Where has my childhood gone?

     Adulthood really creeps up on you.  I remember vividly looking forward to being big enough to do things on my own.  Now that Im big enough, Im a little disillusioned with all the things I have to do.  Suddenly, I have responsibilities. Not just take out the trash or youll get yelled at responsibilities, but full on pay your bills or lose the house responsibilities.  Now Im not going to say that there arent some benefits to adulthood.  I can stay up as late as I want but Im really tired at work the next day.  I can eat all the candy I want but its just going to make me sick and force me to spend money on bigger Candy Fat clothes and outrageous dental bills.  So yeah.  Adulthood sucks out loud.

     Childhood is where its at.  You had to obey certain rules but once you escaped the tyrannical eye of MOM (I still believe she had some kind of spy network), you were more free than youll ever be again.  Case in point, cowboy boots and shorts.  When is the last time you saw a full grown adult in cowboy boots and shorts that wasnt getting tipped in singles on a runway at a club called the Man Hole?  Youre a cretin if you wear cowboy boots with shorts at age 35.  at age 8, youre just 8.

     We lose so much when we grow-up.  Whatever happened to GhostMan.  Ghost Man wsa a perfect solution to wiffleball or kickball or any diamond-based activity in which only two or so players were available.  Simplystrike the ball, run the bases and when you have to go back to bat, state ghost man on then the corresponding base.  It was simple, efficient and everyone was well aware of the ghost man by-laws.

     I want Ghost Man now.  I want to call ghost man at work.  I wouldnt mind a ghost man at wifes co-workers wedding.  Im just ready for my ghost man to come through for me again.  How about a ghost man at employee meeting or ghost man at any kids first birthday?

     I suppose we all must grow up and put away childish things.  Plus, as soon as you install ghost man into the adult world, youd find people claiming ghost man on taxes for more dependants.  Im all for bilking our government out of refund money but to use poor ghost man for your seedy purposes?  You disgust me.  Im taking my ;ghost man and going home.

10:14 PM - 4 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Iwas awesome @ 6 part deux

     Now, Ive never been that overly fond of Easter.  Im still not that high on it.  You get a basket of candy, maybe a toy or two.  Standard take around my household was a kite which I liked except for the fact that Easter tends to be the rainiest, chilliest, most miserable time in my little Midwestern climate.  Plus, there was all that running to catch the wind and we all know that running is not tops on the Fat Kid fun list.

     But Easter in my sixth year was different.  I think I might have gotten a yo-yo, of which I have a considerable collection but still cant rock the frickin cradle.  I, no doubt, made myself physically ill on milk chocolate bunnies and those foil covered eggs.  But this year was a little different. I saw it in the garage.  Standing on its pristine kickstand, it shined like a gleaming purebred stallion with a kickstand.  My store bought bike was there.  A brilliant shade of yellow was he, blue seat (saddle not banana), blue handle bar pad, blue gooseneck pad that never seemed to be useful, and blue frame bar pad that saw more action than my daddy parts care to remember.  Ahhhh! Breathtaking.  The bike, I mean, not the memories of getting crotched after miscalculated sandbox jumps.  It was elegant.  It was splendid.  But most of all, It was store bought.

     But, store bought was impressive for about two days until the rich kid down the street showed up with his simulated moto-cross, Evel Knievel bike with the mag wheels and real engine sound handle grips.  Eh?! You cant win em all. 

     But for one day, one brief but glorious moment, I was the king of 4 city blocks (I added a block to my route that very day).  The Fonz had his motorcycle.  The Lone Ranger had Silver.  And I had a yellow and blue, 20 inch piece of fine store bought steel for next 11 years.

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I was awesome at 6

     You often hear people talk about peaking.  Some women reach their sexual peak at 40 while, more than likely, they reached their beauty peak at about 22 when all the guys around her are at their sexual peak.  Then at 40, these women want to be adored as sexual goddesses while their 40 year old men just really want them out of the way of the television.  Some people say they are still waiting for their peak which probably means they missed it somewhere near 25.  There are a lot of peaks in ones life.  My sexual peak was somewhere near 13 and still continues to this day with very few people noticing.  But Id have to say my personal peak was at 6.

     Six was awesome. I was awesome at 6.  I was just a portly, prepubescent with a huge head who didnt really care about nothing.  I had a few friends who enjoyed the occasional kickball contest.  I was picked last on most teams but always was I the coveted Red Rover player.  No one could stop me.  The pure kinetic energy of an 80lb six year old with a head the diameter of a bike tire was just too much for the average elementary school child to withstand with still growing wrist bones. Plus, I was assured that no one would pick my link in the chain.  How do you, at 40 pounds, expect to break the arm lock of a kid who totes around this big of a cranium?  You cant.  I considered going pro.

     Girls didnt like me but I didnt seem to mind all that much.  I mean, I knew what girls were for.  Growing up in my neighborhood, you got an early education in the finer points of misogyny.  But Im 6.  even at that age, I was smart enough to know I was well ahead of go time.

     Six was just so great.  I got my first store bought bike.  For some of you, you might think this is silly.  But for a son of a coal miner and brother of a kid who ran a bike shop out of the shed, store bought bikes were few and far between.  In fact, my next store bought bike (not handed down) was at age 17.  Dont get me wrong.  Theres something to be said for 10-speed bull horn handle bars on a gold spray painted 20inch BMX frame with a sparkling blue banana seat and a fat slick for a back tire.  It was cool. By todays standards, it would be a classic.  Even by 1972 standards, this fine machine would have been the cats something or other. But this was 1981 and I was not cool.  After being beaten up and having my bike thrown in a dumpster only to rescue it and having it bent around the trunk of a tree (believe me, I didnt think it was physically possible either), the blue banana seated, crazy handle barred cruiser was at least something.  Then it was stolen.  I was crushed.  Sure, I didnt appreciate the style or craftsmanship my 16 year old bro put into my pseudo-Schwinn.  But it was my ride. It was my vehicle out of that one-horse driveway and into the open road of roughly three blocks (one block if the street lights were on).  My wheels were gone.  What was a large headed, portly single- digiter to do? 

   The exciting conclusion to this saga will be posted next week cause damn this thing is long.

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Damn You, Lavar

     I remember my childhood fondly though Im not certain why.  I was a fat kid with an amazingly large head, no real talents or skills to speak of except to immolate cartoon voices which garnered me little respect from my peers and absolutely no recognition from the fairer sex.  I was a so-so student with a definite issue with short attention.  I once had to write I will not talk out of turn, 1000 times during recess.  It took me two weeks of recesses.  I was a fat kid, I COULD HAVE USED THOSE RECESSES.  But always, I was looking forward to the future.  I would grow tall and have my own money.  I could buy anything I wanted given that I could afford it, (even as a child, I knew that money didnt grow on trees.  At least thats what I was lead to believe).  Guts on old guys arent nearly as pathetic as on an 8 year old.  And maybe, just maybe, I would grow into this huge skull of mine.

     I blame this unfailing optimism on TVs Levar Burton.  Some might know his a Kunta Kinte of the television mini-series, Roots.  Others may know his work as Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: the Next Generation.  But Im not talking about these roles. In fact, I would say that his portrayal of the amputee slave and visually-impaired starship engineer have gone a long way to easing my bitterness toward Mr. Burton.  But not so fast, Toby.  Mr. Levar Burton had another, much more sinister role on television and in my life.  He was the host of Reading Rainbow. 

     The show was designed to actively recruit children into the world of literacy and recreational reading.  This premise, in and of itself, is an honorable pursuit.  But recall, if you will, the lyrics to the Reading Rainbow theme song.

Butterfly in the sky,

I could go twice as high.

Take a look, Its in a book.

Reading Rainbow.

   Sweet, simple, pleasant for the opening to a publicly funded program devoted to childhood literacy.  BUT we find ourselves at the chorus of our little anthem.

I CAN DO ANYTHING!

There it is, the offending passage.

     As an impressionable young boy, I took this statement to mean that I have the opportunity to become anything my heart desires; to achieve grand acts within my life, to do, quite frankly, anything.

     That is a lie.  The song is simply stating that through the portal of the imagination, in which literacy is the key, one can enter the fantasy realm and live vicariously through the written word.  I could be Tom Sawyer tricking Becky Thatcher into painting a fence.  I could be Scout discovering Boo Radley for the first time.  I could be Johnny Tremain smelting metals or whatever the hell that kid did.  This imagination through literature could allow me to be anything.

     Sadly, its taken me 3 decades to figure out that little metaphor.  Had it not been for the infectious excitement of Mr. Levar Burton and his remarkable devotion to books, maybe I would have taken the time to ponder these lyrics and discover my faux pas.  Maybe I wouldnt have spent my teens and twenties following pipe dreams of grandeur had I known they just wanted me to READ.

     I WANT MY YOUTH BACK, BURTON!

     I could have spent more time studying and striving for a good education and a solid career as a financial analyst.  Instead, I spent all my childhood daydreaming of my adulthood as the president or a firefighter or a B-list celebrity with his own public television show about childrens literature.

     I trusted you, Levar.  But now, you owe me, Burton.  You owe me.

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Monkeys Among Us
Category: Writing and Poetry

    If life has taught us nothing about ourselves, it has taught us this: We Love Monkeys.  Im not certain why, whether it be something on the base level of evolution or its just fun to see them dress in kids clothing, but we love our simian brethren of the trees.  Appreciation for great achievement in the ape world is sometimes short-sighted.  Sure, we give work to the odd chimp for a commercial here and there or a humorous poster adorning cubicles world-wide.  But, what have we really given these monkeys that so graciously make us grin and yet dont use their powerful bestial strength to kill us?

     Where would we be without these fuzzy friends from lands far away?  Our 40^th president would have just been an unknown cowboy movie actor if not for the stalwart co-starring of one fabulous, link-challenged thespian, Bonzo.  Late night television has known the secret for years.  Jack Parr, Steve Allen, Johnny Carson they all knew the magic and majesty of a monkey act.  Who doesnt delight to the sight of chimps on skates?  Not me.    

     The 70s were riddled with apes. We saw Oscar caliber performances by orangutans who, despite having the difficult task of carrying the artistic load for that untalented lump, Clint Eastwood, turned us Any Which Way But Loose.  The small screen gave a delightful look into the super secret spy world with Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp.  Even those of us who are squeamish at the sight of monkeys in three piece suits and moving their unarticulated lips to loosely dubbed audio, still cant help but love the monkeys.  And for those who couldnt get enough of the ape love during regular programming, we all got to bear witness to a gorilla-costumed actor hop about to test the durability of our favorite luggage.  It was all around us Darwins wildest dreams.

     The nations dedication in tribute to our friends in fur did not stop with just a few roles going to a select few opposable-thumbless performers.  Top executives and people-in-the-know, judging from the success of apes as over-the-road truck drivers in such shows as BJ and the Bear and Any Which Way You Can (sure, it was a sequel to an aforementioned film but one could argue that it stands quite well on its own), went as far as to create a teen idol super group that they could film, market and then bilk the poor bastards until they had to continue performing well into their golden years just to make ends meet.  And what, pray tell, was the name of this doomed pop merchandising machine the Monkees (spelled with two Es just to be hip). 

     The Monkees adorned lunch boxes, t-shirts, trading cards, board games, anything that had an open surface for four fresh-faced lads with a sickening sweet studio contrived song in their hearts. But, something was missing. Oh, they had looks and charm. They had ten draw and network support. They had an unbelievably over-the-top gaudy vehicle to take them from one wacky misadventure to the next.  But, what was missing from this equation for monumental success?   No actual monkeys!  The blame for this oversight lies solely on the anti-monkeyist lobby.  The powerful society who decided that apes were becoming too popular did their very best to defame the good name of the chimpanzee.  Led by the charismatic orator and slightly unnerving Charleton Heston, the anti-monkeyist movement made several propaganda films in hopes that the scare tactics of Roddy McDowell would send the country into riots.  But the hearts of the American public were captured in a very Faye Wray-esque manner and no amount of rubbery, stiff-lipped, British accented humanoid chimps were going to change that.

     So, we say welcome monkeys. Come into our homes.  Sure, there still lies some intolerance.  Marcel did not parlay his stint on Friends into the feature film career we all thought he would have.  Though there was some speculation as to the viability of a Marcel spin-off, Hollywood just couldnt see past the slick talking agents of Matt LeBlanc.  But, from time to time, Dunston does check in and Matt LeBlanc, in an obvious move to smooth over the Marcel debacle, will pursue scripts laden with poorly formulated monkey antics on a baseball field.  And so it is that America still loves a monkey or two, even if it has to be a very minimal dose.

     Dont give up though, Ape lovers.  We all know that show business is cynical and completely devoid of originality.  So, be prepared.  The day of the monkey shall return.  And Ill be loving every diapered, poo-flinging moment of it.

9:49 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment