I Break Stuff...

Yes, I do. And not exactly on purpose. I mean, WTF would anybody break on purpose? Can't think of anything at the moment. But, as a matter of fact, if there was even such a thing, I would find it, stand next to it and tell people, "Hey! Don't break that!" and then trip over something, knocking over something else, that eventually crashes into the thing that people break on purpose, breaking it on accident.

That's the way it works, its very difficult to quietly break shit on accident when you're like me. Nope, when you're like me. If anything breaks around you, it's going to be equal parts embarrassing and intricate. You don't just trip over electrical chords. You fall over them, sending piles of electrical appliances plummeting to the earth, possibly ripping/staining an item of clothing in the process. And sadly, I know this very well because, you see, the thing is... I am a clumsy person. And although this seems to be getting increasingly popular these days (I'm serious, it seems like every bastard on 2 legs wants to claim my affliction lately. And all I'm trying to say is... "Its not cool you a-holes!!!" When you can accidentally turn a sno-cone into a car accident... And not be inside the Ford Taurus, well, then you would be more than capable of knowing my true pain. Otherwise, stop it. You clumsy posers make me sick.)

This is a real affliction people! Seriously, (mostly) growing up it hurt watching all you callous jerks laugh your asses off @ Steve Urkel as he went through his weekly social ostracization on my tv screen. Because inside (wait for it), while everyone laughed their Karl Kani and Fubu T-shirts off, I sat among them thinking "forgive them brother, they know not what they do"... Yikes, perhaps that analogy was a little to heavy handed (jeez man, I'm saying though, be easy with jc references... And of all the people to compare you choose Steve Urkel? SMH, sir - followed a by long belabored sigh) Now, (that I'm totally overusing parentheses) dear reader, you may say to urself, "self did Mr. Freeman really just make a christ analogy using a TGIF sitcom? And then argue about it with himself in the third person..." Well... yes I did, actually, & hopefully you didn't really go through that much exposition contemplating it, and if you did, well consider yourself side-eyed. Weirdo.

Honestly though, I am deathly afraid of holding babies, glass objects and expensive electronics (in that order). There is honestly no thought more horrifying than someone having the totally irresponsible, brazen audacity to put one of those fragile little crumbsnatchers into my awaiting left and right arms, better known to most as death and destruction (ok, maybe not most... Ok, ok maybe only I call them that, but trust me - it's gonna catch on, possibly).

And why do babies have to be so damn small and fragile? You know baby giraffes damn near take off running after sliding outta big mama giraffes? You know what human babies do? That was a trick question, babies don't do anything. Not anything I wanna see anyway. And now you want me to hold that little vomit grenade? No thanks, I'll be late for that. Why would someone do that to me? Because people are jerks that's why. No consideration.

Two things. When I was a kid I played little league baseball. And do you know what position I played? Of course you don't because I'm about to tell you right now. I played right field. Right field, or as my coach so cleverly named it, "go stand over there". Why was I over there? Because I couldn't catch a Effin' thing. Literally. Flying thing, falling thing, no things were getting caught, none of them. And thankfully, because I was in right field, (and because most 3rd graders have the unholy strength of a small kitten) most hits never really got any further than 1st base. So, consequently, I came to develop this odd understanding that playing outfield wasn't really done right until I had found at least 1 four-leaf clover. And of course it had to be done while singing, my then always inspirational, and somehow, seemingly endless library of cartoon theme songs. (You'd be surprised how much time can pass singing a personal, symphony-concerto rendition of Darkwing Duck) and then it happened (cue ominous music) I'll never forget it, one bright cloudless hot-ass Saturday morning, after we somehow managed to get the opposing team "out" three times, we were going into the dugout to get ready to bat. I tripped going into the dugout, falling forward (and down) onto all my teammates. Desperately trying to recapture my balance, I let go of (kinda threw) my bat and helmet to better catch myself. Before I knew what was happening, my helmet is flying through the air while my bat rolls off in front of me, nowhere to be seen. The helmet tragically hits my coach in square in the face, splitting his lip and busting his nose wide open (yea, definitely more like a throw). The hit knocks him into my next coach who tears his ACL slipping on my now easy to see rolling bat (which was crazy, I mean first of all, it would be years before I even knew what the hell an ACL was, and also what?!! Yes that really happened, and needless to say, after that, I definitely wasn't a favorite with the coaching circle anymore - sorry coach. Not like I ever was anyway).

Did I do that?

And besides, really though... he really was not that good of a guy (actually, now that I think of it, Eff you coach McKullum). He was definitely a dick, I remember he used to tell us in practice, "if you boys ever wanna win anything in life, you have to work harder than a Mexican! Especially you Mexicans!" (Side note: Dear "The Great American Pass-Time" thanks for all the memories!) And Yes, in case you were wondering, we did have Mexican kids on our team (shout out to the homie Victor!!!) that he was constantly insensitive to, but that's getting off topic. So yes, its a hard life when you're clumsy. Apparently, you are doomed to suck at little league baseball, cripple old men, and injure small babies (not that I did, the babies part I mean, of course I didn't. Why? What have you heard?). Still, it's not that bad though, and after a while you kinda get used to your uncanny powers. I just wish there was some way to use them for good.

Anyhow, thanks for reading. Sorry about being away so long, I had to go close up an oil spill in the gulf... Perhaps you've heard of it? Anyhow, any other clumsy veterans out there? Its ok to raise your hand, you're among friends. Also, one last thing before I go, I do not think I'm Big Meech, just in case you were wondering.



P.S. "Closing up a spill in the gulf" is code for "Drinking copious amounts of hard liquor while swearing to put up a post in the morning - for two weeks" (Larry Hoover).

Also, it was only one thing... made ya' look!

Magic

So, I’m sitting on the train over the weekend minding my own Indiana business when who should wheel there squeaky ass shopping cart onto the A-Train with me and 40 other people? Why, none other than the (not so) world famous weird-long-haired-does-magic-on-the-train-no-matter-if-you-want-to-see-it-or-not-guy!

“HOORAY,” we (never) shouted!

“HOORAY for the (uncomfortable) magic show we are about to witness!” we (opposite of) exclaimed.

And then, on with the show. And quite a show it was, actually. He pulled some girls panties out of the bottom of her jeans (they were pink, just in case you really wanted to know), turned someone’s empty water bottle into like a hundred pennies, and then there was the finale...

He reached into a hat.

And out of the hat, he pulls out a beautiful handful of air followed by a mass of confused facial expressions. Needless to say, we were quite unimpressed. Out of nowhere, mister magician then gets angry, like really angry, (like get me outta this tight ass train angry) puts the hat back on top of the shopping cart and begins bashing the hell out of it. And he is literally now hulking out on this hat, crushing it over and over again with his closed fist. Until he stops.

He pauses to catch his breath, picks the hat back up, inspects the outside of the it and, very smooth-like, reaches into it once more.

And the car goes silent...

He violently throws the hat down against the shopping cart, and to everybody’s surprise, there is now, all of sudden, a fluttering white (possibly pigeon or) dove in the air of our subway car. And the crowd goes wild... The show was simply, amazing.

At least, it should have been.

Unfortunately, I found myself totally oblivious to any type of amazement whatsoever. The entire time he was doing the trick, I was completely overcome by this one all-consuming thought, “did he really have that bird jammed up his jacket sleeve since he got on the train?” What?

Yes, that was me. I was the one standing there, after it was all over, wondering just exactly how many birds this guy smothered putting his show together. I mean come on right? He definitely had to have practiced on a few pigeons before he brought the doves out. We all know, those things don't come cheap (I didn't fact check that, but I'm pretty sure they're not the poor man's bird of choice). Now, don’t get me wrong, Mr. Freeman is not the all-cynical-all-the-time guy by any stretch of the term, but he certainly looked that way 14 minutes into his half-hour ride back home at the end of what was actually a decent show. And he didn’t feel any type of way about it either. I mean, if the man had a “eff Magic” t-shirt on, he couldn’t have been more transparent about the way he felt (that's it for the 3rd person narrative interlude, trust me, it hurts me more than it hurts you).

But then, the magician began shuffling around our crowded little rolling coke can of a subway car with his money pail out. And, as I tried (avoiding eye contact with the magician by) looking at some stupid ad on the other side of the train, I saw this little girl acting like she just had just seen a man walk on water. She was practically having a meltdown over there, going on and on about all the “cool stuff that guy just did!!!” She would not shut up. And, after begging her mother for what seemed like years, she got a dollar, walked over to the magician, dropped the bill inside and said, “that was amazing!” (Which basically smacked that snarky look di-rectly off of my face to a place I have yet to recover from). Then, the doors opened and we both watched him walk out of the train. And then he was gone.

So, as I stood there gripping that sticky new york city steel rail, I pensively rocked back and forth with my fellow public transpo patrons until I landed in BedStuy. And, I couldn’t help but wonder...

What the hell happened to magic?



I mean, I don’t know exactly when it happened for sure. But somewhere around puberty, after wrestling became fake, but a little ways before girls started going “all the way”, everything became a whole lot harder for me to enjoy without spoil, you know, because of that whole "thinking about all the dead birds in a jacket lining" thing.

What about you guys, when it comes to music, movies, magic, or whatever are you still excited by the “cool stuff” or are you steadily finding your self more and more these days thinking about all the dead birds?

And now I'm a jerk too.

I have officially joined the Blogosphere. So, welcome to my world. And with said title, I find myself approaching a certain amount of self-discovery, that, while enlightening, makes me wonder, "why the hell would you make that the title of your first post?"

"Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time."(sigh)

And it did, but here I am, five sentences in, hacking away at my keyboard in a bath towel (special edition Star Wars: Return of the Jedi type, in case you were wondering... you perv). And I'm trying to figure out a way to make this interesting. Not so much interesting for you, the casual observer who may have come by this beautiful expression of words and ideas by chance, but moreso interesting to me. You see, now that I've started pushing this boulder up the mountain, I'd rather not stop (to play video games, watch movies and kiss girls - the order is of no importance) and then have to go all the way back down the mountain to start pushing the same rock again because "pushing rocks sucks". And we all know, pushing rocks CAN suck sometimes, but I think I can do it (push the rock, I mean. Hopefully, I won't suck).




Now, "why the boulder analogy?" you might ask. Well, the answer lies in my stupid compulsion to insert weak, barely-tethered analogies into conversations to distract people from the old subject while I start a new one. You know, like when you're putting on socks. It doesn't really matter if they match, as long as you keep your shoes on.

So, i'm a big fan of 75% of everything that I technically should of grown out of by now. Which basically includes cartoons, candy, my lucky Barry Sanders jersey, and the New York Knicks. I can't easily explain why I still love these things so much. Seeing as they sometimes separate me from good friends, healthy teeth, decent blood circulation, or my obvious sanity (D'Antoni why?!!!!). But, once I like something... Well, it's hard for me to let go of it. Which may also explain why I've had this ridiculous ThunderCats ringtone on my cellular device for the last six years. I know it sounds cool (to me mostly), but believe me, it can get a little awkward talking to adults with someone screaming "HO!!!!!" outta your back pocket for a half a minute.

Well, that's all I'm going to write for now. I think that was a decent intro (90's hip-hop album quality at least). I promise in the future I'll definitely center these things around one topic, which I guess I could've done in the first place. But I didn't, and you know why I didn't? Well, I'm guessing you forgot what the title of my blog is.