Gimme All You Got! (4-27-10)

It was such a long day at work. I had to move hundreds of boxes of CDs and books. We’re moving a block down and tens of thousands of these things are coming with us. I’ve cut my own supply of those things in half because I loathe to move them and I move often enough for it to matter. But this is like moving every day for a few weeks. It can be very tiring yet strangely satisfying. It’s like I’m on the moving media workout plan. My arms and legs were exhausted. When I walked into my apartment it occurred to me that all I had to eat earlier was a granola bar and some oatmeal. Now I was about to go out to a bar to watch the Sabres game and when that was over it would have been too late to eat. I didn’t have a lot of time but I made my way into the fridge and within a few minutes I started to cook dinner.

After eating and showering I looked at the clock. It was approaching 7. The game would be starting soon. I just missed the 6:51 bus to get down to the bar and the next one wasn’t until 7:20. That meant I’d get to the bar halfway through the 1st period. I started to think about bailing out. On one hand it could be the last Sabres game of the season and if they lost and the season was over it would be better to be miserable around friends. Also we were getting together to celebrate a friend’s birthday. That was pretty important. It was more important than my dislike for the bar and my fatigue from work. It was settled then. I grabbed my fedora and made my way out and caught that 7:20 bus with a minute to spare.

I walked into the bar and saw several familiar faces. There were a few I hadn’t seen in a while and even a few new ones who I met as we watched the game. It was another gut wrenching ordeal as the Sabres stayed just close enough to drive all of us watching crazy. I thought about getting a drink a few times but I didn’t. Money is tight this week and I had to get up really early for work so I didn’t want any ill effects from the alcohol making things harder. I didn’t even get a drink when the game ended and the Sabres came up just short.

I was pretty bummed out though. Hockey starts in October and as fans we involve ourselves from then through the playoffs in April or May. I’ve probably watched a good 40-50 of the 88 games the team has played this year and I’ve done my fair share of screaming at the television when things don’t go our way. I was pretty emotionally invested and the playoffs are the pinnacle of this. The screaming is intensified and more frequent. The cursing tends to be on the increase. Every game becomes an important event.

This one ended badly. I felt down about the season ending and having no more Sabres games to watch but despite that it was still very nice to wish a friend happy birthday and to see many other friends and catch up with them. After the game and how it ended I kind of lost my zest for being out and as a result I felt like I wasn’t going to stay out much longer. A couple of friends asked me if I wanted a ride home and I accepted. I generally don’t turn down such generosity. Especially in a silly, sports fueled emotionally vulnerable state.

We said our goodbyes to everyone via hugs and handshakes and we headed outside to the parking lot. The parking lot was around the corner and in back of the place and it wasn’t much of a walk at all. We had to exit the bar, walk a few steps to the corner, around it and then right into the dimly lit parking lot directly behind it. My mind started to shift from being sad about the Sabres season ending to excited to get home and have a glass of Cherry Crush and relax. I was so tired physically and after such an intense game, I was wiped out emotionally as well. As we turned around the corner there were two men approaching. One I recognized from inside the bar earlier, the other one I didn’t know.

As we got into the car my female friend got into the driver’s side and my male friend started to get into the back of the car. As he was doing this I noticed the guy I had saw earlier inside the bar was gone. The other guy, the stranger was walking slowly on the edge of the sidewalk only a few feet from the parking lot. He was eying us and I was looking at him. I remember thinking man I hope he doesn’t bug us or ask us for change or something. He was definitely giving us a strange look.

My male friend from inside the car told me to take the front seat. I looked down in his direction and commented how that was very nice of him. My eyes started to drift upwards quickly because I saw this flash out of the corner of my eye as the strange guy ran right over to me on the side of the car and before I even knew what happened I looked down to see a handgun pushing against my stomach. He waited for the second my eyes went off of him to make his move. He said “Gimme all you got!” and I replied I had nothing. I was lying. In my right hand I held my jacket and in there was 3 pieces of highly enjoyable Sweet Berry Stride gum, still wrapped! Plus there was my inhaler for if I have any environmental asthma attacks and my cheap ass cell phone which is 4 years old, has no features and is probably worth the cost of two happy meals. However in my pants pocket I had house keys in one side and my ID and about $50 in the other but I keep money folded in my pocket. I never carry a wallet. I don’t like wallets because of the bulge they produce and because in some pants they can be clunky and uncomfortable. So there was no bulge, although I don’t think the light was bright enough to see if there was one anyway.

So I lied to him and told him I had nothing. He said something that I can’t recall. I know it was short. I replied that I just watched a whole hockey game in a bar, as if to explain why I had nothing on me. He turned his attention away from me and towards my friends in the car. My male friend in the backseat hadn’t completely closed the door yet and the man pulled it open and began to address them.

It was then I saw it. The gun was lowered to his side. My thought was to go for it and to try to neutralize the threat. My mind told me to do it. My mind said, go for the gun! My arms and legs did nothing. The anger began to build inside of me as his element of surprise had run its course and my thoughts were shifting from fear to fight. My body would not comply. It was almost like there were two of me at that moment. One was frozen stiff and one was looking on angrily but powerlessly because in order to act I needed both parts to work together. It turned out I only had a few short seconds because before I knew it he was leaning into the backseat almost up to his waist and he had both arms inside the car. From what I found out later he was pointing the gun around at both of them and demanding their valuables.

From outside the car I could not hear or know what was going on inside. All that separated me from this guy was the car door. Looking at him half in the car but with both legs still firmly planted on the ground my next thought was to close the car door very violently. If I did that I could injure him quite badly but the risk was too great. I had no idea where the gun was and if it were to go off suddenly, one of my friends could have been hurt or even killed. I just had to stand there and do nothing. It burned me like you can’t believe.

After he got my friends’ wallet and purse he jumped out of the car and ran like a punk down the street. Once he had what he wanted he came out of the car so fast and was across the street in a blink of an eye. When I think about it now, I think I should have tackled him from behind once he got out of the car and started to run but those few seconds are a blur to me. Maybe it’s for the best I didn’t try. If I had somehow engaged him and the gun was out of the picture, I probably would have killed him. The adrenaline and rage were so high I don’t know what I could have done. I might have snapped his neck or reached into his throat and ripped out his vocal cords.

He ran up Essex Street and I walked out from around the car and watched him run all the way down the block. I’d never been so angry in all my life. My mind was once again barking out orders. It said, go after him! And again my legs did nothing. I heard my friend call from the car; “Is he gone?” “Yeah” I replied, “he’s gone”. They came out of the car and we stood out on the sidewalk for a second trying to process what had just happened. It came and went down so fast. The whole ordeal probably took no longer than a minute.

After maybe another minute or two of processing, we went back into the bar. I don’t entirely remember much in those next few minutes other than I looked down at my hands and they were trembling. I saw my friends try to call the police to report it and I was just kind of standing there. I began to get angry with myself because I felt like I let this guy do this to me and my friends. I began to feel guilt and frustration. I felt like a coward because I had a window, albeit a few seconds where I might have been able to disarm and destroy this desperate person. As the minutes passed by the guilt and anger increased. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

One of my friends who was inside the bar grabbed my hand. I was babbling something about how I should have done something. To be honest I don’t remember much of what I was saying but I remember everything she said to me. She told me that I did the right thing by doing nothing. She reminded me that the person who did this isn’t a man. She also told me that she knew I have a big heart and that I care about my friends but that it was more important that we are all still here and unhurt. I know everything she said is true but pride is a mutha. My sense of right and wrong and my sense of honor are all deep aspects of my being. Who does that punk ass bitch think he is pulling a gun on people and taking things from them? That man put a gun into my stomach and in each of my friends’ faces. He should pay for that. It’s not right. I would never do something like that to another human being because I live by the golden rule. But what good are rules when you are only one living by them? I’m sorry, I’m getting a bit emotional. Where was I?

My friend was comforting me and reminding me life is more important than pride, possessions, and stupidity. It’s not so much that he took things from us but more that he came dangerously close to potentially taking our lives that burns me. It’s the principle. I’m so grateful that I was around friends afterwards who were there to talk sense to me in my senseless state. They kept me from doing anything idiotic and for bringing me back to what’s important. If it wasn't for them I might have have searched the neighborhoods for him all night with very bad intentions.

As it turned out a police car was cruising nearby and actually saw the guy running down Massachusetts Ave. but they didn’t get the call until they were several blocks past him. After hearing my physical description of the criminal they realized that they saw him. We hung at the bar for a while trying to calm ourselves and the police came back a time or two to talk with us and at one point they actually had a guy who fit the description but all 3 of us and the guy who talked to the criminal briefly before he robbed us agreed that it wasn’t the guy. It was just a guy with the same build, height and skin color. He looked like an idiot but he wasn’t the armed robber.

By the way that was another tense moment. They brought us over in a squad car and we sat in the car and they shined a spotlight in front of it so the suspect couldn’t see our faces and then they brought the guy out. We had to look at him for about a minute to confirm who it was and I can’t imagine what that guy must have been thinking. I guess someone saw him run into a notorious address nearby and he fit the physical description but we knew it wasn’t the right guy. I felt bad for him despite his nefarious appearance. He had probably done other awful things but not this thing. I hope I’m wrong about him though but in reality he was hanging out at a shady crackhouse.

They brought him out for us to look at and then they brought him out again when the other squad car showed up with that other guy he spoke to briefly. Then it occurred to me. In a weird way WE might have saved that one guy, the other guy who saw him right before he came to us, from getting robbed by the gun-toting coward. We asked the guy what the robber said to him and he said he asked him where he could get some weed. He must have just walked up on the guy when we turned the corner and began approaching them near the parking lot. Our presence might have saved this guy from being a target but on the other hand served us up as a better target with their being 3 of us with potentially 3 times as many valuables.

We hung out at the bar for over 2 hours after the incident and many friends were there with us to help calm us, feed us drinks or listen to my bad jokes. I think at one point I blamed the Sabres for the incident saying, if only they scored at the end and forced overtime, we would have been in there longer.

I’m left wondering many things and searching for answers I’ll probably never get. I wonder if it was a real gun. It was black, metal and looked the part. I wonder why he gave up on me so easily. I told him I didn’t have anything and he went right to my friends. I found that odd after the fact. I wonder what I would have done if he pressed me. I wonder if he will do this again to someone. Actually, I don’t wonder, I know he will. If he was THAT desperate for $40 and a cell phone he must be spiraling and devolving, probably from a drug habit that he can no longer control and I’m afraid he will do this again to someone else. I hope the police catch him before anyone else gets robbed or hurt by this coward. If I see or read about another incident in the same neighborhood with a similar description, it will break my heart.

As for now, I rode my bike to and from work today and my level of paranoia is very high. The anger and helplessness is still there and I hate it. I’m an easy going, nice person but this incident has taken my smile away for now. Why do bad things happen to good people? I replay it in my mind constantly and instead of thinking what I could have done, I am now worried about what I would do. As I said at the bar after the incident, I have now danced with the devil in the pale moonlight.

Time Won't Give Me Time (4-25-10)

Ever wonder where the time goes? Today I found myself digging through some boxes of “junk” that I stashed in my closet while looking for a particular CD that wasn’t with all my other CDs. Unfortunately I couldn’t find it but what I did find were a bunch of memories that took me anywhere from 2 years ago all the way back to the 80’s. I looked at choices and tried to remember why I made them and what could have been different if I hadn’t decided the way I did. I looked at ideas and tried to remember what caused them and how far I took them. As it turned out I spent nearly 2 hours looking through 3 boxes. Too many items caused me to stop and reflect and there were many items in particular that I had to stop and reminisce about for long periods of time. Things like:

-My dad’s watch – When I was a little person my dad had this watch that had gold plating or some serious gold in it. He wanted me to have it someday but never quite gave it to me. There were so many times where we’d be broke and food was hard to come by but he would never sell that watch because he was going to give it to me someday. He was very prideful and stubborn, two things that he certainly passed on to me, lol. After he passed I looked for and found the watch and I’ve had it ever since.

-A WBNY “$2 Ho Show” Folder – Back when I was a DJ at WBNY one of the shows I did (and maybe the most infamous one) was the $2 Ho Show. I served as the Pimp of the Airwaves and made all of you my listenin’ hoes as “prostitution of the airwaves” was legal. The show featured funk songs mostly but also had a little disco, soul, and oldschool rap. The folder contained playlists from 1998 I believe, plus charts of which tracks I played by certain artists (so I didn’t play the same tracks each week), scripts for some commercials I wrote and produced, notes on songs, articles, and a reader which was basically a piece of paper which contained important catch phrases, various station IDs and other things I would read off during a show or whenever I got stuck on a break. Man, looking through all that stuff made me feel good. I had the silliest little catchphrases. “Don’t make me cut you!” I often said that on the air but I never meant it. I think the hoes knew. The Pimp was a character I loved to play. My pimp was a lover not a fighter and was more likely to channel Tina Turner than Ike Turner although I did create and perfect the diagonal bitchslap. Again, idle threats. I never gave anyone a diagonal bitchslap. Looking back at all the work I did on this show reminds me that even radio pimpin ain’t easy.

-A “Slow Jams” 90 minute mixtape – In the late 80’s I was coming out of my hair metal phase and Poison, Bon Jovi and Def Leppard couldn’t cut it anymore. I know, I know. I started to get back into rap and that meant Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, De La Soul, the Beasties and others. Supplementing that was a growing love for contemporary R&B and the growing sound of New Jack Swing. This was when the soul music was getting suggestive but it wasn’t as full blown graphic like it would be in the later 90’s. This mixtape might have been from around 92, 93 or so.

It was the jam. It had Guy’s Let’s Chill, Babyface’s Whip Appeal, Jodeci’s Forever My Lady, Mint Condition’s Pretty Brown Eyes, New Edition, Keith Sweat, R. Kelly, Tony Toni Tone, Johnny Gill, Tevin Campbell and who knows what else. I’ve always had a thing for good slow jams even if at times I was afraid to admit it.

When I was growing up I foolishly thought I could only be into one thing at a time. That’s why I was constantly switching what one thing I was into almost every year. I think it was me telling me I could like more than one thing but I was young and as I said, foolish. I didn’t quite get the message for a long time. I had the Michael Jackson phase, the New Wave phase, the Rap/Breakdancing phase, the MTV phase, the closely associated hair metal phase, the R&B phase, Grunge, Gangsta Rap, Indie Rock, Etc. At some point in my twenties and around the mid-90’s it came to me, clear as day that I could like everything I wanted. I didn’t have to settle. I didn’t have to choose. Who cares what people think?!?

So this is why I like oldschool, hip hop, abstract, underground, gangsta and intelligent rap. I like new wave, post punk, skate punk, punk rock, indie rock, indie pop, shoegazer, alt-country, brit pop, trip hop, downbeat, funk, krunk, disco, soul, neo-soul, hard rock, adult alternative, soft rock, classic rock, classic pop, electronica, electro-clash, riot grrl, geek rock, math rock, garage rock, oldschool country, folk, classical music, opera, jazz, blues, bebop, beat box, a cappella, freedom rock, dance rock, atmospheric and reggae music. I hope I didn’t forget anything, lol.

-Lastly I saw a yearbook from high school. Goodness I spent a while flipping through it. I saw pictures of friends, girls I dated, people I hated and people who had me scratching my head trying to remember who they were. One thing I got a little caught up on with some of the girls I dated. I found 5 of them in there. It never went too long or too far with any of them and I’m the one who usually broke it off.

Like any teen boy I wanted to get it on with any female with a big butt and a smile and I think about all the times I could have but didn’t do it. Of the 5 girls I dated back in school I had the opportunity to sleep with at least 3 of them. I remember times at a friend’s house where his mom worked overnights and we’d have get-togethers there and I would be alone in a room with one and I could have done any naughty thing I wanted to. Something always stopped me though. At the time I thought it was shyness but as I got older I realized it was far more than that.

I was really picky. It’s something that still applies today. Back then, I didn’t know what I wanted but I knew what I didn’t want. It’s probably why I led them on back then… unlike these days when I can usually make up my mind about someone in a shirt period of time, back then it took me weeks to figure it out. I wanted to have a girlfriend but not like them. 3 of the 5 girls I mentioned actually got pregnant with the next guy they hooked up with after I passed on them. That scared the hell out of me when I thought about it. That could have been me, a father at 16 or 17. That certainly would have put my life on a different path. After thinking and reflecting on those times I feel lucky and proud I had some self control and certain standards whether I knew it or not.

It made me think about now. How I’m still very selective, not just with people I would date but with friends, acquaintances and more. I guess that’s what these memories in these boxes will do. They’ll make me think of the past, the good times and bad, and then my mind will come to now. I think about the choices I’ve made and how I’ve gotten to where I am. Sure I have some regrets but I would hardly change a thing. Actually it’s probably silly to even think about changing the past because I can’t. Time can give me memories but time won’t give me time.