Category: Life

Lessons I’ve learned through the school of hard knocks. This is my catch-all, miscellaneous category if you will, where I address topics that don’t quite fit into the other categories.

Sticking it to the man


Can’t stop sticking it to the man!

I love sticking it to the man. I mean, who doesn’t? It’s an American pastime. We all stick it the man whenever possible. 

So who is the man? Well, if you want me to tell who the man is, I will be honest and say I don’t know who the man is. You asked the wrong person. But I have my theories. I can’t describe the man to you because he has never formally introduced himself to me. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that the man is behind all those rules and regulations that we must obey every day. And to top it all off, the man may be either male or female. Yes, the man is a cross dresser. If you look around, you will observe that the man is all around us. In fact, sometimes I feel as if the man has gotten inside of me. To counter the man, I have formulated my own rules and regulations for sticking it to the man. How do I stick it to The Man? Let me count the ways! 

First, always call the man, the man. In lowercase letters. You must diss him in every way possible and that begins by not dignifying the man by using uppercase letters to write the man! Don’t even put the man in quotes! My only lament is that our only options for writing are only uppercase and lowercase fonts. I’ve been working on new font to write the man. I call it the undercase font. Or, perhaps I should call it the negativecase font. But I’m afraid such a font would be invisible to my readers, and no one would know to whom I was sticking it. Another interesting possibility would be the man, with the strike-through font. Nah, that just not good enough for sticking it to the man! I think I’ll just stick to sticking it to the man.

The second thing, never tell the man that you are sticking it the man. Sometimes, the man doesn’t even know that he’s the man! If he denies that he’s the man, well, then that certainly means he’s the man. You just can’t take any chances. Just assume anyone who wants to order you around is the man.

So I stick it to the man whenever possible. When I cross the street, I don’t walk completely within the crosswalk lines, obviously put there by the man. I always get at least three footsteps outside the crosswalk zone, even if it’s only measurable in millimeters. You know how they taught you in driver’s ed that all forward motion must cease. Well, I never come to a complete stop at stop signs. I only appear to stop, but my car keeps creeping forward. I get free smells at all restaurants–not just Jimmy John’s. I bite the hand that feeds me, especially if it belongs to the man. I would like to tell you more ways that I stick it to the man, but I don’t want the man to know all my strategies and ploys. That’s my way of sticking it to the man!

How do you stick it to the man?

DDR

T-shirts


UIC student t-shirt

T-shirts with messages always attract my attention, especially if they have an intriguing message. So how does a clothing item that was originally an undergarment come to demand so much attention? Well, I’ll tell you. No one seems to know. If you wear a T-shirt with text, I will read it. If the message is partially obscured by a sweater or jacket, I will ask you to let me read it. If for some reason your message truly intrigues me, I will ask you to let me take a picture of your t-shirt. I hate it when I ask the wearer of a particularly mysterious message to explain the significance of the message and they don’t know. How can they not know? Well, usually the T-shirt was a gift. Well, I wouldn’t wear a t-shirt to disseminate a message that I didn’t understand. Yet, many people do. I just don’t get it!

DDR

2012


The Spanish perspective of the Mayan calendar

Who actually believes the world will end in 2012? Certainly not the Mayans. Sure, their calendar ends on December 21, 2012. But did they predict the end of the world? Of course, not! The Mayans did not perceive time as linear, as we do, but rather as circular. Their calendar just happens to end on December 21, 2012. Uh oh, that’s 12-21-12. But let’s not read too much into the numerology, right? Because the Maya calendar is way different from ours. Perhaps, two-thousand years ago some Mayan astronomer calculating the calendar decided that he had done enough work and decided to leave some work for future generations of Mayan astronomers. So, who didn’t continue with the calendar? Probably some slacker Maya. And now many people are panicking.

A souvenir from Guatemala

Now that I think of it, our calendar always ends on December 31, but no one ever panics. Why? Because we know it starts all over again. However, we do celebrate the end of the old year and greet the coming of the new year. At least we hope so. In case the world ends at midnight on December 31, we certainly won’t feel too much pain. This tradition started as a fear of the world ending at the end of the calendar year.

But we love to scare ourselves. So, some people subscribe to every “it’s the end of the world theory” that comes along. Remember Y2K? Here, again, there was a lack of calculation and foresight on behalf of computer engineers. Many people feared the end of the world would come on December 31, 1999. Why? Because all the computers in the world calculated the date only until 12-31-99. At midnight of 12-31-99, the calendar “advances” to the next mathematically logical date, 01-01-00! But the computers wouldn’t know that 00 was supposed to mean the year 2000. They would instead “advance” backwards in time to 1900, which is the only logical mathematical step. Hence, the Y2K scare! Many people genuinely believed that at that precise moment there would be power outages, planes falling out of the sky, and nuclear power plants melting down. So many people bought their Y2K water bottles, emergency Y2K food rations to help them survive the imminent disaster, Y2K generators, and Y2K gasoline cans filled with beaucoup gasoline in preparation for the end of the world. But it was all for naught!

And what happened when the year 2000 began? Absolutely nothing! A lot of scared, confused, and drunk people realized they had panicked for nothing. But everyone loved the adrenaline rush of being scared. Why do we love to scare ourselves? Why do we enjoy that sudden rush of adrenalin? Sigmund Freud said we all have this death drive (todestrieb) that makes us want to die. Well, not all of us really want to die, but we don’t mind experiencing death precariously through fictional characters in movies or experiences that simulate near death. We achieve this profound sense of accomplishment at having survived this harrowing pseudo-near-death experience.

That’s why roller coasters are so popular. People ride them, scream their heads off during the whole ride, stagger off the platform, and then run to get back in line. That’s why we like scary movies like Paranormal Activity. Everyone–myself included–went to see it because the buzz was that this was a really scary movie. This was a low budget, no expensive special effects type of movie, like The Blair Witch Project. You could just feel the suspense in the air. The scary part was when the bedroom door mysteriously moved about an inch. All the females in the theater screamed and all the males jumped when they heard all the females screaming. But everyone enjoyed being scared throughout the movie.

And speaking of 2012, I also saw the movie 2012. Since everyone is worrying about the impending end of the world in 2012, why not capitalize on this fear. Give the people what they want. The movie theater was packed when I went to see it with my sons. We were forced to sit in the front row because we got there a few minutes before the movie started, which was great for watching all these buildings fall on top of us. Other than the allusion to the end of the Mayan calendar, this movie had absolutely nothing to do with the Mayas! We witnessed one cataclysmic disaster after the other until the protagonists finally survived in the end. Ironically, the premise of the movie hinges on the total destruction of Planet Earth, but will we see a movie where everyone dies in the end? All the destruction considered, there was a huge adrenalin rush for everyone as they nearly died, followed by a happy ending. We all brushed off the imaginary dust of ourselves and slowly headed back to the real world to anxiously await the real 2012!

DDR

Will you be my friend?


En un lugar de México, de cuyo nombre no puedo acordarme

I don’t really need any new friends. So don’t get your hopes up.

I was just reminiscing. I’m surprised at how many times I heard “Will you be my friend?” when I was little. Making friends was so much easier and uncomplicated back then. Religion or politics didn’t complicate things back then. If you offered me candy, we would become lifelong friends. Until the candy was gone.

But where have all those prospective friends gone now that I’m older and wiser? Not that I’m looking for new friends, but I sure do miss getting free candy. So, if you’re considering me as a friend, keep in mind that I may not be a very good friend. Be forewarned that I’m very defensive when meeting strangers. And I don’t take compliments well. They’ll make me suspicious of your motives. If you’re nice to me, you must want something in return. If you’re smoker, I will not go outside with you while you smoke. I don’t smoke because I never made friends with smokers. I made friends with candy eaters. And don’t talk to me about your problems. I’ll just pretend to listen to you and occasionally say, “Really!” and “You’re kidding, right?” just to let you think that I’m really concerned about your insignificant life. When we say good-bye, I’ll insist that we must get together soon. And I will be persistent because the more persistent I am, the less likely you will be to call me.

Will you be my friend?

DDR

Hollywood Marine


2509 W. Marquette Road

I don’t know why, but I always wanted to join the Marines since I was little. The Marines, the few, the proud. They were real men. As boys, my friends and I always talked about how tough the Marines were with great admiration. So, I eventually enlisted at age 22, much older than the normal age of eighteen or nineteen. My father was afraid that I would get killed in action, even though there was no war at the time. My mother was so proud of me! But I’m not sure why since she was so disappointed when I left the seminary and didn’t become a priest. Perhaps she would have been happy if I had become a chaplain in the Marines.

U.S. involvement in Viet Nam ended in 1975 and I joined the Marines in 1978. That means that I didn’t see any combat action. I trained at MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot) in San Diego for boot camp. That made me a Hollywood Marine. After boot camp, I went to 29 Palms, California, where I studied electronics for a year and a half for my MOS. By the time I was trained as a telephone and switchboard technician, I had already served more than half of my three-year enlistment. However, I could not serve any time overseas because I only had a little more than a year left of my enlistment. No one was sent overseas unless they had at least two years of service left.

I was transferred to Camp Pendleton near Oceanside, California, where I became a real Hollywood Marine. I spent a lot of time in Hollywood watching movies! The people who watched movies in Hollywood really loved movies! I didn’t see any combat except in the movies. The closest I ever got to the battlefield was watching Apocalypse Now! at the Pacific Cine Dome in Hollywood.

Another memorable movie that I watched in Hollywood, and I still vividly remember, was Monty Python’s The Life of Brian at Mann’s Chinese Theater. My brother Danny and I saw it together because he was also in the Marines and stationed at the Tustin Marine Air Base. Luckily, we went early in the afternoon to buy tickets. The next two shows were sold out and we couldn’t get tickets until an evening showing. We had time to see another movie and eat dinner before the Monty Python movie. Everyone loved the movie! I had never experienced such great enjoyment of a comedy movie before, or since. There was a lengthy line to enter the theater, so I told my brother we should sit near the front. In 1979, before the era of surround sound, the only speakers were located behind the silver screen. And it’s a good thing we sat close to the front because the non-stop laughter continuously drowned out the movie soundtrack!

If I didn’t go to Hollywood to watch movies, I would go to Newport Beach, California, to watch movies. There was a movie revival house that always showed classic movies. I used to like reading books and then going to see the movies based on them. I remember reading Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five and then seeing the movie versions of those novels. Unfortunately, the Marines didn’t award me any medals for my deployment to the movie theaters. Nor did I get any medals for my reconnaissance missions to Disneyland! Oh, the long lines I had to endure

Long after I completed my enlistment, I received an application in the mail to join a group called the Veterans of Foreign Wars. All I had to do was check the box of the war that was ongoing while I was serving in any of the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. As luck would have it, there were no wars while I was in the Marines. I’m not complaining, in fact, I feel extremely fortunate, but I couldn’t join the VFW! Viet Nam ended in 1975, long before I enlisted. The next eligible conflict was the Beirut barracks bombing in 1983, which occurred two years after I was honorably discharged. Of course, I don’t deserve to belong to the VFW. I was a Hollywood Marine!

DDR