The Final Whistle pt. 3

 After Coach Cageboy's email about not making the team the I-mac showed some of his old fire... and though he didn't really want to play at this club he also knew his options were limited, yet not even getting an offer pissed him off, especially from his high school coach... that's the game at these clubs, the coaches like to build the best team possible but often try to divert the best players on their high school teams to their clubs where it gives them an opportunity to work with the players more... the I-mac went out and began destroying kids in the summer high school practices, the kid was always the class of his program, they had no one who had his skill, intelligence and athletic ability all rolled into one and once again Coach Cageboy was telling him how he expected big things, how he was going to run the attack through him, how he was the key to the team's success this year... and yet somewhere along the lines things went pear-shaped, badly... 

Let me state this... Coach Cageboy is hands down the worst fucking coach i've ever seen in any sport i've ever been associated with... fucking awful... he has no tactical ability, no game management ability, doesn't know how to run a program, horrible at training, can't break down film or scout, seems almost incapable of evaluating talent and incapable of taking the talent he has and getting it set up in the right positions to get the best out of his players and be the best team possible.. he acts like a dictator, is unapproachable to his players, will suddenly bench a kid and then not speak a word to them, not tell them why or what they did to lose time, (he openly ran away from the I-mac and would use an assistant to intercept him before he could actually speak to him) wouldn't listen to any of his assistants other than his old head coach who was another shit coach who was the beneficiary of excellent players but as a coach was almost as awful as Cageboy, information that came from the old coach's ex-players... Cageboy was a fucking trainwreck... his style of coaching was to sit catatonic but then jump up and start screaming at the referee about the most mundane call in the game... with his players it was name calling, he called them fucking pussies, fucking embarrassments, fucking losers, said they took no accountability for their play, said they made him look bad and at one point last year threw an expensive camera in anger in front of some players... in short a fucking loser who has no business ever coaching kids... in a way i almost want to send him a thank you note for not taking the I-mac on his club team where i'd have to pay to have this ass clown as the I-mac's coach... 

To say i have no respect for the man would be selling it short... i've coached off and on for a long time and not once did i ever blame my players for a loss... this guy seemed to think every loss was his team's fault and that he had nothing to do with it... this gig was his dream job, he played here (albeit one season as a starter and the rest as the waterboy), grew up in the community, has his own business here, liked to trot out the medals they won in high school and talk about legacy... (full disclosure, a very good friend of mine was as an all-conference midfielder two years running on those teams, as a junior they won the district and as a senior lost in the district finals, making it all the way to the final four of States that year, he thought it was hysterical how Cageboy talked about the year they won the district as Cageboy barely broke a sweat... other than warm-ups)... i've also never called my kids derogatory names and told them they're making me look bad, i've had some tough losses as a coach and i've always told my team that if there was any blame it was on me, that i didn't do a good enough job and that they gave me everything they had and that's all i can ever ask for... i won't say if i'm a good coach or not but i always tell my players and parents to judge me on these things... does the player get better? does the team get better? and are we competitive? i've had a number of parents tell me the season or seasons they've enjoyed the most was when their kid played for me... i've had players tell me they developed and learned while playing for me... and it's a great feeling when i see a kid, years later, and they yell "Coach!" and stop and talk with me... it's better than any paycheck i'll ever get... the gist is as a coach the team's performance is my responsibility and i'll take the heat for the loss and give the players the credit for the win... that's how you fucking do it... 

As the season inched closer it seemed that history would repeat itself... Coach Cageboy had fallen in love... with a sophomore he wanted to play at striker, the I-mac began to mention how the coach fawned all over the kid and knowing Coach Cageboy like we did it did not bode well for the I-mac's season... he was still having stomach issues but was working to get it corrected and had for the most part but right before the season he had an anxiety problem, he talked to Cageboy about it who seemed to say all the right things... (a side note: the school had put in place a program about mental health for it's athletes and stressed how important it was for coaches to be cognizant and aware of it and to help the players if they were approached and talked to about it, the coaches had to take classes and understand and help them if anything came up...) but Coach Cageboy is nothing if not a raging shitbag and it appeared that this was just the thing he was looking for... granted the I-mac can be a bit of a headcase (as previously noted) but this time he had done the right thing and communicated, after a few days he actually told Cageboy the talk had helped and he felt a lot better about things and more relaxed... the team went across the state for the season's opening weekend, an event that's been going on for 30 odd years, he started both games but would be subbed off around 13-15 minutes into the game (in high school soccer a player can come off and go back on) and then come back in with a few minutes left in the half or not at all, by game two he wasn't even starting the second half... the kid who was told they'd run the offense through was now playing roughly 30 minutes out of 80... the writing was on the wall... 

Then came the infamous bus incident... the trip was across the state, if someone went in the bathroom on the bus and the person near the door put the seat back a bit the person wouldn't be able to get out of the bathroom... the I-mac was sitting at the front of the bus nowhere near the bathroom door... it had been going on the whole trip, on the way there and back, but on the way back Cageboy became aware of it when the kid in the bathroom was making noise about being locked in... remember these are teenage high school boys, which really is all that needs said... Cageboy then had a meltdown on the bus and asked who knew about it, basically the whole team did and when they all raised their hands somehow Cageboy "managed" to only see some of the hands... his new boy crush wasn't even paying attention as he was too busy looking at his phone so he didn't even hear... when they got back he had a team meeting and told roughly ten players they would lose minutes and those who were starters wouldn't start the next game... one of the captains, who raised his hand but wasn't seen, was relieved he wasn't named and as i told the I-mac, the team should vote and strip him of his captaincy (something the kid would lose later in the season for posting stupid shit on social media... guess who thought it was fit to name him a captain? that's right Cageboy)... in the I-mac's case it was just what Cageboy needed though, a chance to bench him and put in his new boy crush... (it should be noted they were 0-2, having lost both games over the weekend.) 

As i've said before i've coached off and on for 30 odd years... one of the things i've been told i'm very adept at is scouting talent, i understand what to look for, the strengths and weaknesses the player possesses, when it came to Cageboy's boy crush i was literally at a loss... it was nothing personal against the kid and in truth i felt a bit bad for him, his coach was doing him a disservice by fawning all over him especially when it was painfully obvious to all that he wasn't very good... yet Cageboy with his sage eye felt he had discovered a superstar... the kid played defense on the second team at one of the lowest ranked clubs around... a brief synopsis of his skills... his first touch was awful, he over-dribbled and held the ball far too long, his passing skills were nil, his main attribute was shoving people over and committing fouls, his soccer IQ was close to zero... the kid wouldn't have started on most JV teams and wouldn't have started on our JV team (the JV coach is actually and excellent coach) but Cageboy believed he was the savior... he actually nicknamed him D-1 at one point, meaning he thought this kid was going to play at the top level in college someday... when i heard this i almost choked... are you fucking kidding me? this kid is just bad, he's just not a very good player, he needed a ton of work and even then he'd never be fast enough to play in college at any level to be honest... he's just flat out slow, not to mention lazy... on multiple occasions players the I-mac knew from other teams would ask him on the field what the fuck his coach was doing? they'd openly laugh at D-1, one player walking up to him and actually telling the kid he was the worst high school player he'd ever seen... as stated Coach Cageboy was doing the kid no favors, his own team was getting fed up and grumbling cuz the kid was so ineffective it was almost painful to watch, he may have been at least serviceable against the bad teams but against the average and good teams it was like playing a man down... some of the opposing players even told the I-mac they felt sorry for him to be on such a bad team with a shit coach... even the fucking opposing players could see it... 

One could only guess that opposing coaches were laughing at Cageboy and his "genius"... and when it came to Cageboy's "genius" there was no limit to depths it could plumb... by the end of the season over a half dozen players had went to the athletic director and laid out a long list of grievances against the man... Cageboy had singlehandedly chased what was arguably the team's best defender off the team, the kid went from starting to playing ten minutes to not playing at all and was never once told why, at one point Cageboy called the kid a cancer when it was obvious the only cancer was the coach... and there was also the little matter of Cageboy's nephew playing on the team, a kid who played out on the left wing but had no left foot, he just couldn't use it... not at all... it wasn't long before every team in the section knew it and rendered the kid useless, he'd either dribble over the endline or lose the ball, at best he'd just pass backwards to his midfield, it was a fabulous display of inept coaching and nepotism... this team was sinking faster than the Titanic, it would not be long before the annual Cageboy meltdown would occur and the asshat would lose the whole team... (to be cont.)

The Final Whistle pt. 2

 There was a club that the I-mac had been begging to tryout at... it was ranked #1 in our area and had a national ranking in the top 30, the problem was it was up the nightmare known as Route 28, a bottleneck of a road prone to idiots wrecking into any and everything... it meant that the drive to practice would easily run close to an hour while the drive home would run close to 40 minutes... the I-mac not being the best student, mainly lazy and unorganized (a problem he blames on his ADHD and something his parents have been working tirelessly to help him with... to not much success) there was a deal that i wanted cut... i'd agree to sign off on his trying out at this club but he had to dedicate himself to getting on top, and staying on top, of his schoolwork while also committing to taking care of himself in order to have a productive spring season if he made this club... i contacted the coach and set up a tryout... 

When the I-mac is focused and ready to play he is an excellent footballer... a natural winger who can play striker or attacking mid, he is fast and strong and in the game of soccer here in the US he's the rare kid with both size and speed, the sort of athlete that usually plays American football or basketball or baseball... or in this part off Pennsyltucky, hockey... not the kid one expects to see playing soccer... he went to his tryout and played exceedingly well, this club actually has a pro team in the lowest division of American soccer and on his second night the academy team scrimmaged the pro team, a team made up of high level college players and older guys who have played at high levels, some even overseas... the goalie was an eastern European chap who though now in his late 30s had played close to a decade in Europe... the scrimmage kicked off and the I-mac bossed it, he scored twice and was abusing defenders who were playing at a local Division 1 university, in fact it got so bad they were screaming at each other about how to stop him... towards the end of the scrimmage the ball fell to him at the top of the 18 yard box and the boy laced it, a dipping curling shot that went top right corner, the goalie had no chance, the pro coach walked over and said, kid what's your name? and added great stuff today... the goalie patted him on the back and said the same.. the academy coach seemed somewhat amazed he didn't have a team but also knew how shit worked in these parts... a lot of tunnel-visioned coaches who pigeonholed kids based on what they did three years ago... 

The boy got an offer, he was placed in the pool with the top two teams and those teams would be selected by how the boys trained, it was the chance he was waiting for and with the best team around... the coaches, particularly the head coach, were excellent, the training was excellent, everything done with a purpose and a reason in order for the team and the individual to get better... sadly that tryout would be the highlight of his time at this club... 

What started off so promising quickly went pear shaped and the I-mac had his hands all over it... he didn't take care of himself, spent the weekends partying, was constantly sick due to the sharing of carts and joints, turned up at home on weekends ripping drunk a few times, still was torching his stomach and ended up missing about half of the practices in the two months leading up to the start of the season.. he also had a mishap working out with the high school team and injured his leg which also set him back a week or two yet even then when the first tournament came around he was in the starting line-up, albeit for the second team who were still ranked rather highly in our region... 

The weekend of the first tournament i was coaching my hoop team (which Disaster played on), it was the league tournament and i was not about to let my team go into it without their head coach, the BW took the I-mac to the showcase and thus began the beginning of the end... he was coached by an Englishman and if there is one thing i know about Englishman coaching in the States it's that they feel quite superior to everyone when it comes to soccer... the fact is, they are not, though i understand why they think that when one does see how shite most American coaches are... the boy took a knock about ten minutes in and asked to come off for a minute and then never bothered to tell the coach he was okay and ready to go back in... at this point i believe the coach was beginning to have his doubts about him and it would be the last game he would start the rest of his short, troubled, injury and illness plagued time at the club... 

One could not blame the coach for not really factoring the I-mac into his plans, a common theme in these posts, the I-mac continued to not take care of himself, we had bloodwork done to see about his fatigue and stomach issues, thought it might be long Covid, but in the end it was more a lack of care and preparation, one can't play at a high level if one does not do the work to stay in shape and in form... the boy was playing in the President's Cup, the state tournament for second teams which then feeds into a national championship, when his luck went from bad to worse... granted i've always been a proponent of making your own luck and had the boy taken care of himself he most likely would have been playing in the State Cup with the first team... it was during warm-ups of their second game of the day when his teammate, for some unknown and stupid reason, passed a ball back through where they were doing drills, the I-mac was mid shot when the ball rolled under him and he came down on the ball rolling his ankle badly... he was done... on crutches and out for five or six weeks, basically the whole spring season... was it bad luck? yes... but sometimes the football gods are letting you know... it ain't gonna happen... 

The reality of it was the boy had lost his focus, it happens, life happens, like most kids he discovered sex and drugs and rock and roll... and as Ian Dury once said it's all a brain and body needs... and there's some merit to that but it conflicted with what the boy had stated were his goals, to play in college and see how far he could go... when he was finally back there was basically one tournament left, in Maryland... in three games totaling 210 minutes he played roughly 40... once again he was sick, his stomach was bothering him, he claimed to feel like he couldn't breathe, he would pull himself off and the coach would basically relegate him to the bench for the rest of the game, maybe five minutes at mop up time if the game was decided, as we walked to the car to drive home after the final game, his final game at the club, the coach walked by him and said rather brusquely, "you need to go to the doctor and get healthy", that was it.. i could tell by his demeanor that he was done with the I-mac... the truth was i couldn't blame him... 

In reality the end came before all of the above happened... it was a Thursday night, the night when he was guaranteed to be in front of the top coach, he was complaining that he didn't feel great and felt "off" and i was basically fed up, i asked if he wanted to go or not and if i should email the coach and let him know he wasn't going to be there, he mumbled about not feeling good and i told him to make a decision, he finally said he didn't want to go and play poorly in front of the guy, i stated playing in front of the guy was better than not playing at all, that if he's not there it looks worse, he then stated he didn't want to go... at that point i said fine, emailed the coach and basically checked out.. i knew it was over even if the boy didn't... as the saying goes the best ability is availability and he never made himself available, the top coach, an excellent coach, never saw much of him after his tryout because he was never healthy enough for one reason or another... by the time the tryouts came for the next season, held in early June, the club had sent out pre-offers to all it's current players... he had been dropped all the way to the third team... he could find a club playing in that division much closer to home if he wanted to play, a local division instead of the regional one the other team played in, the regional ones being where the college scouts looked for players...  the I-mac felt insulted and was bummed but as i told him, what did you show them this season? he blamed his injury which was legit but the fact was before that injury he had a chance to show them for two months, 2-3 sessions a week, what he could do, he made maybe half... the team kept track of attendance and while they knew players wouldn't make every session for various reasons missing over half the sessions spoke volumes... he was an afterthought at his dream club and much of it was his own doing... 

Searching for a new club he went back to his old one, he had arguably his best season at this club, a 15 goal, six assist campaign where he scored a hat trick in the national league they played in... unfortunately he had turned them down the year before and i wondered if that would affect his chances, even worse his high school coach happened to be one of the coaches who coached this age group... once again he was the only player currently not at the club to score during the tryouts yet after a few days we had heard nothing... i emailed the top coach who bluntly stated he had no interest in taking him and wished him well... i knew at that point the boy was in trouble and so i emailed the second team coach, Coach Cageboy, who got back to me saying that he wasn't going to take him either, that there was a numbers crunch and that what they had been looking for was defenders to fill out their roster... i smelled bullshit... he then added that this in no way was a reflection on the I-mac as a player and he was excited and expecting big things from him this high school season... i stated to the I-mac that it might be a long season for him... consider the fact the guy already had four of his high school teammates on this team and the I-mac was more skilled than all of them... things were not looking good... 

Turns out my sense of smell was correct... there was another kid from the I-mac's high school team who tried out, a forward/winger like the I-mac with nowhere near the skill, a kid who dribbled with his head down and was thought of as a below average player when it came to knowledgeable minds... after the season i did a little digging and discovered the kid had made the team the I-mac had not, though Cageboy said he wasn't looking for offense, in truth maybe he wasn't cuz this kid wasn't going to give you any, but he had still taken this kid, as stated a far inferior player to the I-mac, his email was bullshit... the fact is Mr. Tell It Like It Is Coach Cageboy didn't have the balls to tell the truth, granted he knew he needed the I-mac for his high school team but had he just stated he didn't fit his plans or style of play or even that he never knew what he was going to get from the I-mac i'd have had some respect for the guy, the fact he lied basically told me all i needed to know... i've coached or a long time and always told my players if you have questions about playing time etc just ask, i also tell them i'll tell you the truth and sometimes it may not be what you want to hear but my goal is to make you better... this guy was a fucking clown, the typical paper tiger, he was good at bullying high school kids but his nut sack shrank to the size a pea when an adult showed up... i had never actually spoken to the man in person, preferring to let the I-mac handle shit, he's old enough, but there were certain things this clown pulled that made me want to pull him aside and have a discussion... i'll be honest... i've seen him looking at me and i'm quite positive i scare the living shit out of him... he should be fucking scared, i have no use for coaches who don't seem to respect the kids they coach...  and this guy was exhibit A in that department...  to be cont... 

The Final Whistle pt. 1

 A few years back, one of the I-mac's better coaches looked at his team of 12 and 13 yr olds and asked them an interesting question... this coach was young and coaching the boy's club team on his way to coaching in college (he's now somewhere in Colorado i believe) but the question was this... how many competitive games do you think you have left in your career? a somewhat heavy question for these kids but an excellent one i thought... he then told them the reason he asked them was this... at their age they probably think that they'll be playing for a long time, that they have a ton of games left but that in fact they don't, that it will go fast, that for a large number of them when they play their last high school or club game as a U19 that most likely they will never play an actual competitive game again in the sense that they were playing for something, meaning a league or state or conference title... he than said that there was no excuse not to play hard, to train hard, because before they knew it it would be over... and he was right... he cited his own injury as proof, an excellent player in his own right he had started his college career at a Division 1 school, after injuring his knee he then moved to a smaller school before deciding to hang up his boots and get into coaching... 

I understood where this coach was coming from... (i actually really liked this guy cuz he was an excellent coach who got the best out of the I-mac and had him developing into and absolute beast on the pitch)... i was a hot shit basketball player who had a Division 1 offer on the table pending the decision of a 6'10 inch kid... it's a long story but back in the pre-internet days word somehow got out i was going to a Division 2 powerhouse in Michigan and truth be told it's probably where i should have went, problem was that coach didn't give scholarships to freshman (see the high rate of freshman failing out and i now understand the coach perfectly) but said once i "make the team", which he told i most definitely would, my following three years would be completely paid for... being young and stupid i thought that was dumb seeing how other schools would pay for four years but as stated i understand better now... back then i was first team All Northeast Ohio, among other awards, and of the six players listed i was the only one who didn't have a school, the rest were all going Division 1... one of the players on that list was going to the school that would make me an offer contingent on whether or not the 6'10 kid took the scholarship but they told me if he took it they had a place for me to play, full ride to a junior college in Wyoming, where the plan was i'd play two years, get stronger, and then transfer in... of course this is a post for another time but the point here is i have experience in what it took to get to that level and i've tried to pass that on to both the boyos... 

The last two years for the I-mac have been somewhat of a disaster... some could be squarely placed at the feet of his high school coach, a guy who on a personal level was unfit to coach and on a professional level, meaning being a good coach, was fucking abysmal, in fact i don't think i've ever come across a worse coach than this fucking clown... of course that does not absolve the I-mac in his role in the last two years and much of what has taken place is of his own doing... sometimes one has to make a decision, either commit to the task at hand to be the best player/student one can be... or one does not... the I-mac has chosen the latter (though he would claim different), which is tough for his old man to say but it's the truth, i've tried my best not to sugarcoat things for my sons when it comes to things cuz it does no good, i will calmly talk to them about what they want to do and what they need to do to get there and as i often tell them that's all i can really do as it's up to them to take it from there, i can guide, i can help in different ways, but when it comes to putting in the work it's on them... in short, it's their life and no one can live it for them... 

The I-mac suffered a torn PCL in his knee playing club after his freshman year, he was all but cleared, in fact would have been had his physical therapist not been on vacation but went back to high school practice only to torch a senior center back (he was a sophomore) who would haul him down breaking his arm and spraining his MCL, a play described by teammates as "fucking filthy"... Coach Cageboy, his high school nickname, which he despised, given because he was the hyped up moron who spent most of his time on the bench, didn't have the decency to ask if he was even okay as he and the trainer walked off the field, that one play basically cost him his sophomore year... in between he got a girlfriend who liked booze and weed and sex... granted i'm under no illusions what 15yr old boys are into, i was very much into the latter activity but never touched booze or weed until the spring of my junior year in high school, well late by most people's standards, and during my senior season i touched neither and had no girlfriend preferring  to stay focused on hoops... after a summer of drinking and getting high then ordering greasy food late at night the boy basically torched his stomach... he had actually played really well all summer but right before school the problems intensified, particularly in the mornings when they had a practice and though the coach had told him he was going to run the offense through him suddenly the guy was watching a kid who looked like a shell of his former self. 

Now as a guy who has coached off and on for 30 some odd years, which really makes me feel fucking old, i did understand where Cageboy was coming from, a coach can't build a team or run an offense through a player who isn't fit, one who seems to be a hot mess, one who a coach never knows what he's going to get, will he be okay? will he be able to play the role? handle the minutes? and so Coach Cageboy, two days before the season opener completely changed the system... the players and parents didn't seem to understand why probably because they didn't have all the information but i understood... 

This was the I-mac's junior year, they were a senior heavy team with talent and experience, they had all the makings to make a run at a district title that they hadn't won since 2009 and had last played in the championship game in 2019 only to lose in OT.. everyone around the place had high hopes, there were only three underclassmen penciled in to start and the I-mac was one of them and the only offensive player... he's a bit of anomaly in the US, an almost 6'3 inch striker/winger with blazing speed, a wicked shot, can use both feet, the shit coaches dream about... until tryouts and all his issues... one of which being said girlfriend breaking up with him... that threw him for a day or two but timing is everything and it just happened to coincide with the week of tryouts, hence Coach Cageboy watching the kid and scraping his plans... he changed formation and the I-mac was moved to the bench... what followed was a nightmare... the team went 7-11 and missed the playoffs... the team lost 6 games in the last five minutes or OT, each time being beat on a counterattack because Coach Cageboy really had no idea about how to adjust tactically, it wasn't fucking hard, he kept telling his defenders to push up when they should have been sitting deeper to prevent the very way in which they got beat a half dozen times... a good coach would have figured this out the first time it happened and definitely by the second (though honestly one time should have been enough)... the fucking muppet even had the audacity to stand up in  front of a room full of people at the team banquet and call his team the unluckiest team he'd ever seen, did i mention he was drunk? i actually had to stifle a laugh and wanted to stand up and shout at him, "are you fucking kidding me? they were the worst coached team i've ever fucking seen you moron!"... the I-mac still had one more year with the clown so i held my tongue... 

By midway through the I-mac's junior year he had worked his way back to the starting line-up and was playing really well... in fact the top team in the section actually told his coaches how much he frightened them, how when he was on the field they were on edge due to his skill and speed... his coaches actually told this to the whole team before their game versus said school...  so what did Coach Cageboy do? he cut his minutes of course, in fact i've never seen a coach who wanted to lose as much as this fucking guy, maybe Cageboy thought he was outsmarting the other team? but if there is one word one wouldn't associate with Coach Cageboy it would be "smart"... the fact is by midseason the I-mac was back to his normal self yet this moron refused to go back to his original plan and formation, even with his team begging him to switch to it (a 4-3-3 instead of their flat 4-4-2) because they weren't scoring or coming close to utilizing the skill they had in the best positions possible... but as i've often stated, give an asshole a whistle and the title "coach" and some turn into Smiling Joe Stalin, this fucking clown would listen to no one but his old head coach, a dinosaur who in having talked to his former players, was more the beneficiary of talent than actually being a good coach... Coach Cageboy wouldn't listen to his assistants (both very knowledgeable guys and good coaches) or his team... another cardinal sin... a coach who doesn't listen to his players is destined to fail... i may have butted heads with my old high school coach, (i was a fucking handful) but when i told him i saw something to exploit he listened and vice versa when he told me.. we may have wanted to strangle each other but we did respect each other, something Cageboy severely lacked... 

Sadly, the I-mac's junior season would be his best with things going drastically south afterwards... after playing U19 as a U16, the coach who really loved him as a player was reassigned to a younger team, basically how they do it here in the States... the I-mac was put back with his old team due to an injury and mix up at tryouts even though on his last tryout he absolutely torched the top team in a scrimmage, torched them to the point they were man marking him with two players while a third helped... they still couldn't stop him.. we were then notified, well not really we actually had to contact the club, about the fact they brought in a new coach from the one he thought he'd have who while starting out a bit rocky the I-mac now got along with well... the new guy was a fucking joke, ran practices built more for U9s and in short turned the team into a shit show... in fact they went to Florida for a tournament, something i was glad to not have to splash out on, where they lost three games conceding 13 and scoring 1, a penalty... they were god-awful and got no better...

Before that shit show though the boy had played in a showcase with this club... or basically one game after which i told him he could leave and we could find a new club... he was easily the best player on his team and he was horribly frustrated by his teammates, a lot of what they did could be corrected by coaching but at these clubs i began to realize that some of these guys are doing as little as possible while collecting a paycheck... during the game as the I-mac sprinted down the line after the ball on a wet pitch he slipped as he went out of bounds, my heart sank as he went down awkwardly and i thought he had done his knee again... he went to get up and then went back down and the linesman, who was a decent human being told him to stay down while he waved the flag indicating injury, there was blood pouring down his leg as there wasn't much room around the field and he had hit a bit of a rough spot, basically gravel, when the linesman asked if he was okay he said physically yes but mentally no, the guy said he understood and the I-mac jogged off but his frustration came to a head and once at the bench he punched the dugout so hard i thought he shattered it... 

It wasn't the smartest thing and i told him that later, there were college coaches there and any who might have been interested most likely would have crossed his name off their list but it was his own coach he proved to be the biggest asshole... as a coach i've always tried to take an interest and get to know my players, it helps to know their personalities, any previous injuries, of course this guy barely knew his players' names and so he then made a comment about "being mad cuz you got a boo-boo", i actually told the I-mac i was proud of him cuz had a coach said that to me back in the day they'd have had to pull me off him as i kicked his ass... i was worried about his knee but as he walked towards me and the car i knew it was over, never had i seen the kid so joyless playing a game he loved... he was angry and upset and as we drove home i told him we'd look for a new club, this one was a horrible fit and it was probably best i not get near this coach... i don't care whose kid it is, if you see a kid go down like that, get up with blood pouring out his leg, maybe a little concern for the player's well being... the I-mac didn't handle it well but this clown handled it worse... (to be cont.)

 

Deer Park

About a week and a half ago i did my back as i bent over to pick up my swim goggles off the floor, yes i'm not sure how i fucking did it, i had just got done swimming over a mile and wasn't even thinking about it, just reached down and suddenly there was this grab/slip which creates this weird hitch in my lower back which then reminds me that a back spasm is just a movement away and so i shuffled over to my locker and carefully got dressed... a fellow swimmer saw me shuffling out to my car and inquired if i was alright and i told him i was a bit fucked but after a ten days off doing fuck all i'm back up and running... luckily i medicated heavily... and i do mean heavily to get me through it... if one has never had horrible back pain it's hard to describe and the fact is one never knows which movement is going to send horrible shooting pains to all parts of the body... so i spent my time icing my lower back and watching the shit show that is humanity try to do each other in... and then of course there is the clown show known as the US congress or where certain fuckheads not all that interested in public service go to build their brand... fucking wankers. 

So since i've been laid up and have been sitting on a stockpile of things to write while still trying to get through the fucking Wilderness Years i've decided to write none of the above and post pictures of the old backyard... starting with of course a big old buck perusing the hill... after which comes my boy, my new best friend, Phat Paco... Pacito loves the great outdoors and since the yard is fenced in and he has his shots we let him run around a bit (the boy needs it, lol!) but one of his favorite things is laying among the flowers to be planted in the BW's battle against the weeds on the hillside... and just look at that handsome boy, how can one not be smitten? 

There was also a doe and her two fawns which made their way through the backyard each night, they'd stop and nibble at the honeysuckle and clover but they seemed to take a great dislike to our boy Zuko, a black and white cat, or tuxedo as they call them, who among our cats is easily the most laid back, he doesn't seem all that interested in catching any chipmunks or moles like the other cats, he prefers hanging out and watching and eating a bit of grass (hmm sounds familiar), he completely ignored the deer yet they would do this little stomp each night as if to tell him to beware while he was totally unaware...when he did notice it was almost like, what the fuck you on about? the strange thing was the deer didn't do this to any of the other cats just Zuko, staring and stomping and snorting a bit while he remained oblivious, it was fine entertainment if i do say so... 

And i'd be remiss if i didn't post the turkeys, i actually had to look up what you call a group turkeys and found a multitude of answers... wild tiurkeys are a run, flock or brood but they can also be called a rafter or a gaggle depending on who you asked... i mean how many fucking terms do we need to name a bunch of fucking turkeys (though i think we could add the term GOP house caucus to the list though that would be an insult to actual turkeys everywhere), i decided to go with gaggle mainly because i've heard it before and the word amuses me... 

and of course there is this... 

 

Gym Rat/Nightswimming

 Sometimes i'm amazed at how everything i thought ends up completely backwards... if someone would have told me which of the boyos would be more of a handful when they got older i would have easily said my boy Disaster would be the one i have to worry about... and while it's still early doors in the high school years for Nick Disaster i can say that he will be hard pressed to top the Imac when it comes to being a royal pain in the ass... to say that the last few years have been challenging with the Imac would be selling it short, it's been a shit show, one where his parents have been at a loss many times when it came to dealing with an emotional, impulsive and tempermental kid... the worrying part comes with that impulsivity and doing incredibly stupid shit... i've become a bit tired of getting a call from one of his friends and having to pick up my trashed son... 

Then there is Disaster... there are times when i think i got the names wrong as it's his brother these days who is very much the disaster and not my youngest son... of course with every kid you worry about different things... whereas the Imac is the ultimate social butterfly, hanging out with whoever whenever just to be making the scene, Nick Disaster is quite different, much more self contained, more disciplined, able to be by himself where his big brother is not... even when he Imac is by himself he's glued to his phone snapping or texting or whatever the fuck the kids like to do these days... in fact where the Imac and i used to have some great conversations, on car rides, we barely speak anymore, i having given up due to being fed up with repeating myself because he's too busy tapping away or taking selfies... Disaster on the other hand is the opposite, now we have conversations in the car that we both quite enjoy... i'm keeping my fingers crossed they don't dissipate like those i used to have with his elder brother... 

At the beginning of the summer Nick Disaster had his first girlfriend, he was hanging out with a bunch of kids that spent their days at the basketball courts behind one of the elementary schools and near a small strip of local shops... they'd play hoops and get pizza, they'd go back to the one kid's house (near our place) and swim and hangout.. it was awesome watching him spread his wings so to speak and while there was a worry he would follow down the same path as his brother those worries quickly dissipated... many of the kids Disaster was hanging with were football players, not all, but a good chunk and when the pre-season workouts started Disaster wasn't hanging out as much anymore... we (the BW and i) sorta chalked it up to the workouts and the two a days that football has but then it became apparent that those kids were still hanging out at the one kid's house, the ringleader so to speak with the pool, it's just that Disaster never went over... i knew the ringleader had a catty way of exiling kids from the group and i worried that Disaster had now incurred his wrath though he was always one of the most well liked kids in said group... 

Nick Disaster is not anything like his older brother when it comes to divulging information... where the Imac will tell us way more than we need to know about everything, and i do mean everything, Disaster keeps shit close to the vest, one has to let him give information when he feels comfortable and any attempt to get it out of him results in him quickly shutting shit down... he reminds me of his father in that respect (funny i know coming from a guy who has spent the last 17 years posting shit online) but when i noticed he wasn't hanging out as much and particularly with the crowd he had spent the last six or so months with i began wonder what was up... there are moments when one finds themselves immensely proud of their kids... as it turns out Disaster mentioned that his old group was "kinda beat", the ringleader had started vaping nicotine, smoking for all intents and purpose and Disaster wanted none of it, it also turns out the ringleader would make fun and pressure kids into doing it as well and my boy distanced himself from them, he wasn't into that shit and i told him it takes a lot more courage to walk away from friends doing shit like that than it is to give in to doing it, as i told him these kids don't know what they're getting into and will be fucked when they think they can stop, it ain't that easy... but fucking hell was i proud of the kid and let him know it, that he had made the right decision even though i could tell he was bummed...

A few weeks back, after school had started, the BW had mentioned how Disaster said the weekends were boring especially if his friends weren't around, he had been hanging with some different kids, one he sorta goes in and out with, but on this night there was a big football game and i asked if he was going, he said probably not, he was playing video games and i could tell he was a bit down... i walked away wondering what i could do...  to quote Mr. Marley "my heart can be hard as stone, yet soft as water"... when it comes to Nick Disaster it is soft as water... and so i paced and thought and then walked back in and said, "do you want to go to the gym?"... his face lit up... really? he asked... yeah, i said, it's open til 9, we can go and you can get some shots up and work on stuff, he jumped off the couch and grabbed his bag, ready in a flash... 

The boyos have heard the stories from their old man, how most of my Friday nights from 7th until 11th grade were spent at the local junior college playing pick-up basketball, usually against older players until the young bucks got so good the older guys just laughed because we'd kick their asses (little did those guys know they were playing against what would become some of the best high school talent in the area)... Disaster wants to play hoops in college, he has also heard his old man talk about the sacrifice one has to make to get there, his older brother had the potential to play high level soccer in college but that has fallen by the wayside, it takes discipline and desire to get there, Disaster has shown he has both and so i drove to the gym fully expecting to rebound for him except when we got there the gym was full of older guys playing... Disaster has played with some of them before and many will talk to him and teach him things, so now, just like his old man, he has a place to play every Friday and work against older players, in fact he's the youngest player there and i've told him he has a standing invitation, i'd take him any and every Friday he wants and i can tell he's stoked... as i explained to him someday all this work will pay off if he keeps his head on straight and keeps working at it... the boys becoming a regular Gym Rat as it's called and i love it... that and his smile because it's awesome to watch him grow and get better and i can tell he likes his time with his old man... the feeling is mutual... 

----

Which brings us to the second part of this post... Nightswimming... that first Friday as we walked into the gym i noticed how empty the pool was... i usually swim during the day when it can be more crowded (and usually is) so when i saw nothing but open lanes and then discovered they ran games on Friday nights i told Disaster this was perfect... he could go into the gym and play, i could get in a swim and then a soak in the whirlpool after which i'd come in and wait for him to finish playing, no matter what time... 

The pool is on the corner of the building and has huge floor to ceiling windows on three sides... some of the lights are burnt out in the ceiling which gives it a beautifully tranquil feeling and as i sauntered over to a lane dusk was settling in... i love my swims... usually they are a mile or more depending, always varying the distances of my sets from swim to swim to keep my creaky old body from settling into any routine... my mind floats in and out of thought much the same way it used to when i was running, except now i don't crash from sore knees and an aching back, instead the body feels beautifully worked, the lungs feel expanded, the mind feels at ease... going back and forth, catching glimpses of the sky when taking breaths, thinking of Disaster in the gym playing hoops, i'm sure if there was a camera under the water it would catch this tall goof swimming with a smile on his face... Friday nights back at the gym with his youngest son... funny how the universe works... 

There is that old saying about things coming full circle... my boy Disaster in the gym just like his old man used to do, the old man in the pool back to working out on Friday nights... it's funny to think where i'm at in this existence of mine... there was a time, decades in fact, where my Friday nights involved nothing but drinking and drugging... usually from the time i walked in the door after work until sometime around Sunday afternoon... the various incarnations of Kono so to speak, from the heavy boozing, weed and psychedelics, to the dabbling in the powders and pills (sometimes more than just dabbling)... moving smoothly through the water i'm amazed i've made it this far... thinking about the boyos and my father, my cats both past and present, the thoughts of a lifetime played out to a four count rhythm as the hands hit the water and my legs kick along... and of course the best part... walking out of the locker room and into the gym to watch Disaster play... grinning at how he's improved and all the things he can do now... he has the makings of an excellent player... i know i made mistakes with his older brother which i'm hoping to correct with him... but the real treat, the beauty of it all... the time we spend... it's more important than anything i've ever bought him and i know that someday when his father just a memory that he will think of these nights and smile, the same way i do when i'm gliding through the water and thinking about Pops... 

Then there is the drive home... we hit the drive thru and Disaster gets a couple of burgers, his favorite mango lemonade, we talk about how he played, he asks to put on his music and i say yes, (Disaster is currently into drill rappers and once again full circle as i remember my dad letting me listen to punk and hardcore bands back in the day) he's relaxed and talks about school, maybe his friends or a girl he likes, it's pure fucking gold... and worth even more... and i know this will not last, that he'll get older and do his own thing but for the time being it's pure beauty... fleeting moments that ultimately stretch out into infinity... these things that i will keep...  

The Mushroom Diaries - vol. 25-26

 The mushroom will tell you... it always does... even before you ingest those lovely little bits into the system they are communicating with you and letting you know how much to take... i can see my dear reader sitting back and starting to think, "hmmm, fucking Kono may have gone off the deep end with his psychedelic research" but fear not, as a veteran psychonaut i'm well aware of where i'm at in the process... though i have discovered i go a bit further than some people my age.... in fact the Furious one was laughing at me for the amounts i sometimes take along with my love of dabs (for the uninitiated dabs are cannabis concentrates that regularly have THC contents of 80% and up, currently i have some diamond thc crystals that are a whopping 98.9% thc, i described at it as the stoners equivalent of shooting up, it starts at the top of the skull and washes over the body until one is grinning and tingling)... having stumbled upon some banging boomers, a batch so strong one really does have to be cognizant of how much one takes, the trips have been more than a tad bit interesting...

So one fine evening i weighed out a two or three grams of super strength boomers, my friend who had taken a gram or so said he didn't know how i did it with this batch because even a small amount was crazy... as stated my dose usually depends on any unwanted surprises, like say the night i had to go pick Disaster up when his friend bailed on his ride home, that night as previously stated i had taken what i'd call a maintenance or fun dose and not the research dose as i call it... this time i dove head first into the blue swirling waters and didn't look back... 

It's strange as how i've gotten older i've come to really enjoy doing absolutely nothing but sitting in a dark room with some music and letting the mushroom take me where it wants to go, how in my youth all i wanted to do was trip and run the streets and at other times stay in my apartment usually with friends who were all tripping as well, listening to music, laughing, hopefully acquiring female companionship for the night... now it's the solitude and the journey, the chance to learn something new, the chance to work out problems... 

On this night something both exhilirating and frightening would happen... once the mushrooms started to kick as i like to say, i took a deep breath, a sip of water and then sat back and enjoyed the ride... what i find most interesting in my experiences now is how i can drift in and out of consciousness, falling asleep yet being totally awake, how the mind just hums along with the universe and it's own cosmic music that flows through it, it's one of the most beautiful feelings there is, at least to me, akin to love and death and happiness... call it complete and total freedom from this mortal coil and all it' trappings.... and then something brilliant happened... i had come out of one of my slumbers and i was listening to a song when i realized i had no idea who or where i was... i couldn't remember my own fucking name! i was just there, this 76 odd inches of organic matter vibrating on a couch, i laughed out loud as i realized there was no El Kono, just this, what i was before i was, the ego and all had gone and i was nothing more than a buzzing, humming part of the universe from which i had been spat out of and to which soon i would return... no fear, no sadness, just a happy resignation that i was nothing... or nothing more than stardust temporarily organized into this being, a cosmic accident in a trillion cosmic accidents and i was back to the beginning? no name or classification... just is... 

I can't even be sure how long the state lasted, it wasn't long, maybe five minutes? maybe it was five seconds... but i remember smiling and thinking, who am i? what am i? what's the name people call me? and when it finally came back, when the id? was finally overtaken by the ego, when the name came floating back in, there was a bit of melancholy, i had found something but hadn't been there or nowhere long enough to really grasp what it was... though undoubtedly i will try to get back but then again i can't really try because to try would be to negate any chance of getting there, it's not up to me... and that may be the beauty of it... but at least now i know it's there and next time i happen to stumble upon it i won't be as startled as i was this time, because yes there is a moment when one is baffled, frightened, wondering if the mind has been lost and the answer is yes, the mind has most definitely been lost but in the best possible way... and when the mind comes back maybe there is some insight or even contentment in having been lost... one can only be lost if one is afraid, if one is worried about not being found... to surrender to the journey, to let go of the fear and anger and clinging to the silly trappings of consciousness (though i'm not sure that 's the right word), to realize you are nothing special and yet the most precious thing in the universe, mainly because you are the universe, not a single being or thing separated from it, but IT, of it, made out of it, a small piece of thread in an infinite fabric... 

Of course it should be stated that not all these forays into mushroom world are some kind of half-assed psychedelic research by an aging nutter... no sometimes one's gotta take them just for fun you know? and so the next time i took a smaller dose from a different batch, the last of an ounce i had bought a few years back... it always amazes me how well these bits of fungi hold up if you take care of them... and so i took my dose, pulled out the pen and took a few long pulls of a lovely indica and waited... now one of the things i've learned is with smaller doses you still drift along and reach those glorious states of nothingness they just don't last as long, one comes in and out of them quicker... but on this day i had a bit of a plan, once they did kick i was going to listen to one of those records that had such an impact on me back in the day, August and Everything After, hell it even had it's own post way back when, probably make the greatest hits on the lounge if there were such a thing and as things around me went quiet i sat back and listened...

As previously relayed this record was often played on the jukebox in the bar around the corner from the Fry Hut where i was working, where i'd play foosball with my boss and co-workers drinking away our hour long breaks before heading back to the heat... (it was always funny when the people saw us walking out of the bar and then straight back to work, little did they know what else went on among those of us known as The Chemical Crew)... it was the summer of Kono's Discontent but even amid the shit crumbling around me i still found it a brilliant time... there was something oddly beautiful in the regimentation of life at the time, the never ending grind of the Fry Hut coupled with my second job next door slinging roast beef sandwiches, between the two it provided me with enough free sustenance to survive amid the ridiculous amounts of boozing and drugging, add in the wacko Jesus freak joint two blocks away that served free dinner every Thursday and breakfast every day and i managed to keep myself fed on the cheap for the most part... a grad school dropout with long dreads living hand to mouth and the famous exchange between our hero and the woman at the Jesus joint, "you look like John the Baptist" she said... "thank you" i replied, "but he ended up with his head on a platter." I laughed and got my free ice cream and left. 

Back to the beach and the bar, as i lay in the dark listening to the songs, the images came floating in, sometimes so vivid it felt like i could reach out and slide the mug of beer towards me and put it to my lips... towards the end of summer back in good old 95, i was sitting in that bar, The Cork Bar, it was a slow night and i sat at the corner of the bar in the dim light watching the people walk down the boardwalk towards their hotels, sipping at my ice cold beer, beer so cold a tiny ring of ice would form across the top, i remembering pulling out some crumpled up one dollar bills and playing most of the record as i sat and listened and thought about the summer that had just passed, how the Waitress and i were close to splitting up, how the hovel i lived in was actually condemned but the landlord let all the tenants stay for some strange reason, how my roommates were such shitheads that even though my rent was paid and i was broke i moved out and down to 2nd St. with a co-worker for the last month i lived there, how earlier that summer Elise and i had spent a night sitting by the bay and re-hashing our summer of 93 and how she said she'd find me when she came back down at the end of the summer with her parents, by which time the Waitress had left and we spent the weekend drinking and fucking after i got off work even though by this time i was thoroughly exhausted and would have been content to just sleep... 

And yet even with all the shit that happened... the roommates, the Waitress, being down to my last 4 dollars at one point, knocking my head off a shelf so hard i gave myself a concussion along with a half dozen or so stitches, there was something eminently beautiful about my existence... eating acid and going to work, wandering the streets til all hours of the night, always hearing my name called out as i strolled along, sometimes being dragged into bars or house parties where i'd be handed beers and drugs, hanging with the guys i worked with and partying like the madmen we were, the Fry Boys, the guys who worked the grimiest, sweatiest job on the boardwalk... and then of course this record, which got me through it all, the good times and the bad, the quiet times where like that night i would sit and listen and think, sometimes it's the simplest of things, the simple pleasures as they say, that get us from sunrise to sunset and back again... and there in the dark with Phat Paco chilling next to me, i was smiling once again at how gorgeous life can be... 

An Old Man dreams of Youth... The Days of Late August - 30 years on

 The beauty of the lounge is it doesn't fucking matter... i can write and rewrite the history of El Kono as the memories ebb and flow from one year to the next... to mix the past and present... working in a dying platform in dying medium, those of us still out here doing this shit are doing it out of some weird compulsion to document things, to tell stories... i once read somewhere that we learn more from the common man than we do from the captains of industry... Elon, Mark, Jeff? they can fuck right off really, there's not much one can learn from them other than how to be a horrible bastard, fixated on their own privilege and believing they are god... they are not... and here i sit pecking away at stories worked and reworked for nothing other than the pleasure of doing it, my own personal art project tapped out and posted online for no one to see... the internet may be a vast wasteland of opinionated idiots but it also gives one a chance to do this... write it all down... there are a few of us still out here spinning stories but as time marches on we find ourselves more and more on that list of endangered species... 

Life's a fucking trip innit? i was actually sitting at the dinner table, listening to a record, gazing out the back door as Fat Paco excitedly watched Jed the Groundhog shuffle around the hill behind our house, munching clover and honeysuckle, Paco had no way to get to his new friend and so he sat, tail twitching, eyes wide, a feline's favorite show... it suddenly struck me that it was now thirty years since the glorious summer of 93... christ i'm old... a young maniac fresh off his first stint selling weed, having just graduated from college, having turned down jobs in advertising, preferring to surf (poorly) and write poetry (equally as poorly) instead of pursuing some "career"... easily one of the better decisions i've ever made... moving to Ocean City and living life without a net, having built up a decent bit of coin for a 22yr old wastoid and having the foresight to show up at the beach with two ounces of weed, a vial and a half of hash oil, ten hits of acid and a half ounce of mushrooms... when it came to certain things i was always well organized... 

The beauty of hindsight... the beauty of now 52 summers come and gone, how each one brings back different memories, those hot city summers from my mid-twenties to my early forties, the serene and strange summers of the last dozen years exiled in the suburbs... and then those summers of my youth, strange to think that of the four summers i spent in Ocean City three came after i had graduated from college, granted i went back to fuck about in grad school for a year, go all Raskolnikov (see old posts) but for the most part, by certain societal standards, i was supposed to be on my way to being a productive citizen... instead i was working shit jobs and selling weed... fuckin gorgeous...

And so as i watched Paco and Jed and listened to the breeze in the August leaves it took me back, suddenly, to those days of late summer... there were points of demarcation in the OC years, if you made July 4th you'd made it halfway through the season, a season sectioned off by Memorial Day, the Fourth and Labor Day... but by mid to late August things began to thin out... most of the summer help started packing up and heading back to school, the boardwalk wasn't nearly as crowded, the stores began to shut a little earlier, the help wanted signs began to go up in every place of business, things were slowing down and for those who either lived in the backwaters of the Eastern Shore or were like me, migrant retail/restaurant workers with no place to go, it was the most beautiful part of the season... 

In the old whorehouse where i lived, of the eight rooms half were empty... as August crept towards September all those years ago the landlord informed us that the last day we could stay in the place was September 23... the whorehouse didn't have a heating system so state law meant we had to get out... my room, on ostensibly the third floor (there were two apartment units on the first floor), was finally starting to cool off after having been a fucking oven for most of the summer, as the pace slowed and roommates left i was heading towards my fourth job of the summer, washing dishes at a breakfast restaurant a block off the boardwalk... the dishwasher is the lowest rung on the ladder but oddly the most important grunt one can find in any restaurant... we keep the shit going... washing the plates and the pots and pans tossed at us by the cooks, each day i was covered in sweat, soaked by the water, sneakers soggy from standing on a wet floor, it was fast and physical work and we (the good Doctor and i) were always the last ones to leave the place... but we did get a free breakfast (or two) and i spent my breaks, some authorized some not, in the walk-in cooler smoking weed and doing nitrous hits out of the whipped cream cannisters with one of the waiters who was tight with the owner... 

The one day when the waiter and i had pretty much decimated the whipped cream stock and the waitresses were complaining to the owner i stood at my post scrubbing pans while the owner, a woman in her early 30s who basically took over the family business, was irate over the situation, Cary the waiter pulled her aside and with a sly grin and glance towards me stated that someone was probably sucking the nitrous out to catch a buzz... the owner was like what? he explained and she being a bit of a partier herself then told him to show her... she had brought a few cases of whipped cream to replace the dead stock and so they went to the cooler and came back ten minutes later as she laughed and laughed, Cary now giving me a big shit-eating grin as he walked in behind her... basically letting me know we had nothing to worry about... 

If the mornings were spent busting my ass, the afternoons it was usually time for a nap, then rising in late afternoon, grabbing dinner, though now with my friends at the pizza shop across the street gone my free grub was gone too, and then of course the most important decision of the day, to go to the bar or sit on the porch and drink... the porch was like a hub that summer, there always seemed to be someone out there drinking and people would stop by to see what was happening, to relay info about other parties going on, to discuss various bars to go to... now with the summer winding down it was relaxed, people would still stop up and we'd bullshit about the debauchery that had taken place here all summer, drinking forties and smoking cigarettes, heading up to my room for a toke, it was laid back and about the only thing we really lacked was female companionship... Elise had gone back to school... Audrey, the girl who i was supposed to take acid with and get married , had gone back home heartbroken by our hero's action, there were still women around but there was some strange thing going on, having hung out all summer the one's still around were more friends... maybe we knew that time was short and we were tired from a summer of working and partying with minimal sleeping... 

The local pub was markedly less crowded though they still had all the summer specials going and each Wednesday the good Doctor and i would saunter down to play foosball and drink $1 imports, not a bad way to spend an evening...and speaking of the evenings... they were getting cooler, one usually needed a sweatshirt as the ocean breeze blew in off the water, it was that strange late August early September nights, humid yet cool at the same time, the boardwalk now
practically barren by midnight, there were drinks on the house from summer bartenders as farewells were said, the "see next summer" goodbyes with most of us knowing all too well we'd never see each other again... it was like the big comedown off a great high, the end of the summer and the slowed pace after a few months of nothing but hustle and grind, of drinking and drugging and screwing, where sleep was a luxury and someone was always ready for a trip to the bar or a hit of acid to waste an afternoon off work... those halcyon days as they say... and now thirty years on looking back it's a strange feeling, it feels like it wasn't that long ago and yet it was lifetime... but the beauty is and was in the doing... of having trod upon the terra firma and lived (at least for now) to tell about it... in a dying medium, in a dying platform...