FINDING A DESTINY THROUGH MAKING NEW HABITS

This … is going to be a little different.  Some of what I am going to journal is going to be personal, i.e., diary-type stuff that I am struggling with.  Not that my personal life is anywhere near where it was when I started my journey from living with the Mookie’s, but my current relationship is in a state where, “things have changed”.  Those changes involved lines that have been crossed, therefore the “No Country for Old Men”-inspired reference to, “If the rule you used brought you to this…”.  The echo reverberates strongly, and it has really shaken up my new pattern of thinking, making it difficult for me to remain on track, all the while with some lingering old thought patterns slinking around and leaving contrary residue in my brain as well as my mind.

Another reason that this is more like a real diary kind of journal entry… I must be an “evolved person”.  I mean, when did anyone know when they “grew up”, become a mature, or just a changed person?  While for most people who have evolved accordingly, the moments of growth often only reveal themselves upon reflection.  But it has not been that way for me, primarily because the acceptance of my nature and contradictions to social function has been a hallmark of my character.  I have never enjoyed celebrations of any kind, because I never understood the motivation of a bunch of people coming by for my birthday or because my sister had a ballet recital.  If there were ever a time for the wider world beyond family to show its interest in me, when I was an amateur boxer, that was the moment.  But as I reflect upon those days and times, my path had then crossed with enough people to have dispelled what was an acceptable belief, but in hindsight looks to be a pattern of self-sabotage, to have gotten over that mess.  Yet, even as I think about the thinking that drove me to accept and internalize those thoughts to where they would become a part of my personal dogma, I still smile and am grateful for my path.  Like Don Henley says about life “All She Wants To Do Is Dance”, by replying to his characterization of an ‘80s political creature being thrown out of Central America:

Don’t come ‘round here Yankee

But if I ever do…

I’ll bring more money, ‘cause

All she wants to do is dance..! (...and make romance..!)

Back to my becoming aware of my own personal evolution.  Prior to fairly recently, the past few years, I never gave credit to being a part of what others consider a part of what makes their lives “good” or “worthwhile”.  For me, this is a welcome, albeit somewhat disturbing, result.  For many, many years, ever since my Father made me take ownership of a cell phone for my safety, I barely paid notice to when it rang because of the infrequent calls from “people of meaning” and not robo-calls or a bill collector.  Whenever I would get to wherever I was going and was off my bike, I would look to see some unfamiliar number and area code, usually indicating that it was some sort of telemarketer or debt collection agency, harassing me about a bill.  Now, it can be a potential boxer, or someone whom I need to speak with returning a call… or anyone, an actual person, who needs to speak with ME.  While I still am not able to define what it is that I am doing, whatever it is that I AM doing, I must be doing it and doin’ it well!

I am going to have to make changes to my personal narrative.  I am going to have to change not only what I project, but what I THINK I am projecting.  Additionally, what plays on the screens of the theater of my mind has to change.  It is coming at me in such a rush that I think that my brain would rather deal with my relationship issues because it is more familiar to me than being a respected and well-considered person in the community.  

In fact, I believe that is EXACTLY what is happening.  Even as I set out to talk and discuss about a subject that is familiar and easy to think about, I can’t actually focus and take the topic under any serious consideration.  When I do, thoughts about building a Rock Steady program and getting it to grow and not only be fruitful for me and my partners, but giving back to the people and community around me… it kind of makes it difficult to recognize who I am!  How about that for a “journal entry”... not being able to recognize oneself, not because of some “life fail” but because of a life coming to fruition, a truth, its truth?  When I consider things, no matter how “intently” that I may believe I am thinking about something, it comes back to where I am NOW.  Right now, I am a business owner, director and head trainer of a potentially growing franchise and head coach and partner of a growing franchise, whose reward of being able to “wake up and answer the telephone” often is a sign of the growth that I have experienced as a person.  That I am doing so with a “malfunction in the circuitry”, only adds to how profound my experience has been in Omaha.  

Uh… as to the “diary part” of this entry..?  Well, I am still “the man we all know and love”.  I had two rules, two situations that would only ever resolve in me leaving Kitty, without reservation.  One, was that if I was not responding to something that demanded my immediate action, she was to get that attention, “shake my brain into action”, by any means necessary. Around two years ago, we were late on a mortgage payment.  She felt that the settlement from her bankruptcy (prior to our meeting) protected her from foreclosure.  Whether it does or not, missing the house payment does reflect poorly on her refinancing chances.  So, the cost of getting the refinance started, some $500, was lost. 

No matter the consequence of the refinance, that she did not follow one of the the edicts that I tied my participation in the relationship to, was nearly unforgivable.  The slight break in the darkness of that break-up, was that I still need to be held accountable, whether on my own or in a relationship.  But being one of the two things that I have as a deal-breaker made it the source of much reflection.  Then, came THIS.

From the very beginning, something about Ralston, a little town between La Vista and Omaha, seemed a little “off”.  Not only off in the sense that it would give me the “creeps” when I would come home from work at night, but it gave me a feeling that was similar to riding my bike through Hazel Park and Roseville as a child, and why it was such a dare for me to do so when I would go out to Sterling Heights to the Lakeside Mall.  But unlike those reference points, I had no real confirmation that would led me to feel that way, especially (not going to unwrap all the thoughts around the subject) why it was Ralston and not some other part of the Omaha Metro area.  Then, I finally asked about what was giving me the creeps about the place, and it was independently confirmed.  So I spoke with Kitty as far as what she knew about the town… and the answer she gave the wrong one.  With that, I became a haunted person.

____________________________________________________________________________

You get it, right?

“If the rule you followed brought you brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”

Succinct and clear.  If anything, that it comes from a stoic of a psychopath only gives more depth to its ideal.  Though I was not creative enough to put words to it, it was something that I had espoused from the beginning of my journaling.

From the unhappiness of women with men, the inability of men to woo women, a lot of my observations were steeped in the sageness of Anton Chigurh.  Or Flavor Flav.  After all, he too, speaks of accepting responsibility for who you are, as well as the consequence of your actions,  without looking to anyone other than yourself for the solutions (who woulda thunk it… Flavor Flav… modern stoic..!) to what bothers you… and as hard as it is to believe, thoughts are the problems and not what is perceived as the problem.

TONIGHT I WANNA START FROM BEFORE THE BEGINNING

AND IF WE ARE FRIENDS THEN WE ARE FAR FROM FOOLS

                 

The comment to my PMS about single Moms and all that mess where my reader decided to “dump” me has been on my mind lately.  Not that it wounded me or anything but unlike my broadside, which was JUST THAT, a broadly scattershot spraying of what little I know about being a single Mother and struggling with a society that works against you, DID intimate things about me without directly charging me with anything.  It is that fundamental breakdown where communications end up becoming charged instead of constructive is part of why there is so much animosity between men and women when it comes to relationships.

I will understand if anyone reads this and still thinks that I am hung over the loss of my reader.  Admittedly, it stings because I rarely let myself be open to people, IRL or across the internet.  I am a decent enough human being and what I did on my Face Book page recently was an example of what I mean.  A friend from the Motor went to bat for a friend of theirs whom I had no connection to.  But because I know my friend IRL, and felt that if they were pushing for their boy, that it was enough for me.  I went ahead and pimped the post on my page as well as donated to the cause.  It was only $10 and he has a long road ahead, but it was a small example of my altruism.  No, I am not going to volunteer to save the dolphins or protest about the hole in the ozone layer BUT if someone that I say that I care about makes a request that I can fill, then hey, I am there!  And one of my other Face Book friends helped out (like the boss he is) as well, and that speaks volumes about him!!  The thing is, it was an example where if I count you in my circle and there is something I can do for you, I will do what I am going to do.  Period.

I will not let you down if you need me to be there.  Just call me.  But I am not a mind reader and I am not sympathetic to whatever “high school” was like for you.  Your problems are your problems, just like my problems are my problems.  And tonight, I am going to speak as frankly as I dare about one (or three, depending how you count them) of mine.

AND IF YOU DID NOT KNOW ME THEN, THEN YOU CAN NEVER KNOW ME NOW

You have people on both sides of the sexual divide making a claim to one of the things that offended me (yes, that is what it did… not surprising, after all, I OFFENDED someone else and I reaped what I sowed), that somehow there is a nobility to being a single Mother that I could not possibly understand, not to mention my position as one of the factors that add to single Mom’s and their struggles.  Eh, I know, I know, and I never claimed ANY different, not now and not ever.  Back in the early days of this journal I would remark how my time with Mookie Dee was my “penance” of sorts, as I am SURE that I have quite a few people in my past who has felt with the near orbit emotions that I had to face while we were a “couple”.  So that was that with that, and no one can ever make me feel untoward about any of my opinions, as I have paid my dues.  And that is that with that.

Ok, so since we were “tired of tired black men saying the same things…”[para.] I am going to take a flyer and provide a frame of reference for that phrase as it is related to what is on my mind.  Since I have left the “provincial town that I once jogged ‘round”, I  have had all kinds of “Friday nights” but none of them have been “stifled” as they once were, sitting in the basement of Mookie Dee’s townhouse after making dinner for lil’ Mook and playing Playstation 2 as she proceeded to “loot wine and be mine” with someone who was not yours freakin’ truly!

So I get that part that it is a hard hustle being a parent, keeping the house clean and managing both domestic and wage-earning areas.  Okay, BUT I am more like Portnoy and I have a complaint that is specific to ME.  I was there as a resource for Mookie Dee and to support her in whatever endeavors she undertook, as well as any pressures that she faced with life.  But this is where the insidiousness of the comment began to insert itself in my mind.

I met Mookie Dee by pure chance.  The pursuit of my professional duties led to our paths crossing and as I was doing my “Ex-list” thing, I thought it was the manifestation of the unconscious when we met and reacquainted ourselves.  I was not always disabled when we were a couple and I was neither broke nor “broken down” when we started to re-kick it.  What I was when we met again was an office drone affiliated with the “Big Three” and CHILLIN in the Palmer Park area.  Were you local to the Motor, you would understand that I “had mine” and did not need anyone to “feed me”.  It was not until after my last bout that “things began to change.”

My erosion was slow (and hopefully if I avoid falling of my darn bike, it will stay that way!) as my performance at my job began to suffer.  Then I was released from employment, but I still had my savings (cause don’t you know, a cat like me tends to land on his feet!) since we were a budding family, I saw no reason not to commit my funds to that of the household.  But without digressing or trying to project my own villainies anyone, I am going to skip to when I heard a radio program that sounded like the speaker had been following me around for a week and described me.  I would make a doctor’s appointment and then…

Because of the backlog in the State of Michigan it was over 18 months before I had my hearing for my disability and I began receiving my disability.  And then, my back child support was being taken directly from the money that I was getting, leaving me with a pittance.  The remedy for that was to go to Motor and engage the Friend of the Court, but I had no help in getting my paperwork and travel together.  Meanwhile…

It was not until I saw that my “parental privileges” were rescinded that I decided that I had to make my break for it.  Mookie Dee and I had our face-to-face where we discussed our relationship.  What astonished me the most when I confronted her about the drought in our sex life, her response was that she thought I “was getting mine”, between doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning, as well as homework with lil’ Mook.  But hey, I did say that I was doing my “penance” with my Ex-list, because I was wide open I was less inclined to be conscious of my own behavior in a relationship (including with Mookie Dee!).

So there you have it.  Prior to the meltdown of the auto industry, things were smooth and stable if not cool.  But when it came time for that legendary “strength and support” that a sister has for her brother, stuff got tough and Mookie Dee got ghost.  Instead of her making the choice to come together and for US to buckle down and get through her impending job loss, my nascent issues, she decide to go get f*cked by someone else.  Oh hey, I figured this kind of relationship was due for me.  Que se-f*ckin’-ra.  Whatever will be, I guess, will be.

INTELLIGENCE AND SACRIFICE

PRELUDE:


I saw a story recently on Sportscenter about former Chicago Bear legend Jim McMahon, who was the starting quarterback of their 1986 Super Bowl champion team. He is now a part of a group of older players who are filing a suit against the NFL regarding their policy on concussions. My own thoughts on the issue of concussions in the NFL notwithstanding, listening to Jim McMahon describe his day-to-day heralds what is to come for me.


When his girlfriend enters the story, I began to wonder when they met and how long have they been together? Were they dating before he began to notice, or she began to notice things going into decline for him? There are reasons that this particular piece of information is important to me but that is for later. The clip is only a minute or so long and most definitely is a storytelling device.



AND IT SEEMS AS THOUGH IT IS AT LEAST AN OCEAN WIDE


However you view my relationships, whatever success I claim to have enjoyed through them stem from two things: A willingness to not fear my vulnerability and my ability to harness shame into positive aspects of my personality and not be regarded as a negative or have them seen as a weakness. When I first met Nebraska online, I cannot imagine that it was too long after our first exchange that I told her about my appreciation of full-figured women, how my Mother liked Nate ‘Tiny’ Archibald of the Kansas City-Omaha Kings, and of course, how Johnny ‘The Jet’ Rodgers, along with Marlon Perkins and the Doorly Zoo made quite the impression on me. Another link, which was not confirmed until later during or relationship, was that she used to work with a former Husker football player that KT almost got named for!


I was still hung over from Tee Jay and what had developed into my ‘Ex-List’ phase of dating when we begun chatting online. Because I ‘knew’ how I felt about Omaha (for some reason I really want to go and see Kearney… I like the name!!)and if you hadn’t noticed, even online I can be oddly reserved beyond my blog, so I engaged her as only I know how. After sharing my feelings with a co-worker who I felt close to about my attraction to Nebraska, I put her on ‘the list’, which was crucial.


SEIZING THE HIGH GROUND


The ability to be open with who you are and honestly assess what you are capable of is important in determining the outcome of a relationship. At least they are to me and how I deal with being engaged in a relationship with someone. I am not shy when it comes to letting a woman know how I feel about her. With men still being reluctant to share their feelings, I think that is one of adaptations that I made to engage with women. So Nebraska has pretty much known all along I felt about her even with her being preoccupied with someone else and even with her dismissing my affections as over the top. But making myself vulnerable emotionally always felt like the high ground in the battle to be in love. I never understood why it has to be that way, but it does.


I don’t feel that I should be ashamed that I am willing to be attracted and fall for someone as deeply and madly as I do. The past three years has included major alterations to my life for the opportunity to be in love. In fact, the past three relationships that have been involved in were all representative of the kind of profoundly deep and intense emotional love that is often romanticized in movies and yearned for by women all over the country. At least that is what I thought. Who doesn’t want the chance to be with their first true love, or to be with the one person that they know that there is no sacrifice too great to be made on their behalf? Or to have someone tell them that their desire was sent from ‘on high’ and that they are ‘that someone who is that someone’?


…AND HE FELL, STUMBLING BACK AS IF STRUCK BY A GIANT


Nebraska and I have never been ‘a couple’, not even in the misty, wispy way that people become couples and find themselves in love with a person on a computer. Sometimes we have had randy exchanges but if I were going to put a percentage on the amount of conversation that was spent between us about ‘us’ as a couple and those ‘adult materiels’, it would have to be under 1% of our IM dialogues. And that is as LIBERAL an estimate of any NC-17 kind of talk that has taken place between us over the life of our relationship.


Without having any of the leading conversations that is central to many of the ‘internet tragedies’ that I kidded her tongue-in-cheek about going on between us, I examined what we did have between us. And that was my describing how I felt about her, someone I had never met, living in a place that I had never seen, that she was… and that we were…


No, I did not think that it would be like ‘Sleepless In Seattle’ between the two of us, though that story ended with much better standing than our relationship started with. We haven’t had a decent conversation in at least a month. The last time we saw each other in person was the sweet and charming date we had to see ‘The Artist’.


What went wrong between us exactly? I just don’t know, I couldn’t say. Perhaps someone said something wrong… but as to now, there is simply longing for yesterday…

DOES OMAHA EVEN EXIST? I WONDER SOMETIMES?

THE ANSWER


Yes. Yes it does. I am here, aren’t I?




TEDDY BALLGAME

 My larval nerdling years in junior high school were spent observing how networking worked between the cool ‘it’ folks and everyone else. Then in high school, instead of being fueled with frustration over Saturday nights spent playing games like Paydirt, Risk, and Title Bout by myself, I enjoyed what I had going on. I could see the cracks that were developing between me and my family (which I would frame by the context of a ‘Calvin ‘n Hobbes’ strip) and was certain that I would find myself ‘anywhere’ and that it would be better than where I was at that time and place.

This is something that I also held for my finding a girlfriend. Having played hockey and traveling to different towns allowed me to be regarded totally different than I had been by the girls in school or on the ‘Jenny’s on the block’. I began not to think of my dream partner as being someone that would be found where I was but that it well could be something that would require a national, even a global, search to find. Along with accepting this as ideal, came the foundation for my approach to women.

No matter how bad a hitter you are, the only guarantee to not getting a hit is not to take a swing at the ball. When you look for good a baseball player, a good hitter, only gets a hit ever three at-bats. And in basketball, if you make half of the shots you take you get to be called a good shooter. Seeing as to how to find a life partner you only had to find one out of BILLIONS… well, I like to think you know where I am going here and why I did not concern myself with not being liked in Detroit because between hockey and amateur boxing tournaments, I saw that I ‘traveled well’.

Additionally, before I could develop any biases towards anything at all regarding Detroit and my family, I would read Encyclopedia’s at an Aunt’s house and pretend to be a Captain sailing the high seas. Whatever else that has happened in my life built upon that and not that I felt the need to escape anywhere. After I do my Catholic schoolgirl whining here, this is what I find remaining – that I have always wanted to go somewhere. I am good with that, which prolly why I have thoughts of a few other places that I have wanted to go swirling in my mind as motivation to keep moving forward.


I COULD HAVE BEEN THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, TOO




I fancied myself as a pirate dandy in jr. high school!

 

I have a healthy sense of self-esteem.  Sometimes I do get hard on myself and I am not immune to bouts of feeling poorly and that is something that I am managing as well as I know how.  But I think that one of the reasons that my darling brother did not have to suffer what a lot of young people, then and even today, to go through is that he had a self-styled dandy as an older brother.  Instead of letting my feminine qualities (and subsequent criticism that came with me being who I am) define me, I defined myself and have simply went with it.

Being ‘sensitive’ has many contexts. Sometimes being sensitive can be a reference to a potential source of physical pain. Sensitive could also mean that a person has a deeper understanding of other people’s feelings. It is also used as a pejorative in certain cultural contexts. For a woman to be called sensitive has been made into a cliché and when you call a man ‘sensitive’, it can also be used as foreshadow of other less flattering terms that are implied by how ‘sensitive’ is couched. I find the irony behind how it is used when addressing a man who displays this trait both fascinating and simultaneously tiring.


MORE FROM MY EARLY BURGLARY YEARS



The double standard with how sensitivity in men could be perceived was the deciding factor in why I would get stuck on Tee Jay and thought it was a good idea to date someone with whom I had been in a relationship with. After excluding my ex-wife by being willing accept being alone even if she… well, anywho, because my approach with women was a manipulation of the law of averages in a very narrow spectrum like hitting a baseball or making a basket, I have had to endure a lot of sh*t being said about me. I had concerned myself more with ‘making contact and putting the ball in play’ or ‘grabbing offensive rebounds for put-backs’. In short, I would take a narrow focus and refine that approach to relationships into what became the ‘run-and-shoot’.


Brief aside: Sure I am mixing my sports metaphors but that is only on the surface. What ties them all together is that the specialization of each is a compensation to get a chance to play in the World Series and the NBA Finals… but a run and shoot team has never won a Super Bowl (and no, ‘the spread’ or ‘read option’ offense that brought Auburn and Oregon to the National Title game in college football doesn’t count!). While having a contact hitter or rebounder willing to do the dirty work is essential to a team’s success, there aren’t teams built around either. And what you really have with the ‘run and shoot’ is a philosophy that allows a team who may not be physically able to line up in traditional formations and play man-on-man. That is ultimately how I saw myself, someone who utilized finesse and cleverness to put up big numbers that looked good on paper but had nothing substantial to show for it. And all of this clouded my personal mission statement.

HOUSTON, TRANQUILITY BASE HERE...

HE LAUGHED AT ACCIDENTAL SIRENS THAT BROKE THE EVENING GLOOM

Stayed awake to meet my 4:30 a.m. showered, then Pops and me were on the road an hour later. There was no trouble getting there and none from boarding at the McNamara Terminal thru deboarding at Eppley Airfield. Didn't really do any 'meet and speak', making just enough small talk to be polite. Didn't make sense to make anyone feel obligated by listening to me and my whining, but the cat at O'Hare Airport kinda got on my nerves, striking up a convo and picking on my Bucky Badger emblazoned Wisconsin shirt. I hope that when the Badgers and Huskers do play that the Badgers and their students doing their 'Jump Around' to disrupt the Nebraska en route to a victory, preferably in Madtown! We rode together on the crop duster from Chicago to Omaha.

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED

Omaha is a fine looking city with a sparkling downtown. It still seems to radiate from the 'inside-out' and really there is an enviable downtown, with restaurants, cultural centers, hipster stores and other eclectic shops that I can easily see myself either working or shopping in. Will go to the Walgreens and get a camera to take pictures.

Nebraska played tour guide and could easily fit in at the Chamber of Commerce. A lot of what I saw seemed brand new, like the baseball stadium that will host the College World Series, places for the Orchestra and performing arts, the 'college district' and all the structures for Creighton, Nebraska-Omaha and the University Medical Center.

Checking in with the front desk and in talking with a 20-something sister, I had the region's racial tension reinforced. Though I was aware of the polarization and divisions in the city, it is so different when you see it for yourself and hear about it from someone living the experience. Often, when hearing about such social injustices, I think about all the folks who persevered despite problems like these and I try to filter what I hear. What ever it is that may be working against me still has to be overcome, so I will not buy into any of the justifications as to why things may seem to the locals to be the way that they are. All I can see here is opportunity lying there waiting to be seized.

We rode by some of the spots Nebraska had looked at/put in applications for me and they were pretty okay. They had at least one thing for sure that made them uniquely suited to me, but I think that my being on disability is working against me. I receive 'just enough' not to make it to qualify, falling short by a few dollars of the realtor's minimum. Maybe if I was able to present my case I would be able to sell them on taking a chance on me, after all, I am not so bad...




Nebraska and I have an understanding between each other with regards to our friendship and everything is cool and a-ok on that front. Tomorrow I am to catch the bus to the Housing Authority. After that, the mission is all about getting on the Greyhound and returning to Detroit with no hurry, but hoping the wait goes by faster than the wait I had with the Friend of the Court.

Seems that being on Central Time is not doing anything for my sleeplessness, even with having made it here safely and getting some things out in the open with Nebraska. As much ground as I have covered, there is still a whole lot left for me to go. I still feel comfortable as I did three years ago about moving here, the crisis having blown over.

I wanted to let y'all know that I was doing fine and expecting to get everything I need done and will be out here soon enough.

HAWKEYE AND BJ

GHOST POST

Tried to make an entry yesterday that didn't quite come all the way out. Started off with a barely coherent ramble on Memorial Day. As I typed, I happened to actually READ what I was saying. It didn't have anything to do with what I am FEELING. So I knew that no matter how hard I tried, that I wasn't going to get anywhere near where I intended to go.

Instead of forcing something out of me, I decided to sleep on what I was feeling and if it was still there, I'd write about it. At least put forward a better effort than I was giving it yesterday.

DIRECTION

I hadn't mentioned any of the people that I see during my travels because I really don't feel that the separation between me and those I see each day is really all that great. People going along in with their lives. This is not to say I don't see some weird stuff going on that makes me raise my eyebrows. But there isn't a lot of room in my thoughts to consider what is observable about their mien. I can smell desperation on some, like the hustlers selling cologne and perfume, or the man I saw with his other half desperately trying to sell candy to provide something for his family.

One day the candy guy was not alone. His girlfriend and assuming Mother of their children was sitting in the shelter with him. He was talking loudly, his tone was borne of frustration with the world and with himself. I can't recall the clothes that they wore, but they had the tired look of having long served their turn and wanted for a washing. The candy man's lament is familiar in the hood, a ghetto version on the 'coulda been a contender' soliloquy, spoken to a person who has intimate knowledge of details but was not directly involved in any of the agonies that beset the speaker.

He was talking about how if he had stayed 'in the life', continued to sell drugs with his equals then he would be able to provide for his family. The rambling was edging on borders of delusion and by the tired look on the woman he was talking to face, it was one she had heard before and would rather not hear again, not out in public. The musty clothes of Value-Mart couture should have said enough. She sat there, not saying a word in response. What could she have said? I don't know how you can debate someone who is lost in another dimension where they made choices that led to their emergence as a Nino Brown from the movie 'New Jack City'. Instead of wondering why he wasn't that all-purpose hustler, she prolly was thinking why couldn't he be a fry cook or stocking shelves somewhere. Why he couldn't take whatever skills he did have and find a spot to use them to get a regular check.

She looked tired.

The trap of looking back is that the past sometimes looks better than it really was. A reason for that is under-utilization of the opportunity that came a person's way. The candy man was bemoaning his decision to or whatever it was that influenced that decision to get out of the game and the reality as I saw it was, honestly, he wasn't very good at it. He did admit in his ramble about 'catching a case' and that playing a very big part of his decline. "Well, there you go", I thought. Wouldn't be more prudent to say that because I was not as good at something as I thought I was at my chosen hustle, that is why I am selling boxes of candy at the bus stop to get money for my family? Hey, I am jus' sayin'... makes more sense to me than crying out in envy that your peers are able to make the most out of the game than you did.

M*A*S*H

The fictional 4077th Army Field Hospital is set where Camp Humphreys is located. I know because I saw the plaque commemorating the unit and I believe some of the stars of the show took a photo on post. Thought that was cool.

When I enlisted I knew that I wanted to be like Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly. Scoring about a billion on the ASVFAB test qualified me to pick out where I wanted to go first as well as what school I wanted to go for training. And I knew I wanted to make sure that I got a chance to see Korea.

Back then, my favourite Smiths song was the jaunty (to me, and that is what counts!!) 'This Charming Man'. I heard it as a coming of age story and that the opportunity to be all the things that a person didn't know they could be, was upon them. Also, it sounded cocky to me, spinning around saying to female soldiers, "Why are you wasting time with that, when you would rather be with 'this charming man' ". Also, the connotation that there was more floating around than a date on Saturday night was dismissed. That is what the line 'why ponder life's complexities when the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat' symbolized for me. Those things didn't seem to matter, the complexities that people sometimes get lost in. I know that they didn't to me.

While the enmity towards my family was at low ebb, I still thought about the world at large. I remember how when leaving AIT for the Christmas holiday before I would journey over the Pacific, I told a cat I was cool with that it was better if we let the good times we had at Fort Jackson be that. No need to stretch and act like we are going to be writing back and forth, keeping up with one another. Even then, I was more focused on going forward and leaving for the Langoliers the memories of the past.

Even when I have spoken about my lack of souvenirs from my travels, it is more for OTHER people's benefit. I lived the moment... and that has always been more than enough for me. In short, good or bad, what is past for me, usually is left there.

AND THEN CAME 'HAWKEYE'

Couldn't have been 'Hawkeye and Trapper John' because that pair was more on equal footing. Like the Celtics 'big three' of Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett, you couldn't pick either Hawkeye or Trapper and say they were 'the guy'. But when Trapper left and was replaced by BJ Honicutt, you could see a 'difference' between them. But nothing readily apparent. BJ was more of a sidekick who had his own identity apart from Hawkeye (did they ever say what 'BJ' stood for on the show?).

It is amazing to think that the last episode of M*A*S*H held the record for most watch show until the last Super Bowl. The end of that show has been on my mind, because that is where I met the SFC, and of all the people in my life that I have called a 'friend', along with my roomie in Greenboro, she is one that I can say is a friend without reservation.

The dynamic we had was not that different from Hawkeye and BJ's interaction with one another. We did our on goofs as well as doing goofs together. And it felt like we spent a lot of time together as people on the posts in the town we were stationed, lumped us together. I think that our names had a lot to do with it... she has a great name and mine is vanilla enough to accent it.

I don't know if we are going to remain close. While there was a wack 'After M*A*S*H' show, they essentially left what happened after the war to the viewers imgaination. Do you think that Hawkeye ever got with BJ once they were back 'in the world'?

NEWS BLURBS

Because I don't have the motivation to find the links, y'all are going to have to trust me regarding the accuracy of my statements about a couple of stories that I saw recently.

There is a report out about the financial demographics of Tea Bag supporters. Over half of them have a college degree and a higher percentage of them earn more that $100K than non-Tea Baggers. Sure they are more likely to be white men and think that too much is made of racial inequality. Did I mention that they also think President Obama is far to liberal for their tastes? They think that the Presidential agenda favors minorities, black in particular. All of that sounds like the kind of fears that the loss of privilege generates in a group when they are out of power and cannot bully or oppress their competition.

So far, Obama has been more Reagan-esque than many on the right want to give him credit for. The recent agreement he signed with Russia to decrease the number of nuclear arms is right out of Ronnie's playbook. Going by the histrionics in the conservative media, you'd have thought he bargained to leave the country defenseless. The whole thing about nuclear arms to me is mind numbing. Exactly how many times do we need to be capable of rendering the planet a radioactive husk before enough is enough?

JUMPING OUT OF THE FRYER...

The lack of tolerance that was elected in Virginia brought back the unplesantness of years ago for me. As cool as some things were, there were a lot more uncool stuff that I couldn't quite wash away. Gov. Bob McDonnell represents many of the unfortunate traits of the 'Old Dominion' that ate away at my resolve.

So why did I move back to the state whose native population of racists decided to protest immagration in Los Angeles? With the last escapade by the Huartee Milita foiled, I am really wondering what the outstate vibe in Michigan is like? Thinking about 'the provincial town' again and despite my fondness for it, there is that militia element, native to the town and surrounding area.

One of the sad truths about our country how close to the surface that the 'ists and isms' lie. Easier to accept a fallacy to explain why a job didn't go your way or the rise in taxation. There is still a wide gap in the understanding of one another in the United States and it is depressing. It makes me think that it is still a world where marginalizing the undersired is preferred.



Along with sex and violence, fear and ignorance always sells.








A way cool song by The Liars. I did provide the link to the official video for those who were interested enough to check it out. Prolly could come up with a semi cognent interpretation for readers, but why? Let the song speak for itself, because it does an awesome job of that!

The mood is still rather down. Today is the SFC's birthday and thinking about the dark humor I would want to apply to the timing of our break up and the date is something best kept to myself. We have spoken already and I know it would have hurt her. And I am not so sure if I would not want to make her hurt a little, even though I know she hurts enough without my help.

Though you couldn't tell it by the direction this journal has been on the past few months, I don't enjoy self pity or to be pitied. But even more loathsome to me is the projection of my own pain or discomfort unto someone else.

PRELUDE:

There are a couple of shows on MTV that I have started to catch. One is http://www.theburiedlife.com/, about these 4 twenty somethings who were inspired in part by this poem http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/arnold/writings/buriedlife.html.

The article that I saw a mention of the show for the first time was on AOL in a story while ago. One of the cats in the interview talked about the poem...

Matthew Arnold, the author, writes about the feeling of being out of touch with who you really are, which we could relate to. I think a lot of people feel that way sometimes. Our daily lives can become so monotonous that our real passions and desires get buried, or lost. It struck us that people were feeling the same way we were over 150 years ago, and we realized that this was bigger than us.

As I never thought anything I felt or experienced was unique, these guys have also realized pretty much what I have. I have tried to do as much as I can with living my life, questionable decisions and all, to avoid the feeling of living a 'buried life'. It also explains partially why I am in flux (another part can be put on my condition, but I am here to tell you that I won't cop to that). There is a life of mine that is having the systems shut down prematurely. Can't let that happen.

Another way cool show that I watch followed, http://www.mtv.com/shows/mylifeasliz/series.jhtml. Reading the shows summary, I first thought that how true was the series to 'real life', you know what I am saying?? All the previous 'teen angst' shows are chocked filled with beautiful people, geeks and non-geeks alike.

Then I thought back to my bud from back in jr high, with whom I connected thru Facebook and the pictures that he sent of his beautiful family in his Christmas card. I remember sitting on his porch and talking about the stuff that teen boys talked about... comics, video games, STAR TREK, and why the Latin teacher was such a douche. Oh, and when that elusive first date was going to happen!!

Looking at the picture in my mind of us 'then' and contrasting it with us 'now', is that for the most part we did turn out well. I have been in a slump of late... though the trending began early in the decade, the bottom didn't crash out until '04.

Anywho, the most recent episode had Liz Lee doing a talent contest at school. She didn't win but neither did her nemisis on the show, Cori (who once was best friends with Liz). And I thought that was a cool piece of writing. Another thing about the show that was cool but left me with a mix of emotions, was the narration device at the beginning of the episode.

It was Liz 'writing' a letter, with the words appearing on screen. The letter was pretty rote, once you have accepted the buy in to the plot. What got me about the letter was the signature line... Love & Rockets.

Love. &(because they used the ampersand). Rockets. Why did that strike me as familiar?

IT IS IN THE STYGIAN FOREST WHERE IS FOUND THE ONLY MOMENT WHERE YOU ARE ALONE

Too bad that I didn't have that book or story written and published already. Then that would have been 'mine' and no one could have claimed it without some sort of acknowlegement. But I don't know, because in mix music, so much is sampled and mashed together to where the aritist can make a claim that it is 'his' even though so much of it came from someone else.

What I will wonder is if the writer of the line did see it somewhere on the internet and thought it would fit in his life as well. Hey, it seems that is what I have been doing for most of my life, giving myself to people, providing them with inspiration and they get up and do something with 'it'.

It is also why as cool a scene it may have been, I never bothered people, the 'Charley's' of my life with what 'I coulda been...'. That they may have taken something from me and carried through with it means the question isn't about what I could have been or done. It is about when did the trending down begin. And whenever I have looked back at things, it begin at the entrance of another person, another soul, into my life.

'Suicide is Painless', is the theme for the show M*A*S*H. (And if readers would grant me poetic license, because I may be down, but I am not THAT down!!) Think about it for a moment and it is.

The physical pain doesn't have to be there. More importantly, neither does the mental pain. I mean, if someone was there watching you do the deed, you could see the almost instant anguish and loss in their eyes... this includes most anyone, much less someone who knows and cares for you. It is a human thing that comes up instinctively. The sense of loss as death suddenly intrudes on life.

If you are really going to do it, you don't need anyone to watch. Whatever has pushed you to that precipice can't be embodied in one act or deed. Its weight can't be placed upon any one person. Again, the point being if you are going to do it, it is going to be up to you.

Flipping it over, the same can be said of success. My Best Sister aims to get married in November and wants ME to walk her down the aisle, along with our Father. Her rationale being that 'I was there for her when she was younger and needed someone... and Dad was there for her as she became an adult.' Okay, that sounds about right.

It is neat that she is going into the field that when I was in high school, I would talk about 'creating' (other than the aerobic duo of Dick (Richard Simmons) and Jane (Fonda) weren't too many well know folks espousing the approach that I take) constantly putting into practice as far as training methods and methodology. Though she didn't start off at Western studying in fitness, she came back to where she 'knew where she was'.

*sigh* So instead of asking 'Charley' why he couldn't have looked out for me a little better, I am left with asking myself, why I didn't take care of me a little better, looked out just for me a little bit. And that is what really hurts. The paradox that I find in the beginning of hypocrisy, has been 'who is the hypocrite?'

That is a question that is I will never find the answer to... that is unless I make one. And I have.

All this whining is getting on my nerves. It is strange having all these feelings... that perhaps I should get more into doing something about them.

Until next time.

Love & Rockets!
Mark

HENNESSY VSOP

PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK JUST WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Right now watching Texas flail away against Alabama, I considered my last post and what I am going thru right now.

I don't feel that my thoughts were clear. Maybe the emotions behind it were, but I struggled to get that out of me.

Man, I have been in some truly shitty spots before in my life. My stay in the provencial town I once jogged 'round, being one. And by 'spots' I mean periods of my life. And perhaps it is simply a coincidence but the reason that way the Emerson quote is interpreted by me and how I have generally assumed that it contrasts with that of the general public is this:

In my life, the 'entrance of another person' has meant the beginning of the crap for Mark and his goals. His life. His dreams. His EVERYTHING.

I bear the weight of Skye, KT, and Lexxie. My guilt and shame over leaving them without a permanent Father or the HOPES of having one is deep. With that said, I have begun to wonder about the 'why' of some things.

Finding an answer to 'how do I work this' is one of the things about 'the entrance of another' that has left me wondering ...

BECAUSE WHEN YOU GO THRU THE DRIVE THRU...

The few times that I mentioned that I wanted to go out west and be on my own, it was because for me, it is clear: whenever the concerns of other people have intersected with the concerns of my life and what is best for it, I have lost out. Not that there is any blame to it... though the 'Jew Bastid' who was my crap manager will get a lil' blame. But hey, when you dance with crap people, expect to have crap spilled on your clothes.

My relationship with Mookie Dee was emblematic of what I mean. I don't ring up the cost/benefit analysis or anything like that. I only know what it cost me and if it isn't enough, cool.

What I want is my life, simple and plain. One of the things that I hoped to claim was my goal and what I believe was meant for me. And that is something that I don't think I need to restate it (but I am sure it will come out, eventually).

The reason that it is so difficult to write or keep up with reading right now is that there is so much noise inside my head. I don't like talking about what makes me feel down for too long a time. It leads to misery and that is a rut that is hard to get out of. I could really kvetch about how I feel, but f*ck that (and that is EXACTLY what I mean too).

I am glad that the President took the heat off the front line people when it came to the botched terror attempt against the flight from Amsterdam. He made the people who needed to have the heat put on them, take the rap.

See, I AM doing more than feeling sorry for myself!

p.s. yes, that IS what I am sippin'... with two cubes in cocktail glass!

DARKHORSES

PRELUDE:

Watching the Texas - Nebraska game was tension filled viewing. Texas was on paper the far superior team. But the game was played between kids on a field and not simulated in a computer lab.

The Huskers were huge underdogs, a curb to be cleared before the inevitable national championship game. Nebraska has a great defense but as good as they are on that side of the ball, the offense can be as ineffective. And against Texas' top flight defensive team, they didn't generate too much of any offense. Then, neither did Texas offense do too much.

As Nebraska's defense rose to the occasion, with its best player (superlative defensive tackle Ndamakong Suh) doing what a team's best player is supposed to do, they nearly pulled off the amazing upset. My heart went out as they saw their hopes go up in a puff of smoke, there but not really there. There was that one second left for the game winning field goal and for a hard fought victory to be snatched away from the underdogs.

I didn't watch the conclusion, having gotten sleepy in the third quarter... but I think I knew what was going to happen because I have had that situation play out in my life enough to know how it would end.

LIVING THROUGH THIS

Let me tell you that to do that is as painful as it sounds. I know that I have had to do that enough in my life, whether it was losing a spelling bee, misplacing tickets to a big concert, or maybe losing the biggest fight of your life and knowing that you won't ever get THAT opportunity again... eh, there are other disappointments in my life that I have had to take full credit for and that I have had to go on and live thru.

Then there are some ... I know that I stress with my journal that I believe in accepting responsibility for my failings. But there are some things that I do wonder 'what if'.

The SFC knows how difficult it has been for me in these long two months. Will it get any better? Who knows??

We've talked about things and we've reached a point of conclusion. As a couple, we make better friends. Sure there were other things that got in the way of us getting together other than not wanting the 'bathroom set next to the kitchen', and they aren't anyone's business but ours. So there will be no details as to what they are OR what they may be.

Now what I have got to focus on, is finding out how I can get myself to where I want to be.

GOIN' HOME

DON'T BLINK

"It could happen, so you had better watch."

While I don't have the trademark on that line, it fits how stuff happens in my life. Sorry about it, for those who blind faith and ignorance doesn't work for, but they have always worked for me. I am not cynical, THE WORLD is. If you can think of something and willing to put in the work to make it happen, then there you go. Some cat said something to the effect of "the man who says 'you can't' should get out of the way of the man who can".

By acknowledging my flaws, I hoped to learn from my mistakes. That is why I wanted and sort of hoped for 'a hater' to read me. Not for the give and take that would take place ... 'hit and run' commenting would NOT bother me. But I do think that having someone to bring a little rain with them to the picnic would have made me get even sharper.

'Repetition saves lives' and it saves dreams. I may not have 'known know' that someone was out there thinking of me, I did know that I was on someone elses radar. I had to keep doing what I needed to do.

IN SPITE OF OURSELVES

I have to do it here, because I won't make much out of it when we get together. On the rarest of occasions, I wonder what would have happened if ... when it comes to me and the SFC. We have even more in common than the things that made us such good friends as kids ... and it is easy for us to understand why we didn't connect during the interim. For those reasons and with one of the most common names ever in the mix, it would have taken something extraordinary for us to have ever run into each other. And what do you know, riding in on the outside, the darkhorse Extraordinary came flying across the wire!



Miss A posted this video (she would be 'my girl' if we were local!) and I think it is what I am looking forward to in Virginia. You have to get to the 90 second mark before the song begins.

I don't think I live in clouds but I don't live in denial. For instance, packing has giving me the flux. On Sunday, I couldn't move ... the feeling that I had was that this is what folks who are depressed and feel sorry for themselves feel. But I am not depressed, am I? Fake it until you make it, that is something that lives and breathes along with me!

Because in spite of myself, I will get 'er done! And I am going to be with a person who didn't blink when we caught up, and couldn't wait to to tell me that they loved me. Incroyable!!

Whenever I have imagined the best kind of relationship, I keep thinking that the principles tend to have a magnetism to one another, brought about by a sincere and genuine interest in the other person. We have that. And I feel that since we were ALREADY each other's best friend, that we can safely say that our partner is our best friend.

We will be together 'in spite of ourselves'. Man, that is so cool!

BUT IT STILL IS THERE

That nagging, 'go it alone' feeling. Have to admit that I was looking forward to that. Reality is reality, and not having to worry about anything that didn't deal directly to me, was something I was excited about as well.

If there was no 'cherry' on top of the sundae, would it taste any different? How much would it have 'brought to the party'? Not to diminish my hopes for me & Nebraska, but I was looking forward to going back to my apartment or whatever, closing my door and CHILLIN'.

No weekends of sitting around in my pajamas all day, going out only to get the paper, a McDonald's breakie, a soda along with a couple of Butterfinges. Fire up the radio and listen to 'Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me' and look online for stuff that interests me.

Being able to finally live for me ... anywho, 'freedom through submission' is some more internal sloganeering I have done. I do believe it to be true.

THERE IS FREEDOM WITH OUT

WOKE UP WITH A DREAM IN MY HEART

I have my 'orders' and my last day in Detroit will be 7 October, wake up and go on the 8th. Took some stuff to the post office yesterday and will be packing up and throwing out stuff as I go. It has been difficult for me, not for the emotional attachment of my hometown. There isn't any of that to hold me here, anyway. That has been so for a quarter of a century. The only reason I had any, is that I thought I was supposed to, you know what I am saying?

Most people have a connection to the place where they are from, one that makes it difficult to leave it. That is something that I don't think I ever had with my hometown. Whenever I think about the late 70's - early 80's when the 'Errol Flynn's' and the 'Sconi Oni's' evolved into the nortorious Young Boys Incorporated, and all the Mayor could do was race bait and loot the city, I was losing whatever link that a person has to the place they were born and raised.

Because I didn't suffer from anything more than the occasional beating from my Mom, I was not leaving an abusive environment. The area of town I grew up was and still is a nice working class neighborhood. The little four block corner of northwest Detroit felt removed from the grueling images of Detroit that were depicited by lazy Time Magazine photographers (that would take me off the track, but they did a 'seagull photo shoot' in the most recent article about Detroit). There were other factors that contributed to my desire to leave here.

I kept coming back. Now, if my darling brother had ever came with me I don't think I would have. I wanted to take him when I left for Carolina with me. Though there was some selfishness in coming home when boxing started to go off course (I mean, I did think I had something left and would be able to find something usable in the gym's here ... that wasn't that big of a stretch), I did think that I had a 'family' to come home to be with.

That is something I blame myself for. I wanted to believe in a delusion. We weren't close as we'd liked to imagine ourselves as. Even with that, there wasn't much of anything particularly tragic about my family experience, perhaps it is difficult to understand why I feel the way that I do towards them and Detroit in general. It has little to do with anything other than the way that I am. I don't think I was supposed to live and die here, period. The little crap that has happened to me, were meant to keep me uncomfortable.

ANYWHERE WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER

Or so I would like to believe. Even now the situation I am in, the relationships with people in my life, are rather unexceptional. My motivation to go somewhere else isn't because of any of the external factors that make most people want to leave. It is the internal factor, the one that has had me envision myself being somewhere else that drives me.

That's all. I was meant to be born here but not meant to live here. The thing about the Time pictures, of the PACKARD Auto plant, is that those were dead areas back in the 50's. It would be more of an effort find signs of that kind of decay in Detroit. Honestly, of all the big cities I have been to, Detroit still looks and fares well in comparison. You can navigate the town easily and there are plenty of nice, straight streets to get you from place to place. Outside of the dreaded road construction season, the highways are plenty accessible. I think that Detroit has plenty of room for growth. I have just wanted to find what it is I am meant to find, no doubt.

Going west would have been a exciting challenge. I feel that I could take care of myself, if not thrive and grow. Like Eric B., I am 'never scared on the cut', and saw my bliss on my own. But today as I read Miss A's journal, I saw this video and it brought tears to my eyes.



The song "Don't Dream It's Over" took me back to a cramped office on Camp Henry in Taegu, R.O.K. I was a PFC when I met my girl. Who knew then what we know now, that we'd end up being together?



This is a 'Top Ten' song. I only ever feel certain feelings when I hear this song. In my mind, this is a song I had seen myself dancing ( ?!? ) with looking into the eyes of that someone who IS that someone.



Now I'm walking again to the beat of the drum

And I'm counting the steps to the door of your heart

Only shadows ahead barely clearing the roof

Get to know the feeling of liberation and relief



Hey now, hey now, don't dream it's over

Hey now, hey now, when the world comes in

They come they come, build a wall between us

We know they won't win



It has been said that it isn't about getting knocked down but getting back up. It has been the process of 'walking again' that many people get lost in. They don't want to back into making that kind of effort again. It is easy to wallow around in past hurts ... in fact, I know that I have been guilty of that myself. I don't know if there would be much for me to write about if I wasn't doing some of that myself.



Despite those lapses, I think of myself as someone gets up and gets into going after whatever it is that I have set my sights on. This time, I did also want someone to let me know that they knew I was 'counting the steps to the door of their heart'. A part of the whiny side of me had become tired of the artificial walls being built between me and potential women. If what they wanted was the image that has been commercialized for their partner, what can I tell them? I mean, saying "that's not me", is going to lead to the "why" question. And before you know it, I am bored by it all. I didn't want to have to fight through any of that.



That was the appeal of all of this. If I talked up someone who knew of me, then they would 'expect the unexpected'. They would also be receptive to doing thing out of their comfort zone and maybe finally being appreciated in a deeper way.



My SFC and I both look forward to being with each other. We already know that we compliment one another. And that means that we get to hold hands and go forward from day one.

ON BOXING

SOME THINGS ARE REALLY WORSE THAN BEFORE

I do think that the boxing that goes on now, isn't the same as when I was growing up. It starts at the ground level. Boxing no longer attracts athletic talent. Not to say that boxers are multi-sport stars, but I think that being able to 'do something' means you have untapped skills that need to be focused.

For instance as a kid, I played hockey, golfed and basketball before I narrowed in on boxing. I did a lot of other 'kid things' that required a component of physical skill, climbing fences and trees, as well as all the pick up games in the neighborhood.

The allure of the major sports and the other fringe benefits that come with them, keeps attracting the talent necessary to feed them, to become self-sustaining apparatus. In my mind, you look at the paths to becoming a star in a major sport, it opens up so much more opportunity. You network, get a chance to further your education, all the other real things that provide motivation from participation in athletics.

With boxing, there doesn't seem to be a lot of 'incidental careers opportunities that comes with a boxing career. The networking and ability to branch off into another area of the industry isn't there.

Also, the technological age has introduce another malady that affects boxing as well. Social interaction. Kids would have to deal with each other face to face and figure things out. And like young cubs, their socializing would lead to horseplay and sometimes, a fight. Fighting would in turn make more people interested in learning how, and then you have more boxers. A larger pool of talent would mean more skilled fighters, as cream rises to the top.

One of the reason that I am bringing this up, is Manny Paciquao is a very good fighter. But when I compare him to some of the triple crown champions of my era, he as well as Oscar De La Hoya, fall short of greatness. At first I thought I was being a crudgemudgeon, but I saw an article that put Paciquao in the 80's. The list of fighters he would have had to beat or been encouraged to fight was a walk thru Boxing's Hall of Fame. Since he won the 147 lbs. title, he would have had to beat either Leonard, Hearns, and Duran. The three cats who were in the title mix prior to those three, Wilfred Benitez who was at 17 the youngest fighter to ever win a title, along with enduring and respected champions Pipino Cuevas and Carlos Palomino, would have been a formidable test for 'Pac Man'.

The title he won at 140 may have came easier. Antonio Cervantes was the only good fighter there, and Aaron Pryor would overwhelm him. I don't think that Pac Man would survive 'The Hawk', but there would have been other ways for him to get a belt at 140. He wouldn't have had to fight Aaron Pryor, who beat EVERYBODY as an amateur and never got his due as a professional fighter.

Lightweights ... at 135, the list of CONTENDERS is enough to say that Manny Paciquao would not have made it thru. Livingstone Bramble, Ray Mancini, Sean O'Grady, as well as champions like Alexis Arguello (himself along with Leonard and Duran,a triple crown champion) and Hilmer Kenty would have been tough nuts to crack.

I don't think that he stopped at 130, but he would have had an easier time, similar to the potential fights at 140. I could list all the cats, but they are more 'who are they' kind of fighters. Roger Mayweather is cat who fought well at that weight. It is also where Julio Ceasar Chavez got his start. There were other good fighters, but if Paciquao is a great fighter, he would have bested them.

There is no way I see him cracking through the featherweights, 126 lbs. easily as well. Salvador Sanchez who died tragically in a car accident, was a dominant a fighter as there could be. He had to beat a really good fighter himself, Danny 'Little Red' Lopez, to get a title. And again, there are too many other fighters for Paciquao to have had to face to get to a title shot, to imagine him being good enough to do it.

Now, it isn't that he couldn't have won ONE of these titles in an individual weight class. I mean, he could pull his best out for Sugar Ray. And fighters like Pryor, Duran, Chavez and Arguello could have been caught 'sleeping' as they went up and down multiple weight classes in search of their chances to fight for big money. But it is too unlikely.

He could have settled in a weight division and had a good career. But all of the hosanna's that are lavished upon him now ..? I don't think so.

IT STARTED WITH TYSON

The hype machine made him seem larger than life. Not saying that he wasn't a very good fighter, but he was beatable. I know because I saw him as an amateur and I always looked at his fights 'differently'
than the average viewer. The things that I saw in his style and how he attacked and should be fought had me believe that I could beat him. No, it would not have been easy. But I was from Dee-troit, Mo-town. I trained with some VERY tough nuts. I like to think that I was one of those tough nuts myself.

Anyway, he was a fighter who's story made him the fighter, rather than his skills. I think of the cat who is the template for this kind of build up in boxing, Sugar Ray. That cat FOUGHT. He didn't have a lot of match ups where people were cowed by fighting his name and his image. In fact, I distinctly remember cats who would openly say that they are going to give it to him, and actually tried.

But Ray was a special fighter and it showed. He fought a lot of good cats on his way to the title. It wasn't given to him. Mike did not do that. He scored some highlight film knockouts of decent cats, but no one that could really 'fight'. In fact, he was exposed fully in a fight with James 'Quick' Tillis. But by that time, the hype machine was in full frenzy and that hiccup was overlooked.

When I was in the service, and because of my knowledge of Tyson before his media sensation rise, I would tell people that I thought I could beat him. Of course it was laughed off, even as I beat up cats in smokers on different posts. Even those closest to me would roll their eyes at me and my claims. I would try to point out all the things that I would do and could be done. I would also talk about moments in fights where he was 'hung up' and if his foe had the heart and will to do what he knew to do, it would change the fight.

Like so much these days, I thought that Mike Tyson was more style than substance. Michael Vick is like that too. He isn't a good quarterback and at this stage, he never will be. In an 'apples to oranges' comparison, since Vick is 'Tyson-esque', we saw what the lay off did to someone who we thought was great but wasn't, did. Ali had a similar layoff in the prime of his career and because he really WAS great, did his thing. (apples to apples ... compare Vick to Roger Staubauch).

I really would walk around talking about being able to beat Mike Tyson. Once, I asked a trainer in my gym what he would think about me and Tyson ... he looked at me and said, "No". He then finished gloving me up and sent me in to box.

There has only been one person who ever thought that I could do what I say that I can do with a chance to box a prime Mike Tyson. Only one person who makes me wonder what could have been if they'd been around me, or I had been around them, still with the same goals and intentions in my life. Maybe people have their own 'what if' scenario's for people in their lives ... I didn't know I had this one until June.

As much as folks would smirk (because if you thought that Tyson could have knocked me out, you had better be wearing a smile!!), this person would stand up next to me and back me up. I don't even know if they knew the first THING about boxing, but they'd have my back.

And she comes in town in a couple of hours. My SFC.

Have a happy holiday weekend ..! See y'all on Tuesday!!