mkf joins a writing group

there are all sorts of reasons i've avoided doing this, not the least of which is fear of finding myself in the midst of yet one more group of civilians who will never in a million years get me--and, of course, that's exactly what's happened.

i mean, they seem really nice--mostly grandmas, single women and soccer moms, with a couple guys thrown in--they've all been writing for years, and their bio's read like a cross-section of america.  happy, shiny people all, putting their best face forward to the group.

i put it off as long as i could, but just now submitted the following:


I've given thought for the better part of a week to how i should introduce myself to my new writing group--I mean, seeing as it's my first go at this, do I go the safe route and try to ingratiate myself to all these new people who seem so nice, or do I tell the truth?  So I mixed a cocktail, because booze always seems to show me the way.

See, when I think of myself as a writer at all, I tend to think of myself as a writer in the grand tradition of Hemingway and Fitzgerald--not the talent part, of course; just the drunk part.

I never wrote growing up--not outside of school, anyway.  Nor, for that matter, did I drink much.  I only discovered these things later in life, and they came together four years ago in the form of a blog.  What started out as political ranting morphed into something else one night when a random song from my past came up on iTunes and triggered a memory at just the point when the vodka had overcome the voice of the inner critic that had always told me i couldn't, and I wrote the story.

It wasn't a great story, but it was something.  They got better over the years, or at least I like to think so.  Problem is, I dunno if the world agrees--and, for the longest time, I think I've been trying to avoid the answer to that question.

It's fairly easy for the author of an unsuccessful blog such as mine to rationalize the fact of his failure--lack of exposure, clueless clickers, Twitter-dulled attention spans--but far more difficult to escape the scrutiny and judgment of a small group of writers who are also, presumably, true readers.  Am I toiling away in obscurity because I'm merely undiscovered, fellow group members, or is it because I suck?

(It's also fairly easy to write whatever and whenever the drunken spirit moves me, but a different thing entirely to do it on demand, as I'm finding out with our first assignment.)

Thank you, Gotham Writers' Workshop (oh, and Amazon, and your too-convenient "Buy With One Click" feature), for this opportunity to maybe answer these questions--or screw you; I guess we'll see.


they're gonna love me, right?

so what happened to my guy? (concluded)

The great criticism of Mitt Romney, from both sides of the aisle, has always been that he doesn't stand for anything. He's a flip-flopper, they say, a lightweight, a cardboard opportunist who'll say anything to get elected. 

The critics couldn't be more wrong. His legendary flip-flops aren't the lies of a bumbling opportunist – they're the confident prevarications of a man untroubled by misleading the nonbeliever in pursuit of a single, all-consuming goal.  

Yet unlike other politicians, who at least recognize that saying completely contradictory things presents a political problem, Romney seems genuinely puzzled by the public's insistence that he be consistent.  It's an attitude that recalls the standard defense offered by Wall Street in the wake of some of its most recent and notorious crimes: Goldman Sachs excused its lying to clients, for example, by insisting that its customers are "sophisticated investors" who should expect to be lied to. 

i struggled with the second part of this post, because i couldn't for the life of me come up with a way to present my problems with this guy in a way that hadn't been done a thousand times before--and then matt taibbi came along and did it for me.  the above quotes from his recent, superb rolling stone piece (mashed together for my own purposes--sorry, matt) perfectly encapsulize and explain the great mitt romney conundrum with which i've wrestled for so long; namely, how a guy who is so seemingly principled in so many aspects of his life can justify, in his own mind, being such a hypocritical liar.

the answer:  he honestly doesn't think he's doing anything wrong.

and once you grasp the enormity of this truth about the man who would be king, i want you to read the referenced article--every word--and then send the link to everyone you know.  because if you think the mental disconnect which allows such breathtakingly complacent hypocrisy is limited to his policy positions, just wait'll you get a load of how this man who decries debt and promises america jobs actually did business.

*     *     *     *     *

i gotta admit, i watched with dark amusement as the ramp-up to the republican convention dovetailed perfectly with the formation of a hurricane that looked like it might turn out to be katrina's little brother. because i knew exactly what was gonna happen--hell, i could almost write the news copy in my head, accompanied by footage of white, fat-cat republicans partying in air-conditioned comfort in tampa juxtaposed with images of barack in shirtsleeves in louisiana, aiding and comforting the victims.

but, unbelievably, that didn't happen--turns out the obama campaign was so intent on chasing every last buck that it blew a golden opportunity, let mitt get there first, and ended up playing awkward catch-up after the fact.

you don't get do-overs often in life, but mr. taibbi has just handed the obama camp one on a silver platter--everything that is needed to completely destroy mitt romney in the eyes of the undecideds is contained within this article.  will they use it?  i dunno--they've played it pretty dumb so far, and they may not even need it--but i hope they do, because it's something every voting american needs to know before they step into that little booth in november.

so what happened to my guy?

[ok, enough obama-bashing for now; let's turn to the other side.]

so, even now, i get the questions all the time: "you think your guy's gonna get the nomination this time?", "you think paul ryan will help your guy?", "you think this todd akin thing will hurt your guy?", and, of course, the ever-popular, and usually said-with-a-sneer, "so whaddya think of your guy now?"

it doesn't seem to matter that i broke it off with mitt four years ago; the fact that i carried such a huge, flaming torch for him for so long sticks to me like stink on shit, and i can't shake it no matter what i say now.

*     *     *     *     *

i remember the first time i laid eyes on the guy; it happened back in 2002, shortly after the close of the salt lake city olympics.  he was giving a long, informal interview about his role in transforming those particular games from a massive too-many-cooks clusterfuck into the fine swiss watch they became under his leadership.  he was relaxed and loose under the camera's gaze, and spoke easily and articulately, outlining the process he undertook to turn the event around, and relying very little on the words "I" or "me" in the telling of the story.  i watched, spellbound as i always am when confronted with that rarest of human qualities--true competence.

as the interview ended, i turned to the guy i was watching it with and said, "holy shit, this guy's gonna be president one day."

and why not?  his dad had almost made it--hell, probably would have, had he not told an inconvenient truth before the american people were ready to hear it.  and mitt seemed to be his dad's son--an honorable, self-effacing guy who just happened to have a knack for fixing complex things that were broken.

i cheered when he became governor of massachusetts.  my admiration only grew when he and his team crafted a badly-needed healthcare fix for that state that not only received the full bipartisan support of its legislature, but even earned the endorsement of his arch-enemy, ted kennedy.

i admired his discipline and his character.  here was a self-made guy who hadn't relied on daddy's money to make his mark on the world, and had seemingly avoided all the temptations to which so many rich, powerful men are prone--there was no hint of scandal in either his personal or professional life, and he had managed to successfully adhere to the strictures of a demanding religion without rubbing it in everybody's goddam face.

when he threw his hat into the presidential ring in 2008, i cheered once more.  finally, my dream candidate--a fiscal conservative/social moderate, non-career politician who, unlike all the aforementioned assholes, had actually proven himself in the real world and knew how it worked.

and then he opened his big, fat i'd-sell-my-soul-to-be-president mouth, and it all went to shit.

[part 2 to come--excuse me while i go sob into my pillow.]

mkf weekend in review (so far)

[sober update:  back in the drunken glory days of this blog, it used to take at least sixteen ounces of alcohol to get me to a state of sufficient inebriation as to be capable of producing a post of such smug, pedantic, self-aggrandizing obnoxiousness as the one which follows.  now, i can apparently get there on a quarter of that amount (progress of a sort, i guess).

and since the morning-after policy here at guttermorality is to remove only those drunkenly ill-advised posts which have the potential of harming or embarrassing others, i'm gonna let this one stand--if for no other reason than to serve as a reminder to myself and others as to why mkf should never succumb to the temptation of a twitter account.

besides, it's what happened.]


from a similarly-titled email to my friend rob:

so this afternoon i'm trolling around adam and it's slim pickings as usual (saturday afternoons being a traditionally low point in the weho weekend sex/drug cycle, as i'm sure you'll recall), when to my surprise i get hit up by a boy i'd never seen online before.  mutual interest is quickly established--he's happy because, well, you know; and i'm happy because i'll finally get to scratch that robby benson itch i've had since i was 14 (see attached pics).

he lives in anaheim, and, as is typical with such boys, has neither a place to host nor a means of travel.  this does not deter me--i tend to favor boys from the wrong side of the OC tracks (as opposed to the laguna/HB/irvine assholes) because they're generally unworldly, unaffected and so cut off from the gay milieu as to be unruined by it, and thus worth the drive--and i ask him if he knows of a cheap motel nearby.  whaddya know, he does, so with that, i'm off to disneylandland.

i pick him up, and he doesn't disappoint--a young 27, and he's let his hair grow since the pics were taken, so that when he cuts his eyes up and smiles adorably at me from under that shaggy mop, he's not only channeling robby at his twinkiest, but i get a little taylor lautner thrown in for good measure (so there's another box i can check off).

on the way to the no-tell, he surprises me--this boy is well-traveled.  starting at age 18, he's taken solo trips to each of barcelona, madrid, paris, rio and australia, saving up between each adventure for the next one.  "a car would be nice," he tells me, "but i'd rather have experiences while i'm young."  (on the other hand, he had never heard of laurel canyon, much less knew where it was--i suspect that will change, and probably next weekend if i have anything to say about it.)

that first kiss tells me everything i need to know--this will be good. i decide for this one, i'll pull every tool outta the bag (so to speak), give him everything i got.

you've asked me more than once how my nondescript, aging ass has always managed to move with such seeming confidence and ease through the cutthroat, youth-oriented minefield that is the LA gay hook-up scene, and i thought about that question tonight on my way back from anaheim.  it comes down to three things i can put my finger on, rob, and at least one thing i can't.

first, not giving a shit about much of anything does have its upside; the resulting detachment allows all the inevitable rejections that force so many older gay men outta the game to roll right off my back--i really don't care that much one way or the other, guys sense it, and that gives me power.

the other thing that detachment has done for me is made me a keen observer, and thus, a good lover.  when it comes to sex, i never get lost in what i'm doing; i'm too busy watching--facial expressions, body language, tension, breathing--all the little signs that tell me when to plow ahead or pull back.  for me, it's always a performance, and while i've never derived as much pleasure from my sex life as i would have liked, i can console myself with the fact that i've damn sure made a lot of people very happy.

and then there's that last-but-far-from least, the "pleasurable peen" factor (a term i picked up from one of my favored bloggers/commenters, who apparently has one too).   simply put, a big, fat dick that functions reliably is the great equalizer in our little world.  i don't care how young and/or pretty you are, how much time you spend in the gym, how extensive your toy collection or practiced your techniques happen to be--there really is no substitute.

anyway, back to our story:  two hours later, we're lying in a puddle of sweat and cum and he looks up at me with shining eyes, says, "that was unbelievable--you're the best i've ever had."

i raise an eyebrow. "including rio?"

he laughs, snuggles his lithe, limber lil' yoga-body closer to mine and says, "yeah, including rio."

oh, that fourth thing, the one i couldn't quite put my finger on? i dunno, but whatever it is, i've apparently still got it.

birdwood days redux

when i started this series, i had intended it to be a collection of vignettes about our neighbors on the street where i grew up--a collective snapshot of a time and place long gone--but dropped the effort after a couple installments, due, as i said at the time, to my faulty memory.

but that wasn't strictly true.

there are actually many stories i could've told about our cherished neighbors to the left, the harburgers--like the time when the imminent hurricane carla so spooked al that he spent two days covering every inch of every window of their house with masking tape and then the next five years scraping it off; 

or the christmas when they set up the nativity scene in their front yard along with an endless loop of a new song called "the little drummer boy" that drove the entire street insane; 

or the tough-love pact that mildred and my mother made to wean their toddlers from their pacifiers by throwing 'em all away, and my mother's fury three days later when she found out the reason mildred looked so well-rested was because she'd secretly saved one; 

or the summer their daughter debby came home from college with big news and al blurted "omigod you're pregnant" as she announced she was becoming a nun.

I could have told any of those stories and several more, but i decided that if i couldn't tell the harberger story i wanted to tell, i wouldn't tell any story at all.  but then a couple weeks ago i happened to run it by my resident oppressed-minority representative, v, who said, "fuck PC--you gotta write this one up."

so for better or worse, here's the story about the time my mother and mildred harburger committed a hate crime.



4.  the harburgers

i only learned the details decades later, but at the time it happened all i knew was that i woke up one saturday morning when i was eight to find my mother with no eyebrows, the ash's front lawn burned to a crisp and none of the grownups talking.

apparently the evening before had begun innocently enough, with neighbors gathered at our house for drinks after the kids had been put to bed, nothing unusual for a friday night on our street back then.

the trouble started about three drinks in when laverne ash said something un-negative about the big civil rights bill president johnson was trying to push through congress, prompting the men to pull out their wallets and offer to buy her a bus ticket to selma. laverne, thin-skinned as always, dragged her husband vernon out of his chair and, despite everyone saying they were just kidding, left in a huff.

my mother insists to this day that what happened next was mrs. harberger's idea but since it seems so completely at odds with my memories of that sweet catholic lady, i'm skeptical. this one has the stink of my mother all over it but whatever, we'll go with her version.

"everybody'd left and your dad had gone to bed," she told me long after the statute of limitations had passed, "but mildred stayed to help me clean up. we were a little tipsy--you know how i get when i've had a couple and god knows she's worse. we were laughing about how pissed off laverne was and mildred said, 'you know what would be funny?'"

i'm more interested in the technical aspects. "but where did you find wood at two in the morning to make the thing?"
 

"that's what gave us the idea. your dad and al had just finished building the fences around our backyards. there were all these scraps piled next to the house, so we grabbed a couple pieces."

"but how did you put it together?  you don't know one end of a hammer from the other."

"we tied it with nylon hose, silly. nailing it would've been stupid--that would've woken up the whole neighborhood." because god forbid they should do something stupid.

once their creation was complete, they wrapped it with toilet paper for extra flammability, grabbed a gas can from our garage and, giggling all the way, dragged it down to the ash's house and staked it in the middle of their front yard.  the plan was to light it up, ring the doorbell, run and hide behind the cars and watch as hilarity ensued. as it turned out, the ringing-the-doorbell part would prove unnecessary.

"hell, i didn't know anything about gasoline, michael. i just dumped the whole can on it."

to hear my mother tell it, when the match was struck, the resulting WHOOSH! not only knocked her and mildred off their feet, it rattled windows all up and down the block.

as flames erupted, lights went on in all the surrounding houses and the degree of their miscalculation became apparent, the brains of the operation hightailed it for home, leaving my mother to dive under mr. ash's company car as their front door flew open.

i can't begin to tell you, gentle readers, how much i'd have given to see the expression on perennially-uptight laverne's face when she opened her door to the spectacle of that crooked cross burning in the midst of the lake of fire that had recently been her flawless front lawn. but trust me, it would've been a lot.

"VERNON," she screamed to her husband, "GET THE GUN!"

how did i always manage to sleep through all the good shit? 

*     *     *      *     *

half a century later, birdwood road is a very different place than it was when we lived there. the minority influx that had given our neighbors such nightmares back in the day is now pretty much complete, and all those pretty little houses that were once occupied by lily-white suburbanites are homes to black and brown families now.

all, that is, except one.

i saw mildred harburger a few years ago, on the occasion of my mother's surprise 75th birthday party--older, of course, but otherwise little changed, with that same serene air and warm smile.

"the kids want me to move, mike, but it's my home.  i love my neighbors and they look out for me."

if there's one thing life's taught me, it's that things change.

so who's my pick for president?

i think i'm gonna write in andrew jackson.

why, you ask?  consider:

during his first term in office, he watched with increasing disgust as the second bank of the united states (the federal reserve of its day) and its member banks brazenly engaged in the sorta shenanigans in which bankers unfettered by morality and/or oversight have engaged since time immemorial.

when it came time to renew its charter, a rubber-stamp congress sent him a bill for his signature approving same, and he sent it back to 'em with a big, fat veto on it, along with a message which read, in part,

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. 

[E]very man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society-the farmers, mechanics, and laborers-who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. 

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.

the bankers, panicked by the prospect of their gravy train disappearing round the bend, decided to create a little panic of their own, hoping the resulting financial chaos would be blamed on the president, and he would have no choice but to enlist their aid to fix the mess that they themselves had created.  in response to their "see?  we're too big to fail" extortion attempt, he brought 'em all together, looked 'em in the eye and, as the minutes of that meeting reflect, uttered the following words:

Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country.  

When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. 

You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out.

now, that, ladies and gentlemen, is my idea of a president.

*     *     *     *     *

late last week, the obama justice department announced that, after an extensive investigation, it had concluded that there was insufficient evidence to justify pursuing criminal charges agains any executive of goldman sachs for fraud or other wrongdoing in the events leading up to the financial crisis of 2008 and beyond--this in spite of the fact that, even though said bank had clearly issued liar loans through its subsidiaries, packaged those loans and sold the resulting junk-level mortgage-backed securities to its institutional clients as AAA even as it was secretly and massively betting against them, and its CEO had demonstrably lied to congress about same.

the investigation, curiously, apparently didn't involve a grand jury, special prosecutor or, for that matter, any actual investigators.

and now, it looks like the MF global CEO (and top obama bundler) jon corzine will escape prosecution for raiding his customer accounts of over $1 billion when his idiotic all-in bet on eurobonds went south, thus robbing thousands of hapless and innocent farmers, ranchers and other everyday types of their life savings and working capital, much of which may never be recovered.  turns out it was just one of those things that happens sometimes, or so say investigators, who are now turning their guns on a low-level MF global sacrificial lambemployee who should've caught the "mistake".

a relieved mr. corzine is said to be busy with preparations to restore his good name which has been unjustly tarnished, and--wait for it--launch a new hedge fund.

*     *     *     *     *

lest any of you think that i've been bagging excessively on the obama administration lately, make no mistake--i have no illusions that a romney administration would behave any differently; after all, they're all dependent on the same money.

and unless and until that money is removed from the political arena, all we have to look forward to is more of the same--which is why mkf has pretty much opted out.  the rest of you bitches may be content to dumb down your expectations and support these craven, bought-and-paid-for motherfuckers, but i never will again.

paperboys

why?  because this is where my mind is right now.


"a paper route?", i asked incredulously.  "are you seriously telling me that you, a grown man of your accomplishments, are throwing papers?"

it was 1977 and ginger and i had driven down to austin for what we thought was gonna be a relaxing weekend with beau and her sister, gayla.  little did we know.

"yeah," he said.  "and, this weekend, so are you."

since the glory days of the fox's lair, beau had been through many ups and downs, but mostly downs.  here was the thing about him, though--whether he was scaling the heights or plumbing the depths, i never saw him lose his air of self-assurance; he was master of whatever situation in which he found himself, and he always landed on his feet.  but this time, i had my doubts.

"but you can't make money throwing papers," i protested.  "nobody makes money throwing papers--hell, i sure never did."

"that's because you were doing it wrong."

"oh yeah?  then enlighten me."  so he did.

turns out when beau returned from vietnam in the late 60's, broke and at loose ends, he found himself in florida.  he worked in construction for awhile, until, tired of breaking his back for little money, he started looking around for a better way.  it came when, after calling the miami herald for the umpteenth time to complain about his missing paper, the circulation manager apologized for the lousy service, told him finding reliable carriers for his crime-ridden area was a huge problem.  that's when the light went on.

beau talked the guy into giving him not one, not two, but ten routes--morning and afternoon--promised him he could solve all his problems.  he then went out and bought an old step-van, recruited a dozen 8-year-old urchins off the streets, offered each the princely sum of a dollar a day and all the candy they could eat.

each morning at three, he'd pile the kids into the back of the van, pick up the papers and drive while they rolled.  he'd drop 'em off one by one at their assigned corners with all their papers--their little shoulder-bags so full they could barely walk--go have breakfast, come back, pick 'em up, take 'em home, sleep til noon, and repeat the process at three that afternoon.  as more routes became available, the operation grew, and beau became not only the newspaper king, but the undisputed pied-piper/fagin of the hood.

"so lemme get this straight--they did all the work, and you paid 'em a dollar?"

"hey, those kids learned life lessons money can't buy."

"uh huh.  and you actually made a living doing this?"

he smiled that smile.  "where do you think the money for the fox's lair came from?"

*     *     *     *     *

unfortunately for beau, times had changed, and austin wasn't third-world miami--he'd have to do it without the child labor this time.  he figured it out, though.

he had long ago realized that the most time-consuming part of a paper route was not the throwing, but the rolling.  carriers would gather at the station, collect their papers and then spend an hour or two rolling and banding them, loading them into shopping carts, shlepping 'em out to their cars and filling 'em up.

fuck that--he figured if he just tossed the bundles into the car and rolled the papers while he drove and threw, he could do two routes instead of one in the same amount of time.

"your hands are pretty busy, so you drive with your knees," he explained.

he had managed to pick up two large, adjoining semi-rural routes in far-east austin--morning and afternoon--and breezed through each run in a little over two hours during the week, leaving the rest of his day free.  it was the weekends that were the problem, when all four routes overlapped and had to be thrown between the hours of 3:00 and 6:00 a.m.  it was a huge undertaking, and gayla got pressed into service on the weekends--and that particular weekend, so did ginger and i.

we stayed up that friday night, eating, drinking and playing board games, and headed out around 2:30 in two cars.  beau had hitched a little trailer to his car, which i didn't really understand until i saw the mountain of paper that awaited us.

"c'mon, this is everybody, right?  this can't all be yours."

he laughed.  "this is nothing--wait'll you see sunday."

*     *     *     *

by the time i moved down to austin the following year to begin my first half-hearted attempt at a UT education (back in the days when you could still work your way through college), beau had talked me into joining him in his enterprise.  since a morning route was outta the question for my sleep-til-noon ass, i opted for an afternoon route instead.  but first, i'd need training in the beau method--and i'd get a crash course.

i shadowed him on his route a few times, sitting in the backseat.  he never used rubber bands to roll, opting instead for the more-expensive bags usually reserved for rainy days, because he could hook a sleeve of 100 under his belt, hang it between his legs, fold the papers once and slip 'em into the bags as he drove.  thursdays, saturdays and sundays were a little more tricky, because on those days the papers came in two parts; rather than opening the main section of each paper and inserting the supplement like he was supposed to, he'd just slap 'em together, fold once and into the bag they'd go.  when the front seat was empty and the floorboards full, he'd reach into the back and pull another couple bundles forward and start all over--all this, understand, while driving at speed, turning corners, handling a clutch and five-speed (and usually a cigarette and cup of coffee), and keeping a running conversation going with me--oh, and throwing papers out the window when appropriate.  it was really kind of amazing to watch.

the route itself was byzantine--miles of unmarked dirt roads, ramshackle houses and trailers with no numbers, and, remembering how much trouble i had had memorizing the orderly suburban route i had had taken on in high school, i couldn't imagine how he had learned it with such seeming ease.

"lemme guess,"  he said.  "you had a route list on paper, and for the first three weeks you'd stop at every street, scan the sheet for addresses and drive at 5 miles an hour looking for numbers.  took you forever, right?"

"well, yeah, that's how you do it."

"well, yeah, if you're an idiot.  i got news for you--three days from now, i'm taking the day off.  you're gonna do my route, you're gonna do it by yourself and you're gonna do it perfectly, in about the same time it takes me."

and, you know what?  he was right.

the next day, he taped the whole route as we drove--"turn left, look left, start counting mailboxes, and throw your fourth one--it's yellow--and then look right, pass the big tree with the rusty buick under it and hit the second driveway", and on and on it went.

the following day, he put me in the driver's seat and watched from the back as the tape played and i fumbled with bags and papers, bumping over curbs and veering into opposing traffic as i turned corners with my knees while wildly throwing papers left and right--and it didn't help that he was laughing his ass off the entire time.  but, by god, i did it.

within a month, i was a veteran of the beau method of paper-throwing--handling my own route, throwing papers across three lanes of traffic with one hand with an accuracy nolan ryan would envy while rolling with the other, and making more money in two hours a day than most of my minimum-wage fellow students would earn in eight.

the best days were when we'd do our routes together--his rural route at one, my urban route at three. the papers were secondary by then--hell, that was automatic.  it was the hours we spent together surrounded by those piles of newsprint that i remember about that time.  it seemed like nothing then, but i'd give a lot for just one of those lost afternoons right about now.