So... I haven't posted in a while. No one reads my blog anyway.

It's amazing the difference a couple months make. I mean... just read the crap I spewed in my older blogs. It went from insightful and well thought out blogs to some poor sap crying poor me in to his computer. Well... a few months ago I said enough of that garbage. I changed my way of thinking. I participated in what will probably go down as the greatest election of my life time. Wow! I've voted three times in my life and I will tell you right now that I was never more sure of my decision when I pushed that red button as I was this time around. I voted for Bush in 2000... sorry about that. I did it because my father would have. I voted for Kerry in 2004 not because I like Kerry that much. I had just had enough of Bush. 2008, however, my heart was full and my mind was clear. I knew what this country needed even if it didn't. I have suffered the slings and arrows of some of my family and I've been subjected to the eye rolls of people who found out that I voted for Obama. Once, in Arkansas where my grand parents live, I heard an old man as my cousin who he voted for. When my cousin asked him why he needed to know, the old man's response was, "Because if you voted for Obama, you have to leave."

Well... let me just say that there are no thank yous necessary.

Maybe I drank the kool-aid, but, I've never felt more proud as I did many times throughout the campaign. There was the moment at the convention when Hillary Clinton moved to have Obama nominated unanimously out of acclimation, the moment when Pennsylvania was called for Obama and we all knew that it was going to be an early night, the victory speech in Chicago, and then yesterday, as he uttered, "...so help me, God."

Yeah... I feel good. Hail to the Chief, indeed.

So now what, you bunch of know-it-alls?

No really. I'd like to know what you people have to say. I know what you said. You said "go to school" and "get off your ass." Well... I listened. I heard at least a thousand "follow your dreams." I listened. It's great to have a support system; A network of friends and family to get behind you and give you a pat on the back when you need it. However, that pat on the back means shit ifthe whole thing crumbles at the first sign of adversity. Where are you now?

I went in to the broadcasting school and did their little tour. I wasn't sold on this thing. It seemed to me that it was just a big sales pitch. I have always been of the school that real careers in broadcasting and journalism come from talent that one is born with as opposed to skills that are taught. Therefore, I wasn't buying what they were selling. However, I wasn't exactly getting anywhere without it either. So what? I get a call offering me a scholarship that was implied as being a full-paid ride. Well... not so fast my friend. The scholarship offered was $2,000 towards the $12,000 tuition. A sales gimmick that I should be smart enough to stay away from. Not only that but I was in there last Tuesday after accepting an invitation to "the last studio tour before the winter semester begins." I went tonight and there was a tour going on. Another classic sales gimmick. I have seen it a thousand times with my father being a car salesman. You tell the mark how great something is and then you tell them that time is running out to buy. If that isn't enough, you tell them that you are willing to take $2,000 off the top. Why? Because we like you so much... you seem like a good guy and we want to help you out. I know how it works but I was too stupid to figure it out right away. So I was going to bite. Hook, line, and sinker. Hell... I would have gone after the pole, tackle box, and boat too.

I went in tonight and filled out tons of paper work and wasted another Tuesday evening in that place. I gave my driver's license and $50 for an application fee. Yeah... I know I whould have run away from the app fee but they told me ow much promise I had. They told me how good I was. I forked it over. The hot little Asian chick took my application and left the room. She came back a few minutes later telling me that my application for a federal student loan came back denied. However, it would be approved with a co-signer. Now... I am willing to buy into their dog and pony show but I am not willing to drag someone else along with me. So I left in my charcoal trousers, white golf shirt, and black sport coat. I got in my shitty car and drove to my shitty house where I will sleep in my shitty bed and go back to my shitty job tomorrow.

You see... I am not looking for fame and fortune. I just want to be comfortable. I want to be able to support myself and still have something to sock away. I want to have a life that I am comfortable sharing with someone else. I want a life where I know I can have a family and that they will be provided for. That's what this was all about. In sports broadcasting I would ejoy what I do for a living. Someone told me once that if you can manage a way to get paid for doing something that you love, you will never work another day in your life. I don't want to spend the rest of my life living paycheck to paycheck doing something I hate. I don't want to be 50 and wondering what the hell I am going to do if my car breaks down or if the plumbing backs up. I don't want to be my father who lived in his sister's house rent free, bills free and still not having enough money to take in a ball game every once in a while. That is no way to live. Yet here I am. I pay minimal rent. I have no bills aside from my car and cell phone. Still my bank account is in overdraft.

Where did I go wrong? I was born the third child in a poor family. I went to low rated schools in a hick town where the majority of high school graduates still live within a 10 mile radius. The ones that I have heard about getting out and having a great life are girls who married the right guy. I hear it all of the time. Had I not flipped out when my father died during my junior year, I could have been something. Had I not flipped out and decided not to finish my junior year, I could have been something. Had I just somehow avoided a breakdown after the death of the only breadwinner and parental support in my house, I could have been something. Here's the thing. Where were they then? My mother likes to tell the story of how I skipped school all the time and how I didn't do my homework. She laughs as she tells this story but where was she then? Could I have been something? Maybe... but who was paying for the college? I applied for financial aid once when I was 18. I was told that my step-father made too much money. Too bad he wasn't willing to pay for college. He made so much money that I fed and clothed myself since I was 12 years old. Other family members would give me birthday money and Christmas money and I would make it last all year. These were the people that were supposed to put me through school. Hell... they didn't even welcome me into their home after the death of my father. My mother brought me a bag of frozen baby-back ribs in case I was hungry. Thanks mom.

Here is how it is going to be. I WILL make something of myself and when I do, I will personally tell all of those who have always managed to disappear from my life when I have needed them the most to go fuck themselves. My mother is now divorced from my step-father after she came home one day to an empty house and a note that read, "I want a divorce." She now works 12-13 hours a day for pennies just to keep her head above water. She tells everyone that she is doing me a favor letting me live in her house. Truth is... without my rent money, she would not have her new car and new appliances. Without my rent money, the tax man would come and take her house. She asked me to move here when I let her know I was coming home from Vegas. She needed help and I gave it to her. If she thinks she will join in my success, she is wrong and I will let her know why. Same goes for a lot of other people. I'll do this on my own and I will reap the rewards on my own. Now it's time to email every program director within 500 miles.

Numb

In here it is cold
I dare you to try
The soul feels old
Waiting to die
Wanting to love
Unable to feel
Wanting it all
Too scared to steal
Eyes wide open
Not wanting to know
My entire fault
Reap what you sow

---AJK 9/24/2008

What exactly should I write about?

A friend recently asked me when she can expect to see more of my own writing as opposed to copied and pasted lyrics and words written by someone else. I told her that I wasn’t really sure that I had much to write about. I get up and go to work Monday through Friday. I spend eight hours assisting unethical worker’s compensation doctors fund their once a month vacations and silver Porsche convertibles by convincing insurance companies to pay for treatment that is not needed while keeping able bodied people from making a paycheck to feed their families. When it’s time to leave, I drive home and have dinner. I watch some TV and then go to bed to do it all over again. Exciting, isn’t it?
Mind you, I am not complaining. I wanted an office job and I have one. I am even in the running for a promotion. It’s just not something I really want to share with the world. When people ask me what I do for a living I brush them aside by saying, “Mindless corporate stuff.” It’s just too time-consuming and too boring to share my daily routine of logging in, checking my new referrals, and trying to explain why a teacher needs to see a psychiatrist after students spit in her drink. Post traumatic stress disorder, she claims. I say, Buck up and get the fuck over it, cry baby. Life sucks, get a helmet.
Now, there are the weekends. Friday nights find me at the hockey rink doing my best to stop pucks while trying to hide the fact that my lower back feels like it is made of silly putty. I do good looking the part with my Turco gold pads. I move the right ways. I just don’t always do it quick enough. Afterwards, we go out for a couple of drinks and dinner and then home. Saturdays can be a toss-up. Usually I head to the racetrack to watch some cars make left turns with my old buddy, Stefan. I do this while trying my best to get him to get his shit together and join my hockey team. Otherwise, I call around to see who is going where and what is happening. If nothing else, I’ll cook myself dinner and relax on the couch with the pup and a movie. This too is all too exciting to write about.
You see, I do not have much of a life. My friends are either married with kids or might as well be as they are dating women with kids. That means their weekends are either at home with the kids or out together. I’ve gone along on these things. It’s not fun. Their friends are couples and I end up being the only single one there. Then a cute girl comes up and I think this might be a good chance to meet someone just before her husband/boyfriend shows up too. So… anyone really want to hear about that?
I am not unhappy at all. I mean, yeah I get lonely and, although I love my dog, I would like to have someone to spend some time with. It’s not as simple as just going out and meeting someone. I want to meet someone who will blow my hair back and I don’t feel I should waste my time on someone who doesn’t. Trouble is, when they blow my hair back, I rarely blow theirs back at all. Funny how that works. But does anyone really want to hear about this? I shouldn’t even be writing it.

Sorry Signs on Cash Machines

Oh, my heart is a thoroughbred
I can't sleep in my bed
Everything is burning up inside me
I need something i can feel
Cigarettes and a driving wheel and
Oh, my god, when you cross your legs beside me
I know true love don't love like anybody else
I know your heart don't beat like anybody else
When it all comes down to kerosene
And sorry signs on cash machines
And it don't look like anything you've dreamed of
I won't let you give it up
With sorry sighs and forced bad luck
Come on baby, you know what we're made of
I know true love don't love like anybody else
I know your heart don't beat like anybody else
And all these burning battlefields are now behind us
Life has brought us here together to remind us
That love will rise above it all and just keep growing
Life keeps flowing, and every moment starts right here with us
I know true love don't love like anybody else
I know your heart don't beat like anybody else

-- Mason Jennings

Girl

Girl

Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay?
She's the kind of girl
you want so much it make you sorry
Still you don't regret a single day
Ah, girl, Girl, Girl

When I think of all the times
I tried to hard to leave her
She will turn to me and start to cry
And she promises the earth to me
and I believe her
After all this time I don't know why
Ah, girl, girl, girl

She's the kind of girl who puts you down
When friends are there
You feel a fool
When you say she's looking good
She acts as if it's understood
she's cool, ooh, oo, oo, oo
Girl, girl, girl

Was she told when she was young
that pain would lead to pleasure
Did she understand it when they said
That a man must break his back
to earn his day of leisure?
Will she still believe it when he's dead
Ah, girl, girl, girl
Girl
-----------------------------------

sigh . . .

Back in the Day

I hate roller hockey. I hate it with a passion. I still go when Stefan calls and tells me that he is heading out to the rink, however. I still lug my heavy gear to the cramped benches to strap on my ice hockey goalie equipment only to risk ripping something on the less than slick surface. Why? Because back in the day…

It’s that little phrase that causes a lot of us to do things that we would rather not do. It makes us do things that are only fun for nostalgic purposes. Back in the day we used to go to that bar. It was smoky, dark, loud, and the bartender had a severely short pour. Still, though, they never checked our IDs and, since we were eighteen, that was a good thing. Now, being of age, we are welcomed into the finest bars and clubs in the city. We can go to that place downtown where everyone knows us and we only pay for half of our strong drinks. Sometimes, though, we go back that bar and have a damn good time listening to the same songs on the same jukebox that we did ten years ago. Why? Because back in the day…

Thompson Elementary School was where it all really started. Don’t get me wrong. We were playing hockey long before. Most of us begged our parents for gear as soon as we watched Mike Modano and the Dallas Stars, back in 1993, play the first NHL game in Dallas. It was a win versus Detroit, by the way. We did not know good gear from bad gear or a hockey skate from a figure skate. Ice was too expensive so we adapted our play to the streets. We wore generic inline skates with bright blue plastic straps. You know the kind made for recreational skating as opposed to hockey. We wielded solid wood sticks with screwed on plastic blades that we got a Wal-Mart and smacked around tennis balls. However, Thompson is where we learned that everything we were doing was all wrong.

Our first day at Thompson, we witnessed real inline hockey skates and the difference between Mylec and CCM. We noticed the difference between Wal-Mart and The Hockey Shop. It wasn’t long before I traded in my flat bladed plastic goalie stick for a Curtis Curve and the paper-thin leg pads for some old Coopers. I painted a skull on my mask. Stefan, in his new skates, tore up and down the rink like the wind. He developed a slapshot that was not only accurate but hard and fast too. We named it “Boomer”. We turned ourselves in to a couple of good hockey players out there.

Sunday nights were the magic nights out there. Stefan and I would go almost every day after school and we would stay until the lights went off regardless if it was freezing cold or a hundred degrees. Normally we would be there with a handful of old guys, kids our age, or young kids. On Sunday night, however, that place was jumping. Benches would be so crowded that players would have to stand until a spot opened up for them. They played ten-minute shifts. Goalies would switch out every other shift change. At one point there were so many goalies that some would get frustrated enough to remove their gear and skate as a defenseman. Talent ranged from barely skating to highlight reel moves and we had a blast. Sunday night was our league in a sense. Monday through Saturday was our practice. The leagues were still a couple years away.

Well, we grew up. It sucks, doesn’t it? Growing up. It was a blast though, back in the day. We played in various leagues on the same team and against each other. We met some characters. One a goalie who had to take smoke breaks. Another guy who swore he played juniors up in Canada yet barely kept up with us beginners. There was Dallas who wore extensions in his hair but had a wicked wrist-shot. When the Stars lost in the playoffs we played until I split Stefan’s lip with a puck. He had to get eight stitches. When the Stars won the cup Stefan and I were in D.C. When they tried to defend it we watched Jason Arnott spoil it from a booth at Sports City in Mesquite. Over the year we went our separate ways. Stefan got married and had kids. I moved from Dallas to NYC to Vegas and back again. We still play hockey though our bodies and bones are older and sore, but we love the game. That’s why, when he says that he is headed to the roller hockey rink, I go.

Last night we skated around shooting the puck and talking about “back in the day”. Memories came forward like the time we were all suspended for an entire season for brawling. One of our players took a baseball style swing at the other teams goalie, which started a fight. Both teams cleared the benches and a brawl ensued. I recall the 1-0 shutout win that determined first place where, with second left in the game, I snagged a well placed shot with a desperation wave of my glove hand. That caused problems too when an opposing player slashed at my hand trying to jar the puck loose. He was quickly and forcibly placed on his backside behind the net. Last night we broke two of those plastic roller hockey pucks. I guarantee that none of us had a shot that hard “back in the day”.

Gene Simmons Kitty

N everbodi sayz she lukin gud
N tha ladi noes it undrstud
Strutter.