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May 23rd
2006
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Map of the Human Ego
May 17th
2006
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An Assault on Innocence In a way, things came easily. Memories are talented things in ways of evasion, but sometimes they want to be found. In this case, mine waited from Gorbachev to George Bush Junior. I was musing through a shoebox of recollections. An actual shoebox, mind you, not some cheep substitute. Memories deserve genuine shoeboxes - memories and receipts. Everything else is pretty well up to interpretation. Except for soapbox derby cars. To be a soapbox derby contestant, there should be at least one genuine soapbox involved somewhere in the construction of your car. It might not stand to reason, but it stands to something, and I think that it might be important. I used to keep a journal when I was a kid. It actually said "My Diary" on the cover, but I put masking tape over the "Diary" part and wrote in "Journal" with thick black marker. The Journal was in the shoebox. The shoebox came from home. The box now sits in my lap. I sit in my new home. Connections, connections, connections. Reasons and moments. In that moment, I was set to recall hidden crushes, rainy days, and harmless pre-teen larceny. But somewhere between those manila, fabric covered covers, on those light-gray speckled pages, between being hit by a car and a rather detailed description of feelings I had for a girl named Sheila , were the following words: "Mr. Pegg beat me up today." I went on to read the next 140 pages, but it was all dreams, infatuations, and perceptions of an eleven-year-olds bandwidth of reality. It was a short sentence -six words with impact, like Hemmingway would write. I sat there and remembered. Sorrow. Fury. Guilt. I just can't seem to get it out of my head lately. When I was in public school, decades ago, I had the crap beaten out of me by a teacher. His name was Sid Pegg, a teacher at Stewart School in Perth Ontario Canada. He was my teacher at the time. He valued athleticism above academics and was also a first-class sexist. Those things didn't bother me at the time, except for the athleticism involved in slamming a child, at most one-quarter his size, into a sink and bashing his head against the taps. Mr. Pegg had been a football player. Think of that scene in "The Breakfast Club" when the Principal Vernon throws Judd Nelson into the equipment locker. Only with more violence. It was a decade or so before I mentioned it to anyone. I just took it as "something that happened" like getting the flu or falling off my bike. You know, life stuff. But now - today - it somehow feels like he's choking me again. Choking off my thoughts, choking off my mood. My pulse hurts in my neck. Now I wonder how many other children Sid Pegg has hurt. If I had spoken up at the time, would he have been removed from teaching? Would there be a group of adults out there that didn't have to deal with the memory of being beaten by someone they were supposed to trust? Maybe that's where I get my "problem with authority". Of course, that would be oversimplifying things. Muddled with the sad quiet rage I feel for the kid who wrote those words in his diary is a sense of guilt. I feel guilty for doing nothing and letting Mr. Pegg go on to possibly abuse more children over the decades. Somewhere inside it makes me an accomplice to a brutal thief of innocence. So, because I am no perfect person, I wish him dead. Almost every day since, I am hit by the hurtful memory of this man. Unbidden, unasked for, he still terrorizes me. I wish him nothing but ill. As yet, wishing hasn't worked. Sid is still alive and living in Perth, across the street from my brother's house. I read the obituaries from my hometown paper looking for his name. On that day, when Mr. Pegg's light is finally snuffed out, I believe I will finally feel a little better. But only a little. May 15th
2006
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Outwit Outplay Outlast Did anyone else out there hear about how the 2nd season of Survivor was faked in a studio? Apparently, about three weeks into the actual filming, a contestant -a guy called Gregg Kilgore - snapped. He was 25 and from Kenosha Wisconsin. They say he snapped, but I think you have to think of it as strategy. A kind of strategy, at least. The kind of thing Lex Luthor might do if all he had to work with was some rice and a rope. I guess they had the rope from the box of things they were given at the first of the show. The sticky-rice balls were of his own invention. I have never heard of rice being used that way before. It somehow speaks for the guy. Or something. So, three weeks into the contest, this guy - Gregg Kilgore - goes non-lethal ninja on the rest of the Survivors. At night, he takes them out, one-by-one, shoving a ball of sticky-rice into their mouths, and then tying them up - each in silent turn. That was late, on the 21st night. By the light of the waning tropic moon, he secreted them somewhere deep within the island. Come morning, the camera crews found the contestants' seaside camp nearly deserted. Tanned and lean, Gregg was there to greet them. He had worked most of the night and had only time to collect each competitors' "secret stash" and spread them out on the communal table. The say he ate an entire Twinkie before saying anything to t.v. people. They've got it all on tape. So, now three weeks into the deprive-a-thon, Gregg from Wisconsin decides that he'd like to have that million dollars now. Like, right now. Not a penny more, not a penny less. Just the million that they were going to give to one of them anyway. He assured them they everyone was perfectly safe, just bound, gagged and hidden. He had decided to take the "out wit" part of the show's creed to somewhere near the limit. And no one was hurt, because he was true to his word. It was just that it'd become a hostage situaltion. He also asked that no new boats come to the island right now, and that they gas up one of the production crews' big power launches. As it turns out, the pirate chest of cash that they showed at every "council meeting" was the really a million dollars in cash. Somewhere out there in the South Pacific, rides a 25 year old kid from Kenosha with a million dollars cash and one very nice boat. I bet he's growing a beard. May 4th
2006
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Ten Seconds I think we all might seriously benefit from converting to whatever religion this guy goes by. May 3rd
2006
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Transmission Eighteen layers, twenty hours, and a lingering sense of unease.
May 2nd
2006
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