Land.” That conservative spot of red in a sea of blue. I freely embrace that and encourage retort in anything I write, discover, or pass forward. This submission is no different. Something I discovered out of boredome and could not help but pass it forward.

Wall Street Journal
March 6, 2009
Obama's Radicalism Is Killing the Dow

A financial crisis is the worst time to change the foundations of American capitalism.

By MICHAEL J. BOSKIN

It's hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president's policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.
[Commentary] Martin Kozlowski

The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents -- John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance -- President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's draconian defense drawdown.

Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

To be fair, specific parts of the president's budget are admirable and deserve support: increased means-testing in agriculture and medical payments; permanent indexing of the alternative minimum tax and other tax reductions; recognizing the need for further financial rescue and likely losses thereon; and bringing spending into the budget that was previously in supplemental appropriations, such as funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The specific problems, however, far outweigh the positives. First are the quite optimistic forecasts, despite the higher taxes and government micromanagement that will harm the economy. The budget projects a much shallower recession and stronger recovery than private forecasters or the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are projecting. It implies a vast amount of additional spending and higher taxes, above and beyond even these record levels. For example, it calls for a down payment on universal health care, with the additional "resources" needed "TBD" (to be determined).

Mr. Obama has bravely said he will deal with the projected deficits in Medicare and Social Security. While reform of these programs is vital, the president has shown little interest in reining in the growth of real spending per beneficiary, and he has rejected increasing the retirement age. Instead, he's proposed additional taxes on earnings above the current payroll tax cap of $106,800 -- a bad policy that would raise marginal tax rates still further and barely dent the long-run deficit.

Increasing the top tax rates on earnings to 39.6% and on capital gains and dividends to 20% will reduce incentives for our most productive citizens and small businesses to work, save and invest -- with effective rates higher still because of restrictions on itemized deductions and raising the Social Security cap. As every economics student learns, high marginal rates distort economic decisions, the damage from which rises with the square of the rates (doubling the rates quadruples the harm). The president claims he is only hitting 2% of the population, but many more will at some point be in these brackets.

As for energy policy, the president's cap-and-trade plan for CO2 would ensnare a vast network of covered sources, opening up countless opportunities for political manipulation, bureaucracy, or worse. It would likely exacerbate volatility in energy prices, as permit prices soar in booms and collapse in busts. The European emissions trading system has been a dismal failure. A direct, transparent carbon tax would be far better.

Moreover, the president's energy proposals radically underestimate the time frame for bringing alternatives plausibly to scale. His own Energy Department estimates we will need a lot more oil and gas in the meantime, necessitating $11 trillion in capital investment to avoid permanently higher prices.

The president proposes a large defense drawdown to pay for exploding nondefense outlays -- similar to those of Presidents Carter and Clinton -- which were widely perceived by both Republicans and Democrats as having gone too far, leaving large holes in our military. We paid a high price for those mistakes and should not repeat them.

The president's proposed limitations on the value of itemized deductions for those in the top tax brackets would clobber itemized charitable contributions, half of which are by those at the top. This change effectively increases the cost to the donor by roughly 20% (to just over 72 cents from 60 cents per dollar donated). Estimates of the responsiveness of giving to after-tax prices range from a bit above to a little below proportionate, so reductions in giving will be large and permanent, even after the recession ends and the financial markets rebound.

A similar effect will exacerbate tax flight from states like California and New York, which rely on steeply progressive income taxes collecting a large fraction of revenue from a small fraction of their residents. This attack on decentralization permeates the budget -- e.g., killing the private fee-for-service Medicare option -- and will curtail the experimentation, innovation and competition that provide a road map to greater effectiveness.

The pervasive government subsidies and mandates -- in health, pharmaceuticals, energy and the like -- will do a poor job of picking winners and losers (ask the Japanese or Europeans) and will be difficult to unwind as recipients lobby for continuation and expansion. Expanding the scale and scope of government largess means that more and more of our best entrepreneurs, managers and workers will spend their time and talent chasing handouts subject to bureaucratic diktats, not the marketplace needs and wants of consumers.

Our competitors have lower corporate tax rates and tax only domestic earnings, yet the budget seeks to restrict deferral of taxes on overseas earnings, arguing it drives jobs overseas. But the academic research (most notably by Mihir Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James Hines Jr.) reveals the opposite: American firms' overseas investments strengthen their domestic operations and employee compensation.

New and expanded refundable tax credits would raise the fraction of taxpayers paying no income taxes to almost 50% from 38%. This is potentially the most pernicious feature of the president's budget, because it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in controlling the cost of general government.

From the poorly designed stimulus bill and vague new financial rescue plan, to the enormous expansion of government spending, taxes and debt somehow permanently strengthening economic growth, the assumptions underlying the president's economic program seem bereft of rigorous analysis and a careful reading of history.

Unfortunately, our history suggests new government programs, however noble the intent, more often wind up delivering less, more slowly, at far higher cost than projected, with potentially damaging unintended consequences. The most recent case, of course, was the government's meddling in the housing market to bring home ownership to low-income families, which became a prime cause of the current economic and financial disaster.

On the growth effects of a large expansion of government, the European social welfare states present a window on our potential future: standards of living permanently 30% lower than ours. Rounding off perceived rough edges of our economic system may well be called for, but a major, perhaps irreversible, step toward a European-style social welfare state with its concomitant long-run economic stagnation is not.

Mr. Boskin is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.


March 06, 2009
Deception at Core of Obama Plans

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- Forget the pork. Forget the waste. Forget the 8,570 earmarks in a bill supported by a president who poses as the scourge of earmarks. Forget the "$2 trillion dollars in savings" that "we have already identified," $1.6 trillion of which President Obama's budget director later admits is the "savings" of not continuing the surge in Iraq until 2019 -- 11 years after George Bush ended it, and eight years after even Bush would have had us out of Iraq completely.

Forget all of this. This is run-of-the-mill budget trickery. True, Obama's tricks come festooned with strings of zeros tacked onto the end. But that's a matter of scale, not principle.

All presidents do that. But few undertake the kind of brazen deception at the heart of Obama's radically transformative economic plan, a rhetorical sleight of hand so smoothly offered that few noticed.

The logic of Obama's address to Congress went like this:

"Our economy did not fall into decline overnight," he averred. Indeed, it all began before the housing crisis. What did we do wrong? We are paying for past sins in three principal areas: energy, health care, and education -- importing too much oil and not finding new sources of energy (as in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf?), not reforming health care, and tolerating too many bad schools.

The "day of reckoning" has now arrived. And because "it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament," Obama has come to redeem us with his far-seeing program of universal, heavily nationalized health care; a cap-and-trade tax on energy; and a major federalization of education with universal access to college as the goal.

Amazing. As an explanation of our current economic difficulties, this is total fantasy. As a cure for rapidly growing joblessness, a massive destruction of wealth, a deepening worldwide recession, this is perhaps the greatest non sequitur ever foisted upon the American people.

At the very center of our economic near-depression is a credit bubble, a housing collapse and a systemic failure of the entire banking system. One can come up with a host of causes: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pushed by Washington (and greed) into improvident loans, corrupted bond-ratings agencies, insufficient regulation of new and exotic debt instruments, the easy money policy of Alan Greenspan's Fed, irresponsible bankers pushing (and then unloading in packaged loan instruments) highly dubious mortgages, greedy house-flippers, deceitful homebuyers.

The list is long. But the list of causes of the collapse of the financial system does not include the absence of universal health care, let alone of computerized medical records. Nor the absence of an industry-killing cap-and-trade carbon levy. Nor the lack of college graduates. Indeed, one could perversely make the case that, if anything, the proliferation of overeducated, Gucci-wearing, smart-ass MBAs inventing ever more sophisticated and opaque mathematical models and debt instruments helped get us into this credit catastrophe in the first place.

And yet with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.

What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."

Things. Now we know what they are. The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions -- the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic -- for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society.

Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy -- worthy and weighty as they may be -- are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.

Let it go

What a weekend!

Since I was in Texas it would be wrong to not support my boy Rocky since he was fighting in Houston. A great fight too! Give Rocky props!! I had to get back to Dallas because I was cutting it close on my flight back to AZ. No after fight party and no standing around talking to everyone, just back on the road and straight to the plane.

Texas for some reason lowers the speed limit on the highways at night and the state troopers go out of their way to enforce it. With that in mind a coffee shop stop is in order. (Long slow rides without coffee are like watching mold grow on stale bread - just mind numbingly boring).
I find a little dive coffee shop and see a familiar face as soon as I walk in.
"You are not going to the after party (she had obviously seen me at the fight)? You always go to the after party. Or are you going out to cheat on some one?"

Yep, just like that. It was an ex.
That one ex I had actually forgotten about. That one ex I had not maintained a good relationship with after we broke up. And understandingly why. You see, she’s a bitch. It is seldom I say that but it is fitting and just as I introduce myself as an ass; she introduces herself as a bitch so I am not exactly calling her out of her name.

There was reason for the comment though. Back in my drinking and driving days (college) my friends and I had gone out to a party. The party go out of hand and I decided it was time to go and rounded up my boys. The night was young and leaving the party by no means meant going home; just not going to jail. In the front yard were some coeds from NYU who were also leaving but still interested in partying. COOL!

A quick stop for some liquor and beer and they are following us to my place. In the car "EEK" is getting all excited and starts demanding condoms KNOWING he is going to get a little action. Laughter at EEK turns into condoms being thrown at him to shut him up. Opened condoms, closed condoms, you name it, they were throwing it. The subsequent party at my little run down studio apartment was a lot of fun but not the orgy EEK was hoping for. The relationship between Columbia and NYU was; well, interesting. There always seems to be more investigating the other school than anything else. And these young ladies, were; well, young ladies.

About a week or so later (and the timing could not have been worse) I am out with my girl and she asks about the party. [Left early, NYU, my place... blah, blah, blah]. No more than twenty minutes after that conversation one of the NYU girls from the party walks into the bookstore and jumps into conversation about how much fun the party was and tells me they all want to come bak out to do it again. My girl was not right with me at the time but was definitely within earshot of the conversation and comes rushing over only to make a scene and run little miss NYU off.

My temper does not help and she is going home. Getting in my little beater of a car I do something I have had never noticed myself doing; I watched her put her purse on the floor board - which in turn made her watch where she was putting her purse.

And what lies there but a condom wrapper! Yeah, this was going to be good! All the explanation in the world was not going to bring her under control. I was cheating on her, the girl from the bookstore, a coworker, my neighbor, a classmate. Any good female companion I had I was instantly sleeping with. On and on all the way to her dorm.

So she goes to her room, I go to get some food and she calls me. My first instinct was to not answer (that pizza was good and be damned if I was going have her mess my meal up). But I answer. She asks where I am and she hears a female voice from the next table and her impression was that I immediately went out with some one else and had no regard for her feelings.

Click.

Ring.

Voicemail.

Ring.

Power off.

Considering my course of study and work schedule, a tumultuous relationship was something I simply did not need. My mind was made up by the time I hit the door to my apartment and called her and told her that I did not have time for her and her drama.

Click.

Bumped into her a few times at school, never answered another one of her calls and never spoke to her again - until Saturday night. Not surprisingly she is unchanged but being that after all of these years she brought it up she was in need of closure.

I got a couple of cups of coffee and sat at the table with her and her friend. Small luke warm greetings and I jump right into it. "Damn girl, just let it go already. I did not cheat on you. Believe what you will but I didn’t. You showed me a side of you that day that I was not willing to deal with at that time. Just let it go."

Her friend rolls her eyes at me. (Big mistake).

"What? Do bitches run in packs these days? You don’t know me, don’t judge me. She told you something that was wrong and you are stupid enough to believe it. Let me guess. You are that tag along hater friend with no life of her own that goes around stirring up shit you have no business in. You get in my business again and I’ll give you all the business you could possibly imagine."

"C’mon. Let’s get out of here. I don’t need this."

I get up and leave but I could not help but wonder how people can harbor so much negativity. The whole jealousy thing I understand. That boils down to one or two things. She is either very insecure or she was actually cheating at the time. Hell, or both and that is fine because it was a different time and place - or at least it should have been. This all happened years ago and was coming up all over again. For me it has been a closed chapter; one that I had honestly and completely forgotten about until this happen chance meeting in Houston.

It is strange that people choose not to move forward in life, to allow themselves to get caught up in the things we are supposed to grow out of. I have no idea how she is doing, if she needs help with anything, if she has a family, how her career is progressing, nothing. Time passes and things change. A meeting like that; even with an ex, should be spent getting caught up. Not spent going back to the day and incident in which you parted ways.

Let the past go. It lives forever more in you in the form of learned experience. All that hate and discontentment for days past only drags you down today. Let it go so you can move forward. The past is gone, there is nothing you can do about it but make regrets right, not harbor them. If she wanted closure it was there this whole time. She could have easily looked in the mirror and said "I should not have been so unreasonable (such a bitch)." It would not have changed anything, we would have broke up regardless. Blaming a person for the wrong thing was little more than the reason that accelerated the inevitable. The fact of the matter was my school was intensifying and my work schedule was increasing, the relationship was doomed. So why fester in days past? You reconcile the past to move forward. You bring all of your past acts and deeds into balance, and move forward. None of us were angels; it is part of growing up, but too many of us spend today in yesterday’s memory and that is just unhealthy.

Today we should all be quite different than we were years ago. It is a sign on growth, development and progress.

On the road I realized that my number one reason for breaking off a relationship was because I was moving forward faster than they were. The main reason I was dumped was because I was moving forward. "Terry, you are just not the same anymore." I was told in one case. I smiled and said "I shouldn’t be, now should I?" At that time I was new to college and was shedding myself of the irresponsible kid in me so I had probably become less fun, less reckless and more sober. Her words were taken as a compliment. In about a year she would drop out of college and have a son. I bumped into her as I was going on to Columbia to begin my masters, she was working as a cashier at the King of Prussia Mall in Philly. This is exactly why you grow out of yourself from time to time. Each time you shed your old skin you begin a new life. It is odd to think that I was dumped because I was maturing and growing into a responsible adult. A person with a bright and promising future allowed it be derailed because she refused to do the same.

There simply comes a time in life that yesterday has to allowed to sink to the deepest most irretrievable depths of sea. In you today lies its knowledge, wisdom and experience, the past is worth little more than that. Just let it go.

-T

Death By Bike

Not too long after the mauling incident the assembly on Black’s bike hade begun. He was diligent in his quest for parts and I was eager to build it seeking yet another chance to set the ball of misfortune in motion.

My favorite part of those old back alley bikes was the break. They fascinated me. That nike swoosh looking thing that ran from the back wheel to the right underside of the frame. You could do so many things with it, it was great. While working on some one’s bike I could take it and spin it counter clockwise and it would tighten the entire rear wheel assembly. That was great fun. We would all go for a ride and the one guy’s whose bike I had just worked on would ride but he had to push hard to keep up. Nothing better than watching one of your friends bitching about his bike and not being able to figure out why it is so hard to pedal! They would stop and look, grow frustrated and keep riding it until they got leg cramps.

Then you could take it and give it a few turns clockwise and the break would work but you practically would have to jump on it to get it to engage and give yourself an extra half block of stopping distance. That’s where the real fun was, watching some one not being able to stop. You have to remember that we were just kids. They would know their brakes were not working right, see something shiny, get distracts and plow straight into the first object dense enough to ruin the rest of their day. Fear after all is funny when you are not one in fear! We would all be out and about and this selected person would inevitably slam into a parked car or hit a curb and tumble forward. There was always something to laugh about when I sabotaged someone’s bike.

Black’s inaugural run had to be spectacular. It could not just be a hitting of a parked car, flipping over a curb, or kissing a fire hydrant. It had to be big, huge, SUPER PRENOMINAL! Why, it had to be life endangering!
There was a little trick I learned with these breaks. They were self maintaining units. If you disconnected its anchor point form the frame, it would continue to work. The bolt connecting to the frame was more of a back up if anything. Three clockwise turns and it was guaranteed to fail unless it was connected to the frame. Turning it and disconnecting it from the frame essentially made it a time bomb. At first it would work and then it would completely fail. Perfect! Perfect! Perfect!

Black was going down and going down hard!

We selected a nice little hill for Black to race down and built a ramp for him to jump. Downhill speed, a ramp to jump and a brake that would fail. You know, a little boys life hardly gets any better than that! Pork chops and applesauce? Maybe. But, this was a combination made in heaven for me and my boys!

Perhaps I forgot to mention the selected street ran down to a major thoroughfare. If you failed to stop it is assured that you will succeed in getting hit - and that was the goal; to have Black blazing his inaugural run straight into that traffic. And the plan was perfect in every detail.
Since the mauling incident Black never really trusted me. He would test everything and double check what he checked. Anticipating that I figured Black would ride and slam on the breaks twice to ensure his bike would stop and thus only spun the break forward once; his two test runs would do the rest. Body bag bound Black did just that and backed the brake off just enough to fail on its next application. This was first class execution of engineering disasters! (And you wonder why toy manufacturers have so many recalls).

The one thing you can not help but love about Black was no matter what, he would go all in and give it 100%. I hardly thought that piece of crap bike could roll as fast as he had that thing going heading for that ramp; and subsequently the intersection. Head down, legs pumping, eyes fixed on the ramp; Black again was all in, 100% committed to allowing us to bring a early end to his miserable little life.

Up the ramp and in the air, standing so he could slam down on the brake as soon as he touched down.

[This is where I learned something about physics at such a young age. It is not you pushing down on the brake, it is the position of your body as the bike hits the ground. Your weight is distributed over the back half of the bike. When you land your weight forces the brake to engage; not your leg. Gravity; not will.]

And it was gravity that woke Black up to the fact that this was another attempt on his life. As soon as he hit, his rear leg went straight down with no break to stop it. The result was just as planned; a screaming Black racing towards the intersection dragging his feet out of desperation to stop. Our reaction? Laughter and anticipation of screeching car tires followed by a bone breaking thud.

Black realized that odds in making it through the intersection were about the same in him getting past his new friends injury free and immediately started looking for something to crash into. His first thought was a parked car and he started heading for it until he realized he was voluntarily subjecting himself to harm. He straightened himself and continued speeding down the street. At the last minute he attempts to turn into an alley. There was just no way in hell he was going to be able to make such a sharp turn at such a high rate of speed. But in the end, it is better to go down trying - especially when the alternative is a heavy trafficked four lane inner city street.

He swerved into the alley with barely enough angle to not hit the awaiting brick wall head on, but man did he ever hit it! Hit face took the most of the force, mostly his right eye actually. Nothing funnier for a group of kids watching a failed attempt at death by bike thwarted and settling for a runner up prize of a 30 mph head on slam into a brick wall! Except of course watching the would be body bag filler dragging his bike behind him with a knot on his head the size of a grapefruit!!!

Of course to most this sounds mean and most with sympathize with poor little Keith Black. But Black proved most resilient during those summer months. This was twice now that we had made an attempt on his life, and twice that he walked away from them. He was a formidable foe this Keith Black. His refuse to die spirit would soon win him favor within the group. He just needed some one to hurry up and move in because the attempts on his life would not stop until we had some one else to replace him.

By the time poor Black made it up to us his eye was swollen shut and his nose bled all over his shirt. Poor kid. The laughter went on and on as we denied any wrong doing or tampering with his bike. Slowly new injuries appeared. Blood here, blood there, scrapes on this, scrapes on that; they just kept coming and coming and coming.

And then it hit him. "You guys are trying to kill me!" His one good eye wide open with dismay. "You guys are trying to kill me!"

None of us were really trying to kill him. We wanted to see him get hurt, but were not out to truly end his life though as I look back we very well could have on several occasions. You see, Black was our source of lashing out at an unfair world. He was our beating post. We did to Black what we all wanted to do to our world - it is just that it was more fun doing it to Black.

This time I did not get in trouble. I knew going into it that no one could prove I rigged his break to fail. Even my friends watching it knew I did "something" but no one had any idea what and I convinced them that it was all just an odd turn of events. "He tested the brakes twice and they worked just fine." Hard to argue logic such as that when you have no idea what went wrong.

My friends were all years older than me and I was learning how to manipulate them by being smarter than them. I found a great sense of power and control in that. Power and control I liked because as a disadvantaged child those two elements were always missing.

As unfortunate as these events were for Keith Black, they were live changing for me. Through him I learned that I could change fate and destiny through the sheer will of being smart. Knowledge at that point became an insatiable quest. The more I knew, the more people turned to me, the power and control I had. Before long I was running the neighborhood - for better or for worse.

-T

A Mauling, A Lie And Two Beatings

I think back to my childhood and wonder how I managed to survive, let alone actually to go on and make something of myself. It is not that I grew up in a poor inner city neighborhood, it’s that we either did stupid things, or went about reasonable things very stupidly. In fact, our collective intellect only excelled when making a mundane task life threatening.

Our discovery of tools only served to further our intent of needless and stupid destruction. We all had bikes; none of us could afford to buy one and none of us wanted to explain how we "got" a bike to our parents. (If they found we had done something wrong they could Officer Butler and he would haul our asses off to jail - a story for another day though). Instead we would scour the back alleys of the city looking for discarded bicycle parts and build our own. Not one was sturdy, not one was safe and not one of was without one of these jalopies.

The summer months were filled manufacturing and maintaining these unsafe mechanical nightmares. Some were so bad that you had to keep a pair of vice grips in your pocket to "tweak" the damn thing in order to ride it two blocks!

Enter Keith Black a new kid to the neighborhood, a.k.a.; "Black" - and no not because were embracing military terminology! He was the darkest kid any of us had seen to date and mistakenly introduced himself using his full name. Not surprisingly the only thing we heard was Black and his introduction to our little rung of hoodlums was met with all out laughter - right in front of his over protective mother; who hated us all from that very moment forward!

Bikeless Black wanted a bike so as a right of passage we sent him on a quest for parts. We all knew of a frame behind Leroy’s house but were afraid to get it because in his backyard lived Sly, half Doberman, half Shepard dog and all mean. Sly would attack anyone at any time except for Leroy. It was not a rarity to here his mom or sister screaming "Leroy come get this damn dog!" Going down that alley was more of a suicide mission than anything else. The frame stayed right was it was at; none of us were brave or stupid enough to get it.

Poor Black did not know about Leroy and he damn sure did not know about Sly. What a better fitting rite of passage than to have the new kid practically mauled to death.

I tell Black where the frame is and that he has to get the frame first so we know what other parts to find and once we get everything we need we will build his bike in his yard. A quick stroll to the alley and we all stop. The frame is sitting at the far end no more than a half block away; a life risking half block. Black felt something was up when we all stopped (I think some one may have even opted to not even go the entry of the alley) but with a little encouragement Black was off to meet his fate. Every few steps he would look back but that was one courageous kid that Black was!

We figured Sly would start raising hell before Black got within two houses of him. Nothing. Black made it all the way to the frame as we were now concerned that Sly was not in his yard at all - which meant everyone was in danger! We were all looking around for Sly when Black decided to yell "I got it" at the top of his lungs!

And sure enough Sly was not in his yard at all. Sly was in the alley. In fact Sly had figured out the art of ambush and was laying in wait behind a pile of trash right across from that damn bike frame! A reddish tan blur making a stealthy bee line for Black when we all screamed bloody murder!

Safety first!

We all take off and hit Kim and Kelley’s front porch when we hear Black’s screams and Sly’s growls. Poor kid wasn’t going to survive his first day. The next thing you know a bloody Black is running out of the alley with Sly on his heels (and almost looking happy about having a new kid gnaw on for a change). Then it happened. Sly ran up beside Black, sized him up and leapt on him as he was running. (This isn’t good). Black though, just kept on running, kept on screaming and kept on getting bit. He must have made it five or six houses before Sly felled him. (Impressive this new kid is, just impressive)!

Leroy comes running down the street and probably saved Black’s life as he beat Sly off of him. Then gave him and admonishment for being behind his house! Leroy and Sly were of the same mold - they even looked alike.

Now we had yet another problem. We just tried to kill the new kid and never once thought of the consequences; we just wanted to see him get bit a few times and now he is just a bloody mess in the middle of the street with an over protective mother to deal with. Kids just don’t think ahead.

We circle the fallen Black and come up with a lie. Some random dog (we had to protect Sly, after all he was both a neighborhood institution and a form of entertainment) attacked us and Black was the one who got caught. It was then that picked him up to his feet and started walking him home explaining what to tell his mother.

Yeah, that worked! As soon as he saw his mother it all came out! That we sent him up there knowing he would be attacked, that we let the dog out before he got there (that was new to us, usually one had that half second response time as Sly was coming over the fence) and that we ran away leaving him to die at the hands of this dog (that part was pretty much true).

All the other mothers could beat us; she did not yet know this so the worst she could do was yell a little bit and try to threaten us by calling our parents - who she does not know (or so we thought). Turns out his mom moved there because she was Trey’s mom’s sister. Instead of going crazy like we thought she would, she calls her sister who is just three doors away. We had no idea until the front porch door swung open and we could see her staring us and talking on the phone! SHIT!

"Terry! Is that you?!"

SHIT! SHIT!

"Get over here right now!"

SHIT SHIT SHIT!

There was seven of us and I am the one singled out. And my day was going so well. Orchestrated a mauling, concocted a lie to save everyone asses; what more could one kid do? Those were huge cool points for the smaller, younger kid. I mean come on! This is a huge feat, this story was to be told for summers to come and I did it! Now you mean to tell me that I have to get a beating from the meanest mother on the block?! It just ain’t right!

And I took my beating too! At one point I thought she was trying to tear the screen door off to hit me with that too. What’s worse is that no one beating stands above the subsequent beating you get when you get home because someone else’s mom had to beat you. Now what sense does that make? Hell, your parent got a damn break!

After my whoopin she got right on the phone and I knew who she was calling. I needed some recovery time and tried to round the guys up so I could go in hiding for an hour or two. No such luck. Here comes my aunt and she is looking pissed!

The guys knew it best to part ways for the day and head in different directions because I am all about spreading the wealth of my unfortunate happenings. Before I could point a "he did it" finger, they were gone.

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!

A mauling a lie and two ass whoopins later and it was all over. It was a good day, a memorable day, an historic day. I championed the rite of passage, saved our most hated dog and took a few licks for mankind.

Hard to believe that summer only got better.

-T

Don't Date your Ex's Sister

I hate blind dates. I hate them to such extent that I now have to be tricked into going on them. And trick me into going on a blind date is exactly what Ken did yesterday!

Blind dates just never go well for me. Either my friends (and sometimes family) are poor judges of character or they put too much trust in taking their friends word on how "cool" this forth party is.

All fault aside, last night’s adventure into a dark jazz club in downtown Dallas turned out to be worth commenting on.

Ken and I arrive, order a drink and bit of food and get to talking about the days events and meetings when Alicia arrives. She introduces herself and asks to take a seat which would lead one to believe she is a stranger. But her eye contact with Ken is that of two familiar people. Smelling a rat I decide to force them to act this out to the bitter end and draw completely quiet. You see, two people who know each other have a very hard time acting like they do not; especially if they are (shall we say) intimately familiar. Deciding to accelerate things I offer to buy a round of drinks and ask Ken directly what Alicia would like; the dumbass almost answered! LOL! I hold my chuckle and she orders something he is obviously not accustomed to her ordering judging his reaction and we drink as I continue to let them talk about the weather, work and the stupid, shallow things people talk about when there is something they are avoiding.

Then the door opens and I immediately know it is my blindy, soon to be horror story of a date. Problem was she appeared to be everything I would date from a visual perspective. I could see the conversation taking place between Ken and Alicia. "She’s this and that and she’s single." "Really? She will be perfect for Terry! Bring her out on Wed."

Good times and noodle salad alright! As she approached she looked startlingly familiar. So familiar I was thrown off of the game I was playing with Ken and stood to meet her before she even hit the table. My actions in turn threw Ken’s "friend" off because she was supposed to act as if it was a happen chance meeting. The second and a half of confusion would have been funny if I were not trying so hard to place her.

Alicia finally goes to make introductions but I am already at work offering a hand and a skeptical stare. "I know you. Where do I know you from?" is out of my mouth before I can be courteous enough to allow the mutual friend to do her job.

We all sit and talk and drink. This one is nice though, she looked like some one I would have dated in the past but did not act like some one I would have dated and I found myself taking a very unnatural liking to her. Very smart and very laid back. You could see that she was self assured, self confident and had a great deal of focus. Still trying to figure out who she is I drop demographic questions trying to narrow it down when I find out she is a lawyer.

I love lawyers, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Their sole purpose in life is manipulation and it is a choice meeting place for logic against logic, protagonist, antagonist discussion (and of course I am out the starting blocks like Usain Bolt baiting her straight in).
She’s a lawyer, all lawyers have to argue; it’s what they do. It’s in their blood. Their competitive nature is matched by their wit, intelligence and innate desire to win. She was no different and she opened up on the spot. Some how we get to talking about global warming when she stops cold in mid sentence, leans back and gives me a hard stare. (SEE! I TOLD YOU I KNEW HER)! I give her my little smile of validation because I could see she was now actively trying to place me - but couldn’t. (DAMN)!

"What were you just thinking?" At this point I am solely committed to identifying her. "You sound like some one I have read that’s all. Some one I read and actually agree with even though he pisses me off." (Rut rho Shaggy). This is not what I expected and was actually hoping her next words would not be an inquiry to my last name when; "What’s your last name?"

(Shit, shit, shit)! "I think you know my last name, it’s Mykes. Sounds to me that I am the guy you love to hate." Problem was, she knew me but I am the one that is supposed to know her when her cell phone rings.

"Hey Ni Ni (pronounced knee knee)!" I heard not a word after that. I am out for drinks on a blind date with my ex’s half sister!!! She was finishing law school when Nicole and I broke up. I had never met her but she and Nicole are very close and she was the only one Nicole would allow to call her Ni Ni. The familiar look, the accent, the attitude - it all made sense now.

When she got off the phone I started spitting out her school dates, her struggles in school her, her accolades from school, where she was from, where she went for spring break; everything I could think of. She was in shock and then inquisitively lowered her brow asking "how?" In return I raise my brow saying "how do you think?" Intense bewilderment followed by HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! "You are Ter?!?! Nicole’s Ter?"

Ken and Alicia have WTF looks on their faces trying to figure out if this is good or bad. Well, it’s bad; very bad.

Statistical improbability aside, blind dates end badly for me. There always seems to be something amiss. Something no one knew until "she" says something in front of everyone; "I’m three months pregnant" in one case. "My probation officer is sitting at the bar" in another case. One was married, one had the nerve to show up with a huge festering chancre sore on her mouth (I guess that one actually started badly), and yet another literally was a schizophrenic that forgot to take her meds and ended up destroying half the bar and being carted off handcuffed and shackled in an ambulance.

Either way you twist or turn it, whether I am in the market to date at this time or not; it is probably not a good idea to date your ex’s sister. It’s a potential bag of worms that I would much rather not deal with. Things are "pre"complicated, histories too familiar, biases; and there are the ‘in current relationship’ questions about the ex.

Now ladies, you know you ask these questions. Sometimes overt in nature and other times they are subtle feelers as to how things are going to pan out and what went wrong - but you ask! Guys don’t, this is one area that we are comfortable making assumptions and leaving good enough alone. Maybe we don’t want to know how hard you were previously bounced of the headboard or if we hold the record setting orgasms in one night - until you tell us we broke it; then we pound our chests like primates and strut like peacocks for the next two weeks. The bottom line here is that women ask and when they ask in overt fashion it is stuff like "Am I the best you have ever had?" I understand that it is being asked because if they are not they want to be and they want to know how better to please - that is fine but I know the question is coming and in this case it could present a problem.

Imagine if you would, that question being asked at that crucial post-coital moment. "Terry, am I the best you have ever been with?"

"Well, I would really like it if you fondled me afterward like your sister did."

You simply do not date your ex’s sister.

-T