Parents. What would move them to say, “I’ll give you a reason to cry!” when a kid is already crying? Apparently, he already has a reason. A damn good one, too, if you would just stop and solicit his opinion. What if the kid was to say to his father, “I’ll give you a reason to pay taxes!”? See what I mean? Parents have all the power but make no sense. A lot like the Bush administration. Or a Porsche that you just drive around town.
When I was a kid, it was popular for parents to hit their kids. In today’s terms this would be called abuse. Back then there was difference between striking your child and abuse. Maybe the difference is in the frequency and severity. I was never beaten, just smacked. Not in the face, but on the ass. But between my mother and father there were belts, brushes, a full-sized plastic guitar and a strange looking farm tool passed down through the family. Don’t get me wrong though. They were fair. They would say, “I know your brother did it, but to be fair, we’re going to hit both of you.” My first inclination was to say, “You created both of us. That makes you equally culpable.” Then we’d both get hit again. Read the rest of this entry »
I once had hamsters as pets. I’m still not sure why. They were cute and relatively friendly. Also, they didn’t bark. They rode the little wheel like crazy, but that’s okay, because my friend Steve, who is not a hamster, but a darn good lawyer, rides a stationary bicycle. But this is about all he has in common with the creature we know as the hamster. Or is it?
As pirates go, Flynn wasn’t good. He was an okay actor as a pirate, don’t get me wrong, but his pirate was not really a bad guy, so there was this whole misrepresentation thing going on. Very confusing. I was a little kid and I didn’t know if a pirate was good or bad. All I knew was that they ruled the seas. I didn’t know what that meant either.Pirates are colorful and exciting in the movies. They wear baggie shirts and pants that end at the calves with boots that have big buckles. I wonder if these are swash buckles. Also, the bandanas add a nice touch. Five hundred years later and now everybody’s wearing those shmatahs on their heads. Same thing regarding the ear rings. Hollywood insiders of the day hinted that Errol Flynn may also have had a nipple ring, not because of his pirate roles, but because he was a nasty freak.
My dad was a very hard worker back then, so I guess he deserved his rest just one day a week, but for some reason my brother and I thought it was our duty to keep him conscious in the same way you don’t want to let a person with a concussion fall asleep. We didn’t do anything constructive; we fought, bit one another, batted softballs through windows, climbed up trees and made interesting shapes out of mud.