Useless Junk of the Day

This Isn’t TV

Its not like in the movies where you see everything in black and white. This guy is a good guy or this guy is a bad character. One guy is a scum bag and one is a hero. When you grow up in what could only be described as a “gang” in today’s definition, you band together with your friends and neighbors primarily for brotherhood and protection against a violent world.

When the guy next to you is going down the tube before your eyes as a kid, you don’t see it. When your friends around you grow up to be career criminals, it seems normal. I don’t see where most of these guys were ever taught any better or ever know any other way. They, unfortunately, seem more normal to me than a professional who grew up in a house with two parents and drives a Cherokee to the office every day.

Garbage in, garbage out

In college my professor taught us a common saying in the programming world; “Garbage in, garbage out.” Simply put, if you write bad code or input bad data, you will get bad output. This is certainly true with kids too.

This rag tag bunch of city kids I ran with, never had ANYTHING but garbage put into their heads from all directions. How can anyone expect anything more than garbage out of them in return. Its another case of the chickens coming home to roost.

I hear the canned conservative mantra over and over again of “personal responsibility.” What does the bastard son of a wife beaten prostitute and a disapearing junkie father supposed to know of responsibility? As I stated earlier, we are all born innocent until our innocence is stolen from us (some younger than others).

These kids only sense of responsibility is to survive by all means necessary. To them, life is a war zone and the neighborhood is a battlefield. Cliché? Maybe to the UNinitiated. Unfortunately, it’s a metaphor that is all too real for millions of children in America. One that I can relate to all too well.

Then there was Freedom

I remember when this one new kid started hanging around the hood in 75. He was this funny looking, chubby, mixed kid. His name was Anthony. he had a big pimpin afro and was yellow in complexion with big glasses. In other words, he had to become a tough guy or he would suffer a slow death in that environment.

He was the first “Prison house lawyer” I ever met, by the time he was only 12-13. 25 years later, I helped get him a moderator position on DA.com. He was known as “Freedom”, the speaker of truths, fighter for minorities, hater of many.

Some backstory.

One day, we were all playing and this kid Johnny started bullying me to exert his dominance like an up and coming wolf in a pack might do. Despite his slight build, he had a cockiness and confidence about him that intimidated me back when I was still green. Thinking back, it must have come in part from his being a small guy and in part from defending himself from his much older alcoholic brother Jody, whom I once saw hit a wino in the head with a baseball bat for fun.

Jody’s wild long red hair and base ball wielding reputation would strike fear into our young hearts! How strange, I thought, the day I saw Jody crying like a baby when Johnny got hit by a car in front of my house. I can still see him there with half his face missing. The well-traveled city streets and rat and wino infested alleys were our only play grounds.

Anyway, we were playing in the alley by trying to break out street lights with rocks without breaking to many windows in near by apartments or cars (not that we cared). Anthony saw me getting pushed around and said “hey, don’t take that from him, he is a punk” as he proceeded to push Johnny down onto an old mattress left to rot in the alley.

Johnny sheepishly jumped up saying “alright, come on man, be cool.” This amazed me to see since I never thought of Anthony to be that tough at the time. Then and there I began my transformation from a sheep to predator. It was a lesson “Freedom” soon would regret as I quickly moved up the ranks of the “Grace Street Gang” and soon began to punk him out with routine displays of pain and humiliation for years to come. It was also the beginning of a life long friendship.

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City Boys

I remember as a child how when we first moved to Grace St. (AKA suitcase alley) in downtown Richmond in 74. I thought that I had been dropped of in hell! The rows and rows of mid 19th century brick houses that were converted into flop houses and low rent flats all had this insidious smell the never leaves you. It was a combination of roach dung, insecticide, old wood, urine, beer, vomit and human stench that fill the halls of EVERY apartment I visited. The halls were filled with the ever present echoes of shouting and fights.

All of my friends had parent (s) who were either prostitutes, drug users, winos, physically abused or all of the above. I remember often roaming the cobble stone alleys or playing stick ball (with a rock) and stumbling on someone’s dad sleeping on some cardboard.

There were times we went days without a decent meal and we had no TV or car. Yet, I always thought we (my mother and I) were well off because we had love, stability and sanity my friends never had. It gave me a real sense of security in an island of chaos and insanity.

The eye of the storm.

Due to this tenuous sense of stability my mother  provided, I always felt like an observer in life. It was like being an outsider to this life of poverty and deviancy. I stopped short of many of the petty criminal acts my friends would do, on moral grounds. Unfortunately, I all but dropped-out of school for a while in 4th grade and did take to weed by 14-15.

Most of my friends never made it to high school. Who could blame them? 25 years before Columbine, we had random acts of violence EVERY DAY that never made the local news.

More gritty details

It’s no wonder these kids turned to drugs for escape. Their lives needed some kind of escape. Drugs were everywhere in our neighborhood. Often, one wouldn’t need to leave their own apartment building to score.

As an example of how pervasive drugs were in that culture; we (at the tender age of 10) would search up and down the alleys amongst the trash cans and evicted furniture in the dirt covers of back yards, to find hypodermic needles. We would break the needles off and use hypos as squirt guns for fun in the scorching sticky southern summers. No one had air conditioning, and a fan was a luxury.

My feelings.

No, I didn’t feel like “cream” has risen to the top. I feel my friends were never given a fighting chance in life. While we all had the same opportunities (or lack thereof), I feel my parents middle class values gave me the edge.

All my friends were born into a family cycle and culture of poverty, I on the other hand, was born into it a circumstance. My parents grew up in the burbs and through a series of incidences and poor choices we ended up in suitcase alley¨ (read skid row). This background is what I believe gives me my unique perspective and empathy for those less fortunate. Without this unique perspective, I would not be able to share and relate this shadowing world with you all.

Reminder Indeed

Drugs in moderation? Sure, but don’t kid yourself. Been there done that. I moderated 13 years of my own life away. It’s the exception and not the rule people are able to moderate their behavior in such a way. It’s a slippery slope and once you start down that path, you don’t see your side often until you are at the bottom. Natural is the way to go, being high is a false reality and will never serve your real interest.

Project updates

How is my pet project? Which one? The more I get involved in the folks form the old neighborhood, the more I take on. The guy I took to NA (Jr.) is doing well. He has not used in over 20 days and is really looking forward to getter his 30 day key chain! I am worried about him getting his tax return though. Money is a big trigger for addicts and they can go off and smoke $900 and not eat for a week in a heart beat.

He still refuses to clean his one room flat though. I wouldnt let a farm animal live in that filth. I promise you, you will never see or small anything like it no matter how bad you college roommate can be. He is still in love with a prostitute who is really bad for him though. She is 8 months pregnant with some John’s baby and shooting up! She comes over to his place and begs him to smoke rock too. He thinks he is cured, I think he is a man on the edge.

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The Bio

Many who have known me on the net over the last few years know that I am fairly successful middle class family man and Democrat extraordinaire who is nuts about Mustangs. Those who really followed my threads also know I grew up in the inner city (read mixed ghetto) in pretty bleak poverty with my mother in a one bedroom flat on the bus line. They also know I was about the only white kid in a violent all black school system just after forced integration began here in the south.

I played in a popular punk band in the early 80s that toured with bands like Black Flag, and was pretty much half cocked, anti-social party boy back in the days before Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no”. After one intense life threatening situation too many (Shoot out with crack head friend) I decided to pull myself up by my boot straps (with some Fed grants ) and go to college where I pulled a 3.67 GPA) But enough about me.

Blast from the Past

Once I cleaned up my act 10+ years ago, I had to turn my back on all my old acquaintances, neighborhood and lifestyle to move forward. I promised to do this WITHOUT forgetting where I came from. (Hence my strong demographic ties despite my income)

Recently, I ran into an old childhood friend who was a life long drug user who lives in a $75 a week flop house in the hood. (MMMMM, love the smell of urine) He is a heavy user by ANY standards but is the gentle type of guy who would NEVER miss a day of work and would litterally give you the shirt off his back in a snow storm.

He told me he wanted to get clean and have a nice family like me. This guy was a complete waste case who never would admit he had a problem. I started taking him down to NA meetings (interesting stuff too) and I bought him bags of groceries and gave him clothes, blankets and old furniture. I am VERY happy to say that he just hit 30 days clean for the first time in over 20 years and he loves it!!!!

Brutal Reality

I decided to take this guy on as a pet project this winter and in doing so he began to reacquaint me with many lost friends (including my old best friend who was like my brother growing up) I was shocked and saddened to see where these people are in life I was blown away by the number of people I knew who were dead from ODing, AIDs, suicide and other crap. I met one old friend who I later found out had AIDS from shooting up whom I saw eating out of a dumpster yesterday downtown. This guy was allways as nice as could be too I actually wondered if a higher power didnt put these visions in my path as a reminder to my blessings and humility.

Two of my old friends JUST got picked up for dealing coke and are looking at STIFF mandatory Federal sentences. (I had no idea what these guys had been up too BTW). Generally speaking, almost everyone I knew from my past was either dead, dying, addicted, in jail or just poor and unhappy. It was VERY sad and is/has been quite an eye opener to see just how far I have come since I changed my path (not to toot my horn by any means) and just how low the path of drugs can take a person once they have been on it a while.

Testimonial

Of course it’s easy to say “Drugs=bad, College=good” and so forth, but when you see it first hand in all its ugliness through the eyes of a seasoned adult, it’s a different story. When your 15-25 it’s a message that is easily ignored, even funny. But if you’re still doing the same things in your mid 30s+ as you were at 19, the reality and consequences of that lifestyle are devastating.

The Moral

The moral of the story? If you are a young hard headed, hard drinking/smoking/dosing live for today type, and you ever get the notion to stop — DO IT!!!!! If you think you are too smart to go down, think again. THE CHICKENS WILL COME HOME TO ROOST! It ¡s inescapable, like the grim reaper himself.

(stay tuned for finer grittier details, it gets MUCH worse)

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I ran up stairs and took a quick shower then came back down and there were about 5 dames in the pool 3 new england chicks and two dominican chicas….. the new england chicks were from hampton and they were pale as the white whalls on a 70’s pimp tires…. but for sme reason I found their new england accent and proper use of english to be sexy ( dont ask why )

but …………. those dominican chicks were looking like graceful super models swimming around a warm pool that seemed to be built for the sole purpose of complimenting their youthful bodies

I decided to ignore the new england chicks and concentrate on the chicas, besides I knew those hampton borads were there looking for sankies ( more on this later) and I was not even close to being ready for playing that role in some sorta production for underachievers who overeat

I ordered a brugal and a presidente… the sun beaming its hot and pussy is floating all around this pool in front of me plus

…. “im americano”

….. I asked myself what the fuck happened to my plans of a culture trip and research etc etc… ? I guess I was caught off guard by the sheer beauty of these dominican objects and this pretty much fucked up my whole game plan

……I took a sip from my presidente…. this trip was now officialy about gettin laid

and this is where things start to get Interesting

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Now that the situation was clear I decided to play the game like I was in the states and show these people why they say you cant play a playa, the girl was really digging me ( for real ) and had this been chicago or vegas that pimp’s stable would have been -1 in strength. I feeling this chick up all kinda ways and tryna figure out how the hell a chick so beautiful working in a whore house….. or shit im thinking this cant be a whore house all the dames are dimes…. so whats the fuckin deal

I decided to test my instinct and looked right at the DJ and said how much… I was more interested in his facial exspression then his words because this would tell me more of what was reall going on

he paused and said ” no caprendae” but his facial expression told me he was full of shit and was playing the role for profit…. no conprendae with his facial expression confirmed to me that hell yeah this was a whore house and that this chick I was holding on to like she was the last supper was a island prostitute. A Prostitute that looked better then any chick I had ever seen back home……….

qaunto? in spanish this means how much

1500 pesos later we arrive back at the plaza real and im in anguish because I was kinda feelin like a trick paying 1500 pesos for this broad to spend the night with me I kept tellin myself I didnt do it to have sex with her because that would be trickin … but instead I did it to save her from the evil club owner / pimp motherfuckers who counted my pesos and laughed as I walked her out the door. When she looked at me her eyes had a quiet shy way of saying thank you pussyserver thank you with all my soul… but I know we could never be

Truth be told, I am the kinda guy who dont care what anybody think about me so I have to be honest here….. she was so beautiful that in the states she would have had a boy alley do backflips off parked cars and eat raw squid out of her hands

As we walked up to my room im still thinking to myself ” does this make me a trick?” and how the hell could this chick be a prostitute? im tellin you she nor any of the girls in that place looked anything close to a prostitute, they look like a group of prep broads walking thru an upscale mall

We sat on the bed and She gave me her story of hardship and told me her husband had forced her to work at illusions the previos week. she didnt have any kids and had just had her sida ( aids) test come back negative…. I dont play with my cock so regardless of what kinda test she had come back… I reached for the magnums

the light….. ( to be continued )

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lack of information can be misinformation in a foreign land where a man cannot understand the local dialect

we pull up in front of illusions and right away the first thing you notice is about 4 dime pieces sitting at the outside table chillin and hanging out 2 red bones and two carmel honies all with perfect skin beautiful long hair and roughly 18- 22 years old as we walked up they said hola and although I could have said hola back I said “hello” this shit set of a frenzy of chicas to gain my attention while by swarming around me and smiling and giving me that innocent take me away come hither or just plain fuck me look…. at this exact moment I felt like a king

im hangin at the bar having a brugal slowy fading into drunkedness when this female comes and stand in front of the other ones vying for my attention and hits me with a smile so beautiful I fucked up my boxers… TMI , I know but really thats how pretty she was. since she did not speak any english her friend had to translate for me… she said she liked me and that she was married but the relationship wasnt going to well and that she had a fetish for american men she had seen on TV but had never been with one…… I was thinking about what a shame it would be to not bless her with the pleasure, the more we talked the more the other chicks started to fall back as if to show her respect because it was obvious I was feeling this young chica… im buzzed, shorty all over me smelling like spring flowers and love and the music is mid level with a medium light in the place…..if a black man could ever be on cloud 9 then shit im guessin this is where I was

………but wait……

body language is universal and thers something about the conversation her titties are having with my eyes that has me slightly on the defensive

then it hit me

this was a whore house

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………the plaza real…………

for 45 bucks a night I had a two room apartment with tile floors and a full kitchen ( mini fridge and hot plate) ceiling fans in each room with a view of the beach across the street.

I put my bag down picked my cigs and condoms up and headed out the door.

the plaza real is like an apartment complex / hotel / resort all built into place. with a poolside bar and a resturant in the back. I had decided mentally that we would only spend 1 day here and keep it movin back toward santo domingo

but……….

while I was down in the front lobby knocking down some work on the computer …. my friend was in the pool and had already started flirting with the chick who owned the poolside bar so when I walked out the hotel office all I heard was Draeeeeeee yo come jump in man the waters great… I look toward the pool and the he in that biotch chillin with two chicas one a short red bone and the other a honey brown….. theses were the chicks that owned / worked at the swim up pool bar.

up to this point its been moving constant since we got off the plane and truth be told I was somewhat tired…… then I saw her shake her ass… I ordered a presidente and started what would turn out to be the first of at least 30

we sat at the poolside bar and kicked it with these chicks and drank and listened to their music from around 1 PM until 9 PM these chicks seemed to be crazy about us so for the most part we just chilled out and fed off the attention ( this was like some reverse sex role type stuff where the man is the object of a bunch of chicks attention… amazin mane amazin)

at about 9:30 the broads was ready to close their bar down. they said they were gonna go home and change then come back and spend the night partying with us……..so we waited

hhahahaha at 11:30 PM the hotel security told us that they had called and said they wasnt gonna be able to make it because of the rain and that they were real sorry etc etc and that they would make it up to us…

I wasnt nad because being stood up in the states can happen anytime plus it really was raining and they were riding 2 deep on a motor scooter

so now we think what the fuck we gone do….. in the DR there are two things that are for sale no matter what time of day or where you are…. taxi’s and pussy

we walked out onto the strip that rides the shore all the way down ( imagine A1A in daytona with aprox 1/5 the hotels and shops, the first car that drive by we flag them down and tell them ” mi americano” CHICAS?

we jump in the car with this guy and he starts tellin us about the diffrent spots all around the place he speaks of this club illusions that isnt far… he says the place is always packed with girls and that they will go crazy when the see americano….so lets go

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I had planned to rent a car but after hearing all the horror stories about driving in the DR I changed my mind and decided I would just cab it around the country. I had planned to spend most of my time in santo domingo but the previous day in boca chica went so fast I forgot all about santo domingo and took the cabbies advice when he told me to check out juan dolio. Driving along the the main highway road that goes east to west and connect santo domingo and boca chica and I think the other place was called san jose or san pedro you see nothing but ran down battered houses and beach all the way

upon ariving in juan dolio the cabbie stopped to holler at some cats on bikes and ask them where should we stay if we were looking to party away from the regular tourist and that we were street savvy enough to hold our own

………the plaza real…………

for 45 bucks a night I had a two room bungalow apartment with tile floors and a full kitchen ( mini fridge and hot plate) ceiling fans in each room with a view of the beach across the street.

I put my bag down picked my cigs and condoms up and headed out the door.

………….next : The Concept of Sankie and its effects on mongers like me visiting the DR as well as how me and the homie reversed sanki some chicks … also club illusions , the street fest in san pedro … the american from boston creepin and dominican ghetto + german tourist = a shank, brugal and cocaine = us stranded in the hood at 5 am about 30 minutes from our hotel ,,, almost watched a murder , club illusions, the casino, martel or some shi† like that andstreet fest day 2

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so we go to bed and after sleeping with one eye open I realized that she wasnt gonna pull no stuff and that most likely she was just all over a me because I was from the sates and I was handing out pesos like free milk

Its 10AM and I awake forgeting where I am and what had happened the day before the first thing that hit my mind was who was this chick sleepin on my chest and while I laid there looking at the ceiling trying to gather my thoughts like a teen coming down off extasy . I remeber that im in the DR and that this chick a dime …. and that her cousin a shady dude on a dirtbike with no headlights

with no other option…. I tap that ass again

She wanted to cook me a big dominican dinner and let me meet the rest of her family etc etc so I told her ok but that I had to make a run and would be back later… I told her we would go to the movies and hangout etc etc and that I would spent the rest of my days in the DR fallin in love with her…..I then proceeded to pack my stuff and haul ass outta boca chica

next stop

jaun dolio and the plaza real hotel

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the chick I was with started getting super clingy… wanting to hold my hand all up under me and shit pretty much how I might have been on her if we had been in the states… but man… I felt like a king here…

so we in the party and im dissing fuckin dime piece chicks left and right like its a line for me to diss them

im gone skip ahead a little here

so we back in the room this chick in love ( think usa visa) and im still paranoid about her cousin

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