A return to the blogging world

Well, I guess I really should get back into trying to blog a little more. As you can see, it’s been a long while since I last blogged.

 

And today is pretty much going to be a free formed rant. Because there is a lot that has happened since my last blog, and well, a free flow is the form that best suits a catch up.

Enough of the royal family. I don’t care about them at all, and never will. There really is no reason for us to actually waste valuable time in the press with the coverage of the birth of their child. Murders, rapes, corporate greed, crooked politicians, all of that is better coverage than the birth of the Royal Spawn. Even the soft story of a child beating cancer would be better.  We’ve had an entire state prove they are inept when it comes to prosecuting anyone (more on that later),  an entire city go bankrupt, a whistle-blower get railroaded into leaving the country, and another one who’s stay in jail has been something from the dark ages. But no, let’s waste time reporting on the child of a royal couple from a country we rebelled against nearly 340 years ago.  I’m sure right now that john Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and every one of the drafters of the Constitution must be doing the preverbal rolling in the grave.  And if people in this country wanted to know why the rest of the free world considers our media a joke, well, you know why now.

 

Let’s take a quick examination of Edward Snowden. I’m really tired of everyone calling for him to be deported back to the states, and stand trial, and so forth. Personally, I hope he’s never brought back to the states, and he lives the rest of his days a free man. Neither he nor Bradley Manning did anything wrong, other than serve as an unofficial watch of the watchers.  After all, isn’t that what you people want in the first place, someone overseeing the government?  And by the way, why isn’t anyone calling for Dick Cheney, the former Vice President, to be arrested and tried for leaking government secrets.  This is the man, who while in the White House, leaked the name of a CIA operative in the field, all over a feud he was having with her husband. Didn’t he put the life of the CIA agent in danger, thus possibly putting the lives of Americans stateside in danger? Don’t see the press hounding him. I don’t see any of the mindless drones on CNN or GOP asskissers on Fox News calling for his arrest. Aren’t these the same folks who’ve said that anyone who leaks top secret information should be prosecuted?  And makes Dick Cheney so special that he gets a free pass? As far as I’m concerned, nothing makes him special. If you’re going to hound Snowden, and toss Manning into a rat hole prison cell, you really should make Dick Cheney his neighbor. We need a little consistency here, folks.

 

As for Florida, Stand your Ground, George Zimmerman, and Trayvon Martin.  First off, Zimmerman had zero business getting out and following the kid around, when he could have easily remained in his car and watched him that way. Besides, wouldn’t a normal person have simply asked for the cops to show up and informed them of his concerns. After all, it’s not like Trayvon came up running to Zimmerman’s car screaming “I’m going to kill you!”.  I don’t get how Zimmerman could have felt threatened in a situation he put himself in. How can you follow someone, have said person turn around, and use “Stand your ground.” Have you not impeded on someone else’s ground? Why wasn’t this mentioned in the trial.  Now, let’s take a look at the state of Florida, which has the most inept team of prosecutors in the entire country. They screwed the pooch on the Casey Anthony case by putting their faith into a DNA abstracting process that has not, and may never be, embraced by the scientific community. Not to mention that her father also had some issues with serious emotional detachment that may have had an effect on Casey’s overall reactions after the death of her child.

They lawyer in the Casey Anthony case seemed less interested in trying to prove her guilt, and more interested in auditioning for MSNBC, CNN, or Fox as a legal analyst. As for Trayvon Martin, the prosecution’s witnesses were poorly prepped, seemed utterly clueless, and ended up being saviors for the defense. I really have to wonder how these attorneys in Florida could be so inept at their jobs, yet hold positions of high importance.  Maybe it’s time we had an examination of those in Florida charged with handling these high profile trials. Maybe Florida seriously the entire office, and replace them with better quality attorneys.

And let me close with the following. While I will admit that I enjoy Ted Nugent’s music, and he’s a great guitar player, top 20 caliber, but as a human, he’s pretty terrible. He’s tried to deflect the blame to Trayvon, and has been running his mouth to anyone willing to give this glory seeking washed up rock star a vehicle to spout out his nonsense.  Ted, who crapped his pants and faked insanity when he was called to serve his country in war, and openly admitted that he adopted a 15 year old girl to use as his sexual tool while touring in 1977, tries to come off as a badass hunter. He’s a running joke, a utter jackass, and pretty much, a jerk off. And while I admit that he’ll never see this blog (though I really, really hope he does), and I’m not saying anything in print that I wouldn’t in a face to face meeting. I don’t shield my beliefs in order to appease anyone, that’s not my style.

And that should be clear in my upcoming blogs, which I hope to do at least once a week.

Baseball Writers strike out.

Well, I’ve taken a few days, to sit back, and relax. I’ve digested the reason the baseball writers opted not to elect anyone to the major league baseball hall of fame. And as I read their reasons, I have come to the following realization:

One, every current voting members for the major league baseball hall of fame needs to be let go. That’s right, they all need to have their privilege of voting for the hall of fame revoked.

The reason is very simple. Instead of giving votes to players like Craig Biggio, who was on for the first time, or legendary pitcher Jack Morris, who is running out of chances to be elected, some voters actually submitted blank ballots. That’s right, they opted to not vote for anyone.

It’s because they have judge all players from the 1980-2000’s guilty. Doesn’t matter if they have ever taken a PED, been accused, or anything. They have judged them guilty, hence they won’t vote for anyone. And if that is going to be their stance, its simple, revoke their right to vote.  Why should former players like Tim Raines and Morris suffer, and watch their chances to get in the hall be toyed with because of a vendetta by a bunch of baseball writers? It’s not fair to them. But hey, why should the writers care? They are seeking press by making fans think they are taking a stance, when they are nothing more than cowards. Any writer who submitted a blank ballot is a coward. Anyone who won’t vote to elect a player like Barry Bonds or Roger Clemmons just doesn’t understand the hall of fame.

Now, this misguided notion that a player elected to the hall of fame has to be a moral, nearly perfect citizen. Not sure where this idea even came from, but it somehow has seeped into the thought process. Now before you clamor with the thought that “These steroid players cheated, electing them would ruin the purity of the baseball hall of fame.” Well, let’s look at some current members, and ask yourself, despite what they’ve done on the field, should we really honor these folks with immortality?

Charles Comiskey. Here is the man that helped fuel his players to take a dive in the 1919 World Series. Comiskey was an owner who liked players, and liked money, but hated to see the two mixed. A noted tightwad, Comiskey would do anything, for ordering manager Kid Gleason to sit players, or order them to be taken out of games so they would not reach certain plateaus, which in return, would assure they would not get a promised bonus for reaching that benchmark. A complete inability  to relate to his players, or pry open his wallet, lead to a revolt, and his players, some of them top stars, deciding that they needed money more than World Series rings, so they took a dive.

Tom Yawkey. Famous owner of the Boston Red Sox, even has a street named after him. He was also a bigot. Tom Yawkey fought against intergrating the Boston Red Sox. Despite having talented black ball players in the minor league system, these players never played for the Red Sox. In fact, after one player hit .325 and 37 home runs in the minors for Boston, Yawkey ordered his release from his contract, instead of calling him up to the big league roster. The Red Sox had Ben Oglivie, a talented Outfield who became a star for the Milwaulkee Brewers. Yawkey ordered Oglivie traded for a fading starter, instead of making him a starter for the Red Sox. It wasn’t until years after his death, the Red Sox began to change their ways, and groom talented players like Jim Rice, who’d had never been given a chance uner Yawkey.

Kenesaw Landis. Let’s not kid ourselves here. There was only one reason that the baseball owners elected him as czar, and that’s because the owners owed him one. In 1915, the AL and NL were challenged by a third league seeking to be a major, the Federal league. The league was filled with talented players, and could have been a contender.  The league filed suit because of the reserve clauses that AL and NL players had, which meant that a players’ career was 100% under the control of the teams’ owner. Release, trade, the player had no say on where he went. The owners of the Federal League, eyeing several ML talents, thought this was, in effect, a monopoly. Landis was the judge that was slated to rule on this case. Instead, he did nothing, and this action forced the hand of the Federal League, and thus earned him a favor by the AL and NL owners, and that was paid back after the Black Sox Scandal.

But Landis was also a raging bigot. One of the criticism that he was given during his time as a judge was the notion that white men who stood before him, and black men who stood before him in court were treated different, with black men being sentenced harsher than white men. Landis also steadfast refused to allow baseball to be integrated. He famously told a reporter “They have their league, we have ours, that’s the way it should always be.”  After a group of ML all stars were defeated three games in a roll by Negro League standout team the Kansas City Monarchs, Landis ordered the series canceled, as many felt that Landis was angered that a team of all white ball players could lose to a team of black ball players.

Which is going to bring us to Cap Anson. Perhaps there is no more vile person in the hall of fame. That’s partly because Marty Bergen was never elected, and despite having worthy number, Bergen murdered his wife and two small children because he was depressed over his performance the previous season.

Cap Anson was a proud member of the KKK, thought that lynchings were the public’s way of controlling those the federal government could not, and is the man behind major league baseball being a white’s only game for 50 years. In 1884, Anson’s team was slated to play the American Association’s Toledo Blue Stockings. The AA was the second major league,  and the first to allow women to attend games, serve beer at the game, and allow blacks and whites to play on the same squad. Seeing that Moses Fleetwood Walker was the starting catcher, Anson was enraged. He called Walker the N-word several times, and pulled his entire team off the field, refusing to play unless Walker rode the bench. Toledo’s manager refused, and told Anson to “Go to hell”. This was followed by telling Anson that he would not be paid, nor would any of his players. Only after the notion of losing money, did Anson allow the game to go on. Anson would, ten years later, stage the infamous “White Players Revolt” in which Anson conned other top stars into thinking they would all lose their jobs if black ball players were allowed to compete with them for a job. Anson stated they would start their own league, which frightened the owners. Thus was born the rule that black men could not play in the major leagues.

There you have it. A tightwad who nearly ruined the game, and three racist, one with direct ties to the KKK, are immortalized in the hall. Is this the message that we want to send? That it’s okay to nearly ruin the game, or be a racist. To deny the chance to play major leagues to men simply because of the color of their skin, is that the message, really?

So, before you say that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemmons, etc ruined the game by taking steroids, and thus shouldn’t be in the hall. Before you say that “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and Pete Rose don’t belong because they gambled, think about this. Can you sleep well at night, keeping these men out, yet keeping in racist? There is the question. That is the question that needs to be answered.

If the PED tainted players are going to be kept out, then some that are already in, including those mentioned in this blog, Must be removed from the baseball hall of fame. If that doesn’t happen, then the message if that if you took drugs to enhance your performance, that was wrong.  But the same message also gives a free pass to those who’s crime was much more vile. Dismissing another human being, simply based on the color of their skin.

Thoughts on todays school shooting

You know, I've spent the last hour thinking about if I was going to post a blog about the shootings in Newton today. I've thought a thousand times about what I was going to say.

I want to start off by offering my condolences to everyone in Newton today. As I write this, I feel completely sick to my stomach. This feels like something out of a TV drama, but alas, its all too real.

I want to add that I watched the coverage today, and we all know that Fox News is pure trash that tried to steer the issue away from gun control, and place 100% of the blame for what happened today at the feet of makers of "violent" video games. But then again, why would Fox News put any of the blame at the NRA, because we all know that the GOP and the NRA are spooning each other.

I would also like to add that I'm disgusted with CNN. Whereas the anchors at MSNBC actually showed emotion, Wolf Blitzer and the walking dead at CNN did not. In fact, Wolf Blitzer said the words "Children dead." with the same emotion you or I would have reading our shopping list. I switched the channel to MSNBC after growing weary of the cold, heartless reporting from CNN.

President Obama gave one of the most human speeches I've ever seen. Never before had I witnessed a president actually get choked up, and wipe away tears during a live press conference. This is not a knock on presidents of the past. They are supposed to be Stoic,  they are supposed to have an aire of confidence. That's been an unwritten rule, rule that was broken when President Obama had a human moment.

I watched one of the anchors actually break down into near tears as she interviewed a doctor about the psychological damage that events today could do to a child. Something those zombies and robots over at CNN could never do.

I've been on twitter for the past few hours, and continue to be as I pen this blog, wondering what thoughts are going to come next. I can just hear the NRA supporters crying foul over the call for greater gun control. Even though gun control is needed in this country, and some guns, like some of the semi automatics out there serve no purpose. Some of them are complaining that even mentioning gun control is to make a "Political" issue out of this.

I think back to a confrontation between Cenk Uyger of the Young Turks and member of the NRA brain trust. Whereas the NRA representative kept saying that guns make people feel safe, etc, you know the rhetoric. Cenk was on him like Charlie Sheen on an 8 ball. And Cenk put him rightfully in his place.

When its all said and done, 20 children are dead. 20 sets of parents will remember this holiday season with a heavy heart. 20 children who did nothing, nothing to warrant being shot while they sat in a classroom. It takes a special kind of monster to do this, harm little children. Also today, a man walked into a school in china, armed with a knife. No one dead, just a deranged man who got his ass kicked.

More guns don't make people safer, it never has, and never will. There was a time, in which it was common place for everyone to carry a gun. It happened here in America, and we got one of the most violent times in our history. I'm talking of course of the Old West. A time in where outlaws like Billy the Kid, and Jesse James carried guns, as did every day folks. All this did was lead to high body counts. Maybe some folks just haven't gotten over romanticizing that era of US history.

I can't understand why people would want us to remain stunted in that logic. that the only way to be safe is to carry a gun. I guess I'll never understand the logic of these people. Guns, for the most part, are used as weapons of fear. They are a modern day bogeyman, with the notion that every bad guy out there has a gun, and willingly use it on anyone. That's just not the truth.

The truth is that showing a gun to someone that already has a gun is just going to bring a causation of the other person using their weapon. They are doing it out of survival mode. There blows the "its safer if everyone has a gun" logic.

As I sit here, thinking of how to bring this blog to a close, I harken back to the thought that there are scores of children who may very well forever link school and death. There are parents who, instead of celebrating this holiday with their children, will be mourning their loss. And there will be another school that will now join the sad fraternity of schools marred by shootings. Though it feels of wishful thinking, one can only hope that finally, there will be no new members, and this school will be the last admitted.

As for the shooters motives, I really don't give a shit. They mean nothing to me. Nothing can justify walking into a school, an elementary school, and shooting young children. Shooting teachers and others who dedicated their lives to educating young lives. The motives don't out weight the loss of life. Those who don't learn from history, are doomed to repeat it. I hope we've finally learned our lesson.

Steriod era players? I'd elected them, and here's why.

Okay, I know it’s been a really long time since I last blogged, but sharing something as personal as I did takes a lot out of you. And one needs to find the proper follow up, and I have, and it just might piss a few folks off. Or it could very well educate them.

 I have, what I feel, is an irrefutable argument as to why players with confirmed ties, or alleged ties to steroids and PED’s belong in the baseball hall of fame. Now I know what you are saying. These players cheated, they took drugs to give themselves an edge. The impaired the sanctity of the game, its forever tainted. These sins, they can never be enshrined into the Hall.

Well, let’s not act like the baseball hall of fame is a place for angels, okay. In fact, there are several members who while they may have not taken drugs to give themselves an edge, they have done things much worse, including two men who committed a crime  so atorusous, that if the general public knew of their crimes, they would hold protest in Cooperstown demanding they be expunged from the hall of fame.  But before we get to them, let’s take a look at some of the other folks that are in the hall, even though they weren’t exactly upstanding citizens.

Ty Cobb, let’s take a look at him. Yes, I’ll concede that he used his wealth to help the disadvantaged, and maybe Ty was bi-polar. How else could you explain a person who later in life was so kind, you during his playing days, was a walking, talking iceberg. Cobb did beat the hell out of a black elevator operator because the man allegedly talks to Cobb in an “Uppity” manner.  And when the security guard, who was also black, tried to pull Cobb off the man, Cobb repaid him with a stab to the gut. The case was later settled out of court. And there were stories of Cobb also being abusive towards women as well. Despite being pretty much a prick off the field, Cobb was a star on the field, and his off field exploits were overlooked.

 Charles Comiskey, the man who set the standard for tightwad owner. He managed his payroll to the point that he would often order that players be sat so they wouldn’t reach certain performance bonuses, or he’d simply cheap out in other areas. And it was this that led to the revolt that would be the basis for members of the White Sox to throw the 1919 World Series.

However, those men are small potatoes compared to two men who should be expunged from the hall, should major league baseball really care about the sacredness of the hall. And if sports writers really cared, they’d pitch a fit that these men are even in the hall to begin with.

Let’s look first at Kennesaw Mountain Landis. The man who threw out the dirty Black Sox players who threw the 1919 World Series, who was going to remove the gambling element out of the game. See, when Landis was a sitting Chicago judge, he had a slight (cue sarcasm) reputation for giving white criminals  softer sentences, while imposing extremely harsh ones on those who weren’t Anglo-Saxon. And he didn’t really care if a person had a disease and wouldn’t see the end of their sentence, Landis once told an elderly man who posed his concern that “You sure can go ahead and try.”  The only reason he was appointed as commissioner of major league baseball was payback. Years before, he ruled in favor of the American and National League in their case against the Federal League, an outlaw circuit that raided the rosters of both leagues, in an attempt to become the third “Major Baseball League”

But Landis was also the man who fought tooth and nail to keep baseball a “White’s Only” game, following his belief with such thoughts are “They have their league, and we have ours” and “The best Negro boy can’t compete on the same level as the worst white ball player.”  It’s no coincidence that Jackie Robinson didn’t make his debut until after Landis was dead and buried. And for keeping the game segregated, Landis was rewarded with a special election to the baseball hall of fame. Yeah, you read that right, Landis was rewarded for keeping blacks out of the major leagues by election to the hall of fame. And I’m sure his ruling on the Black Sox scandal, and in the Federal League case played a role, but hey, we can’t forget, this fought to keep baseball a white’s only game. As I write this, I am reminded of a famous story in which Brooklyn had been scouting Josh Gibson, a power hitting catcher often called “The Black Babe Ruth”. Brooklyn was threatened with expulsion from the major leagues if Negro league scouting continued.

Now we come to the mastermind behind keeping baseball a “White’s” only game. Elected in 1939, we have the worst offender in the major league baseball hall of fame. A man that has now, and had then, clear ties to the KKK. Former Chicago Cubs First  baseman Cap Anson. Now to tell the story, we travel back to the 1880’s, when the Anson’s team was set to play Toledo of the American Association. The AA was the second major league at the time, and it actually allowed integration of the rosters. When Anson learned that Toledo had a catcher named Moses Fleetwood Walker, who was black, Anson took his team off the field, and refused to play. He had been successful doing a stunt like this, years before, and the Toledo manager wasn’t going to have it. Whereas Anson stated under “No circumstances” he’d share a ball field with an n-word, he would relent, mainly because he was threatened with no payment. The game went on, and both Anson and Walker played, even though Anson would call Walker names like “Monkey” other insults, many that are way too vulgar to print here.

In 1894, Anson, tired of seeing white ball players lose jobs to black ball players, started his own revolution, called the “White Players revolt”. It was a general strike, in which Anson and some of the era’s top stars (and gate draws) would refuse to play ball as long as blacks were allowed to play alongside whites. The owners, not wanting to lose many, caved, and thus, major league baseball was no longer integrated, and would remain as such until after World War II.

Now I get the argument that some of you might want to make, that these folks, their transgression occurred off the field, and not on. They didn’t take drugs, etc. Well, that’s a nice argument, for about five minutes. Then you introduce logic, and you see the flaws of the argument. If you are going to argue that taking drugs to have an edge is a lower crime than that of racism, then I pity you. I don’t want to hear any discussion about protecting the legacy of the hall. The undisputable fact remains that while players who took drugs to get an edge, but ones who out and out engaged in racist acts are allowed in is flat out disgusting. So, unless you can sit there, and come up with a valid argument that taking drugs is worse than racism, I will not back off my view point.  

 If I could vote, I’d vote Roger Clemmons, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire all into the hall of fame. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with cheating to get an advantage, but in the grand scheme of things, what they did really wasn’t wrong. Mike Schimdt is one of the very few hall of famers who has no issue with these players getting in. He even admitted that players in the 70’s and 80’s often would take uppers for a game. As Schimdt has so wisely stated, Uppers enhanced the player’s game, so shouldn’t uppers be considered a PED? And if so, that would exclude a whole slew of players.

As I wind this up, I’m just going to restate my main point. I don’t want to hear about that sanctity of the major league baseball hall of fame. I don’t want to hear how electing players with ties to steroids and PED’s is going to taint it. Especially as long as the hall continues to house a certain two men who fought to keep baseball a game for whites only.

Looking back, it wasn't too bad

You know, I have to admit, that I’ve never done a blog like this. I’ve never really been the “Share with the Web world” kind of person. Granted, if there was a question that someone had about me, I’d gladly answer it. I figure, if they are going to ask, I can be kind and answer in return. Besides, I’ve lived a life worth of a bestselling novel.

36 years ago I burst about this world. I was pretty much a normal baby, crying for attention, wanting to be burped, etc. However, I was born, with a broken leg. I was born with a bone disease known as Neurofibromatosis. It caused an abnormality in the development of some of my bones. Some examples, I no bone structure behind my right eye, which makes it appear smaller and swollen. I was also born with a left leg that was shorter than the right one.

And there is where my life story lays. My left leg, an appendage that has seen its share of surgeries. The first coming when I was a mere 18 days old. I would be in a cast from that time, until I turned four years old. During that time, I had a surgery that involved my left leg being hooked up to an electrical machine that was supposed to stimulate growth. It pretty much only stimulated the growth of the electric bill. There was also the time I had a bone taken from my right leg, and inserted into my left leg. They hoped that this would in turn spur growth in my leg. Alas, it did not. It didn’t though.

Now, it was during this time that I was in a double cast. From the waist on down, I was in the cast, with a bar going across my leg to keep them straight. Now, I managed to do something that the doctors found perplexing. I managed to wear out the double cast. I used to crawl around, using my hands and arms as feet and legs. This included crawling up a flight of stairs. I developed a pretty solid upper body, save for the flabby stomach. Other than that, my arms were pretty toned and strong.

It simply bewildered the doctors that I could actually crawl up the stairs. I was a kid, and I didn’t know what it was like to face something I couldn’t overcome. Deep down, I think that all kids have this strength.

I actually cried the first time I had to go without a cast. Hey, I had always had one, I couldn’t remember a time that I didn’t have one. Now, something really cool was going on that I really should touch on here. My surgeries were making me a little famous. At the age of four, I had already appeared in the National Enquirer, and the local newspapers, the Democrat and Chronicle, and Times-Union.  This does not include being interviewed on local television. All of this attention, because many of the surgeries I was having were first of their kind. If I’m not mistaken, the bone graph surgery was video-taped and currently sits in the library of Johns Hopkins Medical School.  During this time, I got to talk to Erik Estrada, Ron Carey, and Washington Redskins placekicker Mark Mosley. During the NFL season, Mark would call my house the Saturday before every game. Though deep down I was secretly a Tampa Bay Bucs fan, I rooted for the Redskins because of Mark, and harbored a hatred of them when they released him from the roster. I cheered the Browns when they signed him, and became a Broncos hater for life when his last chance at going to the Super Bowl was stopped by Denver. Although, I did cheer the Redskins when they played Denver, and the Redskins had long time Bucs QB Doug Williams at the helm.

Ron Carey kept sending us holiday cards for years. He also sent us an autographed mini poster of the entire Barney Miller Cast. He even sent us sweat shirts of his last TV show, 1989’s Have Faith. Ron passed  away a few years ago.

In October of 1988, I had surgery where they closed the growth plate in my Right leg, in hopes that the legs would even themselves out. Alas, that never happened. However, in December of 1992, I had the surgery that would change my life forever.

It was perhaps the most risky surgery choice. The idea that my left leg would be broken, placed in a lizeroth cage, and I would have to turn four screws four times a day to stretch out the bone.  What made it such a great risk was that I had no guarantee that my left leg would heal if broken, and I stood a chance of losing the leg. It was a risk I had to take, because I’d grown tired of having to buy shoes, and then having a lift placed on it. I wanted normal shoes for once.

December 6^th, 1992, I had the surgery. I was out of school for almost a year and a half. I missed out on the majority of my sophomore and Junior years. It was a struggle getting used to the cage being on my leg, and trying to get around could be a pain. It was a few weeks before I could even manage climbing the stairs. I manager to do my homework, work the trading card store my parents owned, and live a somewhat normal life. I still wonder to this day how I managed to get around with the bulky thing on my leg. As for turning the screws, I didn’t feel the pain. I’m sure the notion of  “Stretching bone” sounds painful, but it didn’t bother me at all. December 8^th, 1993, I had the cage removed. I managed to act in a play (Life with Father, I played Clarence) continue to write for the school paper, and get myself back into the routine of academics.  I did suffer a set break, breaking my leg in March of 1994. That didn’t stop me from going to the Senior prom, and even getting some dancing in, along with an impersonation of Beavis.

Now, were going to flash forward about 6 years. Life finds me as a commentator for NMW, a wrestling promotion based in Rochester, New York. I even managed to debut as a heel manager. For the record, the first ten years of my career, I was a heel. I’ve always felt comfortable playing a villain.  After NMW ceased operation, I was a part of the local TV show Wrestlevision. The show highlighted independent feds from across the US, Canada, and even Japan.  It was fun for the first year, until a producer who used the show to lampoon professional wrestling took over, and after that, doing the show became as enjoyable as walking across a bridge made entirely of cactuses. Thankfully, I went from that quickly sinking ship to joining up with Paul McClemmons and POD productions. Finally, I was working with someone who shared my vision of keeping true to old school values, yet still presenting professional wrestling in a modern way.  Over these many years, I’ve gotten to call matches of legends like Jimmy “Super Fly” Snuka, Jeff Jarrett, Raven, Marty Jannetty, and many others.  I also am a part of a locally produced internet radio station on Veetle. I host my own show, called the Metal Mountain, and I co-host Rock N’ Roll Sports, a show that I had done during my college days at MCC. I keep pretty busy these days. I also have a hobby of writing short stories. I hope the finally try and get them published.

Now I’m sure some of you are asking the question. Have I ever thought of what would it be like to not have had Neurofibromatosis? You know what, I can honestly answer that by saying, not really. Granted, there have been those fleeting moments in which I have asked that question of myself. Then I think about those who followed after me.

A few years before I was born, a young boy in Oregon was born with the same illness. His parents opted for choice B, which involved cutting off the leg. My parents chose their option, A, for me to keep my leg. All of those surgeries I mentioned before, all were one of a kind. They had never been done before, I was the first. Before I went through all of that, doctors would actually push the idea of amputation. Now, there are kids today having the surgeries that I’ve endured. They don’t have to worry about amputation being the only option. Yeah, I think that’s a great trade-off for not being able to play little league, or being the pee wee league quarterback (though growing up, I’d realize that I’d love to have been a bruising linebacker).

Looking back, I’d endure the same life, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And I look at it as simple as this. Because of the fact that no one else is going to have to endure the notion of the losing a limb, which is what made it all worth it.  Did I get to grow up to be the baseball player, football player, or professional wrestler that I wanted to be as a kid? Nope, I grew up something much greater than that. I grew up to blaze a medical trail. I can’t put it any better.

Now, I do want to clear up a little final bit of business. As I stated to start off this blog, I’m really not one to open myself on the net like this. I have to admit that I felt a little inspired. And for that I would like to thank April Hunter, who wrote a blog this past week, and shared an amazing story from her childhood. And as I sit here, writing these words, I realize and appreciate the emotional strength it takes to write this.  And I hope that everyone enjoyed this little walk in my world.

Thank you.

Post election thoughts

Guess everyone, you survived it. That’s right, you survived not a Zombie apocalypse, you survived that the 2012 election campaign. Are you feeling a little better right now? Besides, it’s it good to know that those political vote for me ads are now replaced by countless advertisements for shit you don’t need, and pretty much, shit you don’t want in the first place. Yes, everything is back in order!

It’s funny to see the Donald Trumps and Ted Nugents of the world lose their collective minds. Ted Nugent sent out tweets to his followers that contained as many grammatical errors of that of a teenage girl texting, and Donnie “Small Potatoes” Trump, well, he’s just gone stark raving mad. It got to the point that his handlers actually had to get Donnie to retract some of his tweets. I tweeted Donnie boy back, and asked him such hard hitting questions like “Don’t you have another business to run into the ground?” I didn’t get any tweets back, nor did I expect any, mainly because Donnie doesn’t have any balls. He lost those to Ivana as part of the divorce settlement years ago. And Ted Nugent, what about him? I think he’s gotten a hold of some tainted meat that has driven him insane. Either that or he’s been lying all these years about being drug free and secretly does whatever drugs Keith Richards drops out of his jacket.

Donald Trump complained about the Electoral College in which Obama won. Trump cried that “Romney won the popular vote, and we need to get rid of the Electoral College vote.” Yeah, you didn’t hear Trump say that when Bush lost the popular vote, but got in on the Electoral College. Remember folks, to conservatives like Trump, rules are only good when they work out in their favor. Once the rules don’t favor them, they cry that the rule needs to go. Remember when they actually tried to get rid of filibusters? In 2009, they all over a sudden wanted them back.

But it’s not just a washed up has been like Ted Nugent (face it Ted, you haven’t been an important part of music since Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades carried your ass as a member of the Damn Yankees), or egomaniacs like Donnie boy Trump that utterly lost it, and melted down for the whole world to see. Some big names in the GOP are going insane as well.

Did anyone else see Karl Rove’s meltdown on Fox News? It was too the point he kept refuting everything that showed the election was going Obama’s way, to the point that Rove took over as director, and pretty much pushed a Fox News anchor to ask one of their analyst if he still felt Obama was going to win (see Rove demands he changes his mind) Rove was defiant to the very end, even after the AP, Reuters, CNN, Current, Fox News, and even Mitt Romney called the election for President Obama.  It was funny to watch Mr. Crossroads crumble under the knowledge that Americans were rejecting the far right Tea Party members the GOP hitched their wagon too. It was an idea that proved near fatal for the party.  For all the money that the GOP superpacs spent, they got very little for it. Kind of how the Oakland Raiders felt after drafted JaMarcus Russell, and giving him all that money to be the worst quarterback in NFL history.

We had Colorado legalize marijuana! Yes, about freaking time. Now the state will spent less on prisons because they will no longer clog it up with people enjoying a harmless herb. By the way, I’m fully in favor of marijuana being legalized for medical purposes. I have written two papers, and even given a speech on the benefits of the drug.

And major congrats to Tammy Baldwin, the first openly lesbian woman to be elected to the senate from the state of Wisconsin. That’s progress. And it’s about damn time. She easily defeated Tommy Thompson, and showed that maybe we’re actually going to be turning the page. Now if only someone could be “openly gay” without the title attached to them.

Now a poplar trend was of the “tea Party” republicans getting voted off the island, mainly because the people that elected them saw what the rest of the country warned them about…these folks were freaking crazy. I mean some of these wanted to turn the clock back to the 1910’s. Todd Akin, Dick Murdock, whose views on rape were so extreme that anyone with common decency knew that in no shape or form could these smucks be allowed in any seat of power. Take New York’s Ann Marie Buerkle, whose goal was to keep the country from extending the debt ceiling. An elected leader actually said that her goal was to destroy the credit rating of the US. Really quick for my loyal readers, the debt ceiling allows the country to sell off bonds in order to pay certain debts. It was put into place in 1918. We don’t raise the debt ceiling, we don’t pay off debts, and our credit rating goes to pot. Think of it this way. You sell your Harry Potter books on eBay in order to raise a little cash to pay your credit card bill.

John Boehner, who sanely seems to have realized that voters aren’t stupid, they see that the GOP is trying to handicap President Obama every steps of the way, fighting any and all improvements, said that the GOP “Needs to challenge themselves to find the common ground” As opposed to Lipless Mitch McConnell, who seems to think accepting any idea of President Obama’s to paramount to treason. Mitch has much lip as he does smarts.

So, we’ve made it past another election, and time will tell how everything shapes up.  I can only hope that the GOP puts aside their petty childishness, and decides to work with the president. In all seriousness, the people have spoken, and the message is clear. Cut the crap GOP. The party needs to stop hating on women and Hispanics. That will happen once the Cubs win the World Series.

Okay, that is going to close out this blog. I welcome everyone to leave a comment on this page.

Election day is upon us

Here we are, just hours away from deciding what is going to happen for the next four years. Well, I guess more or less we could be voting for who big business is going to try and buy for the next four years.

Listen, let’s be honest, we haven’t had much luck with presidential candidates that had a business background. George Bush JR couldn’t even run an oil company in Texas. That’s like being a failed drug dealer who lives next door to Lindsay Lohan. Another one would be a failed steroid dealer who lives next to Lance Armstrong. Then again, it is widely speculated that Bush used insider information when it came to selling Harken’s stock (the company that was once Bush’s failed Arbusto Oil).

Hey, we also had Herbert Hoover, who graduated from Stanford with a degree in engineering, and he built an international mining empire. Not bad. However, as a president, Hoover was perhaps the biggest failure of all-time. He cut taxes for those who were doing well, in hopes that it would spur job growth. All it did was create the great depression’s growth. Remember when Candidate Mitt Romney said middle class was $250,000? Herbert Hoover and family kept on like an aristocracy. Every meal had to have formal attire, and had to be a seven course dinner. All of this whilst his citizens stood in soup kitchens, and begging for work.

There was another president who boldly claimed that it was wrong to tax millionaires, and gave them a giant tax cut, perhaps one of the biggest in US history.  He bragged about small government, and spouted outdated maxims on a frugal government. What it did do was spur the great depression, and bring an end to the Calvin Coolidge reign in the White House. H.L. Mencken summed the Coolidge presidency like so “Nero fiddled while Rome Burned, Coolidge only snored.” That was a play on the fact that Coolidge like to sleep, to the point when informed the danger that the KKK was presenting, Coolidge slept on his options.

Hey, that beats the man who Coolidge took the place of. Good old’ Warren G. Harding, a man who famously once bet the entire White House china in a card game. Oh, and then was that nasty Teapot Dome scandal that came to light after Harding’s death, and saw Albert Fall become the first cabinet officer in US history to go to prison.

And I could go on about Ronald Reagan, who saw nothing with selling weapons to the highest bidder (and getting those under him to take the fall, not bad for a man who was nearly a member of the communist party), but hey, why strike out against the man the Republicans who in Christ like regard.

And I’m not going to knock George Bush sr. He had his flaws (like giving birth to junior, and vomiting on Japanese diplomats) like any man. However, once he was away from the office, he became almost Jimmy Carter like. He worked with Democrats on social issues, and became buddy-buddy with Bill Clinton. We also had Chester A. Arthur, a man who used the spoils system, and turned his back on same when he got into office, signing into law the Pendleton Act. Although there was that nasty run in with the Chinese, whom he tried to limit on their immigration, that was an awkward moment.

However, when you look at cold hard facts, the declines this nation has suffered through more times than not, occurred when a Republican was in office. And I’m sorry if facts offend certain people that planned on voting for Mitt Romney. Listen, I know that our say is limited, even more so to the Citizens United case, which allowed corporations to donate unlimited funds into the coffers of politicians.  But let’s look at one simple undeniable fact.

Mitt Romney made his fortune, for the most part off of Bain Capital. Bain Capital made its mark buying under performing companies, shredding the workforce, and showing higher profits, even though many times, they simply shut down companies, and took the tax write off when they listed it as a loss on their tax returns.

And we won’t even go into how dangerous the idea of attempting to overturn  Roe V Wade. This is something they might be able to accomplish because a few justices are going to be retiring during the next four years. A reversal of that historic landmark decision would bring us back to the days of when women would routinely die in back ally abortion clinics.  Hey, let’s not forget that many of these deaths would be the result of poorly trained doctors with limited education.

So, there it is. Either vote President Obama back in office, let him continue his FDR attempt to fix the mess he was left by President George Bush jr. Obama wants to fund Pell grants, wean this nation off its gas and oil addiction, and bring home troops from countries they don’t have to be in anymore. Or, you can go the other route. You can give a vote to limit women’s rights, to give the rich tax breaks they don’t need, all the while bringing on another depression.  And let us not forget, cut everything , give billions (yes billions with a B) to the pentagon, and expand American occupation of other nations. By the way, that means more young men and women dying in war.

It’s your decision. It’s that simple.