So Far Left, You're On The Right

At my office, I like most of our clients. They usually fall into one of two categories. The first one being cheery and easy to work with. The second one being virtually non-existant. Either way, they help make my five hours a day in the office a low stress environment. But two months in and I come across Larry Chandler. Yes, I am using his real name because fuck him. He told me he doesn't have a computer, anyway. Larry Chandler is a nut job. He considers himself extremely far left and a strict christian. Larry Chandler is a living container of oil and water. What did I do to get Larry Chandler into my life? All I did was answer the phone.

Larry Chandler called looking for help fixing his credit score like any other client of mine. In the span of a 30 minute conversion I learned lots about him. He is 60 years old and a veteran of the Vietnam War. He is distrustful of the government and refers to Bank of America as Bank Robbers of America. He has a disabled son who was struck in the head by a stray bullet. His son son is blind and deaf on one side of his head. His wife ruined his life and can currently be found hooking on Orange Blossom Trail. When locked into conversation, Larry Chandler has no problem quoting bible scripture to make a point. He also loves to smoke marijuana. Larry Chandler was striking me as a unique individual who I would enjoy having as a client. Then, he started to let the crazy out.

He asked me about the origin of my last name. When I said German he had a story for me about Hitler. "Hitler had the right idea at first. He was all about killing the homosexuals. Then, Stalin butted in and made it all about killing jews. He muddled the message Hitler was trying to send. Do you know what homosexuals do to each other? They perform oral sex on each other. That's plain disgusting." The endearing gentleman I thought I was in touch with had disappeared. I stayed silent for awhile then told him I had to go. I was reeling over that until he called me the next day.

This time Larry Chandler had a warning for me. A warning that if I didn't do what I said I would or tried to screw him in any way. He would ask for God to bring vengeance onto me and my company. I checked with my boss and that was a first for our company. She told me that if that happens again, I can tell him to keep his money. My boss is a sassy black lady. She also added, "Let me call him and ask him where God was when he was getting his ass in all this debt." I love Ms. Wright to death.

Larry Chandler is an example of why I'm proud of my generation. Sure, we play a lot of video games and have invented horrible things like twitter but we are a lot more tolerable of other lifestyles than other the older generations. Larry Chandler calls himself a straight shooter and he believes it makes him noble. I think it is more noble to let go of your prejudices so that we all may live in harmony. No one is going to get along with everyone but the work we put in to co-exist with each other is tremendous. Let's keep the Larry Chandlers in the past.

"Come on Harry, the maiden fair waits for her knight in shining corduroy."

NMB Yesterday

I have a joke about how I went to a predominantly black school and how I was always type casted in the school plays. There is some truth to that. I was never actually in a high school play but the theater teacher knew me because I did the morning announcements. She would offer me parts in the plays but only for characters that wouldn't make sense if they were black. Once she wanted me to play a slave master and another time she wanted me to be a nazi. I declined both roles because I was already busy with other extracurriculars. But I like to imagine the acting resume I could've built had I chosen that path.

A friend of mine heard about this story and a few others and enjoyed them. She said that my upbringing would be a good resource for my comedic musings. Strangely, I don't have much material in regards to be old neighborhood or the schools I went to. I've got a few jokes about my parents but not any about the town that raised me. I haven't been incorporating this facet of my identity into my stage persona. The reason I don't is because my experience was quite average to me. I went to a black school but adapted well into black culture. So I never felt awkward or out of place and therefore find nothing humorous about it.

Regardless though, it is an experience that is unique to me and therefore can make endearing to audiences. I remember running into a friend from high school a few months ago. He asked me if I was writing jokes about the old neighborhood, the boys from NMB (North Miami Beach, my hometown) and the mix tape I had produced with him. I was disappointed to say no. Now may be the time to tap into the environment I was born out of. So let's see what we can conjure up.

I went North Miami Beach Senior High School. There were plenty of other white kids than me there but they were all in the magnet program. (Editor's Note: There were plenty of black kids in the magnet program as well.) They had different teachers and even a whole other floor of the building compared to the rest of the student body. I was an oddity. I was the white kid not in the magnet program. This would confuse teachers. In fact, one year the school had placed me in one of the magnet math courses. I tried to explain to them that the course was too advanced for me but they didn't do anything about it until I started to fail it. They pulled me out and put me in a math class I could handle. They had to alter my schedule to make this work and ironically pulled me out of my African American studies class to make it work.

A lot of the kids I hung out with listened to rap. I didn't like it much at first. The only rap I listened to was when Weird Al parodied Gangster's Paradise. The constant exposure to rap led me to have an affection for it. I started to write my own raps about the dumb and stupid things you contemplate about when you're fifteen. I wrote a lot about break ups despite not having had a girlfriend yet. Soon, I began to understand the idea behind battle rapping and free styling. I wrote little punch line raps and even though I wasn't as good as other kids, I got a lot of respect for having the courage to do it. There was also a novelty to me being white that the kids took a shine too. Probably had to do with Eminem being immensely popular at the time.

I soon got together with my friend Mike and we recorded a mix tape together. We pirated beats and rapped over them. The sounds quality was less than glamorous considering the recording process. The process involved playing the beats over the computer speakers and recording them onto the computer's microphone with us rapping. My rap name was Killah Kracka and he was Mic Deizel. Together we called ourselves Cold Equations. I named us that. I read a short story in English that year with the same name and really liked it. We burned our recordings on to blank CD's and passed them around school. They got pretty popular. People could automatically tell I was white by my voice and my subject matter. On one track in particular I crooned out, "Stay out of my life." Something only emo white kids said so my racial identity was unmasked. Luckily, it didn't hurt our popularity.

That was fun but I think that's enough dabbling for now. Writing about it makes it so vivid all of a sudden. My high school days were very kind of me and have a whole lot to do with who I am now. Writing about them could be just what I need to be more relatable. Perhaps next time we'll go on another vacation in my memory.

"As a matter of fact dawg, here's a pencil, go home, write some shit, make it suspenseful; and don't come back 'til somethin' dope hits you. Fuck it, you can take the mic home wit' you."

Too Many Forks, Not Enough Knives

Whenever I think I'm settling into something comfy, a fork manages to jab into my life. I've been satisfied with my decision to remain in Gainesville. I finally got the camera. Now my friends and I are getting to work on sketches and hopefully a feature length film. Sometimes, though, you haven't a clue when or what kind of opportunity will land at your door step.

Next month is the Florida Marlins job fair. It is an opportunity to gain a paid internship with a baseball organization I grew up loving. They have positions in many fields but I'm most interested in a position in either broadcasting or baseball operations. Ever since high school I thought about how simple my life would be if I could get a job for a baseball organization. Baseball is one of the loves of my life and if I could pull a check by simply talking and being around baseball all day, that would be grand. I would be a fool not to jump on this opportunity. So why has it got me feeling so nervous?

I'm not nervous about trying to get an internship. I'm nervous about moving back home and leaving Gainesville behind. Like I said before, I just bought a camera and am working on a movie with my friends. If I got the internship, I would have to start in January. At the rate this movie is going, I'll have to pack up for Miami before we even finish shooting. If that happens I'll feel like I've really let my friends down. Plus, I'll feel like I'm bailing on why I wanted the camera in the first place. What if my internship makes me lose interest in film making and comedy all together? What if I end up quitting altogether for a career in baseball? I'm not sure I'm willing to sacrifice certain things to work for the Marlins.

Also, I feel like I'll get really depressed if I move back home. I only have three close friends back home. One who I consider a workaholic, one who is never up to any good and one who I've unfortunately fallen out of contact with. I only imagine myself doing three things back in Miami. Hanging out with Niccolo, hanging out with my parents and going to work. I feel like my social skills will be crippled by returning to a big city. Especially when I know I'd be missing everyone back in Gainesville badly.

At the moment, there is no decision to make. I'm going to drive down to Miami next month and apply for an internship. Then I'll wait and see if I even get it. I know my friends will want me to stay and my parents will want me to come back home. I know I can't make everyone happy. At the very least, I need to make myself happy.

"As if every thought that tumbles through your head was so clever it would be a crime for it not to be shared."

October Never Seems This Cold

I stepped outside this morning and I felt the chill. The weather is starting to cool down and memories are coming with it. Living in Florida all of my life has me too use to hot weather. I've spent a Christmas or two in flip flops and a t-shirt. When the cold weather rolls in, it's so rare that I think about everything significant that has occurred to me in the cold. Weirdly enough, all of the romance I've found in college was during the very chilly months. I'm prompted to spill out all of my nostalgia onto this blog. Let's get to it.

I came into college with a girlfriend doing a long distance thing. We met in the summer months so I credit that and many other reasons why I absolutely hated her. Don't feel bad. She hated me too. After that, I got into three other relationships and the initial lovey dovey contact began in the cold months. To be precise, November, January and February. I'm developing a few theories as to why this is.

My first one is that I'm simply trying to get warmer. It was bizarre discovering how much colder it can get Gainesville than in Miami. I'm not talking a few degrees either. I'm talking a difference of twenty degrees. I assume my South Floridian blood naturally sent me out in search of a female to curl up next to and get toasty. But if it's merely a case of survival than why did I seek out females? Females with beauty beyond belief might I add. (Editor's note: They subscribe to this blog with the exception of long distance girlfriend. Fuck you, Sarah.) That's because I enjoy the finer things in life. Could you imagine if I blanketed myself with dirty dish towels when I could acquire I blanket made of velvet and rabbit fur? That would be madness. College girls make the best comforters.

Another theory I have going is Valentine's Day. I grew up in spite of Valentine's Day because I always wanted a girlfriend but was too much of a geek to get one. So when the date drew close I would snarl when in actuality I wanted to celebrate it so very much with a beautiful girl who thought I was funny and smart. No lie, whenever I even started liking a girl I would start making plans for Valentine's Day. I would be like, "This is it. This is the year I don't have to spend it alone because I'm in loooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvve." I was pathetic. I am happy to say that I have not had to spend the last three Valentine's Days alone. (Editor's note: You hear that, Sarah. I'm not going to die watching Royal Rumbles in a continuous loop. You're the joke now. Your middle name is Margarita.)

Or it's probably all a fluke. How knows why, where or when they find romance? Guess I'm just glad that I continue to. I just find it funny how the weather can trigger so many sensations in the brain. (Editor's note: Author will no longer discuss romance in his blog as he divulges mushy details. Barf.)

"I didn't ask for a shrink - that must've been somebody else. Also, that pudding isn't mine. Also, I'm wearing this suit today because I had a very important meeting this morning and I don't have a crying problem."