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Hell yeah it was spooky!
From today's roadtrip:
10/31/2004 09:30:39 PM
Legend of PowerWobble, Part III
Legend of PowerWobble, Part I
Legend of PowerWobble, Part II
The bell rang.
We got out of our desk and headed out into the hallway.
Ms. Holloway had us line up single file, on the right side of the hall. Once we had lined up, we marched off to the lunchroom like a troup of idiots.
Doug Booger was in front of me, MarWitt behind me. MarWitt was being an ass. Kicking my shoe on every half step. Thumping my earlobe.
"Wha'cha gone do 'boud id? Wha'cha gone do 'boud id faggit?"
If he said that once, he said it twenty five times. Over and over.
Of course all of his little minions were chiming in now.
"Fag-git. Fag-git. Fag-git."
I'm still quiet.
"Fag-git. Fag-git. Fag-git."
Why in the hell didn't Ms. Holloway do something about the commotion is beyond me. Thinking back, she was probably larded out on downers almost to the point of unconsciousness just to keep her sanity.
We get to the lunchroom. As I'm standing in line, MarWitt figures I need another dose of his branded humiliation. He makes a point to get the rest of the "C" group to cut in front of me.
I'm left at the back of the line. I'm ok with that, at least I'll know where not to sit after I get my meal.
As I paid for my lunch, and walked away from the cashier I started scoping out where MarWitt was and made a point to sit as far away from him as I could.
I found a table. I was by myself. Peace, at least for thirty minutes or so.
Wrong. MarWitt and his gang come hunting for me. They find me and of course sit at my table, my temporary sanctum.
"Wha'cha guht thar' faggit?" he says as he starts playing with my food. Glaring at me.
I'm silent. I didn't care what he was doing to my food. I wasn't about to eat anyway.
His followers are snickering, pointing and talking to each other. One of them throws chunks of lunchmeat at me.
"Luhks perdy guhd. Faggit." he says as he's pushing a spoonful of glop at my face. I stop him, by grabbing his wrist firmly, and tell him once again, "I don't want to fight you."
His little crowd goes silent.
"Oh it's awn now, buddeh. I was gone to leh you awf eaz-eh, but you duhn gone and laid yer han' on meh now. It's awn faggit! It's awn! "
Then he and his group of worms get up and walk away. He's staring me down with some sort of macho/psycho evil eye twitch as he leaves. He's even glaring at me when he sits down at another table. Completely gamefaced.
The rest of the lunch period goes as you would expect it. I'm quietly sitting at MY table, alone. As the rest of the seventh grade "C" group looks, stares, points, whispers and blows straw wrappers my way.
"If it's going to happen, it's going happen in the bathroom." I tell myself.
The bell rings and Ms. Holloway starts to herd us back into that single file line again. I slowly make my way to the line. I'm the straggler, because I know what's about to happen.
" 'C' group. To the restroom." Ms. Holloway was so precise in her tone.
I'm slow to follow.
Sure enough. I walk into the boy's restroom and there is MarWitt and the gang in a tight semi-circle.
Staring. Bad asses all of them.
As soon as I entered I said one more time, "I don't want to fight you." and walked on in.
MarWitt started again with his psyche-out bullshit.
At one point during his rambling, he broke his glare away for a split-second. And that split-second was all I needed. I hit him as fast and as hard as I could. Once, that's all it took. He dropped like a bag of hamsters*.
He was on the floor. I was standing over him. Both of us stunned silent at what had just happened. As he started to cry, and bleed, I turned and walked out. None of his friends did or said anything.
I walked up to Ms. Holloway and told her my shoulder was hurting and asked her if I could go to the office to call my mom. After calling my mom and getting permission to leave I walked home. Silent.
MarWitt was at a severe disadvantage from the very moment he set me in his sights to be his "boy". What MarWitt didn't know is I had worked a similar bathroom scene over in my a head a thousand times before. I had played it and replayed it long, long, before he and I were to ever meet.
I had been bullied before, brutally.
If my shoulder hadn't have been broken I would've killed MarWitt. That's how it played out in my head anyway. I wouldn't have stopped.
MarWitt on the floor, my revenge.
-------
Final note: After that first day, the rest of the school year went really good. I got into the "B" group within couple of weeks. I made lots of friends, both black and white. I got in all sorts of trouble. Oh a real biggy: I caught the principle and one of the teachers in a compromising "position" midway through the school year. Blecht!
*Typo. It should've read "hammers". But I liked it better as "dropped like a bag of hamsters", much more appropriate.
10/28/2004 11:33:08 PM
Legend of PowerWobble, Part II
Legend of PowerWobble, Part IThe first day of class finds me, the new kid, the kid from private school, looking all proud, cocky and khaki clad. I was lost, aching, and scared.
The seventh grade was stratified into three groups or teaching levels. There was the "A" group, these were the gifted kids. Then there was the "B" group, these were the bright, "normal" kids. Then there was the "C" group. The "C" group was home to the criminally insane, and mentally/emotionally "challenged" students.
Since there was no admissions testing or maybe because I looked like a criminally insane preppy kid, on the first day of school I found myself in the "C" group sitting next to Doug Booger. I don't really recall his last name, but I do remember his affinity for anything that came out of his nose. Doug Booger was HUGE! Like Darth Vader HUGE (he also had a weird thing for Vader). Doug Booger and that banjo kid from Deliverance could've been related, except Doug Booger weighed 250 pounds!
The first thing anybody said to me that day was Doug Booger saying "luhk it dis" as he's yanking out a crusty one.
I pretended not to hear him.
Pretending not to hear Doug was just the opening that MarWitt, the lead "C" group bully and resident felon needed to try and goad me into a fight.
"Hey. Hey. Purdy-boy! You too good tuh tawk?"
I pretended not to hear him either. At this point I was wishing I was deaf. Hell, at this point I was wishing I was dead.
"Uhm tawkin' to you boy. Ya come hee-uh like you awe dat. I tair yer shit uhp"
I'm sitting there not about to blink. Silent. Just about the time all of this is happening the teacher walks in.
"M s . H o l l o w a y" she writes on the board, taking great care to underline the "Ms." part for emphasis.
"Not Miss. Not Mrs. Mizzz Holloway." She announced as she clapped her hands of the chalk dust.
And oh my GOD! She's... She's black!
Up until then, I'd never had a black teacher. Race wasn't an issue at my old school, it was a private school. Up until right then, I never knew what it was "private" from. Up until that very moment, I had lived a very sheltered, very segregated life.
I'm sitting in my desk, on one side of me I've got the biggest monster of a kid I've ever seen, picking his nose and offering me a booger sandwich. On the other side I've got the roughest kid I've ever seen wanting to beat me senseless for no reason other than I'm different. In front of me I'm trying to cope with my new teacher, who is unlike any I've ever seen before. And inside of me, my shoulder hurt everytime I blinked.
I learned more coping skills in those first few minutes than I ever have since.
"Hey boy. Lunch. At lunch it gone be meuhn you."
I stared forward, still silent. MarWitt whispered on about how he's going to beat me up. He was brutal, and scary. It wasn't one of those little men syndrome things either, he was the real deal. In hindsight, I'm sure the kid had some pretty serious issues with aggression/violence as well as a low self-esteem thing.
Psychobabble didn't mean shit to me that day.
By now it was mid-morning and I was sweating every minute that counted down to lunch. Also word had spread around the class that MarWitt had it in for "new kid". I knew I was going to have to deal with this situation on my own. I damned sure realized that if I wimped out and went told the teacher about MarWitt's threats then it would only get worse, and I would be bullied for the rest of the school year.
"Boy. You a faggit? You luhk like a faggit."
"I don't want to fight you." I told him at one point.
"Din dawn't faggit. Uhm still gawn beat 'cho azz at lunch." Lunch. The showdown was set. Like in a bad western, I guess "lunch" equated to high noon. The hands on the clock were now showing 11:30.
10/26/2004 08:19:38 AM
Legend of PowerWobble, Part I
The title to this story should read: "How I got the ever-living shit beat out of me on the first day of 7th Grade", but I thought "Legend of PowerWobble" would be more epic.
The summer of '77, the summer between sixth and seventh grade was pretty much like all summers before it. The one difference being as soon as the book closed on that summer I'd be going to a new school.
Public school.
Up until then I had gone to a private school. I was there from kindergarten through sixth grade. It was MY school. It's all I knew.
Having to change to another school, let alone a p(ugh)blic school, was tough. My seventh grade experience was only a truckstop on the highway to hell I'd face a year later in junior high, but I'll save the Jr. High stories for a later time.
The apprehension of going to a new school, not knowing anybody, and being the "new kid" was tough. Only to be made tougher the day before school started.
My best friend Jeffg and I were skateboarders. Skateboards were how we got around, second only to our bicycles.
On the day before school was to start, Jeffg and I were out riding our boards. We decided to head down to TCreep's house. (Sidebar: TCreep was a nice enough guy and all, he just did some things with live animals that tended to creep me out, thus the name TCreep. No offense to you TCreep if you Googled yourself and now you're reading this. By the way TCreep, for your sake I hope God isn't a frog.) TCreep lived around the corner and down a hill. A huge hill. "Cliff" is a more accurate description.
I'm on my red plastic skateboard, the one my mom picked up for me at Roses Department Store several months earlier. Back then skateboards were nothing fancy: some ball bearings, a couple "trucks" off of a rollerskate, and some poly wheels. My mom paid less than five bucks for it. Off on a tangent, sorry.
Anyway, I'm on the red skateboard. Heading to down the hill to Tcreep's. As I reached speed (mach 2 in this case) I noticed the board start to wobble. Then the board lapsed into the dreaded powerwobble. "Now problem." I thought to myself, "I'll just step off." And I did.
That. That was a mistake.
As soon as my right foot hit the ground, I commenced to flip. When I landed the first time, I landed on my back and left shoulder. Breaking my left collarbone and also embedding gravel into my back, neck, and head.
When I finally quit rolling, and bouncing I had debris embedded over my most of my body. Think 70's styled sand candle.
I forgot to mention that I was helmetless, as well as shirtless. Come to think of it, I was probably barefooted too.
As soon as I got up, I knew something was wrong. It could've been the fact that my left shoulder was flopping around down by my navel, or maybe it was the puddles of blood. But I knew I needed help.
I walked over to TCreep's house, like a zombie, 'cause by now I'm starting to go into shock. His mom flakes out, rushes me into the bathroom, so I don't bleed out on her carpet. Then she calls my mom.
I don't remember much between getting the rocks pulled out of me in TCreep's bathroom and the doctor setting the bone in the emergency room. Setting the bone, that I remember.
For the sake of those who haven't broken your clavical, let me clarify something. When you break your collarbone, you don't get a cast. You get a harness, a brace. Think backpack, without the pack. Basically you're in this contraption that pulls your shoulders back, puffs you chest out and basically makes you look all proud and cocky.
Proud and cocky is not a good look for the "new kid" in class.
10/23/2004 08:33:31 PM
Boo
I took another roadtrip Sunday.
It was just the thing I needed to clear my head. I had taken off half-day on Friday as a "Mental Health" break. I had full intentions of making the time off productive. Instead, RZ and I camped out under our holstein blanket on the red sofa, watched Amityville Horror, and laughed our butts off. RZ nearly hocked up a gummy worm when I told her that my hair used to be as big as James Brolin's doo.
I guess you could say that made for good, non-productive time off. Thing is, I didn't peel my cheeks off of the red sofa until around noon on Sunday. Saturday was a sleep filled haze.
Once the pillow marks on my face started to fade, I got in the car and headed out.
I found all sorts of places that would make for great scary movie settings. An abandoned golf course, a factory that closed it doors 40 years ago, a "dead" house, a haunted antebellum home, and of course my favorite- the shell of an old movie theatre.
The "dead" house was the creepiest of all, it had a real Chainsaw Massacre vibe to it. Funny thing, while I was exploring around I heard a chainsaw crank up way off in the distance. As soon as I heard that I tipped toed back to the car and got the hell outta there.
Anyway, here's the Spooky Roadtrip. Enjoy.
10/19/2004 09:45:18 AM
RSVP
Dear Kimba325,
I must regretfully decline your invitation to Amit and Tamar's Party. While I'm sure you guys will truly be rocking eastern Pakistan, unfortunately for me I can't find a sitter for RZ on Friday night.
Oh alright, the real reason is Leslie just won't let me go. Seems I "forgot" to fix the wheel on the lawnmower the other day, and she pitched a well pronounced bitch. Now she's all pissed and saying my warzone bar hopping days are over. No more "Rocking the Casbah" for me anytime soon.
Eh, marriage... It's a give and take.
But Dude! I noticed something on your invite about "80s ,70s , MTV". Great, original choices, all of them. I've got an idea for a playlist that will totally make everyone pull out their pistols and fire them in the air like angry Arabs.
First, you open up the night with a little Jefferson Starship. "We Built This City" will be just the song to get everybody to "crawl out of their cave" so to speak. After Starship you lead in with some Quarterflash, then maybe a song or two from K.C. and the Sunshine Band, sprinkle in a little Kajagoogoo, followed by Prefab Sprout's "When Love Breaks Down" just to settle things. For the finale, "Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles! Ah Man, with tunage like that you're bound to wind up with sand in your buttcrack Saturday morning! Burka Bingo, if you know what I mean. (wink. wink.)
Well like I said, sorry I can't make it. Damn. I KNOW It's Gonna ROCK!
High five Amit, and kiss Tamar on the cheek for me. Also, give my regards to Timon, Pumbaa, Mufasa, and the rest of the Lion King gang.
Via con dice,
Mark
PS- Dude, nice typeface.
PPS- On second thought, "Walk Like an Egyptian" might be a bad choice for a closer, somebody might wind up gettin' something lobbed off.
10/14/2004 01:01:26 AM
For More Fears
I'm not one to write about politics. I generally try and stay clear of that box of snakes. Lord knows you could put an eye out by getting into that topic nowadays.
But I've got a question, can somebody tell me why the price of gasoline has been a non-issue in this election? This morning I paid a dollar more per gallon than I did for that same gallon of gas in 2000.
Just curious.
10/12/2004 11:22:23 AM
I suck at first impressions.
I met another blogger last night. It wasn't entirely by chance though, her husband emailed last week to let me know she and her band would be playing in the area.
Here's how the night went...
Leslie decided at the last minute that she didn't want to leave RZ home alone on a school night so she bailed early on. I called BigFunny to see if he was up for a some live music. Being the music freak that he is, of course he said yes. I told him to meet me at my house at seven o'clock and we'd take off.
BF gets to my house at eight.
No worries. We just have to drive an hour to Milledgeville (Home of the Mullet) to get to the venue where Michelle will be playing. If I floor it, we'll be able to make it to the show just in time. I thought the band started playing around nine, but knowing how bands are I figured they wouldn't really get cranked until 9:30 or 10.
After the mad dash to get to Milledgeville (Home of the State's Mental Institution, thus the invention and proliferation of the Mullet) we find a parking spot and hurry over to the pub. Actually it's a deli and pub, details, details. Right as we get to the door we we see the sign that read "Girls on Film, Tonight 11 p.m."
Shit.
Now we've got a couple of hours to kill in sleepy Milledgeville (Home of Flannery O'Connor, who I'm sure proudly wore a mullet).
Not being one to pass up a good opportunity to eat. BigFunny looks at me and says "Food? Beer." We walk across the street to grab a bite. After being seated I order a Coke and an appetizer, artichoke dip. BF gets a Guinness and something. A few minutes later the waitress brings out our order.
I start nibbling on the nachos and artichoke dip.
The dip was incredible. "Angel Doo-Doo" incredible. It had artichoke hearts, and lots of garlic, and crack, and a couple of different cheeses, and spices.
I was mainlining the dip.
I now belong to the Church of that Dip. Yes, dip good! The waitress noticed my orgasmic shouts and my speaking-in-tongues about said dip. Being the great tip panderer waitperson that she was, she offered me another bowl. She said since it was getting close to closing time I could have the rest. Which I did. The offering of the dip was a very strategic move on her part. She got a great tip. Rightfully so.
Around 10:30 we decide to walk back across the street to secure a seat, and wait out the band.
So here we are, a couple of almost fourty somethings, in a college bar. Just hanging. I've got my camera with me, and compared to the fratboys in the bar we look rather distinguished, out of place, but distinguished.
At one point a college girl walks over to us and asks "ya know, like why're ya'll here?" Without batting an eye a respond, "We're with Alexander Woodside** & Associates. We're seeing how Milledgeville would work for our 'RealWorldSmallTown' production. It's like 'The Real World' but set in a rural area instead of a big city." She then says "So it'll be like, like, 'The Real World-Milledgeville'?" To which I say "Exactly." She then smirks, turns and walks away. At this point BigFunny leans over and quietly says, "Your good. Damn your good." I nod my head and say "Scary ain't it?" I just figured if she was bold enough to ask, I'd be bold enough to lie through my teeth.
But anyway.
Around 11:30 I see the "Girls on Film" come into the place. Also around 11:30 the mass quantity of dip started turning all evil alien on me in my stomach. I'm starting to get really nauseous.
A few moments later as I'm heading up the flight of stairs to the restroom, Michelle is coming down the stairs and we meet. It goes something like this...
Me: "Michelle?"
Michelle: Looking all creeped out, with zero eye-contact.
Me: "Michelle, It's me, Mark."
Michelle: It registers, she smiles warmly "Oh Hi."
At this point, the little voice in my head starts talking too.
Me: "How was your trip?"
voice in my head "Hi. I'm about to throw up."
Michelle: "It was good."
Me: "Is this place kinda what you were expecting?"
voice in my head "On your shoes. I. Am. About. To. Thow up. On. Your. Shoes."
Michelle: "I think it's better than expected."
Me: "Great."
voice in my head "Great. She seems nice, now let us go puke. Shall we?"
Michelle: "So'd your wife come with you?"
Me: "No. She couldn't make it."
voice in my head "Yeah toots, it's just me and Big Ol' Uncle Pervy over there in the dark corner. You want some candy? Go Away, before I break out with the Linda Blair routine."
Me: "Scott, Mia doing ok?
voice in my head "Hey Mark, you suck at small talk, especially when you're about to make sick. Dry up the conversation and let's get going. We've got a mess to make."
Michelle: "Yeah, he's home taking care of Mia."
Me: "This is so weird. Anyway, looks like you need to get busy. I'll talk to you later. Have a good show."
voice in my head "Attaboy. Way to wind it down, but my god haven't you ever heard of 'break a leg'? 'Have a good show' is sooo not cool."
Michelle: "Okay. Bye."
voice in my head "What the hell? We're feeling less puke-ish now, almost spew-free."
So thankfully, I didn't redecorate the restroom. The band cranked around midnight and was great. I was able to shoot a bunch of "RockStar" like pictures, and all in all BigFunny and I had a great time.
I didn't even have to headbutt a single drunken fratboy for calling me "Pops". They must've heard that I was "with the band".
You'll appreciate this bit of advice: if Girls on Film come to your town. Seek them, just stay away from the artichoke dip!
(**Alexander Woodside = My middle name and the street I grew up on.)
10/8/2004 07:13:03 PM
Bio-Disintegration
Can somebody tell me why I'm able to write a several hundred word post about Ab.So.Lutely nothing, yet can't come up with a two sentence bio?
I can't even come up with an "About Me" for this site. I keep getting stuck at the hair color part.
So what color is mildly bald?
Fragile Ego Tan?
10/4/2004 09:22:14 PM
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