A Self-Imposed Exile and Reasoning

As of this point in time, I've been in what I describe as a "self imposed-exile" for nearly three months now. I suppose that sounds a bit melodramatic, but it's the best way I've come up with to easily explain my suddenly and completely "going off the radar". Not that I expected anyone to make a fuss or send out a search party or anything, just trying to make myself clear. I'm also gonna point out that it's not like I was "Mr. Popular" or a man about town by any means, but I pretty much knew everyone in all the local music scenes and was a co-frontman in an established local hardcore punk band and was pretty well known as well. Basically, for the sake of humility, what I'm trying to say, is I know a lot of people and a lot of people know me and I'll leave it at that...

The deal was I got fed up and disgusted with all the petty, shallow, self-absorbed, narcissistic, know-it-all(know nothing) fucking losers that make up every music based scene in this city as well as what appeared to be most everywhere else around the country, but since I live here in Albuquerque, this is where I was being immediately affected, therefore this is where the "eye of the storm" was, so-to-speak and that includes them all, be it punk, skin, goth, metal, rockabilly, etc. 
I'd grown so tired of everyone's fucking drama and listening to and observing their non-stop back-stabbing and constant and needless cruelty to one another. I would log on to Facebook everyday and read their posts and find myself constantly asking myself , "Why the fuck am I friends with these people?!?"

All these assholes were just a bunch of fucking "chumps and nobodys" with over-inflated egos based on half-assed bullshit and from my observations, seemed to be attempting to take credit for "pioneering" ideas that had been done by folks at least a couple decades prior. Also, their personalities and self-worth are based on how much drugs and alcohol they have in their bloodstreams, but once that starts that fade away I couldn't help but notice how many of them would be reduced to the crashing bores or the pathetic, insecure, whiny bitches that they really are until someone gave them more... Then at the same time they (the goth crowd) had the nerve to refer to themselves as such ridiculous things things like "hot messes", which was laughable at best considering they were buried under caked on makeup, usually flabby (if not just fat, nothing against fat people, but it's the truth) and usually either still drunk from the prior evening or delusional from the logic that comes from methamphetamine. Pathetic indeed...

For me, my problem with the local punk scene was the upsurge of needless violence and bonehead-like behavior that was suddenly reemerging due to the presence of a newly transplanted, internationally known band that became a local. I don't have a problem with skinheads in general and get along fine with them as a whole, as I go back with a number of the local old timers but I was not liking what I was seeing over the past several months at shows, including some sketchy shit I witnessed on the dance floor at one show that I promoted that my band played in May and a very violent show headlined by The Business a few weeks later, which that one I believe was pretty much the final straw for me. All the bullshit I saw and heard that night, if it wasn't for the fact that my band had one more show commitment that was a month away, I likely would have started this exile thing much sooner. I find it rather appalling the way selective people at particular venues are pretty much allowed to get away with fucked up and douchebag behavior while others are beaten down and tossed out, all depending on if you're connected to, or friends with the staff at that venue... And if you are connected, they stand around with their beers and joke about starting shit about chasing touring bands out of town "back in the day", or some small minded skinhead talks shit about how much he hates punk rockers at a fucking punk show and starts shit with people every five minutes and yet, doesn't get tossed out cause he goes back a few years with the staff while an unknown does for a minor infraction... yeah, awesome "scene" we have here. It seems that I'm just at odds with the entire scene in this fucking city in terms of what's acceptable and what's not, and it appears that's it's a losing battle that's simply not worth my time anymore. And if that's the way it is, then fuck it, fuck them and their pathetic, loser fucking "scene", they can have it. I'm done.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not just some sniveling crybaby that sits around bitching about shit. Since I've been back in this city, I've been putting on shows here and there around town, helping out out other bands(local and touring)get gigs, I've created a contact list that's proven to be quite useful in securing gigs for both locals and touring bands alike, not to mention my own band as well that has established itself and played numerous shows around town over the last two and a half years. I feel that I've definitely gone above and beyond and I've done it out of love for the what I do without asking for anything in return other than hoping everyone involved that shows up and participates enjoys themselves, has fun and respects all that goes into it. I've never done any of it for profit, but if I made a few bucks, cool, and if not, no worries either. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that was understood.

It's all pretty much bullshit. Fuck them all. I'm serious, it was driving me nuts! I was getting so aggravated and depressed by the day to the point to where I wanted to either cave someone's fucking skull in or put a fucking bullet through my head. So the next best solution was to simply remove myself from it all. My band, A.P.D played our last show on July 11th, that night after the show, I came home, deleted my old Facebook account and severed all contact and ties with everyone but a select few in this city, but even with them I only communicate with virally and I see no one. It's actually been working out great. After nearly three months, I'm finally getting some sort of peace of mind.
I've also noticed that time seems to have slowed down as well. Maybe that's the secret to it, when you stop paying attention to what everyone else is doing and all the drama and bullshit going on around comes with it and just focusing inward and doing your own thing. I mean REALLY doing your own thing.

To be completely honest, the first month was pretty rough. I was pretty depressed, I mean I didn't really have much going on or any outlets left after that. I wasn't working, I no longer had a band, didn't have any friends (Still don't really, but no worries...) or anyone to talk to. I pretty much just sat in my room all day surfing the web, watching movies or just sulking. I'm not gonna lie, the pistol that I keep under one of my pillows, I spent a lot of time thinking of some pretty elaborate ways and scenarios to turn it on myself. I'm not sure the exact time frame, but one day I just snapped out of it and decided I'm not gonna let any of those fucks drive me to such extremes, and just keep on keeping on. Self pity to that extreme has never really been my style anyway and I guess I just had to ride it out, pretty much like kicking dope in a way. I feel like I've made great strides at this point and things seem to be definitely looking up. My state of mind has vastly improved, and I'll be starting a new job in about three weeks as well if I can stay out of trouble between now and then. Anyway, that's the pretty much the scenario of what lead up this "exile". I do have a new Facebook page, but I have less that 80 friends, all selectively chosen, only a small handful reside in Albuquerque, the rest are old and dear friends that live in other cities and states that I rarely get to see and may never get to see again that I want to stay in touch with.

As for everyone else that I've left behind and washed my hands of, it's not so much that I hate them, but I don't need to be friends with them on the computer, I figure if they have my phone number, and are actually interested in my friendship or concerned about how I'm doing or what I'm up to, they can make the effort, otherwise whatever, I'm not losing any sleep over it. And that pretty much works for me.

Dark Secrets and Hypocricy

Thinking back to that drug addled time period of the mid to late 1990's in Oakland with all its drama, scorn and social stigma directed toward me from that particular crowd of individuals that I spoke of in my previous blog I felt the need to put together this one because I had a lot more to say about it, but before I get into all that I want to make some things clear first:
First of all, although I was indeed what one would call, a "low-life" and a "shady character",it doesn't mean I didn't have any friends or people that cared about me. Sure, as my addiction grew deeper and further out of my control and I began alienating and putting people off, and chasing people out of my life as well, the numbers dwindled, but those that I referred to in my previous blog were the ones that either A)Expressed, implied and/or threatened physical harm on me. or B) Often justified their disdain for me based on some hypocritical moralistic higher ground.  "B" was often the case.

As I mentioned, in my previous post, there was definitely the girls. Their role, for the most part was in the first couple years, like the first half of that time period. I mentioned Mo and Amy, and to a lesser degree, Erin. All of their boyfriends, with the exception of Amy's, grew up together and had come to the east bay from a small town up north called Vacaville, so they had this dopey punk rock "bro-dude" bond trip going that I just couldn't get into, but the girls were cute, and Amy was a knock out, not to mention she was about my age so we bonded pretty quickly. When I started getting into drugs, starting with meth, the guys, who were often belligerent shitheads when they drank, didn't seem to have any qualms about voicing disapproval about mine and Bucks use of it. Mo and Erin's boyfriends both being from Vacaville would usually go back there for a few days once a month to get money from their families to pitch in on rent and whatever else, and when they were away, Mo and Erin were both always very eager to partake on mine and Bucks "activities" with us, although they would half the time get themselves into shit about with the boyfriends after they returned cause either they came down badly or someone would tell on them.(I suspect Joey O., one of the guys that lived there, also fron Vacaville) the dummies... Erin was the more mature one and eventually gave her boyfriend his walking papers. (Erin also lived at the 47th St house at the same time me and Mo did, although she didn't stay for the drama. I think she dated Micheal for a bit after he and Rachel broke up. There was never any bad blood between us. She identifies as a "Conservative Republican" these days and is a horse trainer ( I think) in affluent Benicia, CA, and we're actually still somewhat in touch)
Mo, LOVED drugs. It drove her boyfriend nuts. I'm not sure exactly how he felt about about me in general, I think that he respected that I was an "old school" punk, but was uneasy about the relationship that me and Mo had with one another, and as far as the drugs, realistically, I can't really fault him for that. He should have actually kicked my ass or at least came to me and spoke up and said, "Look dude, I don't wan't you giving drugs to my girlfriend, it's fucking her up, and blah blah..." I mean , who knows, I might have even respected him enough to have actually said, "Sure man, no problem", But he never did...  There was one night at a party where I was drunk, and I'm not sure exactly what brought it on but I guess things had gotten "weird" or something between me and Mo and she decided to lecture me and the only thing I recall her saying was, "...ever since you started doing speed you.." and that's when I interrupted her and said something like, "Okay, stop! I don't need to hear this shit! Like who the fuck are you to lecture ME about something like that?" and I just walked away from her, she ran off, I assume crying. I mean seriously, every time she and I were alone together, she was practically begging me for the shit, and now she wants to fucking lecture me, what the fuck was that?!? Anyway, about a minute later, there's her boyfriend yelling in my face about how much she loves me and cares about me and how could I treat her like that and other horseshit, and I just looked at him and calmly said, "So are you gonna hit me now?" It seemed to throw him off a bit but he continued his "lecture/yelling fit" calling me a tweaker/asshole and other shit. I ended up just saying "fuck this" and leaving. I walked all the way back to Kara's from there, smashing a storefront window along the way. I got into heroin less than a year later.
With Amy, it wasn't quite as often, cause her boyfriend kept her on a pretty short leash, so she always had to be really sneaky about it, so if there was ever any problems that followed, it never got back to me.
Basically, with the girls, not just these three, cause there was more that came into the picture, was they loved the drugs, they liked me and their boyfriends couldn't stand it!
But the boyfriends weren't so innocent either...
(Before I move on, last time I saw Mo she showed up at "The Rat Cage", this crazy punk house where I lived. She seemed like she'd matured quite a bit and seemed rather taken aback by what she saw from me. (I really was a trainwreck at that time). I believe these days, she's living up in Eugene, OR raising a couple kids. I've made no attempt to contact her as I'm pretty sure she wants nothing to do with me. As for Amy, I have no clue of her whereabouts. last time I saw her was in 1999 when she visited us in Oakland. She had moved to Canada and had gotten married if I remember correctly)
Mo's boyfriend's name was Aaron. He was always known a hard drinking, brawling, rowdy individual. One night on 2006 or '07 he left a bar very drunk and wrecked on his motorcycle and was in a coma for a couple months. He's since recovered but has never fully gained all his senses and is a shell of the person he once was. Last I heard, he was was working, scooping ice cream

I'm not totally sure about the time frame, but I'm guessing probably 1996, some new characters came into the mix, these guys had more of a skinhead (not the white power "bonehead" variety) background. There was John and Matt from Chicago. Matt was a complete lunatic, cool guy, but creepy and intimidating. John, aka "Lonely John" (Kara gave him that moniker), who ended up going Punk. Then there was Dennis, who had a mohawk when he first showed up then went skin, he was quiet, but a pretty violent douchebag. He was pretty hard to read, but I always got a bad vibe off him. Then there was Bill Jackson, who'd been around the Bay Area for a while, but suddenly started hanging around, Bill was an ugly cockeyed fucker, but a damn good drummer, that took an almost instant dislike to me. He in particular attempted to use one of those moralistic approaches to defend his dislike toward me as reasoning toward my habits. In fact, I'll start with him.

When I first met Bill, he seemed vaguely familiar, like I'd seen him around. I think to Bill, I was just one of those people that no matter what, he was always gonna take issue with me in some way, and the fact that I was much better looking, his new friends had issues with me and that I was strung out on drugs that he despised gave him all the excuses and fuel he needed to justify his dislike. Only problem was as long as I was in the east bay, I was connected to that group of people cause I was there before him and living with Buck, Kara and Lilia(who happened to be my girlfriend at the time), not to mention I was still good friends with Amy and still on good terms with various members of his household, so like me or not, Bill was just gonna have to deal with it, but I did make an effort to not antagonize him and be friendly.
Bill took issue about me dealing high grade meth, quite successfully, I might add, so I always had money, and he saw me as a "scumbag" because of that. He worked at LaVal's Pizza in North Berkeley and had gotten everyone jobs there, including Buck, but interestingly enough, Bill himself was also dealing weed on the side. Here's the hypocrisy... Bill would find and recruit homeless gutter punks that would beg for change on Telegraph and Shattuck Avenues in Berkeley to sell his weed for him! He'd usually end up giving them a tiny bit of "chump change" (maybe) and kick them down some buds for their trouble. However, usually what would eventually happen is his "employees" would end up ripping him off at some point, saying fuck this, and just take off with both whatever weed and profits Bill gave them. Truth is, for all his bullshit posturing, Bill wasn't much of a fighter. For a skinhead, Bill was kind of a chump and a joke. Actually, I recall Bill got the living shit beat out of him by Dennis and this "Dennis-worshipping" skin named Mark when Dennis accused Bill of stealing money or something...(Back in 2008 I actually talked to Bill and he admitted that he "just didn't like me" which was fine. We continued to chat a bit, I told him that I had met his girlfriend, Ali, that she had visited me at my house in Santa Cruz a couple years prior with Cindy and Lilia. He just looked at me funny and nodded. )

Erin's former boyfriend from the early day's name was Joe. He was a complete idiot. Although he came from Vacaville, he was originally from Rhode Island where Dennis was from as well, so there was a connection of some sort that I wasn't clear on, but whatever. Anyway, they too used that uppity moralistic high ground as part of their reasoning to dislike me as well. Honestly, I could really care less, if you want to hate me, just fucking hate, you don't need a reason... Anyway, when someone hates or doesn't like you, when you're in their presence, you definitely know it. At least I do, I'm a pretty perceptive motherfucker though, but that's me. Anyway, I don't recall ever giving him my pager number(yes pager!), but I got a page from Joe late one afternoon. I was quite surprised it was him but even more surprised by what they(him and Dennis) wanted. They were looking for $40 worth of Heroin, which was no problem, I easily procured(I pinched a little for myself of course, Fuck them!Actually, I don't think I even bought $40 worth, my dealer would sell me any dollar amount I wanted so I probably kept a few bucks now that I think about it) it for them and even gave them both a couple of clean syringes. I was so amused by the scenario, how uncomfortable they both looked, knowing how much they despised me, yet having to go through me to get the stuff, and then asking me not to mention this to anyone and then having to trust me to keep their secret. I got a kick out of seeing them squirm! And I never told anyone either. (As far as know, Joe's still around, not sure if he's still in the east bay or back in Vacaville though. I know that back in the early 2000's the Vacaville guys  formed this pyschobilly "club" called the BP Pychos in Oakland that has since evolved into some sort of biker club that might even be a feeder club for The Hells Angels, but I'm not 100% sure about that. As for Dennis, I have no idea, he just kinda faded away)

Then there's the Chicago guys, Matt and Lonely John. Those dudes were actually alright, in fact much to the dismay of the others, they actually bought drugs from me and were fairly regular customers! I'm not sure how open Matt was about it with the the others but what were they gonna say or do, everyone both respected him and was not about to fuck with him cause Matt was one bad ass motherfucker! Even Dennis didn't want to cross Matt. And thing is, Matt was a pretty laid back, easy going guy for the most part, but he was a skinhead to the bone, in attitude, appearance and beliefs. He liked taking drugs though, he wasn't into needles or anything, but he loved to do speed, he liked smoking weed, he was down to take acid(even though he got weird and creepy on the shit) and he definitely loved to drink. Matt was also rather unsettling at times. He was extremely homophobic and would get pretty weirded out around goths or punks that had makeup on, his mind automatically perceived them as "gay" and he would get a bit wound up about it. Other than that, he was cool.
John was a skin when he first came to the east bay but decided to go punk for whatever reason. Matt used to give him shit about it, John was a pretty nice guy, but you can tell he had something going on beneath the surface. He disappeared for a while I remember, turned out, he'd been in rehab. First thing he did when he got out was page me and buy some shit... (I know that Matt was part of that BP Psycho thing for a while but eventually moved to Texas and got married. Not sure of his whereabouts these days. I have no idea what ever became of John.)

There was this rich kid punker that went by the name JP, that went skinhead soon after I met him. He was kind of a dipshit in my opinion simply cause he was a "follower". He used to hang out with Dennis and Matt. His girlfriend was this chick named Nikki who was one of my regular customers. JP was always looking at me funny. I know he obviously didn't like me, as he rarely spoke to me, but like I said, his girlfriend frequently bought a lot of drugs off me as well as Matt, who was one of his friends as well. JP was never any real threat to me, his girlfriend was a good source of income for a while, though potential trouble, and his connection to Dennis was a little sketchy but that's about it.(JP coming from an affluent background, I can only assume he settled into some sort of easy lifestyle unless he fucked up somewhere down the line. I can't imagine him marrying Nikki cause I know his family absolutely despised her. They were an odd looking couple actually, He was actually pretty young and she was much older. She was a tallish, overweight Mexican girl from a questionable background not very attractive at all, but still a nice person, while he was a strapping, young, fairly good looking white kid from a very affluent background with a seemingly bright future. Yet he was into her. Very odd couple indeed...
As for Nikki, I can only imagine what became of her, unless JP foolishly knocked her up, I don't see how things would have panned out in any way all that positive for her, unless she got her act together and educated herself, but who knows...)

To sum this all up, these are the main characters that come to mind as far as the ones that never owned up to their role in any of this particular drama from that time period or simply stepped away and acted like they never had any part in it is a better way to put it. At this point, none of it really matter now anyway, it's just something to look back and reflect upon now. It was a whole other life for me in a way, definitely a whole different world compared to the one I live in now. I have a few pictures from that time and surprisingly, a whole lot of memories! Do I hold any grudges or resentments? Truth? Not really... Despite how by saying that make all my words prior to saying that come off completely contradictory, it's true!

Setting The Record Straight: Missed Chances & How I Break It All Down

There was a time, back in a another life when I my mere presence and in some cases, mention of my name used to bring out the worst in certain people. The time I'm, speaking of was around mostly between late 1996 to late 1999, the place, the east bay, Oakland, CA.
At the the time, I was heavily in the thralls of drugs and addiction and had fallen out of the favor of most the crowd of people that me and my good friend Buck had originally linked up with when we first moved to the Bay Area.

Before I get into this post, I wanna mention the reason for it is that recently, Buck, who now lives in Portland, OR, recently spent a few days out in Oakland visiting "the old pals" and he posted on his Facebook page while he was there, these rather cryptic words, "Why didn't you beat his ass when you had the chance".
I don't really know for sure if he was actually referring to me, but at the same time, knowing the character of certain individuals out there, I wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, it got me to thinking about that question as well as Buck's ties to those people.

First, or all, Buck and I go back a long way, we've been good friends as of this moment, about 24 years now. Despite the disdain and hard feelings between myself and some of those people in Oakland that may linger, Buck has maintained friendships and close ties and to this day, holds them in high esteem. I don't hold it against him and I try to hold my tongue when they are brought up in our conversations. Which they're usually not. (When I said "some", it used to be "all" but I did make a sort of peace with some of them here and there over the period of years after I got clean)

The thing about those days, I will freely admit and take full accountability for my part in all of it, and I will to this day, even after fifteen fucking years of clean time, still stand by my convictions from that time period, which is more than I can say for most of those fucks, and honestly, at this point, I can care less about any sort of forgiveness or friendship from any of them as well.

See, back in the beginning when we all first met, I was older than most of them by a few years, no biggie really, I wasn't a creeper or anything about it, just the way it was. Buck and I lived in this back garage that was separated from a main house that these goth chicks lived in over in north Oakland.
So one night we went to a show at Gilman where we met this particular crowd of people and over the course of the next few months they slowly began to move in with us in that garage space. Thing about me and Buck that differentiated us from those people is we had goth/death rock leanings, we enjoyed decking ourselves out and going to the goth clubs in San Francisco with the girls in the front house and by ourselves as well, which the guys in the garage didn't really quite get, but were still amused by, but the girls secretly and not-so secretly dug about us! And hey, we looked fucking good!
I would go a little more often than Buck and would occasionally bring home or some goth chick-hottie would come pick me up at the house, not to mention when I would go with the folks in the garage to the Gilman shows, I was picking up girls there too, so I was starting to get a rep among them as one of the girls referred to (I later found out) as a "mack". For the record, I never hooked up with any of the girls that lived there as they were all taken, but I do know that a couple of them did have crushes on me because 1) they privately admitted it to me and 2) looking back, it couldn't have been anymore fucking obvious. Whatever though, nothing ever happened...
Regardless, as time went on, I began to feel a little tension beneath the surface coming from a couple of the guys but nothing to get too alarmed about for the most part, it was mainly from a guy that didn't actually live there but was there constantly. Anyway, when I started doing speed on a regular basis was when things started to get a little "awkward" for lack of a better word. Buck was doing it too, but we were all still drinking, doing acid and hanging out together still so it wasn't that big of an issue yet.
See this is actually what the actual root of it all is/was. The girls. The secret crushes on us. At the time, I guess you can say it was sort of innocent in a way, but these girls, two in particular, actually there was three, altogether, but one of them (Erin)would only do it when it was both me and Buck, but the two I'm speaking of, would come and hang out in my little room with me and one of them, Mo, almost every time, would want a line or two which I had no problem giving her. She and I were actually pretty close for a while but her boyfriend was a big thick headed, beer swilling punk that couldn't stand her doing drugs and would get furious when he found out. He threatened me a couple times yet never did anything, and yes, he could easily have beaten me down. Wouldn't have changed anything and likely would have worked against him. I'll get back to that
The other girl, Amy, was closer to my age, gorgeous, also had a boyfriend, the one I mentioned that didn't live at the garage but was there constantly(for the record, he turned out to be a good guy in the long run), but he was really hot tempered, basically sponging off her(though she allowed it), and somewhat sketchy. Anyway, she admitted to me that she had feelings for me and on a few different occasions asked me for drugs, which I happily obliged. (I guess in retrospect, maybe these crushes weren't so "innocent", since all these shenanigans were taking place when the boyfriends weren't around...)
I guess the real problems began in early 1995 when I brought needles into the mix. Shortly thereafter,  I turned Buck onto them too, which in turn, more or less turned a majority of that crowd against me, it was like I corrupted "poor innocent Buck"! Please, if those fucking idiots only knew how Buck grew up and where he came from... Anyway, the garage went under and we all moved out and went our own ways, but me and Buck, along with our old friend Josh had moved into a soon to be notorious apartment off Telegraph & 58th. but that's another story for another blog, this one's about "missed chances". So my relationship with said people continued to sour, although I still remained close with Mo.

Fast forward several months ahead after the chaos of the Telegraph apartment period and I ended up being roomies with Mo in the basement of a house off MLK & 47th for a bit later on. I admit I allowed her to cause a lot of preventable bullshit for me, but I was so clouded with dope by that point I didn't really give a fuck. I'd shoot my dope and if I had enough and she asked I was always more than happy to share it with her, not to mention the couple who lived upstairs, Micheal and Rachel, seemed to find it rather "cool" in their own wacked sorta way. Seriously, at first, they actually thought it was rather novel having a junkie living down in the basement. Micheal in fact dug heroin and he and I shot it together a few times, and I gave Rachel her first real shot cause Micheal kept fucking it up (I still remember all the bruises on her arms from his fuck ups)and was too scared about her ODing that he didn't give her enough to get off. The problem with Mo and drugs is she was one of those people that when she came down, she came down badly! She was one of those types that would get depressed, cry, mope and just get pathetic, and that's when her boyfriend would always come around and pretty much catch on and then as you could guess, hell would break loose, and he was basically a drama queen as well and had no problem talking shit to his buddies about me. He made a few threats toward me as well but nothing ever came of it. I didn't last too long in that house, as I brought some shady characters around and left them unattended and I guess things upstairs started disappearing  plus there was stuff in bags down stairs that I foolishly thought were junk that I gave away to friends that turned out to be valuable that ended up creating a massive shitstorm so my relationship with Micheal and Rachel ended badly. Funny thing about those two, with all the threats and shit talking those two did, Micheal's opportunity for "vengeance", he had to be mega-piss drunk to act on it. He showed up at Kara's apartment, where I had taken refuge after being kicked out of the 47th St house, with his buddy with the intention of "beating my ass", but Jason Powerhouse happened to be hanging outside by his truck smirking at them and his buddy looked at Jason and wisely grabbed Micheal and they both took their leave. Next time Micheal saw me I was sitting in front of Mars Merchantile in Berkeley and all he did was give me a dirty look and half-assly flicked his cigarette at me...ooh yikes!
Rachel on the other hand, had seen me in person on a few different occasions but best she got was rounding up a posse (that included her dad)at a show in late 1999 to jump me several on one. I think the humiliation factor hurt more than the actual beating. The sucker punch to the jaw from daddy and the bruises on my arms received from the kicks from the four others while covering my head while I was on the ground were the worst of it physically. (I should also mention, I was strung out as fuck at that time, and that night was actually one of the last times I ever shot up, I got clean pretty much right after that night). I did happen to see a blog of hers online about five years later where she claimed that "She" beat the shit out of me. Hah! yeah right. She gave me a few worthless kicks while talking shit with slurred words while I was on the ground after the fact, but whatever, if it makes her feel better to believe that nonsense, fuck it, she can have that little victory.

As for the others, yeah I know they would have loved to see me beaten to a pulp, but it never happened. For the longest time, I was pretty resentful toward them because I thought I was given an unfair rap in all of it, because why was I such a villain and Buck still revered in high standing, afterall, he was doing and shooting dope too, not to mention an annoyingly obnoxious drunk to boot? But the truth is, it was the fucking girls... Also my big mouth as well. Thing is, my being older might have, I'm not totally sure, but might have played somewhat of a role, but it's also possible that Mo had a lot of pull with her boyfriend, that if he would have so much as laid a hand on me, that probably would have been it for them. Maybe maybe not. It's really hard to say with that particular group, they definitely subscribed to that "bro's before ho's" mentality. Then with Amy, she basically turned on me but that was my fault, because in a moment of bad judgment, I foolishly told one of those guys about one of mine and Amy's "moments" and I'm guessing he went and ratted her out to her boyfriend and that group and my guess is that they gave her hell about it. I recall, there was a point in time where Amy was suddenly not as warm toward me as she usually was anymore and around mid 1999 after she had since moved on and moved out of the Bay Area and was there visiting, we were at Cindy's house partying, Amy was drunk and being kind of a bitch and she, out of nowhere said to me that I told "somebody that she and I hooked up". Not her exact words, but something along those lines, so that explained the coldness on her part and and gave me some perspective I guess... But no ass kicking by their hands other than that shit from Rachel's stupid "posse" ever came my way, and I could tell that a couple of them would have loved to, and believe me, they had plenty of opportunities. I guess it was just timing and the fact that of those who wanted to, I had some dirt and secrets on them. Fucking losers...

So here we are now, a decade and half later. Naturally there's a lot more details to this rant/story and it's not something I really speak of cause to put it simply, why bother? All the characters in it, with the exception of Amy who I have no clue of her whereabouts or what she's up to, I have somewhat of an idea what they're doing and where they're at. When Buck made that post, I honestly could not help but wonder if that was about me. I've never bothered to ask Buck if he'd ever felt caught in the middle, at the same time, I'm not so sure how I'd feel about Buck if the answer was yes. I'm just being honest with that one. However, I'm not about to play tug-of-war either with those people over him.
As for those people... Well, if that really was about me, then well, yeah, I suppose that's a pretty valid question. There might have been other factors too though. I think they knew I was packing a gun. When I was living at "The Rat Cage" (another story for another blog) to try and come after me there, you can bet your fucking ass you would have had a fight on your hands.
But anyway, if they really want me now, they gotta come to me, and they're definitely going to be out of their elements and comfort zones. I'll just leave it at that. You fuckers had your chances.

By the way, for the record, I DO understand now why Buck wasn't looked at as the total "pariah" that I was back then. He may have been a fuck up, but despite it all, he still got a job and paid his share of the rent and was worthy of a degree of respectability. Me on the other hand, I was a lying, cheating, pistol packing, drug slanging, dope shooting, low life fucking junkie. That's the honest fucking truth. I did a lot a fucked up things and went to some dark and vile places, both literally and figuratively. I wronged a lot of good people and I consider myself very lucky to have gotten this far and to have earned the life I have now even if it isn't as good as it could be. Buck's done well for himself, and I have much love and respect for him. Most of the other's I've mentioned in this blog, I feel for the most part, indifferent to, just a big "whatever", but there's a couple people from those days that can go eat a big fat dick for all I care...