They Were Never Simpler Times

Jake and Tim have been neighbors and school classmates since Jake
moved into the small Tampa suburb seven years earlier, in 1996. The
two boys, age 12 and 13, respectively, are removed by six months age
difference and juxtaposed personality types. Sitting on the edge of the
bed in Jake's room one crisp fall day, the boys prepare for a get-together.
Tim: I wonder who's gonna show up for the sleepover!
Jake: I keep telling you to quit calling it that. Girls have sleepovers.
        This is camping out.
Tim: Yeah... that sounds real butch.
Jake: Do you have to say stuff like that?
        And what's with the Power Rangers Underoos?
Tim: I love them! I don't care if they're for little kids...I'm keeping
       them forever. If people don't like it, they can suck it!
Jake: Probably NOT the thing to say while running around hanging
       out of your specialty super-hero underwear.
Tim: You never said nothing before?
Jake: Well, I don't care. But other kids are gonna be here. You don't
       wanna get made fun of, do ya?
Tim (mournful, but defiant): No. I don't care! My "Give a Damn is
       Busted!" Ha ha!
Jake: Oh Lord. I should never have turned you on to country music.
Tim: Hey, you should do that song for the talent show. It'd be awesome.
Jake: Naw that's okay.
Tim: Come on...don't be shy...that's a cool song.
Jake: No song is cool for a guy to be singing in middle school in the
       south. Trust me.
Tim: You worry too much.
Jake: I guess I'll do the worrying for the both of us.
Tim: hmmmnn..well, let's play a game before everybody gets here.
Jake: I hope that means you're getting all the Squirrelly out of your
        system in advance?
Tim: What-EVER Drama King! Sure...let's play something you'd be
      ashamed of with all your hip friends....
Jake: "What if?" I suppose!
Tim: Yes! What if? it is, by popular demand!
Jake: "What if?" I had my head on straight?
Tim: Never gonna happen.... "What IF...you could have any super
      power in the world...What would you choose and why?"
Jake: Oh, keeping it real, I see.
Tim: Don't be a killjoy, Snark Attack.
Jake: Okay...didn't we just do this last week?
Tim: It's like "Who do you find hot?"...it's always changing based on
      mood and focus. Quit avoiding.
Jake: Okay...Superman.
Tim: That's not a power.
Jake: Okay, I want to be Superman, and have all his powers.
Tim: That's multiple powers, and an identity...Besides; BORING!
Jake: Okay fine, I want to be a Kryptonian, and thereby have all the
       powers of a Kryptonian under earth's yellow sun.
Tim: Cool. Okay...I would want invisibility.
Jake: What the what? Invisibility sucks. That's lame.
Tim: No I could be in espionage, and get all the answers to all the
       secrets I want, and I could know what people really think.
Jake: What's so special about knowing what people think? Over-
       rated. Besides, seeing what people do and knowing what they
       think are two different things, Einstein, Trust me.
Tim: Why are you hating on Invisibility? Lyle Norg was awesome.
Jake: Here i thought you were imagining yourself the Invisible Girl.
       You just wanna sleep with Lyle Norg, doofus.
Tim: The Legion was sooo 20th century good comics. Invisibility...
       Invisible Lad rocks!
Jake: Look...your own guys could shoot you by mistake. A stray bullet
       could kill you. A dog can still smell you. There's no defensive
       measures involved at all.
Tim: Ugh. Fine. Green Lantern, then...I want a power ring. It can do everything.
Jake: I don't like that choice either.
Tim: Well excuse meeeee!
Jake: Look--here's the thing; a power ring is not you. Besides, your will
       power kind of sucks anyway. When's the last time you followed through
       on anything?
Tim: You know, just because you're mister OCD doesn't mean everyone
       else is a slacker. You got a problem yourself!
Jake: Noted. But here's the thing. A power ring makes your 'abilities'
       dependent on an external source. You can't ever put your faith or
       hope in an external source. It has to come from within; That's what matters.
Tim: Killjoy. How is it we even know each other? Okay....let me think......
       I know...I want to be a martian, but like J'onn J'onzz...with an array
       of powers. I could fly, I could turn invisible and still have strength and
       'defensive' capabilities...
Jake: But you'd be green and ugly.
Tim: Ugly is subjective, thank you very much, Senor racist. Besides, he can
       change shape..turn into anyone or anybody in looks.
Jake: Let me guess. you'd turn into the guy someone else wanted so you
        could snag them?
Tim: What's wrong with that?
Jake: If you have to ask....
Tim: I just want someone to love me. That's not wrong.
Jake: No, but you gotta know who you are. You don't change into who
        someone else wants you to be. Your job in life can't be to please or,
        or, to....service others' needs. What kind of life is that? When are you
        gonna start living your life?
Tim: It's just a game.
Jake: Like you said...it tells a lot about who people really are. And what
        would you plan on doing with the mind-reading abilities? Find out what
        people think about you? Figure out how to change to be more liked?
        Sheesh.
Tim (disheartened): Talk about mixed signals. You never complain when
       I change to suit you.
Jake: I gotta get ready. If you want to find something to wear that won't
       get you laughed at, check my dresser.


And with that, Jake strode out of the room, seemingly oblivious that his
     cavalier manner had finally broken the hopes of his fragile friend.
     Their one-time romance had been too much for Jake's go-gettum
     upward climb in the social setting of a school filled with judgmental
     teenagers. He was too worried about status and image to any longer
     carry his whacky and heart-on-his-sleeve pal of youth.
Tim wiped a tear away and studied the situation a moment. He jumped
     off the bed's edge and walked tentatively to the full length mirror in
     Jake's room. He felt a sadness over the bruised feelings that had
     become all too common a mark of their time together of late. Tim
     spied himself in his Rangers underoos and smiled. He posed a super-
     powered styling pose for himself and triumphantly shouted "I look
     awesome!"
He didn't realize it then, but Tim had made a wise choice for which horse
     he needed to back in the race of his life.


*********************************************************

Words are what you make of them...

The Book of Souls is clear about all things laid bare
within it's leather bound ancient covers. Whether or
not humanity chooses to pay attention and abide by
the simple offerings is quite another matter.

Some of the many fine gems, which sentimentality and
blind eyes try and rule out, are such obvious claims as;

* Friends are a dubious lot indeed. They are just as
likely to throw you under a bus (not the original
wording!) as repayment for your loyalties as they
would be to look at you.

* When you give support and accommodation to
another, whether within the bounds of agreement
or not, there is no guarantee that a reciprocation
will be forthcoming.

* To speak truth is indeed to grasp hold of an
outsider's life full throttle. Such status will be
alternately illuminating and infuriating, but that is
no different than any other path's rewards.

* Having embarked on a journey with a status of
'troublemaker' (the wicked's onus for one who makes
their life more difficult,) you may find that those on
your path bring troubles to you readily.

* Paths are sometimes decided for us, if only for
a period, but if we are steadfast, we may find that
travails are not only unavoidable, but no longer
undesirable. There is merit in the sun rising as well
as setting.

* The masses in any town imagine themselves
squarely correct in all matters, but this no more
makes it so than the raising of one's voice makes it
so... or repetition, or committing to type and text,
or spreading to a greater and greater majority their
wishes.

* Those who deny themselves doing what they want
will replace the loss by investing tirelessly in a new
venture for distraction; generally directing others as to
what they should or should not do.

For such a small book, it resolutely sets forth many
wondrous adages and proverbs. Perhaps it is the
quiet and unassuming nature of the observations that
has caused it to remain lacking in popularity.

Perhaps the time has simply not yet come when
man is prepared for an outline that does not demand,
nor tear apart reason, in order to impart wisdom.

*************************************

Sticky Floors Worse than A Movie Theatre's

Setting: A major unholy chain store for crappy retail schlock
in the fair-to-middling sized hole-in-the-wall (No pun intended!)
town of Irredeemable, South Carolina.The Date: Voting Day for Republican Primaries (not that there's
any significance to that!)

The Time: Lunch time! And all good little Christian parodies of
real men are washing their hot and horny little hands like the
barn's afire; OCD harsh scrubbings and self-flagellation aplenty.

Meanwhile, in the Men's room.....

Ricky sings to himself while he fumbles with his tiny pecker, fervently
working it free of the chastity belt he had modified for himself. Too
many damned cute interns to take chances. What are they feeding
those young mid-western boys these days? He sings, not for joy
of touching the withered and neglected member, but because he has
to distract himself whilst physically acknowledging he has one.


Don't want to sin and notice genitalia!
Ricky is at once relieved by the swishing sound of the men's room
door, and also aggravated that he may have to work hard at keeping
his composure. These bitter-sweet moments were what he lived for,
and dreaded.

Once he turned slightly to catch a glimpse of his acquaintance,
Mitty, he was actually disappointed. No school boys today, he
thought, dismissing the aged gentleman. In truth, Mitty looked
and acted far younger than he truly was, born eons ago for the
plow and hearth crowd he was part of, sheer desperation feigning
his youthful zeal. Funny enough, this was in direct contrast to
Ricky, who looked far older than his Micky Mouse Club
childishness and immaturity, who sought to maintain the illusion of
decorum and stability.


Methuselah and Peter Pan, coming together to shake their bitter,
useless pickles. Avoiding their own, while hoping to control all others.


Mitty pretended not to notice Ricky was even standing next to him
now; children are to be neither seen nor heard, and his power play was
in full swing. He tweezered out his Vienna sausage and thought long and
hard about the lean young men his boys had become.


Mitty is feeling his oats, today, and flips a coin in his head, deciding
to take the low road. Familiar territory. "Lovely sweater vest," he
lays out to Ricky in a snarky huff.

Ricky is not too quick or too adept, but his angry inner child,
longing for reconciliation with his absent Daddy (whom Mitty
certainly reminds him of,) has him blurt out a schoolyard retort
of "What are you doing here? Stocking up on your Crisco hair
supplies?"

He's clearly vexed while stoic Mitty just keeps that stiff upper
lip clench in play, hoping eventually someone will be impressed
by it and think him a badass. He pictures Heaven in his mind, as
he often does when he plays with himself. He sees himself in the
throne at the top of the clouds, reshaping the environs in his image.

Both men fight their carnal urges to at least look over and size up
their competition. But fear wins out. Fear that if they initiate such
a spectacle, the other will follow suit, and their secret will be out,
definitely in the wrong hands. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

There is a long glassy stare of insolence that passes between the
two pompous, posturing, pedantic boys-in-men's-bodies....this
octogenarian and this fetus, so far apart, and yet...so much in common?
That soulful discomfort....that detachedness...the  slow-wittedness....
the earnestly pleading lost boys who cannot get answers.

In a moment of mad giving in to all that they suppress daily, they
are mauled by their passions, knowing now that they were two sides
of the same coin. Self-hating lapsed into reasoned denial.

"We both have everything to lose! It's the perfect outlet!" they
both thought in unison.

Sure, it wasn't cabana boys, hustlers, interns, or their own barely
legal nubile flesh they were plundering on the cold, dirty, tile floor, 
but it would do. After all, that's what fantasy is for. Robotic,
shame-filled, they groped and fudged around until they had both
squirted forth their worthlessness. They quickly made themselves
back into their normally disheveled forms and began their charade
anew.

"Ahem! Well, these voters are sure to back me and my solid core
values. God has made a plan for my Presidency, Ricky. I hope you
don't have too much invested in winning." Mitty's caricature of a
caricature was nauseatingly obvious, but so long as he never ceased
the ruse, could anyone actually expose it?

"These aren't New Englanders here, Mitty. We may have a surprise
or two in store. Don't get ahead of yourself!" charged the little
cheerleader, surprising himself with his gusto even as he prepared
which Bible verse he would recite for the Southern crowd.

"Maybe, if you're a good boy," Mitty said with a lecherous wink,
"I'll save a special spot in my cabinet for you!" With that gauntlet
thrown, Mitty tightened his tie noose-like around his throat and
stomped out of the latrines, enough of an angry air to wilt flowers
and scare children.

Meekly, Ricky splashed water on his face and contritely gave
himself affirmations in the mirror, puffy-eyed and fearful. He sighed
mightily and scurried behind his errant Papa, just as the janitor was
sauntering in for the mid-day cleaning.

He wondered to himself why the floors were always stickiest after
the married men finished their lunchtime constitutions, and figured
that it must just be the glue that holds America together.

**************************************************

Stream of Ruthlessness

The bleached out 'naughty' bits,

the pretense of vanilla,

the obligation to the sensible and esteemed,

converging in a saccharine

whitewash of a pure and true soul.

Deluged by influence of Others--

those damnedable controllers of puppet strings--

we sway and motion habitually through

ironically self-defeating patterns;

domestication complete, we satisfactorily

lifeless and subdued minions fully snared.

Seductive smiles and intentions most grand

matter not a natter's tit

when soul devastation is at hand;

pleasing others to a fault,

likewise resentful of the tacit demand

driving these befuddling endeavors.

The greatest feat of all?
Convincing targets that assault is medicine,

that grievance is duty, that suppression is divine.

Take the child and call the parent barren.

This world of duplicity and schisms

has no sentiment for a feeling soul.

We dance around the preposterous shore

of this dwindling River of Life,

seeking to be quenched, sated, cooled.

Instead, it's a Stream of Ruthlessness,

drowning, gagging, washing clean

the evidence of Real, the essence of True.

We can't even shed a tear;

enmeshed to the fictions, we

are bone dry in the midst of our watery prison.

But others will call us 'free.'

Which version will preside?

Was it worth the price to see the ocean?

**************************

Blast From the Past: FREE P.R.E.S.S. # 2

My contribution to Women's Empowerment,

the Spring 1992 edition (issue # 2)

of Free P.R.E.S.S.!

(P.R.E.S.S. stood for "Progressive Resource

for Encouragement in Stressful Situations", by the way!)

Cover featured were friend Kim (in the logo--an ever-changing

personal photo,)  friend Susan (in shadow at bottom,)

and a picture from the March on Washington in center

(photo by friend Esther Castro.)

Included were recommendations of media

centered on women (including TV, film, music,

comics) and more, as well as cartoons,

articles, editorials and the usual slant!

********************************

Blast From the Past: FREE P.R.E.S.S. # 6

Oh how the times haven't changed a bit!

This issue cover featured an expose' on the job

scam that companies have been running for some time now;

advertising active hiring when in fact they

don't have a single position available.

(Folks like to keep a large number of resume's on

file for quota making, replacements, etc. but most job seekers

won't waste time if you're just 'accepting apps.')

Also in the article; sex discrimination in hiring

practices. (As in, jobs improperly designated as being

exclusively for women!) Oh, those silly Southerners!

*****************

Self-defense is not a crime

The most key skill one can possess is the ability to defend oneself.
Though we no longer reside in the wilderness or savage tribes, man
is still a mercenary creature. There are always threats of varied sorts
vying to destroy us or take what is ours. Unfortunately, as the
importance of society in general has been promoted, man's vital
protection skills have been outlawed and lost. Morality, as well
as a lazy sedentary lifestyle, is guilty of incapacitating people's
natural defensive capabilities and territorial nature. The previously
innate self-preservation skills have disappeared.


The need to retrain citizens in the way of self-defense is crucial;
not just physical strength and fitness, but emotional and psycho-
logical spiritedness, too. Many modern men and women are casual
and passive in their daily lives. They have been brainwashed by
religion, workplaces, and government to be demure and calm at
the expense of their own sense of self. People are conditioned to
accept bad situations, rude people, and violations of their boundaries.
Citizens are expected to 'grin and bear it,' for the power of the
individual has been subdued.

When someone becomes reliant on someone or something
outside themselves, they give away power. A man should
not be concerned with the restriction of laws or interference
of the police when defending his home, his things, his honor,
or his life. If a family member is maimed or killed due to
negligence or cruelty of a stranger, what is the repercussion?
The stranger may get some jail time, but the man is simply
expected to go on as if nothing happened. There is no means
of returning a life or a limb. There is no justice once an act is
committed. (This example speaks to the situation of a poor
man without influence, obviously. There are different rules for
different people in this classist culture; yet another reason
people must take care of protecting themselves.)

People will respect a person only to the extent that that person
demands respect. They will take advantage of an individual to
whatever extent they are capable. Even ‘simple’ name-calling
that goes unanswered gives bullies an invitation to further
disrespect a passive person. And small incidents build into
larger ones all the time. Insults devalue a person and set the
stage for submissiveness to build. This is still a world of ‘kill
or be killed,’ even though the pretense is that civility and
societal laws prevail.

The ability to defend one’s self may be a secondary skill; the
initial need might be that people must be taught to have greater
self-respect (the more butch cousin of the much-promoted
'self-esteem’ of the last 20 years.) But the end results of being
actively capable of protecting oneself and belongings may
become necessary before a strong sense of self is intact.
So, this is a case of needing to put the cart before the horse.
With the increase of economic instability and social unrest in
this last year, the possibility of being robbed, overlooked, or
hurt increases all the time. Human beings need to adapt a more
proactive response to potential violence or violations besides
thinking they are safe in their little corner of the world. Wishful
thinking won’t cut it when the eviction notice or the home
invader comes.


People need to know that everything from 'unsatisfactory
customer service' to 'illegal wars fought with their tax dollars'
is not something they must begrudgingly accept. Each time
one allows another to step on one's toes, a precedent is set;
the smaller battles are cumulative in effect. When someone is
dismissive or disrespectful, they must be confronted. When a
person in a position of authority takes advantage of you, a line
must be drawn. When another person invades an individual's
space or threatens them, the individual must be willing to speak
up and defend themselves.
The first step in learning to protect oneself is to recognize
the existing problem of passive acceptance. The only difference
between someone who is a victim and someone who is a victor
is willingness. We are trained in schools, jobs, families, and
churches to be submissive; standing up to all manner of threats
is a skill which must be learned. A first step in altering the
existing problem is to seek out classes or books to learn
what is needed. Martial arts, boxing, and other physical
self-defense courses are available most anywhere. There
are also books and self-help classes to become more assertive
and even aggressive in work, personal, and financial relationships.
Sometimes one has to learn to release old relationships, as even
friends and family can be contaminants restraining one from
achieving a better self. Some people are sick enough to prefer
a friend’s failure so they can continue to feel good about themselves,
or keep the status quo. The reach of cutthroat thinking is far indeed.

The need to properly and confidently defend oneself is the
greatest ability a person can have. Unfortunately, it is a lost
art that has to be learned (or at least reawakened.) Without
the ability to defend self, people in all areas of a person’s life
will take advantage of them. No one else can be expected to
defend us adequately or fully, and it is therefore our right and
responsibility that we train ourselves in this area of expertise.
Once one recognizes how fragile life is and how easily it may
be diminished or extinguished, the reality of defending oneself
is seen as imperative. ‘Survival of the fittest’ is still in play, even
in the Land of Plenty.






****************************************************