F.F.F. - Midget Wrestling Part 2

I feel compelled to say, the only thing I wanted more than anything for Christmas I got. Lakers over Celtics on Christmas day couldn't be any sweeter. Oh, and the only thing I have to add to Encina's tribute to Phil is, "Phil, wherever you are, I hope you enjoyed last night's game."

I didn't know Phil at all other than as the guy who watched over LG like one of his children. But as a loyalist to the best Lakers site on the net, I appreciate all he did for the sake of us silly fans.

Now for the second half of my short fiction piece (I'm sure you've all been counting the days since I left off with last weeks cliff-hanger).

Midget Wrestling Part 2

In my new job, I’m required to travel. Not that travel is the main focus, I’m actually nothing more than a glorified messenger boy, but it’s something they mentioned when they hired me, and desperate for whatever kind of decent work I could find, I didn’t think twice about it. Part of me has reservations about this, but another part of me is totally looking forward to the time I get to spend on the road. It’s a pretty sweet set-up actually; company car, company credit card, a few specific tasks to accomplish, which at first glance don’t seem too terribly challenging.

I search my inner feelings, something I’ve been working on lately, to see if I can figure out where any hesitations I might have regarding this are coming from. It doesn’t take long before I follow the trail, which, of course, leads back to Jade.

The big question, though, is what part of my relationship would make me feel this way?

I start to answer with the obvious. I worry that something will happen to her while I’m gone, or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe she’ll worry about something happening to me while I’m on the road. Maybe she’ll get upset that I’m off having a good time without her, despite the fact that making the trip is my job, and nothing more.

I really should know better. There’s nothing obvious about our relationship.

The old man and I — now there was an obvious relationship. It was obvious I hated him and just as obvious he wished I were someone different.

When we hit the road back in 1965 and headed to Georgia, the chill developing inside the ’62 Ford wagon had nothing to do with it being winter. In fact, I’m sure I remember the weather being unseasonably warm, although after so many years, I couldn’t swear to it. The old man, however, was swearing up a storm.

“That fucking bitch of a mother of yours is giving me so much shit I can’t hardly fucking believe it,” he said, quite pleased with his ability to alienate his wife and force me into one of his crazy ventures all in one single act of madness.

Six hours into the trip I decided I could stand it no more. Collecting my pee in an old orange juice bottle and eating sunflower seeds to stave off starvation wasn’t much my idea of an adventure. The scenery from the highway was nondescript and uninteresting, and the occasional radio stations we could pick up were dominated by the old man’s affection for bad country music.

“There’s a Waffle House, Dad. Can’t we stop and get something decent to eat?”

I have to add here, that back then I had no hesitations eating at an establishment willing to name itself after a popular breakfast food.

“Think I’m fucking made out of money? Look, I got just enough to pay for motel rooms and gas. We eat what I brought in that bag back there.”

I looked in the paper grocery bag and saw a case of PBR.

“Not that one, the duffel on the seat behind you. Climb on back and grab me a Hershey’s, will you?”

Like he needed more caffeine and sugar in his system. The old man already looked like he was about to explode. Where would that leave me, I wondered, if he dropped dead from a stroke or a heart attack.

Jade’s packing up stuff for me to take on the trip I’m making for work. My assignment is to pick up a package in Tempe, then stop overnight in Santa Fe to meet with someone named James. With the major credit card my new boss handed me, I can pretty much stay at any hotel I want, so I choose The Hacienda at Hotel Santa Fe, where I used to work. I’ve had dreams about this — being a guest at the very place I once played host. Now I can be the one that’s waited on, although I swore to myself that if ever the opportunity arose, I wouldn’t be one of those pain in the ass types who seemed to thrill at the idea of having someone fall all over themselves just for the prospect of a lousy tip.

At the motels the old man and I stayed at on our trip back in ’65, tipping or not tipping the hired help didn’t come into play as an option. Apparently desk clerks at these establishments, the ones that aren’t listed in the AAA tourbooks, were less inclined to provide customer service than they were to afford the underage locals a place to party. Not that the old man minded any. His idea of luxury accommodations went about as far as a magic fingers box on the bed that actually didn’t steal your quarters.

As for inappropriate noises coming from the other rooms, that was pretty much taken care of in the same way as anything else that might have cast a cloud over his parade — beer.

I tried it. I didn’t like it. But I did find its effects worth suffering through the bitter aftertaste and a brief bout of puking. It gave me courage. It gave me inhibition. I saw God.

It also gave me the ability to tell my father, the man instrumental in giving me life, the man who might have loved me despite his actions to the contrary, the man who had just spent the better part of a day trapped in a car with a 12-year-old driving across three states all in the name of midget wrestling, to fuck off.

He just sat there, on the bed with the magic fingers, and stared at me.

I would have rather he hit me, or yelled at me, or packed up the car and just left me there to fend off the drug dealers and prostitutes on my own. Instead he sat and stared. Then he laughed. Then he threw me another beer.
I’d never hated him more.

Finally he spoke. “You know, son, I’ve never loved you more. Tomorrow I’m going to get to see one of the greatest spectacles in professional sports, and when that moment comes, there’s no one I’d rather have with me than you.”

Jade told me once, as we were getting ready to go out drinking with some of her artist friends, how happy she was that I was with her. That was before the fight we had later that night, probably the result of too many drinks and an encounter with her pompous ass of an ex-boyfriend.

I decide that I don’t want to leave her, even if it’s just for a weekend. “Why don’t you come with me?” I ask her.

“Are you sure?” she replied. “Nothing personal, but I was sort of looking forward to getting some things done I never seem to have time for.”

I’m speechless. How is it my fault she can’t get anything done while I’m around? “That’s fine,” I finally say, not finding the same type of bravado I had shown the old man all those years ago.

I wonder where the midgets are going to be this weekend.

From Far Away

I share a common bond with the other contributors of this site: I am a Lakers' junkie. I am such a fan that I frequent a site that caters to people like me, people with a healthy obsession of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers. I am not from Los Angeles, I have never been to California. But for whatever reason I have always been an LA Lakers' fan, and damn proud of it.

Over time, my obsession grew, and I had to find new sources for feeding my addiction. I would go to the LA Times' Web site for any Lakers' news. I'd go on to ESPN to hear any Lakers' rumors. I began looking at NBA-only sites that had even more information. I even wanted to know what other Lakers' fans were thinking, so I found a message board designed by and for Lakers' fans. Like many people there, I read over for a while the messages and news that they were privy to. I hid in the shadows wondering who these people were that they knew so much. Eventually, I joined and began posting on my own, responses to other people, starting my own threads, getting to know some of the other posters. There were some posters I really liked, others I avoided, many others I never knew existed.

Over time, even on an impersonal foundation such as the Internet, it is possible to build relationships with people you have never met or may never ever meet. Such is the life of a 21st Century denizen. Getting to know someone else's words and feelings, you get to feel as though you know that person. But with so many hundreds or thousands of people on any particular site, is it possible to really know anyone? What would you call it, e-meet someone? Can they be called 'friends'? 'Acquaintances'? What would we call them? Should we even refer to them at all?

I did begin liking certain people on the site. Maybe I became a fan of theirs. Their humor, their intellect, their vast knowledge of many topics drew me to them. If we met in real life, I am certain I might call some of them 'friend.'

In the time I was at this site, changes took place in the management. A regular poster I had seen occasionally bought the site and implemented changes. He was a driving force for making the site more stable, faster, more enjoyable. He and I even worked some to start an offshoot site. Through it all, he was always the nicest gentleman I could ever "meet." He was kind, always saying words that made a person feel good about themselves. We would send messages to each other, and he'd always say how much he thought of me as a regular contributor to the sites we both frequented. His words were genuine, as was the man.

In the past year, the man I knew as 'Phil' spent less time on the site and would need to take a leave because of prior engagements. As a result of his coming schedule, he sold the site to someone who could oversee it day-to-day, more than he could. However, the changes he made remained, and made the site the best for any Lakers' fan.

The past few days have been hectic for me. With the coming Christmas season, preparing to celebrate with family, traveling, end of year organizing at work, I had less time to visit the Lakers' site. It had been several days since last I checked the site, but today I decided to hop on and see how my Internet pals were doing.

That is when I saw a thread that caught my eye, an announcement of sad news. The site had lost one of its members, but who? I clicked to see who it was, and then my heart dropped. Some unseen force managed to find me at work and punch me in the stomach. Phil Allen, the man I knew as 'Phil,' had been in a car accident in the days I was away, and soon after lost his life. Comments poured in from members who paid their condolences and said some words about the man.

It's bizarre that this man whom I didn't know at all, I began to learn about in death. His name, for example, his occupation, his interests. The time he left was due to his involvement in national politics and his work on behalf of president-elect Obama. He was very knowledgeable about Joshua Tree National Park. He was as nice to others as he was to me, showing what a tremendous man he really was.

No, what a tremendous man he really is. His actions and words still carry weight, still affect those who remain. You cannot take that away from any person, and thus, you can never kill them off.

Phil, though we only e-met each other, I consider you a friend. I will not e-miss you, I will miss you truly. I asked earlier what we would call someone you only knew online? I'd call them a friend.

Flash fiction Friday - Midget Wrestling - Part One

First off, thanks guys for indulging me by allowing me to post my rambling works of fiction here.

Secondly, this piece sort of took off on me and, while I'm not much of a short story writer, it has already grown out of the flash fiction genre. So much so that I'm going to post this in two parts. Oh, and any similarities between the characters here and real life are, as they say, purely coincidental. I'd also like to add, that this is pretty rough still.

Stayed tuned. Hope you enjoy it.

Midget Wrestling

When it comes to professional wrestling, for my money it’s midget or nothing. At least that’s what my old man always used to say. Probably one of the only things in life we ever agreed on.

Jade, my “life mate” is home now, working on her art, and not talking. Not that she’s intentionally not talking. For everything that’s not said between us many more things are. But there’s something hanging in the air one can feel. We haven’t been communicating much lately--days now--mostly because I had this premonition that I would be doing something stupid in the near future to trash our relationship. Since then it’s been nothing but pleasantries between us. You know, “What do you want for dinner?” or “Is it okay with you if I play the piano?” That kind of stuff.

Then in the midst of all this silence, right out of the blue, I start thinking about the old man. We haven’t talked for months, since his birthday, when I called, not to wish him well, but because I had just gotten a new job I wanted to tell him about. Of course, when Mom picked up the phone and said they were going to Red Lobster I had to improvise and sing that little song to him—the same one they sing to you in the restaurant when they bring out your dessert.

But today, while Jade is doing some sort of sculpture thingie with globs of glue and acrylics, piling them into mountainous landscapes onto a big piece of plywood, I stop with the bicycle repairs I’m doing and start thinking about January, 1965.

At 12 years-old, I had only a slight growing knowledge of the midget wrestling circuit, mostly acquired from listening to Dad drivel on with his buddies over their weekly card game about how Lord Littlebrook was a far superior wrestler than Pee Wee James or Frenchie Lamont. I found it hard to believe that anyone other than the old man actually cared as much about the sport as he did, but between the men seated around the lopsided folding card table, all using various sorts of tobacco and drinking the cheapest beer they could lay their hands on, the discussions would get quite heated.

Jade’s taken a break from her art and is talking on the phone now, probably to one of her pals from before we met. For whatever deep seeded reasons, this makes me more than a little uncomfortable. Even though I’ve pretty much assimilated into her group of bohemian artist types and have no worries about her affections going elsewhere, I become painfully aware of how much I have to learn when it comes to relationships. Not being so controlling is probably tops on the list. I try to listen in on the conversation while pretending to be busy with something else. Eavesdropping is rude and not conducive to the picture I hold onto as being the perfect boyfriend. Still, I can’t help but let it bother me when I see her laughing that happy laugh, the one that makes her so beautiful, the one I try to pull out of her but never seem to be able to.

Christmas is right around the corner. I have decided this year to give nothing but crappy gifts, sort of as a joke, but more like a protest against the big retail chains, who try to convince everyone that in order to be a good person you should buy the most expensive items in their store to prove to the people you love how much you care about them.

By the time Christmas rolled around in 1964, my knowledge of midget wrestling had grown to the point where I could use it as a tool to get the old man to agree to letting me do stuff he normally wouldn’t. Not like he was so easily fooled. About a week before the big day, I was angling for the ultimate present--a new 10-speed, milking what I’d picked up about the sport for all it was worth. I decided to start up with him about his favorite wrestler, telling him how much I’d like to see a match in person and all that crap and how Lord Littlebrook deserved the title because Beau Brummell obviously violated the rules when he introduced a foreign object, namely thumbtacks, into the match.

“Why you always have to use such big words, you little smartass,” was the old man’s reply.

I didn’t get the bike. What I did get was, in the old man’s eyes, much better.

“You want to see a live match?”

Here it comes, I thought.

“How about three?”

Most people have no understanding of the sport. There is, in fact, a world of difference between the midget circuit and that nonsense they show on cable TV featuring the behemoths with their silly made-up back stories all pumped up full of hormones and steroids. The only way to get a feel for the subtleties of the little guys other than following the circuit in person, as my dad and I did in January of 1965, is to mail order some DVDs and spend an afternoon or several absorbing them.

Jade and I were getting high one evening, flipping through the channels, when she stopped on one of those scripted WWE shows, because she thought Chris Jericho was “all right looking.” She then sat, mesmerized by the campiness, while I broke up another bud and stuffed it into the bowl of the bong, trying to ignore my feelings of disgust. An enlightened boyfriend understands the differences between himself and his woman and learns to accept them. I mean, it wasn’t like she was asking to go to MacDonald’s for dinner or anything. I have to add that, to the best of my knowledge, she doesn’t watch any of that crap on a regular basis and probably couldn’t tell you a thing about the history between Triple H and Shawn Michaels, or even that the Hart family spans generations in the industry despite young Owen Hart's tragic demise.

Neither was she all that impressed when I received my DVD from the HPB (Half Pint Brawlers), which featured, among other things, naked midget hitchhiking, midgets in dryers, and staple gun death matches.

In 1965, the circuit was more serious. Lord Littlebrook and Pee Wee James were true artists, masters of their craft, and terrific entertainers. They’d have to be to keep the old man’s interest, as he was as discriminating a fan as ever walked the planet. When we headed off from our home just outside of Lexington and headed to Georgia for a week long adventure, I had no idea what to expect. I have to admit to a fair amount of anticipation at having the opportunity to view in person something I had only experienced vicariously through the eyes of a man I despised along with his loathsome friends. The whole idea of little people fine-tuned and using their bodies in a way most big people can’t even imagine, putting their physical well-being on the line all in the name of entertainment for big folks, for some reason was a concept I couldn’t help but admire. The twist of it all, of course, was that we were the suckers, paying out good money to see something most people wouldn’t admit to caring much about.

Aside from the matches we watched, January 6th in Columbus, January 8th in Atlanta, and January 9th in Marietta, there are three instances on that trip that I will never forget: my first beer, my first cigarette, and the first time I ever told my father to fuck off to his face.

Stay tuned for Part Two.

I Like Music

Rodrigo & Gabriela doing an acoustic rendition of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."

 

Just because.

Brennan Blogs: How I Passed the California Bar Exam

I was recently asked if I could write up a little blurb for the San Diego County Bar Association's weekly publication. I was asked to respond to the following question - Now that you have passed the bar, what advice do you have for current students preparing for the exam?

I have decided to share it here just in case any other future applicants venture their way onto this blog. Well, here was what I wrote up...

The State Bar of California requires that all prospective attorneys spend six hours a day for three days taking the California Bar Examination. In preparation, I spent about ten hours a day for three months studying. Essentially, given my intense studying habits, the bar exam itself was just another day.

Make the bar exam just another day.

When the results came out, I didn’t want to look back with my name left off the pass list wondering if I could have done more. Accordingly, I decided to leave no stone unturned. I took both Kaplan’s full MBE course and Barbri’s comprehensive bar course. I went to every class. I made an outline for every subject, sometimes two where I needed to know both California and Federal law. I completed all of Barbri’s near 100 practice essays. I finished five Barbri practice performance tests. I answered over 3,000 practice MBE questions provided by both Barbri and Kaplan (on a side note, Kaplan’s practice MBE questions were undoubtedly superior). Lastly, I made a flashcard for almost every practice MBE question I missed.

I did all that, I made the bar exam just another day, and I passed. I hope whoever reads this does the same, especially the passing part.

Flash fiction Friday - Piece by Piece

I'll be the first to admit that I use writing as an escape. As in this piece, sometimes all it takes is a first line then I sit back and watch as a story unfolds.

Every morning the first thing I do when I wake up is check to make sure none of my parts are missing. This all started I think at around eight years of age when one night I became aware of a presence hovering over me. I was certain that this gangling creature was determined to take me away, bits and pieces at a time, until there was nothing left. Shortly after that it happened--I found a place just above my right thigh where a piece of me was gone. Not a very large piece, mind you, hardly bigger than a dime. But when something of you is taken, no matter how significant, you notice. I tried to show my mom, who looked at the spot and, although sympathetic to my feelings, disregarded my claim as "just my imagination." Sure, the spot resembled nothing in the way of a flesh wound. No bleeding. No open sores. No noticeable hole. Still, I knew something was missing.

A few years later I had almost forgotten about the incident. Many nights had passed and I had slept solidly through most of them, the only exceptions being Christmas Eves and that night I went to the carnival and ate too many corn dogs. As one grows older other worries far more pressing than shadows seen in the dark of a lonely bedroom take over the mind: school work, making the soccer team, the bully who stalks you in the hallways after your lunch money, girls. As a youth you are taught to trust adults, especially your mother, and so I did. Maybe the whole thing was just my imagination, I thought. So at the age of twelve, when least expected, the morning came when I discovered I had been robbed of another piece, this time a portion the size of Chinese Yen, just below my navel. All the fear from the years past came back to me in a wave of panic. The thing was back in my room again last night and had done its dirty deed.

After several near sleepless nights I was in desperate need of a plan. There must be some way to protect myself from being removed over time from existence. I asked my mom for a dog, one that could sleep in bed with me. I don't think I need to tell you how she responded. So I came up with an alternative. I convinced my little sister to move into my room with me, talking my parents into turning her room into a game room the whole family could use. Not the best thought out plane to be sure, but desperation leads to extreme tactics. My hope was that if the shadow creature did come again, it would take parts from my sister who was younger and, as I would reluctantly admit, fairer than I, especially as my body had just begun crossing the threshold into puberty. In hindsight I realize I never fully dealt with the guilt.

For a time it seemed to work. Nights passed and after each morning's examination I was proud to proclaim myself the same as I had been the night before. That was until the morning I awoke and found my sister's bed empty. At first I thought maybe she had just gotten up before me, a rare occurrence but certainly not out of the question. Tiptoeing into the kitchen I found no trace of her. I asked my mom, who was cooking breakfast if Ashley had been up. Her reply sent chills down my back. "What do you mean, 'who's Ashley'?" I cried. "You know, your daughter, my sister." She thought I was kidding. I pleaded with my father, who was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper. "Tell her to stop kidding around." He put down his paper and looked me in the eye. "Did you have some sort of bad dream, son?"

That's when I knew. Not only had my sister been erased from existence, but my parents, my real parents, had been replaced by remarkably clever duplicates. How did I know this? Well, for one thing, my mother never cooked breakfast. Most of the time I was lucky if I got a bowl of cold cereal. And my father...well...for him the only section of the paper that existed was the sports section, and here he was reading the Lifestyle pages.

I tried calling the police from a phone booth that afternoon on my way home from school. Of course they didn't believe me and told me that if I called again they would have me arrested. I took stock of my options and came to the conclusion that they were dwindling down to next to nothing. As near as I could figure, there was only one thing left to do. Run. So I did, and I didn't stop for the next 12 years.

It was during that span of time that I began my morning ritual. Every day for the next 12 years, no matter where I slept I checked myself, and every day was the same. I finally assumed that because I never stayed in one spot, under the same bridge, down the same alley, in the same condemned building, for more than a week or two, the creature never had a chance to hone in on my exact location.

Eventually I grew tired of the hobo lifestyle and settled down. With any luck the creature had forgotten about me, or perhaps now that I was a grown adult it had lost interest. I got my own place. Not like the place I chose was all that nice, a single room with a bath and kitchen in a less than desirable neighborhood, but after all that time I was happy to have anyplace I could call home. Still I continued my ritual, not so much out of fear, but out of habit, like an addict's need to stick a needle in his arm. Each morning was the same, and each morning I breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

Until three mornings ago, when I found it. This time it was a Mexican Peso. I haven't slept since.

The Fox and the Henhouse

Now comes news that Bill Gates is open to a role in Obama's administration, ostensibly as an economic advisor. Three words for Barack: Don't do it.

Before I go any further, I would like to acknowledge my respect for Mr. Gates' charity work. Nothing can change the inherent good he is doing with his fortune, but at the same time, there are several issues I have with how he got it.

First, the origins of the technology itself are shrouded in credible clouds of theft.

Second, Microsoft apparently continued (continues?) to steal from other companies, even after its success. There are literally dozens of settlements related to patent infringement, where Microsoft allegedly stole from fledgling startups, and later paid out reduced sums (in relation to initially buying what those companies had), complete with gag orders. Essentially, Microsoft stole these companies' ideas, and was able to use its incredible cash and muscle to buy them after the fact for less than market value.

Third, Microsoft deliberately worked to establish a monopoly, much the same way Wal Mart does, but in reverse. By not allowing, or at least inhibiting their OEM buyers from bundling other, competing software with their operating system, and by deliberately making it difficult for some competitors' software to function within Windows, they eliminated competitive innovation, at the expense of both their competitors and the consumer as a whole.

The Clinton administration went after them on this, but fortunately for Microsoft, the Bush administration quickly quashed that notion. It makes sense that Microsoft was also one of the companies invited to secret meetings with the Bush team to discuss ways US companies could profit from... oops, I mean assist... the Iraq occupation.

Fourth, Microsoft has been at the forefront of the corporate lobby to obtain more visas for high level employees. Despite their claims to the contrary, there is a surplus of available high tech workers in the US. The simple fact is that they wish to import cheaper labor. The days of partnering with their employees (remember those legendary stock options in lieu of competitive pay) are apparently over at Microsoft.

Last, Microsoft is a decaying empire, a victim in many ways of its own meteoric success. The idea (theirs or not), timing, and predatory tactics built an empire, but the long term ability to sustain with innovation, growth (and with it the allure of stock options) is largely in the past. 

Microsoft is now trailing-edge technology, held in place by not much more than ubiquity, and even that is crumbling. They have for the last years been struggling to implement a way to rent their software rather than sell it (a huge debacle for the public, who would be forced to accept every chronically late-yet-premature upgrade, unable to stick with older, more stable versions), in an era where saturation, competitive products, and resistance to new upgrade purchases (98, Millenium, Vista) is depleting revenue. Vista resistance, for good reason, is so legendary that Microsoft has had to resort to ads touting the fact that it's not as bad as word of mouth says. This is never a good thing. 

Sure, they are far from dead, but much like the Roman Empire, they are past their zenith, and it isn't coming back. The Vandals (Apple) and the Visigoths (linux), among others, are at the outer frontiers. The Zune is underwelming, and the XBox platform is trailing Wii, essentially in a battle with Sony's Playstion3 for second place (with Sony gaining ground after a disastrous dearth of quality games impeded its roleout). Windows Mobile still has little traction. Internet Explorer (despite being the intended beneficiary of much of MS's allegedly illegal monopolistic attempts) is no longer the de facto browser, with hordes of customers choosing Firefox and Safari, among others.  MSN lags terminally behind Google and Yahoo, and Microsoft was forced to give up on buying second-place Yahoo.

The fact is, Microsoft hasn't had any good ideas in years, relying instead on ways to coerce their customer base, and is starting to resemble the big 3 automakers in terms of slow evolution and adaption. You see where they have ended up. Just my opinion, but Bill Gates is not the guy Obama needs helping him fix the economy. Run your charity Bill. You're good at it, and that's where you can do the most to help.