Growing Old is Getting Old

My 27th Name Day has arrived. I can't believe it. Where have the first half of my 20s gone? This time 8 years ago I was graduating from high school, and this time 4 years ago I was graduating from college. Time flies by so fast. Instead of just watching my life idly flash by, I am considering taking a cross-country road trip near the end of this month. I feel this would be a proactive journey. I have been doing a lot of research on the Internet about it. The consensus seems to be that a long road trip into the American frontier can be a very rewarding and soul-cleansing experience. That is something I would deeply cherish.

I don't blog as much as I should. I need to get back on track with that. I have so many thoughts, opinions, and interesting things to share. Sometimes I lack the discipline to sit down after a long day at work and just write freely about these things. Just as I did on my last Name Day, this one is no different. I am spending most of it alone. Well, Scarlett is here at least.

Game of Thrones season II, episode 7, premieres tonight on HBO. I am very excited about that. Game of Thrones is inching very closely to becoming my all-time favorite TV show. Simply mesmerizing. I have been reading A Song of Ice & Fire in my free time lately. I am still only on the first book. It is so long, and I hear that the books only get longer. It is very entertaining thus far. Catelyn's chapter where she uses the mules, small paths, and basket to get to the very top of The Eyrie...whoa! Superbly written stuff.


Big things happening lately:

*Barack Obama comes out of the closet to become first President to support gay marriage. The country is shifting very quickly into a socially liberal culture. My thoughts: it's best to get with the program. My millennial generation tires of intolerance and discrimination. America is the home of the free. Even though my personal belief in the Bible conflicts with the way a homosexual lives his/her life, I wouldn't dare force that belief or damn them for such a lifestyle. This is where I have personally evolved on the subject. Eight years ago, maybe even four years ago, I was very judgmental of homosexuals, and wrongfully so. If we as Americans are truly guaranteed the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness, then why try to limit a certain segment of the populations' pursuit of their own happiness? America must lead the world in progressive reforms to our ever-evolving culture. When America ceases to lead the world in progressive ideals and reforms, America will begin to cease its power as the greatest nation on Earth.

*Mitt Romney held down a school classmate who was allegedly homosexual and cut his hair off. (this happened like 40 years ago. Who cares?) (Roger Ebert will not stop tweeting about this on Twitter. It's quite annoying.)

Boldly Colliding with 2012

There is so much to look forward to in the year 2012. On both a very personal level and a very broad level, 2012 is looking to be a much better year than 2011 was, much less 2010. It's no secret that 2010 was a very rough year for me personally. Dealing with the worst breakup I have ever had, combined with beginning a new career and moving far away from home truly took its toll on me in 2010. In 2011, things continued to get significantly better throughout the year, all culminating in December.

Before looking at what positive things 2012 will surely bring, let's look at 2011 first. What happened this past year? Where did all the time go? Is it just me getting older, or is time flying by this fast for everyone out there? This was the first full year of my professional career as a manager, and it went well for the most part. There will always be unforeseen things to deal with at my job, but I feel that 2011 was a good year for me professionally. Even though the office that I am in charge of did not hit all the goals laid out for them this year, we still moved the branch in leaps and bounds. That has always been a satisfying feeling for me. Achieving professional goals gives me a sense of pride and accomplishment.

As far as television goes, it was a landmark year. Game of Thrones on HBO was definitely the best new show of the year. Homeland and Switched at Birth were also great new additions to my personal lineup of favorite TV shows. There were new seasons ofJustified, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Dexter, Boardwalk Empire and True Blood. Did anyone else find True Blood and Dexter to be especially disappointing this past season? We said goodbye for good to the shows Entourage and Hung. It was a great year for TV.

As far as movies in 2011, it was a weak year. I wanted to use this post to compile a top 10 list of my favorite films from the past year, but honestly can't even come up with five of them. The only one worth mentioning that I have seen would be The Tree of Life. This film is poetry in motion, and will go down as one of my all-time greats. It's like a soundtrack of Heaven. I loved it. But other than The Tree of Life, there isn't much else worth mentioning on that front.

In my personal life, things were turbulent for most of the year, with a few women making pit stops into the chaos that is my life, throughout 2011. Only time will tell, but things look amazing on that front right now. Scarlett matured a lot this year also. She has been the only consistent female presence in my life since I moved to Missouri in 2010.

Let's get on with what 2012 will bring. Beginning with movies, it would appear that 2012 is set to be one of the best years for the film medium in quite some time. At least that is the way it looks on paper. That is why they play the games, right? Only time will tell, but the following movies are probably going to knock your socks off in 2012:

The Woman in Black February 3, 2012: In what is Radcliffe's first big film since the Potter series, looks to be the scariest film in quite some time.

The Hunger Games March 23, 2012: If it's half as good as the first book, who knows what this film could accomplish?

American Reunion April 6, 2012: Nearly all of the original American Pie cast members are back and the question is can this film recapture the magic and nostalgia of the original in '99?

The Avengers May 4, 2012: All the stars seem to be aligning for this monster of a movie from the Marvel universe, this has the potential to be one of the years highest grossing films.

The Dictator May 11, 2012: The trailer was hilarious as Sacha Baron Cohen returns to the big screen to portray a third world dictator.

Battleship May 18, 2012: Eric from True Blood, a campy movie trailer and Peter Berg all combine to make this appear to be one that is going to be "so bad it's good".

Men in Black III May 25, 2012: I loved the trailer for this film, and hopefully this will be a worthy entry in the franchise, unlike the second one.

Prometheus June 8, 2012: This is the first film on the 2012 that excites me enough that I will definitely be going to see it on opening night. (the sign of a truly great film) Ridley Scott is back in the director's chair and directing this film about a space mission gone terribly wrong. The trailer looks like a cross between Alien and Star Trek. Scott is a brilliant director, especially in the genre of science fiction. Scott appears to opening his arms and saying "Welcome back to my version of space, AKA hell!" Prometheus could change the way we look at the science fiction genre, if all the cards fall into place.

Jack the Giant Killer June 15, 2012: This is Bryan Singer's latest offering, so it's at least worth a mention, then again you never know what kind of movie he will turn out.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter June 22, 2012: This one is also worth a mention, if for no other reason than for the fact that so many Americans read the book and fell in love with it.

The Amazing Spider-Man July 3, 2012: I'll be excited about any reboot of a franchise that has the lovely Emma Stone as the female lead!

The Dark Knight Rises July 20, 2012: This is the movie event of the year. Rather, it just may be the movie event of my lifetime. Can Nolan pull off another miracle with The Dark Knight Rises? Nolan doesn't seem to know how to make a bad movie, so let's hope that it doesn't start with this one. I have complete confidence in the man I consider to be the greatest director of all time that this movie will be his greatest work to date. Granted, this will be a difficult achievement to master when you have Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight and Inception in your back pocket, but I really have a good feeling about this one.

The Bourne Legacy August 3, 2012: Matt Damon is out, Jeremy Renner is in. Will it be the right move? Renner is an exceptional actor.

Resident Evil: Retribution September 14, 2012: This one is worth inclusion on the list for the simple fact that the original Resident Evil movie is pretty darn good. There hasn't been one worth noting since that first one though.

Savages September 28, 2012: This is Oliver Stone's latest offering. Will it be more JFK or more World Trade Center? This guy is always all over the place, but is still a great director.

Untitled Taken Sequel October 5, 2012: Without Luc Besson directing the sequel to the surprise hit that is the original, I have my doubts.

Skyfall November 9, 2012: With Sam Mendes behind the wheel, could this newest entry in the James Bond franchise be the best one yet? Better than Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Goldeneye, or Casino Royale. My expectations for this one are "sky-high", so to speak. Let's hope they don't sky-fall.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey December 14, 2012: If the world is going to end a week later, at least it will have ended AFTER I get to see Peter Jackson's prequel to the amazingly awesome Lord of the Rings Trilogy! And the best part is that if we do make it to 2013, there will be a part two of The Hobbit!

Let's move on to what to look forward to in the television medium in 2012:

Justified, season three: If you haven't watched this show about U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, I suggest you catch up ASAP. Season two begins in mid-January!

Eastbound & Down, the third season: One sentence will do the trick here...Kenny Powers is back!!!

Mad Men, season five: The show wasn't even on the air for a season this past year. After a long hiatus, it finally continues in late March on AMC.

Game of Thrones, the second season: HBO's amazingly popular and amazingly expensive hit returns to the airwaves in April. The question is how long can HBO sustain a show with such a high production value per episode? We all know what happened to Deadwood...

Breaking Bad, the final season: AMC's hit show is finally going to come to a close in what will be its fifth and final season. This one has already gone down as one of the all-time greats, and now the question on everyone's minds is: How will the world end for Walter White? It should be a masterpiece of epic proportion to see this man go down.

Dexter, the next to last season: I almost didn't include Showtime's most watched TV show on my list of things to look forward to in 2012 because of how disappointing the sixth season was. Hopefully the show has found new life with that shocker of a finale to this past season. Only time will tell.

Boardwalk Empire, third season: This show is turning into total darkness. The spiritual successor to The Sopranos is so violent that it disturbs someone mostly desensitized to violence like myself. Goodness, season two was messed up!

Homeland, second season: Can Showtime follow up the exceptionally strong first season of this show with an even better second season? This show was the biggest surprise hit of 2011 for me. I did not expect to invest myself into the characters, but I most certainly did. What will Brody and Carrie's future hold?

2012 will also include new seasons of: Parks & Recreation, The Walking Dead, Downton Abbey, Treme, Switched at Birth and True Blood. Finally, the show Luck on HBO appears to have the potential to be a big hit for the network. I have watched the premiere episode several times, and really like it. Anytime you team up David Milch and Michael Mann...good things are gonna happen.

In closing, will 2012 be the last year of the world as we know it? I think not, and definitely hope not. How could the world end when television, film and my own personal life appear to be headed into all-time high levels? The world isn't that cruel, right? Right? :/

On Familiar Turf

I made it back to Mississippi. It always feel good to cross the Mississippi border. It's like...coming home. I guess this is home. It has been and probably always will be. Not that I am complaining about where I live now though. Some great things have been happening in my life lately. I feel very blessed tonight. Everything seems to be in its right place. I feel like breaking into a little tune to tribute that great Radiohead song. Everythiiiiiiiingggggggg in its right plaaaaceeee. I can't wait for the Radiohead concert in St. Louis on March 9. It's going to be pretty much the best thing ever.

Flashback Theater: Casino Royale review (2006)

Originally written for my Facebook profile in November 2006:

When Daniel Craig beat out a slew of quality actors for the coveted role of James Bond, many fans of the Bond Franchise predicted this to be the final doomsday for the series. My initial thought on the matter was that Pierce Brosnan should be brought back as Bond. I predicted Craig to be a failure, just as many other Bond fans did. This is hardly the case in "Casino Royale", a film which totally redefines the Bond Franchise. It is accurate to look at the movie as a "Bond Begins", as this story focuses around the first mission that he ever had as OO agent. "Casino Royale" combines, blends, and intensifies elements seen in some of the best Bond movies ever filmed. With all of the grittiness of "Licence to Kill", the classiness of "Goldfinger", and the tragedy of my personal favorite Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", "Casino Royale" stands high and proud over most of the other twenty Bond movies since 1962. Also worth noting is the 1964 Aston Martin that Bond drives at one point in this film. This is the same car that Sean Connery drove in "Goldfinger"! The plot of this film also revolves heavily around the game of Texas Hold 'Em, a very smart play by the producers, given the game's incredible popularity right now. Paul Haggis, the screenwriter for such powerful films as "Crash" and "Million Dollar Baby", also had a hand in the writing of the screenplay for this Bond film. His ability to combine the powerful elements of love, loss, and death can be felt throughout the film. The Oscar-winning screenwriter seems to turn whatever he touches into gold. Martin Campbell is back to direct "Casino Royale", he also directed "Goldeneye", another one of my favorite Bond movies. You must go see this movie, whether you are a Bond junkie or not, you will enjoy this film! 9 out of 10 stars!!!

50 Phenomenal Films: #50 Leon: The Professional (1994)

This is a continuing series of posts that highlights my 50 top movies. I have rated over 2,000 films in my lifetime on IMDb. I have only rated 50 of those 2,000 movies with a perfect 10/10. It is difficult for me to put them in order of quality 1 through 50, but this is my best attempt at doing so. I hope you enjoy reading about the movie in this latest post. And for goodness sake, if you haven't seen the film I am highlighting today, what are you waiting for?

Leon: The Professional is a story of loneliness, loss and ultimately: a story of redemption. When Mathilda's (a very young Natalie Portman) parents are killed, a professional hitman and neighbor named Leon (Jean Reno) unofficially adopts her into his life. He is reluctant to do so at first, but eventually develops a deep and lasting bond with Mathilda. Throughout the movie, they most try to evade a crazed and corrupt DEA agent named Stansfield (Gary Oldman). Stansfield is the man responsible for killing Mathilda's parents. Eventually, Leon teaches Mathilda some of the tricks of his trade, and a lot of violence ensues.

Leon: The Professional came out in an incredibly strong year for movies in general. Many films from 1994 are part of my 50 Phenomenal Films list to be highlighted in later posts. This film contrasts what human beings are capable of at their best, and at their worst. There is a strange humanity undercutting the tonality of the film. The relationship that unfolds between Mathilda and Leon is very touching. Ironically, the professional assassin seems to be the protagonist of the film, with the antagonist being DEA agent Stansfield.

The acting is top notch in this movie. Reno, Portman and Oldman are all thoroughly convincing in their respectful roles. If you asked me to choose a standout among those three in this movie, it would be very difficult to do so. From the crazed personality of Oldman, to the strange softness of Reno, to the direly mature Portman, the movie fires on all cylinders in the acting department.

The writing and direction are also done quite brilliantly here. Luc Besson wrote and directed Leon: The Professional. You may know some of Luc Bessons' other work: The Transporter, Taken, The Fifth Element, Revolver, just to name a few that he has either directed and/or written for the screen. Besson certainly takes his careful attention to the script of the movie. There is plenty of great exchanges between characters, and powerful moments throughout the film that will certainly live in your memory.

If you are looking for a good movie to watch tonight, I definitely recommend you watch Leon: The Professional. Unfortunately, this title is not available to stream on Netflix. You can always rent the title from Amazon's video service, or perhaps have it be the next title shipped to you from Netflix. Or, you could borrow it from me! This is a film that has great replay value, which is definitely one of my criteria when judging a film to be worthy of a 10/10. I hope you enjoy Leon: The Professional as much as I have always enjoyed watching it.

2001: The Game Changer

When most of us think about the year 2001, we remember this as the year that forever changed the way we view the world as Americans. The 2001 terrorist attacks on our nation were truly shocking and horrific. I remember hearing of the news when I was in PB's Chemistry class during second period that morning. My mother actually called the office and had them pull me out of class so she could personally tell me on the phone what had happened. By break, which was between second and third period, everyone in the school seemed to know what had happened. I remember some of the upperclassmen who were eighteen years old vowing to go join the military that day to exercise their vengeance upon those who had carried out the attacks. In third period, our history teacher turned on the TV so that we could watch the live coverage of the events. It just all seemed so surreal. How could this have happened? I imagine some of the people at my school did not realize the far-reaching implications of the attacks, and perhaps I did not fully realize them either. We live in a totally different world today, ten years later, than we did in the years preceding 2001. I checked out of school by fourth period so that I could go home and continue to watch the coverage of the attacks throughout the rest of the day. The rest of the events of the year 2001 hold no gravity in comparison to the events of 9/11/01.

I debated for a little while one evening in 2001 whether or not to sneak into the movie Hannibal. I chose not to do so. Even I have boundaries. I watched it some number of years later and was glad I didn't see it in 2001. That remains one of the grisliest films I have seen to date. It's ironic because The Silence of the Lambs is one of my Fifty Phenomenal Films. I remember going to see The Mummy Returns, Ocean's Eleven, Black Hawk Down, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and A Beautiful Mind that year at the theater, among others. This was the first year of my life that I followed the Oscar race very intensely. I watched the Oscars on television live every year since 1997 to that point, but starting in 2001 I became obsessed with them. (and I still am) These awards are the ultimate measure of the greatness of my favorite hobby, films. I will comment on this further in later postings.

These were the days of Xanga, Expage, and AOL instant messenger. This is what I refer to as The Prelude to the Social Media Age. In fact, I had been using AOL instant messenger for years. I even had a cyber-girlfriend a few years before 2001. Her name was Stacy and she lived in Texas. I will never forget that she would always sign on to AOL instant messenger around 8:00pm CST every evening. I had one of those "special alerts" set up to chime when she signed on. Within five seconds of her arrival to chat, I would be furiously blazing messages her way about how much I liked her, how much I had missed her that day, and how someday we would be together forever. Needless to say, this did not come to pass. She even wrote me letters, actual letters, you know, through the postal service? She would even put her kisses on the letters she would send me. I remember the way those letters smelled when they arrived in my mailbox. I would hold my lips to the kiss prints on the paper and pretend that it was our mouths in a true embrace of love and passion. Just kidding about that, or am I? Moving on...

So the relationship with Stacy and I did not work out. But there was another important arrival in my life that year. A woman who would be the most consistent presence in my life for the next four years forward. Little did I know at that time how much of a true game changer this woman would eventually become in my life. Until this point, I had dated random women here and there. Some from my hometown (and class) and some from out of town. And as I have already said, some were from online, far away from little ole Mississippi where I grew up. Essence, as she will be called from this time forward, was truly a unique human being. In fact, she is the most decent human being I have come across in my 26 years of existence. (outside of my father) In hindsight, things are so clear to me. They always have been. I have always realized the mistakes I have made shortly (or sometimes much later) after committing them. I had not matured enough at that time in my life to hold a relationship with a woman whom I truly loved. I squandered that love, stomped on it and did things that did not coincide with a man being in love with a woman. In many ways, this relationship defined much of my later years in life. Essence taught me valuable lessons about how a woman deserves to be treated. How I missed these facts at that point in my life? Your guess is as good as mine. My sins and omissions against that relationship were incalculable, and pathetic.

The beginning of the relationship was wonderful. Essence and I became a fixture in each other's lives for a long time. We attended many movies together, talked on the phone for countless hours at a time and just had fun in general. My naivety towards actual real relationships with real women (not from AOL instant messenger) was obvious from the start. I still insisted that we chat on AOL regularly. And also keep in mind that this was still during the time when cell phone usage was not widespread. Texting was not a staple of interaction with others as it is today. The movie Hard Ball especially stands out in my mind from that year. This is the movie where Essence and I had our first date. Her father dropped her off at the theater that evening. I had driven my Nissan 240SX to theater that night. I remember how nervous I was during the car ride from my house to the cinema. I was definitely shaken up, as this was a woman I had been talking to on the phone and through AOL instant messenger with for quite a long time. As I look back at these days in my life, I can't help but smile now. As much pain as I would inevitably face when she finally ended the relationship in 2005, (rightfully so) these really were some good times for me.

So what else happened that year? My small-time political career took a huge leap forward in May of 2001. As I have mentioned previously, I held the position of class vice-president in ninth grade. As ninth grade neared closing, I decided to take a leap forward and attempt to run for president of my class. The thought that I would even consider this path would have seemed impossible just two years earlier. (I was arrested in May of 1999 for goodness sake!) The competition for the presidency was going to be quite formidable. (remember, the previous year I ran unopposed for VP) I was up against who were arguably the two most popular people in my class. These were two of those people who won all the Who's Who awards year after year. Most popular, class favorite, most beautiful, most handsome, and on and on and on. So not only did I have to compete with one of these people, but two. I truly felt I would not win the election. However, by the grace of God, I prevailed! I remember the day we all went to home room and cast our votes. We waited for something like two weeks for the results to come in. I could hardly sleep during those two weeks. This was something that was so important to me.

I had rather quickly become obsessed with winning over people's respect through political elections. I was never the popular kid in school, but gosh almighty all I wanted was to be a respected politician who brought real change to my school. Ironically, change had already come to my school during the ninth grade, partly through my actions as vice-president. The Student Government Association (SGA) had presented a list of changes to the Homecoming format in the fall of 2000. The teacher in charge of SGA recommended that we as SGA members talk to our classmates about what changes would be prudent, and what would not be so prudent. I remember being the only SGA member who put in the time and effort to compile a roster of my classmates and poll nearly every single one of them about what they thought of individual changes that were proposed to the Homecoming Court format. When I presented my pie chart and compiled data to the teacher in charge of SGA, she was shocked I had gone to such lengths. This was, and still is, something I am talented in: being willing to go that extra mile to get the job done, being willing to do something that will impact others lives directly and being willing to have the courage to try to make actual change for the better. The trend of polling my constituency (my fellow class of 2004) about their opinions on matters that mattered to us became a regular thing for me. I understood very early in my political career the importance of reaching out to those who have the power to elect you, or throw you out of office in the next election. And reaching out to my constituency is not something I did selfishly. I actually had a desire to implement changes with their best interests in mind. The very fabric of my nature is programmed to want to help others, and change the world in a positive way. (at least that is what I think)

We were defeated in the football playoffs that year by Cleveland. That was very disappointing for me. The 2001 football season would be the only season I would actually play high school football. Uncle J was the coach that season. He had been the football coach at my school for a long time. I loved Uncle J, both as a man and what he stood for and also as a football coach. To this day, he has been one of the great mentors of my life. He stepped down from his position as head football coach at the end of that season. (he took the job of high school principal after that) Uncle J leaving as the head football coach was a big influence on my decision to quit the football team. I just couldn't imagine the team without him. I only wanted to play football for him. The team's chemistry seemed to change after he left. I realized in the months after that final football game of my tenth grade year that the locker room Uncle J left was no longer a place where I felt welcomed. There were also so many other things I wanted to pursue at that time: my girlfriend, my mistresses, my tennis career, my political career (inside and outside of school) and being able to devote more of my free time to other things outside of football in general. I faced ridicule from people for my decision to quit. At this point, I wanted to adamantly yell at them in the words of Richard M. Nixon "I have never been a quitter...". But the fact remains that I did quit football. And I didn't quit just once, I quit twice. I would return after the eleventh grade season with the intentions of playing my senior year, but only to quit once again. This decision sometimes haunts me. I have certain dreams at night that are recurring. One of the dreams that recurs quite often is one where I am in high school again. I am putting on my gear in the locker room, a filthy smell all around me. Something seems so out of place in this dream. I rarely ever wake myself up from this dream by realizing that it is just that, a dream. Instead, I always play out the dream as I slumber peacefully. I take the field, it's muddy outside. I look around but none of my friends or team mates are there. There aren't any coaches. There are no goalposts. There is no actual football. The field is striped with the numbers upside down. A figure in a red shirt appears in the distance. I can't ever quite make out her face, but I think I know who it is. It is one who has passed on from this world. Then I wake up. Weird. Quitting football is one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in my lifetime.

2001 was also a time when my friendship with LET and Crunk was at its peak. The three of us would often exchange emails. (I still have these in my old Hotmail account) We would attend many movies and hang out together watching movies. These were two of the best friends I ever had. It was as if the three of us shared something in common that I have never been able to put my finger on. We always enjoyed one another's company, no matter the setting. LET, man was she special. It never ceases to amaze me how much influence a person can have on my life, even when that person has long passed from the Earth. She will never pass from my memory. The first time I met LET, we were riding Bus 28. We seemed to very quickly develop a deep bond of mutual respect and treasured friendship. She introduced me to countless inside jokes, quality movies and was one of the only real friends I have ever had. By the time she died in 2004, we had become rather distant, though still friends. But in 2001, I would have considered her my best friend. Unfortunately, this is another example of hindsight to its greatest extent. I never realized what an amazing friend LET was until after she had already left us. She is another star in my constantly recurrent dream-space. And even though I now only know her existence in my dreams, I still welcome her presence every time she arrives inside of them.

2001 was a year of game changes. After the period of transition that was 2000, I view 2001 as the other side of the bridge that was 1999-2001. I became ever more aware of my existence and the impact that my actions had on others lives. (though not always in a positive way) From the 9/11 attacks on our country, to the arrival of Essence, to winning election as president of my class, to making the very difficult decision to quit football and finally to having a friendship of incredibly high quality, 2001 is a year I look back to and remember vividly. (and most of the time with fondness) If only time machines existed...(sigh)

2000: Burning Down the House

Ichabod and I drove the long drive south on 55 that exceptionally warm summer evening. The possibilities presented to us over the phone that night seemed impossible. My Nissan 240SX humming as I shifted from first gear into second; third into fourth; and finally into its fifth and highest gear. It was as if my teenage desire and passion for the female gender shifted higher and higher with the little sports car. How could two girls from South on 55 want to do such a thing with us? I had never experienced such a...forward pairing of women. Just minutes earlier they had been on the phone with us, with their sexy sixteen year old voices, whispering intimacies that would surely occur if we made the journey to see them. Being a pair of sixteen year old boys, how could we have argued?

My desire for fine and kind females was something that was still relatively new to me. I remember telling some of my classmates in seventh grade that I had a crush on my seventh grade Pre-Algebra teacher. They did not agree with me. In fact, it seemed that many of my male counterparts my age did not have an attraction to women as early as I did. Granted, I was never the kid on the playground who would get married to a girl, or sneak away to the closet at some party for "ten minutes of Heaven". (hell I wasn't even invited to those type of parties, or any parties for that matter) However, as I spent more and more time around girls, I began to see them as beautiful and beckoning. I can remember my first kiss like it was last week. It was Spring of 2000 and we had been seeing each other seriously for about three months. She was the first girl I ever danced with. Do you remember that dance we shared together at the Sweetheart Dance in February 2000? The song we danced to was "Free Bird". This is the first girl I ever went that next step with. The steps at that time were so much more simplistic than they are now: innocent crush, passing notes in the hall, talking on AOL instant messenger, the first phone call, the first time we met for a date at the Tobie Cinema, the first time we held hands, the first time I put my arm around you, the first time I kissed you. (or did you kiss me?) This last step was always enough at that time in my life. I wanted nothing further. The feeling of electricity in a teenage kiss was nearly beyond description.

It happened on her swing-set. For some reason, when I think of this moment, the song "Swingset Chain" by Loquat is brought to mind. I don't believe that song even came out until years later though. Somehow that song is associated with this event though. Isn't it funny how certain songs become associated with such milestone events in our lives? I recommend that you download and/or listen to this song from iTunes, YouTube, whatever. It's a great song. The kiss was brief. It lasted maybe thirty seconds, possibly even less. Suddenly, my mother's maroon Yukie pulled into the driveway with my impossibly annoying brother. I had the face of a giddy schoolboy upon my entrance to the vehicle. My brother immediately accused me of kissing the girl. I guess he knows me best. My mother just laughed. I just hung my head in shame and embarrassment. My mind would constantly shift back the the night of my first kiss. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I wanted to do some more smoochin'. I would often visit her house after school. I don't remember how I got there because I didn't really have a driver's license at the time. Ichabod's gram-gram lived across the street from her. If I wasn't making out at her house with her, I was across the street smokin' on some Winstons Ichabod took from gram-gram's purse.

By the summer of 2000, my relationship with the Woman of my First Kiss had ended. I look back on that time of my life positively. She showed me that what I once thought was impossible was now possible. I was no longer an overly shy, much too nice, unattractive child. The Woman of My First Kiss proved that I could actually attract women to myself. I still don't know what she may have been attracted to at that time in my life, but I guess she saw something. Anyway, none of the women that would pollute my future would have been possible without her. Thanks for nothin' Woman of my First Kiss! Just kidding there, but seriously...I do view that time with her as the beginning of my ever expanding trek into the infinitely impossible to comprehend frontier of the female landscape.

Back to that exceptionally warm evening in the Fall of 2000...so we finally arrived at their house. After some discussion, Ichabod took one of them into one room to make out, while I took the other into the next room. We were only kissing for five minutes, at max. Plus, I really didn't like making out with this girl. If I had a sister...that must be what THAT feels like. He and I switched up girls. As I kissed the other one I tasted the distinct taste of Skoal dip. Ichabod had indeed been dipping some Skoal in the car on our ride down South 55. So in reality, I guess you could say I kissed three...people...that night. Yikes. Needless to say, that was rather awkward. The second girl was worse than the first by the way. This would be the only time in my life I would engage in kissing two girls in one evening. That was the second craziest thing I had done in my life up to that point. The first of which was the whole shoplifting thing a year earlier. Little did I know how high I would ramp up the craziness in the years that would follow 2000.

We had an undefeated season in ninth grade football that year. If I am not mistaken, this was the first time that had ever happened, and still hasn't been matched since? We had an amazingly deep team that year. Our final record stood at 8-0. I only remember one of the games we played even being nail-bitingly close. I remember that we all thought there was no way we would be denied a state championship someday when we were high school players. That would not come to be. In ninth grade, we had a twenty four man roster. By senior year, that roster had been depleted to six or seven. I was not even one of those six or seven. Through people quitting (like myself), getting expelled, dropping out, or being injured, those dreams of a state championship in football for Senatobia vanished into the wind. Still, this was an awesome team that we fielded that year. Our seventh and eighth grade teams were pretty good too. We only had three losses across the seventh and eighth grade seasons. (two of those coming to South Panola in the final few minutes) Heck, our first play as a football team in seventh grade was 38 drive against Lafayette. TJ ran that all the way for a TD. You would have thought we were destined for everlasting greatness in Senatobia football lore, but again, the class of 2004 fell short of that.

My small-time political career had taken off by this point. By the Fall of 2000, I had become president of my Methodist youth group, vice-president of my class (ran unopposed), and a member of the Methodist CCYM. As a CCYM member, I was one of a team responsible for programming up to eleven youth retreats statewide a year. I had some good memories at those youth retreats. There will be more on that later.

I also exercised some of my talent for theater that year. I had the lead in a play called "Toga, Toga, Toga" that Fall. I played the character of George Brewster, who was the president of a wild and crazy fraternity much to the comparison of the fraternity in the movie Animal House. What a terrible stereotype. More on that in my collegiate year postings to come. I can't believe that part of my role called on me to kiss a hot girl in front of hundreds of people. She was actually supposed to throw me down on the couch and attack me like some wild female. We had never kissed for real in practice. But the day of the first performance, she really did kiss me! Not kidding, we really did. As the audience was laughing, whooping, hollering, and cheering, she whispered to me if I thought it was time for her to get off of me and proceed with the scene. I, quite predicatively said NO!!! I wanted this to last for as long as possible. Seems that it lasted for a little too long if you catch my drift. I still deny it. Then again, I was so wrapped up in the moment that it's impossible to know what exactly happened when I stood up to continue with the scene. Oh well, here's to craziness!!!

Some R-rated movies I snuck into that year: Hollow Man, Gladiator (amazing!), and The Patriot (while on a trip with my dad to Washington DC). Sneaking around seeing R-rated movies used to be one of my favorite hobbies. My brother turned me in to my parents once for sneaking into Double Jeopardy at the Tobie. Oh well, I probably had beat him up that day or something so I am sure I got what I deserved. Karma's a b*tch!!! I also ordered the movie American Psycho and American Beauty on pay-per-view in early 2000. Great movies.

The house of my personality was literally burned down and changed in the year 2000. This was one of those years of great transition in my life. Gone were the days of being an awkward and shy child, and forthcoming were the times of being a strong and able-minded teenager who could deal with life's problems. (most of the time) Of course, I have always dealt with some of my problems with negative crutches, but more on that later. The main thing I took away from the year 2000 was the feeling that the darkness of 1999 was just that, darkness in the past. I could either choose to "get busy livin' or get busy dyin'" as Tim Robbins from the Shawshank Redemption would say. I chose the former. It was time for me to get busy livin'. And I had quite a bit of crazy livin' to do from that point forward.

A Synthetic Lie, part II

What follows is a short story about an 16 year old boy named Caleb who becomes drawn into the dangerous world of designer drugs. Alarmingly, more and more children (and adults) are becoming addicted to synthetic drug substitutes such as bath salts and K2. These drugs, still legal in some states, are marketed for sale in both head shops and gas stations. What many who use these drugs do not realize is that long-term studies on humans have not been conducted by scientists. These drugs are sometimes worse than the real thing, as designer drugs are often created in a lab using chemicals that have been proven harmful to the human body.

Caleb laid back down on the couch and grabbed the bong pipe to take another hit. There was no synthetic marijuana left to smoke in the bong. With trembling hands he took the ten gram bag of synthetic marijuana and tried to delicately repack the bong. The junk went everywhere on the table as he was packing it in. Finally, the bong was ready to hit. The lighter made a hissing sound as he took in a long deep hit off the bong. He held it in his lungs for twenty seconds and then released. He then proceeded to take yet another hit off the bong. Little did he know, Caleb was now way in over his head.

Caleb began to have uncontrollable hallucinations. As he laid back down on the couch he saw strange visions in front of him. The teacher he had a crush on in eighth grade was in front of him, beckoning him to come closer. As he imagined himself closing in on her, she turned into a devilish looking creature, horns and everything. The creature seemed to breathe fire from its mouth onto to Caleb's face. Caleb's face felt like it was on fire. At this point he was so far gone he could barely feel the sensations of heat on his face, but it was definitely building. In fact, his whole body began to heat up. From head to toe, his skin was burning to the touch.

Caleb then had another vision. This time, his brother was before him. Caleb's brother had died as a three year old boy. Caleb was ten at the time that this happened. He had always had trouble remembering what his little brother looked like. He had long since blocked the images of his baby brother out of shame, guilt, and frustration of not being able to forget that fateful day when his brother had passed from the Earth. That was the main reason that Caleb's mother had quit working shortly thereafter. The grief was too much for her to bear. She had been checked into a rehab center for recovering alcoholics twice since his brother had died.

It had been a clear and beautiful day when he died. Everything was going so right. The family was taking their once-a-year visit to the Burtrop Cave in the Rocky Mountains. This was the only time every year when they all got together and actually took a trip somewhere. His father was drinking on the trip, as usual. His mother preoccupied with his sister. Caleb had always seemed so alone in those days. His mother gave all of her attention to either his sister or his brother. Caleb seemed to get no attention at all. On this day, his sister had been stung by three bees when they were visiting a local bee farm. His mother had been tending to the little girl's wounds all day long. Against mother's judgement, father insisted on taking the trek into the cave with the tour group. This is where the trouble would begin.

To be continued...

A Synthetic Lie

What follows is a short story about an 16 year old boy named Caleb who becomes drawn into the dangerous world of designer drugs. Alarmingly, more and more children (and adults) are becoming addicted to synthetic drug substitutes such as bath salts and K2. These drugs, still legal in some states, are marketed for sale in both head shops and gas stations. What many who use these drugs do not realize is that long-term studies on humans have not been conducted by scientists. These drugs are sometimes worse than the real thing, as designer drugs are often created in a lab using chemicals that have been proven harmful to the human body.

"One more hit off that bong mane! You can do this!!!" Milo yelped. Milo was choking on the smoke that lingered in the air all around him, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

"I think I am about all tapped out big dog, starting to not be able to think straight here." Caleb replied, his eyes closed and body twitching.

"You can be such a little vagina sometimes, come on you know you want one more hit!!! Do itttttt!!!!!" Milo snapped back in a half playful, half sincere tone of voice.

"Alright I guess one more. Then that's it though!" Caleb hesitantly replied.

Caleb drew in a long hit from the bong pipe that was sitting on the coffee table in the living room. He held the synthetic marijuana in his lungs for what seemed like several minutes and then coughed out what remained inside of his chest. He glanced over at Milo, who had his head back in the recliner, with his eyes closed, seemingly engaged in some sort of deep REM sleep. Caleb then laid down on the couch with a pillow propped behind his head, and began to drink in the effects of his high. His brain seemed to be spinning out of control; his mind going in a million directions at once. He began to see bright colors and textures when he would close his eyelids. A movie of his life seemed to dance right before his very eyes. It was as if the whole world had been a stage all along, and he was its great director. This was definitely the most high that Caleb had ever been.

He had first become interested in smoking synthetic marijuana about three months earlier, when his interest was peaked by an overheard conversation in the high football locker room. Caleb, currently in his second semester of ninth grade, had been eavesdropping on a group of eleventh grade football players talking about how stoned they had gotten off of some stuff they couldn't believe was legal. They had talked about how the stuff was ideal since not only was it legal, but also they had heard it wouldn't show up on drug tests. Caleb's school had a every 60-day drug testing policy for all athletes. Caleb left the locker room that afternoon with a strange curiosity about this new drug he had not heard about before.

Caleb had grown up in a nice home, with a nice family. He had a younger sister, and parents who were still married. This should have seemed like such a blessing to Caleb, but in his young age, or perhaps foolishness, he failed to understand how good he really had it. He acted out as a child, like many others do. He would sometimes backtalk his parents, sneak away and smoke cigarettes, steal a swig from his father's hidden vodka bottle, or browse the internet looking at soft-core pornography. His friends enjoyed coming over to his house, as this was where Milo and himself were located right now getting high on junk. Both of his parents had careers that required quite a bit of travel. His father was a commercial airline pilot, and his mother had recently returned to her career of being a travelling nurse. It was often up to Caleb to take care of his little sister, aged thirteen, since his mother had returned to work a year earlier.

Their house was filled with expensive antiques that his mother collected, and sports memorabilia that his father collected. They both had quite the impressive collection. Caleb himself also had anything and everything that a kid his age would desire, almost. He had all the latest video game systems, the latest smart phone, and even an indoor bowling alley in the basement. Granted, this bowling alley was mostly used by his father for the drunken parties he and his old college buddies would have about once a month.

Caleb's eyes began to open from his high stupor, awoken by a sound from the front of the house. He glanced about the room looking for Milo, to no avail. He lazily removed himself from the couch. His footsteps seemed to echo throughout the house as he dragged his feet across the floor. The drugs coursing throughout his body made walking straight and being alert close to impossible. He arrived at the front door just in time to see Milo driving away from his house. His wheels running over his mother's front flowerbeds as he left. Caleb knew it wasn't good for Milo to be driving in such a condition. Caleb looked for his phone around the living room, but could not find it. He started to see stars in front of his eyes, and proceeded to sit down. As he drifted into a further state of highness, it was as if he didn't even care that one of his best friends had just left his house high as a kite.

this story to be continued in later episodes...

25 Must-See TV Series Before You Go Six Feet Under

I feel the current wave of high quality television began in 1999. A new series on HBO called The Sopranos had just debuted its pilot episode. HBO had a hit series before, Oz, but it never resonated with widespread audiences. I can remember being at my grandparents house in Greenwood, MS, in the mid 1990s flipping back and forth to HBO. I would watch Oz hesitantly and constantly look over my shoulder to make sure one of my grandparents didn't catch me watching such a violent piece of TV. That was one of the things I loved about going to my grandparents house in Greenwood. They had HBO! We did not have such a "sinful station" when I was growing up in Senatobia. Heck, I was lucky to even get to watch cable. I was not allowed to watch Doug, Rugrats, Ren & Stimpy, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Salute Your Shorts, Clarissa Explains it All, etc. These shows were not for "children of my age" in my mother's estimation. Anyone out there remember watching The Jenny McCarthy Show? I remember the theme quite well: "IT'S JENNNNNYYY MCCCARRRRTTHHHYYYY!!!!!" Loved it. (and her, so hot back then!) Of course, I would pretty much only watch MTV at my grandparents house as well.

I am deviating from my point, as usual. The Sopranos paved the way for many groundbreaking shows that would follow in the years proceeding 1999. HBO proved very quickly that they had a firm footing in the realm of original programming for a niche audience in the television market. To this day, there are people who are constantly subscribing and cancelling their memberships to networks such as HBO and Showtime just to see their favorite shows when new episodes are being aired. The success of networks such as HBO and Showtime is heavily dependent upon how many subscribers they have at the time when these shows are airing fresh episodes.

With the price of attending a movie at the theater constantly being driven higher, especially through gimmicks such as 3-D, (I HATE 3-D) finding quality shows to follow weekly on television has become my newest hobby. There are plenty of shows out there worth your time. Most of the following list of shows have multiple seasons, dive deep into their characters personalities, have amazing cinematography, phenomenal soundtracks, and only last thirty minutes to an hour per episode. Here is my list of 25 favorites:

#1 The Sopranos (HBO)
#2 Breaking Bad (AMC)
#3 Mad Men (AMC)
#4 Game of Thrones (HBO)
#5 Arrested Development (FOX, Netflix)
#6 Deadwood (HBO)
#7 Dexter (Showtime)
#8 The Wire (HBO)
#9 Entourage (HBO)
#10 Six Feet Under (HBO)
#11 Justified (FX)
#12 The Walking Dead (AMC)
#13 Parks & Recreation (NBC)
#14 Downton Abbey (PBS)
#15 Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
#16 The Office (NBC)
#17 Homeland (Showtime)
#18 Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
#19 Treme (HBO)
#20 True Blood (HBO)
#21 White Collar (USA)
#22 Switched at Birth (ABC Family)
#23 Star Trek: The Next Generation (Syndication)
#24 Hung (HBO)
#25 The Wonder Years (ABC)

What are your favorites?

1999: Year of Hell

May 29, 1999, this was the day that everything changed. My life would forever become defined by a crossroads of confluent circumstances. My chances at getting caught that day? I would put it at about 1:1000. What if that undercover had not been stationed in that aisle on that day? What if Codename Beastanstance had refused to go about his regular watchdog duties that day? Well, wait a minute, I guess he did since I got caught. My life up to this point had been defined by a sheltered and conservative upbringing. I was that shy little kid with braces, glasses, and a nerdy look who sat in the back of the class; I was quiet and unassuming; One could even say I was a social outcast "looking from the outside in". Why would I not once, not twice, not thrice, not four times, but five times engage in a ludicrously criminal activity? Before I divulge the details, I disclose that I deserved the justice I received. I received justice from the legal system, justice from my parents, justice from my peers, and most of all, justice from myself. After all, I am and always will be my own harshest critic. I am forever tortured by the mistakes that I have made, and the knowledge of knowing how many people I have hurt by my own selfish actions in my lifetime.

I had already gotten away with shoplifting on four previous occasions before May 29, 1999. Beastanstance was just along for the ride. I was the criminal ring leader. I influenced him to do wrong by my own underhanded and manipulative nature. For that, I now formally apologize to you, Beastanstance. It was a simple enough plan. The mark was Wal-Mart. The main man in charge of the scam: Me. The details of the plan: Grab between 4 and 6 Star Wars Episode I action figures and steal em' from the joint. Rob it blind. Get away with shoplifting and never get caught. I would have an old receipt from a previous legitimate purchase folded gently into my pocket. Also, an old plastic sack stuffed into the pocket of my shorts ready to be pulled out into thick-as-thieves action. Heck, I even found a blind spot in the camera coverage (so I believed) where I would actually commit the shoplifting. After having my watch-out literally watch for any prying eyes, the next step was simple: get the hell out of dodge, and don't get caught. Flash the old receipt to the old man at the door who can barely see, and BAM you have "free" merchandise. This worked the first four times like a charm. It was the fifth time when everything went straight to hell.

I remember the thrill that I felt when I would shoplift as a naive 14 year old boy. It was as if I was not the one acting out the shoplifting actions in the store. I was removed from myself in some strange way. I was watching myself scared to death from a distance committing the crimes that would define the nature of my existence from that point on. The fifth shoplifting incident went down normally enough at first: I carefully slipped Queen Amidala, Darth Maul, Senator Palpatine, and a Jar-Jar Binks (WTF?!?) action figures into my crumpled up old trusty plastic baggy. I walked around the store for a bit, separate from my mother (my ride) who did her own shopping. She used to trust me so much. She would let me roam the aisles on my own, with no supervision. Who could have imagined that I would have done such a thing, after all?

The problems began when I attempted to leave the store with my lifted merchandise. It was 6:00PM when we finally made it to the exit. The old man checking receipts must have been tipped off that I was a thief. His old eyes carefully examined my receipt and informed me that it was a receipt dated from 10 days earlier. Something deep inside of me immediately knew that I had been caught. I spun my lying wheels desperately out of control. I told him that I must have dropped my real receipt somewhere in the store and picked up an old one. Right at that time, two undercover cops came out of nowhere and got in my face. My mother became more confused by the second. The undercover cops asked me if I had anything to confess to them. I said no. They asked me where I bought the goods in question. I told them it was the electronics lady who sold them to me. They escorted me to the electronics section and quizzed the associate on duty if she had indeed sold me the goods. She looked at me with a particularly evil scowl and shook her head. Quiet reservation began to sink in. The feeling inside of me was... indescribably terrible. It is something that I have not felt since that day. I confessed my sin to the undercover cops, my head hanging low, the tears beginning to flow. My mother...well...pretty much went to pieces. I was then asked to come to the back of the store to discuss things further. The last thing one of the undercover cops asked me before I went to the back was if my friend Beastanstance had anything to do with my scheme. I quietly told the undercover cop that I was the only one involved in the shoplifting. You can call me a lot of things, but I know one thing for sure: I am not a rat. I am loyal and refuse to betray people or throw them under the bus for my own advancement. That is something that I will never do.

Some of the next few hours are hard to remember. I was feeling such a mixture of emotions inside of me by this point. It was too much for my 14 year old brain to handle. I confessed to everything. I was forced to sign a piece of paper stating that if I ever stepped foot on Wal-Mart property again I would be arrested for trespassing. The total of my shoplifted merchandise was $24.96. The cops were sure to let me know that I was a mere four cents away from my crime being a felony, instead of a misdemeanor. My mother was so upset that she left the interrogation room and went home to collect herself. I was in the interrogation room at Wal-Mart for a good 45 minutes to an hour before the uniformed policeman showed up. This was where the real shame began. I was handcuffed in the back of the store and forced to take a walk of shame with my hands cuffed behind my back. All the way from the back of the store, to the patrol car waiting out front. Of course, it would be just my fortune to see an upperclassmen one year ahead of myself, and one of my junior high football coaches on the way out of the store. I made eye contact with both of them. I can honestly say that I don't remember a time when I felt more shamed to be a human being.

When I arrived at the police station, which is ironically located right across the street from my school, I had both my fingerprints and mugshot taken. I will never forget the clothes I was wearing that day: Planet Hollywood Dallas shirt with old khaki shorts and black tennis shoes. My hair was a sloppy mess. A strange look abounded upon my face. The cops back at the Senatobia Police Station were pretty nice actually. The offered me tootsie rolls while I waited for my mother to come pick me up. Fortunately for me, I was never introduced to a jail cell during my short period of custody. I also remember the police talking about whether or not to bust some party that was way out in the country that night. I sat at the police station for what seemed like an eternity. A sense of dread had started to overtake me at this point. My father was out of town visiting my sick grandfather. My mother arrived at the police station with my Methodist pastor.

That was an awkward ride home. I was lectured about how sinful my life was, and how I should repent to God immediately and pray for forgiveness for my soul. I didn't disagree. The tears would not stop flowing on the ride home. I remember sitting in the back seat and wishing silently that I no longer existed. I wished that I would vanish from the Earth and spare my family of the pain and sorrow that I knew was coming. But that did not happen.

Of course, the summer had barely begun for us schoolkids. For me, the rest of the summer would be an odyssey of rebuilding my life brick by brick. I would be grounded to my room for the duration. Forced to listen to the distant sounds of the country club's diving board trembling with people of all ages leaping from it into the cold waters of the pool. I was facing my own leaps and bounds from my prison cell of a bedroom. I had plenty of time to reflect upon my actions, and read books. The only thing I was allowed to do that summer was read. I remember reading the entire Hardy Boys series and the entire Boxcar Children series. I wasn't allowed to read something satanic like Goosebumps. My mother would allow me short trips to the public library to check out more books. However, I did not look forward to visiting the library. I could feel people's scornful gazes drawing down on me. I grew up in a very small Southern town. Word of my stupidly moronic deed traveled at lightning speed to all members of the town of six thousand. Also keep in mind that this occurred long before the days of social media. Word of mouth gossip is overwhelming powerful in such a town.

I was ordered to appear before a youth court counselor about a month after I was arrested. He was a nice enough man. I will never forget one odd thing about him: he had a mole on his forehead that would not stop bleeding throughout our meeting. He would hold a handkerchief to his head periodically and apologize to me for it throughout our "discussion". He presented me with three options as restitution for my crime: Sit in the county jail from Friday night to Sunday night for the next 8 weeks, attend a three month boot camp for troubled boys, or accept a six month probation sentence. I kindly requested to be slapped with the probation. He obliged and I was then officially sentenced to probation for my crime. I am glad that I didn't have to go to the county jail, or go to boot camp. Praise Jesus. Life is all about the small victories, right?

The rest of the summer passed and I began to accept the fact that I had made a terrible mistake. I knew what I did was wrong and that I should never have done it. I began to see firsthand how God shaped my fragile young life from the ruins of my crime. My youth director, RC, had also suffered a great personal tragedy within days of my being arrested. He began to reach out to me throughout the summer. He actually convinced my parents a few times to allow me to go out to eat with him, or go see a movie. The therapy he offered me was a Godsend. RC saw something in me that no one else, including my parents, seemed to see. He saw a young man who had an incredibly bright future ahead of him as a leader among his peers. How he saw this potential in me? I will never know. Was it the hand of God? I would like to think He had something to do with that. He convinced me to begin not only attending retreats at CLS that fall and winter, but to be a member of the design team as well. It was at these youth retreats where I would make connections to other youth, both boys and girls, who would change my life forever. There have been many people to influence the rocky path that my life has followed, but perhaps RC's impact on that path has been the most profound. He reached out to me at a time when nearly everyone else turned their backs on me in laughter and shame. He lifted my spirits by convincing me that my life would indeed someday move forward from the shoplifting incident and take a brave and bold new path. It has certainly been a path that I could have never predicted going down. I recently told RC how much I appreciated his believing in me. He is now in ill health, and that makes me sad. Thank you for your kindness and strength that you showed when I was so obviously shaken.

So what else happened in 1999? I returned to school, now an eighth grader, that August. Of course, the fallout from my crime had barely begun as far as ridicule from my classmates was concerned. I had several nicknames for the next year or two, notably "Star Wars thief". (my personal favorite) Few friends stuck with me during eighth grade. I remember friends whom I had been tight with for years before then, now turning to abandon me. Understandable on their part? Would I have abandoned them? I don't know. I received a letter from the government in September 1999 stating that due to my immaculate behavior since my arrest, my probation was being terminated three months early. That made me feel pretty good. I saved that letter as a memento. By the way, I also saved my official arrest report from that fateful day. I have looked for it at home, but have yet to find it.

The final defining event of the year was my grandfather's passing. He passed away in his sleep while I was just one bedroom away, also slumbering. I remember the last conversation that I had with my grandfather very vividly. This is not a fabricated memory. I was all dressed up that night for Debutante Ball activities in Greenwood, MS, and my grandfather was sitting at the kitchen table around 5:30PM eating an early dinner. I remember him beckoning me over. He looked me in the face and told me how proud he was of me and how he knew what a struggle the past year had been for me. He told me that I had become a handsome young man and that I had plenty to look forward to in the coming years. He gave me a hug and told me he would be asleep when I returned from the activity that evening and would speak to me more the next day about my struggles from the past year. I never saw him again. The house in Greenwood where he lived is commonplace among the many dreams that I have had throughout the years. I love him and miss him very much. I feel awful for making 1999 such a terrible year for my daddy. He lost his mother a few years earlier, and then lost his own father at the end of that year. He is the one who discovered his own father had died when he got out of bed to check on him about 3:00AM that morning. I am so so sorry dad. The worst day of my life will be the day I say goodbye to you.

By the end of 1999, I had become grounded once again for what would become the norm throughout the next few years: back-talking my parents, walking around the country club finding cigarettes on the ground to smoke (nasty!!!), and beating up poor Wilson. (sorry man) However, as the year drew to a close, and the Y2K craze was upon the world, I remember being filled with a sense of peace and calm. I decided by December of that year to learn from my experiences in 1999 and forever carry those experiences with me throughout my life. Knowing the mistakes of my past does indeed help me mold a more prosperous future for myself. Think about this: What if I had not been caught that day? Would I now be carrying TV's out the back of a closed Best Buy store? Would I be stealing cars??? Would I have become a crime kingpin????? Fortunately enough, my criminal behavior was nipped in the bud very early on in my life. I have known plenty of other people to be arrested for shoplifting much later in life than I was. And not to mention, I know plenty of people arrested for seemingly more serious crimes. I am forever grateful to law enforcement for catching me that day. I mean that. I am the type of person who has learned nearly all of life's lessons the hard way. This was perhaps the hardest lesson of all. After all, isn't there an old saying that says: "Experience is the hardest teacher. It gives the test BEFORE the lesson."

The end of the worst year of my life. I promise things don't get any worse from here. (yet)

Coming into Awareness: 1994-1998

The year is 1994. Third grade is upon me. When I think of third grade, the first thing that comes to mind is the Killing of the Gerbil. I just can't figure out why I did it. It was such a cute little black gerbil. Why did I have to learn about life and death in this way? And why did I put the Gray Gerbil into the desk overnight? It chewed up some scissors in there and wreaked a lot of other havoc. I have tossed these questions around in my head for years now. I have told a few people, notably the plethora of women that come in and out of my life, about it and they just laugh it off. Well, it isn't very funny to me. It is something that haunts me to this day. I remember the tent in the middle of the room where all the cool kids used to be able to go read books. I wasn't one of those cool kids. I wrote that story "Zapped" during the third grade. I remember watching all those "gifted" kids getting to leave class to go on what were seemingly more fun field trips and excursions than us non-gifted children. Remember the breezeway? I always longed to be on the other side of that breezeway for some reason. For me it symbolized growing up and moving on to new things, the "bold new frontier" so to speak. What else happened in third grade? I played the part of Mr. Moore in a school play. I got to wear a suit/tie. (that was quite the foreshadowing of my eventual future) I remember that I began a long and blessed friendship with Code-name Ichabod that year. We had some great times didn't we? Do you remember when kids used to pass out invitations to nearly everyone in the class for a party they were throwing? Yeah, I remember that too. Except for the fact that they only difference between you and I is that I did not receive an invite to your party. I remember crying silently to myself about that. I mean what kind of parents must you have had? What parents would send their child to school with a package of invites to a party to hand out during class, secretly knowing that about 10% of the classmates would not receive an invite? SHAME ON YOU. I remember having that party at Al's Golfhaven and I think I invited every single one of you people, whether I liked you or not. At least my parents told me it was good manners to do so. I do remember being invited to one party that year. We played kick the bucket in the backyard and watched Jurassic Park on VHS (against my mother's warning) Thank you Code-name Goosebumps. Come to think of it, you were a good friend of mine for a long time. Whatever happened to that friendship? 1994 and the outset of 1995 seem to be two of those transitional years of my life. The years 2000 and 2010 would function much of the same way.

1995 was marked in particular by two big events in my life: being one of the first in my class to have to get eyeglasses and being the first person in my class to visit the orthodontist. The orthodontist fit me with a binator (sp) A binator was this thing that went in your mouth that functioned much like a retainer, however there was one big difference. A binator had two huge red teeth jutting out the front of it. How embarrassing. Needless to say, I wasn't invited to any parties that year either. "Four eyes", "buckteeth", etc...these were commonplace names that I was called in that day. What child didn't face ridicule and bullying from their classmates though? I certainly am not suggesting that my experience was overly unique by any means. I am merely pointing out many of the common frustrations of early youth here. But is it not true that there seemed to be some people out there better off than others along the social ladder of adolescence? I was a broken rung on that ladder up until at least the year 2000 . I was still smarter than most, though. I continued to dominate in the classroom with my grades. I was especially talented at spelling words. That is why misspelling "binator" irks me so badly. I don't like bad grammar. It is possibly my biggest pet peeve, especially with potential suitors. Who were my friends during this year? Code-name Goosebumps remained a good friend for several years after this time frame.

1996 brought more politics into my life! I remember getting some of my fifth grade classmates to chant "Bob, Jack, Newt, & Elizabeth!" with me. Those were fun times. For the first time in my life, I began to realize that I influenced others to act, whether positively or negatively, by the way I would act or what I would say. Though I did not consciously realize that at the time, can you imagine the burden of knowing such a thing later in life? Our teacher in that basement was cruel wasn't she? I don't think I ever came across such a foul individual throughout my public school education. Well, I take that back. There was this one teacher a little later in high school that probably would have burned my house to the ground if she thought she could get away with it. But that is for later on. You will be called out for your vile actions against both myself and my family. Don't worry, your time is coming. How many young people have you scarred during your long tenure with the State of Mississippi? Goodness, I need to stop getting ahead of myself. Seriously, that teacher in the basement was mean. How did I get stuck in that class any way? It seemed to have more than its fair share of misbehaving children. (I am not claiming to be a saint either) After all, Code-name Skinny Boots and I did get into a fist fight outside the dungeon that year. Who won that fight btw? Any witnesses out there who can clarify? I got 2 licks for that one. I arguably had my first crush on a girl in 1996. Code-name Fish Hooks was so beautiful to me at that time. I recently became her friend on Facebook, many years later, and admitted my young love for her. She was impressed. Is that really where my love life began? What a long, strange, twisted path that has been for me. Thanks for getting me started down that path! I remember thinking how weird that guy was who sat next to me with the gold cross earring. He must have been guy to get a piercing in my class. I still think it's weird btw.

1997 is here. I used to beat up my brother when we waited at the bus stop. I am sorry Wilson. You are such an important person in my life that there will be no code-name for you. These other code-names are out there to protect those people from being discovered as being friends to a crazy person like myself. I should not have thrown pine cones at you. I shouldn't have beat you over the back with that big stick that one time. I shouldn't have stabbed your hand with a highlighter a dozen times. Want to know how I got these scars??? Anyway, back to 1997 . What even happened in 1997? I don't remember just a whole lot from that year for some reason. I do remember going to several Mississippi State games with my father. However, he has been taking me to games since like 1986. I love you daddy. The worst day of my life will be the day that I lose you. One significant event that happened to me that year...this is hard to talk about. I have to though. I remember you standing there at the four-square with your yellow jacket on. You were so tall, your hair was so curly, you were so beautiful. I was instantly smitten with you. You thought I was a loser back then though. You shunned me several times. However, I only tried harder every time you did so. Were you impressed with my four-square skills? Haha, didn't think so. You were nicer to me beginning the next year though. Code-name Lady VP, I love you and miss you so much.

1998 is finally here. This will be last posting before switching to one blog posting per individual year from now on. Most of you probably think I am crazy by now, but I don't care. I don't write this blog for you. I write it for me. I want this all in the public domain, so that something will be left of me when I am dead. Seventh grade was weird. I had a huge crush on Amelia Gibson (pictured in this post, better watch out for her!). Sorry, Amelia, you don't get a code-name. You are a convicted sex offender of children after all. What else did you expect? Anyway, were you trying to seduce me when you would come help me with Pre-Algebra problems at my desk? I only ask because you could clearly see where I was staring down your open blouse. You are the one who wore such a low-cut blouse, woman. That is a very vivid image that I have trouble eradicating from my memory. Oh well, I can think of worse memories from that time of my life. One of those memories being the fact that (censored out of fear of self-incrimination of myself and others) That was when my urge to do that sort of (censored) began. You were a bad influence on me. Not saying it was all your fault, Code-name Vendor Bender. I should have had better sense, especially considering the fact that I was raised better. I'll make an endowment to SHS someday. Their investment will be paid back to them one hundred times over. I remember passing my first love note in the hallways of that junior high building that year. That trend would continue throughout the rest of my days roaming those halls. Lady VP, you made me the most beautiful box in Career Discovery! I was such an idiot when it came to constructing things. Come to think of it, Lady VP, I think you may have been one of the first women to show me tender kindness in my young life. I often wonder what you saw in me. You used to call me GEORGIE. I always thought that was cute. You called me that up until the last time I spoke to you that week before you died. Sigh. I spent New Year's day 1999 in Dallas, TX, where I watched Ricky Williams run all over Mississippi State. The Longhorns beat us 38-11. What a blowout. I remember laying in bed in that Dallas hotel room listening to the Prince song "Party like it's 1999" all night long that New Year's Eve. What I didn't know at that time was how much 1999 would change the very fabric of my being. Things would never be the same.

Barely Even Memories: 1985-1993

I write because I know that someday soon I will be unable to remember the details of my life. My memory slips more and more every day. Tiny lapses in judgement here, minuscule mistakes there, it all has meaning when I sit here and ponder it. How did it all lead to here? How did I arrive in this place? Why am I laying in bed here in Jefferson City, Missouri, on November 20, 2011?

Where does this story begin? It's hard to say. I guess a good place to start would be the beginning, the very beginning. I was born in the unholy land of Oxford, Mississippi, around noon on May 13, 1985. My parents were living in Calhoun City at the time, so why did I go to Oxford to be born? We lived in a rental house for the first year of my life. My first memory is of watching hair go down the drain of the bathtub in that house counterclockwise. Is that even a memory? Did I fabricate it somewhere along the way? It's impossible to know now.

I remember in 1989 that we lived in a rental house in Senatobia off of highway 4. I have no memories between 1985 and 1989. What happened during those years? What seed was planted then to begin me on the path I meander down now? Why can't I remember anything from those years? My parents at least took me to see the Batman movie in 1989. That is the first movie I remember going to see.

We were so scared in 1990. I remember going under those wooden tables at the Methodist church for earthquake drills. I also lied about being sick so I could get out of class. That's the first lie I ever remember speaking. Why do we lie? I was 5 years old at the time and was already lying and manipulating to get my way? Who does that? I am sorry we made fun of you for being in the "uncool" younger kids class across the hallway, Code-name Speedbump. That was wrong of me. I don't remember much else from kiddie kollege. (that is what it was called, spelling and all) I remember playing on the playground a few times, nothing too specific.

In 1991, kindergarten was underway. Why can I not erase the memory of that girl at the water fountain? You aren't even that pretty Code-name CP. I remember distinct things from this age. But again, it fades more with every day that passes. Who were my friends then? Did I even have friends? What made me so allergic to everyone else in the room. It's as if my allergies to pollen, dust, cats, horses, etc., were translated over to the whole human race at such a young age. I was never the popular kid in class, that is something I accepted very early on. Look at where your life is and then look at where my life is. Who is better off? Yeah, it's hard to say isn't it?

1992 brought first grade and more vacated memories for myself. I do remember proudly casting my vote for Bill Clinton that year. I probably just did it to be different than all of my early aged brainwashed by conservative parents classmates. That is another difference between you and I. You let the brainwashing work, I actually think for myself. Always have, and always will. In first grade I was a free thinker already. What do you say to that? I definitely miss the 90s. Looking at where our country is now, compared to where it was then, how can you not long for the 1990s? What did I learn in first grade? I probably learned how to form coherent sentences, which is something a lot of people apparently never learned. Did you skip the first grade? Were you not paying attention in class that day? Did you not realize the importance of your public school (FREE) education at that age? Too bad. I remember beginning speech therapy during this year of my life. I used to have problems differentiating between the words "Dawn" and "Don" and used to say "longmower" instead of "lawnmower". Apparently the speech therapy worked. I now command the English language (verbal and written) like Captain Picard commands the Enterprise. Make it so!

The year is 1993. I started writing stories in second grade. "The Dog and the Cat" series was especially popular. I also remember reading a lot of books on my own that year. I discovered a love and joy for things that entertain me at a very young age. Code-name TC ran into a pole on the playground and split his head open that year. Did I really push you down into the spaceship spider looking thingy? It doesn't seem like you were the same after that. Maybe I just think too much into things. I have blamed myself for that incident for far too long now. What started out as a joke, is now not funny anymore as I can't remember whether or not that really happened. I remember taking that stupid pointless test for "Gifted" in second grade. I must not have had a high enough IQ to be part of your elite club at that time. Oh well, I can think of quite a few people in "gifted" who haven't done anything with their lives yet. Why did I not make it into that? I easily admit to both my strengths and weaknesses, as many of you already know. Intelligence is definitely not a shortcoming of mine. Being left out of "gifted" hindered my growth as an individual at a very young age. It's just not fair to give some second grader a test to assess their IQ and forever mark the next 5 grades to pass as either "not gifted" or "gifted". That just really chaps my @$$. This program should be done away with permanently in public schools. Was it really necessary to hit our hands with those rulers Code-name Blaine? Tops and bottoms of hands. Doesn't matter now. Those were different times. You would never get away with such punishment in today's world. Some second grade upstart would pull out his smartphone and record you doing that to children and post it to YouTube. You would be an overnight sensation. Warrior eyes are watching you!

Most Beautiful girl for the month of July

Pocket Aces and the Lack of Fear Thereof

And they shall never look quite the same again

Today, I decided to make a trip to the ole boats in Tunica. I went to them with 100 dollars. I sat at a 3/6 Texas Hold 'Em Limit table for 4 and a half hours on that 100 bucks. During my tenure at the table, I caught a straight flush and won around a 40 dollar pot off of it. I was for sure thinking that this was to be the night I finally covered my long laundry list of gambling losses. But, of course, it wasn't.

So, here's the ultimate fonk of the night. I had pocket aces pre flop against another player at the table. We raised and re-reraised eachother 4 times before seeing the flop. The flop came out ACE, 9, 8, all of different suits. Naturally, the flush can immediately be ruled out because of the different suits on the board. I could also feel much more comfortable with my big pocket aces which were now a slick 3-of-a kind. We raised eachother back and forth another 4 times before seeing the turn. The turn came out a queen. Again, we raised eachother back and forth many times before finally seeing the river. The river came out a 10. Of course, we raised countless times after seeing the final card. In my jubiliation over the 3-of-a-kind aces, I did not even realize that all the other player needed to beat me was a Jack. When all was said and done, she turned over POCKET JACKS. I was torn apart...I had just lost the biggest pot of my life. There was well over 100 dollars in that pot that I lost. For the record, I was on tilt for the next 45 minutes.

The movie Rounders has some of my favorite poker quotes. Two of them apply to what happened to me at the table tonight. In the movie, Matt Damon states, "In my blind dream of winning big money, I had forgotten the cardinal rule of poker, which is, 'always leave yourself outs'." I had left myself hardly any outs during this hand. I lost over 60 of my 140 dollar chip stack in this one hand. The second quote is this: "Most poker players will tell you that they can rarely remember the big pots that they have won in their lifetime, but many recall, with remarkable accuracy, the big pots that they have lost." My friends, I shall never forget this beat. As long as I live, no matter how many more hands I play, I might never forget this day for the horrible beat that it brought me.

Movie Review: The Da Vinci Code

Even the strong casting of Audrey Tatou (left) and Tom Hanks (right) can't save

The Da Vinci Code from being a bust

Overall Rating: 5 out of 10

The Plot: While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. Solving the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci - clues visible for all to see, and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion - a secret society charged with protecting the Holy Grail. In a breathless race through Paris, London and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who appears to work for Opus Dei - a clandestine, Vatican-sanctioned Catholic organization believed to have long plotted to seize the Priory's secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's secret, and a stunning historical truth, will be lost forever.

The Good: For all of the strong emotions that this film has stirred up, little good rises from this controversial film. Tom Hanks, a consecutive Oscar winner for Best Actor in 1993 and 1994, seems to have finally eclipsed his prime of good acting. Ron Howard, an Oscar winning director, would seem to have been an excellent choice to direct a film based on one of the best selling novels of all time. Audrey Tatou's role is rather strong in comparison to the other actors of the film. Several other famous actors make appearances as well. Although most of the film is negative propaganda against Christianity, there is no denying that the theories in the film are, at the very least, intriguing and mind boggling. The Da Vinci Code seems to lose itself inside of its never-ending string of absurd theories, and in the process gets lost in its own plot. Wait a second, I was just supposed to review the good parts of this movie. I wasn't supposed to focus on the bad! Well, as you can tell, not much good can come from this movie. If you insist on seeing this movie, catch it at a 5 dollar matinee or something. Don't waste the regular 8 bucks.

Goodbye Dearest Leslie

Isn't she beautiful?

At 8:00 am, Sunday, May 9, 2004, the Senatobia High School Class of 2004 stood on the brink of Graduation. A time which is supposed to be so groundbreaking and joyful. Thirty minutes later, the Class of 2004's lives would be turned upside down by way of a tragedy that no one will ever be able to forget. Lauren Elizabeth Tallo, a member of the class of 2004, was killed in a car accident on the way to Church. The proceeding week would turn out to be the worst of many of the graduating seniors lives. Three students from the Class of 2004 were also involved in another horrible car accident several days later.

Flash forward to Saturday, December 10, 2005, Leslie Pitcock, along with two other girls were killed in a tragic car accident on their way home from seeing South Panola win the 5A State Championship. Leslie was beloved by so many people, from her Tri Delta sisters, to her friends, to her family. This was made evident by the fact that at least 1,000 people attended Leslie's visitation on Sunday. Leslie was very active at the University of Mississippi, and she will surely be missed by countless people. The most heartbreaking thing is that people continue to post messages on her wall on facebook saying how much they will miss her. It drives me to tears every time I look at her profile.

This death hits me very hard. I grew much stronger after having to cope with the death of another one of my best friends a year and a half ago, the aforementioned Lauren Tallo. No one can ever replace the place I have for Leslie in my heart. She was Vice-President of our class for two years. Her picture will always be next to mine on the composite that now hangs in the hallway of Senatobia High School. Dearest Leslie, I love you so much and I will always cherish the time that I had with you and I will certainly never forget you. Goodbye and hope to see you soon.