If You Need Bail Money, Give Me A Call

In the last few weeks, I began posting on Facebook something called a “Random Start”. It’s an idea I stole from Riley Breckinridge’s blog Hermitology. Basically, my reason behind beginning this mostly-daily ritual was three-fold: to hopefully reintroduce myself to some of the music on my iPod I may have become estranged from, to maybe reintroduce some of my friends and followers to a band they have forgotten about, and finally (and maybe the most important reason) was to get myself writing again. I’ve slacked a bit in the creative writing department this year. (Honestly, I think somewhere along the line I lost my muse.) I noticed how RB writes a little bit each day about his “Random Start,” and thought it was a good way to get my creative juices flowing, even if it’s merely a quick little thought.

Since I began, twice (haha Thrice) Pearl Jam started my day. When “Faithful”, the second Seattle wake up call happened, it brought me back to my first Pearl Jam concert experience.

It was the summer of 2005 and I had recently begun working on Hack, my first paying job. The show took place at Hershey Stadium, and my good friend Suzanne was my partner in crime.

I have a strict concert policy I like to follow: No alcohol in my body. I don’t like to drink at shows. I get enough of a rush feeding off the energy of the live show and I want to remember every inch of what happens on stage. When I attended punk and hardcore shows, I didn’t want anything to impede my coordination as I crashed around in the pit. Suzanne begged and pleaded for me to go and buy some booze. After an intense verbal struggle, against my better judgment, I gave in and we went and bought 40s. See, Sue was a month shy of her twenty-first birthday, so I was the one of responsible drinking age who could legally make the purchase.

Hershey used to allow the occasional tailgating. I, trying to keep things as low key as possible, made sure were came prepared to the parking lot. We had opaque Y100 plastic cups and kept our bottles in a small cooler under a blanket on the floor of the backseat of my car.

We had a great time hanging out in the field turned parking lot across the street from the stadium. While we were drinking our first 40, we noticed a group of high school kids across the lane having a grand old time with a beer pong. At one point, two of the boys ventured out among the cars, presumably to track down other friends. Upon their return, Sue yelled to them, asking if they were two of the guys with the bong. They confirmed her suspicion and invited her to join. She declined, but not before a bicycle cop rolled up on the situation. Now is where the fun begins.

The cop makes the four of us line up and present our IDs. I, being legal, handed my driver’s license over no problem. They came Sue’s turn. I looked over and she was almost in tears. Damnit, I forgot: a month shy of turning twenty-one. The two other guys admitted to being underage right off the bat. Now, to the competent observer, you could easily draw the conclusion those two guys were not with us. They were yelling at us from several cars away. But no, this cop [read: pig] completely ignored the facts and began to ask me, rather condescendingly, why I would buy beer for my extremely young friends. My reply was simply the truth: “I don’t know those guys at all and I didn’t buy them anything.”

Officer Shitdick, “Bullshit, Don’t lie to me. I’m a cop. You know them.”

Oh, so we’re gonna play that game. I explained to the officer several times I didn’t know them, never met them, and in fact, still don’t know them. Literally seconds before he rolled up on his high horse, I didn’t even know they existed. Hell, I never even spoke to them. He didn’t buy it. Sue tried to explain it to him. The two high school kids explained it to him. Nope, still didn’t believe us. Finally, a second, female, officer rolled up on the scene and butted in. Lucky for me, she was a very nice woman who listened to my side of the story, and believed me. I think she assumed Sue and I were dating and wouldn’t be hanging out with younger kids anyway.

Seeing he was temporarily defeated, the first cop pulled me aside and began in on me again.

“Now obviously you and this chick here are here together, and since she is under age, you bought the booze for her.’ I agreed with his statement. I figured he saw our licenses and would give Sue and me a free pass since she was so close to being legal. Nope, wrong again Mallick. I always forget how much the law enforcement in Pennsylvania loves me. He started to threaten me with a thousand dollar fine and the possibility of three months in jail.

Oh, look, it’s my turn to roll the dice.

During his threatening speech, my cell phone rang. It was Josh Richards. I proceeded to cut him off and told him I needed to take this call. He stood there in complete shock, mouth agape, just cutting him off. Josh had called me, forgetting I was home for the weekend and not around to hang out in Philly for the night. I explained to him the situation which was unfolding. He laughed, and said to me, “Well buddy, if you need bail money, give me a call.” What a great friend. Love that man.

I went back to the cop, who had reteamed up with his female counterpart, and he was explaining to Sue the consequences of her actions. The male cop asked me who called. I told him it was my boss. “I hope you don’t get fired for getting arrested.”

“Nah, actually he thought it was pretty funny. I worked in television man. I could get busted with a pound of coke, and no one would give a shit.” I was so over this guy trying to belittle me with his inflated head. I then proceeded to have a lengthy discussion with the female cop about my job, getting all chummy. As it turned out, Hack was one of her favorite shows. She ended up giving me what was left of the high schooler’s beer; like a case and a half of Bass (who bongs Bass Ale?! amateurs) and their bong. All while the male stood there, fuming.

I walked away pretty unscathed from the whole situation. I got fined a hundred and fifty bucks and was charged with, and I quote, “Creating a situation that served no legitimate purpose.” That’s actually something pretty funny to have on my record. Sue got the worst of it: a couple hundred-dollar fine and a loss of her driver’s license for six months.

The moral of the story: most cops are dicks, but there are those few, wonderful little loopholes, which let you go with a slap on the wrist. Also, it gave me another really entertaining story to tell people.

Belief in the game, controls that keep us in a box of fear… We never listen…

Failure Leaves Such A Bitter Taste In My Mouth*

“What would school have been like if you never had to worry about getting an F? Students at West Potomac High School in Alexandria, Va., are about to find out…”

A few days ago, I came across this article by Mira Jacob on Yahoo and it really got under my skin. To give you a summary of what is taking place in Virginia, school officials have done away with the standard failing mark, the “F”, and replaced with the letter “I” for incomplete. The argument the article is trying to address is if this is “…an inspired move to get those marginal students on track and learning, or just another way in which we’re coddling underachieving kids and hobbling the rest [.]”

I think we’re coddling the little fuckers. Failure should be an option.

Back in the day when I swam for the once glorious Mountain View Crawdads (my summer league team) there was a rule in the league stating if you team lost every meet, they were to move down a division. On the contrary, if you won every meet, your team advanced to a higher echelon. There has to be consequences on both sides of the spectrum to give incentive and make kids work towards goals.

There should be a threat of failure; no child likes to be left back. My junior year of high school, I almost failed my Honors history class; history was not my strongest subject by far. By the end of my first quarter, my teach informed me I should drop the honors class and take the standard Academic level course. I didn’t want to leave the entertaining and more advanced learning of the Honors level course, but at the same time, failing would have been a huge blemish on my academic career. This fear forced me to sit down and read my notes over every night; I rewrote every page of my notes until I remembered every word that was taught to me that day. I sat down with my folks and had them quiz me every night. It was probably the hardest I ever worked for any type of class in my life, high school or college. And by the time mid-terms came around, I was back on track, scoring “A’s” in the class.

By telling student if they fail, there is a chance to fix it, you’re teaching them a skewed life lesson. If I didn’t have the fear from my teacher, I might never have worked as hard as I did. I believe the notion of failure in a child’s development shows them life isn’t fair, that you have to work hard if you want to get ahead in this world. If students believe they don’t have to be their best to move on to the next grade, and there’s is always time to fix things, there will be no sense of urgency to better them selves.

If a student is really have trouble keeping up, the school should have different education levels. At Bishop McDevitt, where I did my time, there were three different tracks: Honors for the more advanced students, Academic for the average kids, and Basic for those who might have a little trouble grasping the material. I’m not saying one level is better than another. Everyone learns differently. This system gives students who absorb knowledge differently, options.

There is a flip side to my argument however, because of course, the world isn’t black and white. The problem is the threat almost gives you the feeling that if you mess up, your whole life is over. Parents and teachers like to stress that every decision and choice you make early in school has a rippling effect on your success in life and your career. This is obviously not the case.

I was asked at age fourteen, in my freshman Algebra class, what I wanted to do with my life. I needed to know, so I could plan the rest of my math and science courses correctly to be advanced enough before going away to college. I said I was interested in computers, so I had to make sure I took multiple math classes sophomore year, then I could take this other math class junior year, to make sure I was in Calculus and some other intense math class by my senior year. I hated math; I didn’t want to do that much math. So I said to my Algebra teacher, and I quote, “That’s a lot of math. Eh, screw it, I’ll work in television.” (Luckily, my teacher was a sexist drunk who had more heart attacks than letters in his name, so I didn’t get in trouble for saying screw it.)

You’ll never hear me say this again, but I think a little bit of fear does kids a favor. Learning from one’s mistakes and failure is priceless. The value of learning from losing is one lesson everyone should learn.

Be still and know that they won't lie to you every single time you're facing lies…

[*Easily one of my favorite song lyrics of all time.]