My Obsession

You are an obsession

I cannot sleep

I am your possession

Unopened at your feet

There's no balance

No equality

Be still I will not accept defeat

I will have you

Yes, I will have you

I will find a way and I will have you

Like a butterfly

A wild butterfly

I will collect you and capture you

If you know me personally and read my blog, you will know that every post I write opens a small tattered shoe-box and exposes a very old personal secret of my very own. This week will be no different.

I was forced to repeat the fourth grade at Fiegel Elementary. 

I am not proud of this part of my life and for the most part have hidden it from everyone close to me outside my own family. Hell, up until last month, even my wife of God knows how many years didn't know about it. When I did tell her about it she shrugged and then asked me if I was drunk again. Well, I was drunk. But that's another story.

So anyways. 

The summers of my youth were spent in front of a television. Being an overweight and socially inept youngster did not afford me a grand buffet of childhood friends. The warm light of the television would never laugh when you wet yourself at the Cub Scout weenie roast or throw a Dixie Cup of urine at you during a kickball game. Television never judged me or questioned my choices, it only quietly accepted me. 

Every summer weekday I awoke to the crazy antics of Popeye and Bluto. I would then spend a wonderful brunch with my neighbors on Sesame Street, the Count always was my favorite. I even had a kick-ass puppet of the Count. One Banana...Two Banana...Three Banana...

After brunch I would spend the afternoon with the man who made me the man I am today.

Mr. William 'Bill' Kennedy

Bill Kennedy had his own show on WKBD Channel 50. "Bill Kennedy At The Movies". They would run some old movie and after commercial breaks he would chat for a few minutes with aged B list stars or ingratiate his viewing fans with personal tales from 'Old Hollywood'. My God this guy was suave. I swear I  could smell his Old Spice aftershave wafting though my television's speakers and if ever there was a man who could be judged above all other men, it was Bill Kennedy. I know in my heart that I loved him and everything about him. NO NO NO, not in a sexual way. Christ, I was a pre-pre-teen and years away from even mere thought of my balls dropping. I loved him in the same way a soldier loves his commander or a player loves his coach. If Bill told me to fucking light myself on fire, I would have done it in a second and smiled the whole goddam time. Summer afternoons were spent learning how to be a man under the swaggering tutelage of my mentor, Bill Kennedy.

To this day, I can still replay classic episodes in my head. When Bill 'Unmasked' the Unknown Comic live on the air was epic. So was every time he played 'What Ever Happened To Baby Jane' because he always had great stories about both Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. In fact, I would bet my left nut that he banged them both.....at the same time. To this day, that is the one question I would ask him if given the chance, "Did you bang Bette Davis and Joan Crawford at the same time". I almost had the chance to ask him in person, believe it or not. I had read in the Free Press that Bill would be at the Tel-Twelve mall signing books or something and I made my mom take me. She took me to the mall after I cried a little, but what ever he was doing was all over by the time we got there. I still remember looking for his limousine in the mall parking lot feeling sure that I had just missed him and if he saw me waving he would stop and shake my hand. I sobbed on the ride home but stopped when I asked myself  'Would Bill Cry". No, Bill would not cry dammit.

Summers melted into autumn and soon school started. But, everyday I was without my Bill was a day without a hand guiding me towards manhood. I missed his charms. Then I found a way.

The first time I was kept home sick was the flu. I spent the day on the couch with a waste can beside me watching TV. For two days Bill's baritone voice and the smell of Vicks VapoRub was a soothing comfort between dry heaves into the tin basket. My return to school was not met with celebration. I needed Bill and believed in my heart that in some way he needed me.

For the first three months of fourth grade, I think I spent more time at home than at home than in front of a chalk board. There were tricks that I had learned. When playing with other kids who were sick didn't work, I started getting creative. Eating a raw egg that I had hid in the garage for two weeks earned me three days with Bill. Drinking a pint of warm spoiled milk earned me two days. A glass of wood grain alcohol got me two weeks home and a spot at the front of the classroom near the chalkboard when I got my eyesight back. I can even remember trying to break my own arm in an attempt to stay home with Bill. The days absent from school began to add up and I was neglecting the homework that was being sent home. Then came the day that I was kind of expecting. I was watching Bill when my mom came into my room (I was given a small 9 inch black and white TV of my own to watch) and snapped off the set. My first instinct was to scratch my mother's eyes out and howl to turn Bill back on, but the antifreeze I had drank had made me week as a kitten. Her red eyes let me know that she had been crying and I guessed it was the letter in her hand that caused her tears. In a soft trembling voice, she let me know that I was failing the fourth grade and that I would have to be held back. Next fall I would have to repeat the fourth grade. She hugged me for what seemed like an eternity then turned to leave. 

In a gravely voice learned from a master, I spoke.

"Turn the TV back on", I demanded from my sick bed 

The rest of the school year I pissed away fucking around in class. I knew I would have to do it all over again so why even try. Fourth grade ended and summer with Bill came and went. Soon, what should have been my first day of fifth grade was instead my second first day of fourth grade. The jig was up. If Bill taught me anything it was to buckle up when times get tough and get the job done. I didn't miss another day of school until 12th grade and that lice thing I had.

P.S. be sure not to miss part 2 "Bill, Me and my freshman homecoming dance". Coming soon!

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"A feast for the eye, a fabulous adventure for the heart and the spirit"
                                                                                                     
I thought someone said that about my art one time a couple of years ago, but when I confronted them to say thanks, they denied ever writing it and said I was a hack.

I wasn't disappointed, not at all. Disappointment for me is something that first ended in a warm sticky mess in under three minutes and is topped with a sobbing "Sorry for ruining your sweater". Disappointment must be savored like a bowl of Lucky Charms ruined by milk that has soured, you never forget the taste and learn to check dates before pouring another bowlful. I have always tried to learn from disappointment.

"Please Shower Before Entering Pool"

When you see this sign there is a spark of excitement. You think "Cool there is a pool here". The first time I ever got excited to read a sign that stated this was my entry onto the fifth floor at St. Mary's Hospital. It never occurred to me that it was highly unlikely that a small suburban hospital would have a pool on the fifth floor....

....or on the psych ward.

After three days I finally had the nerve to ask a fellow patient, "When do they open the pool?".
The girl laughed at me and told me that another patient put that sign up a month ago. She laughed and laughed while I savored my disappointment. Another valuable lesson learned. There are no pools in life's psych ward.

Is it possible to share one's disappointment?  The other day, a friend on Facebook posted how he is "SO ready to take the gloves off with Syria". That is a bold statement coming from someone who likes show tunes and sports a COEXIST bumper sticker on his Prius. When I read his bold post, I felt his disappointment that the man he openly loves and voted into office is going to have fellow humans killed. I'm sure his loud exclamation that he is a fighter and not a lover is his way of welcoming his disappointment in his leaders. While I did indeed feel his disappointment, it was a short and fleeting embrace that ended as soon as another friend posted a cool link to free porn.

Sharing disappointment is best left as a one way street. Always try and savor the disappointments of others and never share your own. The dude that wants to bomb Syria now looks like a bitter fucktard to everyone who tried to tell him that he would be disappointed in his life choices. If you ever get involved in something that disappoints you, bury it and bury it deep. Only unearth it for others to see when no harm can come from it. If you don't bury it, people will use it to cut your fucking throat.

The first time I learned not to share 'fresh' disappointment was during my early teens. I may have been 13 or 14 when I arrived uninvited and unexpected at a friend's house. Well, the kid lived in one of those 'co-op' apartments for poor families. Because of this, I always felt that I was better than him and made fun of his McGregor tennis shoes and Tuff Skin jeans from K-Mart.. I mean, come on, I was not poor as a child and thought his economic predicament was quite amusing.

Well, getting back to my story.

It was a warm afternoon near the end of a seemingly endless summer vacation and I knocked. Ray opened the door and I could tell he had been expecting someone else. He invited me in. Ray's mother worked afternoons and there was never a sitter to watch him and his slightly younger and very hot sister, so I wasn't that surprised to see her and 3 other teens in his living room smoking cigarettes. I had a big crush on her and she looked so fucking hot smoking a Newport in her tight blue nylon running shorts with white piping. She giggled and said "Hello, Topher". Ray then interrupted my dizzyingly hormonal buzz with a short statement, "There are some girls and guys coming over in a minute. We are gonna make out".

For exactly half a second, I could feel every hormone in my early teenaged body rush to my genitals.

Then came the crash.

"You can stick around, but you wont get any", Ray stated with a certain cold fact.

Ray could see my disappointment like a 500 watt halogen light bulb from three feet away.Through a hormone fueled haze, I remember telling him that I had to get home anyways for dinner. I swear I heard laughter as the door closed behind me.

A few weeks later middle school started I swear to God that Ray told everyone about that summer afternoon I was not invited to partake in my first teen-aged love fest. He got me back for every one of my "Your mom shops at Salvation Army" jokes. In his own way, Ray reminded me that I would never be welcome at the cool kid's table in the lunch room of life and that my disappointment in learning this fact tasted as sweet, to him, as free cotton candy at a county fair.

It took a couple of years for me to realize that my disappointment had fertilized the joy of others. I still roll that summer afternoon through my head trying to think of snappy comebacks to hide my own crushing disappointment. To this day, I use that day to help me maneuver through my constant and daily disappointments. That day is like a aged numbed scar from a dog bite that never healed right and reminds you to never pet strange dogs.

Remember, if life was never disappointing we would never be reminded to shower before entering the pool.