When I was growing up, high school started in 10th grade, and instead of middle school, you went to Junior High School through 9th grade, except not in that order. My junior high school was called Sunset Park. I'm not familiar with any other towns where the term "Sunset Park" is considered upscale, and my hometown was no exception. Sunset Park was kind of rundown, smelly, moldy and downright scary. One of the more curious features of the school was its pitiful 8:10 scale gymnasium (meaning the basketball gym was about 80% the size of a normal gym). What made it downright comical was the 1-foot "buffer" between the edge of the court and the exterior brick wall of the building. There was absolutely no room outside of the court for coaches, benched players, benches for them to sit on, and most of all there was no room for stopping.

This tiny gym did make for some really fun indoor kickball games. I was fairly good at kickball (until the bouncy pitch was outlawed), and had no shame in "toeing" the ball. I played on the soccer team (goalie) where I was taught to kick the ball with the instep/top of your foot for more control. But the bone-crushing impact I could inflict upon those voluptuous red kick balls with the toe of my foot was just too much to resist.

Now add into the mix the miniature gymnasium we would play in during the hot months- there were no out of bounds, the ricochets were magic, and the junior high level attempts at kickball defense were absolute hilarity when the ball could come at you from any direction at Collegiate level velocity. Yes, it was absolute hilarity, except when the ricochet entered a 5-foot radius around a kid named Shooney.

At Sunset Park, we got what seemed to be all the troublesome kids who were too much for the other schools to handle. I’m not sure if Shooney was a transfer, or if he just happened into Sunset Park via good luck, but either way, he had a reputation of not turning his spelling contracts in on time, and also attempted murder. The attempted murder charge evidently escaped my mind one hot day in May when we had a spirited game of kickball going.

Shooney, like most of the other ne'er-do-wells at my school,  ne'er “dressed out” for gym, opting to wear his street clothes in and out of the locker room, something which apparently cost you .25 points on your final grade. Not participating in class would cost you a whole point so he would just stand wherever, doing the least amount of movement or exercise possible. I can’t quite remember why, but Shooney and I had some bad blood between us. Everyone knew it, and I just tried to ignore it during that once-a-day gym class we had together. But for some reason during this particular kickball game, I decided to see if I could make him move. I decided I would kick the ball near him, or kind of sort of “at him”.

The pitch came to me, and rather than doing a controlled, traditional soccer instep kick toward an industrial fan in the upper ceiling, I lost my mind temporarily and toed a 90mph fastball. Now you normally have to grow your Afro out pretty good to get any kind of body or bounce to it, but the ball passed so close to his head that even his fairly short Afro temporarily either parted or undulated from the wind, I can’t quite remember which.

I’m not convinced I would have been better off had the ball not struck him, but either way, it had entered his sphere of inactivity and he was obviously very unhappy about it. The other classmates whooped and hollered and cajoled him to respond, but he stood his ground and said to me a few times, “Locker-room…. Locker-room….” Meaning of course, locker room is where I will attempted murder you in the next place we are together where there are no teachers around.

I was terrified and thought I would just skip the locker room and face the ridicule of wearing my gym clothes the rest of the day (not a hygiene issue by the way- my sweat is odorless, almost sweet). But then I remembered my trombone was in the locker room, as the class directly after gym was band and I had to have my trombone. Oh well, I thought… How bad could it be? I play the trombone. I’m obviously bad-ass.

It could be worse, I found at the next time I got up at bat and kicked the ball squarely away from Shooney. The magic ricochet had its way with me, however, and the ball clearly crossed his sphere of inactivity as it brushed across his shoulder, causing even more cajoling from the class.

When we finally got to the locker room, Shooney stormed in and took his shirt off, a symbolic gesture at Sunset Park Junior High School which meant “Let’s fight” (other related gestures included “Whoops I spilled ketchup on your Member’s Only jacket” and “Whoops I bumped into your chair as I was sitting down to eat lunch in the cafeteria”).

Now the only thing I was more scared of than Shooney was my dad, who besides being 5’7” (seemed tall at the time I guess) was a former cryptographer in the Air Force and could probably kill me in several ways I couldn’t understand. I was terrified of my dad… I had never gotten in trouble at school, and if I was caught fighting, I could get suspended, something I was sure my father would attempted murder me successfully for. So I stood there as the boys were yelling and Shooney hit me squarely in the face 4 or 5 times saying “Come on! Fight! Come on!” I just stood my ground, refusing to give in to the siren song of violence, knowing my dad would make me pay for it with death. The class change bell eventually rang and Shooney gave up on getting a good fight out of me. Editor’s Note: Maready’s dad later found out about this incident and chastised his son for not fighting, a fact which explains Maready’s current fascination with Ultimate Fighter, TapOut, and anything else Mixed Martial Arts related).

The whole point of this story: Whenever I am down, whenever I am feeling blue, my earth wife will try and console me by saying something like, come on Maready, everybody loves you. To which I will say, "Shooney doesn't love me." And then she’ll say, “Shooney loves you now”, knowing full well that it is a lie. Shooney at one time didn't love me, and I haven't seen him in a long, long time, but unless my survival instincts are wrong, Shooney still doesn't love me and I’ll save the kickball for the neighborhood kids.

It made a valiant run... the Hellman's 24oz. jar of mayonaise has served me well over the past year or so. Never complaining, never failing to deliver one of the crucial components of my beloved Mayonaise, Cheese and Bologna sandwich breakfast. The past month or two it was getting kind of lean. About 3 weeks ago I transitioned from knife to spoon as the crevices and nooks were getting difficult to access with the butter knife.

After a frustrating 10 minutes of canoodling and caressing to get enough mayo out to make a decent sandwich, I am declaring Jar #28 empty and available for recycling. I have enjoyed you #28 and can only hope that #29 will serve as dutifully as you have.

 Good-bye.

I have finally crossed the threshold into manhood. It wasn't owning a former undercover police car that did it, as many may think. As of Sunday afternoon I am the proud owner of a Lincoln Weld-Pak 100 welder- like the kind of tool that you have to wear big leather gloves and those cool welding helmets with (never end a sentence with a preposition).

"Manliness"

 I saw the listing on Craigslist for sale or trade- the trade part just happening to be for a Mac tower, something I just happened to have an extrie of (I was using the tremendous fan noise from my Dual-800 G4 as a Sleep Machine). The deal went down in the back of the P.F. Chang's parking lot and went very smoothly. We exchanged pleasantries and some idle chit-chat until the trunks were opened and gear was inspected.

On the ride home, I thought of all the cool things I could weld together. My toaster to something, or my golf club to something, or possibly my golf club to my toaster. I don't really have a lot to weld yet, but as my earth son and I are soon to be joining the WKA (World Karting Association), we will have plenty of opportunity to do some welding. The manual had a lot of warnings and scary pictures of death and injury but I'm sure I can get over that hump once I find some metal around the house.

Not every church has a Lou Iandoli. Probably every church has the loveable crack-up dad who can make farting noises with any body part. They all have the Jewish evangelical Christian convert who drives a different minivan than his wife. But my church had Lou Iandoli, who (in addition to all those things) was also the over-eager percussionist who was so nice and helpful, no one had the heart to tell him  to stop playing Xylophone solos during the years from 1996-2003.

I don't know if you know what a percussionist is, but they are the weird guys in the band, which is usually a bunch of weird guys and girls. So percussionists can be considered the weird guys even among a bunch of weirdos. They carry their sticks and mallets around in "ditty bags" and don't adhere to the same rules as you or I. They play things like the snare drum, the Crash Cymbals, and if you're lucky, they might break out some Timpani or Gong every once in a while. Gongs are good- they just get a laugh every time you hit one- I can't really explain why. 

How Bach's Xylophone may have looked

But in the same way that a Gong has a decidedly Asian theme to it's sound, the Xylophone has a decidedly Carribean sound to it. Not quite as much as say, Steel Drums, but it definitely falls into the realm of Tropical. If you ever hear someone playing the Xylophone, you can bet they're either trying to make someone happy or dance- not unlike a banjo (banjos can also be an attempt at music). Sometime in 1996, Lou Iandoli got hold of an enormous Xylophone and installed it on the dias in front of the grand piano, where it was employed weekly until 2002, when he moved it to another church.

 Every single song during every single service from 1996-2002 would feature the Xylophone work of Lou Iandoli. I don't care if it was "Onward Christian Soldiers" or "The Old Rugged Cross", Lou would find a way to inject Carribean magic into those timeless classics. It was shear misery for many and no amount of Gong or Timpani could absolve the damage. Visions of Sebastian, the singing lobster from "The Little Mermaid" would materialize on the stage as I fought to contemplate the deity of Christ. "Under the sea! Under the sea! Darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me!"

Oh No you di-uhnt'!

Take it from me, the Xylophone was complete misery. I can't stand to listen to one to this day. I'm sure Lou Iandoli has probably moved on by now... but it's not hard for me to imagine him plucking away on an old banjo in some church.... "Why are there so many, songs about rainbows... And what's on the other side...."

Rock on, Lou Iandoli! 

As many of my regulars will have noticed, I have a fascination with the Toyota Prius. Being quite possibly the ugliest car in North America save the Pontiac Aztek, you are definitely making a statement by owning this car. Though you may not face the same ridicule as Geodesic home owners or those Crazy-Commutin' Recumbent bike-riding professors, you are definitely sacrificing style for a few less trips to the gas pump.

The obsession with coasting started with my beloved Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, a 4000 lb. behemoth that has a lot of what physicists like to call "inertia". The car was simply awesome, had awesome torque and could tote 5 mustache-wearing guys to lunch with no problem (I will add a link to a future post regarding this matter).

Coasting happens here

But it really shined when you took your foot off the accelerator pedal. It would simply continue to roll for what seemed to be ages, and provided some home-grown fun for a while. My dear earth-wife hated the coasting game, and just plain hated the car because it was what I brought her home from the hospital in with our newborn earth son. Being a real police car, the rear doors handles were disabled so she was unable to exit the car unassisted. Though she didn't like that feature of the car, the spit-protectant plastic on the rear seats would later come in handy once we switched off breast milk and to formula.

I eventually tired of driving 5-10 miles under the speed limit everywhere I went (everyone I followed thought I was running their plates) so I made the ridiculous  measured decision to buy a brand new C230 Mercedes-Benz. It was a gorgeous 6-speed manual, and had a nice MPG readout on the heads-up diplay. So I could drive to and from work, coasting where I could, accelerating gently where I had to, trying to keep my city driving up above 32.5 mpg- a frequent average for me.

Unforeseen medical expenses guilt forced me to sell the Mercedes so I bought another coasting legend, the 2001 Ford Crown Victoria LX (civilian version). Though it wasn't quite as heavy as the Police Interceptor, I found I could easily coast the 2.5 miles from the Raven Ridge and Falls of the Neuse intersection all the way to my driveway. I will add a video of this incredible 2.5 mile coast at some point. It can all be done legally with the exception of the 2nd to last right hand turn, at which I'm really beginning to lose speed and must blow through a stop sign to get into my driveway. Unfortunately, there is a city police detective who lives right at the corner and always has his car parked directly by this stop sign. I was obviously more comfortable making that illegal turn in the Police Interceptor, slightly less in the 2001 Ford Crown Vic and my current vehicle (which I don't recommend for coasting), an Audi A3 is just begging to be ticketed for illegal coasting or something.

But the point of the story is, no matter the car, I will always be coasting. Cause I'm green and want to "save the planet". If you can't afford or stand the Toyota Prius, but still feel moved by the plight of the earth, please try and coast as much as me- the earth will thank you for it. 

In the milieu of human history, there have been many ways of displaying and taking note of one's station in life. In Roman days, I imagine a good beat-down of an unruly slave was probably not only necessary, but did wonders to assure the beater that (their) life was happy and full of promise. For women (and some men) jewelry was probably an obvious indication of your wealth, and in some cultures, being fanned by palm branches or other foliage could be considered "having arrived".

Typical

But there are few slaves today, and as such, it can be difficult to ascertain one's social ranking. Thankfully, there are still a few social and cultural cues left to glean your status. For me, I get a lot of assurance from the intense glow of my multi-vitamin charged urine.

Now I'm not normally one to monitor the comings and goings of my GI tract. I've had few digestive problems over the years despite its constant abuse. But no matter the amount of ambient daylight present in the bathroom, one cannot help but notice the powerful flourescence in the toilet bowl after taking my multi-vitamin. I take great delight in it's powerful hue. Drink too much water, and the saturation is spoiled. And timing, as they say, is everything. You should make preparations to not "go" for about 2 hours- that will give the palette plenty of time to reach maximum saturation. Once you reach 100%  saturation, you should dim the lights for maximum effect and gloat in the ostentatious display of power that fills your commode.

 
The master of commode based virilence

The best vitamins for this practice I've discovered are not Flintstones or the generic Food Lion equivalent. You have to go to the hippy stores, like Earth Fare or Whole Foods and get the large horse-sized vitamins that come in those bottles your high-school science teacher stored various body parts floating in formaldehyde in.

I've never had slaves and don't wear much jewelry. But watch out! Cause trust me, my pee is really, really green about 2-3 hours after I take that multi-vitamin- let me tell you.

Besides baseball and apple pie, there's probably nothing more American than the Imperial measurement system, invented by our friends across the pond over the past several centuries. Whether it’s pounds, miles, feet or inches, nothing describes attributes quite like the Imperial measurement system. Though infidels have occasionally made inroads to converting our great country over to metric, a few tireless souls have stood guard and kept this mistake at bay. Yes metric can easily convert from the small guys to the big guys (like 60 inches = 5 feet) and yes metric is used in 99% of the countries in the world. But you know what the problem is? Metric just doesn’t work in poem or song. Imagine just what the metric system would do to our beloved country music.

Por ejamplo, here’s an excerpt from a George Strait tune called “As Far As It Goes”:

Lately I've found myself fallin'
Deeper in love with you
I'm not the kind of guy
Who gets swept away
So here's what I'm gonna do

I'm gonna give you this heart of mine
But that's where I draw the line

I'm only gonna give you everything
Take it a mile beyond the end, of the road
I'm gonna love you one day past forever
But that's as far as it goes

I don’t know what it is about metric, but it has an incredible ability to suck the emotion out of anything. Imagine it as:

I'm only gonna give you everything
Take it a kilometer beyond the end, of the road
I'm gonna love you one day past forever
But that's as far as it goes

Suddenly I feel like he’s an East German border guard explaining in code the best way to escape to Western Germany. And here’s another kilometer problem from LeAnne Womack’s “Montgomery to Memphis”:

Looking back at where I was I can see how far I've come
From a nobody with a broken heart to feeling like someone
Now you say you want me back boy let me tell you this
It's a million miles from Montgomery to Memphis

Sometimes I’ve thought, maybe it’s the polysyllabic nature of metric that doesn’t work, so I’ll shorten it to kilo:

Looking back at where I was I can see how far I've come
From a nobody with a broken heart to feeling like someone
Now you say you want me back boy let me tell you this
It's a million kilos from Montgomery to Memphis

What? What is that? That’s just plain messed up. That ain’t American, and it certainly ain’t art. Imagine the world in metric:

Jules Verne’s “111,120 kilometers Under the Sea”
Stephen King’s “The Green 1.609344 kilometer” or even “The Green Kilo”
HBO’s “1.8288 meters Under”

And imagine a cowboy wearing a 37.854118 liter hat- he’s not gonna rustle up trouble with that thing on. This list goes on and on- I’m sure some of my astute readers could rustle up some other examples. So please, please mon freund, if you ever become tempted to use the metric system, just remember it’s likely to cause a ton of trouble.

Growing up the son of a Republican Baptist CPA, you'd think my sense of humor would revolve around spelling upside-down words on a calculator or funny pastor jokes. Instead, my dad's sense of humor usually involved acting like he'd run over my bike with his car or funky lay-up routines during basketball practice. It really shone on our road trips to funerals when he would have my brother and I guess where and how he was thinking of having his ashes buried. Although my guesses always involved  being shot out of anti-aircraft guns on our local retired battleship, he would never give us a straight answer as to where he wanted his ashes buried (he's not the cremating type anyway).

I suppose all of that morbid upbringing could explain a game that my wife and used to play called "Kiss me, I'm dead". When we first got married, we were crazy in love. We decided to get married 3 days after we met (literally). We saw a French movie where the couple jumped off a bridge because they were so in love and we understood why. But months after the wedding, we mellowed and began playing a game called "Kiss me, I'm dead."

When you fall in love with someone, and open yourself up to them emotionally, you really start to consider obsess over their mortality. You think about what it would be like if they died in a horrible train wreck, or what they might look like in a casket. So to prepare for this eventuality, one of us would hold our breath, lay motionless on the bed while the other would look and mourn their beloved's passing. They would bend down to kiss, one last time before being laid to rest. It was a fun game, but we took it seriously and would make sure to play after church, when both of us were dressed with more appropriate funeral attire, and then the deceased would hold an ice cube to their lips for a few seconds so that when kissed they felt really dead, you know, for dramatic effect.

Eventually, we tired of this game, and started expressing our love through more traditional rituals such as holding hands and singing "Turn around... Bright eyes" as a duet whenever the dishwasher runs loud enough we don't think anyone can hear us. If you and your spouse are currently taking each other's good health for granted, I recommend a quick game of "Kiss me, I'm dead." It will bring you closer together and probably get you thinking maybe you're not in such good health after all.

I will not be producing the the 2009 reunion of my High School class (graduating year withheld for a number of reasons). I was elected the Senior Class President as a mistake. I ran for the position because I was told my college application lacked some zing and that I needed to add some extra curricular activities besides "Parking Lot". So I ran for Senior Class President, and won.

I produced, with the gracious help of another person, our first reunion in 1999  several years ago and lost a couple of hundred dollars doing so. I was fatter than I wanted to be and wasn't really excited about showing up so fat in the first place. I had just married my stunning earth wife and probably thought that her presence would take the edge off me being so fat. I think I'm even fatter now (though I'm trying to be less fat). So please accept my apologies and figure out something we can all do that doesn't involve me fronting $1700 to cover a mediocre buffet and Convention Center room rental.

Regards,
Maready
Senior Class President, New Hanover High School