NOvato NO More!! (Part 2)

NO in NOvato

What can you expect when the first syllable in your town’s name is NO? This is one negative town if ever I did see one. Following are my observations and my opinions of this white-bread oven.

San Marin is one bland neighborhood. That architecture I call ‘Nouveau California’ is really sterile and sanitized, just like the manicured lawns. There’s just no funk , no grit here. It’s hot like hell. I would like to know what happened to all the trees. I’ve driven down Novato Boulevard so many times in the past 3 & ½ years and have seen the world’s worst drivers here! Worse than Massachusetts or LA! Novato Boulevard from Diablo/DeLong to Simmons/Wilson is the world’s biggest shit magnet! People constantly blow off red lights as if the right-turn-on-red-light law gave the right of way to the one making the turn on the red light. I have been cut off too many times to count by these jerks who do not understand the part about coming to a full stop first, and making the turn only if there are no other cars coming. I have seen cars in parked in handicapped parking spots with no visible sign of the driver having a disability ( dp license plate or placard.) When I used to take the bus to work in San Rafael, I was almost hit countless times while crossing streets in designated crosswalks, with the ‘walk’ sign by assholes who even blew their horns at me! What part of ‘pedestrian has the right of way’ don’t you understand?! Especially when said ped is in a cross walk and crossing with the light! Some drunken asshole on a Harley actually hit a man and his daughter last week while they were crossing in a crosswalk at an intersection with a stop sign. Speaking of Harley’s, certain Saturday’s there seems to be about 3 bazillion of them passing by on San Marin Drive, the same street where aforementioned Harley riding asshole hit the man and his daughter.

I get the impression that a lot of folks here want to be living in Mill Valley or Tiburon or Ross and just can’t afford it, meaning they had to ‘settle’ for Novato in order to be able to say that they live in Marin. Marinite wannabees can’t afford MV, so they move to San Marin instead. After all, this really is one cut throat, one-upsmanship, snooty, keepin’ up with the Jones’s kind of county, full of snot faced, spoiled rotten teenagers driving around in daddy’s car. These gangsta wannabee teenagers that listen to urban gangsta rap think that it makes them ‘bro’s in da hood’, but the only ‘hood’ these d-bags ever see is the one on daddy’s Benz. If they’re not ‘riche’, nouveau or otherwise, then they’re old school redneck ranchers (and their kin) who can’t stand ‘dem environmeddlers.’ (‘Dem environmeddlers’ are a whole ‘nother post, and I’m sure you can already guess where I’ll be going with that.) It seems as if 90% of the right wing nuts that live in Marin County must live in Novato. And then of course, there’s the Latino population. Outside of a propensity to breed like rabbits (again, another post), I really have no problem with them, at least the ones who are here legally (yup, ‘nother post.)

Every city and town have their individual quirks, and Novato is no exception. The medium sized shopping center where I frequently go to do my grocery shopping is the most fucked up parking lot I have ever driven in. It is just set up so weird, it’s really hard to navigate compared to others of a similar size. The traffic patterns on the streets are such that when leaving by the exit closest to the direction of my home, I have to immediately cross a lane of traffic as soon as I pull out. The main arteries of this city make it difficult at times to get from one part of the town to another. The nearest video rental store that isn’t a Blockbuster (another post), and even that store is about 4 miles away. A dispensary of legal medical cannabis opened up in Novato this year and the city is suing to shut it down. (You guessed it…) There's even a web site called... "Novato Sucks."

I want to get back to driving around here. I have driven Highway 101 frequently in the past several years. I have driven it from LA to as far north as Laytonville, with most of my mileage logged on the stretch in between San Rafael and Santa Rosa. Mostly Marinites I would imagine, the drivers on this stretch are almost as bad as the ones on Novato Boulevard, just faster. Frequent aggressive driving, tailgating, unsafe lane changes are all behaviors witnessed by this driver. At least three times, I have been passed on my right side, the car being driven in the breakdown lane going at least a good 15 mph faster than I was! The first time I was driving home after work and was passed on my right near Olompali State Park. Another time it happened during the morning commute on 101 North just past the dump. And just today, I was passed on my right by a car travelling in the breakdown lane as I was exiting at Rowland Avenue! I don’t find it surprising that at the center of this stretch of 101 is… NOvato.

Do you think I’m going to miss living in NOvato?

NOvato NO More!! (Preface & Part 1)

Preface

In my sidebar intro, I noted that this blog may be a bit of a diary at times. As my time in this town now comes to an end, I wanted to write of what I witnessed and what I experienced in these 6+ years in this hick town I call a white-bread oven. I started typing, but rather than write of what I originally intended, I wrote of personal experiences directly related to living here during this time. I named that post Part 1. Part 2 will follow soon with my observations of the life of others in NOvato.

Part 1

I never wanted to live in this place. An unfortunate set of circumstances led me here. Robin Cohn, owner of City Hall Records had been fucking with my life and my head for well over a year. Less than 1 month after I had started at CHR, probably less than a week, I had decided that this place was definitely not for me. I decided that as soon as I take the two vacations that I had planned for in 2001, I would start looking for a different job. About a month after I returned from my second vacation, we were rocked on 9/11. I had not been paying any attention to the increasingly difficult job market when the bottom completely dropped out on that fateful day. I continued to look for work and apply for jobs but to no avail. When I was informed that another housemate was moving out, a good one at that, and that there would be another rent increase, I decided to move to Sonoma County. It was too expensive to live in Marin any longer. I wanted to quit CHR, but everyone said “Don’t do it, Dave. Don’t quit your job until you have another one.” So I stayed. I put most of everything I owned into storage and rented a bedroom. Petaluma was close enough (barely) to commute to San Rafael, and I would be able to look for work in Sonoma County and then find a place of my own. After 6 months of commuting from Petaluma to San Rafael (a heinous motherfucking commute if ever there was one), and not finding any work there, I decided to move back to Marin, bite the bullet and realize that I was stuck for a while. The job had become barely tolerable since I was no longer the manager of the A/P Department, and Debbye had become an interesting distraction. I had found a great house in Fairfax and housemates and was about a day away from signing a lease when Grace at CHR informed me that I was going to be laid off soon, but she couldn’t tell me when. This was messed up. You don’t tell someone that he’s ‘going to be laid off’. You pull him into the office in the morning, hand him a check, say thank you for your services and that they’re no longer needed. There was no way I could sign a lease knowing that I was about to be laid off. The plans to move into that great house in Fairfax were scuttled, but I still didn’t want to be living in Petaluma without a job and being that far away from Sierra in the East Bay.

I was still employed when I found the only affordable rental I could- a studio apartment in Novato the size of a shoebox. I took it and then was laid off. Sleeping later since I didn’t have to get up for work, I was rudely awoken by the landlord’s kid who sounded as if he was playing basketball on the hardwood floor in the living room directly above me. It’s not my place to be telling anyone how to raise their kid, but sheeze! C’mon! I’m paying a good chunk of your mortgage every month! This was a very confusing time for me. During the period of unemployment after CHR, I paid my car with my credit card, as I was not going to lose my car. Sierra was in the East Bay and it would have taken me hours to get there by bus. My credit card had become my safety net as I watched my credit card balance continue to rise. I pretty much had stopped going to big concerts and local shows and was cutting back on all my expenses. I even rode the bus to work for a long time before I couldn’t deal with busses any more. My social life had become null and void after I left Fairfax. Fortunately my new job despite not being the smoothest accounting department in the world (yet still much better than CHR) was a breath of fresh air compared to that shitty hell of a previous job. Fortunately I had a jazz band to play in every weekend, which was pretty much the extent of my social life.

I was working, I had a car, I was in a band, I had a home, small, yes, but still a home, or at least a roof over my head. Despite all this, Novato meant nothing to me. I didn’t do anything in Novato, I always left this place whenever I did anything except for maybe a run to the grocery store. I lived in that shoebox from November of 2002 to November of 2004. During that time I met Carrie the C-Witch, wishing in hindsight that I never did. There was a fling with Grace that became a platonic relationship. Same thing with Teresa, except there was no ‘fling.’ (This was becoming a recurring theme in my life.) Diana had split from her second husband (thus vindicating me from any cause of our marriage’s demise) and was living in a nasty section of Richmond. I became determined to get Sierra out of there, so much so that I was willing to live with Diana in a housemate situation in Marin. (Diana, Sierra, and Marina would have been the housemates in Fairfax before Cohn at CHR really turned up the heat with his mind fuck games.) Since I had been living in Novato, I gradually became more aware of my surroundings, not to be confused with becoming more comfortable with my surroundings. I was becoming desperate to get Sierra out of Richmond! Since I was still working in Marin (San Rafael), I stayed in Novato as it was the least expensive place within a reasonable commute distance. I found a three bedroom condo in Novato for $1400. I was going to move in with Di, Sierra and Marina, when Diana (who was now also working in San Rafael) said she wanted to move into that condo with Gary (Green) instead. Yes! Sierra was out of Richmond, and I didn’t have to move in with my ex! Sierra wasn’t too happy about leaving Pinole schools, and I know first-hand the devastating effects this can have on a kid at that age, but she adjusted seemingly well, eventually.

So it was. I was working at a better job, Sierra was out of Richmond, and I had a good local platonic friend (at the time, pre-evil.) I also managed to hook up with Tom DiBell and Roadhouse for several shows on their ‘farewell tour’ in 2003 and 2004. lol.

My knee locked up so badly in the summer of 2004 that I had to go to the emergency room to unlock it. Knee surgery followed in October of 2004, a fine time for a Red Sox fan to be home every day watching television (grin.) Despite the appearance of some stability, I was becoming distraught over my mounting debt. I wrestled with the thought of moving back to RI for the better part of a year, if not longer. Despite the Sox stunning the pro sports world by winning the American League Pennant after being down three games to none, to the Yankees no less, and coming back to win four straight games, and then winning the World Series for the first time in 86 years beating St. Louis in four games, I was very confused about many things, including this lengthening list of women who wanted to be friends with me, but ‘just friends.’ After the Sox made history, Carrie started dragging me around to look at rentals. I still had RI on my mind, but was slowly coming to the conclusion that no matter how many times Sierra and I flew cross country to see each other, and no matter that she could come to RI for the whole summer, there was just no way I could live that far apart from her. If Carrie (about to morph into C-Witch) hadn’t found that unbelievably affordable house in Novato, I would have moved to Petaluma, as it was becoming clear that my employer at the time was going to move there from San Rafael in 2005. So I signed a lease with that @\/#+. I’ll not rehash the events of the next 14 months, but suffice it to say, I wish to hell that Diana would have sent Sierra to live with me a year earlier than she did. I would have never moved in with that %!+@# and a world of hurt would have been avoided.

Phil Ward is the Novatian landlord of that house would not evict the lease breaking witch, so I was forced to move yet again in order to find housing for me and Sierra. No matter how much better the situation may become, moving is always a traumatic experience, one that I have experienced far too many times in my 51 trips around the sun. I got lucky yet one more time and found a condo in the San Marin area of Novato that was below market, and owned by a man who played in The Jerry Garcia Band for three years. It was not walking distance for Sierra, so I would drive her to school (in the opposite direction of work) and then go to work. Diana was off in her own drama and was not a whole lot of help, parentally or financially during this time. Sierra had opportunities every week to get into trouble after school, as I never got home before 6 PM. Being a single dad of a precocious teenage daughter with little help from her mom was not easy. Add another woman to that aforementioned list, and a mysterious neurological affliction, and the depression continued. Living with that C-Witch had pushed me to the brink of the abyss. The events of 2006- extremely difficult year at work, that one more woman, the heat wave from hell, living under the specter of bankruptcy declared in 2005 after that no good son of a bush forced my hand with his bankruptcy reform legislation- did nothing but hasten my declining health, a decline that started in the summer of 2006. Since I was working in 2006 and 2007, the temperatures inside of this place didn’t bother me so much. It was difficult getting to sleep some nights, but at least I was out of the house for five days a week. I got to park my car in the garage at work, so that helped dealing with the heat. When it became clear that I would be staying home 7 days a week in 2008, I had to go out and buy a portable air conditioning unit, as the swamp cooler alone was just not cutting it any more.

Even before this neurological quandary began, my thoughts turned again to moving to Petaluma once Sierra graduated from high school. She graduates next week. My plans were to go to RI for three weeks or so, then come back and lay low in Novato until the rainy season returned, as this is a better time of the year for renters to be looking. Even these plans were altered by outside forces. Ozzie needs to move back in here so I have to be out by June 30th. I would much rather be looking for a new place in September or October than May and June, but my hand has been forced. Hopefully, I will be approved for this nice rental unit I found up near the Russian River.

These are the bulk of the events that happened to me personally. In my next post, I will write of what I saw around me in this white-bread oven.

Dear Craigslist Landlord

I would like to take this opportunity to help you rent your home quicker with these suggestions:

1- Put the price, type of rental (apartment, house, condo, duplex, studio, etc.) in the title of your post. The exact address is not necessary in the post title.
2- Put the correct town. If your rental is in Santa Rosa, don’t put Sebastopol to funnel tenants to your location. If I have a specific town I want to move to, I will filter accordingly, and I don’t want to find rentals from towns where I’m not looking. That’s false advertising and I will flag you.
3- Please put your vacation rentals and warehouses in the appropriate categories. Vacation rentals at $299/wk are not ‘housing’. Unless you want someone squatting in your garage, warehouses do not belong in apartments for rent, and I will flag that post as well. Do not put ‘rooms for rent’ or ‘share rentals’ in apartments for rent. You will be flagged.
4- Take a look at other rentals on craigslist similar to yours in your general vicinity and price accordingly. If you have a 2 BR tiny cabin way out in Camp Meeker for rent and have been posting it for 8 weeks at $900/mo and it hasn’t rented yet, you’re asking too much (way too much.) If you have a studio apartment going unrented at $950 a month, it may be because there are several others in the same area going for $775/mo (still too much.)
5- If you’ve been a long term landlord and can’t understand why all of a sudden you have all these vacant units, try reading the headlines. We’re in a depression (thanks to that no good son of a Bush), people are moving back in with their folks, they’re moving in with BF’s & GF’s, they’re taking in housemates by renting out that BR that was an office. They’re sleeping on friend’s sofas ferkrineowtlowd trying to save el moolah to pay that ridiculous rent & deposit you’re asking.
6- Instead of offering a month of free rent, why don’t you just lower the rent? There are plenty of highly qualified renters out there who just can’t afford to spend 55% of their take home pay on rent. Believe me, we are everywhere.
7- Stop charging for credit reports. You can get them free, and I will not pay an unscrupulous landlord $35 or more for something that can be obtained for free, only to find out said landlord has collected credit report fees from scores of potential tenants and only ran an actual report on one or two of the applicants. Call my references first, then we can talk about credit reports.
8- You’re rental isn’t as nice as you think it is. Try this, go to craigslist in your town and find similar rentals and go view them as if you were the tenant.
9- Instead of trying to suck every last penny out of that rental of yours (which isn’t really as nice as you think it is), how about fostering some good will in your community and renting that unit at an affordable rate so the tenant has some money left over to spend in your town?
10- In your post make sure you include the following information:
A- Amount of rent per month, as well as amount of deposit
B- Approximate location if not the exact address. At least the town.
C- What utilities are included, what aren’t
D- Cable TV and internet provider options, is there cell phone access
E- Approximate date of availability
F- What type of unit it is: apartment, house, condo, duplex, studio
G- List amenities and features such as washer/dryer, dishwasher, fireplace, wi-fi, hardwood floors or w2w carpeting, storage, garage, carport, etc.
H- Accurate description of the unit’s size.
11- Be there when you tell a prospective tenant you’ll be there. Call ahead if you’re late (most of us do carry cell phones these days.) I will most likely not be interested in your rental no matter how nice it is if I drive out to Timbuktoo and you’re not there to show me the interior.
12- Give me some time alone to envision myself living there. You don’t buy a car without test driving it, so by the same token, I need to know if I can live in your rental. This usually takes more than 10 or 15 minutes, but I don’t want to tie up your whole day. I may want to take photos to look at later to help with my decision. Please give me a little bit of space to make sure your place is really the one I want. You wouldn’t want an unhappy tenant would you?
13- Let me know about any other peculiarities of your rental or neighborhood. If I say I work the swing or graveyard shift, and you know there are 3 kids next door who raise holy hell every morning at 7 AM and you don’t tell me, I am not going to be very happy.
14- A studio apartment is *NOT* an 1 BR! Stop advertising them as such!
15- Respect your tenant’s privacy. While you may own the building, it is not your home. if you suspect your tenant of any sort of wrongdoing, schedule inspections at least 24 hours in advance. Do not enter the unit if you have not received the tenants permission. I don’t go walking into your home unannounced, so neither shall you pass into mine.
16- Understand what normal wear and tear means. Understand that normal wear and tear comes under cost of doing business (i.e. owning a rental property) and that you do have a responsibility to maintain the property. Expect to see some carpet wear or faded wall paint if you’ve had a tenant there for 6 years. Small nail holes are normal wear and tear. Likewise dust under the frig. Expect to spend some time in the vacant unit before it is 100% ready for the next tenant.
17- You are legally entitled to retain a security or cleaning deposit with the first month’s rent. However, you may not legally request first month’s rent, last month’s rent AND a deposit on top of that. First and last, or first and deposit, but not all three. You are legally required to reimburse deposit less any valid charges for damages (not normal wear and tear) and all interest earned on the full amount of the deposit for the duration of the rental (not the net after any deductions may have been made.)
18- Have a rental agreement ready to be signed by landlord and tenant, whether it is an informal month to month arrangement, or a year long lease. Make sure document covers all terms and situations, and is clear and easy to read.
19- If you enter into a rental agreement with someone who turns out to be a model tenant and stays a very long time, and if the economy starts to dictate otherwise, don’t go jacking up the rent on the tenant! It only promotes ill will towards landlords.
20- Ask your happy tenants if you may use them as a reference. In this market, you can use all the help you can get.
21- Have the tenant’s deposit ready to be reimbursed promptly at the end of the tenancy. More than likely, the tenant will need that money to pay the next landlord’s deposit. Yes I know you legally have 21 days to do this, but if you want to be considered a quality landlord, you will have this immediately ready upon the tenant’s vacancy. Try fostering some good will instead of focusing on that $0.50 of interest you could be earning if you wait until day #21.
22- Lower your expectations, tighten *your* belt. We are, you can, too, so stop being so greedy.
23- STOP YELLING!!! LEARN WHERE THE ‘CAPS LOCK’ KEY IS! Really, it’s annoying and I probably won’t rent from you.

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A VERY POORLY WRITTEN POST:

DUPLEX

Reply to:
Date: 2009-05-27, 11:01AM

lOCATED IN VALLEY FORD 9 MILES WEST OF SEBASTOPOL. PLEASE CALL BEFORE 9AM OR AFTER 7PM PHONE 707876 3349 AND LEAVE A CLEAR MESSAGE IF NO ANSWER. NO PETS

This post does nothing to make me want to inquire about it.


THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A VERY WELL WRITTEN POST

Cottage in community

Reply to:
Date: 2009-05-28,
10:18AM

Available July 15th (possibly sooner) One-bedroom cottage (650 sq. ft.) located in charming Graton 5 minutes north of Sebastopol Private front and back yard with apple and plum trees. Hardwood floors, bathtub/shower, washer & dryer, storage, carport. Cottage shares one-acre property with two families who live together in the larger main house. We are looking for tenants who will appreciate their private space within the context of intentional community. Our beautiful property includes a large
garden, fruit tree orchard, chickens, a playground, a greenhouse, and more! Viewing appointments begin June 15th..

Graton Road at
Sullivan (google map)(yahoo map)

I would be much more likely to respond to this post. (Addresses intentionally removed.)


ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF A VERY POORLY WRITTEN POST:

On Private Estate West Petaluma

Reply to: (see message body)
Date: 2009-05-20, 10:46AM

Small 1 bedroom on private estate in West Petaluma. Utilities included. Call
Jxx 707-XXX-XXXX. Please leave a message I will return your call. Thank you

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF A VERY WELL WRITTEN POST:

Quiet, Charming 2/1, 1100 sf West Sebastopol Granny Unit

Reply to:
Date: 2009-05-28, 12:02PM

Available NOW! Very clean, light and bright, charming 2 bedroom/1 bath on 2
acres in West Sebastopol. Fabulous views, birds chirping, wildlife, fabulous
walking and bicycling out the front door. Utilities included in rent. Perfect
for quiet persons, non-smoker, no pets. Organic gardening possibilities. Located
10 minutes from Sebastopol, 10 minutes from Occidental, 15 minutes from beach.
Move in $3600 ($1200 first month's rent plus $2400 security deposit).Landlord
will need applicants to please furnish personal, work, and landlord references
and a rental application.

Furlong at Bodega (google map) (yahoo map)

Rental Managers- I can help you

Excellent tenant now taking applications from rental property managers. If you have a rental home available, I can help you!

If you meet these qualifications, I will rent your home from you for many years and be the best tenant you ever had.

1- Amount of rent not to exceed $1/sq. ft.

2- No rent increases during the first two years of residency.

3- Rent increases after that will be limited to no more than 5% over a 2 year span, e.g. an $800 rental will remain at that amount for the first 2 years. After the 2nd year, rent may increase no more than $40 over the next two years.

4- Deposit amount no more than 1.5x rent, to be placed in an interest bearing account, interest reported quarterly to tenant.

5- 90 day notice required before lease expires to change terms or revert to month to month.

6- Move in date June 15th to July 1st.

7- References required. Please be able to supply the names and contact info of your last three tenants.

If you are looking for a tenant in this difficult market for your available 1 or 2 BR house in West Sonoma County (Sebastopol, Graton, Forestville, Guerneville, or Occidental) and can meet the qualifications stated, please respond to this post.

James McMurtry "We Can't Make It Here"

James McMurtry sings his incredible war protest song, "We Can't Make It Here" on the Chicago TV show "Corporate Country Sucks".

I saw JM live and this song just blew me away! His father is novelist Larry McMurtry.

ISO West Sonoma Rental

51 yo, single, quiet male ISO 1 BR house, granny, duplex, condo, or bungalow (700+ sq. ft.) in Sebastopol, Graton, Occidental, West Petaluma, Forestville, or Guerneville. I keep a clean home (no pets, tobacco, or illegal drugs in my home), have a guaranteed income, and an excellent rental history. I am looking to move towards the end of June, but for the right rental, I will move sooner. I am looking for a long term rental- 2 or 3 years minimum, possibly much, much longer. I am hoping to find something around $800/month and have deposit money ready now.

Please note: I am not looking for any type of shared rental situation.

Thank you for reading this post.

Kindest Regards,

Dave

A Day at the Park

I got to see my beloved Red Sox for the first time this season. Things as they are, I don't get to nearly as many games a year as I would like to. One time I got a late start and then the local rapid transit broke down for 45 minutes. By the time I got to Oakland Stadium, the Sox were on the short end of a lop-sided score. I was walking along the concourse and was wondering why people were leaving so soon. I wasn't that late.

Well, things were different this time. This was the first game I had ever been to when my favorite Sox pitcher was on the mound. It was a beautiful, sunny day. I got there early with my friend and bandmate Tom. (It was his birthday.) We soaked up the sun while waiting for Nick to show up with our tix.

Nick's New Shirt

Never did I imagine I would be watching history nearly being made that day! Wake just kept serving up goose-egg after goose-egg after goose-egg! I missed Lowell's E, but thought to myself, "Well, he still has a no...STOP! Don't even think it!" Whew! That was a close one! I found myself wondering if he had issued any free passes. Um...nope. "Don't even think about it, Dave!" Said nothing, thought nothing. The 000's kept racking up. Then that hit came! SOAB!

#42 takes a mighty swing!

Well.... Wake was still spinning a gem, and on Jackie Robinson day, too. Unfortunately, when the Sox bats come alive while Wake is pitching, he has to sit, and that is not good for a knuckleballer, thus the H's, BB's, and R's in the final innings. Still a fantastic, memorable game. Let's hope that momentum continues tomorrow.

Wake showed the utmost in class during the post game interview when asked about his performance. Instead of talking about his masterpiece, he immediately shifted the focus onto Robinson before he said anything about the game.

Somehow, we were able to find a few minutes to drill a few shots of the Sawxheads that were in attendance in Section 209 yesterday. Nick, aka CaliGrown, and the Emperor of RSN-CA were there raising awareness for The Jimmy Fund, (as does Rocky Rhodes on his X-C trip in the Rolling Green Monster), as well as a few other Sawxhead friends of Nick's whose names escape me at the moment. Fenway West was in the house on his spring tour (4 games and a Dead show in 4 days), but alas, he was on the other side of the stadium.

CaliGrown408- 2nd from left

Emperor RSN-CA- middle
Red Sox Sonoma- far right

Sunshine, beer $1 dogs, peanuts, friends, and Wake nearly tossing a non-no! What more could a Sox fan ask for?!

What more, you say? Well, we left Oakland heading for San Francisco, when I spotted a commercial truck with an interesting company name. I wondered, "Does A-Rod have a new side business?"

A-Rod diversifies his portfolio?

When I say "Uber-Christians"....

I'm not talking about most Christians, I'm talking about wackos like this:

I mean, we're all trying to get to the same place, right? We're all trying to get to the top of the mountain, that portal to the next realm, whether you believe it's heaven, or your next existence in another life time, reincarnation, or... whatever.

The point is, the woman in the video did more to scare folks away from Christianity than to attract them. No matter what religion, or tenet, or set of beliefs you follow, don't make fun or disparage other's beliefs. (Alright, a little fun, once in a while is OK, but everyone gets their turn at the whipping post. lol.)

This is a huge and deep topic that I will revisit at sometime in the future, but I wanted to briefly explain my reference to "Uber-Christians."

I'll leave with this thought. Christians say if you're not one of them, you're going to hell. Jews say if you're not one of them, you're going to hell. Muslims say if you're not one of them, you're going to hell. Since one cannot be all three, I guess that means we're all going to hell! (That'll be one helluva hand cart!) And I wish I could remember where I heard that.

More on LOST (Yankee abuse inside)

I've been watching the ABC television show LOST since shortly after it started in September of 2004. (I was busy watching a lot of baseball that October if memory serves me correctly.) I researched the Red Sox references in the show and posted my opinion in January.

I found this LOST parody on youtube today, but before you watch it, I must briefly explain something for those who have not been following the show. There has been a set of numbers that keep showing up in different episodes for different reasons. 'Hurley' played these numbers in the lottery and won bazillions of dollars. However, as soon as he won the jackpot, bad, really bad things started happening.

Warning! Serious Yankee abuse ahead!

On Playing Drums & Neurological Disorders

I imagine some may question how one could continue to play drums (a highly athletic endeavor) with a neurological disorder, and not be able to work.

During my leave of absence in 2007, I discovered 'Fibromyalgia', which certainly seemed to fit all the symptoms I had been experiencing, save perhaps the involuntary twitching. Still feeling like 10 pounds of shit stuffed inside a Dixie Cup after 8 weeks of resting and relaxing, I knew something was wrong. I went back to my neurologist at the time, who sent me to UCSF for a 2nd opinion. This doctor was a MS specialist who said this isn't MS, rather it is more 'Parkinsonian.' I went back to my regular neuro who sent me home on disability, and said I would start receiving treatment for Parkinson's. Health insurance issues prevented me from starting that treatment program until this year.

Going to a job is an 8 x 5 x 52 grind that is simply to overwhelming to even consider. I am almost constantly in fatigue and pain, usually requiring 10 hours of sleep per night. Attention to meds, CPAP maintenance, and other health issues (which can include inexplicable nausea and vomiting) chews up more time. Even if I was somehow able to drag my ass to work every day, I would not be able to give 100%, as evidenced by my work review of my last year at UCCR. I was on my way to being fired when I put in my notice. I could work part time, though, but State Disability Insurance prohibits that. I'll wait until those benefits run out before looking for work. (I may volunteer at Peace in Medicine in hopes of perhaps scoring a part time job there next year.)

Now I say I am almost constantly in fatigue and pain. On occasion, I will experience brief periods of time with little or no discomfort. A couple of hours during the day, on a good day. Maybe. If I stay lo-pro, well rested, and not stressed for a week or so, I may hit a stretch of a week or two where I will almost feel normal. Stress, teenage angst and drama, busy schedule of events in a short period of time, a hectic day of chores and fires to put out can all send me back into episodes of 'brain flu' or 'brain fog', chronic pain and fatigue all over again. Forgetting to take some of my meds is a serious reminder that something is most definitely amiss.

If I had been making my living playing drums in an average working, touring band for a living, well those days would be over. (Now if I had my own drum tech, maybe, but now we're moving past dreaming and into fantasizing! lol!)

I can play a 4 hour session and play well. (At least they haven't kicked me out of the band yet.) After such a session, I find myself completely wiped, needing extra rest for a couple of days. I would not be able to play rehearsals and shows on a regular basis, but I am still able to play. So I do. Wish I could do it more often, but that's the hand that was dealt me.

I am not the only drummer out there with Parkinson's or any other handicap, ftm. There is even a web site devoted to drummers with handicaps. As this disease progresses, if this disease progresses, I may turn to hand drums and percussion from the full kit. I will write more to tap into my creative vein. I have other artistic endeavors I wish to pursue, as well.

I say 'if this disease progresses.' I just received a copy of a letter from the UCSF 2nd opinion MS doctor to my original neurologist, (whom I have switched from because she does not accept Medi-Cal health coverage.) In it, she was questioning whether this actually is Parkinson's or not, while not offering a more definitive prognosis.

Well....Ohhh Kaaay. This is (may be?) a good thing? If it's not PD, then what? So then what? I have read that Effexor causes 'Parkinsonism', which presents similar to PD. Will I return to near normal after serious time away from it? I don't know. All I know is that I still feel like shit almost every day. I can get some stough done every day, but 8 hours of grinding for someone else? That just ain't gonna happen.

In any event, I would love to be playing drums every day, rehearsals evey week, and shows every month, but right now, that ain't gonna happen, either. I would trade the crud and the blue handicapped parking card that goes with it in for a normal job and life in a heartbeat!

Busy Year Ahead

I haven't been writing as much as I would have liked to. That is, outside of Fenway West, and even so, I have not been posting as much there, either. Adjusting to life sans the 8 x 5 x 52 grind is not the easiest thing to do. I didn't do a very good job of it last year, but at least I can blame Medi-Cal, Medi-Care, and Social Security issues that I had to deal with for the poor transition. The health insurance and public assistance issues have been mostly resolved, making it feel like I just shed a lead vest.

As much as I want to be writing more about the issues I listed in the sidebar (environment, baseball, overpopulation, hippies, jam bands, politics, neurological disorders, sex, religion, big money, pop culture, etc.), and I do have many thoughts and opinions on these topics, some controversial, I have not been able to harness them into cohesive essays as of yet.

The remainder of 2009 will see me attending to many health issues at UCSF (some already dealt with), getting Sierra graduated from high school in June and then moved in with her mother, (Thank Goddess! I love my daughter, but just like her mother, I can't live with her, they're too much alike! I just hope she leaves here with valuable lessons I've tried to teach her.) I have a 3 week trip to RI coming up this summer. I hope to get a number of objectives accomplished while there. There is my parents 65th anniversary celebration and family reunion for starters, photos of Mt. Hope Bay to be taken, baseball games at Fenway Park and McCoy Stadium to attend, old friends to catch up with, perhaps a Band of Brothers show or two (and in the 'Dave's Dreaming Again Department', perhaps a live guest appearance with them?! Joe, are you reading this? Is this even within the realm of possibility?)

Later this year, I will finally make the move to Sonoma County that I have been trying to make since as early as 1993. When I was married living in the East Bay and working in Marin, my ex was working for a supermarket that had a store in Rohnert Park. I wanted to move to Petaluma then, but marital difficulties dictated otherwise. Lived in Marin for several years, and finally had a brief 6 month stay in Petaluma, but could not find work up there at the time, so I returned to Marin. The company I was working for in 2005 moved from San Rafael to Petaluma. When the lease with housemate from hell expired that year, I was all set to move to Petaluma (finally!) when just shortly before I was to move there, my ex said Sierra has to come live with me. Well, I had been moved just before 8th grade, and we had already moved Sierra just before 7th grade, so I wasn't about to move her again, since I know first hand how difficult moves at that age can be. I got lucky and found a great, affordable rental, but as Sierra's graduation date draws nigh, I find myself scouring craigslist for affordable rentals in Sebastopol and monitoring falling rental rates so I can find another one of these elusive 'below-the-radar' affordable rentals.

OK, I digress. The point is, moving takes up a lot of one's time. I've been frantically trying to sell 'stough' that I do not want to schlep around with me any longer, (I rent, therefore, I move.) Have sold a number of items so far, and still need to get rid of more of that 'stough'; y'know, that 'stough' that you have no idea where it came from or why you still have it. There will be the requisite cleaning and repairing to get my deposit back. Yard sale, packing, moving...... Ugh, just the thought of it all is tiring.

One interesting development has arisen this year, perhaps a second, as well. Our band, Leadfoot Betty, and all band members seem to be very enthusiastic about playing music, playing well, and playing more often. We had a great session last month, let's hope we can follow up with another tomorrow. We had a great acoustic session here last week. Our new lead guitarist, Jimmy Brighton of the band Stackabones, has invited me to be the drummer in that band this summer when they go on tour in support of their forthcoming (4th? 5th?) CD later this year! Well don't I feel special! I never did think of myself as an 'accomplished' drummer, but apparently, others may think so. (Ah, special :-) The current drummer of that band is working with David Grisman and shan't be available for touring this year. Stackabones has also been known to perform as a 2-drummer band. If I haven't said it before, I'll say it now: I love playing in 2-drummer bands! (My favorite bands? Allman Brothers Band, Doobie Brothers, Grateful Dead, Max Creek, Pat Metheny Group, Little Feat, Jimmy Buffett & the Coral Reefer Band- all 2 drummer or multi-percussionist bands.) I need to find out Jimmy's definition of 'tour.' If he's talking about jumping in a bus and driving XC hitting dive bars along the way, no can do. But if we're talking about a tour schedule such as The Mystic one weekend, the HSMF another weekend, maybe The Catalyst another weekend; well, then we'll have a deal there!

Speaking of 2 drummer bands, there is a show that is seriously calling me! I just recently found out that the Doobie Brothers, The Allman Brothers Band, and The Grateful Dead will all be sharing the same stage on the same night at the Gorge Amphitheatre in WA. That would be one helluvan expensive show, but how could I not be there?!!

What's this? Romance?! Do I detect a hint of romance in the air?! It's been a while, so I can't be too sure, but those eternally hopeful and optimistic little bits that are left deep inside me seem to be astir....

That would be one most welcomed 'time consuming diversion'! (I don't want to jinx this, so I'm going to leave it alone until I know for sure just what this is I've been sensing lately. Whatever it is, it sure feels good!)

This year of 2009 looks pretty much booked. Lots to do and looking forward to getting all of that out of the way, and moved into a little affordable place in Sebastopol, playing music, writing, creating, loving, reconnecting, resting, and relaxing; things I have never been able to get nearly enough of over the years.

2010..... that will be the year. THE year.

15 Minutes

Andy Warhol said everyone will get their 15 minutes of fame.

So far, I've been on a nationally 4th ranked athletic team at a major university, and I have won a photography award at a National Park.

I was in the NYE midnight drum parade at a String Cheese Incident show.

I've met Bob Weir, Vince Welnick, and Bill Spooner.

I write for a small Red Sox blog that gets over 100 hits a day.


I played at The Summer of Love 40th Anniversary in Golden Gate Park.

Not a lot, admittedly, but more than some folks.

My next bit of notoriety? I have been laying down percussion tracks on the forthcoming CD by Stackabones, a band which has been around for quite some time, with 4 or 5 CD's out already.

Lead guitarist Jimmy Brighton of that band is also our lead guitarist in Leadfoot Betty, the Dead tribute band that Tom Dibell and I have put together.

I never really thought of myself as any sort of accomplished drummer, ykwim? I just did this for the fun of it, never expecting to see my name on a commercially released CD. Not only will my name appear on the aforementioned CD, I may even be playing with them this summer, as their regular drummer is currently working with David Grisman. Not only that, Stackabones has been known to perform with 2 drummers, a situation I am very familiar and comfortable with. So I won't be rich and famous, but this is far more than I ever expected.

(-: GRIN :-)

So yeah, I'm in a good mood today. Something else very nice happened today, but that'll have to be another post. (grin)

Myspace Musician Bio

I recently, (finally!) set up a myspace page for my music:

http://www.myspace.com/walstib57

That page is primarily for music related posts, photos, and networking.

This is the myspace page for my current project, Leadfoot Betty:

http://www.myspace.com/leadfootbetty


Other places you can find me on the web (besides here):
http://fenwaywest.com/ (Red Sox blog)
http://stoughforsale.blogspot.com/ (My 'Stough' For Sale)
http://people.tribe.net/walstib57 (tribe.net profile)

LOST: "That's why the Red Sox will never win the World Series"

IS JACK A RED SOX FAN?

The ABC hit TV show “LOST” tells the story of the 48 survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 that crashed on a remote South Pacific island. I first discovered the show shortly after it began in 2004. Red Sox fans can be excused from not watching it from episode #1, as the Sox were on a rampage. After a shocking trade of Nomar Garciaparra, playing .500 ball for too long and falling more than 10 games behind those despised Yankees, the Sox had come to life and were bearing down on 1st place. They didn’t win their division, but still made the playoffs. They then proceeded to shock the pro baseball world by winning the pennant after being down three games to none in the playoffs, and about to lose the 4th and final game in the bottom of the 9th inning, when their epic odds defying rally began, a feat no other baseball team had ever done, and against the Yankees no less! There were still 4 games left to be played against St. Louis, but looking back, they were almost a moot point after that spectacular comeback over the Yanks. October 27th, 2004 marked the 1st time in 86 years that the Red Sox had won a World Series, so Sox fans were basically incommunicado until after that date.

After watching too many years of police and law dramas (Hill St. Blues, LA Law, NYPD Blue, and the bazillion incarnations of CSI and Law & Order), I was ready for something different. I had been expecting LOST to be a real life drama about survival (think Tom Hanks in “Castaway”), but by the time I realized it was as much science fiction as it was real life drama, I was hooked. Besides dealing with a horrifically traumatic experience (surviving a plane crash), the survivors must deal with immediate needs such as medical treatment, water, food, and shelter. As the show progresses, they slowly come to realize that help is NOT on the way. Temporary needs turning into permanent needs present dilemmas. These dilemmas are harshened by the fact that there are violent, predatory others already living there, and that there are many inexplicable discoveries such as a centuries old pirate ship and a small plane wreck in the middle of the island, a highly involved and detailed science project, supernatural beings, and a polar bear; all on a tropical island.

Besides being lost in a geographical sense, the characters discover that many of themselves are also lost inside. Backstories are interwoven throughout the tale, illuminating aspects of each character that the audience would not otherwise be aware of. At least one of the survivors seems to have ‘found’ himself on the island from the very onset of their ordeal. These backstories also show how interwoven the lives of the survivors had been, unbeknownst to them.

One of the main characters is Jack Shephard who is a brilliant surgeon with a strong need to fix as many patients as possible. He has flown to Australia to pick up his dead father’s body. Sawyer, another survivor, is a loner con-man who was seeking revenge in Australia, and had the opportunity to share a few moments in a bar with Jack’s father before he died. The following exchange happened in Australia sometime before September 22, 2004, the date of the doomed flight.

Shephard the elder comments that Australia is as close to hell as you can get.

"We're in hell, huh?"

"Don't let the air conditioning fool you, son. You're here too. You are suffering. But don't beat yourself up about it. It's fate. Some people are just supposed to suffer. That's why the Red Sox will never win the damn Series.”

On or about October 22, 2004, less than a week before the Sox actually did win the Series, the following dialogue occurred between Jack and Sawyer:

Jack: That’s why the Sox will never win the Series.
Sawyer: What’s that?
Jack: I said, ‘That’s why the Red Sox will never win the Series.’
Sawyer: What the hell’s that supposed to mean?
Jack: “[It’s] just something my father used to say—[he] went through life knowing that people hated him. Instead of taking responsibility for it, he just put it on fate. Said he was made that way."

Con-man Sawyer does not reveal to Jack that he spoke with his father at the bar back in Australia. He keeps this to himself, waiting for the right time to barter the information for his ever present ulterior motives.

The Red Sox won the World Series as season #1, episode #8 was wrapping up. The writers then worked this into episode #9, which originally aired on February 16, 2005.

From lostpedia:

[S]o the writers [knew] at the time they wrote that episode that the Red Sox had won the World Series, providing some irony to the comments by Christian and by Jack. The Red Sox win in 2004 proved that they were not "destined" to lose, and the team's ability to win over enormous odds resonates with the difficulties facing the castaways on the Island.

After the survivors of the crash discover that there is a colony of people already living on the island with homes, medicine, and some modern conveniences and technology, Jack is held captive by these “Others” as the survivors have taken to calling them. The survivors are scared, confused, ‘lost’, and very wary of all their mysterious surroundings. The “Others” are wary of the survivors, as they do not want to be found by search parties. While being held by the “Others”, Benjamin Linus, leader of the colony, trying to prove to Jack that they indeed do have contact with the rest of the world, tells him that since they have been on the island, George W. Bush had been re-elected, Christopher Reeve passed away, and the Red Sox won the World Series. Jack laughs and says that he almost believed Linus up until he said that the Sox won the Series. Linus says that it’s true and shows him a clip of Keith Foulke tossing the ball to Doug Mientkewicz for the deciding out.

In season #4, a search party eventually lands on the island. In one episode Jack asks the helicopter pilot if the Sox really did win the Series, to which the pilot replies, "Don't even get me started on that, I grew up in the Bronx". Jack mentions that he has not seen a Red Sox game in over 100 days.

The show is not an easy one to follow, especially if you have not been watching it from the beginning. Although the show started airing over 4 years ago, only a couple of months have passed on the island since the crash. Themes of fate and destiny, and faith versus science are a constant. It has a cult-like following with Internet fans sites and discussion groups too numerous to mention. Many of these fans discuss and analyze just about every detail that occurs during the show, seeking any possible relevance in determining the importance of events that occur or which direction the story will take.

One of the most dissected details is the recurring appearance of the following numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. These were the winning lottery numbers chosen by one of the characters, they were important numbers as part of the science project that was discovered on the island, as well other appearances. Interestingly, the Yankees retired numbers include all of the numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. The Boston Red Sox retired numbers are 1, 4, 8, 9, 27, and 42. Furthur investigation reveals that executive producer Carlton Cuse is a Red Sox fan, and executive producer Damon Lindelof is a Yankees fan. Lindelof has described the use of the Red Sox win in LOST as therapeutic. (Therapeutic? He uses his favorite team’s biggest choke ever in his show and he calls that therapeutic? He must be one glutton for punishment!)

So, is Jack a Red Sox fan? I have not been able to find proof positive that he is. He lives in Los Angeles, but I suppose it is possible he went to med school in Boston. Viewers have not learned that much detail of Jack’s past, but judging from his reaction to Linus telling him about the amazing Sox comeback (Sox fans, think about this for a minute…. how would you react if you were in Jack’s shoes?) and his reaction to seeing the Foulke to Mientkewicz final out (Damn! I can’t believe I’m on this island when the Sox finally won it all!), I would think that he is indeed, a Sox fan. He even sought reaffirmation from the helicopter pilot.

Will Jack’s apparent citizenship in Red Sox Nation have any significance in upcoming episodes? Hard to say. As a Sox fan, I would hope so, but I wouldn’t need it to enjoy the show. Season #5 begins airing on January 21st.

My Dead Sox NYE

There's not a whole lot of Sox content in this post, but it was a great night, nonetheless. A good friend (Tom, the Giants fan and band mate) gave me a ticket to see the Ratdog/Phil & Friends with Jackie Greene NYE show last night. We had a good crew together (including 5 of 7 in our band), got in line early, and got some choice (general admission) seats. Dead NYE shows are always marathons, so I made sure I was well rested and well prepped for what turned out to be an epic night.

There were a lot of Sox shirts and hats all over. One of the first (or so I thought) I saw was in Sox blue, but when I saw the front of the shirt, it said Grateful Dead in the same font as Sox unis. 'Good idea for a shirt', I thought

The most noticeable hat of the evening was sitting on the head of a true Dead icon. I don't know if this guy went on tour with the Dead, but at Bay Area (CA) Dead shows before Jerry died, he would don a heavy, full bear suit with flashing lights all over it while carrying a spinning ball also covered with flashing lights and walk all over the venue. These days, he wears just a vest with lights, and as he passed by our section, I noticed he had a Sox hat on! Cool, way cool! (I have see if anyone got a photo of him. Will post if found.)

Jackie Greene came on first at 6 pm and played a great 1 hour set. His Dylan influence is noticeable immediately. Phil & Friends with Jackie Greene came on and played a huge set. Barry Sless also played both sets. The 3rd set of the night was just Phil, Bobby, and John Molo on drums playing a mostly acoustic, but very tasty set. Next up was Ratdog. All bands were firing on all cylinders. The last set started just before midnight and went on past 2 am, featuring almost all of the members of both Bobby and Phil's bands.

Didn't get to sleep last night 'til the morning came around, slept 'til way past noon, and am still feeling quite Dead {grin}

Setlists: http://setlist.com/
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLET4UIb8rE

The show is not up yet, but check here in the future:
http://www.archive.org/details/PhilLeshandFriends
http://www.archive.org/details/Ratdog

(Sugar Mag starts about 2:00)

Tony Soprano and His Psychiatrist

This is so true:




The same thing could be said about some of the posts I have written since I started this blog.

Home Alone (Divorced for the Holidaze)

It's no biggee anymore. I left my family in RI in January of 1985. The year before was probably the last holiday season that was any where near normal for me, except for perhaps 1 or 2 during the early part of my marriage. I left in a cocaine haze, lived in my van for several months, and have spent the rest of my life trying to attain some semblance of a normal life: family, kids, half decent career, some success in some interest, hobby, or sport. There have been several fleeting moments where I thought I might be getting close at some, just never got the cigar. I've also spent more time looking for jobs, homes, housemates, and significant others, and putting out fires than I care to think about, much more than any person should ever have to in one's lifetime.

I was married for 3 years when we split. Sierra had just turned 3 about a month earlier and doesn't really remember us ever being together. We also knew going into that last season that I would be moving out shortly afterwards, we only delayed it for Sierra's sake.

My brother and sister-in-law moved to California about two years later. While we have spent some of the holidays together, most of the time Sierra would spend those days and their eves at her mom's house. I was always welcome to come over, but don't forget that my ex-mother-in-law and ex-sister-in-law are fucking assholes from Hades. We were always civil towards each other, but because of our tumultuous relationships, those days were always fraught with some tension.

So I would kick back at home, and enjoy the extra day of sleeping late. As the years passed on, those extra days of sleeping late became more precious. I savored not having any responsibilities for one more day. I got used to it. I found out this past year just exactly why I needed them.

The original meaning of Christmas has been totally lost on this generation of instant gratification. It is all about who has the biggest light display! If sales are off from the previous year, the holidays are a disaster! Oh financial woe! Buy! Buy! Buy! If you don't, you're not doing your civic duty! Let's get drunk and screw* at the office party! (These days, I'll skip the gettin' drunk part and cut right to the chase.)

Maybe getting laid off 2 days before Sierra's birthday and 2 weeks before Christmas one year had something to do with this indifference? Is it any wonder some don't give an R.A. about 'holidays'?

As mentioned in an earlier post, for years I felt that missed social and employment opportunities fueled my depression, when only recently have I begun to consider that perhaps my depression hindered me from obtaining those goals. I've spent a lot of time alone over the years because of this, and not just at this time of the year. It may sound sad, but like I said, you get used to it, especially if you need it. (Please- no pity, no tears, no wailing or gnashing of teeth. I'm good with it. Really.)

Sierra is at her mom's house this year. It's raining and cold outside tonight, but I'm dry, fed, medicated, and warm (enough.)

Sometimes you just get one raw deal after another, and maybe just once in a while, just maybe, you get a pair.... you get used to it.

*Jimmy Buffett

2012 (A Short Story)

It is September of 2012. The Red Sox have been dominating the AL East since 2004, having won 5 of the last 8 World Series by an astounding margin of 20 games to 6, and setting a new Major League Record for most wins in the regular season in 2010 along the way. Terry Francona has been a brilliant manager and has been receiving all star performances from Pedroia, Youk, Bay, Ellsbury, Papelbon, Beckett, and Dice-K. Even Wakefield is still throwing that screwy knuckleball and doing it well! He's 46 years old, but Hoyt Wilhem and Wilbur Wood both pitched into their late 40's, and Satchel Paige pitched until he was 53, so why not Wake? He still gets 175+ innings per season and 4.20 has been his highest ERA since 2007.

And Lester! Jon Lester! His fairy tale continues as if he's living in some parallel universe. He has been dominating the Junior Circuit like no other lefty since Randy Johnson was in Seattle. He has become the ace of the staff, not an easy thing to do with a staff that includes All-Stars and Cy Young winners Beckett and Dice-K. He's won no less than 18 games in each season since 2009 and lost no more than 9 in that same time span. He's struck out at least 175 batters and has had an ERA no higher than 3.15, a remarkable feat considering that Fenway is a difficult park for southpaws, to say the least. He has 9 shoutouts and 2 no-hitters since 2008, and a Cy Young Award of his own last year. He even made it into the 7th inning with a perfect game going on that was broken up by a cheap infield hit that was questionable to all but the 1st base umpire whose view of the play was somewhat obstructed. Tito racked up yet another early exit that day arguing Lester's case, but to no avail. This has been a Red Sox dynasty even more impressive than their run in the early 20th century when that team won 5 World Series in 15 years before the infamous, but almost now forgotten sale of Ruth to the formerly despised Yankees.

The Yankees on the other hand....

Ah, yes, the Yankees. The once great and proud Yankees had fallen on hard times. After completely missing the playoffs in 2008 for the first time since 1994, Hank Steinbrenner continued to screw up the club so badly into 2009, that their (remaining) fans were calling for his head on a stick! Even Joba Chamberlain, the poster child of the new generation of Yankee's was disgracing the once venerable franchise with his many notable trips to the stripper clubs and DUI's, as well as his continued harassment of Kevin Youkilis which finally earned him a fine and suspension. The Evil Empire had been destroyed by the Rebel Red Sox so badly that Steinbrenner finally said, 'Fuck this shit', sold the team, and went back to his horse ranch much to the delight of Yankee fans in the tri-state area, thus ending the Steinbrenner years in disgrace. The new owners immediately set about to right the ship. They hired a brilliant GM to replace Cashman and immediately made several 'Fuckin' A' trades, as Billy Beane called them (trades that when other GM's hear of, they say, 'Fuckin' A!') Working the off season trading market like the stock market, they loaded up with top draft picks and top prospects for 2011. They cut loose all the old and overpaid stars: Damon, Matsui, Abreu, and Petitte. They cut loose all the over-priced candy that Hank went out and bought after missing the playoffs in 2008, including Manny Ramirez, who missed most of 2010 and 2011 with injuries after Hank washed his feet and then gave him $90 million. The Yankees were still stuck with some of the old guard from the 1995-2000 dynasty, the ones who King George bowed down to and lavished with contracts back in 2007: Old Man Jeter, and Mr. Controversy, A-Rod (Posada and Rivera had finally hung up their spikes in 2011.) One thing was certain about A-Rod, barring injury or unforeseen circumstance; he would hit more than 800 home runs by the time he was done with his career. The Yankees lost 92 games in in 2009, but with the new owners making immediate changes in the way the whole company was run and not just the approach to fielding and managing the team, they fared much better in 2010, winning 80 and losing 82, and continued to improve in 2011, but slowly, winning 82 and losing 80. But 2012 was different. The draft picks and the farm system had finally produced some bona fide major leaguers who were primed for breakout seasons in 2012, comparable to the Papelbon- Youkilis- Pedroia- Ellsbury- Lowrie- Lester breakout years. No one really thought that they were a legitimate challenge to the Sox, but winning 90 games was a real possibility this year.

The Sox had developed a model farm system and had handfuls of major league quality studs in Pawtucket just chomping at the bit to get a taste of the big show. 2012 brought a slew of injuries to the team, but they continued to win, although with not quite as much authority as the year before. The Sox were on a pace to win 95 games this year despite the injuries, but the whole AL East had become the strongest division in the major's. Even Baltimore was a contender. In 2011, all 5 teams finished at .500 or better. The Yankees had been having a superb year for the young team and were only 2 games behind the Sox heading into the final series of the season for both teams. It seemed as if every season the Yanks and the Sox played each other on the last weekend. It wasn't of course, but it just seemed like it. Sox fans were delighted that after looking up at the Yanks for all those painful 86+ years, that the tide had turned and the Sox were enjoying their dynasty. Coming into the final 3 game series of the year, the Yankees were hot, winning 10 of their last 12 and were only 2 games behind the 1st place Sox. A-Rod had finally gotten his shit together and started producing when it mattered. The Sox had been playing well and only needed to win 1 of the final 3 games to clinch the division. With Beckett, Dice-K, and Lester scheduled to pitch the final 3 games at Fenway, it seemed that the Sox had a virtual lock on the division title. Beckett and Dice-K were superb! Unfortunately, the young Yankee pitchers were 1 run better as the Sox lost 1-0 and 2-1. It was the first time in over 200 games that the Sox had been shut out! An eery, unsettling discomfort fell over Red Sox Nation that hadn't been felt since 2004. But not to worry- Jon Lester would be pitching the finale. Lester had been having yet another career year: 24-6, 2.92, 209 K's, 0.98 WHIP, but there was one batter in the whole American League who seemed to have figured him out: A-Rod. While his numbers against Lester weren't outstanding, he did have more success against him than anyone else in the league.

It is now the top of the 9th inning and the Yankees have 2 outs. The Sox are up 4-3, Lester is spinning another gem, but he walks Jeter after an 8 pitch battle, the last one barely an inch off the plate, or so it seemed. Although A-Rod has had some success against Lester this year, he had been baffled by Lester all day this day. Lester had another great game going with a low pitch count, so Tito decided to leave him in, as A-Rod had been having marginal success with Pap this year, as well.

0-1 ->

1-1 (barely) ->

1-2 ->

1-2 (foul) ->

1-2 (foul) ->

1-2 (foul) ->

2-2 ->

2-2 (foul) ->

2-2 (foul) ->

3-2 ->

3-2 (foul) ->

Finally on the 12th pitch of the at-bat, 2 outs, full count, go ahead run at the plate..... SWING!

CRACK!

Oh shit!

Back, back, back, back...

Just like the old days between the Yanks and the Sox!

Preface

I was laying in bed late one night last summer reading "Joe DiMaggio- The Hero's Life", when all of a sudden, I put the book down, picked up my notebook and pen and started writing. I kept on writing and didn't stop until I had filled up about 6 pages. What follows is almost exactly what I wrote that night. Certain events since then have sent me back to the drawing board to tweak it a bit, but otherwise very few changes have been made. This is a story (fantasy, really) that just that flowed out of me with literally no effort at all. This is my first attempt at writing fiction.

Lawyers, Guns, and Money

Yesterday was good, but today sucks. Well, mostly. SSA has been approved, but Medi-Care won't kick in for another 2 years. Went to the temp agency that placed me at UCCR almost 6 years ago. They seemed happy to be able to help me (and I, them) again. Scheduled an appointment with Dr. G. for January 5. Since I received my last SDI check today, and I do not expect any $$$ from SSA until later in the month, I think I will be able to qualify for Medi-Cal for a small window. But Dr. C. doesn't take Medi-Cal, she almost didn't sign the EDD form for supplemental SDI. But she will be working at a clinic that does take Medi-Cal, so I called it. Never heard of her. Went back in to her office. "Oh, she starts later today. Try calling them back tomorrow." Kelly (the barrister) finally returned my call and reaffirmed that Medi-Care does not kick in for 2 more years. (I'll be dead by then if I don't get to see my doctors. I also won't be able to afford my meds, either, probably contributing to my early demise.) I went to SSA to give them a copy of Sierra's birth certificate (I thought I had done that already?) when I discovered that I can appeal the date of disability onset without affecting any of the financial benefits. Now why didn't Kelly know about that? Fucking lawyers. Finally sold the Winnie the Pooh sheets. Not much, but every bit counts. (If only everything I've tried to sell recently sold on the first post for the original asking price, I'd be much better off financially right now.) My BP is skyrocketing again. Sierra called. She forgot her keys again and had to break into the house.

Sigh.

Up, down, up, down, up, down, ad nauseum.

Oh yeah, guns. That GD Son of a Bush in the White House just overturned a ban on carrying concealed firearms in National Parks. Talk about a golden GFY on your way out.

Approved!

I got the letter today! "You are entitled to monthly disability benefits.... We found that you became disabled under our rules...."

WOO HOO!!!!

It's still hasn't completely sunk in yet, as they have one dollar amount on one page and a different amount on another page, no mention of Medi-Care in this letter, but I will be going down to the SSA office tomorrow to get more clarification.

It feels like I just took off a lead vest. Maybe now I can get on with the rest of my life, (whatever that may bring.)

Soon Come Good News?

Last week I walked into the local SSA office (partly because I'm bored stiff) to check on the status of my Medi-Care app. I couldn't see the monitor he was looking at, but he said' "Oh. Good news." Then he turned the conversation in a different direction about where (physically) my application was and started talking ambiguously. He didn't tell me that my app had been approved, but I left with a feeling that my app had been approved, and due to gummint boorockrasee, he was not the proper boorowcrat to inform me of the decision. Just a gut feeling, that's all. I went into a free (almost) clinic (will probably get boiled for the visit anyhow), and got another scrip I can't afford. I had filled out some papers to allow my regular physician to release my records to this clinic. My PCP office called me in regards to one item in their records, and during the course of that phone conversation, I was informed that the good doc actually took time to write a personal letter to SSA saying that this guy is messed up and needs to be accepted into the program! WOOHOO! Thank you Dr. G!!!!!!

So, soon come good news?

Tobacco Sucks, big time

My grandfather died of emphysema when he was 72 yo. Before he died, he used to take my oldest brother around to all the rental properties we used to own and showed him how to do anything with tools. My brother could build a house from scratch, I'm sure. And he learned to smoke tobacco from him, too.

My brother and I used to go to water ski tournaments every weekend in the summer and his 1st wife and I and a few others would train during the week. He moved to TN with his family, I moved to CA. Neither of us are involved in organized water skiing any longer. Moving to a red state corrupted his political compass, as we are now on opposite sides of the political spectrum. But he's still my brother.

I got word last night that he has lung cancer and has about 2 to 4 months to live. I cried for about an hour last night. If you'll excuse me, I need to find a way to get to TN soon. I also have to renew my crusade against tobacco.

Could someone please explain why tobacco is legal and marijuana is not?

Dark Side of the Moonshine

Sometimes a good piece of music is all it takes to lift your spirits! I had heard of these guys performing my favorite work of all time, 'Dark Side of the Moon' by Pink Floyd. I listened to this 3 times and would have a 4th if it hadn't been so late!

Here's Poor Man's Whiskey performing their 'alternative' version:

'Dark Side of the Moonshine.'

Enjoy!

http://www.archive.org/details/pmw2007-05-08.pmw2007-05-08.flac

That Angels Post?

It's coming soon!

My Father is a Yankee Fan

Despite growing up about 50 miles southwest of Fenway Park, my father is a Yankee fan. (Hmmmmm..... maybe that's why we never went to many Sox games!) He was born in 1918 and missed the 1st Sox Dynasty of 1903-1918. By the time he was a young boy playing sandlot ball, it was Yankees this, and Yankees that, and Babe Ruth hitting 60 HR’s! He played 2B for his high school team and hit about .285. He wanted to keep playing, but his father wouldn’t let him play during his senior year. (Oh, was the coach pissed off!) The Great Depression was still a recent memory, and he was needed to work in the family business, thus ending any potential career in baseball. (The broken leg didn’t help, either.)

But this post isn’t about baseball.

My father served in the Army (Ozark 102nd Division) in WWII in France and Germany. He was a Lieutenant, and was promoted to Captain upon his discharge. He’s not a doctor, but because of his degree, he was the adjunct to the Captain in his medical unit. I recall seeing some of the schwag he brought back from Europe when I was young, including a parachute, a Nazi flag, and maybe even his side arm, but I have no idea what happened to any of that. (I do have his baseball bat, though.) Maybe it was the broken leg that kept him from the front lines, but I can only imagine that he must have seen some horrific injuries serving in a medical unit. He never spoke much about his time in the Army when I was younger, never even suggested that I serve, most likely due to what he witnessed while there. (The draft was over before I was 18.)

A couple of years ago, he finally opened up a bit and started to talk a little bit about his time in the military. I told him that he should write all this down. Well, he finally did start writing, and just recently gave me the book for me to blog it to the rest of the family. I have not read it yet.

While I am very left leaning, I never went to any ant-Viet Nam war protests. I never spit upon or disrespected any of the returning soldiers in any way. I never served in the military, but I never was much into socio-economics and politics when I was a teenager. Hell, for all I know, I may not have even been tall enough to qualify. While I may question the administrations and the policies that put our great (but not perfect) country in war, I harbor no resentment nor disrespect towards the men and women who have been sent there, as well as the ones who are in the military, but have not had to endure that hell.

My band mate and best friend served in The Marines in Viet Nam. He came back OK. My ex-father-in-law served in the Coast Guard in Nam and saw his best friends face blow up in front of him. He’s messed up. I even have a Sawxheads ‘friend’ whom I have yet to meet in person (but will soon!) who was in The Marines.

So what is the point of this blog? Respect Veterans. After all that they have been through, they get pitiful health care when they get back here. I see it with my father and my band mate. They fought so that I can write ‘Bush sucks!’ and not have to worry about it. Many of them enlisted before they ever had a clue that they would be sent overseas to fight in misguided war. (I can write that because of them.) Many had absolutely ZERO desire to be there. But they went. Protest the war and bitch at the politicians that send troops there, but respect the men and women who are Veterans, and those who will be Veterans.

Depression sucks (part 2)

There are a lot of topics, hot button topics, that I want to write about. I have words swirling about in my head that need some order. There are words that I have written in years past with pen and paper (remember them?) that need to be input. For now, I have been writing mostly about health issues (and the Red Sox, can't forget them.) The reason this blog exists is because of these gdfn Parkinson's (PD) symptoms that I have been battling for over two years. (Depression is one of the symptoms of PD.) Depression is making it very hard for me to get things done right now. This includes answering calls and e-mails from my family and friends. My Medi-Care application has already been turned down by the SSA (Social Security), so now I have hired a barrister to take the reins and get the appeal filed. How many times have we heard "The waiting is the hardest part." It's so true. I'm depressed, scared, tired, and in pain.

And I wait.

Today I went to a free clinic about the depression and received a prescription for another anti-depressant. I'm so tired of taking all these meds. (Right now my legs feel as if they are on fire, must take more meds.) Once the application is approved, I can go back to see my regular physician and neurologist so I can resume treatments for all these ailments- PD, depression, sleep apnea, RLS, CFS, tinitus, acid reflux.... I'm a wreck, I tell ya!

Once I get through this period of waiting, once I resume treatments, hopefully sooner than that, I will be writing about other topics. And I'll be writing to my family and friends, too.

In the meantime, please don't misunderstand quiet on my part for disinterest, ok? OK!

Yeah, depression sucks, but.....

There ain't nuthin' like a thrilling Red Sox come-from-behind victory like tonight's playoff game against the Tampa Bay Rays to help lift your spirits! WOO HOO! Fuckin A! WOW!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Depression Sucks

I'm so fucking depressed, it's not even funny.
Sounds like something Yogi Berra would say. (He didn’t really say everything he said.)

Depression sucks. Literally, physically. Making it worse, is that it is really hard to explain to the average person what it feels like. The ‘ignorami’ will say things like, “Oh just get over it!” or “Will you get a life already?!” It is also extremely difficult to get to the root of the depression. Even if you come close to finding the cause, it still takes a lot of work, I mean a LOT of work, to make things right, or at least to get headed in the right direction. Even with qualified therapists and proper pharmaceutical meds, there is no guarantee that the depression will be eased. Causes could include chemical imbalances in the brain, injuries to the brain, or a series of circumstances that are devastating to the spirit of the depressed, sometimes called ‘situational depression.’ The ‘anger-turned-inwards’ theory, while debunked by some, certainly makes sense to me. My father is a very quiet, mild mannered man. I would have to delve deep to recall any instance of him losing his temper. Like father, like son.

My depression goes way back. Moving to a new town as I entered 8th grade was definitely the catalyst that sent me into a downward spiral of depression. Because my mother was still teaching at the school I had been enrolled in since 1st grade, it was decided that I would finish middle school there. In 1st grade, there aren’t as many physical differences between the tallest and the shortest, the strongest and the weakest, but by the time 6th, 7th, and 8th grades arrive, the differences are much more pronounced. I remained one of the three shortest boys in my class for the duration of the 8 years. I did not develop social skills, athletic skills, or self defense skills either. I did not have, and still do not have, that ‘gift of gab.’ I am not a salesman type, a smooth talker, a schmoozer. Don’t ask me to play poker, I’ll make you rich. (That is, if I had any money.) I recall my mother describing me as ‘happy-go-lucky’ (whatever that means) when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I don’t know what happened from the time I was 5 or 6 to the time 8th grade came around, but by that time I was ripe for this shit. I started drinking (Boone’s Farm Apple Wine) at age 13, and started smoking pot a year later. I didn’t realize it, but I was trying to escape the depression. But what kid at age 12 or 13 even has a clue that he’s depressed? Or has even knows what ‘depression’ is? It was the thing to do when you’re a teenager (drinking), but obviously I was enjoying it a lot more than my friends. High school sucked big time and drove me into an even deeper abyss. College in Florida was better, but I was still depressed and still didn’t know it. The depression and the accompanying substance abuse derailed blooming success in my savior at the time: my involvement in organized competition water skiing, at both the regional (and almost national) amateur levels, as well as the intercollegiate national level. My involvement in organized skiing kept me busy enough to keep from going off the deep end, but my substance abuse kept me from reaching any sustained level of success.

After my oldest brother moved to Tennessee the year I graduated from college in Florida, I felt even more lost. That’s when I discovered cocaine. The difference this time was that coke made me feel happy! It made the physical aches and pains go away! It woke me up at night when I wanted to stay out later, and the next day when I had to go to work. It helped me talk to girls! I still drank and smoked pot, frequently to excess, but they were taking a back seat to the coke. Well, before ya knew it, I had pissed away about $20k in about a year. (Still had no clue I was depressed.) Ran away from home at age 27 to come to California and ended up living in my van for about 5 months. I didn’t know where to get coke, so I drank. A lot, perhaps 6-12 bottles of beer every night for over 6 months. I met a woman who took a keen interest in me, and watched my drinking disappear. I took one drink of alcohol in a three year stretch after meeting her (but still did not know I was depressed.) Life continued to be a struggle. I’m sure the depression hindered my advancement in career and relationships, but I just kept on plugging along, taking one setback after another. In 1995, my physician at the time was the first one to ever suggest to me that I may be suffering from depression. I saw a therapist once, maybe twice back then, before a series of events took place that year that made me completely forget about my depression. For about a year, anyhow.

For the longest time, I attributed the continual depression to the lack of advancement in employment, social, and economic arenas. It has only been relatively recently that it dawned on me that it might have been the other way around.

So what exactly does depression feel like? I’m sure it’s different for all sufferers, but for me, at its worst, it can be downright painful. There was one day in particular that I recall. It was in October of 2005. I could not get out of bed. Literally. It felt like there was a huge stake driven into my chest pinning me to my bed. While this feeling is not uncommon, this is as bad as it can get. Most of the time I experience this sinking feeling in my chest, as if there was a huge black hole behind my sternum sucking every last bit of energy out of me that it is able, down into some bottomless pit somewhere deep inside. Those are the more physical symptoms. Behavioral symptoms may include actions such as rat-packing, disregard for health and cleanliness issues, procrastination, OC behaviors, fatigue, and lethargy. That’s not to say I’m doing all of those. Despite having a moving sale and selling many belongings on craigslist, I tend to pick up a lot of cheap stuff at the Goodwill and free stuff from craigslist. My house and laundry are fairly clean, but I am having an extremely difficult time getting ‘household administrative’ type tasks done in a timely manner. By ‘household administrative’ tasks, I mean things like filing your income tax form in January instead of April even when you know you’re getting a healthy refund, paying rent and bills on time, filling out forms for Social Security and other state and county services. I sleep 10-11 hours a day, and rarely feel like going out. Even initiating contact, or returning e-mails and phone calls from family and friends is difficult. Right now, I have little desire to do much of anything outside of the home; the Red Sox, writing and taking care of the plants in my patio are about the only things I do care about right now.

I anxiously await my Social Security/Medi-Care application to be approved so that I may resume treatment for Parkinson’s and this gdfn depression.

Depression sucks. Literally. But at least now I know it.

Angels and Assholes

Damn! That felt good to get that out of my system, but this blog isn't all about negativity. That book got me thinking, so I wrote. Soon, I'll be writing about the angels I have known.

Fucking Asshole #1: Carrie Cummings

Fucking Assholes, cont.

1. Carrie Cummings~ This one is really mind-boggling and still fresh in my memory. This one is really painful.

I met Cummings in December of 2002 after she responded to a M ISO F post on craigslist.org (well before that board became overrun with spammers.) She made it clear early on that she wasn’t necessarily looking for a romantic relationship when she responded to my post, so unlike Kathy Waitt, I knew what to expect and what not to expect as far as relationships go. I had hoped that there might be a spark of interest on her part in a romantic relationship, but since I knew in advance not to expect that, I let that notion die a noble death very early in our friendship. Really, I did. I had learned my lesson in previous relationships. I would not let myself ‘fall in love’ or even ‘fall in like’ unless I knew the other was sincerely interested in that kind of relationship. Platonic it was to be, and so it was. No problem. We watched movies, went to local shows and festivals, did favors for each other… all the usual things good friends do for each other, with absolutely no furthur thought given by me to any other type of relationship other than platonic. Really. I loved her like a sister I never had. She was my best friend. This went on for almost 2 years.

In 2004, I was having an employment crisis (see Kathy Parker Brown & Richard Wade.) I was becoming depressed again due to this change in my employment status. A knee injury in August forced surgery in October. After surgery, 10 days of Percocet, and a couple more weeks of Vicodin, my brain was fried. I was in a fog. My libido had all but disappeared. While I was home from work for about 6 weeks, she started hauling me around to various rentals in San Rafael and Novato. I knew my employer would be moving to Petaluma in a year, so I had little or no interest in moving to San Rafael, despite the fact that I had been looking for another job. I had also been agonizing over the possibility of moving back east to RI. My debt had risen to astronomical levels. I paid off my car in 2002 with my credit card when I was unemployed in that heinous job market, as I was not about to lose my transportation to see my daughter 25 miles away at the time (1/2 hour by car, probably 2+ hours by several busses, each way.) Ultimately, I decided to remain in CA for my daughter’s sake. (No matter how many times each of us flew back and forth across the country, no matter how much time she spent in RI in the summer, it just would not be acceptable to miss out on her being that close to me.) I was confused and in a very deep funk in 2004 when she decided she wanted me to be her housemate. I had been living in a tiny studio apartment, so moving back into a normal sized house was not unappealing to me. We looked at several rentals, all unacceptable for one reason or another, until 808 Tamalpais Avenue in Novato came along. This was an amazing house for the amount that was asked for rent. Had this house not come along, the following debacle might not have happened. It was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with plenty of off street parking and storage. On one side of the house were two equal bedrooms and a bathroom in between them. In the middle of the house was a living room with fireplace, dining area, kitchen, and breakfast nook. On the other side of the house was a huge bedroom, another full bathroom, and laundry room. This huge room used to be the garage, but was insulated, paneled, and carpeted. This would be my room, while she would take the two on the other side. I even had a small, private patio off of my bedroom. There was a nice, shaded patio across the back of the house, and a storage shed as well. This place would do. Unfortunately, I did not know that she had to move. She did not make this known to me.

We signed a lease towards the end of November with a move in date of December 1st. It was extremely short notice for me to move, forcing me to pay rent at two locations for almost a month. I called the phone company (when I still had a land line) and told them I was moving, here’s the old address, here’s the new address. That’s what you do when you’re moving, right? Back to work at the end of November and still living in the studio, I come home and just barely reach the ringing phone in time as I was walking in the door. Oh how I wish I had missed that call! It was her calling me and bitching at me for calling Verizon before she did. She couldn’t get her phone installed as early as she wanted because of some snafu with the phone company, hinging upon my calling them first. After a three way conversation with her and Verizon, I blinked first and allowed them to install her phone first. Had I realized that this was just the tip of the iceberg, I would have pulled out still dripping, but since I had no reason to believe that this behavior would continue, I shrugged it off as moving trauma.

We had a verbal OK to start moving stuff in before the 1st of December, so we did. I had hoped for a lease starting December 15th. (Don’t forget, I had just had knee surgery.) Since I did sign a lease with the owner of the house (I was renting from him, with her, not renting from her), I stepped up my plans, got busy, and started moving stuff in earnest on December 1st and finalizing the move during the very 1st weekend of that month. I arrive at the house with a truck full of furniture, plants, and belongings and started moving in. She looked at me funny when I showed up that day, as if to say, “What are you doing here? You said you didn’t want to move until the 15th?” I was too busy to notice, and just kept on moving.

It just got worse from there. She had something to say about everything, I mean every fucking thing I did or owned. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch! JHFC! The mind boggling part is that we weren’t strangers meeting on the craigslist housemate board. She knew me, had been to my place several times, and knew exactly the way I did things and the way I ran my household. She on the other hand had not been living in her own place, but had been renting rooms or housesitting, so I never really did see her place.

The list of complaints registered by her is extensive (seemingly near endless) and has already been well documented and will not be rehashed again in this post. We’re talking real petty shit here. (I probably wrote a good dozen drafts of an e-mail that I sent her after I moved out. Maybe I’ll post the final one later.) By the time the end of December came around, I was already saying to myself, “WTF did I get my ass into this time?!” That soon became, “I don’t believe this is fucking happening!”

I don’t know what happened to her the day we signed the lease, but that day my former best friend ceased to exist and was replaced by some unrecognizable, evil, and unholy C-Witch. She started disappearing for a couple of days at a time which made things just a little bit easier for a short while. Then she started spending more time at home again, resuming the bitching. She left for a week or so around Independence Day. I was about a half c-hair away from kissing my deposit and good rental record away and sending them down the toilet. I was this close () to shoveling everything I owned in that house into a truck on the 4th, stiffing her for the rent, and just disappearing. Unfortunately, I was so gdfn tired and completely drained from this bitch’s complaining that I simply did not have the energy to pull it off. I had already sat down with her back in January, offered her a glass of wine and a smoke from the peace pipe, and tried to talk about all this, but to no avail. (The next day, she actually threw a hissy fit over a dish rack and a drain board! Seriously! A dish rack and a drain board!) There were only 5 months left before the lease was up. I could probably start moving in 4 months if I was lucky. So I decided to bite the bullet and stay for the next couple of months, as she had started to disappear for a couple of days at a time again.

As you will read in an upcoming post, I have been suffering from depression for most of my life. She knew that. I told her. This Dr. Jeckyll/Mr. Hyde transformation completely blind-sided me. Disbelief, pain, depression, horror…. they all sucked the life right out of me. I stood my ground earlier in the lease, but as the year went on, her constant nit-picking, and that screechy, blonde, southern California, bimbo, valley, surfer-dudette sounding “D-A-A-A-V-E” whine whenever she found something else to her disliking just plain wore me out. At one point in October, I called in sick to work as I literally felt as if I had a stake driven through my chest pinning me to the bed. But this story is not through, yet, oh no, no, no, no.

I had been ready to move to Petaluma (where I was working) as early as November, 2005, the last month of the lease, when my daughter’s mother started talking about Sierra coming to move in with me. OK. I had absolutely no problem with my daughter moving in with me, but jeez, I wish my ex had her shit together a little, ykwim? This last minute about face stay in Novato news was like a double edged sword. On one hand I was ecstatic to have Sierra move in with me so she could be exposed to a little more stable and orderly way of life that my ex had not been able to provide, but on the other, it meant staying in Novato. I had already been through a move just before 8th grade, we had already moved Sierra just before she entered 7th grade, so I was not about to put her through the same hell that I went through, so white-bread Novato it would be. (Christ, if only she- my ex- had done this one year earlier! Fuck!!)

Now at just about this same time, the ‘boyfriend’ of the C-Witch started to stay over every night. After a couple of weeks, I finally said something to her about him, and her response was that he was going overseas soon for an extended period of time and had already moved out of his place. Well, one night when she wasn’t around, he revealed to me that they were married. Married? Married?! He wasn’t going anywhere! He had moved in! You fucking cunt! On top of everything else you did to me the past year, now you go and move your husband in without asking me or the landlord, not even telling either of us. Phil Ward, the landlord, should be in the ‘honorable mentions’ for his lack of action in regards to her breaking the lease. She breaks the lease, the landlord doesn’t give a shit, I’ve done nothing wrong, and I’m the one who has to move. Go figure.

Now I have to find a place in Novato that I can afford, but I’m not about to move twice, so I ended up staying 2 more months past the end of the lease until the end of January. Fortunately, I was able to find one of those ‘below-the-radar’ below-market rate rentals, but the damage to our relationship, as well as my psyche was done. Before I left, I made damn sure that my bedroom and bathroom were in the exact same condition as when I moved in. I made sure the kitchen was spotless. I even shampooed the carpeting in the high traffic zone. Just as I made sure I did my job correctly at City Hall Records, I made damn sure that she would know she lost one of the best friends and housemates that anyone could ever ask for. I cleaned up after myself, did chores around the house, and paid all my rent and utilities on time every month!

As testimony to the viciousness of her attacks, one of the last things she did to me was to take a dump in my toilet and leave it there for me to find when I came home from work. We’re talking a huge, nasty, manly floater, here. I asked her who took the dump and left it, and her response in a totally unapologetic tone of voice was, “Oops.” You can have your dump back now.

Carrie Cummings, you shit all over your best friend. You are a fucking asshole and a fucking cunt from hell. (And from what I hear from Novato HS students, you suck as a teacher, taboot!)

Fucking Asshole #2: Robin Cohn of City Hall Records, San Rafael, CA

Fucking Assholes, cont.

2. Robin Cohn (& Grace Cohn)~ Grace was not as nasty as her husband, but she was a micro-manager from hell. Robin Cohn, however, came this close ( ) to making #1 on the list. The dot-com I had been working for went belly up before the stock options vested. Not paying a whole lot of attention to the cooling economy as the job market was still robust, I decided to take a position with City Hall Records (a music distribution company, not government related) rather than Pixar. In hindsight, Pixar would have been the better choice, but it was much, much furthur from home, and located in an urban area as well, just the type of place I was trying to avoid. Again, in hindsight, it would have been better for my romantic/social life, too. Since I had no desire to commute some 30 miles through one of the nastiest commute corridors in the country, and since I had no desire to move closer in, and since I had a job offer that combined my accounting experience and my love of music, I decided on City Hall Records. I even called a friend who knew a well known recording artist who worked there to get his opinion of the place. He should have told me to run as fast as possible away from CHR, but he didn’t. The time off benefits were a little on the low side (another missed clue), but I received an extra 3 week’s vacation time during my job negotiations, which offset the meager time off flag that had gone off. My very first day on the job, Robin Cohn viciously erupted and berated the woman I was to supervise in front of everyone in the office. ‘O-o-o-K-a-y… what did I get myself into here’, I thought. It just got worse from there. Within a few short weeks, RC had made my life such a miserable hell, that I decided to take those two weeks off that summer that I had already planned, and then find another job. Before you knew it, 911 hit and the bottom completely fell out of the job market. I wanted to quit so badly, but everyone said to keep your job and don’t quit until you have another one. This asshole caused me so much stress and misery, that I literally had to go and take a dump nearly once an hour. He instructions were difficult to understand, and even contradictory at times. Vendors with whom I had never spoken with would verbally take me out behind the woodshed! WTF did I ever do to you Mr. Vendor?! After the 2nd week off in August just before 911, they demoted me. Not fired, or laid off. Demoted. He didn’t want to pay any penalties for ending my employment, so he made my life as miserable as possible hoping that I would quit. Sorry, Cohn. Couldn’t do it. I had a kid to raise, ykwim? He finally blinked first. After nearly 18 months at ‘Shitty Hell Records’, I was told that I was going to be laid off sometime in the near future. That tactic didn’t work either. I was finally, mercifully let go, but several weeks later.

The irony of this whole episode is that I had finally come to terms with the fact that I had a shitty job in a shitty job market, and that a lot of people would have gladly traded places with me. I was just a day or two away from signing a lease on a house in Fairfax when I was informed of the impending lay off. Great. Now that I had accepted the job situation, found housemates, and a house…..this.

I believe that my predecessor in accounts payable decided to screw things up as much as possible to get back at Cohn for all the misery he caused her. I had waist deep shit to wade through. Accounts were severely fucked up, I mean big time! Since I had resigned myself to the fact I was stuck there, I made it my mission to get those accounts straightened up as much as possible, which I did. A/P was in much better shape when I left than when I started. Ask Judy.

Fucking Asshole #3: Bill Lynch

Fucking Assholes, cont.

3. Bill Lynch (and the SRA Class of ’75)~ Our family moved from East Providence to Pawtucket, just one town over, as I was entering 8th grade. My parents decided that I would finish middle school at the same school I had been going to since 1st grade. Although this high school was in a different town, there were a couple of guys there I knew from middle school, but they weren’t necessarily guys I knew well. Although I had been living in the new town for almost a year, I did not know anyone in my neighborhood for two reasons. One was that I continued school at my old school for 8th grade. The other reason was that we were one of the very few Catholic families in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. So besides not seeing anyone from the neighborhood in school, neither did I get to know any of them through church related activities. I enter this new school with raw social skills, nearly zero athletic skills, and zero street smarts. I was at the bottom of the pecking order. I got picked on and was both verbally and physically abused. I was held upside down and nearly had my head forced into a toilet, but somehow found the strength to avoid that humiliation. Freshman year was the worst, but all four years sucked. Graduation day was probably one of the saddest days of my life, as evidenced by the look in my eyes in a photo taken of me and my folks that day. (If I ever find it, I’ll scan it and post it here.)

So why Bill Lynch? Lynch-Maciel. He sat right in front of me in freshman year and never missed an opportunity to give me a whack whenever Brother Andrew (another asshole) wasn’t looking. He is the one I remember, the ringleader. I have delightfully forgotten most of the details of the 4 years of abuse, but I haven’t forgotten how Lynch, Ed Dalton, Steve Ormerod, Tony Kaczmarek, Jim Bonin, Robert Sinotte, and several others made me feel then and now. Several years ago, I threw away my yearbooks. Garbage. A waste of four years. I’ve forgotten the names of the others who were part of this crew who terrorized not only me, but Mo Girard, Robert Halliday, and a few other misfits whose names escape me as well. Not everyone in the whole class was an asshole. Disqualified from that status would be Jim Savage, Mike Swiader, Pat Quinn, Tom Pontiatowski, Rick Hill, and Dennis Peloquin, among a couple of others. Like I said, I threw away the yearbooks and have forgotten much from that era.

Lynch, you beat the shit out of me psychologically. I’m sure some minor physical crap was beaten out of me, and while those scars are gone, the psychological ones remain. After four years of eating the shit you and your henchmen force fed me, I was not ready for college or the real world. I suffered injuries from which I have never fully recovered from. As I mentioned at the beginning of these ‘Fucking Asshole’ posts, I don’t dwell upon all the injustices I have been served by the assholes I’ve encountered in my lifetime. I don’t think of you. (Do you think of me?) But I read “The No Asshole Rule”, and lo and behold, when I venture to recall the assholes I’ve known, you come up at #3, even after all these years. All 33 of them.

Fucking Asshole #4: Kathy Waitt

Fucking Assholes, cont.

4. Kathy Waitt~ She could’ve told me she was engaged. She could’ve told me she was seeing someone, but no. She used to drive an hour and a half to come water ski with me after work, but sometimes didn’t even ski, just stayed and hung out in the boat with me. Stayed overnight on occasion, too. I thought we were really getting along that summer. We both were into competition water skiing, liked to drink beer, the Red Sox. Her parents even liked me and I was good friends with her brother. Then one day she just disappeared. Stopped answering my calls, was always away from her desk when I called her at work. I was crazed! I couldn’t understand why any of this was happening. She was the first great love of my life. If she had only said at the start, “Y’know Dave, I’ve been seeing someone, but right now, I’m not sure about it”, or something, anything, to let me know where she was coming from. I took a job north of Boston and moved there to try and find her. When I needed answers the most, I was getting nothing. After about 2 months, she finally agreed to see me, but I was so shaken by her disappearance, I didn’t know what to say when I finally did get to see her. You have to remember, I never did have great social skills with the opposite sex. I never did see her again, except for the New Year’s Eve party. Quite unexpectedly, we were at the same party, when she introduced me to her fiancée. Yeah, her fiancée. A little hint would have been nice 6 months ago. This non-relationship was the door to my cocaine abuse episode.

Fucking Asshole #5: Juan Gratten

Fucking Assholes, cont.

5. Juan Gratten~ This ex-housemate from hell was the first of two notables that I’ve had while doing the housemate thing. He rented a room from me in a 2 bedroom apartment near Fairfax that was more like a house than an apartment. He was a college student majoring in music. He said he practiced piano as much as 6 hours a day. There were no problems that I recall while living in that apartment, outside of a mysterious missing goldfish that was never found. Shortly after he moved in, the new owners of the building served notice that all residents were to move out in 30 days in order for renovations to begin. It was an extremely tight rental market at the time. Since he seemed to be normal, I decided to look for a three bedroom house and a third housemate, as a three bedroom home would be cheaper per bedroom than a two bedroom home. I found a home and another housemate and moved in. The very first day I came home from work to the new home, I discovered a trail of soy sauce on the brand new carpet from the kitchen through the living room to the front door. I don’t know what happened to this guy. He started leaving dirty dishes all over the kitchen. He would leave for school and not turn the stove off. One night I came home about 2 am to find the garage door open. I walked into the garage and into the utility room, but decided to leave just in case there was someone in the house that ought not be there. I started to look for a phone booth to call 911, but figured that if there was someone there, they probably heard me close the garage door and left. Since I had some ganja in the house, I decided not to call the police. Well it turned out that the idiot had come home drunk and high as a kite to get something but had forgotten to bring his keys with him, so he pried open the garage door, turned on all the lights, got what he came for, and left without tending to the minor details of lights and doors. He broke my turntable. He would come home midweek to a totally dark house, as Lisa and I both had jobs to get up early for, slam doors, bang pots and pans, talk loudly with his friends, and wake us both up. The house was a no-tobacco house. His friends smoked the unkind and used my morning vitamin cup as an ashtray. He began to smoke a lot of pot. A *lot*. The list goes on and on and on. It got to the point that Lisa and I told him that he would have to move out at the end of the lease, so he decided to throw a party before he left. He told me he was only inviting 30 to 40 of his best friends. I thought, “Why not invite all your best friends?” It turned out that he had cards printed up with the address on them and was handing them out to total strangers all over campus. Why I allowed him to throw this soiree, I don’t know, but I did, so I felt I needed to stay and be the policeman, as I had a notion that trouble was quite possible. I left for about an hour and came back to find smokers in the house, and strangers making phone calls on the house phone after I specifically told him not to have revelers in the living room area. They found my drum set which I had put behind a curtain. Soon there were well over 50 strangers in the house and yard with more constantly showing up, so I decided to walk into town as I couldn’t deal with this shit any longer. As I was leaving, I saw Lisa’s bedroom light go on. She was out of town for the weekend and he was bringing another woman into her bed! GTFO!!! I kicked them out of the upstairs living room and bedrooms, secured the area as best I could, and walked into town. I stopped at a pay phone and called 911 on my own house. I drank a beer at 19 Broadway and then returned home only to find police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances outside of my home. Apparently I wasn’t the only one to call the cops, as this was their third trip there. The officers saw me walk up the street. I innocently asked what all the commotion was when they told me about the many visits this night. “Three times? Really?” I walked into the house and saw a disaster. There had been a fight in the music studio. At least two of his friends passed out and needed to be taken away by ambulance. The kitchen and back yard looked like war zones. He had been dealing with the peace officers on one side of the house. I had to take a ½ hour walk to cool down as I surely would have killed the bastard that night. How dare he trash my home like that?! I did not see him that night. He made a half assed attempt at cleaning that night and finished the next day. A week or so later, he moved out without cleaning his bedroom, nor did he do any deep cleaning in the kitchen. Lisa and I did not use the kitchen nearly as much as he did over the course of the year. I waited a week for him to come back and clean, but he never showed up. I called a cleaning agency, had them clean the two rooms in question, secured an invoice for the work, and deducted that amount from his deposit. I can’t believe that he had the audacity to complain about it! He never apologized for the misery he caused, the party disaster, or leaving without cleaning.

A couple of years after he moved out, the Pacific Sun free weekly newspaper ran a story about a rehab program in the San Geronimo Valley and specifically mentioned Juan Gratten as one of their success stories. WTF?! JG?! No FN way! He was NOT sober at all, as they referenced the time period he was my housemate. I called the facility and informed them of the con he pulled on them, but I have no idea what happened after the call.

Several years later, he approached me at the Fairfax Festival. The first thing I said was, “Do I know you?” That should have been a huge clue that I had no desire to speak with him. He continued to badger me about holding a grudge that long, so I just walked away. I had done a pretty good job of forgetting about him. I had absolutely no good memories of him, so why would I want to speak with him. He made no apologies then, nor on this day. I forgot about him once, I’ll forget about him again.

Fucking Assholes

We all know at least one, probably several. I recently finished reading "The No Asshole Rule" by Robert Sutton, PhD, Stanford University. In it, he examines the various costs of having assholes as coworkers, or bosses, as well as ways to avoid hiring assholes, and what to do if you find yourself with an asshole coworker or boss. I then started to ponder about the assholes I have known in my lifetime.

I do need to mention that I don’t dwell on these scars from my past, aamof, I rarely think about them. After reading that book, I decided to recall who has caused me the most misery. They need to be recognized for the contributions they have made to my life! Assholes #’s 15 -> 9 are just run-of-the-mill assholes. Pains in my ass. Barnyard & Brennan at #8 is where it starts to get ugly. The top 5 are so heinous they get their own indiviual posts.

Honorable Mentions

15. Fred Shepherd
14. Reza Afshar
13. Anita Mann
12. Mike Carr (Any Mountain Mike Carr, not UCCR Mike Carr!)
11. Jeff ‘Jeff in Marin’ Walters
10. Earl Head
9. Two guys from Weed, CA @ KCNP
8. Kathy Parker Brown & Richard Wade
7. David Barnyard & Kathleen Brennan
6. Dee Bell & Gail Bell

The Top 5

5. Juan Gratten
4. Kathy Waitt
3. Bill Lynch (& SRA class of ’75)
2. Robin Cohn (& Grace Cohn)
1. Carrie Cummings

Honorable Mentions

Fred Shephard~ I found myself unemployed after spending 5 years at Any Mountain. Fred Shephard hired me about 3 months later to work in the accounting department of his computer rental business. He was not an easy man to work for, to say the least. I spent more time in sales than accounting. I split less than 30 days later. I normally like to give at least 2 weeks notice, but 3 & ½ days was all I could manage for this SOB.

Reza Afshar~ He was a snotty, cocky coworker at Any Mountain. AM was a chain of Bay Area ski shops. Afshar didn’t ski, he was a salesman. He wasn’t there because he liked the sport, he was there to sell and make commission. His general demeanor was that of a total pain in the ass, so much so, that someone once scribbled on the bathroom wall, “When you’re done, don’t forget to wipe your Reza.”

Anita Mann~ First of all, yes, that is her real name. She was my ex-grandmother-in-law. She was a mean, old, nasty, coarse, crusty bitch. Probably did need a man most of her life. Her daughter and granddaughter are high up on the list, pushing her down to honorable mention.

Mike Carr~ I worked with him at Any Mountain. He was a buttocks-clenching republican if ever there was one. We and 5 others carpooled together for 8 weeks. He insisted on driving, put Rush Limbaugh on the radio, and drove like a madman across the Golden Gate Bridge (the bridge with no median divider that has had more than its fair share of head on collisions.) We knew it was only temporary, but we did feel sorry for the last guy to get picked up every morning who had to sit up front with him because it was the only seat left.

Jeff ‘Jeff in Marin’ Walters~ This guy is a real buffoon. When I split up with my wife, I looked for a room to rent in Marin close to where I was working at the time. I answered his post for a room for rent and went to meet him and view the room. It was an older house, (the way I like them), door from bedroom to backyard, reasonable rent (relatively speaking.) We started to talk for a bit when he took a phone call. I looked at his CD collection as he was talking on the phone: Dead, Dead, Dead, Dead, CSNY, Bonnie Raitt, Dire Straits… I think I could live here. Big mistake. Not huge, but still big. I don’t watch much TV, but I do like the Winter Olympics, which were being held shortly after I moved in. Later, I injured my shoulder so badly that I was not able to go to work for at least a week, or more. All he could say was, “Sheeze Dave, you sure do watch a lot of TV! You told me you didn’t watch that much TV!”, over and over and over again. Dude! WTF was I supposed to do with my arm in a sling?! He kept asking me what my plans were, over and over and over again. Was I moving? Was I staying? Fuck! I didn’t know! My marriage was just ending and I didn’t have a clue myself! It was like he wanted me to move out. He had this delusion that he would have two hot bi babes move in with him. Nice fantasy, but don’t talk about it every day as if you really expect that to happen. Even his GF at the time got on his case about chasing away a good housemate like me. He made a lot of remarkable statements, zingers would be a good term, that just left me astounded. I’ve forgotten just about all of them, but one does come to mind: He said the US should put gun turrets all along the Mexican border and just waste the illegals as they cross the border. I’m no fan of illegal immigration (I said ‘illegal’ immigration), but this was just a bit much. I finally had enough of this clown and decided to move. I had paid him $800 deposit and was expecting it back right away, as I had paid all my rent and utilities, and had caused no damage whatsoever to the room or house. The only problem was, he needed the deposit money from the person moving in behind me in order to pay me my deposit back! He used the deposit money I paid him to pay the tenant who moved out ahead of me! Asshole.

Earl Head~ He didn’t do anything to me personally. He was just one of the local neighborhood kids when I was growing up. What he did do was pull a fast one on old man Garcia’s widow and conned her out of her (almost waterfront) house. He’s been living there for 25+ years and has just been letting it go to hell. He neglected to pay his property taxes. Subsequently, the town claimed the 2nd lot as payment for back taxes, and sold it to a developer who shoe-horned yet another house into the neighborhood. He littered the property with junk cars, trailers, and boats, which only recently have been towed away by the city. Not things you like to hear about the neighborhood you grew up in.

Two guys from Weed, CA @ KCNP~ I was living in King’s Canyon National Park with my girlfriend at the time. I was seeking peace and quiet. I needed solitude and tranquility. I had recently been through a major cocaine episode, one that did a pretty good job of ruining my life up to that point. This part of KCNP is extremely remote, quite the opposite of Yosemite Valley. These two clowns partied most nights away, underage drinking, yelling, carousing to all hours of the night at the fire pit not far from out cabin, but much farther and out of earshot from the ranger’s cabins. I suppose their supervisors and the rangers deserve mention for not doing anything about them, but it’s these two bozos who I remember.

Kathy Parker Brown & Richard Wade~ After 5 jobs in 5 years, I found myself working at UCCR and enjoying it. KPB was my 3rd manager in less than 3 years at UCCR. I had just gotten caught up with everything (there was a *lot* of catching up to do) when she and RW conspired to throw the accounting department back into ruins again. I had finally gotten to a point where I felt comfortable with the work flow and the methods I employed to achieve that goal when all at the same time, she changed the accounting software we used, outsourced accounts payable, and cut my hours in accounting in half. The remaining hours were then spent in the reservations department (think sales, and I hate sales!) My initial reaction was positive. I thought it would be good to obtain a working knowledge of a different department. Then I realized that in the three years I had been there, RW had chased at least three women out of that department, cussing him out as they left. Donelle was the first. I thought she was a whiny space cadet, but only came to realize later that it was RW that was the problem. Jessica and Carrie came and went in much the same manner. He was finally permanently relieved of his position a year later after upper management finally got the nuts to can him. He was difficult to work for, to say the least, and cost me a good chunk of my normal, expected raise due to a lousy performance report. I eventually was put back in the accounting department full time after the outsourcing company made such a mess of things. KPB left the company, too.

David Barnyard & Kathleen Brennan~ I worked as office manager of the Corte Madera Any Mountain store for three years before moving into the accounting department in 1995. That year, AM opened three new stores, bought a bargain basement POS (point-of-sale, or piece-of-shit) cash register system, moved corporate headquarters 60 miles, and remodeled 3 existing stores all within a 6 month time frame, and then it didn’t snow! That sent AM into a financial tailspin that it eventually would not survive. I thrived in my new position! I absolutely loved not having to deal with surly customers (Some say they’re always right. I say they’re not, but they are always customers.) Unfortunately, revolving doors were installed in the controller’s office as well as the accounting department manager’s office. They came and they went. Coming and going, and going and coming, and always too soon. (Madeleine Kahn, RIP, in ‘Blazing Saddles’) I got along with all of them except for the last two, who did stick around. I could get along with almost everyone in this world (notable exceptions are on this list), but not these two. I felt as if I had been ignored for the first 18 months I was in that department, left to learn on my own, create my own systems, and do my job the way I figured out on my own. I did do my job, and I did it well, as my first 4 reviews would testify to. In a company of over 200 full time employees, I was one of the top 10 longest tenured employees, and I had been there less than 5 years! These two bozos came in and started to go over my work with a fine toothed comb and nit-picked everything I did. I was at the point of planning my departure from the company at the end of the winter. I wanted to get a few more ski days in, a few more vacation hours racked up, and as soon as that month with the three paychecks came around, I was out of there. They beat me to the quick and laid me off 2 fucking weeks before Christmas! Two days before my daughter’s birthday! How fucking cold was that?! The upside was that I was able to collect unemployment and work under the table for a few weeks to make ends meet. Life moved on, but I could’ve stayed there for several more years had it been anyone else. All the good accountants took one look at the books and high-tailed it out of there before the other shoe dropped, but not these two. They even lured a woman from her long term job to be yet another supervisor over me. Turns out they canned her, too. And neither DB nor KB were there for very much longer. Go figure.

Dee Bell & Gail Bell~ My ex-sister-in-law (Dee) was such a pain in the ass! She lived with us for a while. She does not know any limits or boundaries. She took and took and took and never gave. Total hell. After several years of being divorced from her sister, she was again living with my ex and my daughter, openly smoking pot, drinking heavily, using other drugs, and making life miserable for all in that house. My daughter now lives with me, but I can see all too much of that bitch in my daughter. My ex-mother-in-law from hell (Gail) is not unlike her daughter, Dee, just worse. Mean, nasty, unhappy, and took it out on everyone around her. Both were major causes, (among others), to the demise of my marriage.

THE TOP 5 WILL GET THEIR VERY OWN POSTS~ I started writing this essay in early September of 2008. It didn’t take long at all to recap the ‘honorable mentions.’ It is taking me much longer to finish the top 5. These 5 assholes have done more to shape the events of my life than all the previously mentioned assholes put together. Sometimes I think they’ve had more influence over my life than even my parents!

Women With Curves

I discovered my older brother's stash of Playboy mags when I was about 11 yo. I was probably spoiled rotten by what I saw in those photos. Fast forward about 8 or 9 years. I remember hanging out with a bunch of guys back in college many, many years ago drinking beers and watching girls go by. They called one attractive woman 'fat', and I immediately retorted, 'She's not fat!' But I still had a rather narrow appreciation women with more generous curves. My ex-wife has a gorgeous ass! Big & round! But I still desired a slimmer figure. That early introduction to naked women still had its grip on me. It wasn't until after I was divorced that I discovered a tiny little clothing optional beach in between San Francisco and Stinson Beach. I started going there regularly, not to ogle like so many gawkers that sit on the rocks above like nasty vultures, but just to get naked myself, decompress, and meditate in my own way. Of course, I did enjoy seeing all the wonderful naked bodies enjoying themselves in such a carefree manner, but that was not the reason I was there. This beach has a very healing quality about it, it is one of those 'special' places. The folks that do go there regularly seem to be more friendly and accepting. Because of this, I believe that many women of curvature would go there for that reason- unbiased acceptance regardless of shape, colour, size, gender, orientation. After several years of relaxing there, I noticed that I had indeed become more accepting of women who did not look like Lara Flynn Boyle, Calista Flogheart, Nicole Ritchie, ad nauseum. I much prefer voluptuous and curvy to tabloid culture stock.

Some years ago, I was seeing a woman who was not very physically attractive. We did however, get along famously in our dispositions, sports, music, and sex preferences. I had delved deep into my feelings for her and was totally willing to pay no attention to her physical appearance. She was a partier, to say the least. She often bragged about how much she drank the previous night and how she made it through work with a ripping hangover. After being married to an alcoholic, I was not about to go down that road again. I called her on it, she didn't change those habits, so we drifted apart. Just to reiterate, it was NOT her physical appearance or size that ended it for me.

One thing that does turn me off though, is a huge, hanging beer gut. I don't mind 10 or 20 or even 30 extra pounds. I don't mind 'love handles', hell I like them! But if it's all beer gut, I'm sorry, but that just doesn't work for me.