Summer of Love II 1976. Excerpt from Chasing Rainbows: A Search for Identity amidst Role Confusion

[An excerpt about not knowing who you are]Nevertheless, I let Chris load my bicycle unto his Jeep. After which time we rode away, taking a ride around Newtown up Point O’ Rocks Road and Boggs’ Hill, smoking a joint or two and just talking. From what I remember, Chris came on to me, thinking that I was gay and simply in the closet. Naturally, I pushed him away, telling him that I didn’t want to do this. Being the decent guy that he was, Chris was okay with that and discontinued his pursuit of me, his trying to bring me “Out” of the closet. However, Chris was not one to give up easily. Later on during that summer, he would pick me up and offer me some pot to smoke. Taking me to see a friend of his from New York City who had a summer house on Candlewood Lake in New Milford, Connecticut. A novelist who was published and also worked for an advertisement agency, Chris’ friend lived in nearby New Milford. Taking him up on his offer some two weeks later, despite the fact that I was not ready to “Come out” as a gay teen, one who even knew that [she] was “gay” to any extent, I had a really good time that evening with Chris and his writer friend at his Candlewood Cottage.  I liked his writer friend, feeling that I could be more the adult and less the teenager I had to be around most of the other people I hung around.

The evening that Chris took me to see his friend, I had a very good time. For once, I felt that I didn’t have tom pretend to be what I wasn’t. Not only had he shown me all his record albums; he also showed me all the books he both owned and wrote himself. Truly, I felt comfortable, however, there was still that “Gay” thing that I did not understand. I was not ready to come out as a gay “male”. Oddly enough, I still saw myself as the “Straight male”, or so I thought. Fellatio, or oral sex upon a man, was not the thing for me. Not that I wasn’t at least open-minded enough, sexually speaking, to try it that night. I was. Much unlike all the homophobic asshole guys back in Newtown, including those I often chilled out with. Honestly, I did not know what the right path to take was. After all, I still had hopes of being the heterosexual “male” I thought I was. The one I was raised to believe that I was, yet really wasn’t. I was not “gay”, or so I thought, anyway. [Back in 1976, nobody ever used the term “LGBT”, an acronym that stands for “Lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender”.]

Despite that, I really enjoyed visiting Chris’ friend. For once in my mostly fucked up teenage life, I felt comfortable. Both Chris, and his writer friend made me feel as if I were actually a part of the human race. No more and no less. For once, I felt as if I could simply be myself. However, at the time I was way too hyper, too confused by my attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, to see myself as artistically inclined. Looking back, however, I have a feeling that both Chris and his friend sensed that I was “One of the family”, or “Queer”. The only problem being that I, at age thirteen, was not quite ready to realize this. After all, I saw being “queer” as a bad, not good thing. “Queers” were abnormal. They were “Faggots, ass fuckers, ass lickers, pussy lickers, child-molesting Boy Scout Leaders” and the like. Not human beings like everyone else, who, like everyone else in America, had every right to the same civil rights the United States Constitution intended as a guarantee when our American Forefathers wrote “All men are created equal and have certain inalienable rights guaranteed by their creator”. If you actually believe in a creator, that is. Seeing what oppressive, evil “parasites” many who consider themselves to be “Christians” have become, ever since President Nixon designed and planned his “Republican Southern Strategy” to lure all the Southern bigots away from the Democratic Party of America [the conservative, prejudiced “Dixiecrats”] back in the early 70s, after age thirteen, I found it hard to believe in a fairy tale “God” and his so-called “Son” named [by Paul of Tarsus] “Jesus Christ”.    

About Maria? Well, without a doubt, Maria was definitely attractive, from the Playboy Magazine perspective, anyway. An Italian-American woman who was highly athletic, she was tall and thin. Much like the character “Jill” in Preiss and Reese’s One Year Affair, Maria had long black hair parted in the middle. That and a well-toned body; long before the yuppie-jockstrap fitness craze of the 1980s became popular and many upstart racquetball clubs and gyms soon took over the landscape in city and suburb alike. Exceptionally friendly beyond belief, especially after one took into account that she was a cheerleader and lifeguard, Maria was one of those teen women I could talk to without pretending to be something I was not. She was very smart and on the Newtown High School Honor Roll; I loved the fact that I could carry on a conversation with her. However, as the testosterone-driven “Gorilla” I was raised to be [due to physical birth sex assignment], often, I confused a woman wanting to be ‘friends-only’, with someone wanting a relationship with me. Put simply, I did not know the difference. That soon would play a part in whether she and I would get along. At first, she and I would became friends, true. Whenever I had nothing better to do, I’d ride into the town park and stop by her “post”. She and I would end up talking for at least an hour or more.

However, unable to understand the difference between “Friends-only” and sexual love, also called infatuation, in an opposite sex relationship because I didn’t understand how people of opposite sexes could even be “Just friends”. After all, back in the 1970s, that never happened in magazines; or on TV and in the movies. That and it never happened in any of the popular love songs I heard on the radio, one that comes to mind is B.J. Thomas’ 1968 hit, Hooked on a Feeling. 50 Particularly in the remake originally performed in 1971 by the United Kingdom’s Jonathan King, who, producing his own version, added “Ooga chukka” jungle chants at both beginning and end of song. [A version later reproduced in 1974 when Björn Skifs, lead singer of the Swedish pop group Blue Swede, did a cover including their own version of King's "Ooga chuka" introduction. The version I remember best, as it reached number one on the United States Pop (music) Charts.] That said, I began pursuing Maria to the point of obsession. Always pestering her for a “Date” because I liked her; unlike many other women living in Newtown who were, essentially, stuck-up bitches. Often I’d follow her home on my bicycle, all the way up Brushy Hill Road where she lived. Riding behind her bicycle, I’d holler “Maria! Maria! I like you a lot and want to go out with you!” During which time she’d constantly remind me, to no avail because I just could not [and still really cannot] understand the rules of social engagement, “I like you as a friend, ‘Frog’. Can’t you understand that? I think that you’re really sweet; however, I’m too old for you.”

Needless to say, I couldn’t take “No” for an answer from Maria, and, much the same as was with Jodi Harrington, soon I pissed Maria, too. However, Maria was a sweet, forgiving teenage woman. That said, I finally got it through my thick skull that all she wanted was for us to be friends and chat. Maria and I, as naïve teenage ‘Frog’ Oropal, became great friends. Referring again to my sister’s assumption that I had Asperger’s syndrome, despite never being diagnosed as such by a psychologist or psychiatrist, maybe that was true? That I do not know for sure. However, after reading what the symptoms are, maybe I did have [or still have] Asperger’s. Not really sure to be honest? However, for someone like my sister who subscribes, fully, to Wisconsin Senator Paul Ryan’s worldview of “Work as important virtue to all Americans”, in particular when he mentions those like myself [ and “ Urban males from the inner city”, translate “Black men”] who are “ Too lazy to work and would rather depend upon government Food Stamps and welfare”, whether or not I had/have Asperger’s and how it might have been the reason I was never able to hold a full-time job [or two to three part time jobs] is of primary importance. She, of course, referring to the social awkwardness often associated with those having Asperger’s; an inability to understand and interpret non-verbal, and verbal social cues.

However, this social awkwardness did not seem to interfere with my friendship with Chris; nor did it with his friend, a successful, published writer with both Manhattan apartment in New York City; and gorgeous weekend house overlooking Candlewood Lake in New Milford, Connecticut. Despite my fears of gay men at the time, the three of us had more than a great time that night at Chris’ writer friend’s place that night. His friend, whose name I have since forgotten, took me on a tour of his lovely weekend home in Connecticut. Telling me about the many other famous neighbors living in the area, he showed me all of his albums and played whatever I wanted to listen to. Honestly speaking, for the most part, he made me feel at ease. However, I did not think I was gay. I was basically sure that I was not a gay kid. To be perfectly honest, I was not sure what I was, exactly. It would be another thirty long years [chronologically speaking], that and a few sexual experiences with men, plus many more with women that never evolved beyond the first week to two months period, until I’d finally figure this out and “come out” of the closet. Much like Chris and his writer friend were encouraging me to that very night.  

An excerpt from my novel Chasing Rainbows: A Search for Identity

 The move to Newtown, Connecticut in 1974. "The summer weather drawing to a close, the nights up in Connecticut’s Berkshire Mountain Foothills were starting to get chilly. Nevertheless, I tried out our new in-ground swimming pool, enjoying our new place. That and I wandered around the property, down into the forest toward the rear property line and those two babbling brooks. One of which flowed year-round [Tom Brook], the other which flowed most of the year, except in cases of extreme drought. Having grown accustomed to having fences surrounding our backyards in Baldwin, I wondered where the property line was at. Meanwhile, our new neighbors, David Lydem-a police sergeant with the Newtown Police Department and his idiot hillbilly wife from Tennessee, both of them acted as if we were going to be just like the radiologist and his big Italian-American family. Naturally, they automatically assumed that we’d allow them to use our swimming pool anytime they felt like! After all, as that whining skank of a wife had explained to my father [assuming that he was a fucking idiot, or yes, redneck cop like her husband], “Both their three year old, as well as their eight year old girls learned how to swim in it”. However, neither I [as “Frog”], nor my father or mother wanted them to do this without our permission. Mind you, Dad had a point. After all, if one of their children happened to have drowned in our pool while we were not home, out family would be party to a huge lawsuit. That said, Dad put his foot down. Telling that son of a bitch cop next door, and his fucking uneducated, Tennessee Imbecile of a wife, “No! We are not going to share our property and definitely not our pool.” And so, soon the problems with our new neighbors had begun. Much the same as was back in Baldwin, before long, there was to be another “shootout” between the “Hatfield’s and McCoy’s”. From the local teenagers, including the Thompsons, our new neighbors on the other side, I’d soon learn the inevitable truth. We were next door neighbors with Sergeant David Lydem, the cop many teenagers often called “The Buford T. Justice of Newtown, Connecticut”. 18

On a lighter note here, soon we learned about Newtown’s local customs. Some of which were common to other communities in general. Others which, like the annual Labor Day Parade, were unique to Newtown, and only Newtown, Connecticut alone. Much like other towns in America, every year on Memorial Day, Baldwin [New York] had a Memorial Day Parade. Something which Newtown had several years before we got there in 1974, but had since done away with. In Newtown, we had Labor Day Parade. The big whoopee-doo of the town, every year on Labor Day Weekend, the parade signaled the unofficial end of summer in Connecticut. A time after which the town’s kids returned to school until late June.

Beginning on Johnny Cake Lane, a small cut-off road located along Mount Pleasant Road, halfway to the top of that hill and just past the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Association, the parade route followed Newtown’s one and only Main Street. As it passed Edmond Town Hall and the infamous, towering toward the sky, one-hundred and twelve-foot tall flagpole, Newtown’s Citizens cheered it on. Clapping and yelling as the Striders Marching Band, farm tractors from both the Future Farmers of America [FFA] and Four-H Clubs, plus the Newtown High School Cheerleaders and Easton Banjo Society on that huge hay wagon, all marched down Main Street. Best of all were the Shriners from Bridgeport, Connecticut, the men driving around in circles in their miniature cars as the parade moved down Main Street. Onward they marched toward Route 302[Sugar Street] and Glover Avenue, at which time the parade route turned left onto Glover Avenue. A main road that soon curved to the left and became Queen Street; at which time the parade concluded at the Newtown Parade Marshall’s Stand. The judging stand which was set up in front of the Wheeler Shopping Center; near the [former] Connecticut National Bank and just past Newtown Middle School. Newtown Middle School being the public school I would soon attend. This for the first time since Mrs. Shelley had me expelled from Kindergarten, because of my “Shenanigans.”     

As for my own ‘neighborly relations’ with our new neighbors, “Buford T. Justice” and his white trash wife and family? 19 Well… two weeks later, I was down by Tom Brook, on OUR property, mind you. Cleaning up what I assumed was just trash left out in the woods. Having removed an old wooden milk crate, plus an old drinking glass with a cracked rim, and some old rusty beer cans, I loaded the crap into a wheelbarrow and hauled it off; dumping it all into the trash cans placed outside our garage. Little did I know that the crate and glass were part of his eight year old daughter’s “play fort?” Walking down into the woods she assumed were our “Shared woods” and finding that crate and glass missing, the little bitch ran home. Crying to her Tennessee Hillbilly mother, and police sergeant father, and yes, telling them that [I] “Broke her fort”. And yes, as if that alone wasn’t enough, literally, the little piece of shit told her father that I [as ‘Frog’] “Tried to rape her”. DISGUSTING!  A bloody fucking LIE at best! And yes, just to say this all began as soon as my family set the record straight, telling his idiot family that we DID NOT want to share our pool, and property, with them. Something the former family not only allowed, but actually encouraged.

In the meantime, the Thompsons, our new neighbors on the other side, had invited me for dinner. All of whom were far more intelligent than “Sergeant Porky Pig” and his moronic family. Besides Mr. and Ms. Thompson, their family consisted of their two teenage daughters, Natalie-who was majoring in English Literature at a private liberal arts college in Massachusetts, and Melissa- now in her junior year at Newtown High School. That and their two boys, John and James. One who was rather quiet, the other who acted tough but, at the time, seemed really cool to me. Naturally, I was later to learn that they all smoked pot; excluding John-the younger one. Excluding the eighth grader, James, all were highly artistic. Either they played some sort of musical instrument; or, like the youngest boy, had acted in the local theatre organization.

After all, Newtown was a very artistic town. That and a booming exurban area that was fast becoming the location of choice for many of Fairfield County’s corporate executives, most of whom worked either in Lower Fairfield and New Haven Counties, or in equally booming Westchester County, New York. Many famous residents lived in Newtown, as well as in surrounding towns such as Bethel, Redding, and Southbury. 20 Among Newtown’s well-known residents, those who called Newtown, Connecticut home at one time or another, is the late Alexander Scourby. A Bible Narrator and Playwright, Scourby and his wife lived in an Eighteenth-Century house along Albert’s Hill Road. The dirt road [at the time] one took to get to the Upper Paugusett State Forest and the state boat launch. That and the power station at the Shepaug Dam; the huge hydroelectric dam separating Lake Lillinonah from Lake Zoar. That and Director Elia Kazan. A movie director who, at the time, lived in Newtown’s Sandy Hook Section. Also living in Newtown at one time was Opera Star Grace Moore. Back in the 1930’s and 40’s, Moore lived in a gigantic white farmhouse. Situated along Mount Pleasant Road atop the hill of same name, her place overlooked Taunton Pond. Also to note here, Steven Kellogg, an author of many children’s books, also lived in Newtown, Connecticut for a while. 21 That and rumor had it that one of the guys from the 1960’s and early 1970’s rock band, Steppenwolf, had rented a summer house on Butterfield Road. A narrow road off Hanover Road which, at the time, became little more than a horse path between the east [Hanover], and west [Parmalee Hill Road] sections of the road. However, this may have simply been hearsay. Worthy of noting here, though. In either the spring, or summer of 1976, Steppenwolf actually did perform in concert at our Edmond Town Hall [minus their Lead Singer John Kay who refused to show up]. I shall discuss this more later. The point I’m trying to make here is this. While Baldwin, Long Island, New York had a few residents who achieved stardom, namely Dee Snider [Twisted Sister] and Taylor Dayne; Newtown, Connecticut was simply a magnet for famous artisans. This, I’m sure, because of its outstanding beauty and rural atmosphere; and yes, it’s reasonably close proximity to New York City." 

An excerpt from my novel, One I was going to name Chasing Rainbows: A Queer Woman's Adventure through Rural, Back Roads America; but now am considering renaming the beginning of . Chasing Rainbows: The Search for an Identity?

Nevertheless, during the summer of 1975, my father decided to sell his share of his business, Barry Creations, Incorporated and Remlin Accessories, Ltd. His garment-producing factory in Manhattan which he, and his Business Partner, Mel Baranoff co-owned. That said, Dad paid off the mortgage on our Newtown home, bought a Volvo 1800-ES compact station wagon, and had more than enough free time. Curious as to why I was going to the Town Park nearly every day when we had our own in-ground swimming pool, Albert Oropal began making himself well-known in town. Put simply, Dad had become a “Pest”. Daily, in his new, light blue Volvo Wagon, he’d drive down to the [A. Fenn Dickenson] Town Park. Cruising slowly by those tennis courts filled with Newtown’s corporate housewives, many who had nothing better to do than play tennis and “breed”, Dad would round the bend toward the picnic area. Slowing down and sometimes stopping in hopes to better learn what my “Fascination with going to the Town Park” was all about.

By this time, Dad knew damn well that I smoked cigarettes. However, did he also know that I was smoking pot with those hippie teens who were at least four to five years older than myself? That I did not know. However, I found his snooping into my life to be uncomfortable at the very least. As did my high school aged friends, many of whom wondered if he was some sort of undercover cop. What did he know? What were his objectives here? Did he suddenly want to become the fucking father he never really was, now that he no longer had to spend half his life making sure that the wheels of his “Shop” turned smoothly? Whatever his reasons were, I would see him coming around that bend before he saw me. Much like everyone else did among Newtown’s loosely-organized “Stoner Posse”. After all, in a town where nearly everybody knew everyone else, one could not hide for long. Every one of those potheads knew that I lived next door to the biggest asshole on Newtown’s Police Force; Sergeant David Lydem. Not just that, but they knew damn well that “Buford T. Justice”, as many called him, had it in for me! That I was one of few teenagers in Newtown who had the guts, as well as gall, to walk right up to Sergeant Lydem and tell him, in loud and downright obnoxious “New Yawk Accent” [Downstate New York-Long Island that is], to well “ Go fuck [ himself] Pig!” Believe me, I had no qualms about saying just that.

Mom and Dad may have “Raised me right”, or so they always said. Raised me and taught me how to respect authority. However, upon moving to Newtown, I soon realized that everything Mom said about how “The man in blue is a friend to you”; this was NOT always so true. I have my asshole former neighbor in Newtown, Connecticut to thank for that. A law enforcement officer who taught me, quite well, that sometimes “right” is “wrong”, and “wrong” can sometimes be “right”. This depended less upon what side of the law you were on; and much more with who you were in Newtown, how much money your Daddy [or Mommy] made. That and what they did for a living, if you were either a jockstrap on the football team or volunteer fireman; or maybe even a Newtown Police Explorer during your school years.  That and where you came from, and if you were from one of Newtown’s longtime families. If you were any of the above, you could be the biggest fucking jerk and troublemaker in town and still get away with everything besides murder. Force your girlfriend to have sex with you after getting her drunk at a teenage keg party? Why as long as you’re the star quarterback on the Newtown Indians Football Team or center-court for the basketball team, the cops would often be soft on you. Even more so if your father was “Somebody important in town”, like an attorney; or maybe a high school baseball coach. [Case in point here: Years later when I was living with my mother in Southbury, Connecticut, I was assaulted in a hate-crime stemming from a pot deal gone bad. Three teen middlemen having set me up for the fall, I was brutally beaten by two attackers; Christopher “Cody” Labrie and Dave Eisenbach of Southbury. Rather than do their job like they were supposed to; the corrupt Southbury Police did a cover-up. One in which they literally blamed, and arrested me for being attacked, allowing eighteen year old Dave Eisenbach to get off the hook. Turns out his family was originally from Newtown where he had an uncle with the same name as his. Also originally from Newtown, his other uncle was the baseball coach for Region 15’s Pomperaug High School. I now have to wonder what kind of “new equipment” the Southbury Police received from his uncle in exchange for letting the other, much younger Dave off. Mom having learned of the uncle from her hairstylist in Heritage Village whom I shall not mention, but had a teenager on that baseball team.]

Anyway, so Dad’s driving through didn’t scare me one bit. As soon as I got home, I’d ask him straight up, “I saw you driving through the town park today like you were looking for me. What’s the deal here?” To which Dad replied “I want to know what is so fascinating about the town park that you have to go there all the time? You have a nice pool to swim in right here at our house; a house which cost me a bundle I want you to know. I simply don’t understand why anyone with their own pool would want to go to the town park to swim!” trying to figure out how to tell him, I simply said “I don’t go there to swim. I hate the goddamn jocks, the preppies, and the hick bastard firefighters. That and all the stuck up girls in Newtown. The preppie-jock bitches who date those stupid muscle monkeys!” “The why the hell do you go to the park, then, if you hate the jocks, the preps, and the stuck-up preppie bitches as you call them?” pausing for a moment and hoping that he wasn’t onto me by now, I told him. “I go there to hang out with my friends.” Giving me that look of scorn, Dad continued “What friends? You have no friends. You moron! You mean that idiot Tony [Balducci] who acts like he’s your friend and then talks behind your back; telling everybody he knows your business like it matters??? I just don’t understand why you go to the park, as you call it. All I see is a bunch of older kids with long hair who look like a bunch of beatniks down in ‘The Village” [Greenwich Village in New York City]. “Oh, don’t tell me that they’re your friends? You are a fucking moron. There, I can speak your language.”

Nevertheless, I still went down to the town park nearly every day and chilled out with the stoners; a number of whom no longer wanted me around for fear that I’d soon bring attention from the cops. However, at the same time there were others that were still “cool” with me coming around. Two of those being Chris and Darrell Smothers. One of whom was gay, Chris as I remember. I remember when he and his friend gave me a ride in their Jeep with the convertible top, throwing my bicycle in the back as we rode around Newtown and got super stoned. And then there were the jerks, the townie hicks who would sometimes mix in with the others. Come next year, the summer of 1976, I would meet them all. By the end of that summer, Dave’s crowd began to fade away. Many of them having graduated back in June, they left Newtown for college; one of those being Bob Brown. That Black dude who was the best musician you ever saw. Evan, I believe, was already in college. He may have gone to West Conn [now Western Connecticut State University] in Danbury, as that was the place where many of Newtown’s less preppie and jock students, those who weren’t as good at academics as the “brainos” [or brains-like my sister was when she attended Baldwin Senior High], generally went to college. 

About stupidity. Something that seems rather common in both Christian and Catholic Fundamentalists, and Patriotic Americans

About Part 6 Stupidity. A video I found on You Tube after finding a link from Safe and Sound Schools/ A Sandy Hook Initiative. [ Sandy Hook having always been the working and middle class section of Newtown, Connecticut; a town in which I lived from August 24, 1974 to June of 1985, going to the same Newtown High as Adam Lanza did. Horseshit. I found it. perhaps this was because former United States' President George W. Bush was the example? Back in 2008 when I worked the Hillary for president campaign in Connecticut, I remember calling an Obama supporter in El Paso, TX, a black-sounding man who first started he was for Obama and then went on to say " As a construction foreman without a high school diploma, never would I have thought that I'd be smarter than the president. However, when I see George W. Bush on the television news making his speech, his body slouched over like a moron who can't even stand up straight and speech slurred worse than the dumbest cowboy in all of Texas, I look at that and say ' Hell, I am smarter than this president! Hard to believe that this idiot graduated from Harvard or wherever his rich daddy sent him to school at." Truly, he had a point. I went on saying what my educated, but unable to hold the simplest jobs, friend from a wealthy Jewish family on Long Island told me, one who graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree. “It’s hard to even believe that this Bush moron even graduated from Yale. His father had to give Yale money to build a new addition to their library or something in order for that to pass." “His grandfather, actually", I replied. “The late, great US Senator from Connecticut named Prescott Bush." However, Bush was probably socially intelligent. I mean he knew how to properly pledge his fraternity, Skull and Bones, and how to initiate recruits in that basement by attaching electrodes to their testicles or whatever the hell they did while consuming massive quantities of beer at their Rush Week.  

Working class people and how their brains operate

From a recent comment on the documentary called Stupidity- Dumbing down of Society-Part three. How I can see the effects of this in American society in general.

" Very nice person, et. all" Sounds like, Gloria, this woman who works at the North Main Street laundromat here in Las Crucifixion, New Mexico, USA where I often go to wash my clothes. A typical working class woman who is single, brags about how " Smart [she] was in elementary school" and "How [she] graduated from Mayfield High School". That and how hard she works at her two fucking jobs as if she deserves a medal instead of getting absolutely NO medical benefits; except maybe through Obamacare, given she has enough sense to figure the goddamn thing out; or even figure out how to get online at Brannigan Memorial Library. Truly, I feel sorry for her, as she's just another victim of capitalism who's " Too proud" to not work hard for a living. Honestly, even though she's nice to me, I can tell by her tone of voice that she feels ' superior' to me in the sense that I'm the lazy bum on Social Security Disability who'd rather leach off the government and go to college. In some ways, however, she may be envious. Especially when I mention something I've learned in Psych 201G, CEP 110G, or especially in Women's Studies 201G and 202G. However, in Part 3 of the Dumbing down of Society, I can see why she harbors that condescending attitude. Obviously, she's got more emotional intelligence than I probably do in the sense that she knows what to say; and what NOT to say on the job. How to be a functional human " robot" so one can hold a job and earn a living. I must be honest and say that, even though I'm as financially poor as many of these working class simpletons here in Las Cruces, New Mexico [if not more so], I cannot relate to their fucking world of " God, family, and service to society and country". When she asked what I was doing for Christmas, I told her that " I don't see the sense in celebrating something so meaningless as that pathetic Christian Holiday, I'm not into the whole gift-giving crap scene, and the whole theory behind the Holiday Season makes absolutely no sense." [ About as much sense to me as that Republican idiot First Selectman of my former hometown, Newtown, Connecticut, who told the media to " Stay away from our little town on December 14, 2013" because " We're still trying to heal from the [ Lanza shooting] tragedy. What we need you to do is pray for us." As if " praying" about it to some phantasmagorical illusion called " Jesus Christ" is magically going to cure this country's gun problem bolstered by the National Assault Rifle Association's funding of Republican, and many Democratic Politician's campaigns.

Some thoughts on social media, bullying, and how it has disconnected us from what is [ supposedly] real in society

Moving to lovely, bucolic Newtown, Connecticut as a teen, I son learned how to,in the words of Marilyn Manson, how to " Hate every mother fucker that gets in your way". if only social media was available in those days! Newtown High School would have been a fuck of a lot more tolerable. That and maybe, just maybe, I would have come out as a queer teen; rather than suffer the lonely, essentially friendless existence I endured during the 10-1/2 years I spent in Newtown as the lonely piece of shit teenager. Hearing those old songs from Journey [ My first concert at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY at age 18; I was fucking DRUNK after driving around Baldwin and sitting in Baldwin Harbor Park smoking herb and getting fucked on peppermint schnapps!!!], for one night , I escaped the emotional pain of life in Newtown. 

Newtown was a place where the jocks were " god", most of the women were preppie bitches, or prep-jocks [ like the guys]. As for the guys, if you weren't a jockstrap, you were one of the " firemanly-man fuckfaces"; one of those community-loving redneck types whose dad was either a farmer, or an auto mechanic. In other words, you were a fucking Connecticut Yankee redneck HICK! Someone who drove a pick-em-up truck and got all the fucking pussy the jocks did not. [ That or a " dick-chick" who loved to fuck these hick-bag " Town hero" assholes!] For me,Newtown was a miserable,lonely place. I had my few friends, all troublemakers,burglars and the like; all of whom basically drank like fish out of water would! However, living as the pre-transgender transition "Monkey-bastard" , love for me was something that would go no further than my bag of marijuana. Alone in my car atop Castle Hill Road's overlook, many nights had I sat; smoking weed and listening to WRKI-FM 95.1. That or usually WPLR 99.1 from New Haven or, when the signal came in, WBAB 102.3 from my " alma mater" , [Babylon] Long Island, New York.

Newtown, Connecticut was the place I learned to essentially hate people in general. That and hate the whole idea surrounding the theory of human social interaction and the sense of community.Not that Newtown wasn't a nice place; it was. It had lots of woods, trails to both hike, ride your horse, and/or the quads and dirt bike motorcycles. Yes, a redneck thing. Gods did I try so hard to fit in with those Jack Daniels' swilling redneck mother fuckers! Those who loved to deer hunt and shoot varmint of all sorts, then come into their shithole cottages they lived in down in Sandy Hook, stoke the wood stove and yes,clean their guns while drinking Jack and Coke and smoking buds. They, I thought, were my friends; yet in reality I simply did not empathize with their whole Ku Klux Klan gun culture.One where white was king and Black meant you were "One of those niggers over in Danbury and down in Bridgeport." A welfare mamma who kept on having babies; or welfare daddy who was too lazy to work and wanted to sell weed all day on the corner of Gregory and Renell [ Bridgeport's South End near Famous Apizza]. Come junior year at Newtown High, I was essentially a waste case. Teen women saw me as an unkempt scumbag; the guys who I was supposed to one of BULLIED ME to no end. They saw me as a fucking faggot, gay fairy, and femme. 

When I got my first car, a moped, and job at the Newtown Bee, I loved the newly found freedom I had! No longer did I have to stay in Newtown and suffer! I often rode to Southbury, a town which had even more redneck assholes than Newtown ever did! Also,back in the summer of 1979 when I first got my Connecticut Driver's license, I took the fuck off on a long moped trip. Bag of weed in pocket and biker wallet, I headed to the Berkshire Hills; landing at Mount Everett near Mount Washington, Massachusetts. Mass. was a far cooler place back then! More weed,more acid, and far cooler people than we had down in Connecticut!!! Women were awesome up in Massachusetts. Definitely not the [ mostly] stuck up, jock and fireman-fucking CUNTS that Newtown was well-known for!

I soon learned to hate every place I would ever live. That and, confused from the only advice I received from my douche-bag guidance counselor, Mrs. Donna Fox at Newtown High School; add to that the moron who enrolled me in the Henry Abbott Technical High School Shared-time program, Mrs. Eva Roman; after being told how I'd make a great auto mechanic and/or firefighter, I did not know what to think!!! Outside, there was this [ supposedly] " male" shell and an extremely hateful attitude toward women I saw as "Bitches, cunts, and cheerleaders". Inside, nothing at all made any sense. I saw going to the prom as something which was stupid, made no fucking sense at all. Why the fuck would anyone want to look like business executive, translation " yuppie asshole" to go to some dance? And yes, from the perspective of that role associated with that shell I lived in; why would I want to get dressed up in some monkey suit tuxedo and take some bitch from Newtown, Connecticut to the damn prom? To have to hold the door for this " helpless waif" who obviously could not do it for her own goddamn self [ or at least wanted me to think she could could in the name of stupid "chivalry" ] and look like those firemanly son of a bitches. Those who fit the definition of "Pink carnation and a pickup truck" in Don McLean's Song: American Pie. FORGET IT!!! 

And so, soon dropping out of Newtown High [ yet going on home-bound education at the insistence of my father and mother who worried that I'd become an even bigger schmuck without that diploma!],I worked as a custodian at Bethel, Connecticut's FINAST Supermarkets; this as part time janitor. Taking into consideration the gender role prescribed at birth for me to live in, I was a " shoe shine boy". Feel free to interpret this literally,mind you, as one day when a pregnant Black Woman walked into our store, Buddy and several of the other Danbury Firefighters moonlighting at Finast of Bethel literally began calling me " RASMUS" [short for Erasmus, and yes, a common African-American name]. At first it seemed funny. However, after listening to this shit for over one year, it got old. The joke was this. taking into consideration that I constantly complained about NOT being admitted into their store union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 19 of Western Connecticut, then compounding that with the fact that "janitor" is also called PORTER and most of my co-workers and the two managers were RACIST WHITE and blue-collar Connecticut Yankees; RASMUS was me! I was the store's "white nigger". 

Looking back now,I see how things have changed! White kids now try and act " Black" even if they live in prissy-ass white neighborhoods like Newtown and Southbury, Connecticut. Many want to be like "The gang-bangers seen on MTV". Meanwhile their parents, all of whom are from my generation [ one I never matured with], are trying hard to deal with the same shit our parents dealt with when it came to raising children and teens. For the most part, kids today are OVER-MEDICATED and OVER-SCHEDULED. Both parents and schools push them harder than we were ever pushed! Many are trying hard to be the disciplinarians we hated in our own parents, and yes, everything to these over-medicated brats is social media and material bullshit! The MTV generation who are now, in the more conservative, Republican Families, listening to some fucking parent yell at them for texting during family dinner hour when we're all supposed to "Pretend that we are the Walton's on TV" and "Love thy sister and brother". IT IS FUCKING BULLSHIT! I AM SO GLAD THAT I BECAME A "LOSER", RATHER THAN ONE OF THESE PATHETIC, MODERN PARENTS TRYING SO HARD TO KEEP THE WALTON'S DREAM ALIVE!

That said, here I am today, the one who never really grew up and achieved the key milestones set forth by Erikson in his " Generativity vs. Stagnation" Social Theory. Here I am interacting with 19 to 22 year-olds at college,clueless as to what life is like for the typical, career and family-focused adult; many who have know become grandparents as well. In her book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, Sherry Turkle elaborated upon how we've become a society that needs to constantly be stimulated. How we've become less turned to what is occurring in the outside world; and more in tune with me, myself, I and those who seem to be like us online. How community values, and yes, FAMILY VALUES, have become less and less important and almost nonexistent in today's society. How we believe we're " connected" to the political process online; yet are NOT really connected to others and active in our communities. 

Which brings me to this. WHAT IS THIS OUTSIDE COMMUNITY? Driving around Las Cruces, all I see is a world I've been long excluded from! A world of hard-working adults, many who work at shit jobs just to pay their fucking bills; Walmart Las Cruces - S Valley Dr. for example. having been on Social Security Disability for more than 24 years and not having worked [ except off the books a little] for over 16 of those years, I cannot even relate to the concept of being employed. The only jobs I qualify for are those shit jobs, jobs in retail where one's expected to work like a Black Slave or sharecropper like many at Walmart or McDonald's seem to do. So what the fuck? I may as well be in college and working on my future book; at which time I shall expose this bullshit sense of "community" as never really having existed for those who, like me [according to my often critical, Republican-Voting sister, Linda], never knew how to show empathy toward others, NEVER REALLY EXISTED! 

Ms. Turkle has a point about how learning in the classroom is far better than it is online, though she also claims that more and more professors in colleges and universities expect students to LEARN ONLINE; something which often excludes us less technical-savvy non-traditional students growing up in a time when we didn't have the internet. That and yes, long before credit checks became a requirement for renting an apartment [ discrimination and the cause of homelessness for many] and one could not drive down the freeway without constantly worrying about whether or not some "pig" [police officer] was going to discover that we had a hidden warrant out for our arrest over some bullshit nothing so-called " crime". She does have a point about how life has become more lonely, in the local sense of community, because the internet's made it far easier to simply ignore the people surrounding where one lives. However, for those of us who never could find pleasure in interacting with our families, who saw family dinnertime and all its useless fucking rules as just one big frustration. For those of us who were the pathetic "loser", the geek, freak, queer, faggot, nerd, dweeb, not a fucking jockstrap and NOT inclined to perform as civil servant for the Newtown Hook and Ladder or Southbury Volunteer Firemen's Association; nor one to be the Boy or Girl Scout, churchgoer or what have you? Maybe social media has been more of a blessing than the curse of society, the destroyer of all that supposedly "loving and caring" one only can get by physically interacting with other humans in their often fucked-up family or community! 

Thinking back to those miserable, lonely days at Newtown High School, a time when, to put it in the words of Lisa Nacinovich [ now married and Lisa Serogi], I was " Really cool but angry all the time" ; SOCIAL MEDIA WOULD HAVE PROVIDED ME WITH PLENTY OF SOCIAL OPPORTUNITIES THAT MY STUPID FUCKING COMMUNITY SIMPLY LACKED! Hell, I may have even had a girlfriend via social media,maybe.Then again, I may have emerged from that huge, dark closet of fear, fear of being my own QUEER SELF, if the internet were around back then. All I had back then was that moped to ride off to Danbury, or maybe to Brewster, New York or to Massachusetts' Mount Everett and out to almost the Rhode Island State Line; landing at Camp Niantic by the Atlantic. A campground along Eastern Connecticut's beautiful Route 156 near the hamlet of same name. What I'm bringing out here is this. That 12 year young woman down in Florida would have still killed herself, even if social media were not available. That or, rather than be psychologically tormented and bullied online or on Facebook; she would have been BULLIED IN HER FUCKING " WONDERFUL,WARM AND LOVING" COMMUNITY! Physically bullied, and if she were a transgender woman still in " male" shell? Well yes, at top-rated for the number of teens who go onto college Newtown High School in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, as " It" , she would have lived in fear of having her BRAINS BASHED OUT every fucking day she was at school! The highly respected jockstrap mother fuckers would have grabbed her by her long hair [or maybe undies] after gym class in that locker room, then used that long hair to "mop out" the shit-filled toilet bowl! At which time Coach Norman Westlake would have come strolling in, nonchalantly, and yelled " OROPEL! WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON IN HERE? NEXT TIME YOU START TROUBLE [ with my cannot do any wrong whatsoever Newtown Indians' Football Stars] I' LL DRAG YOU BY THE EAR TO EARL J. SMITH'S OFFICE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?" That said, if it weren't for Lady Cannabis, I would have committed suicide ten times over as a teenager! 

The moral of the story being that yes, maybe those days of us Americans feeling as if we belonged to our PHYSICAL COMMUNITY have been replaced, " Sadly" in the worldview of author Sherry Turkle, by social media. Maybe kids and teens no longer hold any regard for quiet times with family at that dinner table. However, for those who,like me, never truly felt that sense of closeness with our families; often seeing that proverbial question of " How did you do on that test?" [ or maybe " Why are your eyes always so red?" ] as MAJORLY ANNOYING! I mean to constantly hear your so-called loving father rip into you at holiday dinners with extended family, constantly reminding you of what an " Abnormal bastard you [ were]" and how you never knew how to " Act like a human being around company"; looking back I only WISH THAT FACEBOOK WERE AROUND AT THE TIME! However, it was not. That said, for the duration of those three fucking years I spent at Newtown High School, the " Award-winning school" it always was [ Ratings of Newtown Schools compared to other CT. towns. ]; every day when I got off that bus at Blakeslee Drive and Hanover Rd. and walked back to our splanch home with the red, used-brick siding and faux- redwood on top, I'd briefly run inside. As soon as Dad started his usual questioning of " Why are your eyes always red all the time?" I'd say " LEAVE ME ALONE!!!" At which time I'd run into my room, grab that bag of pot and the mini-bong, then quickly walk down that hill past the unfinished guest house and off into the woods. 

Packing bowl after bowl, I'd go into my fantasy town called "Deerfield Valley, Connecticut". One which I built using shovel, pick, and wood saw;plus my Christian Neighbor Mr. Crouch's "come-a-long" [as he called the rock/log puller or winch] and literally had a miniature working " city sewer system". In that metal chair I would sit for hours,often well into the evening hours and past dark; smoking bowl after bowl full of pot and enjoying the company of myself and my imaginary family. As usual, it was "Chris and Cheryl Keyes" of Baldwin, New York. Like back in childhood but now supposedly developing into an adult, I played my usual fantasy games; the real world was never going to be a place I would be a welcome part of and that I knew!Newtown, Connecticut had other stuff to do besides being a firefighter or Girl/Boy Scout. I cannot say that Mr. Crouch did not try. Assuming I needed " Jesus Christ" in my life, he convinced me to come into the AWANA Youth Fellowship at the Newtown First Baptist Church on Sugar Street [ Route 302]. However, after I refused to " Get saved", that was the end of that! Newtown also had the Little Theatre on Route 25 and Orchard Hill Road, a classical music youth ensemble, the fucking Four-H Club, and much more. However, I never felt a compassionate desire to help others, essentially seeing other human beings as my arch enemies or just empty, happy faces in the crowd. Rule out the Four-H Club and the Scouts here; as well as any goddamn church group for that matter! Life in Newtown left me with so little self-esteem that, even if I had talents of any kind [ like that imagination that literally saved me from the ever depressing realities of life!], I NEVER USED THEM TO DO ANYTHING GOOD WITH MY LIFE. 

To this day, I am STILL NOT ONE TO WANT TO BELONG TO ANY GREATER COMMUNITY! Rather I see volunteerism as little more than a pathetic excuse by the " Christian" types to keep delaying what could be the real solution to America's Problems; Marxism or Socialism in some form or other and the regulation of unbridled excessive CAPITALISM! If the goddamn welfare agencies provided for those in need, by appropriately taxing the most wealthy instead of offering them loopholes as long as they " gave to charitable organizations", there'd be no need for food banks and soup kitchens! Anyway, that said, I must say that, for anti-family and anti-community types such as myself, social media has been wonderful. Now I can get into vicious arguments, and yes, do a little cyber-bullying of my own, toward those I hate the most in America. Those who are too goddamn stupid to accept a handout like SNAP Benefits and believe that everyone's out to harm them; including the government, and so will defend their Second Amendment Rights to the finish line! Those who are trying, through the use of political lobbying under guise of their church organizations, to destroy everything liberals and queers have worked so hard for. And those whose political position I simply disagree with. I AM GETTING BACK AT EVERYONE I HATED WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER IN NEWTOWN, CONNECTICUT! That and, now that I've come out of the closet and become what I always was inside, I now use the internet to bully those very same people that I, for the longest time in both Newtown and especially at jobs I held [ never for long], only agreed with so as to not get beaten up or shot! If Ms. Turkle really thinks social media has taken us away from that big dinner table full of family values depicted on television's 1970's Series called The Walton's; well I have another perspective on that to tell everyone!

Some thoughts on social media, bullying, and how it has disconnected us from what is [ supposedly] real in society

From Bill Moyers Show on PBS' KRWG 22 in Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA. From the book by Sherry Turkle: Alone Together; available on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Alone-Together-Expect-Technology-Other/dp/0465031463 . Some thoughts from somebody who was truly a socially inept "loser" and thought Dale Carnegie's Book should have been titled How to Kiss Ass in order to Win Friends and Influence People. 

On his show, he's interviewing a woman writer and professor named Sherry Turkle. One who just published a book titled Alone Together. In her book, she states that social media has made people believe that they need to put down the social media and spend more time actually interacting with others in person. However, the way I'm interpreting it, some of the shit she is saying makes sense; while much of it, in particular how kids/teens now turn to social media on their smartphones as a way to connect to those they are interested in during some boring as shit holiday dinner with family, goes against what I believe.

Anyway,my first reaction was this. From a Facebook Post, by the way. "Like what the fuck, I'm sure? ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GO BACK TO PRETENDING TO BE THE FUCKING WALTON'S ON TV? Speaking for myself, that NEVER EXISTED for me! Then again, maybe this was what my sister meant when she said that, as a child and teen, I never learned how to show EMPATHY toward others? Truthfully, I found family dinners to be lame, especially after my overly-critical father started his bullshit about how I "Didn't know how to act right when we were with company". LIKE I SAID, THERE WAS NO WALTON'S MOUNTAIN SENSE OF " SHANGRI-LA" IN MY FAMILY! Just Dad being an asshole as usual , and Grandma Gebbia making things more tolerable when she " treated" us kids/teens to as much red Italian Wine as we wanted!!! 

I went on to describe those " happy" memories of holidays with the family, in the days before social media made the bullshit far easier to swallow for kids and teenagers. 

• The minute Dad started his shit, when we all were at my family's house, I'd 

  
  

  walk the fuck out into the garage,hit the damn garage door opener; at 

  
  

  which time I'd take out my bicycle [now stewed on that wine!] and ride up 

  
  

  and down Tulip Ave. Playing a game I called " Drunk driver" as I ran over 

  
  

  Big Wheels and rammed doll carriages belonging to every bully living on my 

  
  

  street in Baldwin, Nassau County, New York!!  Great way to make 

  
  

  Thanksfucking and Shitsmas more tolerable with family!!
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