Obama Enters "Niceness" Therapy After Debt Deal

Is all the world like my goddam family, where only "certain" feelings are allowed to be publicly spoken? Turns out Washington is having a post debt deal hangover and the words are flying. Examples follow:

- Vice President Joe Biden, during a private meeting with Democratic House members, reportedly said that Republicans had "acted like terrorists."

- The New York Times, PBS and Politico, to name a few, ran opinion pieces that used the "terrorist" meme. In fact, the Times published four articles calling opponents to raising the limit the t-word. And Joe Nocera wrote that the tea party could finally "put aside their suicide vests" now that the problem seemed to be resolved.

- Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who served under President Bush, called those who opposed the debt limit increase "our version of al Qaeda terrorists." "Really," he added for good measure.

- Colorado Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn called President Obama a "tar baby." "Now I don't want to even have to be associated with him," Lamborn said, when asked if the president would be to blame for the debt crisis. "It is like touching a tar baby and you get it—you're stuck, and you're part of the problem now." He later apologized and said he meant to use the word "quagmire."

But poor, nice Obama could not get in one the game. He did come close, though, with a "Fuck it! I need a cigarette!" statement. A panicked First Lady then felt prompted to enroll him in niceness therapy so that he may find a healthier outlet for his frustrations. Early results are not promising.

"OK, Mr. President, repeat after me: Republicans are b..."

"BFFs?"

"Come now! You know the right word. Try again. Republicans are b..."

"Buddies!"

"'Bastards', Mr. President. The word is 'bastards'! They are trying to destroy you and they don't care if they wreck the country in the process. They are your enemies!"

"But I love my enemies! I'll do anything they want! What a guy I am!"

"One does not reach across the aisle to an alligator, Mr. President, if one expects to keep one's arm."

"You just don't understand how to get things done! If they need my arm they should have it! I'll ask them later to give it back."

"Keep this up and I'll be needing therapy. Don't you realize it's not just yourself you are sacrificing but also the lives of millions of people when you enact their predatory policies?"

"Yes, but you see my policies are as pure as the driven snow. But I shall not enact my own partisan beliefs because I am the bigger man and give total sway to my enemies."

"But your enemies are also the enemies of the American people!"

"I'll speak no evil of my opponents. They are all good patriots who want only the best for this country. I'm, like, so totally mature for saying that!"

"Millions unemployed, lives wrecked, homeless children and the future grim. What does it take to get you mad?"

"I love everyone!"

"Don't you even feel bad for betraying your progressive supporters?"

"Those fucking bastards? Fuck them and the horse they rode in, fucking know-it-alls trying to ram insane nonviable policy down my throat. Who they hell do they think they are? Those lunatics are trying to kill me! Professional critic assholes! Goddam I hate them!"

"Mr. President, what were dealing with here is a case of misplaced anger. You speak of your supporters as you should of your destroyers."

"If I hate on the Republicans or do anything to make them mad no one will love me! You must be one of those progressives who wants to kill me!"

"Sir, trying to bring everyone together doesn't simply mean having everyone agree. It means coming together for the common good only. Otherwise you just have everyone agreeing to self-destruct!"

"If that's what the people want who am I to disagree!?"

"That's not a very Christian statement."

"Am too a Christian! No Muslims here!"

"Then may I read to you the words of Jesus:

Do you think I came to bring peace on earth?
No, I tell you, but division. From now on
there will five in one family divided against each other,
three against two and two against three.

"Really?" asked a somewhat shocked President.

"Yes, sir, it's in all the gospels. I can quote you the verses - "

"No, no, that's alright. I believe you."

"I know you know Jesus was without sin so what do think of his words, sir?"

"Well..." The President shifted uneasily in his chair. "One thing's for sure: that fucker's never getting elected!"

-----------------------------------------------------

The President's young daughter approached him with a bothering question. "What does it mean voting for the lesser of two evils?"

"Oh, that's simple! That means instead of dying in two days you die in three."

"But you still die? That doesn't sound like a very good plan."

"Yes, but that's because you're a child and are without understanding. As an adult you will one day understand the value of lying to yourself. It's the only way to live."

"But what if I want to actually survive? What's the point of dying in three days instead of two."

"Because dying in three days is the more responsible path! People will hail you as a great person. It gives them the illusion of doing the right thing without actually having to take on the burden of facing reality. That's a big selling point!"

"How they gonna do all that if they're dead?"

"Well...before they die they'll say you're great. That's all that matters in the end. You'll see. I too thought like you do as a child. But now I'm an adult and that means being smart enough to lie."

"I guess I'm dumb because that doesn't sound very smart to me."

"Oh trust me. Believing lies will come in real handy, especially once you start giving blow jobs."

"OK, thanks, Dad. You always bring us together."

"That's what I do!"

------------------

The great Arianna Huffington had the same thought I did!

Russian Roulette Is Not The Same Without A Gun

November 1812, the French Emperor alone with his thoughts outside the Russian waypoint of Smolensk:

What does this mean this defeat? Am I not who I think I am? Am I not a man of war? Am I nothing but a fraud, a self-deceived angel? If so, I have no home! I have followed this path all my life. Why has it suddenly turned on me now like a civilized wolf who snaps and returns to the wild? This is not me but yet who else can I be? What is this voice that tells me I can yet be saved? Wishful thinking of the stars!

The journey is long and sorrowful. I must get my mind in order before Paris, before the truth arrives, before they find out I lost my self-assurance. What has happened to me? Have I gone too far at last? Do the dogs of war no longer obey my command? What is left for me to do? Qui m'aime me suive!

***

His million man army lost in the Russian snows, humiliated and defeated beyond lasting repair, forced to gallop ahead to Paris to deflect the horrible news, all of Napoleon's world was falling apart outside his control. His genius - his ability to focus his energies - had been ripped from his grasp as a fire hose held too far from the end directing water of its own volition. The emperor told himself that this slipping control was enough, that his now nominal say could sustain his power but...the truth lay elsewhere.

Napoleon kept his tears on the inside during the gallop of his desperate death. The cold cut his face but he enjoyed the biting wind keeping his mind sober. But what a cowardly ride! Leaving his men to their insufferable fates, he rode guiltily with the relief of escaping the nightmare they must still endure. If it were not such a grand admission he'd have every mirror in the palace removed, never to look upon his betraying face ever again. God, what a thought! How freeing to admit this was the end, game lost, give up the ghost! "I'm the god of war no more, nothing but a simple man." Yes, the mere thought flowed life and blood back into him.

But too many heavy cogs of men and duty had been set into motion. The emperor no longer served himself but his pride, his imagined legacy and the phantom of glory that waved at him like a red cape before a beleaguered bull. Napoleon refused to realize glory now played him like a snorting fool. The descent sloping into a permanent decline, his disregarded instincts correct, now the time to get off the ride. How hard could it be simply to resign? It could be done, one could put his kingdom up for sale though branded a loser for life. Couldn't one?

Never in his life had Napoleon entertained such thoughts. Like a drowning man desperate for a preserver, his soul thrashed in the water terrified of its nearness to death and fearing a master too weak to choose life. Life at this point forward to be something imagined, not lived, a mirage viewed from afar. Upon entering this new stage of his life he curled up like a child within, seeking succor from a heartless world which he helped create. But the one state secret he could never reveal, the one he must take to his grave above all others, the secret that would destroy his empire both for now and all time was the one yearning upon his mind at this time: Josephine.

***

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."
-Napoleon

It ended with her. I still remember the moment, like an angry gardener pulling the roots of the flowers from his garden, casting them off for reasons he cannot later explain. Who does these things? Was I someone capable of love after all? Have all my grand pursuits been a mere cover-up? I've been dead since the day I plucked those petals. I have yet to sleep in peace again and now with this Russian farce my insides have spilled into the outside. With my brilliant win at Austerlitz I thought perhaps I was invincible after all, that I did not need her, that there is life without love. What a thundering fool I am.

My stomach won't stop churning. I'm over-extended, the tentacles of my army reach beyond my grasp just as the love of my life slips away in a mocking unison. Can it be these battlefields are merely maps of my heart? Dear God in Heaven say it is not so! Does my Maker see the crown on my head for the dunce cap it truly is? The old saying is true: I once thought I was the wind bending the grass but now I find I'm the grass swept by the wind. I give orders as if I'm still in charge! Mon Dieu I pray my men don't find out the truth of their stillborn emperor.

It is my pride, no? I must let it go. I did not follow my true desires when I rebuked Josephine for her many heart wrenching affairs behind my back. I could never forgive her after I had bared my heart and soul to her, professing my love! All the heavens laughing at me and I literally the last to know. "Ah, that Napoleon! A lion on the battlefield, a cuckold in the bedroom!" Who can live with such whispers? How can I command? And the worst shame of all: my desire to stay with her - which burns a sink hole of shame deep inside me.

But this is a time for truth, my games have wrecked me! Admit it, mon emperor, the truth you did piece together. She was forced into the marriage by threat of financial ruin by that dog Barras who had motivations of his own. Say truly! Would not I have her attitude were I pushed into such a unlivable situation? She hates me, takes her resentment out with her many open lovers. And yet...when she sees my anger, my hurt, my broken heart, her heart changes and embraces me, quitting all adultery. Why did I not embrace her back? Instead, I reject her wholly and start affairs of mine own. What does that say of me?

She loves you. Speak freely now lest the winds shift anew! My forced Austrian wife suits me not. This entire Russian campaign that once seemed so necessary - would I even cared had Josephine been still by my side? Yes, I love her still! I can't escape I'm a simple man in a complex web! I want my home, my family and nothing else. How do I explain this to the French people? After this notorious disaster I must pretend a grand and pressing reason for losing hundreds of thousands mothers' sons. I cannot say I was simply off my head without Josephine, that life makes no sense without her.

How terrifying to see the darkness to become real before my very eyes! I can imagine no day in human misery worse than that hell's battle at Borodino. Never can I repeat that name without a poisoned pang in my heart! Those stupid, mad Russians, refusing all logic and reason. Just letting themselves be bombed like purposeless martyrs, standing clustered in defiant negativity but never giving way without taking a bite of me first. Which do they want: life or death?

"The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will
the communication between the senses and the mind."
-Napoleon

But it's The Moment that haunts me most, just as when I pulled the flower of love from my garden. For the first time in my life I knew hesitation on the battlefield, afraid to make the decision to bring victory.

Why? Why?

Let us pray I die with my mind unrevealed! I keep reliving my moment of cowardice: "I'll not have my Old Guard destroyed so far from home!" I proclaimed it with such authority no one noticed it was against my better self whom I rebelled. Why did I not pursue at that crucial moment when I knew it to be true? Fear took my soul! I felt as if I was standing outside myself, apart from my will, watching me make a decision with which I disagreed. My liberalism is gone, I retreat into the false tactics of my enemies. Who spoke those words if not me? Words that became my eventual executioner.

Is it even moral to surrender? Is it not treason to the guild of the unhappy to find peace? The river flows one way and yet I paddle the opposite. Yes, I want to give in and let it take me where it will! Let the fools and the vain fight the current! I still remember  overhearing the Leftenant's story, catching his wife in bed with another man, and yet taking her back without shame or hesitation. What courage of life! Where has the river of life taken them, I wonder? What banquet of life did I leave on the table when I walked away from Josephine?

How I dread the lies I must tell when I get back. It's beyond me now. Everything is beyond me. I must give up. Leave the warring to others. They can have this crown of mockery, just leave me be! Why not choose the path of wisdom? Am I not known for making the best possible move? What a bold stroke of history it would make! "That Napoleon, he's his own man! He fears neither war nor peace." Yes, yes - those thoughts do soothe, returning to the Wise Me of old, the one who brought me so far. I shall not split in two again like I did at the Borodino catastrophe. I am Napoleon! I am one once more one with the light!

******

"Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest
to allow anyone to take her away from me."
-Napoleon

But pride, fear and stubbornness won in the end as the general hastily resurrected an army as desperate as his heart upon his return, drawing another 400,000 from a tired, depleted population. Having split from his Wise Self (which could war no more), Napoleon's downward slide was inevitable no matter his efforts to pattern himself of old. As for Josephine, the ruler's love did return. Not the raging, romantic love shattered forever, but a respectful love, an appreciation of their broken connection. Too late they found a space in the other's heart. Soon after, when dying from diptheria, the name of Napoleon was the last word of Josephine, remembering their love lost.

If Baby Jessica Fell Down A Well Today...

Liberal media makes hero of freeloader!

Jessica McClure Morales (born March 26, 1986) became famous at the age of 18 months after falling into a well in the backyard of 3309 Tanner Dr. Midland, Texas, on October 14, 1987. Between that day and October 16, rescuers worked for 58 hours to free "Baby Jessica" from the eight-inch-wide well casing 22 feet below the ground. The story gained worldwide attention (leading to some criticism as a media circus), and later became the subject of a 1989 ABC TV movie. As presented in the movie, a vital part of the rescue was the use of the then relatively new technology of waterjet cutting.

Luckily, we's a lot smarter now than back then when we put all that time and effort on just one person! I'm sure the only reason this over-the-top rescue even happened was cause pressure from the liberal media inflating this into some sort of emergency. What about all the children who died in car accidents that day?? Don't they count? Not a word on them, huh, so-called caring liberal media!

They say if you're young and not liberal you got no heart but if you're old and not conservative you got no brain. In other words: when people's heart dies they get smart! And that's what I is now: LOTS smarter! I don't get all worked up over one stupid person. It may sound cold, but it ain't me, it's reality talking. Get over it, grow up and face the facts: not every person counts.

So I'm proud to say we are so much more sensible now than before when we was young and dumb. I think we'd handle it in a much better way than before. Welcome to the new age of responsibility! Here's how us enlightened ADULTS would handle this situation nowadays:

Democrat dictators wants to save EVERYbody!

Tea Party patriots, looking out for the good of the nation: "Why are we using all these resources for just one individual? Endeavors like this were never intended by our founding fathers! Lower the baby and we'll lower the debt! Stop the madness now!"

Conservative Christians will not be swayed from the true path: "Spare the rod and spoil the child, sayeth the Lord. How is she ever going to learn from her mistakes if we keep bailing out our children?"

Fox News will very factually report: Child Asks For Government Handout! What is Obama teaching our children about responsibility?

Following her rescue on October 16, 1987, surgeons had to amputate a toe due to gangrene from loss of circulation while in the well. She also has a scar on her forehead where her head rubbed against the well casing. She has had 15 surgeries over the years...

The fiscally responsible Republicans decry the use of public funds for private medical issues! "She fell down the hole! Why can't she pay the bills? This sort of socialist behavior cannot be tolerated or our whole country will go down the tubes! Treating her wounds is treason!"

Whiny Democrats will apologize but everyone already knows how sorry they are! "We're sorry she doesn't have a job and we promise to cut off all future unemployment benefits to everyone as a compromise for even just faking to save her. Please don't be mad at us, angry white male Republican daddies!"

Obama will speak with his usual forked tongue, trying take credit for the rescue and then turn us into a nation of freeloading hippie communists: "I've come here to tell you every life is precious and no effort too great in saving the life of even one individual! I'm proud of our efforts so far, we are a nation with a heart and a soul, but tomorrow I'm defunding the enterprise. No one has asked me to do this but I'm going to show I'm the bigger man and the only adult in the room by making the hard decisions of letting babies die. Thank you - Obama 2012!"

"Dude, there's a reason we ain't saving you:
You don't count, ya lazy bum!"

Them way smart guys at Haliburton will make a fortune! "We've subcontracted dozens of unneeded third world workers at $1.50 an hour for which we will charge $150 an hour. HAHAHAHA! We're going to charge a million dollars for $5,000 worth of equipment but we're going to purposely break it and replace it so many times we'll make 10 million dollars! Free range greed, yeeehaw!"

See, libtards? You don't have to go around crying all the time about how evil it is to make money when here the good guys are pretending to save a life. You use money too! I seen you eating, you hypocrites! So think about that next time you spend a FORTUNE on one measly life. All you so-called "unfortunates" out there just need to go off and die and stop inconveniencing the rest of us with your petty problems and pathetic situations. The world has growed up now, we ain't listening!

This massive media saturation of the ordeal prompted then-President Ronald Reagan to state that "everybody in America became godmothers and godfathers of Jessica while this was going on." Ain't no worthless unemployed bums got any godparents!

Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, bitches!

The Politics Of Doom

"Liar! You told us this would happen!"

It's the vanity of man that man has no vanity. Proceeding under this assumption treated as true as stars in the sky, the village elders brought forth a new decree to deal with the dwindling water supply. It read quite simply: Water is no longer needed. They made this proclamation for the same stated reason all proclamations are done: for the benefit of the common good. Therefore, anyone opposed to it was by default also opposed to the common good - those in that camp labeled rabble-rousers, malcontents, selfish, anarchic and treasonous.

Still, the populace had to be convinced.

"But won't we die without water?"

"It's not for us to conform to reality, it's for reality to conform to us. We have decreed water is no longer needed, therefore it is thusly so."

"But it's a scientific fact we need water!"

"Science is the religion of limited minds. Did not the science say we could not put poison into our air, land and water and also survive - and yet we do it every day as we still yet thrive. Science is the domain of wishful thinking. I've had no water today and I'm clearly not dead. The truth is merely a philosophy and my philosophy is one of optimism! "

"Just because you're not dead now doesn't mean you won't be later!"

"You, sir, are an alarmist, spreading panic and fear and disorder - precisely the things this decree prevents! Yesterday we saw much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, people bemoaning the lack of water. Bemoan no more! We your great leaders have solved the crisis!"

The environment is the enemy! Kill it before it kills you!

Loud cheers burst forth among the gathering crowd, excited to hear the grand bargain. The storm clouds of doom declared gone, a day of victory! What a relief to no longer need water, free from its cruel yoke. Parents lifted their children in celebration, the future saved. Many openly wept with joy, hugging strangers and praising the good kind Lord in heaven. Eager smiles rushed forward to shake the hands of the village elders (whose re-election was now assured). But another voice dare speak.

"It neither need be fact nor fiction the body needs water: it is our Nature. As part of Nature we cannot deny Nature for to do so is to deny ourselves, our very existence. This decree cuts all ties with ourselves and thereby dooms us like a leaf that detaches from a tree!"

The elders were outraged by the civil disobedience. "We'll teach you to stir the masses! Crucify that man before he ruins us all! We'll show you man's true nature! Let this serve as an example: we shall not tolerate those who undermine our authority! We shall protect the people!"

Taking the cue from their leaders ("They must be good men because we follow them!") a lynching mob nailed the heretic to death and cheered, "Now we are saved! Long live the elders!"

Saving the white woman one lynching at a time

But it did not take long before the elderly and small babies began to weaken and die. Confused, surviving families entreated the elders for an explanation.

"The weakest, the least productive among us must go, as always. All during our history we have the seen the useless jobless and the begging homeless fouling our streets! Never once did we cry a tear for them - and quite rightly so! We did not cry then, we shall not cry now. We do not do this to them, they do it to themselves. There is no living with those people."

A grieving mother protested her baby's innocence but the surrounding crowd quickly drowned her out for being "a selfish bitch who doesn't give a damn about the common good and only whines when things don't go her way." Her stifling chastisement silenced the others who'd lost friends and family. "We're all suffering you fucking bitch. Shut your damn mouth or we're all the fucked!"

And so a creeping, unprotested death slowly strangled the village hour by hour, minute by minute agonizing the villagers in helpless, nightmarish torment. Riddled with guilt, none even dare mention their deepening, endless anguish lest they betray the revered decree. And in this way death became noble. Rumors spread that the elders, who remained in perfect health, still sipped from the remaining water. But these conspirators were frowned upon as mistrustful, immature and blindly led.

In the midst of this draining of life, a stranger passed through town carrying bags of water. With curious eyes he saw the parched lips and shriveled faces of the villagers and marveled at what it was that kept them in such a state. A few of the weaker souls, forgetting all mandates, crawled to the stranger beseeching him for the liquid of life. This the stranger readily granted. He spoke of a land across the horizon with endless fresh water. He'd share all he could.

When word of the stranger reached the elders' ears, it sparked an instantaneous and lethal fury as they rushed to the town square. "That man is a waterist! He'll doom us all with his false talk and false promises. There's no way else to live but right here, just as we've always done! Are we to think ourselves blind idiots and stubborn fools for the ages who lived in vain? We must stay the course and persevere and not cut and run as this false prophet would have us do!"

How true, thought the villagers, there is no wrongdoing unless one admits it. Moving to the land of endless water would be disastrous! If they moved now, parents would lose the respect of their children, society would lose all moral authority and every life in the village revealed to be an exercise in vanity. The elders continued.

That bastard has no understanding
of socio-economics!

"This man poisons us with his wicked ways, hoping to make fools of us. See how he corrupts the soul by giving water away asking nothing in return. Is that the path to individual responsibility? Sending a message of a free ride, water for nothing? Rid us of this cancer! Free us from this beast who would chain us and take away all that we have to live for!"

The angry crowd chased off the reviled life giver, and "waterist" became a pejorative of the highest order of any who proposed a differing path than the one of righteousness and freedom and responsibility the village already claimed. But a few brave souls yet yearned for life - some merely confused as to why they should die and some believing life to be more. These few snuck out to the land across the horizon of endless water and rejoiced in the road less traveled (some realized this too late, too weak to make the journey).

In time, all died but the elders who then laughed and mocked the dead as they secretly continued to drink the last of the water. But needing to convince themselves they had done the right thing, ("We kept order!"), they too were trapped in the village, never once entertaining the thought of traveling to the land of endless water and betraying their vanity. No, they were too busy smirking and congratulating one another on outwitting and swindling the masses - even as they swindled themselves.

****

In later years, copies of the decree were found in the ghost town the village had become. Across the land laughter rang out loud and true as disbelieving eyes read the words of the insanely self-deceived villagers. Some even said it must be a hoax, an incredulity not to be believed. Regardless, a new term entered the popular lexicon: "Village idiot". And forever were the villagers who "refused to be made fools of" were remembered and branded morons for all time.

The Coach's Argument

"Congratulations, coach!"

Coach Stevens couldn't go anywhere without hearing that same refrain. That's what happens when you've made an epic run to become world champion. But while the rest of the staff and players celebrated with abandon dancing on cloud nine, Coach Stevens remained in purgatory's prison. He was still reliving The Argument.

Halfway through the playoff run the team was faltering, down 2-1 in a five game series with the outlook dark and grim. Something had to change or they'd be watching the rest of the playoffs from home. In the coaching room, tempers flared between the staff members, each arguing his own solution that "has to be!" Stevens had been the most adamant of all. He'd been right before and he was right again and the doom he predicted if his strategy was not embraced would be fatal and complete.

"You better goddam listen to me! This thing's not going to work any other way!"

But he was wrong, wrong as could be. In fact, hearing him speak only crystallized the correct decision for the head coach after hearing how wrong the alternative sounded. The next game proved the decision correct, Coach Stevens wrong and as the team soared ever higher Stevens sunk ever lower, never making it passed the night of The Argument. True, part of him still enjoyed the success but his heart was not in it. They had won, he had lost.

With a manicured, detailed lawn and a house stocked with every amenity a man making $400,000 a year should have, the coach's home was his glorified tomb. The muted big screen on which he'd studied so many game films that enabled him to present his own little piece of truth to contribute to the greater good now spewed images of players celebrating with the heart and guts champions require – but a championship stillborn had the coach had his way with his erroneous advice.

The glass tumbler engraved with the team's logo brimmed to the edge with medicine from Dr. Jack Daniels. With nothing to offer where was his future? Was he just going to keep making bad argument after bad argument for the rest of his career? Negative, faithless, stubborn - a dead rock around the neck of the franchise. It had to be coming, the dreaded off-season phone call. How many times had he helped decide a player's fate, speaking of the necessity to cut ties once and for all?

The clarity of the cure had always been his ally. Now he was the disease. Where would he go? Go back to coaching college or even high school? What if the freefall continued unabated? What if he couldn't teach at any level without offering the wrong decision? Not for a second had the coach ever doubted his career, the one thing in life he could count on. “Coach Stevens always brings something valuable to the table.” How did he end up this has-been, his winning vision lost?

As the square glass bottle emptied itself into the coach's mournful soul no answers came. What could he do? Ask his successful neighbors for help, to see life for him? It was as if the clock struck midnight and he was a coach no more. For the rest of his days he'd have to explain his fall from grace, working as a clerk in a back room listening to endless whispers of "he was somebody once". Better he'd never been a coach at all than live with this public shame the rest of his life.

Once again he heard the angry, adamant tenor of his voice: "You better goddam listen to me! This thing's not going to work any other way! I can't make this house what it should be, it's stuck the way it is!"

Only this time the angry face raged from almost a year ago, right there in his living room to a wife he'd been pushing away for years. Like a sink hole, his inadequacies pulled him further and further away from her but never did he say a word. Their life melted into a lie, a house of cards that could no longer stand. He couldn't tell her his truth: he wasn't good enough for her anymore. She'd been the light of his life, they marrying on a prayer. But the final leap of faith the coach never made, instead slipping back into the darkness, blinding him from the reality of their love.

Divorce was supposed to solve all his problems - but it only cemented them.

This dream season - the one that should have been the happiest of his life - saw a coach increasingly agitated, easily frustrated when a solution did not present itself right away. Sometimes he argued for argument's sake, not even agreeing with his own staked position. Of decisions he was hyper-critical, of remarks hyper-judgemental. The coach fell to be possessed by a curious drive to find a fact about which he and he alone was correct and the rest of the world wholly in the wrong. The more he chased this rainbow's end the more enthralled his desire to be The Only Right Man, his definition of winning redefined.

Just as in his marriage, the coach's spirit slowly split apart from the team. Hands were extended in friendship but his hard heart refused. They just couldn't understand what he was going through. As a man, he was finished without his wife. As a coach, he was finished without being a man. How could he believe he cared about the good of the team anymore? His vendetta on life all that mattered in his stubborn refusal to come clean.

"Damn, the bottle's empty."

***

News reports the following day showed genuine shock and grief with the apparent suicide of Coach Randall Stevens. To have the team's dream season marred by his loss saddened them to think he could not share in the celebration. Some privately wondered about the effects of the divorce but he'd been one who'd offered often brilliant advice and only that aspect they chose to share on camera. As the dirt piled on his grave, many wondered who was this man they’d worked with for so many close years.

How fleeting success when living on the run from love.


The meaning of success

Top 10 Questions For George W Bush At A Rangers Game

Fric and Frac

I'll get my baseball bias out of the way right off and tell you I despise the Texas Rangers (except Michael Young, darn it). They have a mascot for a manager, Nolan Ryan has got a conservative streak a mile wide and worst of all they all suck up to GWB, the anti-Christ 43rd President of the United States.

In the 90's, having failed at previous attempts as a figurehead businessman, GWB was given a sweetheart deal by his cronies as general partner in the Texas Rangers where his only job was to show up at baseball games. Finally, something even Darwin's missing link can't screw up! He continues this habit to this day where the (ignorant, self-loathing) crowd often gives him a resounding welcome.

I understand, the respect is more for the office than the man. It has to be. But I started wondering what it must be like to sit next to the first great anti-Christ of the 21st century. How does one make small talk with a Hitler or a Genghis Khan or any other terrorist? Don't know about you but for me it would be awful damn awkward. "Pass the peanuts" just seems so inadequate.

"Pass the peanuts, jackass," might work though.

Uh, keep the peanuts on second thought

Now I know one should hate the sin and love the sinner and let the Lord take vengeance and all that so I hope I would let my inner Gandhi take over and see if I actually could be polite to the world's greatest living criminal. One should let one's natural curiosity flow through with honest questions without malice aforethought. And with that in mind, I came up with these few conversation starters were I ever to find myself in the proverbial hotseat:

1. So, start any wars lately?

2. Do you really believe everyone here loves you or is it that you all share in a common delusional thinking. You know, like a Nazi war rally.

3. Is shopping truly the answer to everything?

4. When you invaded Iraq was that because God wanted you to - or ExxonMobil?

5. Have you ever role-played with Laura where you're a pussy Democrat? (Wink! Wink!)

6. What's your definition of a war criminal?

7. If Republicans could think would you have ever won an election?

8. Did you use Procaine or speed to cut your coke? I bet you got some high quality blow back in the day, eh!

9. Did you ever try to run off when jogging with the war wounded?

10. Does being saved mean never having to say you're sorry?

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Blunt Force Trauma

17 is a good age to die. Hunter-killers tell you you got your whole life ahead of you and that's why you should live. But having my whole life ahead of me is why I want to die! I need to die. I keep finding out more and more stuff about me and it's never any good. When I leave, the world will be a better place.

I read about space satellites in science class and how if like a space rock or something hits them it makes their path go all haywire even if it's just a little bit at first. But each time it goes around the earth again it gets more and more out of line until finally it hits the earth's air and burns up - all from just that one tiny hit!

Maybe there are no tiny hits.

It wasn't no tiny hit when I got into a wreck in the mall parking lot. I was backing out and I didn't see the other car and the corner of my car hit the corner of senior Laura Johnson's car and her and her mom were standing over at a friend's car and they starting yelling and screaming at me like crazy.

"Oh, my God! I can't believe you did that you fucking piece of shit! How could you hit my car you goddam bastard twerp!"

"I just didn't see it."

"Didn't see it? How could you fucking miss it, you blind loser bitch boy who should die alone in a back alley!"

People been yelling at me for a long, long time. I used to try to think how maybe I might be OK anyway, maybe somehow in a way I didn't know. But now I knew for sure I was a bad guy. I couldn't say nothin' to Laura and her mom. I couldn't stop them from hanging me. Her mom comes over and gets right in my face wanting to know what I'm even doing there. I couldn't answer that either.

You see, I'm a desperate leper outcast with no friends and no girls and no fun and no fucking. So what I do is hide in this secret spot in the mall behind where the girls sit with their low cut jeans and look down their pants. Later, I get home and think about it but of course I can't tell anyone about that or I'll get a whipping bad. I know already only certain boys can look at the girls' butts and I'm not one of them. They say the reason I do it is because I'm a sick pervert who should wander into the desert and die.

So I couldn't even look at Laura's mom, my whole insides was shaking and if they found out about me looking at the girls from my secret spot I'd get thrown in jail big time plus Laura's mom would really yell at me and maybe even knife me. I couldn't blame her. I told Laura's mom I went to the mall to buy stuff and she wants to know why I don't have any bags on me. I just wanted to cry but had to hold it all in.

She's telling Laura the whole time to keep back and stay away from me before I do something to hurt her again. I'm a wild mad dog, she says, and you can't be too careful. She wants to see my wallet so she can sue me and take all my busboy money for the next two years and teach me a lesson on why I need to leave their school and city and state.

But I didn't have my wallet cause I just came to peek at the forbidden girls and here I already told her I was shopping. So she like totally explodes and says that's 'driving without a license' and she calls the cops so everyone can come and see what a criminal I am. When all the flashing lights show up some of Laura's friends come over and she tells them what a sorry creep bastard I am.

"I saw him!" says Laura's mom to the cops. "He was trying to run away. Put that little prick bastard in jail! I want him dead! I want him in prison for twenty fucking years. He doesn't belong in decent, civilized society. Nobody can live with him. I just pray to God the boys at school beat the holy shit out of him and he dies of a brain hemmorage."

Since I was the one that screwed up I couldn't say anything. One cop comes over and asks me if I been drinking or anything and why was I running away from the scene of a crime and why I don't have a license or nothin'. I just started telling him anything because Laura's mom is an adult so everyone's gonna believe her over me anyway but turns out the cops couldn't arrest me after all.

They told Laura's mom that 'driving without a license' means driving with no license issued, not just not having it with you. She got really pissed and kept pointing at me and I kept imagining all the people standing around watching me was wanting to burn me like a witch because why was I alive and Laura and all her friends were flipping me off and calling me names I couldn't hear but their faces was all mad.

When I got home that night I found out the cops had already called and my parents were steaming mad, calling me crazy luntic bastard shit making them look bad and their hair was all frizzed out from running their fingers through it while talking about how much they hate me and took a belt on me yelling, "die you shit, die!" I felt guilty when I was still alive the next morning.

That whole weekend I was scared. I couldn't go back to the mall, if someone saw me they'd kill me for sure. I even drove by and cop cars were there patrolling and I know it was me they was looking for, protecting the girls inside from me and the cars outside from me. Laura's mom told them I was a lying prick and it was true. My whole world just kept getting more and more out of orbit.

What made it really bad is what happened last year with Jenny Anderson, the coolest girl in class, when I tricked her bad. I emailed her like I was someone else and we started talking and she liked it and we became email friends. But the guilt was killing me cause I knew if she ever found out it was me the desperate leper creep she would have me assassinated and there'd be nothin' I could do about it. So I started calling her mean names in the emails and hurt her real bad before she could find out.

I cried for six months after that. I was lucky I didn't have anyone who would talk to me because I couldn't talk anyway. Everything that was anything was gone out of my life. Now I knew everything they been saying about me was true. I made sure I hit me every night before I go to bed and I start drinking poison until they had to put me in the crazy hospital and people started talking to me but only cause they was paid. They said I don't ever communicate is what they said. Well, of course not! Not supposed to! Don't want to die!

So I was thinking about all this that weekend and scared shitless what Laura and her friends was going to do to me at school on Monday but I had to do the right thing for once and communicate like them people said I should. I had to make up for the terrible things I do to people. So I went into the Principal's office and handed them this medical card I had that gives my personal info so Laura and them won't have any trouble suing me.

When they call Laura in she gets real mad all over again, confusing me cause I didn't even want to go in there and tell her about me anyway but she says I'm just doing it so I can be close to her and that I'm a total fucking creep who's better off dead. She gets her mom on her fancy I-Phone I can't afford and I hear her mom saying they need to call the cops and finally arrest me for all my creepy behavior. So I sit down waitin' for the cops to come all over again, wondering if I'm going to jail. I guess maybe I should be in prison after all.

I start getting really scared of making anybody else mad so I took off my shirt before the cops get there because I knew when they take me to the crazy hospital they will want to examine me and I'm wanting to show I won't cause any trouble. But then this super sexist feminist comes in with this tight blue dress and it's her job to deal with psycho people like me. She lays into me big time.

She says the only reason I ran into Laura's car was because Laura was a girl and if it had been a boy's car I would NEVER have done it and that I was nothing but a horny little bastard who wants to have sex with hot teenage girls and she bet I was traumatizing and victimizing them by looking down their shirts and pants as they showed their innocent bodies to my rapist eyes. And when she sees me with my shirt off she says that proves what I molester I am and she can't wait to have the cops show up and arrest me as a sex offender for life.

But the cops show up and say they can't arrest me for having my shirt off because then they'd have to arrest every boy in gym class. Super sexist feminist gets real mad at them saying they were giving me special treatment because I was a guy and they were guys and if I was a girl they'd drag me off for sure and traumatize and victimize her in court where she has to face creeps like me. All I knew was I was glad someone finally got yelled at that wasn't me.

I didn't try to do no more to help even though that made me feel real guilty. My parents had shaved off all their hair because they couldn't stand the shame of my existence and they asked God why they had been cursed and what had they done to piss Him off so bad to stick them with useless shit crap like me. If I had an answer I would have told them.

Those paid people was right. I do got my whole life in front of me. I really should kill myself. I see now that's why they was telling me that! No way I can be right about anything when everyone else says something else. They got all the friends and family and fucking and money so they must know everything. I got nothing so I must know nothing. God never stuck up for me neither that I can ever tell.

So I will make everyone happy, I promise. I promise to leave and burn up in the atmosphere soon as I can, I can't take no more, not a whole life for sure! Just ain't no way out for bad people exceptin' to die.


When Katy Perry heard I used this song she got real pissed and said it applies to "NORMAL people ONLY! Not you, shit face!"