I Said Yes! Why?

       Why? Why did I say yes to her?

Where were we before I interrupted the story of Markie D for the long pause while I traveled to Malawi with Water Wells for Africa.

Oh, yeah—we took a side trip into the future for the harrowing but true life adventure of grownup Mark—who had to fight off an intruder and found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle in Paris. I reported that crazy incident, just to show that you can leave Venice, but can't take the Venice out of you.

Going back in time to 1970, the next 4 years at Saint Monica high school was not like a new invasion of Venice had suddenly spilled into Santa Monica—by no means. 

My grandmother taught at Saint Monicas and my older brothers had already carried the Venice virus into Santa Monica for about 10 years already! We had already loosed the infection into Santa Monica, Topanga, Ojai, Malibu, Ocean Park, Mar Vista, Culver City, Salton Sea, Kings River, Detroit, Idaho, Northern California and all parts between.  

September 1970.  The hippie hordes at my house subscribed to the doctrine of Antiestablishmentarianism, which means they boycotted and protested against any kind of political or adult authority—i.e. "The Man." The Vietnam war granted them permission to rebel against everything. 

This included oppressive parents (or parents they view as oppressive) who still believed in the antiquated rules for acceptable social behavior.  In March, John and Yoko Ono, had staged their "Bed-In For Peace" following the "Love-In" two years before that. 

NOW, everything was okay—Sex, drugs, Rock and Roll. I was still a little young for sex and drugs, but I loved my Rock and Roll, and felt sorry for my parents. I felt sorry that they were marginalized by the ones who felt had marginalized them and had empathy that their authority had been blatantly disregarded and disrespected. I was torn. I so desperately wanted to fit in with the "Wolf Pack" and was so willing to be tortured by them just to feel like I belonged, yet didn't want to totally give myself completely over to hating my parents.  

Okay, here is what I'm trying to say. I'm pretty much a looser and don't know what world I live in. Do I listen to the "Wolf Pack" brothers (who hate me) or do I listen to my mom which will make my brothers even more mad at me—inviting even more physical harm?

I felt like Uncle Fester (from The Munsters) as if I had a giant clamp on my head with my tiny brain stuck in the middle.

So, when mom says she went to Hensheys and bought me a new shirt for my first day of high school, I had empathy for her and said, "Yes." 

No one listened to her anymore and so I thought it was only right to show respect for her.                                                      
                                           Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid

Ugh. Against every impulse; against any chance of belonging (which I so desperately wanted), I said yes to the multi-colored shirt that had a zipper on the back collar. She thought it was cool and I didn't want to hurt her feelings even though I knew that I could be persecuted for showing up in it on my first day—in a shirt that wasn't even fit for a girl.  

I could put it on, wear it out of the house with a smile and take it off somewhere in between—she would never have to know.  I thought scheming up a plan.          

Dang it. I got caught leaving the house by a brother who laughed at me, pointed at the hideous shirt and called me a 'tard. 

My mocked "coat of many colors" had a turtle neck with a gold zipper - DOWN THE BACK!

Maybe Chewbacca was right. Maybe I was a bit retarded. Who would wear a shirt like this—after all it had a round, golden ring-thingy attached to the zipper-pull.  

    Nothing about this shirt made since to me.

I felt like John the Baptist—Again. 

(Here I am pictured to the right confused by a previous clothing malfunction - submitting the to fox stole and a bloody head on a paper plate).    

It turned out to be a blistering 80 degrees that day and I refused to take off my stolen Saint Mark's uniform sweater—a sweater that did not hide the collar and zipper from hell. 

AND WHY DID I CHOOSE TO wear this colorful plaid-shirt WITH PANTS that had colorful STRIPES. I looked like a dork from another planet. I deserved every bit of ridicule that I received that day.  

Putting her nose in the air, a senior girl came up to me and said, "Didn't anyone ever show you how to dress? Never put stripes and plaids together you dork." 

No I thought. No one ever took the time to talk fashion sense with me. My family only makes fun of me and me tells me I'm retarded.  I'm an orphan raised by the Wolf pack.  Idiot.    






















Our front yard










                                                Their front yard

Their backyard 










                              Our backyard

I said, "I'm wearing this shirt to make my mom happy. She feels bad about her parenting skills, because no one listens to her anymore. She wants to compare our family to the incredible Lennons who live across the street and is suffering an identity crisis of her own. So I am wearing this shirt—despite the criticism I know that I would receive today because of love. You're so stupid" I said. "Don't you know anything about kindness or about love?" 

There I did it. She spun on her heal and walked away.  

I'm 14. It's my first day of high school. I am a freshmen dork cornered by a beautiful, stuck-up, senior girl—of course I didn't say those words (those words went through my head about three days later—actually about 3 weeks later—when I woke up in the middle of the night). 

The only thing that saved me so far was the kid from Saint Gerard's grammar school in Culver City who road his bike to school first day—in White Pants!  Kevin McCaffery hit an oil slick, skidded across the greasy asphalt and continued to slip across a patch of grass. Poor kid dressed to impress but looked nearly as bad as I did. He took some of the attention off of me. Thank you Kevin for crashing your bike and wearing "The Pants of Many Colors." 

Listen, I had been in love with Andrea since 5th grade and haven't had the courage so far to look into her eyes and say anything about my feelings. She's probably going to give up on me. I don't blame her.  




I had about as much chance with the girls as Philip.                                                                                                                                                   Philip was one of the strays my mom took in who lived in one of the rooms on the third floor. 

This shirt all-but-sealed my fate with the ladies for the next four years of high school.







What was wrong with me? 

I hid out the best I could for most of the day and even skipped the meeting after school for everyone interested in playing water polo.   

I had to take the Big Blue Bus (the 3 Lincoln) all the way back to Venice, which would be crammed full of  mean high school kids. What was I to do?  How do I face the cool kids and the cute snob in her hush puppies and low-rider jeans. 


Epic fail, I forgot to bring the extra shirt.
I will either have to:
                                  kill myself
                                  mug an 11-year-old kid and steal the shirt of his back     
                                        or 
                                  hitchhike

All three were out—I didn't want to die—not yet. I wasn't going to rob a kid and I couldn't hitchhike with THIS STUPID SHIRT.  I was a doomed, "retarded" 14-year-old and it was only the first day of high school.  


I needed a new plan.  

I snuck into the janitors closet that was filled with brooms, with the smell of moldy mops and with a thousand rolls of toilet paper.  I skipped 6 period and began undressing. 

This was the only thing I could come up with. Unfortunately the door open at exactly the wrong time AND it wasn't the Janitor. 

Who was it?     Will Markie make it back to Venice with any sort of dignity at all? 

Next time. 


P.S. Even though this combination pictured above is terrible—this is not the shirt I was talking about (turn this shirt around backwards put a gold zipper on the back collar and you can pretty-much get the idea).                
      

The Beatles The Blacklist and Breaking Bad

(Continued from previous post)



No... I'm not trying to bow to the altar of current trends, but only to show how the genesis of these future trends began some 45 years ago right on my short street, known as Harding Avenue in Venice California just at the time the "bromance" known as the Fab Four (i.e. the Bealtes) was in the early stages of breaking up.

Ringo was ticked that he wasn't given as much credit as he felt he deserved and was forced to take a back seat to Paul and John on the album covers.  John was having a love crisis of his own and had divorced Cynthia and married Yoko Ono earlier this year... and was still trying to figure it all out, which only served to erode the cohesiveness of the small tribe of the famous Four from Britain.

The guy who wrote the songs and sang about love seemed to not to know anything more about love as I did...a 13 year-old who had absolutely no clue. As I mentioned before; though, I was part of a large tribe, I was partially numb inside.. running off of the fixes of adrenaline that knew nothing of true affection.

Today was the day I had hoped to make progress in the discovery of what it meant to feel love. Seems like every day on KRLA I heard that song... "Love is all you need"  and the Beatles told me it was easy... but I think John is lying and I figured that it might be harder than it looks - obviously he was clueless.  

"Love... Love... Love...  It's easy" yeah right!

Returning from detention, I walked down Harding feeling like I had failed in my vain attempt to make my own affections known at the water-faucet incident at the girl's corner of the schoolyard at Saint Mark's Catholic grammar school. I rounded the corner by the burned down "Fraternity" house after screaming at Sister Schultz (a conversation that was all in my head) feeling a bit redeemed and withdrawing into the safe place of  my mental illness that my Viking Brothers had convinced me was retardation. If it was, it was okay, because in there, I was happy.

Whistling "All you need is love" I was headed anywhere, except home.  I was in no mood for a "template" (click here) Chewbacca and the Template of Doom , no mood for electrocution nor was I in any mood for some of my older brother's crazy antics and diabolical forms of sibling torture. I needed the break after being laughed at by all the girls in the eight grade class having to spend a hours worth of prison time. Looking to find Tommy or Jeffery or Ricky or Denny I forgot that being detained for the horrible hour - meant that Ulrich and his Angry-Small-Man-Crew, known as the "H" club, had already made it home from Saint Monica's High School and were hidden behind Frank Nargie's huge, green Mopar secretly siphoning gas. Either my presence shocked them or embarrassed them or startled them or just plain made them feel guilty or something... and seeing that I was already on "The Blacklist"  of the "H" club - they had no hesitation in ambushing me from where the three of them laid in wait behind Frank's car.

Ulrich and I had an arraignment about his paper route.  I was forced to delivered the newspapers, and he got all the money. He was pissed off that I was late today and he and his three cronies had to do the route all by themselves and vowed that I would have to pay with my life (poor Ulrich had to do his own paper route today - somebody call the WAHmbulance).

The torture that I normally received from my other brothers was significantly different. Usually, it was experimental and I was used as a lab-rat before they employed it on the nuns at Saint Mark's or on friends (just to make sure none of them got killed). It wasn't a bad arraignment, I kind of enjoyed it in a sick way - but with Ulrich, it was conjured up from somewhere dark. His bullying always turned into a bloody street fight where I was outnumbered at least 3 to 1. It was Breaking Bad and today was no different.

Before I surprised them, I was  getting to the part in the song where it says... "She loves you... yeah, yeah, yeah" lost in fond thoughts of my true love Andrea and BAM... out of nowhere I was tackled and thrown to the ground by the three angry midgets. I put up a good fight... got "monkey boy" in a head-lock chock-hold and managed to sock O' Casper Milk-Toast in the mouth when Ulrich stepped on my diminutive Adam's apple. Gasping for air, I begged for mercy and pleaded with him to get his foot off of my wind pipe... to which he snarled and retorted in disgust, "Oh it's always about you!" and kicked me until I let go of Monkey-Boy, to which I acquiesced.

Sure, I had some cuts and bruises... but had learned  how to tune out the physical pain and limped home - fearing like I was going down  the rabbit hole...It was as if I was sliding down a slippery slope that was like the story of Pinocchio in reverse where I was becoming less and less human...and needed love to save me. I was afraid that the more I withdrew into my own little world... and the more emotionally numb I became - the sooner I would stop being human and the more I would become a Zombie or Robot or a lifeless shell - incapable of ever knowing what love is.  




I avoided the Veloci-Rooster, stealthily managed to avoid the herb-smoking hippies and quietly navigated my way up the stairs to my room without further detection.


In silence, I cuddled with my beagle and prayed to the universe - begging for mercy that I would not become a monster.  The dog kept silent and stared into my eyes and let me know I was not alone in a big house filled with lots of unfeeling and uncaring bodies.  






   

CHEWBACCA and The Template of Doom

For all of you around the world who are joining Markie D's journey through adolescence, you can see that this is much more than the iconic, How I survived Catholic School...but rather, how this poor little guy survived at all.
              Thank you for joining me!
These 100% true stories take place in the seed bed of the tumultuous 60's cultural revolution in America.  My mother-in-law warned me, "Markie D, aren't you afraid of what people in other countries might think of America?" My reaction is, "They might actually want to know what was taking place over here at this time in history!" 

The year is 1966, John Lennon just declared that the Beatles were "Bigger than Jesus," long hair was in and all the kids were quoting Captain Kirk (from Star Trek) "Beam me up Scotty."

The United States and the Soviet Union were like two fifth graders in a schoolyard standoff in something called the Cold War. 

The Civil Rights movement was in full swing, rioting and Viet Nam Protest was happening all over the country. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Markie D was 10-years-old and in fifth grade... but to understand his psychosis, you probably need to go back in the blog and read about the "The Zoo," "Salton Sea" and "The Hamper."  When Mrs. D. wasn't teaching school at Saint Marks, she came home and locked herself in her bedroom and watched episodes of Bonanza, I love Lucy, Bewitched and The Beverley Hillbillies (and of course got her dose of the Lennon Sisters on the Lawrence Welk Show every Saturday night). Meanwhile the Wolf Pack (that's Mark's older brothers) were calling the shots at the Dahlin family asylum.  They were creative, intelligent, mischievous beyond imagination and totally unrestrained. HELLO?

We left off last time...with Markie punching poor Billy in the face and was now fearing the consequences of the wrath of Mr. Lennon or that Billy might join Ulrich's "Small-Men Army of Anarchy." 

Having barely survived the first day of Fifth Grade in Sister Godzilla's class, Markie D was about to discover THE MOST TERRIFYING NEWS OF HIS LIFE on Tuesday.  It wasn't about the threat of nuclear warfare or Viet Nam, it was something far worst, it was about his second oldest brother's college schedule (which had everything to do with what happened in the school yard at the end of lunch time to poor Michael C). 

Markie D ran home for lunch, saw a snake in the palm tree next to the Smith's house, which he knew that had escaped from the attic cages of his old, turn-of-the-century 3 story home. It was not the rattlesnake that put the entire neighborhood on high alert for the past week...so Markied D wrestled the gardersnake from the palm fronds and took it home.

When Markie D descended the stairs it was like a cold chill that blew in horror movies just before the knife repeatedly stuck it unsuspecting victim. Bjorn (another made up name to protect the guilty), stood in the direct path between the service stairs and the toaster.

Markie rounded the corner and Bjorn's eyes lit up and a crooked smile broke across his face like that of the Grinch when he looked down on Whoville after stealing all the presents. The Terrifying News was that Bjorn, now in college, had Tuesday and Thursdays off during Markie's lunch hour.

From the look that Bjorn gave...Markie knew he was in trouble...he just didn't know how much at the moment. Besides the fact that there was 8 years between them, Bjorn was tall and Markie was small. Bjorn a hairy-hippy viking who towered above 6 feet and Markie was the smallest boy in fifth grade - at barely over 4 feet and not more than 70 lbs dripping wet.

Mark gulped when Bjorn asked him if he knew what a "template" was. He knew it was a loaded question and attempted to throw out positive pheromones, like he tried to do with the attack rooster in the backyard.

"A template is a plastic thing you draw around, right?"  Markie said... trying not to reveal his fear...as if he could will himself to be released from Bjorn's sinister tractor beam.


"No, let me show you" replied Bjorn in a threatening tone that gave away his intent.

Frozen by fear, Markie could not move. This was like one of those moments in his dreams where his feet would not comply to his demands to run away. Bjorn's grin stretch from ear to ear as he approached the little fellow who had retreated home for a piece of sourdough toast in lieu of packing a lunch this morning.  

Bjorn's words sounded as scary as the doll in the Twilight Zone when she said, "My name is Talking Tina and I don't think I like you." It was just one brother and Markie figured he could take them one at a time...but Bjorn lulled Markie D into a hypnotic sense of false security with his even, soft tones. Bjorn said, "This is a template" and grabbed Markie by this temples between his strong thumb and other fingers. Bjorn squeezed almost lifting Markied D off his feet. He squeezed and he squeezed and Markie D blacked out, went limp and crumpled to the floor... in a unconscious pile of flesh and bones. "Restless dreams I walked alone. Narrow streets of cobblestone."

Markie's head spun as he slowly faded back into consciousness... Little did he know this would be a ritual he would have to endure every Tuesday and Thursday for Bjorn's first college semester. "Hello darkness my old friend"

Clinging to the edge of the bumper pool-table for support - though semi-alert and dizzy, Markie managed to make it back to his feet.  He staggered his way past the stacks of National Geographic magazines, successfully toasted his Pioneer sourdough bread and happily headed back to Saint Marks with his warm, buttered toast.

Michael C. please don't do what your about to do next - this is just a warning: DON'T MESS WITH HIS TOAST!  Next time, apparently, poor Michael, the bully, didn't get the memo!

God was kind to Mark and gave him special coping mechanism that, though feeling alone - like a rock, an island...like Mogwli lost in the jungle and raised by the Wolf Pack...despite how he was treated or should I say mistreated...He was a happy little soul who lived in his own little world.

He'll grow up to have certain character flaws... memory loss... learning disabilities, but eventually - by the grace of God, the little guy will be Okay! :)