Speak the Truth and Shame the Devil

My 3 year old hasn't been saddled with life's censor filter yet, so she's liable to say anything. She doesn't differentiate between an adult and a child and either she likes you, or you're "stinky, nasty and terrible."

"I don't like that boy," she'll say well within earshot of a 50-something year old Asian man in the vegetable aisle at BJs one recent Saturday morning, pointing directly at him less I mistake exactly who she's talking about.

"Why not, Amaya?" I ask while lowering her arm and removing her index finger from practically off of the man's nose.

"Because he's stinky, nasty & terrible."

With adults, the truth tends to be fuzzy. "I never had sexual relations with that woman," or "I never took steroids, er...knowingly..."

Brutal honesty, sadly, is reserved for children under 5, old people and crazies.

It’s said that children and old people are more truthful because they are closer coming from and going back to the Lord.

Okay, I just made that up.

My grandmother, some 2 or 3 years before her death did away completely with her censor filter. At a cousin’s wedding, she beckoned me from across the room. I went to her table, sat down and she said “Ooh, Askia. Don’t head-butt me.”

I wondered how long she wanted to tell me that. For how long exactly did she fear my noggin?

We now live in a debilitating politically correct, everyone-makes-the-team-whether they-suck-or-not, generation.

In the 1950’s through the early 70s, the happy meal kid-sized portion was the regular adult sized meal in fast food places. Now we’re supersized and soft.

When we were kids there was always the one fat kid. If there were two of them, they’d naturally gravitate toward each other and be friends. Now there are whole classes of chubbies; fat and delusional children.

“You made the team chubby, you’re good!”

No! Put down the Playstation and Xbox remote; take the pizza and soft drink out your mouth. Here’s an apple and a basketball. Go outside and play!

Parents lie to their children all the time. You think I’m lying?

I only watch the first 2 or 3 weeks of American Idol. In those brutal first episodes of the new season, you’ll always see someone saying my family/mother/father says I sound like Brian McKnight…Celine Dione…Luther Vandross…Whitney Houston then proceed to give the most crackheaded, bizarre performance imaginable. I love seeing people being told the truth for the first time in their lives. That pained expression etched in their face is so…honest. Why would their family let that happen to them? It turns out the judges are the first people in their life to tell them the truth.

Just telling them the truth in the first place would have avoided all that. Even if you have to chain the front door and fight them; ending up with them on the floor with you on top of them with your knee in their back while their flailing and crying for Paula and Randy, so be it.

I could imagine the conversation with my mother if I told her I was going on American Idol.

First time: “You sound real stupid. Come over here and let me feel your head.”
Second time: “Shut it right now, boy!”
Third time: “Boy, I will kill you where you stand you embarrass me like that!”

Thanks, ma. Seriously.

Side note: You ever catch yourself lying for no apparent reason? You have absolutely nothing to gain from your lie. You’re like “Why did I just say that? Now every time I see this person I have to remember I told them I’ve been to Indonesia…”

Having a censor filter should be optional. I like to treat mine as if it has an on and off switch. If you have it off all the time and you’re not under 5 or over 70 then you are a crazy person and it’s not going to be good for you. So you have to remember to put it back in the “on” position every so often lest you be wrestled to the ground and straitjacketed. Having your censor filter in the “off” position is especially good when dealing with over-preachy people, solicitors and idiots. It also serves another practical benefit. Stress develops when you say “yes” to something when you should have said “no”. It’s also timesaving.

“Wanna come hang out with us?”
“No.” No explanation necessary. But if they want to know why and press you for an explanation, just tell them that they’re stinky, nasty and terrible. I promise you you’ll be rid of that person.

That guy that literally stinks on your job? The one that, when he walks past, living things like plants, flowers and small animals start wilting and dying in his wake? While it’s very difficult broaching the conversation with someone about their personal hygiene, it’s a lot more humane and less embarrassing then say, giving him a soap-on-a-rope as a Christmas gift as his Secret Santa in front of the whole company. Seen it done.

But that’s just me thinking out loud.

A healthy, confident ego is not the same thing as being an arrogant egomaniac with a false sense of entitlement.

The mother who cuts the line in the Scholastic store in SOHO and starts berating the young woman behind the counter who is the only person working in the store at the time because she -the mother- can’t find the new Clifford the Big Red Dog doll for her 3 year old Timmy and wants her to stop helping the other customers and come from behind the counter and help her now! is a lot different from the father who goes to Sears after work and is expected to patiently wait while these 2 male chicken head dudes behind the counter discuss their weekend in explicit details, finally gets to him and gives him the wrong information and sends him through the store on some wild goose chase and pushes him to the limit of grabbing them by the collar and threaten to put his foot up their ass if they don’t pay more attention to their job and his preteen daughter melts in embarrassment of the scene he’s creating and…

But I digress…

Imagine how different things would be if society deemed it perfectly acceptable if you hauled off and punched someone in the face for any over the line infraction? Not talking about the simple day-to-day mistakes like stepping on someone’s shoe on the train; but for doing something really stupid or egregious. Like when you’re driving behind someone and you can’t get around them and they’re driving like they have absolutely nowhere to go and the light’s about to change and they slow down at the yellow making you sit and have to wait for another light to change? It should be totally acceptable to get out of your car, politely tap on their window and just deck them in the temple area.

Again, just me thinking out loud.

A punch in the temple region, in my world, has been whittled down to the “Hey?!” pop, a more realistic, less painful, more accepted version; a second tier - if you will.

Sometimes you have to give your kids a quick “Hey?!” pop to get them back to their senses real quick. That’s when they’re doing something crazy and you’re trying to talk them off the ledge and they’re just not understanding the whole vocal thing.

That’s when you get up on them and say “Hey?!” and just pop them in the back of the head one time for emphasis.

No one’s above a good “Hey?!” pop.

Most athletes are pampered their whole life and never hear the truth from their family members and friends looking to ride their fame to their own financial freedom.

Imagine if Latrell “I can’t feed my family off $5 million dollars a year” Sprewell had someone in his life that loved him enough to tell him the truth?

“Hey Latrell?!” Pop! “You’re being a real jerk. Smarten up! You’re about to lose EVERYTHING.”

Always keep in mind life’s circle: first, you’re children to your parents. Then you’re parents to your children. Then you’re parents to your parents. Then you’re children to your children.

So keep your “Hey?!” pops to a minimum with your kids; for those absolutely necessary moments. One day, you will be in the ‘children to your children’ phase of your life and your now adult children might return the favor with a new version they call the “Hey, Pop?!” pops!

And that wouldn’t be good.

In fact, it would be quite stinky, nasty and terrible.

Dust in the Wind

We were all skinny, active kids living in the projects with no frame of reference to let us know we were considered poor; loving life in blissful naïveté. When me and the boys weren’t playing baseball, football or basketball and long before Atari and Playstation came along to steal our imagination, we created games on the block with cans and made do playing manhunt in bushes.
In the days before texting…when we’d actually go outside and knock on a friend’s door to see if they could come outside and play.

If I had money, we had money - even if it meant splitting a 20 cents Twin Pop three ways.
Before bike helmuts and child seats we’d pile in the back of our uncle’s station wagon unrestrained - at times with the back window pushed all the way out for air circulation - bouncing to and fro, landing on each other and squealing in delight.

Before BCW, when parents were allowed to whip you with anything within arms distance we’d hear each others wailing through paper thin walls; we'd step over each others drunken fathers in the hallway - the rare few of us who had our fathers around.

We had our secrets and each others backs but were never ashamed of them.

Today I’m quick to tell my kids to never judge a school mate. You never know what life is like in their home.

Looking back on those days, our parents were children themselves. Indeed, in most of my childhood memories, I’m now older than my mother was.

We grew up in a 3 story brick building. There were 3 apartments on each floor, A, B and C. Living in the middle B apartment, our windows were in the middle of the A apartment where Lisa lived and the C apartment where Lily lived. Rocky lived above me in B.
When our mother’s called us inside at night, me and Rocky and sometimes Lily would hang out our windows and talk; if one of us was on punishment that day we’d relay to them the days activities. One of us, it seems, was always on punishment.

In the A apartment I spoke to Lisa. Lisa was my first crush. She was also, at times, my personal cheerleader. When I told her in the first month of the ninth grade that it was my intention that year to win the Jeff Petrak Memorial Award trophy for best athlete at graduation, she reacted with her usual Lisa-ness "Yeah, maybe in the next life." I knew though it was her way of spurring me on.

When I created an account on Facebook earlier this year, Lisa and Rocky were the reasons I did so. I was excited to find Rocky after some time. We caught up, she’s doing well and I was happy to hear that. There was absolutely no love loss; we both agreed that life gets in the way.

There would be no such luck with Lisa.

I found a mutual friend on Facebook who told me that Lisa had died two years earlier from brain tumors. It was like a sucker-punch to the gut; like smashing my Big Wheel into that concrete wall all over again.

I remember we had a picture together, me with Lisa and Rocky, from 9th grade graduation. I won that trophy and Lisa seemed more excited than I was. I remember her hand being on my shoulder in the picture. I had my mother send me a copy.

There was so much catching up to do. I hadn't seen you in 20 years, how did your life turn out? Were you happy?

I wanted to ask you if you remembered when I was going to fight Kendall from our 7th grade class. Kendall was new to our school. One day in first period I did or said something to egg him on and he just looked at me and said “three o’clock.”

My day in school was miserable from that point. I had gotten in plenty of fights, but Kendall was one of those country kids that was big for no other reason than just to be big for bigs sake. And country strong.

How long does a broken jaw take to heal? Does a raw t-bone steak on a black eye really help like it does on the Flinstones?

I remember you looking at me with your patented “good job” smirk and shaking your head. I showed up at three o’clock - with about 30 other school mates who were apparently anxious to see my blood on the outside of my body - because getting a beat down is a lot less painful than running home. Then for some miraculous reason Kendall's mother picked him up from school and we were friends from that day on. God protects babies and fools, so they say.

You and I walked home that day and didn't say a word to each other. You punched me in the arm halfway home and we both knew exactly what that meant so we just laughed.

Would you remember that?

I wanted to ask you to put on your thinking cap and see if you’d remember way back, back when we were three years old. I was in daycare and your mother would pick me up and I’d stay at your house until my mother came home from work. One day at daycare I had escaped and was hiding in some bushes, found a straw, stuck it in the ground and in my infinite wisdom started to suck up the dirt. I started throwing up immediately and was sent to the nurse’s station. There I was in the nurse’s station, belly down on a table with a thermometer sticking in my butt when your mother walked in with you holding her hand. I was mortified. I remember you folding your arms and giving me that patented, sarcastic, Lisa “good job” smirk. Even at three.

Would you remember that?

It’s crushing to hear of a friends’ death; even more when you didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. But I never loved you any less. Sometimes life gets in the way.

And I want you to know that I’m still looking forward to getting together and catching up with you.

But it’ll have to wait until the next life.

A few words on Michael...

There's a scene that takes place in Jabba the Hutt’s palace in the movie Return of the Jedi, when this huge monster called the Rancor is unleashed on Luke Skywalker but Luke turns the table and kills the Rancor instead. Then its caretakers, two huge shirtless, hairy men embrace each other and sob uncontrollably over the loss of their pet.

The Michael Jackson coverage for the first day or so has teetered on uncomfortable and bizarre.

I saw this one dude in California, an uber fan, one of those guys that gets the operation to look like Michael Jackson but didn’t realize that Mike would go on to have several more operations and this guy couldn’t keep up financially with Michael so now he’s stuck in 2009 looking like the Michael Jackson from the Bad album?

That guy.

He was standing on some street in a pose like he wanted to break out in the Billie Jean routine but was just too distraught to perform so he just stood frozen in the first move of the routine: hand on his hat, glove hand extended, legs spread apart. And he just stood there. And people were coming from all directions just to console that guy. And the only emotion I could muster from the whole scene was "Seriously?"

Then of course every D lister has to be interviewed about how they felt about the passing of Michael Jackson. Thank you CNN. I was very moved and interested to hear how Spencer from The Hills was coping with his grief. It seems he will recover. Your interview with singer Aaron Neville was equally embarrassing:

“So when was the last time you saw Michael?”

“We never actually met…” Aaron Neville then admitted. "But I felt like I knew him. I loved his music sooo much…”

I never owned a Beat It jacket. Never wore one white glove. Never had a Jheri Curl or tried to dance like him. Well, not in public. I am what I consider to be a "regular" fan. Someone that really appreciated Michael Jackson's music and artistry since childhood. As kids, we'd rent the Jackson Five albums from the library. Record players didn’t have a rewind button so we'd have to literally pick up the needle and put it back to the part of the song where you didn't understand the lyrics until you got them.

In an interview a few years back Michael Jackson referred to Stevie Wonder as a "musical prophet." I believe the same could be said of him. His genius was seemingly effortless though you know he worked hard to attain his goal of perfection.

True story: I saw someone last week in a club all decked out like Jody Watley: the huge hoop earrings, the skirt over black leggings, big hair, and denim jacket. Very "Don't You Want Me."

“Hey Ms. Watley," I said.

"Excuse me?”

“Hey Jody Watley,” I said again, this time louder over the music.

“My name’s Evelyn. Who’s Jody Watley?”

“What year were you born?”

“1988.”

“Never mind.”

I couldn’t explain Thriller to you if you weren’t there. The album was a monster that took off on a life of its own like no other album before or after by ANYONE. Even the B sides were hits. It seemed like a new song from Thriller was released like every 6 months keeping the album itself on the charts for years.

The Police came out with their classic album Synchronicity which included the hit single "Every Breath You Take" the same year Thriller was released.

Sorry, Sting.

That’s the equivalent of someone, another famous person perhaps, dying the same day as Michael.

Sorry, Farrah.

Farrah Fawcett's passing, sadly, became a mere footnote in the whole MJ brouhaha. CNN's Larry King had a whole show dedicated to her, with interviews lined up with close friends and family, and cancelled that whole show and dedicated it instead to the passing of Michael Jackson. Farrah’s death was relegated to being mentioned as a mere afterthought.

“Oh, and 70’s icon Farrah Fawcett died earlier today too…”

But that's what happens when a person could say in all seriousness they were going to perform a sold out concert in Bucharest. Where exactly is Bucharest and what language do they speak there?

What is it about a single soul that could touch over a billion people? What kind of gift is that? Or is it a curse? To be sure, both sides have valid arguments. It was reported that the internet traffic searching news of his death on Twitter, Facebook and Google caused the internet to crash.

Who else would demand that kind of attention?

You know the old adage there’s a thin line between genius and insanity? I’m sure I was a minority but I always considered Michael Jackson somewhat normal in a genius kind of way. How many geniuses were considered “normal?” The eternally sockless Albert Einstein certainly wasn’t considered “normal” in his time. Neither was van Gogh or the child prodigy Amadeus.

How “normal” is Prince?

Michael Jackson gets a pass for hanging with the likes of Macauley Culkin, Emmanuel Lewis and Brooke Shields; other child stars who traded in their childhood for fame.

Generous to a fault, I believe he became an all too easy target. If your son’s virginity was taken by another man wouldn’t you want your pound of flesh? Or would you rather negotiate to have a screenplay you wrote made into a movie like one father or to have a mall in Vegas shut down so you can have a Versace shopping spree like another parent demanded?

Part of his legacy is that his music touched all generations and was timeless. He made songs you could dance to with your grandmother at a wedding; songs you don’t mind your preteen daughter uploading to her Ipod. True creative artists with career longevity don’t make songs called Birthday Sex.

Unfortunately, though, even in death nothing about Michael Jackson is Black and White. The first autopsy was inconclusive, another one was ordered and the speculation will continue even after that.

The only known facts seem to be he leaves behind three children, had a mother who adored him, a family that loved him and fans worldwide that worshipped him.

And that Michael Jackson is Gone too Soon.

The Artist's Life

Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.
Do it or don't do it.
It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.

- Steven Pressfield

The Crazy Meter

I just wanted a hot dog. A chili dog to be exact. Innocent enough, right?

After dropping off my daughter to her Junior High School prom, I found myself around the corner from the original Nathan’s in Coney Island, Brooklyn. So naturally I had to stop there. Anything else would be tantamount to sacrilege. I promised myself that I’d only get something if the line wasn’t ridiculous. We pull up and it was practically empty.

It was meant to be.

So I’m waiting on the relatively short line with my nephew in tow and I hear a steady beeping. I immediately recognize it as my Crazy Radar, or CrayDar, that’s set off when a crazy person (hereafter referred to as a “Crazy”) is within 10 meters. It’s dude ahead of me in the line.

Now, it had nothing to do with the fact that he had only one strand of hair "styled" in a comb-over"; didn’t matter so much that he was wearing open toe Birkenstock sandals showcasing yellow toenails practically scraping the ground; wasn’t even because of his Capri-like army fatigue pants topped off with a Hawaiian shirt so small and tight it could be mistaken for his daughter's midriff. Nothing to do with any of those things, per se.

He just reeked crazy.

So after attempting to order something off the menu - like Beef Wellington or something equally absurd - does he just wait for his food in silence? No. Crazy doesn't do that.

“They profiled Nathan’s on Food Network yesterday so I just had to get here tonight,” says prospective Crazy Person, attempting to make conversation. It started off sanely enough, you know, something to reel you in to question if your CrayDar might have been set off accidentally.

The Golden Rule with how to treat a Crazy is the same when dealing with a rabietic dog: Don’t make eye contact.

For a millisecond I break the rule and sure enough Crazy launches into some absurd, unrelated, irrelevant - “how the hell did we get here?” - tirade about his Battleship being sunk and the price of pomegranates in Sheepshead Bay.

Rule #2: Don’t ever answer back.

So now it’s clear what I’m up against so I just totally ignore him, cross my arms and start tapping my forefinger against my pursed lips and stare at the wall menu as if in deep contemplation.

Should I get the hot dog…or…the…hot…dog…?

It’s working - as the How to Deal with a Crazy manual implies it would - dude gets his order and is about to leave when I hear my nephew offer “I love pomegranate juice!” thereby encouraging the Crazy.

“I guess you don’t have one of these,” I say to my nephew motioning to my internal CrayDar as we’re getting back into the car. “You can’t buy one. You kinda like, just have to have one. It’s hard to explain. Either you have one or you don’t.”

I think you have to be born with one.

My daughter has it, the older one. The younger one might be a Crazy herself but that’s the topic of another conversation.

When my elder daughter was about 4, she’d point out peculiarities in people.

“Daddy, that man is talking to himself.”
“Of course he is, sweetheart,” I’d say, “he’s a crazy person.”

I know Crazy; been around it all my life. When I was a kid, there was local guy named Marty that was a known Crazy.

A Crazy so crazy other Crazies called him crazy, Marty was known to shout out at unsuspecting passersby “You don’t tell me what to do!”

When his second floor apartment caught fire, Marty went out to his window ledge in an apparent attempt to jump to safety - nothing wrong with that. The problem was he used the window ledge as leverage to jump upward, making his head parallel to the third floor, thereby adding an extra 10 feet to the drop. So then a 20 foot leap turned into a 30 foot plunge.

“Of course he did,” I said to myself as Marty plummeted to the ground breaking both ankles.

While I may have a successful CrayDar, I’m also a very potent magnet, as well.

A Crazy person on the train will shimmy their way through a crowded, rush-hour subway car to find me and ask me some insane question; a Crazy on a packed sidewalk in London will stop only me and ask me for the time - even as we stand in front of Big Ben.

I’m not even safe in the hospital.

During my only ever hospital stay, I’m IV’d up and enjoying that I at least had my own room. That is until the third night. At about 2AM they wheel him into the room. He’s a young guy, late 20s probably and he’s hunched down low in the wheelchair reminding me of when Tupac got shot and still showed up to his trial a couple days later, albeit wheelchair bound.

Anyway, so he gets to his bed and belying the pathetic figure he was less than a second ago, he suddenly leaps out of the wheelchair and dives into his bed. Then he just lays there in a fetal position and starts moaning until the nurse puts the covers over him and draws the curtain closed between us.

“OK. Borderline batty,” I say to myself as the nurse leaves the room shaking her head.

About an hour and a half later, I’m awakened by CrayDar and look up to find Crazy standing over me.

“Did I wake you?” he asks holding two 8x11 frames. I look at my watch and it’s 3:30am.

“What can I do for you, Crazy?” I ask politely.

“I want to show you my Degrees,” he says.

I wasn’t the least bit angry or upset. Nor was I surprised or taken aback that a total stranger would want to show me his Degrees in a dark hospital room past 3 in the morning. Of course he’d do that. Anything less would be out of character for a Crazy.

The next day, he’s visited by a beautiful woman. This girl was breathtaking. I assumed it was his cousin or some relative until she grabbed his face and kissed him long and hard. Then he gave me this “I bet you want to know how I pulled this one off” grin while slowly closing the curtain, not breaking eye contact with me until the curtain was fully drawn.

And I did want to know.

So I asked him.

“I was suing someone for stealing this patent I created for this video game and needed a lawyer to represent me,” he explained. “I contacted her firm, she represented my case and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Of course he pulled that bad, successful chick.

One thing about Crazy people - they have absolutely no fear of failure. Other guys would see this beautiful and seemingly successful woman and be paralyzed with fear to approach her. But Mr. Crazy… he just comes by and probably starts in on the middle of some far-fetched bizarro conversation, she thinks he’s funny, he invites her to a comic book convention or something and the rest, as they say, is history. And she’s about to be history too, I assumed. She was probably vulnerable at the time. Crazy charmed her, she came to visit him out of a false sense of duty, but soon she’ll tire of all his absurdity and be done with him.

“So how long have you guys been together?” I ask my new crazy friend.

“Me and my fiancé? Hmmm…about…”

Of course she’s gonna marry him, I think to myself.

Of course!

Do What You Do When You Did What You Did To Me

Jermaine didn't like his name. It made him think of Jermaine Jackson and he was no Jermaine Jackson. It was also ironic because his last name happened to be Jackson. But who he really despised was Randy Jackson. He of the skin-tight, striped pants that resembled an esemble worn by a man who was attracted to other men.

But I, your humble narrator, digress.

Jermaine was in love. He came to this realization when, while tying his new polka dot ascot and carrying on a casual conversation with himself in the third person, he mentioned quite unexpectedly "I believe Jermaine Jackson is in love."

This new nugget of information both frightened and thrilled him at the same time as he was not dating and had zero prospects. He tweaked his hardened nipples with ardent fervor as his mind wandered toward the future. Apparently there was hope. He left his duplex basement apartment that morning on a mission. For he was a man in love with someone somewhere somehow and he was about to find her some way.

"You!" he bellowed at the first woman he saw on the street. He stuck his index finger in her face an inch from her nose. "Come, let's have some pretty babies together. I took the day off."

"I met you before" she mentioned calmly. "Yes, your name is on the tip of my pleasure giving tongue. Don't you have some has-been, Las Vegasy name? Conway Twitty? Wayne Newton? One of those guys who does the thing with the white tiger? We took a knitting course together and I remember a bunch of us getting together afterward for the sole purpose of laughing at your name and outfit."

"I am Jermaine Jackson. Let's dispense with the gettin' to know you chit-chat and get to the business at hand. Come. My duplex basement apartment is within walking distance."

"What would your husband say?"
"Husband?" Jermaine blushed. The sneer on her face told Jermaine he was being insulted but he was too smitten with the thought of having an actual mate to be bothered with such semantics. "No, my lady, I am single. Single and free to make love the whole afternoon away like a drunken, wretched Kaola Bear of the Australian outback. Full of eucalyptus leaves smelling like hot Halls Menthol Cough Drops melted all over your naked, humping kaboshka!"

"I have to be honest with you. While your offer sounds very romantic and I'm basically taken aback by your...poetry, I really don't see myself being with a man whose clothes I'd want to borrow when everything was done."

"What's a blouse here or a pair of thongs there when we have what the world would die for? Love! Unabashed, hard core, hip thrusting, musty, post coital, you sleep on the wet spot, sticky, gooey love?"

That was unexpected. She was at once taken aback and at the same time repulsed about having to sleep on the wet spot. However, she sensed he was sincere and it looked like they wore the same size shoe.

"I will take you up on your offer Sigmund - "
"It's Jermaine."
"...and spend the next 10 minutes with you in unabashed bliss in your duplex basement flat. My name is Reebie but you can call me LaToya if you're nasty!"

"Tito it is then", Jermaine said proudly, hooking his arm into hers and leading the way. "And you have no idea how nasty I really am..."

"Oh, Jermaine!" she blushed as he led the way.

They made passionate love all afternoon and resumed in the evening. Reebie left with a newfound respect for spontaneity along with 2 handbags, a Pillbox hat and an unworn Irish kilt.

Jermaine looked up and watched as her satiated ankles passed by his window. He was definitely in love. Or was he just hungry? He was confused.

"Let's order some takeout Jermaine and set the record straight once and for all."

He ordered Chinese and while feasting knew it was definitely love. An hour later he was confused again.

"One things for sure, when what's her face comes back tomorrow I'll know for sure where this is all headed. And I'll have some lotion ready for those ankles. Damn!"

Period. End Of Story.

When my daughter was two years old she had something very important she wanted to discuss with me. Her eyes were large, her look was serious and she started with "When I get big, when I turn three..." I don't remember what came after that.

Now, she's almost 12 and at the stage in her life when "little girls become women" as they say. The other night she went to the bathroom and called her mother in after some time. Now, I fully understand that this is part of life and it was bound to happen any day but at the particular moment I was confronted with it head on I really wasn't in the mood. I think the Yankees were losing or it was a Monday - I don't remember - I just wasn't prepared for it. Another thing that really bothered me about this was that they didn't seem at all mortified by this. In fact, if I were to thesaurisize their reaction to this morbid, tragic event, I'd have to use the word "giddy".

Is it me or is it them?

It's them, right?

My uncle Bill is the father of 3 girls. Whenever I go to him or any father for advice that's raised teenage girls it's like talking to a war veteran that fought at 'Nam. You bring up the subject and suddenly the mood changes. They get fidgety; start sweating. They don't want to talk about it. All they know is they survived and some of their friends did not. They kind of turn away from you, their voice quivers then trails off and you hear something faint like "Lost some good friends..."

Have I done enough? Have I told her enough about strangers? Even people she knows? Did I demonize everyone enough to where she trusts no one?

"Go to the cops, but don't really trust them either."

A background check or knowing someone a long time doesn't factor in opportunity.

I have a boy. There are some pitfalls there too. Boys aren't infallible. But it's a whole different ball game. Probably a double standard. Because if my son turns 17 and he's dating a 28 year old I might give a quick thought to what her intentions are but I also might give him a high-five. Switch that around to my daughter and they'll be finding body parts. What does a 28 year old man want with a 17 year old girl? Exactly. A hand here. A sawed off leg there. Chris Rock said that a fathers' only job is to keep his daughter off the stripper pole.

A couple years back I started writing a short story where a man goes to a strip club, goes to put a dollar in the g-string of a sexy dancer and realizes when she gets closer that it's actually his daughter. About that part I remembered I had a daughter and got too angry to finish or ever want to return to it. It started out being really funny though.

Times have certainly changed. In post-9/11 New York City, gun permits are increasingly hard to obtain. But you could always get a license for a rifle and rifles hold bullets and bullets go through guys trying to get with your daughter.

That's all I'm sayin'.