Drive

In addition to cooking poorly, thinking poorly, acting badly, and behaving terribly, Cotto was a horrible traveler and automobile driver, which was no surprise to anyone but him, and that was a total lie on his part. His dumb ass gets caught all the time, like the time he overdosed on cocaine and "working out" in Florida as a mechanism for coping with his manic bipolar identity/personality disorder with active schizo-affective features. It was based on his flawed perception that life was totally different in another state, which is only partly true, Yeah, sure, dude: the scenery, climate, culture, foods, and people could be different or dissimilar to you, but you're still on Planet Earth, motherfucker. You're still a fucking human being, you dumb dick.

And that was the other excruciating thing you have to do with severe mental patients who avoid long-term healthcare so they can use it as an abusive weapon against their fellow human beings: he made you repeat shit all the time just to "fuck with" you, except he just came off as a stupid dumb-fuck, which isn't exactly criminal genius, is it? Of course, I know mental patents with Ph.D's who can hardly figure out how to get dressed in the morning without taking lots and lots of drugs, so we went over (again) my part of the lesson plan that includes mental illness and I.Q., and how they are not always related, except when you forget to take your anti-psychotics, dick. Off his meds, he has the fucking mentality of a retarded ten year-old sans Ritalin.

So, when he told me that he pounded lines in Florida and "worked as a personal trainer", the cocaine part of his sentence made sense to me right away, with perhaps some manic-compulsive dieting and exercise thrown into the mix, because addicts with serious mental disorders totally do that. He was a part of "Narcotics Anonymous" (that's N.A. for you "squares" like me), weirdo street-front Evangelical churches catering to madness for the zealot-minded who seek immediate relief with loud shouting and lots of absurd arm-waving, and crazy life goals that include personality changes with any switch in one's geographic locale. Uh, homeboy...how exactly does that work?

Oh, it didn't, he assured me. Thanks, Cotto. I think I figured it out. He always tried to impress me with his intelligence, but coupled with delusional paranoia and his criminal record, I wasn't buying it. When he told me he was arrested down south for driving under the influence, that I immediately believed. Of course, his story came readily-equipped with a "white power" angle concocted in his over-heated tropical Nuyorican brain about "racial profiling" and "The Man", even though he was drunk and high and swerving all over the road when he was arrested. Without a license. I know! Not exactly "12 Years A Slave" material, you know?

But, that's the thing with chronically sick fuck-ups: he actually likes being sick better than he likes healing, so he creates a ton of lies to cover over his inability to adapt to human society, because he can be an evil fuck, and he likes that. After our acquaintance continued in his prison-like quarters of our temporary Park Slope tenement housing, he also let it drop that he stole his dead grandmother's "Sears" credit card from her mail (for what, we can only fucking imagine), and that "his lawyer" advised him to pay the $3000 he put down on the card back.

His theft shocked me less than the fact that he had a lawyer to advise him on complex legal matters, like his subsequent incarceration and rehabilitation program in Florida (that included job training, psychiatric treatment, and free anti-psychotic drugs), that was a mandatory part of his release as a drunk, high, thieving, mental patient on welfare. You get representation for free, too?! I was stunned that he got expert legal advice as a convict. Ain't we supposed to be "gaming" him for the facts, yo? How did it get to be the other way around? The criminal gets legal counsel, but the sweet old "mam" I met on the "Legal Aid" line in Brooklyn has to do chemotherapy for her cancer along with solving her wrongful eviction case. How the fuck did we get here?

At the end of our quick friendship that was always destined to be short-lived—just like his too fast life—I thought he was one of the sickest, most vulnerable people I'd ever met, who been further brutalized by his codependent, drug- and alcohol-addicted Nuyorican parents (and grandparents), and every so-called social system we'd devised for practically untreatable people like him, because we'd rather sell people on this fantasy that with enough money and condescending "programs", he'll be just fine. He just needs to work in the back of dirty kitchen washing dishes, you know? He's just "underprivilieged" as a European-American into several consecutive generations.

It was some of the worst healing and care-taking I'd ever heard of (or seen) first-hand in my life, wasteful and ignorant in the extreme. Most of the welfare workers I met were just as sick and poor as Cotto, with a lot less intelligence than him. He wants to be lazy and unproductive because, and here's the kicker "America", he's really fucking sick. Do you know what he needs? He needs a fucking institutional facility of supported apartments with full-time healthcare workers to take care of him during the rough spots in his life, not your fucking sadistic bullshit about "job training" that you can use, to pose with some retard in a fucking photo for your next political campaign fundraiser. Cut the fucking bullshit with me and Your Holy Father. It's time. Really.

Your homework, plebes:  
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/11/welfare_spendin.html

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/01/24/1489091/americans-just-cant-afford-mental-health-treatment/ 

Targhetto

He was just casually shopping at Target without any pants on, like any teen!

Every summer the city pops off into violent squalls, punctuated by house-party gangland murders. It's so regular to us town-and-country New Yorkers, we plan for it and even text about it to each other, like how we know that the drunks living next door to us will creep out of their rank dank holes once the sun comes out in May, to get violently drunk and cause problems now that winter's over, causing them to carve out their boringly repetitive and totally dysfunctional turf wars on property that isn't theirs, just like the descriptive term "porch monkey" was actually meant for: nonexclusive of skin tone, and they are indeed a stereotypically lazy lot at that (and also white).

Clichés are very good and especially functional for all societies, while also ripe for game-playing idiots. In  Brooklyn, it means you can flip a perp into a martyr by trotting out some cleaned up high school grad photos over yo kid's most recent mug shot when the shit hits the fan and he's screwed up with the law, yet again: neck tats not included, which is exactly what happened in Flatbush last week.

For years I've known about the teen phenomenon called "wilding", which is cutesy slang for this century's "jumping in": a vicious, seemingly random beat-down that's very much planned. When I lived in the Slope, I'd walk down 5th Avenue to Atlantic Avenue because it has an awesome Target store, and I could flip through the designer racks without fear of molested goods, like the pawed over markdowns in the Spring Valley shops here, that are picked over a billion times by Hasidim women with a lot of children, covered in makeup, sweat marks, deodorant stains, and other stuff you don't want to know about.

And so, I shopped in relative comfort for the "phresh" duds I needed to play my "Slick, Big City, Cover Designer" role to perfection by looking the part. It was (and still is) part of my overall presentation, and in any really good business, presentation counts. After one such journey through the clothing stacks, I was back on the floor putting back some duds that didn't work for me. It's a habit I picked up during my tenure as a teenie retailer in the old Nanuet Mall, an 80s heaven of a shopping mall when doing such a thing counted as a recreational sport.

I saw the fitting room racks clogged with clothes left by lazier shoppers than I, so I figured I give the floor ladies a break and do my own put backs onto the racks. Within a minute of leaving the changing rooms for the floor, loosening up the rack, and talking to a floor clerk who asked if I needed help, a...something broke out. I write that because it happened so fast, I was totally scared and unprepared for it, which turns out to be the point: pure shock value.

"What was that?! What happened?" I quickly turned to the store clerk. She sighed and said to me: "Yeah, this happens every afternoon around this time. Every day, and it's always between 3 and 3:30 in the afternoon, when the high school gets out. They're called 'wildings'. The kids text each other at school all day long, so they can arrange to meet here and have fights with each other."

Jesus! That's so scary!! I said to her, while my heart still raced. It was so fucking violent, and I'm a fighter. I thought someone had been stabbed. She told me that was the point, and that as far as "wildings" go, the one we just witnessed was pretty mild, in terms of violence, because no one had been stabbed. "So they do that, too?!", I asked. It was surprising to me, because the Slope and the surrounding neighborhoods are really good, well-established, old neighborhoods, independent of racial background. I mean, the hoods have been the hoods for a really long time, and not within the past 100 years. Where exactly do they come from? Prospect Heights? Fort Greene? Boohoo!

Many an African-American kid from around the way has a dentist for a dad, and a mom who volunteer teaches modern dance in the afternoons at the local BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music). The real "Fight da powa!" had passed for them a long time ago. But, I guess like a Bay Ridge kid's right of passage climbing the Verrazano on a dare, they needed to simulate danger and feats of strength as trials to their fragile identities, so they could brag to each about it later.

"Yeah", she sighed again, as she slowly reached for her walkie-talkie, when I asked if security knew. "Oh, yeah. They know," she clicked the call button, "so does the local precinct, because we call them almost every afternoon." She would know, because as I hurriedly shelved my rejected clothes and walked towards the elevators, she looked like she could be one of their own grandmothers: a decent, hard-working lady starting the second shift of her second day job.

Don't believe the hype, man. It ain't what it seems "in da 'hood" these days. Flatbush kids, I mean you, too. You can't get away with murder for kicks by blaming "the white man" anymore. We all have cameras in our cell phones, regardless of it's price point, and this savvy-with-retail working class mom knows the how much gear (yo shit) costs, or at least a roundabout guesstimate, anyway. Get real wit it, kid.

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20150727/flatbush/video-police-punch-suspect-during-arrest-brooklyn-target

http://abc7ny.com/news/teen-arrested-in-mcdonalds-brawl-indicted-wednesday/554045/

Look at this purely ghetto-ass shit: the "moms" (or "grandmoms", who was probably made that at 40 fuckin' years old, or some twisted shit like that) jumps into the action with her nasty-ass attitude, while the baggy pants "security guard" loping around in the foreground (in reality, working his minimum wage after-school job while dreaming of his "big time" music career in the city as a "hiphop artist", most likely), looks on ineffectively, just like his punk ass has been doin' all along, totally hip to "da game". Tell me they don't fuckin' know about the trend that I've known about for at least 12+ years! That's some fake ass shit, right there. Home girl had the audacity to play victim with her boy's clean-cut yearbook pic on the evening news programs, which was a heck of a lot nicer than his fucked up (and much more recent) neck tattoo mug shots. But that's life in "da hood": a place where every day is some kind of bullshit con job. We on to you, hardcore, girl. Get it right! Jeeesus...what in the bitch is that....???! <shakes head in disbelief> "Oh, you triflin', petty-ass fool. Always lookin' for handouts. Fuck y'all man!" (That's what I said to the t.v. when I saw it play out on the local programs here in New York) "That's it! I've had it! Fuck y'all! I'm writing 'Targhetto' next week , bitches!!" <scowls mostly to self).

Indian Giver

Mi'kmaq warrior and dancer, Danny Boy Stephens, takes a moment to reflect on the shores of the Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada.

For years I lived in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the world; 
a very affluent section of Brooklyn called "Park Slope", famous for its' artsy writing crowd, media types, ubiquitous designers, and lesbians, which suited me just fine. Except for the occasional coffee-house misunderstanding (volunteer firefighter "dude" with a preference for Great Danes and Christmas lights, I know you knew I was straight, girl, but thanks for being a weirdo to me when I was sitting alone), I was pretty much left to my own devices, which also suited me fine. 

I didn't have a lot of time for bullshit anymore. I was a full-time Art Director in publishing, and after I quit smoking, a part-time martial artist in training, which meant I had weekday evenings after 9pm and Saturday mornings to sleep in, which was exactly what I did, and I did it every week for years. I'd also tack on church and Sunday school classes when I worked from home, but it was pretty much the same deal, because no one around me was suitable for my company.

Sometimes I dated men I knew I could trust from my past, from places like old jobs or school, but that eventually went away, too, because they weren't suitable for me either. Mostly, I worked and walked and kept healthy, which kept me going. When the boom was lowered on me financially, I did double-time creatively by cutting out everything but food as an expense, but just like my training provided, I set up a new routine in which I could flourish and work, albeit more sporadically and with much less frills for decorating. 

It's the same productivity I have in place today: free Internet access at the library, while trying to keep the freaks off of me. But in Brooklyn, it was harder. People are savvier, and they know how to work you over. 
I met a man there that I knew was troubled, but because I grew up with it, I managed to stay safe by my own wits. He knew that, too, along with many other facts that were mixed in with his psychosis.

What my Nuyorican friend from Brownsville did not know, and had never known, was an Acadian Métis warrior. He thought his "street smarts" about welfare scams and rent cheats were powerful weapons that he had in his arsenal, along with an almost total lack of a moral compass, really bad acting skills, and one very serious mental illness. Over time, I put him through all the paces, but to no avail, which certainly didn't surprise me one bit.

If my friend said he needed a clock, I gave him the old one I'd had for more than 15 years hanging in my kitchen, because I had another one in my living room. If he said he was "learning" design at a broke-ass school on Staten Island, I gave him my old small spare portfolio to use, with deadlines in place for him to keep to, and he did absolutely nothing with the gifts I gave him, just like any other asshole white boy I've ever tried to trade with.

When I asked him to show me his portfolio pieces one day, as I was checking out his tiny room in a typical Brooklyn tenement in the Spanish-flavored part of the Slope that turns into Sunset Park, he shamefacedly opened it to reveal that he turned into a place to keep his checkbook and receipts for storage. Oh. OK. You've done nothing. Give it back to me, asshat. NO! I mean hand it over to me now.

He sputtered in shock. But, but...he's a welfare-case. Pretty white ladies usually give him stuff for being sick and broke! Yeah, bitch, meet the real deal ethnic minority. He tried to quibble with me about my genetic past, saying I just wanted to paint myself "exotic", like the mass murder in our Nova Scotian past was something I chose to brandish about town, like he did with his check from the government for school. You know, because he needed a "hand up", not a hand out.

Same thing with my room clock: you don't help me move my stuff after I run out of money "homeboy", you give me back my clock (which I eventually ditched at a Park Slope storage place when I ran out of money for that, too). By this point, I had him trained: he just sighed, took down the clock from the painted-over graffiti ghetto wall, and handed it back to me.

You see, esse, in my world, if you don't have something of equal value to trade, we don't trade with you at all, so give it back. All of it. It's okay, though. I've got a special lil' internal clock running, just to keep track of all the borrowed time you're on. Take your time with it.

 

from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_giver

For JonBenét

I was walking to church service a few weeks back, enjoying the sunshine and looking at shop windows in town, when this particular brand of insanity popped out at me, like a punch to the face:

WTF?! I'm no prude. I grew up dancing around in formfitting leotards as a kid, but never in some weirdo outfit like this, because (and this is key) MY PARENTS WOULD HAVE NEVER ALLOWED IT. Why, you ask? Listen to me, you g-ddamn fuck up, you know perverts who hurt children look for little girls to be dressed up like a woman because they are fuck ups. They know parents who outfit their kids like this are totally vulnerable to their brand of manipulation.

Just like we know "reality" t.v. stars pimp out their kids, pumping them full of sugar and drugs so they can "perform" onstage for these weirdos who use these events as a pretext to fetishize their children, the people who pay money for the privilege to attend, brandishing phony trophies and other "prizes", as they also lurk anonymously in the darkened audience, gazing at the objects of their desire onstage, primped out for all the world to see. In other words, this ain't no Sugar Plum Fairy dancing in a classical ballet at Lincoln Center, and we are onto you. Do you hear me, loud and clear?

We are onto you.

G-d bless you today, my parents, neighbors, friends, and dear families in Christ. Today (and for every day after, as these atrocities continue to occur), we go to battle against all the things that dare to go bump in the night, in direct defiance of Our Lord's True Nature, thinking that their sick gazes go unmolested by our unseeing eyes; that it does not pierce straight into G-d's heart, He Who Sees and Knows All. We see you. Know that, and sleep well, my children, tonight and every night.

And you, you who have so deserted the keeping and company of men of good faith, look what you have chosen to make famous with your attentions and focus. How do you sleep at night? This, this woman below, this is who you gave a major t.v. contract to. This is who you put on a major t.v. network. This is who you made famous. Does she look like she cares about you, or us, or herself, or anyone? No more.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/19/living/parents-ban-child-beauty-pageants/

http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/toddlers-tiaras