People Who Deserve a Heinous Beating, Volume I

“And that’s how I ended up banging a goat.”

I’ll tell you one thing. If I ever hear those words, somebody’s gonna get a foot in the ass. Hold on,… that’s not exactly true,…. Somebody will get a foot in the ass after I’ve laughed for about four hours….. Come on, goat fucking isn’t funny? What are you, high? Goat fucking is hysterical,… but then also serious enough to earn you a heinous beating.

Which brings us around to the topic of this new blog installment. Free entertainment for you, fuckers! I hope to shit you’re fucking appreciative.

Wait,… hold on,… I have to throw out a caveat…. A lot of college professors, especially when you get into like senior-year and graduate-level classes, require students to “read critically,” and “synthesize the material,” and then—“write a commentary.” A commentary, we as students are told, is a carefully considered analysis of the material we’ve read in the past week—which, by the way, doesn’t grow in an arithmetical progression once you get into graduate school,… it’s more like exponential progression—committed to paper. They are generally informal and usually very brief,… one or two pages at the most. Commentaries are not reviews of the works we’ve read; rather, they involve discussing the historiographical school of thought in which the piece is written, its thesis, its source material and evidence, the methodology of research and writing the author used, literary style, and a lot of other shit. More than one professor has told me that when writing a commentary I should “imagine [myself] sitting down with the author and having a conversation with him or her.” So that’s how I write my commentaries,… except I always add the word “naked” to the end,… in most instances. There are exceptions,… believe me,… nobody wants to see E.P. Thompson naked,… especially since he’s been dead for seventeen years.

So here are my instructions to you for reading this blog: read critically, synthesize the material, DON’T write a commentary, and DON’T imagine yourself having a conversation with me—naked or otherwise…. I don’t have a problem with you imagining me naked,…. I just have neither the time nor the inclination to imagine having a conversation with YOU—naked or otherwise,…. Although if we are going to have a conversation, naked would probably be better,…. However, I might get distracted (some of you guys out there have hogs big enough to block out the sun,… seriously,… it’s like a penile eclipse)…. But the real point is,… DON’T IMAGINE YOURSELF HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH ME. You crawl inside this mind, you may never find your way out,… it’s like fucking IKEA in there. Also, there is the damage,… it’ll remind you of Vonnegut’s Dresden.

Anyhow,… let’s get back to the subject at hand,… with one more small caveat,… this episode of the blog is meant entirely to entertain. I am neither inciting nor even advocating the actual physical thrashing of another human being at the hands of some dumb fucker who reads this blog. If you do, indeed, take my words too seriously and go out and pummel some asspuppet from the following list,… you will be Target Number One in “People Who Deserve a Heinous Beating, Volume II.”

Furthermore, I have decided to intentionally NOT include people who OBVIOUSLY need heinous beatings: terrorists, rapists, kiddie porn collectors, Michael Vick, and the dude who played Principal Rooney in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”…. I mean,… come on, give the kid a break, he just wanted to go to a Cubs’ game…. Plus, I think he fits into that third category, anyway.

And so, without further delay, I proudly present to you the beginning of what will be a continuing series: People Who Deserve a Heinous Beating, Volume I. (What a long introduction,.… Who do I think I am, Michener?)

You know who deserves a heinous beating?.... Ex-wives…. Tell you what, let’s expand that to all ex-spouses (see ladies, I got your back). I mean how can that relationship (between two people who used to live together and then thought it was so awful that they go into a courtroom and have legal paperwork written up that says they no longer have to live together) ever be any good ever again, or even mildly tolerable? Seriously,… if my ex-wife had wheels, she’d be a bitchcycle. And it’s even worse when you have kids,… ‘cause kids can be manipulated. Case in point: my ex-wife, knowing that I am a card-carrying atheist (we actually have cards,… I’ll show you mine if you want to see it), sent my then-four-year-old daughter to me for the weekend with explicit instructions to sing as many of her bible-day-care songs as she could remember. All I could do was say, “that’s tremendous, sweetie,” when what I really wanted to say was, “you sang very well, but don’t fall for that indoctrinational bullshit.” Ex-spouses stink, and I don’t like them!

Here’s another group of fucks who deserve to be strangled with barbed wire: people who say they GET ALONG with their ex-spouses. Hello? Dumbass? You are divorced for a reason. Either she got a credit card in her own name without your knowledge and got you so far into debt you had to get that shitty “credit counseling,” or he played golf four times a week and ignored you, or she blew your brother in the back seat of the minivan that YOU bought. It happened. And nothing in the world should ever dislodge that loathing from that little place in your heart where it resides. Hold on to that animosity. Own it. Wear it on your sleeve,… or your taint,… or wherever it’ll fit. Believe me, it’ll save you some day.

This is another guy who should fall in a puddle of AIDS: Phil Collins. Don’t get me wrong on this one. I was a huge Genesis fan,… “No Reply at All,” “ABACAB,” “Home by the Sea,” “The Cage.” I even liked a lot of his solo stuff: “Against All Odds,” “I Missed Again,” that duet he did with Phillip Bailey of Earth Wind & Fire, and that song “I Don’t Care Anymore,” that everybody says was about Phil Collins actually witnessing a dude drowning—by the way, if you believe that shitty story, you probably belong on this list too. But now he’s gone and released an album of eighteen covers of,… wait for it,… old Motown songs. That’s right,… the greatest rhythm-and-blues songs from the 1960s have been remade by a sixty-something, balding white English dude with a disturbingly awkward nose shape. You shoulda stuck to what you knew, Phil. Then again, you’d probably still make this list just for “Sussudio.”

Here is a group of dillweeds that I wouldn’t mind coming into speedy contact with the wrong end of a claw hammer: dipshits who don’t know the difference between identical and fraternal twins. Identical twins are the result of one sperm meeting one ovum and germinating,… and then splitting into two,…. These two new germinated eggs now have the same identical genetic makeup. That’s why they look so much alike—although in some cases it’s really very easy to distinguish between the two,… like Gigi and Jackie DiManio when I was a kid,… Jesus, I haven’t thought about them since I was like thirteen,…. I wanted to put it in ‘em both back then,…. That would have been a story I told forever,… to anyone who wanted to listen,… and quite a few people who didn’t…. Fraternal twins, on the other hand, are the result of two entirely different sperms (is that the correct plural form of “sperm”?) meeting two entirely different ova and germinating independently of the other. These twins do not have identical genetic makeup. They might as well be coming out of the mother years apart. They are completely different people. I,… you see,… am a twin…. I have a twin sister. Now,… obviously, we have two entirely different genetic codes (remember that two-sperm-two-ova exposition from above?). But if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard, after introducing her as my twin sister, “really, are you identical?”, I could buy a fucking island (not a big one, but an island nonetheless). It used to really annoy the piss out of me,… until I came up with a retort that lets the asker know what a complete fucking simpleton he is: “Yeah, we’re identical,… except for that whole penis thing.” Dipshits.

Another bunch a shitbags that deserve to die in a fiery-yet-highly-avoidable car accident: restaurant servers who say they’ll be “taking care of you this evening.” I go out to eat fairly often. I try to stick to places that either have tablecloths or those paper table covers so that kids can draw on the table with crayons and still not ruin the tabletop. I scoot my chair in as far as I can before the server gets there, and keep my hands in my lap. And I wait for the server,…. As soon as he or she gets there, I’m just waiting for that introduction,… again, with my hands in my lap,…. “Hi, folks. How ya’ doin’ tonight? My name is Candace and I’m gonna be taking care of you tonight.”…. ZZZZZZIP! That’s right,… the junk comes flying out. Wait,… you said you were “taking care of me!” When someone says they are “taking care of me,”… how am I NOT supposed to add the word “orally” to the end of that sentence? I don’t care if your name is Candace,… or Mai-Ling,… or Gladys,… or Bill. If you’re gonna “take care of me,” I can guarantee you a tip of at least thirty percent. If you tell me you will and then you don’t, I might cause a ruckus so big that it ends up annoying this whole side of the Waffle House. I actually got slapped for doing that once,…. By my ex-wife,…. We don’t get along.

There’s lots more where these came from.

Next Time: I Guess I Should Clean up the Whole Bipolar Thing

A Short Aside

Yeah,… I am,… you’re still reading, so what am I supposed to do?

(This is actually a defense mechanism. It’s a weird night.)

I’m confused because I normally have this really cool transitional phrase from the end of one episode to the beginning of the next. (Those of you who are brilliant enough to have figured that out from the reading thus far,… you,… you’re almost as smart as me for having written them.) And I can’t very well just traipse off to an entirely new subject and be expected to incorporate the last sentence of a completely different story into the first thought of a story I just thought of writing about, can I? (Holy shit, was that a long question!) Well,…. I’m gonna do it anyway.

And I had a plan.

That’s actually bullshit. I had no plan. I just decided to do this. It’s late, and I felt like writing this shit. Just appreciate it and move on.

There was this one time,… when I was in college,….

The second time. The first time was a complete waste of everyone’s time. Everyone involved totally wasted their time,…. And in the instance of my parents, their money, too. I mean WASTED! That first year I went straight from high school into college. Seriously,… straight in. I graduated on June 6th, and I started the Summer B session at college June 25th. I had two-and-a-half weeks of Summer before I had to be back in school,…. Who the fuck thought of this schedule? Did you do this to yourself? You did,… You DID do this to yourself! . . . You’re an asshole!

But that was my first time in college,…. I said I was gonna tell you a story about my second time in college.

I was twenty-seven and I had re-enrolled in school. Eckerd College had a program specifically designed for older-than-typical students returning to school on a night-time basis. The classes were one night per week,… for eight weeks,… and you were assigned about fifteen hours of homework every week,… for each class you took. (I took two classes at once for five terms and three classes at once for seven terms. It’s a school that really sells (and really buys into,… and for the most part, supplies) a liberal arts education.

And let me say,…. I buy into the liberal arts education too. I think it is incumbent on the student to be exposed to all of the various disciplines. I think it provides the student with the one ability a college SHOULD provide,… you learn how to learn. You leave after four years with the grey matter it takes to adapt to any situation,… in nearly any profession,…. RAH! RAH! RAH! (But seriously,… I like it.)

So,… the people who run the school tell you to go to a few early-in-the-program classes,… get re-acclimated to studying and incorporating it into your schedules,… take classes from a variety of disciplines,… (math, literature, history, organizational studies, information systems, blah, blah, blah),…. (Long sentences tonight, Johnny,… what’s up?),…. Learn a little of everything before you decide what you want to know a lot of. So, I did. Sort of.

The first term I took the first required class (one of only three required classes for ALL graduates). The second term I signed up for two classes: on Monday night I had Film and Literature,…. On Tuesday nights I had to go to Survey of U.S. History 1877-present. I was infinitely more excited about the Film class. Like I said, we met for eight weeks,… each week (including the first one,… we watched a film relating to a piece of literature. We watched the films in the actual theater of the college…. Great big, 250 seat auditorium for about fifteen fucking students. And we watched some cool movies,… “Hiroshima, Mon Amour,” Godard’s “Breathless,” “Citizen Kane,” “Dubliners,”…. Just a very cool class.

I was far less excited about the History class. I had done well in high school history, much to the surprise of my teachers: Mr. Lee, Coach Miklautsch, and One-eye Potter. I made up these nicknames myself,… uh, except for Coach Miklautsch,… he was actually a coach (does girls’ basketball count?),… and “One-eye.”…. My sister made that one up,…. So,… if you’re following, I made up NONE of those nicknames. Mr. Lee taught tenth-grade World History. I learned nothing. But I got As. Coach taught eleventh grade U.S. History. I learned the Colombian exchange and that Grover Cleveland was a president and Grover Cleveland Washington was a baseball player. One-eye taught me that radical, left-wing teachers can get jobs teaching high school.

So I walked into this sophomore-level survey of history class not expecting much. I was still working as a restaurant manager, so my schedule would sometimes make me late for the 5:30 start time. This first night of class was one of those nights. I didn’t get there until about fifteen minutes into the class. The teacher looked at me a little sternly. He was short,… and a little thick,… and rosy-cheeked,… and the sweatiest fucking bastard I had ever seen in my life,…. It was all I could do to keep from laughing in his face, the short, fat prick.

He handed me a syllabus and motioned for me to sit down,… (he had just begun discussing it). I looked at the syllabus,… wanted to see what readings were due and when,…. He started talking to the class again. I wasn’t listening,… I was reading.

He saw that I was reading and cleared his throat to get my attention. (I get it, you fat, sweaty motherfucker,…. I get it.) So I listened to him speak about the class and the term and what it was that he expected,… and everything I thought would be blah, blah, blah.

Except for this,…. He was fucking amazing! He talked about the topics the class would cover each week. He told us about the two exams and the paper we would have to write. He said he was going to have one guest speaker and one film during the term…. And he got so caught up in the thing that I couldn’t stop listening. He was so excited, that you couldn’t help but getting excited along with him.

During the required class the night before, I could see people getting tired and yawning and mentally just checking out—some even fell asleep during the film. The teacher finally let us leave after four hours—the classes were supposed to be five. The history class was different, for me at least. I was just riveted. Couldn’t believe this guy was this excited about this history shit,… couldn’t believe I was either.

So, I busted my ass in that class and got an A…. I also declared History as my major…. So much for the whole liberal arts and taking a bunch of different classes shit.

So,… here I am in graduate school,… and when I sometimes wonder how got myself into this mess, all I have to do is think of that original history professor,…. Then it makes sense.

I might get back to my original story next chapter,…. I may come up with something else,… who knows? But,… since I start off every installment with the last line from the previous one, why not make it difficult on myself,….

And that’s how I ended up banging a goat.

Next Time,…. Who really knows? This Blog Stinks!

I Swear I’ll Finish 1978, Then I’ll go Back to Being Bipolar: Really

I haven’t even gotten to sixth grade yet.

Still in 1978,… we ended with Disco.

And, thankfully, disco ended in the ‘70s,… although I’m not so sure how different I feel about today’s popular music. Lady Gaga and Beyonce and Kanye West and whoever this Ke$ha girl is annoy the ever living piss out of me much more than disco ever did. Of course, I was eleven at the time and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was number one on the Billboard charts for like 137 weeks in a row (okay,… it was fourteen,… I embellish sometimes, people,… it’s called dramatic license, live with it). I must say I vastly preferred Yvonne Ellimen’s version of “If I Can’t Have You” to the Bee Gees’. I loved that song! I’d sing along with it every time my older sisters played the album,…. “If I can’t have you, I don’t want nobody, baby. If I can’t have you, ah-ah-ahhh.” Then there was the time, years later, when I amended the lyrics to, “If I can’t have you, I will settle for your sister.”

The Summer wound down, and I would soon be headed back to Phillippi Shores Elementary School where I had attended fourth grade before going to the Pineview School for fifth grade. I would get to go back to having my old friends back. At least that eased the tension of the ending of the Summer. During that Summer I had forged a relationship with my older sister Allison that heretofore would have been impossible. We just simply did not like each other and never, EVER, got along. The Tampa Bay Rowdies were a professional soccer team that played its NASL games at Tampa Stadium, and the family got to attend one of those games. It was the only time in my recollection that soccer (professional soccer, anyway) seemed to matter to a large audience in America. Rowdies games attracted big crowds,… some big enough to rival the attendance number of Buccaneer games. Well,… at the game we went to, they had a promotional giveaway for the first however-many kids through the gates—they gave out mini soccer balls with the team’s green, yellow and white colors and team logo. They were cool,… to an eleven-year-old (like I said in the last chapter,… kids are stupid). But the ball was cool even to Allison who is three years older than I. She and I, who before the Summer of 1978, had been near mortal enemies, spent hours running parallel to each other down Belgrave Drive and kicking the ball to each other as if we were playing on the same team and trying to advance the ball toward an imaginary goal. We invented a game (as stupid kids are wont to do) in which we tried to keep the ball in the road as we kicked it, and we’d count how many passes we were able to complete to each other before the ball ended up in someone’s yard because of an errant kick. “Kippy” (that’s her nickname,… the source of which is a different chapter) and I loved each other that Summer. We went back to adversaries when school started, but that Summer was awesome.

When I finally set foot back on the Phillippi Shores campus, it was like I could breathe again. The thin, foggy veil of discontent and resentment was yanked away to bring a clarity of eyesight I hadn’t known in the past year. There was Scott Miller,… and Mike Mercurio,… and Kay Saunders,… and Kelly Cafiero. This was going to be the best year of school ever. And it wouldn’t hurt that I already knew the sixth-grade math textbook backwards and forwards from having completed it in the fourth grade when I was here.

For the first few weeks, everything was great, aside from my teacher, Mrs. Miller. My friends embraced me and asked how I could have survived a full year at Pineview with those egghead kids (children are cruel and closed-minded, too). I was back to being a central figure in class and at recess. I was among my people. But Mrs. Miller didn’t care for me one bit from what I could gather. My explanation at the time—and looking back on it now, I’m not so sure it wasn’t mostly true—was that I was bored. I had learned most of the stuff being taught the previous year at Pineview. In fact, I had been taught at something close to a seventh- or eighth-grade level: I even took Spanish,… a class that wouldn’t be required until we got to public High School. However, I’m sure that at least a portion of my misbehavior was attributable to me being just a kind-of regular smartass who would cut up and disturb the class and Mrs. Miller at the same time. She sent me to the principal’s office a couple of times in those first few weeks for insubordination. She saw me as a major distraction; I just saw her as a major bitch.

After those first few weeks, I noticed a shift in the attitudes’ of my friends, though. They distanced themselves from me. I heard whispers from kids talking to each other like, “conceited” and “better than us” and the worst insult in the sixth-grade lexicon: “stuck-up.” They sensed—and it’s entirely possible that I projected—that I exhibited some sort of feeling of superiority to the rest of them. Three times a week we had to walk through the hallways of the school from our regular classroom to either the chorus room or the math pod. About two months into the school year (I’m guessing early October), as I turned the corner by myself—by that time I was a social pariah,… persona-non-grata—and I heard Mike Mercurio’s voice,… loudly,… saying, “GET ‘IM BOYS!” Five kids jumped me as I turned that corner. I got kicked and punched and generally worked over for what seemed like an eternity (it was probably twenty seconds). Surprisingly, I withdrew some after that. This was going to be the worst school year of my life; Shit, I should have stayed at Pineview if I had sensed that this would happen! I was ostracized from the group: excommunicated. So I withdrew even more. Perhaps I should have noted at the time that this was my first case of significant, prolonged depression,… but, of course, I didn’t.

Also, there was this: the fourteen-game lead the Red Sox had in July was mysteriously dwindling. It got cut to ten games,… then seven,… then four. Those fucking Yankees were on a tear of epic proportions and were closing the gap,… quickly. And then, the Yankees overtook the Red Sox for first place,… this was going to be the most devastating collapse in the history of the game…. From a fourteen-game lead on July 19th to behind by three-and-a-half games in the last two weeks of the season…. However, the Red Sox did something they had done sporadically since that July high-water mark,… they started winning,… in fact, they won ten of their last twelve and tied the Yankees for the best record in the division on the last day of the season. That set up a one-game playoff to see which team would represent the American League East in the Division Series against the Kansas City Royals (yes, young baseball fans, the Royals were once a good team,… before the fucking Yankees started buying players—and thus championships—at ridiculous sums and bloating their payroll upwards of $200 million per season). However, the one game would be at Fenway Park and not Yankee Stadium. That game was played on a Monday afternoon. (What? Day Baseball? In the Playoffs?) I had football practice at six o’clock, but I didn’t want to miss the end of the game which started at four. I begged my mom to let me stay home from practice just that one time so I could watch the ending, but she pulled out the “you made a commitment to the team” card. What shitty logic. Logic that I, of course, would one day use with my own child. We had only ten minutes left before we had to get going to Phillippi Shores—which was coincidentally the location of the pee wee football practices for my team. Ten minutes? It was only the sixth inning! And the Red Sox had the lead three-to-two. And then,… it happened,… as I sat there in my full football uniform: pads, cleats, jersey, pants,… Bucky Dent came up to bat. He was a scrawny little shortstop who never hit home runs,… so that wasn’t a worry. But there were two Yankees on base. Mike Torres was pitching for the Sox. He had had a great year for Boston, so I was confident he could induce an out from Bucky Dent. However, he hung a slider,… right over the middle of the plate,… and Bucky Dent hit it high and deep,… and over the Green Monster in leftfield for the go-ahead runs. “Johnny, if you’re going to make it on time, we need to leave now.”

This was before the days of ESPN and the internet. By the time I got home from practice and showered, I had to go to bed. I wasn’t allowed to stay up for the eleven-o’clock news to see what the final result was—hell, I was only eleven. I slept poorly. When I awoke, the first thing I did was grab the sports page only to learn that neither team scored a run for the rest of the game after I had left the house the previous day. The Red Sox lost that game 5-3, and the Fucking Yankees went on to beat the Dodgers four games to two in the World Series,… for their second championship in a row. From that day forward even to today (and probably for the rest of time to come),… to EVERY Red Sox fan in the world,… that games hero’s name changed,… He was now Bucky Fucking Dent.

I played my best game of football on the last day of the season, when my team “Cheyenne” beat the vastly superior “Arapaho” team. I chewed up yardage as a running back on offense and I sacked the quarterback a few times. I even tackled Arapaho’s monster running back once or twice—he had been barreling through kids all year. Yes,… the league was the Ringling Redskins Football League and every team was named after a different tribe of Native Americans. (I hate that term, and I know several Indians who would prefer to be referred to as Indians instead of “Native Americans.”) Interestingly, no group that waves its protected status flag in front of everybody’s faces has ever demanded that the league change its policies and transition to more politically-correct team names—as they have to the Washington Redskins, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians and several colleges. The Ringling Redskins have kept their teams’ names the same since then. Political correctness sucks assballs anyway.

I don’t recall much more of 1978,…. I do remember that at the end of sixth grade, in 1979, my family moved from the house on Siesta Key at Belgrave Drive to a bigger abode across town on Tangier Way. My first day in that house, I was throwing a tennis ball against my new garage door when I saw two kids (who looked about my age) just whizzing down the street on their shiny BMX dirt bikes. I didn’t have a dirt bike. These kids were going to haze and hate me just like the kids at Phillippi Shores did,…. I knew it!

Except,… they eventually became two of the best friends I have ever known.

Maybe I’ll write about 1979 and the Betts boys one day. However,….

Next time,…. Is That a Light I See at the End of the Bipolar Tunnel?

We Finish 1978 Before I Go Back to Being Bipolar

1978 was longer than I remembered.

I spent my final day at Pineview in early June. I was getting the hell out of that school and going back to my friends at Phillippi Shores. It was a huge relief to my ten-year-old mind. I hadn’t wanted to go there in the first place. I felt like I had been manipulated into going there. And then I felt duped into thinking that if I at least gave it a shot, I would be allowed to leave and go back to my old school whenever I wanted,… only to find out that I had to gut it out through the entire school year. But I had made it. School was over, and the following week would be,… my birthday.

Birthdays are huge things to kids,… and rightfully so, I think. Each year that you get to add another number onto your previous age is world-altering. There’s an entirely new paradigm for a kid going from ten to eleven. I think that holds true all the way to eighteen,… or even twenty-one,…. (Forty-three,… not so much.)

I got a birthday card from my grandparents,… with a solid five-dollar bill in it. I got a card from my mother with a TWENTY. And another from my father—who had just moved from Tampa to Miami—with another TWENTY. Woo-hoo! Forty-five smackers, baby! At eleven, I was fucking rich. When my mother asked me what I wanted to do with the money, I told her I wanted to take her out to dinner at my favorite restaurant: Gigi’s Italian Ristorante,… and I wanted to bring my best friend, Scott Miller. She agreed and we set it up for a day the following week. When we got to Gigi’s, I made a huge production out of the fact that I was treating the table to dinner with my own money. My mother let me act like a big shot,… ordering the dinner selections for everyone at the table (I had the lasagna),… walking the bill up to the cashier myself and telling the lady behind the counter that everything that evening had been on me (even though that wasn’t actually the case,… the dinner came to slightly over twenty dollars, and mom told me that I should only spend one of my twenties on the night out,… she would cover the rest,… and the tip). It was later that night,… after we dropped Scott back off at his house,… that she explained to me that it’s not proper to call attention to oneself and brag about being the one taking everybody out on his dime.

At this point, I’d like to make clear that I don’t have mommy issues. To this day, I will defend everything that she’s ever done in trying to raise her four kids. She has been the doting mother for my entire life. Every now and then she tells me that she thinks she can fault herself for trying to be overprotective or sheltering of me as a kid: that she never let me take any lumps on my own growing up. I really don’t believe that’s the case,… and I’ll knock out anyone who tries to pin my shortcomings as an adult on her. I have to own those myself.

But,… back to 1978,… and my eleventh birthday. In addition to the card with the cash in it, my mother had bought me a few presents as well. The ones I remember specifically, to this day, are the three record albums I got. I was really excited to see the gift-wrapped packages that HAD to be vinyl LPs (the size and shape gave them away, duh),… with my name on them (I have a twin sister,… she didn’t get any records that day). I had asked for three albums: Paul McCartney & Wings’ “London Town,” any Bill Cosby live comedy album, and a concert album: KISS “Double Live Platinum.”

“London Town” was a big seller, and I loved the song “With a Little Luck.” I still remember the lyrics. I had become a big fan of Bill Cosby during my year at Pineview, because when it rained, and we couldn’t have gym class outside, the “Coach” would bring us to his portable classroom and play either a Bill Cosby comedy album or a videotape of the “Football Follies.” (Okay,… it was 1978,… it wasn’t a videotape,… it was a real, honest-to-goodness reel-to-reel film. It’s just possible that maybe some of the younger readers of this blog wouldn’t even know what a reel-to-reel is.) So, I wanted a Bill Cosby album. “Double Live Platinum” was another big hit in 1978 (interestingly, it was certified platinum in June,… but it never sold two-million copies,… so it wasn’t actually double platinum,… them are some cocky motherfuckers), and it was a double record,… two LPs in one cover (maybe that’s why they called it DOUBLE Live Platinum,… maybe they weren’t so cocky,… oh, yes they were!)

So,… after eyeing those wrapped LPs while I was forced to open the cards first—because the sentiment was actually more important than the material gifts,… at least, that’s what my mom told me, but try convincing me of that when the cash started falling out of those fucking cards—I finally got to rip the paper off of them. The first one was Paul McCartney and Wings’ “London Town.” Bing-fucking-go! Exactly what I wanted. The second was Bill Cosby’s “Bill Cosby is a Very Funny Fellow… Right!” Sweet! I score again! I didn’t think I had ever heard that one before, and again, this was exactly what I had asked for. The third gift was a little thicker than the first two. (It’s “Double Live Platinum,” baby! Johnny’s gonna go three-for-three! There’s gonna be those makeup-wearing dudes on the cover! The cat one, and the one with the stars on his face,… and the other two whatever-the-fuck-they-weres!) I ripped off the paper. It was a double album. It was a concert album. It was,… “4 Way Street”??? By some fuckers called Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young? (This was a lot of years before Neil Young played with Pearl Jam, and Steven Stills’s sperm played with Melissa Etheridge’s girlfriend’s ova.) What the fuck was this piece of shit? Who the fuck are these guys? WHERE THE FUCK, EXACTLY, IS MY GOD DAMN “DOUBLE LIVE PLATINUM”???

My mother explained to me that when she saw the album cover, she decided to ask some other parents around the neighborhood just who these KISS fellas were. She had been told that they were heathens,… bad role models,… quite possibly devil-worshipping, Satanist cannibals. No way I was getting that album after that. I think I tried to listen to the CSNY album once,… one time,… for about twelve minutes. It sure as shit was no “Double Live Platinum.” I never did get that record,… in retrospect, mom probably did me a favor.

By mid-July, the Red Sox had a fourteen-game lead over the Yankees in the American League’s Eastern Division. They were going to the playoffs for sure this year—no way they could fall down with a fourteen-game lead at the All-Star break. It would be the first time in the playoffs since they lost the World Series to the Reds in ‘75. They lost the seventh game that year after Carlton “Pudge” Fisk hit a dramatic home run for the Sox in the twelfth inning of game six to force the deciding game seven,… which the Red Sox lost. But 1978 was gonna be different!

However,… that brings to mind a different story altogether,…. (Jesus Christ On Toast, John,… another fucking tangent?.... Well, yes,… this is MY blog, fuckers!) Later in life, when I was twenty-four and lived with, but was not yet married to my first wife, we took in her troubled half-brother for a month during the Summer of 1991. His name was Ernie, and he was about eight or nine at the time. He had a really difficult time with his attention span, a quick temper, and a very bad habit of interrupting people when they talked to him. Well,… one night, as a treat for him as he had been behaving well for us, I decided to take him to a minor league baseball game. The White Sox had a low-level farm team in Sarasota where I was living at the time. I got tickets, and as he and I drove to the game, I explained that I had read in the paper that morning that Pudge was going to play for the home team that night. He asked who Pudge was, and I told him I’d explain at the game. We had good seats,… right behind home plate about eight rows up. Early on in the evening, I told him to sit tight in the seats while I went to the bathroom. “But if anyone gets anywhere close to you, you scream your head off and say, ‘I don’t know this person’ as loud as you can, okay? You know the drill?” He told me he got it. And an elderly couple sitting right behind us told me that they’d keep an eye on him. I didn’t go to the bathroom. I went to the souvenir stand and bought a new baseball. I took it out of the box and scuffed some dirt on it. When I got back to the seats I handed him the ball, told him it had been used in the game, and that one of the ballplayers stuck his head out of the dugout, and gave me the ball especially to give to the kid I was sitting next to. It was a little white lie,… and he ate it up,… kids are stupid.

In the third inning the oldest player on the team, wearing number 72, came up to bat. I wanted to take advantage of the moment and provide this kid, who everyone else had given up on at the age of eight or nine, with one of those old-timey, nostalgic father-and-son type talks.

And I said to Ernie, “you see that guy batting right now?”

“Yeah,” he said back to me.

“Well,… his name is Carlton Fisk, but everyone calls him Pudge.”

“Why do they call him Pudge?”

What I wanted to say was, “I don’t fucking know, you shitbox! Quit interrupting me and let me tell you this old-timey, nostalgic father-and-son type story!”

What I did say was, “I’m really not sure, son, but they do. Anyway, the point is, he’s a guy that has been around the game of baseball for a long time,… almost twenty years,… and right now he’s down here in Sarasota rehabbing an injury before he goes back to Chicago to play for the big league club.”

“What’s ‘rehabbing’?”

(“SHUT UP, INTERRUPTING SHITBOX!”) “It’s when you get hurt and you have to get yourself healthy again by treating the injury slowly and letting your body get back to full strength…. Anyway, the point is, he’s playing here tonight, but he gave me one of the great memories of my childhood,… when I was about your age….” And I went on to tell him the story of the ‘75 Series and Pudge’s dramatic twelfth-inning home run…. It turned out to really BE one of those stupid, old-timey, nostalgic father-and-son type moments.

Then, the elderly guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder. I looked at this near-seventy-year-old guy sitting with his near-seventy-year-old wife. (There was nothing special about a couple like that in Sarasota,… it is called “God’s Waiting Room” for a reason.) He said to me, “I’m not eavesdropping, but I couldn’t help but hear you just tell that story about Carlton Fisk.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

He pointed to his wife and said, “that’s our son.”

That’s my second-best baseball memory.

Shit,… I’m done with another chapter and I haven’t even gotten to sixth grade yet.

Next time,… I Swear I’ll Finish 1978, Then I’ll go Back to Being Bipolar: Really

Something Light Before I Continue

1978.

It was a bad year for popes. It was a bad year for Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz. It was a bad year for The Flying Wallendas.

From what I remember,… it was a pretty good year for your writer…. And you’d be surprised at what I remember. It was a year when the Spring smelled like rain, the Summer smelled like pool chlorine, and the Autumn smelled like the cut grass at football practice. I don’t remember what Winter smelled like,… but growing up on the gulf coast of Florida,… it probably smelled like more pool chlorine.

Midnight of January 1st was the first time I remember being allowed to stay up until we rang in the New Year. I was ten years old and I recall feeling all grown up,…. I was asleep by ten after twelve.

By the end of the first week of the year, I was back in school. It was the fifth grade, and I was spending the school year at the Pineview School for the Gifted in Sarasota. I didn’t want to go to Pineview; I wanted to stay at Phillippi Shores Elementary where I had spent fourth grade. I had already moved from school to school almost every year since kindergarten—that year was Wilkinson, first and second grade was Gulf Gate, third grade was Pleasant Street in Athol, Massachusetts when I lived with my grandparents for a year while my mother finished nursing school (that’s an entirely different chapter,… which I’m sure I’ll get to another time), and fourth grade was Phillippi Shores. By the end of fourth grade I had worked my own way through the fourth grade mathematics textbook,… and the fifth grade one,… and the sixth grade one. After I got through with that one, the school had run out of math textbooks, so I started the sixth grade one over again. My teacher, Mrs. Hobson, had suggested to my mother and the people at the school that I be tested for the Pineview school. I went through IQ tests, personality tests, and problem-solving tests. They measured my IQ at 141 and approved me for the program.

Like I said before,… I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay and keep the friends that I had made in fourth grade. But my mother prodded and cajoled me into enrolling at Pineview,…. “Just try it for me, Johnny. If you don’t like it, we can always put you back in regular school.” After two weeks, I was begging to go back to “regular school.” But my mother told me I wasn’t giving it enough of a chance,… if I stayed the whole year, I’d probably really like it.

So, we go back to 1978 when I started the second half of fifth grade there. I still hated it. But 1977 had ended on a fairly decent note—there was that whole New-Years-staying-up thing, there was Star Wars, and there was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers actually managing to win two games after losing the first 26 of their existence. I was actually in attendance at the second of those two games,… the Bucs beat the Saints in New Orleans in the second-to-last game of the season and then came home to the old Tampa Stadium (which ESPN’s Chris Berman would later nickname “The Big Sombrero,”… I fucking hate Chris Berman) to face the St. Louis Cardinals. I was in the stands with my father as the Bucs won 17-7. I bought a cardboard-paper head visor at the game and wrote “I WAS THERE 17-7,” on the underside of the bill. I kept that fucking paper visor for years.

So, we go back to 1978 at the Pineview School (Jesus Christ, John, will you stop going off on meaningless tangents?). I still hated it. But we got to eat our lunch outside,… wherever we wanted,… as long as we were still on campus. Some other kids and I would always—and I mean every day—eat our lunches really quickly so we could play football in one of the courtyards. One day, early in 1978, I got burned for a touchdown by Danny Shmalo. Danny decided he would take the opportunity to gloat and shove it in my face,…. So I decided to take the opportunity and punch him in the face. He started ducking his head just in time to take a glancing blow off the side of his head,… I broke the fifth metacarpal in my right hand. I didn’t tell my mother about it for three days,… by then it really fucking hurt,… that was a Sunday. But she worked at my stepfather’s podiatry office, which had an x-ray machine. The x-rays confirmed my broken bone, which had to get splinted. I told my mother I had broken the bone by falling at school and hitting a tree stump that jutted out of the ground—I certainly wasn’t going to admit that I had punched Danny Shmalo in the head. I finally told her the truth,… in 1989.

In March of 1978, the intercom buzzed in my science class. “Would you please send John Chaplin down here to the principal’s office?”…. I thought to myself, “holy shitcake, what is this about?” (Okay, I was ten, I probably didn’t think that,…. It was probably just “holy shit.”) The science portable was the furthest possible classroom from the office, and as I walked, I thought how warm it was outside for an early Spring day. It smelled like rain even though it was cloudless. When I got through the door, I saw my mother sitting there. The “holy shit” feeling was even bigger now. She didn’t smile,… she said, “let’s go,” and guided me out the door. Nobody in the office even watched us leave, and at that point in time, I desperately wanted a witness. She didn’t look at me when we got in the car or when she headed west on Bahia Vista Street. “Where are we going,” I finally managed to ask. She still said nothing. When we got to US 41, she took a right and headed north. She veered right when we got to the 301 junction; we were headed downtown. I thought to myself, “crap,… is she taking me to the police station? What the hell have I done?” (Okay, I was ten, I probably didn’t think that,… . It was probably “what the fuck have I done.") But she took another right before we got all the way downtown. She was going to Payne Park! She was taking me to the Spring Training home of the Chicago White Sox! She finally turned to look at me after the fifteen minutes of the drive we had spent in complete silence. “You know the Red Sox are in town today.” My mother had come and busted me out of school to take me to a baseball game. And it was the Red Sox! I watched my favorite team for nearly three hours. I still remember the entire team. Hobson, Burleson, Remy and Scott around the infield; Rice, Yastrzemski and Evans in the outfield; and Fisk behind the dish. We had to sit on the steps beside the metal bleachers because the stands were full, and by the end of the game, my ass was killing me. It was the best day of my life to that point.

At the end of the school year, one of the teachers decided to host a fifth grade prom during her class period (fifth grade prom,... what a stupid idea). Saturday Night Fever had been released in December of the previous year, and the soundtrack was a smash. The Bee Gees were everywhere, and disco was as in as it would ever get. I practiced for hours in my living room with one of my older sisters, and by the time the day of the dance came around, I was ready. I danced with Heather Mahan for the entire class period. She was a good dancer and kept up with me even though I was a GREAT dancer (I know,… fairly cocky,… but that doesn’t make it any less true,… suck on THAT, bitches!). But the thing that pleased me most about that day was that fifth grade was one day closer to over, and I would get to go back to Phillippi Shores.

Wow,… 1978 was longer than I remembered.

Next time,… We Finish 1978 Before I Go Back to Being Bipolar.