Beads!
[ 2 Comments ] Posted on 12.11.04 in complaints, observations
Last night I walked alongside a float full of kids from my church in the Clearwater Fun n Sun Holiday Parade. As we trudged through downtown among the bourgeois huddled alongside Cleveland Avenue, I realized that I never again want to be a spectator at a parade.
Starting at Crest Lake Park and moving west toward the heart of Downtown, the types of people along the parade route were clearly discernible. First we started with a high population of Mexicans to either side. This minority gradient soon developed into a large African-American crowd screaming for the candies and beads we were so graciously tossing to the side. When our float approached the true bounds of downtown, most people were Caucasians who had reached their Mecca of candy and plastic jewelry from the ground following their long pilgrimage from the local trailer park. Please make note that I’ve nothing major against any of the aforementioned minorities, it’s just that their division clearly denotes the division in the parade route.
One aspect of parading that is a commonality between all areas of Clearwater is the hostility that everyone holds for stupid strings with little plastic balls on them. After greeting ninety-nine percent of the folks whom we passed with a holly jolly “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays,” we were assaulted with the same rude, one-word response: “Beads!”
I don’t fault most kids for this; they’re young and don’t know better. But when 30 year old Juanita or Shaprice can only eek out one word in response to our generosity, I take it personally. You’re not getting my beads.
That is, of course, unless you’re a hot chick.
Hello Sweetheart
[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 12.06.04 in funny stories, girls
Today at lunch as I walked to the office to pick up my exam exemption sheet, I passed a couple of girls who were sitting on a bench outside the teacher’s auditorium. Then, some fellow passed and one of these young ladies gave him a fond, “Hello sweetheart.” I’m assuming they were friends – who says that to strangers?
Anyway, the guy who walked past merely retorted with, “Hi.” I guess when guys aren’t as intimate as girls would like, they go into a tizzy. At least, this one did. The girl who gave the initial greeting yelled angrily at this poor boy as I walked by, “What?! I’m not good enough for a ‘Hello, sweetheart?!’”
In an attempt to calm this young lady’s reservations about her relationship with others (read: to shut her up), as I passed our eyes met and with a smirk about my face, I greeted her with a simple, yet refined, “Hello sweetheart,” and kept walking.
What’s sad is the fact that that’s about the most intimate I’ve ever been with a girl. Perhaps we will meet again, whereupon I can propose to her – I think I have an outside shot with this one.
Hiding behind a wall of illusion
[ 3 Comments ] Posted on 11.30.04 in books, music
Determined to read a book at least once in my life, I ordered from Amazon.com a piece about the possibility of John Lennon’s murderer being a “Manchurian candidate.” A strange possibility, indeed, but it seemed interesting enough to choose to do for a TOK presentation. Evidently, there are just too many coincidences surrounding the assassination and there were too little questions raised after the act to constitute a “lone nut” theory. Daily, I read this book with as much diligence as I had ever put toward reading. So, after about a month of reading (note that I read at about the rate of a mildly retarded sock puppet), I finished Bresler’s Who Killed John Lennon? – just in time to present to Dr. Yarborough the chilling facts surrounding John’s Death.
Ian, upon realizing that I had, against all odds, actually read 200 pages straight, gave to me R. Gary Patterson’s The Walrus Was Paul, a book that investigates all the legendary clues pointing to McCartney’s alleged death. Looking not only at album covers (i.e. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), but also at backward masking and lyrics with double meanings, this volume ever so delicately suggests that the Beatles pulled off the greatest practical joke in history, even if it wasn’t so obvious. Underneath the exquisite musical stylings of the pre-breakup Fab Four lies a whole other artistic realm that is really, really cool to read about. After two days on the interstate between Clearwater and Dillard, Georgia, I am proud to say that I successfully read this book too; that’s two books (which I highly recommend) within a year, a new personal record.
Presently, I am reading The Catcher in the Rye, the piece that Mark David Chapman’s controllers used to allegedly brainwash him into killing John Lennon – this may take a while.