Rioting—the unbeatable high
Adrenalin shoots your nerves to the sky
Everyone knows this town is gonna blow
And it’s all gonna blow right now….

Now you can smash all the windows that you want
All you really need are some friends and a rock
Throwing a brick never felt so damn good
Smash more glass
Scream with a laugh
And wallow with the crowds
Watch them kicking peoples’ ass

But you get to the place
Where the real slavedrivers live
It’s walled off by the riot squad
Aiming guns right at your head
So you turn right around
And play right into their hands
And set your own neighbourhood
Burning to the ground instead

Chorus
Riot—the unbeatable high
Riot—shoots your nerves to the sky
Riot—playing into their hands
Tomorrow you’re homeless
Tonight it’s a blast

Get your kicks in quick
They’re callin’ the national guard
Now could be your only chance
To torch a police car

Climb the roof, kick the siren in
And jump and yelp for joy
Quickly—dive back in the crowd
Slip away, now don’t get caught

Let’s loot the spiffy hi-fi store
Grab as much as you can hold
Pray your full arms don’t fall off
Here comes the owner with a gun

Chorus

The barricades spring up from nowhere
Cops in helmets line the lines
Shotguns prod into your bellies
The trigger fingers want an excuse
Now

The raging mob has lost its nerve
There’s more of us but who goes first
No one dares to cross the line
The cops know that they’ve won

It’s all over but not quite
The pigs have just begun to fight
They club your heads, kick your teeth
Police can riot all that they please

Chorus

Tomorrow you’re homeless
Tonight it’s a blast

Everyone has a guilty pleasure. For some people it is an innocuous pleasure such as a film or an album, while for others it is an assortment of ball gags and studded paddles in a secret compartment of their home. No problem. Do what you will but harm no one….or whatever the saying is. You get the gist.
 
Some people have no fear (shame) and openly share every aspect of their life with anyone who asks. Most of us, however, are a bit more discreet. Some of us do it out of embarrassment while others do it for purely legal purposes. Whatever your guilty pleasure, your fetish, your fantasy or your sickness, we deem it vital to our continued harmony that we keep these pleasures concealed.
 
It’s not so hard to understand how this happens. After all America the Beautiful is a repressed and neurotic little country, marked as much by its puritanical origins than any progressive ideology that one would associate with a supposed free country. We learn to keep parts of ourselves hidden for safekeeping, particularly when the world is shrinking day by day and the notion of privacy is becoming more and more of an anachronism.
 
I am naturally a person who keeps a lot to myself. Not so much secretive as protective. It is my humble belief that people should retain aspects of themselves for themselves. What else makes an individual if not his/her personal quirks and pleasures?
 
This mindset is not shared by all. Many believe that the world and the people who live in it should be transparent with everything laid bare. These are generally people who have nothing remotely interesting about themselves to reveal or they possess the grainiest of skeletons in their closets. The former wish for transparency simply because they have nothing to share, while the latter wish transparency for all but themselves as a means of power and control (J. Edgar Hoover comes to mind. A man who was obsessed with compiling information on individuals from all walks of life, but whose own perversities were diligently guarded).

Relationships are tricky. When you enter into a relationship with someone it is expected that you will share all of yourself with the other person, regardless. I’ve always been hesitant to meet that expectation due to my own insatiable respect for privacy (mine and theirs).

Due to this, I’ve always had trouble maintaining a happy relationship. But I feel that there’s nothing wrong with retaining a little mystery about yourself. After all, isn’t it the mysteries of the person that seemed so attractive to begin with? It’s the things you didn’t know about the person that made you want to get to know them.

Another way to look at it: if you kept a journal and your significant other asked to read it, would you share it with them? Most of us would say no because, at the end of the day, there are just some thoughts and words that should belong solely to us. If I am doomed to contentious relationships for the remainder of my days because of this belief, then I am prepared to take one for the team. I am nothing, if not consistent.
 
Not to give the impression that I’m some complex, secretive guy. Far from it. There’s not much grime in my mind, that I’m aware of. Most of my guilty pleasures center around songs or bad movies.
 
However, when one spends the majority of his time buying records, discussing records or both at the same time, these guilty pleasures can take on the significance of one discovering their wife or husband has been leading a secret life that involves dog cages and leather masks with zippers.
 
Record collectors can be brutal in their assessment of one’s listening preferences. You could have one of the most highly respected collections in the world, but if word should leak that you were seen humming to the Backstreet Boys “I Want It That Way”, you’re finished, my friend. All of the great records that you possess will take a backseat and people will only care to know where you have hidden your copy of “Millennium”.

It doesn’t even matter if it was a song you grew up with. When you’re a kid, before you began collecting, you’d sing along to anything that was on the radio. There was no thought of what differentiated a good song from a bad one. You weren’t old enough for a song or music genre to speak to you. All that came from the speakers was music and words.

Music industry opportunists understand this, which is why so much of the banal music that music snobs rail against is aimed at children. Those little shits will listen to anything just like we did.

When I was a kid, Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” was a big hit, constantly on the radio and MTV. I purchased the cassette single and played it constantly. I thought I was a little badass listening to Bon Jovi. Within a couple of years my music interests changed substantially, but I always had a soft spot for the song.

Unfortunately, playing it would have to be reserved for the car or my room with the windows and doors locked tight and the volume adjusted so that it could not be heard from outside. If my record collecting peers discovered I was listening to that song, my reputation would have been sullied beyond repair. “Livin’ on a Prayer” had taken on the significance of a banned piece of literature in the middle ages with me, the peasant revolutionary, sitting in dim candlelight, heart beating fast for fear of capture.

Everybody has a guilty pleasure though. This is one of those life lessons you learn as you progress. The snobbier the collector, the more you can expect that he or she listens to Journey in the dead of the night, with headphones, an emotional fist-pump every time Steve Perry comes to them with open arms. Count on it. By day they wax philosphically about the merits of the original Punk movement, Sonic Youth and Sufjan Stevens, but it will be the soothing sounds of “November Rain” by Guns ‘n’ Roses that will put them to bed.

And that’s okay. I say embrace your guilty pleasures. Take them in your arms, kiss them and hold them high. Listen, read, think, see, feel those guilty pleasures. Revel in who you are and what makes you happy. Just be careful who you tell.   

I was recently introduced to the Showtime series, Californication, starring David Duchovny. This is one of the best shows I’ve seen, period. Duchovny stars as Hank Moody, a writer who is struggling with writer’s block and the fact that his best selling novel was turned into a crappy Hollywood film while he struggles with the fact that his ex-girlfriend who he still loves is marrying another man. The writing is sharp and the performances are incredibly solid. It’s a show aimed at adults for adults without any pretension and I love it. The following clip features Hank Moody on Henry Rollins radio show discussing his dislike with internet culture. Try not to nod your head in agreement, I dare you.

Look out of any window
any morning, any evening, any day
Maybe the sun is shining
birds are winging or
rain is falling from a heavy sky -
What do you want me to do,
to do for you to see you through?
this is all a dream we dreamed
one afternoon long ago
Walk out of any doorway
feel your way, feel your way
like the day before
Maybe you'll find direction
around some corner
where it's been waiting to meet you -
What do you want me to do,
to watch for you while you're sleeping?
Well please don't be surprised
when you find me dreaming too

Look into any eyes
you find by you, you can see
clear through to another day
I know it's been seen before
through other eyes on other days
while going home --
What do you want me to do,
to do for you to see you through?
It's all a dream we dreamed
one afternoon long ago

Walk into splintered sunlight
Inch your way through dead dreams
to another land
Maybe you're tired and broken
Your tongue is twisted
with words half spoken
and thoughts unclear
What do you want me to do
to do for you to see you through
A box of rain will ease the pain
and love will see you through

Just a box of rain -
wind and water -
Believe it if you need it,
if you don't just pass it on
Sun and shower -
Wind and rain -
in and out the window
like a moth before a flame

It's just a box of rain
I don't know who put it there
Believe it if you need it
or leave it if you dare
But it's just a box of rain
or a ribbon for your hair
Such a long long time to be gone
and a short time to be there

“Are you sure we’re not lost?” I asked.
“We’re not lost. Relax, we’re almost there,” Bobby said.
I was driving. We were in Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. Summer. Sand. Women. Lust. So far the summer, sand and lust had been plentiful, but the women had been another story.  Bobby suggested this strip club he had heard of called  “Sand Dunes” not far from the hotel we were staying in.That’s where we were headed.
“I can’t believe they named the place, ‘Sand Dunes’,” I said upon learning the name.
“Right. There’s nothing suggestive about sand dunes,” added Johnny. “Unless they’re trying to imply a woman’s tits; but who the hell would want to touch a chick’s tits if they felt like sand dunes?”
“Who cares what the name is, as long as you get to see naked chicks,” Bobby said.
He had a point. I had never been to a strip club before, though I had only just turned twenty-one. I had been invited to a private party where a stripper had been hired to dance but I didn’t take an active part in watching the performance. She wasn’t much to look at, all the more so by her sweat running her eye make-up. It was a bit ghastly.
I wasn’t really up for going to this place called “Sand Dunes”. I had been feeling depressed and burned out by the surroundings for several days. I wasn’t a beach person. I didn’t care much for the sun or the hordes of idiots, drunk, babbling and looking for trouble.
I did enjoy the water, especially lying in the spot where the waves met the sand. The water would come in and wash over me; it was comforting. I liked it. Of course, that was before I read about the suspected levels of pollution in the water and my frolicking in the waves came to a, excuse the pun, crashing halt.
Florida had become a yearly excursion for me, my friends and countless other young people, age 18-25. The trip usually consisted of myself, Johnny and his girlfriend, Marian, with a few other friends or whatever girl I was fooling around with at the time, if such a girl existed.
I didn’t bring many girlfriends on these trips. I was concerned bringing the girls I dated around my friends, afraid they might do something stupid and take me with them. I avoided it whenever possible. So much so my friends were always left wondering if I was dating someone or I wasn’t. That’s the way I liked it. I didn’t want people, even my friends, knowing about me. The less people knew about me, the less they could use against me. I learned that from my father, quite possibly the most secretive man in America, outside of government officials.
This current trip it had been just the three of us - Johnny, Marian & myself - hanging out and taking in the beach and local cuisine. A family friend of Marian’s had been offering us the use of a condo for several years. The beach was largely private. At night we would drink copious amounts of beer, dig tunes and play darts or sit in the white sand discussing various topics until we grew tired. And then we ran into Bobby. We had known Bobby for several years. He had been part of the group of friends Johnny and I had growing up. As we grew older, we began to drift away from the old crowd, particularly Bobby due to his behavior patterns that could easily veer from stable into psychopathic at the drop of a hat. The fact he had began to sell drugs didn’t help matters. Bobby’s was a life of upheaval, and we no longer saw the romanticism in such a life.
Bobby was like a time warp: he was still living the high life of the juvenile delinequents from years before. He had no job, a couple of illegitimate children and no sense or care of the fact he was getting older. The three of us, by comparison, were working stiffs: Johnny and Marian were going to college and working full-time while I took the occasional evening class and worked full-time as well.
We ran into Bobby at a seafood restaurant. His appearance drained us of our color and we become noticably uneasy as he sat down. Bobby was in town visiting the mother of one of the aforementioned kids. He had stopped in the restaurant because he knew a few of the employees. We didn’t ask how. The three of us looked at one another. There was certainly no way we were going to be comfortable if Bobby was planning to be around for the remainder of our week in Florida.
Bobby offered to see if he could get our ticket wiped out and disappeared into the kitchen. You’d have thought he owned the place.
“I’m not spending the rest of the week with him, Johnny,” Marian said. She was a timid soul, but pushed over a line, would transform into an intimidating presence.
“What am I supposed to do?” asked Johnny.
“Yeah, Bobby’s been a friend of ours for years,” I added. “It’s going to be awkward if we try and shake him or ask him to get lost.”
Marian fumed, realizing that there was no way out if Bobby decided to hang around.
“Our only chance is to bore the shit out of him. If he gets bored, he’ll probably cut out on his own.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to bore him,” Johnny said. “We’re not exactly an exciting group.”
“Just the smartest,” I said, smiling.
Bobby made his way back to the table.
“I took care of that bill for you,” he said, sitting back down and taking a bite out of a hush puppie.
“Really?” asked Johnny. “What did you do?”
“The girl waiting on you - her name is Alana - owes me some money so she’ll take care of the bill.”
“There’s no need…” Marian began.
“It’s settled,” Bobby said.
“Well, thanks man.”
We spent the next half hour catching up, leaving out as many details of our itinerary as possible, as Bobby had Alana bring him food and beer.
Finally, sated, with the restaurant trying to close for the evening, we made our way into the salty air.
“Where are you guys staying?” Bobby asked.
Marian and I looked at one another and then at Johnny.

We were sitting around the condo, working through the last of the beer, bored out of our skulls. It was the night after we had met up with Bobby. The night before, upon arriving at the condo, Bobby promptly fell asleep on the couch, sending the three of us out to the deck to discuss our plight. It was decided we would cut the trip short and leave the day after tomorrow. That still left one more evening with Bobby.
As the night proceeded Bobby started telling me about the”Sand Dunes”. He’d passed it a few times. He thought we should go check it out, meaning me and him. I didn’t want to be left alone with Bobby, but Marion and Johnny were separating themselves from us and there was simply no other choice; I certainly didn’t want to impose on them. So I gave in and Bobby and I started driving in an effort to save the night.

“Are you sure we’re not lost?” I asked again. The bar was located off the main strip, but Bobby couldn’t remember exactly where.
“Pull into this gas station, man,” he said. I pulled in, parked, and he went inside. I kept the car running. The parking lot was filled with a bunch of kids trying to look tough, sucking back cheap wine in the bottle as that was all they could score. I could see Bobby inside at the counter talking to someone, ostensibly a clerk, but I couldn’t see the clerk. He spoke to the phantom clerk a few more seconds before exiting to get back in the car.
“We passed it about a mile back,” he said.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“The clerk told me.”
“I take it he’s a fan of the place?”
“No…she is.”
“Oh.”

The Dunes  was a hard place to miss once you found it, garish in its neon and light. We parked and made our way into the place. As soon as we entered there were breasts everywhere you looked. It would have been dream-like if not for the large crowd, shouting, laughing and falling on itself.
It was a large crowd for 1:00 AM. I had expected a thinning crowd with a few surly types buried at corner tables and circled by cigarette smoke. Instead there was a large group of college-age kids and, surprisingly to me, adult couples of men and women lost in wild abandon. My four eyes took in breasts, ass, ties, suits, crew cuts, cigarettes and hair. Long hair, short hair, pubic hair.
I noticed there was one main stage and then two smaller stages in the back where those dancers less attractive and over the hill were trying to squeeze one last dollar out of the desperate and wretched.
We found a table off to the side of the main stage and took a seat. There was a gorgeous, though exhausted-looking, woman on stage in nothing but a thong dancing seductively and hypnotically to the beat.
I just looked around. I could think of little else to do or say. My own experience with women had been with girls my own age or a little younger. None of them looked like the woman on stage. The woman on stage was fully developed and completely in tune with who she was as a woman. There was no question you were looking at a fully-formed individual. Realizing I was intellectualizing a woman whose job it was to take her clothes off, I decided the best thing to do was order a beer, try to relax and wait Bobby’s restlessness out.
I didn’t want to be there. The night before we met Bobby, I went for a walk on the beach to give Johnny and Marion time alone. Being a private stretch of beach. I only passed two people as I walked, lost to the sounds of the waves coming in the dark of the night. I found a spot, took a seat and buried my feet in the sand, looking out on the water and the stars. It felt good, peaceful, quiet, beautiful. I wrote a poem in the sand. I wasn’t much of a poet, but it seemed wrong not to capture the moment in some way.
I began to dream about the years still ahead of me and how I would make my way in the world. I saw myself putting the finishing touches on a great novel and the alcohol-drenched parties of the literary elite; women of all colors and backgrounds, moved to tears by my faithful recounting of life, hanging onto me as if their life depended on it. I would love all of them deeply and without regret, dedicating each of my books to them bt never giving myself to them completely with the exception of showing up on their doorstep, unannounced, for a lively chat or to speed them away on an impetuous getaway. I kept telling myself I would not always be alone on a beach. The future was wide open.

Back in The Dunes, I asked Bobby about the couples that were scattered throughout the place.
“What’s up with that?”
“Probably swingers,” he said.
“Swingers?”
“Yeah, you know, like, uh, those two are married but they like to have sex with a third party occasionally.”
“Why get married?” I asked.
“Dude, ask them. It’s America: people can do whatever they want to.”
I sipped at my beer. There was a new woman on stage now, not as pretty as the last one but infinitely more attractive in body.
“Actually, me and Julee have tried swinging,” he said.
Julee was his girlfriend. She was the older sister of our friend, Nicole. Nicole wasn’t bad to look at, but Julee was absolutely gorgeous with a body that could have graced the covers of the magazines I kept in a corner of my closet. She had always gravitated to older, successful men with money until Bobby somehow hooked up with her. According to more than one person, Julee had gotten into cocaine, and Bobby being a dealer was a logical move for her. I didn’t have much to do with either of them so I neither knew nor cared what they did with themselves.
“Yeah, me and Julee meet up with these girls, take them back to the crib, have sex with them and videotape it.”
“Why do you videotape it?”
“We’re starting a website.”
“A porn website?”
“Yeah. Do you know how much money you can make with one of those sites, man? The internet is starting to take off and the porno sites are blowing up. Think about it, porn is perfect for the net. We’re going to make a killing….and the sleeping with different hot girls is a plus as well.”
Before the conversation could go further we were approached by a topless waitress who asked if we wanted more beers and made small talk with Bobby.  He did have a charm with the ladies, despite being a complete wreck of a human being.
I resumed looking around the place, taking in the women, but did not find myself excited by the atmosphere. There was something sad in watching them all saunter around, begging for change in their own way. There was something equally sad in my own presence here, but I tried not to dwell on it.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to look into the face of one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She put Julee to shame. She could have been in a beauty pageant instead of this place, but here she was. I looked over at Bobby who was as struck by her as I was.
“How’s it going, guys?” she asked. I mumbled in response. I had no idea what to say to beauty of this magnitude, particularly one so scantily clad. She was wearing a sparkling short dress, greyish in color, with white thigh-high boots.
“Would one of you like a private dance?” she asked, squeezing my arm lightly. I had to resist the absurdity of flexing my arm.
“Here?” I asked stupidly. I saw Bobby shake his head in disbelief at my idiocy.
“No, not here,” she said, giggling.  “We’ll go back to the V.I.P. room.”
I looked over where she pointed but couldn’t make much of it. A room shrouded in mystery, reserved for me. My chest swelled slightly.
“I don’t know…” I said, feeling my heart beating in my chest.
Suddenly I felt a foot kick my leg, hard. I grimaced. Bobby was motioning me toward the room with his eyes.
“Okay,” I said, smiling in pain. She locked her arm with mine and we made our way across the bar slowly as I was limping thanks to the pain in my leg from Bobby’s bone-crunching kick.
“What’s your name?” she asked. I told her.
“Where are you from?” she asked. I told her.
“My name is Velvet,” she said.
“I don’t believe that,” I said. “What’s your real name?”
“Why?”
“I’m just curious,” I said.
“Judy.”
“Velvet is a lovely name,” I said.
She was originally from Lexington, Kentucky. I asked her how she ended up in Florida, but she didn’t seem interested in discussing it.
My initial idea of the V.I.P. room, having never been in one, was a room with a chair in the middle with an assortment of lights and mirrors. She would close a door and the thump-thump-thump of the club would become muted for music specially selected for the room. And then she would dance solely for me and maybe throw in a surprise or two along the way.
It wasn’t like that at all. An archway led us into the room where smoke machines and neon did little to conceal the other dancers and patrons who were also in there. It was a group thing, obviously. Speakers fed the same music into the room as in the club proper and it was so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think.
We sat down. Fortunately we weren’t close to the other people in the room as our side of the room was bare.
“We’ll wait until this song ends before starting,” she said. “I want to make sure you get a full song.”
I nodded. I had nothing to say. I wanted to be sitting on the beach with my feet buried in the sand more than ever. Maybe with Velvet sitting beside me. Now, there was an idea. If I could get her away from this madness, maybe I’d find some wonderful mind there in addition to a night full of sex on the beach.
“Oh, by the way, it’ll be twenty bucks up front,” she said, holding her hand out. I noticed the lifeline in her palm was short but I didn’t  buy into that palm reading shit.
I dug a twenty out of my jeans and handed it to her. As she took it, she crossed her legs . I almost shouted at the smoothness of her legs and the perfect way they slipped into her thigh-high boots. All I could think about was licking the area where the leg went into the boot. I was becoming a lunatic. My heart was beating and I could feel the blood rushing through my body along with the sweat standing out on my skin. My youthful lust was superceding my apathy of the last few days.
“Have you ever had a lap dance before?” she asked.
I shook my head. She smiled.
“In that case I’ll make it memorable,” she said running her fingers through my hair. I felt a rush feeling her fingers across my scalp.
“It already is,” I said, chuckling like a fool. She raised her eyebrows. I began to sweat even more and cursed myself for being an idiot.
I looked her over again. Her dress fit her like a glove. It was truly exceptional. I began to yearn for the current song to end so my dance would start and I could see what was underneath that dress.
Finally the song ended. It was time. She wore her hair up but she took it down for the dance, leaving me fearing I could fall in love with her as I watched it shatter down upon her shoulders and around her face.
The song started. Having seen multiple signs around the place warning not to touch the dancers, I locked my hands behind the chair in an effort to resist temptation. She wasn’t much of a dancer, but as she removed the dress I didn’t care much. Never in my life had I seen a body of such magnificence in the flesh. This was Playboy material.
My mother once found my stash of “dirty magazines” as she called them. After admonishing me about sin, she also pointed out how the women were air-brushed and fake and that this created a false sense of women in the minds of men. Maybe so, but Velvet was right here in front of me and there was no air-brushing involved; she was simply perfect.
She came in close, teasing me. My hands began to shake, but I kept them behind the chair. A nipple came perilously close to my lips and I shut them tight. At one point she did a handstand and placed her legs over my shoulders. That caught me by surprise. Now I had, just inches from my face, a dream. Catching our reflection in the mirror I had to stifle a smirk because we did look fairly ridiculous together; me, four-eyed, with my hands clutched behind my back, and she, beautiful, unsteadily supporting her weight with her hands as her legs rested on my shoulders.
As she moved her cunt in front of my face I began to think that this was possibly the first and last time I’d ever have a woman as physically alluring this close to me. In what should have been a purely physical moment, my mind began turning. I was painfully aware I didn’t meet the physical requirements a woman like Velvet would demand. There was nothing in her that suggested she preferred a diminutive man such as myself. I was certain she liked the physically intimidating types with the dim brains and the crafted upper torso.
I could see my future: A lifetime of pleasantly average women awaited me. Honestly, that was fine with me; the average girls were easier to live with. However, it would have been nice to have just one night with a woman of Velvet’s caliber. Rock stars, politicians and athletes experienced women of this type on a nightly basis. Why not one night for an employee of the month in his company’s mail room? Why not?
This all went through my mind with her only inches from me. My mind was bursting with fire-driven thoughts. A bonfire was melting my self-control and the perspiration rolled down my face. I knew that doing what I was thinking could result in Bobby and myself being thrown out and possibly thrashed by one or more of the bouncers - one of the bouncers might even be her boyfriend - still, this might be my only shot. But I couldn’t do it. I was afraid of the unknown then as now.  Instead, I kept my hands behind me and allowed the song to play through to its conclusion.
When the song ended, she was sitting on my lap with her legs wrapped around me rubbing herself against my body. By this time my passion had left me and I just wanted it to end. She came to an abrupt stop with the song and was on her feet in one impressive motion looking down at me - sweaty, ruffled hair and a fading erection. Definitely not Man of the Year material.
We didn’t speak as she put her dress back on. What was there to say? There was no pleasure in her features, she had derived no certain joy from giving me that dance. We were simply two people who had temporarily crossed paths and were now preparing to return from whence we came. It was like a one-night stand without the sex: you realize you’ll never see this person again and you’re alternately thankful and saddened.
I said goodbye. She smiled and waved me on. I walked to the bathroom, her scent clinging to me. I washed my face. I stared into the mirror. Behind me, slumped against the wall, some old drunk had passed out. Did he have family who wondered at his whereabouts? If they did, could they possibly believe he was passed out on the bathroom floor on the edge of nothing? I stepped closer to him and saw a roll of bills in his hand. I knelt down and lifted the bills very carefully from his hand. I counted it. It came out to $84.00. I stood up and placed the bills in my pocket and left the bathroom.
I made my way back to the table where I found Bobby was paying the tab. This made me happy, I was ready to get out of there.
“Johnny called,” Bobby said, holding up his cell phone. “He said Marian went to bed and he’s bored so he wants us to come back and hang out.”
I nodded.
“Don’t worry about the beers. I picked up the tab,” he said.
We walked outside. I could smell the ocean. Particles of sand swirled in the wind resting on my face. I wanted to get drunk and lie in the sand under the night sky.
“How did the dance go?”Bobby asked me.
“It was okay.”
“Okay? That chick was fucking beautiful, dude. I think it was probably a little better than okay.”
“Yeah,” I said, tuning him out.
“For a little extra she might have let you touch her or more,” he said.
I said nothing. I stuck my hand in my pocket and felt the $84.00. It felt terrible. I couldn’t rationalize why I took the money other than it was there. I was nothing more than a petty thief. How could I criticize Bobby’s deeds and then turn around and do what I had done. I thought about turning around and taking the money back. I should take it back, I told myself. Instead, I got into the car and drove us back to the condo. My illusion of myself as a human on a pedestal, better than those vagrants in the dark shadows, was at an end. I was like every other human being - out for mine and mine alone. The idea of what this could mean in my years ahead left me troubled….but 84 dollars richer all the same.

I arrived on time the next day and Hutto had me fill out some paperwork before putting me to work. He led me over to the first aisle. It was canned vegetables, jars of pickles and condiments. He started on the top aisle, turning the products so that the labels faced outward. He also pulled stock to the front of the shelf, where needed.
“This is called ‘fronting’,” he explained. “I want you to go down each aisle and front everything that needs it. Make sure the label is facing out.”
“I thought I would be stocking shelves?” I asked, disappointed by this development.
“You thought wrong; I need you to front shelves. I already have other guys stocking shelves. If you don’t like it, go get another job.”
“No, I’ll do it. I’m not very tall though. Am I supposed to stand on my tip-toes to reach the top shelf every time?”
“Are you some kind of smart ass?”
“No, sir.”
“If you are some kind of smart ass, you can beat it right now. I got enough smart asses here.”
“I’m just….I just didn’t know,” I said, cowering. I expected to be fired right there and then.
He looked at me a moment, searching my face for signs of smart ass. Impatience more than smart ass was setting in on my part. I was ready to deck the old bastard and hit the road.
“Wait here,” he said, and walked away.
Once he was out of sight a guy with a mop of curly hair and glasses suddenly poked his head around the corner. He was a gangly, dorky-looking kid.
“I heard we had a new guy. What’s up? My name is Tim,” he said.
We shook hands.
“Everybody starts out fronting. It sucks. Not hard work, you know, just boring.”
“How long you been here?” I asked.
“Eight months.”
“How long did you front?”
“Six months.”
“Great. This is all you did for six months?”
“More or less. Eventually they’ll teach you the register, or you might have to go help bag. But fronting will be your main job for a while.”
Suddenly Hutto rounded the corner, catching Tim talking to me. He had a milk crate in his hands. Upon seeing us talking his face twisted into an even worse scowl.
“Tim, what are you doing?”he asked brusquely upon reaching us.
“I was just meeting the new guy…”
“Yeah, well there’s a spill on aisle nine you need to take care of. Why don’t you go do that?”
Tim gritted his teeth and shook his head.
“See ya later,” he said to me and set off for aisle nine.
You need to talk to people on your own time, got that?” Hutto told me.
“Yes, sir.”
If this fucker didn’t leave me to my thoughts, I was going to be unemployed sooner rather than later. I began to curse my father and his insistence on work. My father praised work as if it was what man was created for, but he always neglected to leave out characters like Hutto that he might have worked with. No doubt he knew it would be a deterrent.
Who did this bloated son of a bitch, Hutto, think he was? Because he had a title - manager - he somehow felt that made him better than me? I began to realize the true danger I had put myself in, for this was the first day of many years to come. My father said if I saved my money, invested it right, I could retire by the time I was in my fifties or sixties. But what good was that? Your best years were behind you. Yet, what was the alternative? Sleeping under overpasses or in ditches, begging for change like the homeless people downtown? That was even worse.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I heard a voice in my head ask.
“I don’t know,” I said aloud. Hutto heard me and was now looking at me strangely.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “You ain’t on drugs, are ya?”
“Nothing…sorry. I was just daydreaming.”
“You don’t get paid for daydreaming. Here, front this aisle. When you’re finished, I’ll check to make sure it’s right.”
He walked back towards the stockroom. As he rounded the corner I flipped him a bird in an empty gesture of defiance. I was now alone. The Muzak played overhead. Night had come and the traffic in the store had slowed down.

You were under the impression
That when you were walking forward
You’d end up further onward
But things ain’t quite that simple.

You got altered information
You were told to not take chances
You missed out on new dances
Now you’re losing all your dimples.

My jacket’s gonna be cut and slim and checked,
Maybe a touch of seersucker, with an open neck.
I ride a G.S. scooter with my hair cut neat,
Wear my wartime coat in the wind and sleet.

Love Reign O’er Me.
Love Reign O’er Me.
Love.

I’ve had enough of living
I’ve had enough of dying
I’ve had enough of smiling
I’ve had enough of crying
I’ve taken all the high roads
I’ve squandered and I’ve saved
I’ve had enough of childhood
I’ve had enough of graves…

Get a job and fight to keep it,
Strike out to reach a mountain.
Be so nice on the outside
But inside keep ambition

Don’t cry because you hunt them
Hurt them first they’ll love you
There’s a millionaire above you
And you’re under his suspicion.

I’ve had enough of dancehalls
I’ve had enough of pills
I’ve had enough of streetfights
I’ve seen my share of kills
I’m finished with the fashions
And acting like I’m tough
I’m bored with hate and passion
I’ve had enough of trying to love.

I have always had a thing for hip girls, even though I am not hip. I have never dated a hip girl. I have never had sex with a hip girl, though I was fortunate to make out with a hip girl…..once. I’ve always found the hip girls very appealing. I like their intelligence, their fashion, their cultural tastes and their overall attitude about life, which consists of a very cool appraisal of everything. They’re just cool. Some of them try to be cool and succeed. Others don’t try, and succeed. But they all succeed.
The hip girl is the archetype of the perfect woman in my mind, which explains why I have been perpetually unsatisfied in my own relationships with women. They do not live up to this archetype. It’s frustrating, but I feel the most intense frustration with myself because I continue to allow my relationships to be defined by an archetype.
As I mentioned, I’m not hip. If I had to categorize myself, I’d say I’m a dork. I have a dorky sense of humor, like dorky movies, talk a bit dorky, even look a bit dorky. I have no sense of fashion or time and place. The majority of what I like was created in an earlier time. I’m a man out of time. I can get by in a social situation, if necessary, but it’s not something I crave. Unfortunately, I can’t see those hip girls of my imagination from my balcony so I have to set out occasionally, if only for a peek.
I like the hip girls, but I’ve always been intimidated by the hip girls.  I’ve always dated girls who I felt were more in my league, such as dorky girls or dumb girls or extremely young girls. Never the hip girl though.  
Hip girls were always too smart. Still are. That’s the thing I love most about them, but it is the thing that intimidates me the most. Growing up, the only attribute my friends were looking for in a girl was one who looked decent in body and face and would put out. I on the other hand was interested in girls who were intellectually equal or superior to myself. My idea of a good time was to stay up half the night talking in excited tones about things that, well, excited us. And then, with a little luck, she’d put out. I believe in stimulating my mind, body and soul.
But it never happened. I either did not know these types of girls or I knew them but they were dating someone else or lacked any noticeable interest in me. My inward shallowness would remind me that I wasn’t hip, my hair style wasn’t hip, my clothes weren’t hip, as if that was the determining factor in any rational person’s acceptance of someone. Sure, I could perhaps intrigue one of these girls long enough with my pop culture tastes, but it would never go further than that one night I was on a futon making out with my archetype.
I remember it well. I had gotten sufficiently drunk and had enough charm in the tank to interest her for most of the evening. Later, rolling on that futon, I was a happy man. Here I was, making out with this gorgeous girl after a night of stimulating conversation and now I was on the cusp of fulfilling my dream when….I got sick. In my attempts to calm my nerves I had drank too much and the rolling back and forth on the futon caused me to lose the contents of my stomach all over her. It was a nightmare of a scenario, eclipsed only by the story a friend of mine had told me about his roommate. This guy had brought a girl home and was having sex with her when suddenly she lost control of her bowels. Not a pretty picture, and one can only imagine the pure horror of that moment for both people involved. According to my friend his roommate kicked the poor girl, literally, out of the apartment.
As for my situation, there really was no way to fix the situation and I fled from my friend’s apartment after she fled, noticeably agitated, into the bathroom to clean up. 

I continued dating girls more my speed, and came away feeling less and less satisfied. I was lying to them and, most importantly, to myself. Nevertheless, I continued to go along. And each fling or relationship was good for a while, but eventually the archetype would cross my path and I would be compelled to call it off or do something to force the girl I was with to call it off since I was a coward and hated the process of breaking up with someone.
Not surprisingly, one of my favorite songs during this time was the Ben Folds Five song, Kate, in which the object of the narrator’s affections is this very cool chick who the narrator feels is out of his league. The song, ironic or not, fit my mood perfectly, particularly the lyric: “She’s everything I want, She’s everything I’m not”.

Over the years I expected as I grew older that I would lose this desire for an archetype. And for a while I did. I dated girls who I felt comfortable with and had some really nice moments. I put it down to maturing. And then, one night, I chanced to see the trailer for the 2001 film, Ghost World, starring Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson and Steve Buscemi and the whole thing fell apart. The archetype was back.

I waited impatiently for the movie, forcing myself to abstain from reading the comic it was based on until after I saw the movie. I watched the trailer numerous times, completely captivated by the character Thora Birch was playing. The archetype had reached a movie screen now. Did that dilute or enhance its power? I couldn’t be sure.
I named the archetype. Called it the “Enid Archetype”. The problem was I had recently turned 25 and the idea of recommitting myself to this archetype seemed a mixture of sad and strange mixed with exciting and necessary. 
I would force my friends to sit down and watch the trailer, madly praising the genius of the forthcoming movie. Then I would share with them my idea of the Enid Archetype. My friends, understandably, were concerned.
“You don’t see anything wrong with lusting after an 18-year-old movie character?” they asked.
“It’s not the character, it’s the personality traits of this character,” I said.
“The personality traits of an 18-year-old,” they said.
“No, goddamn it. I don’t want the 18-year-old Enid; I want the 25-year-old Enid,” I said.
“What if the 25-year-old Enid doesn’t exist?” they asked.
“Oh, but she does. I saw the 25-year-old Enid downtown today. At least, she looked like she was in her mid-twenties,” I said.
“So you didn’t talk to her?” they asked.
“Of course not,” I said.
“How do you ever intend to make this dream a reality if you won’t try and meet these women?” they asked.
“Well, I’ve thought about that…and it’s a predicament, I admit,” I said.
“Have you ever seen Hitchcock’s “Vertigo?” they asked.
“Of course. That’s a terrible comparison though. No offense. I’m not seeking to change the personality or the appearance of a woman to meet my archetype. I would never ask anyone to change for me,” I said.
“But you’re unwilling to commit to a relationship with a woman who doesn’t meet this archetype?” they asked.
“Indeed,” I answered.
“May we suggest you talk to someone,” they said.
“I thought that’s what you fuckers were for?” I asked.

Finally the movie came to our small city. It showed at this little theater that would show indie and offbeat films. It only had one screen. One movie would play per week. It was a cool place, provided you could make your way through the forest of pretentious people that would line its hallways during a showing. Something about foreign films and pseudo-intellectuals; I’ve never figured it out. It’s like moths to a flame.
Having hyped the movie so much over the past months, the film had no chance of meeting my expectations. I liked it, but it didn’t excite me in the same way as the trailer had. It was a great film about growing up, friendships, responsibility, being an outcast, love, as well as a social commentary on the dehumanizing and commercialization of our society. I didn’t notice this during my first viewing for I was too preoccupied with the Enid Archetype and disturbed by how much of myself I saw in the Seymour character played by Steve Buscemi. My friends and I discussed it.
“So are you still infatuated with the Enid Archetype?” they asked.
“More than ever,” I said.
“How? You saw what happened at the end of the film, right?” they asked.
“I sure did. Enid redeemed and validated Seymour and proved to him that it was okay to be who he was,” I said.
“No, at the very end,” they said.
“I just told you. We did see the same movie, right?” I asked.
“We’re beginning to wonder. At the end of the movie what happens to Seymour once Enid has validated him? She gets on a bus and rides out of town while Seymour is left without a job, living with his mother and seeing a shrink. How did the Enid Archetype work out for him?” they pushed.
“Well, I’m not like Seymour….” I said.
“You said you saw a lot of yourself in Seymour,” they said.
“Yeah…well, I do….but…it’s not the same…because…as I’ve stated, I’m not interested in the 18-year-old Enid who is searching for herself; I’m interested in the 25-year-old Enid who is a bit more comfortable in her own skin and ideas,” I said.
Eventually the conversation changed to other subjects and the Enid Archetype was forgotten by all but myself until even I would forget about it, if only momentarily. And it’s been that way ever since. The Enid Archetype comes and goes, weaving in and out of my sight, my hopes, my dreams and my fears. One thing I’ve come to realize: the Enid Archetype is never far behind me. It is the Jack McGee to my David Banner. The only thing missing is that tinkling piano when I set off down the metaphorical road towards my next episode/relationship, trying desperately to keep one step ahead.

From the Associated Press: JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Bo Diddley, a founding father of rock ‘n’ roll whose distinctive “shave and a haircut, two bits” rhythm and innovative guitar effects inspired legions of other musicians, died Monday after months of ill health. He was 79.

Diddley died of heart failure at his home in Archer, Fla., spokeswoman Susan Clary said. He had suffered a heart attack in August, three months after suffering a stroke while touring in Iowa. Doctors said the stroke affected his ability to speak, and he had returned to Florida to continue rehabilitation.

The legendary singer and performer, known for his homemade square guitar, dark glasses and black hat, was an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, and received a lifetime achievement award in 1999 at the Grammy Awards. In recent years he also played for the elder President Bush and President Clinton.

Diddley appreciated the honors he received, “but it didn’t put no figures in my checkbook.”

“If you ain’t got no money, ain’t nobody calls you honey,” he quipped.

The name Bo Diddley came from other youngsters when he was growing up in Chicago, he said in a 1999 interview.

“I don’t know where the kids got it, but the kids in grammar school gave me that name,” he said, adding that he liked it so it became his stage name. Other times, he gave somewhat differing stories on where he got the name. Some experts believe a possible source for the name is a one-string instrument used in traditional blues music called a diddley bow.

His first single, “Bo Diddley,” introduced record buyers in 1955 to his signature rhythm: bomp ba-bomp bomp, bomp bomp, often summarized as “shave and a haircut, two bits.” The B side, “I’m a Man,” with its slightly humorous take on macho pride, also became a rock standard.

The company that issued his early songs was Chess-Checkers records, the storied Chicago-based labels that also recorded Chuck Berry and other stars.

Howard Kramer, assistant curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, said in 2006 that Diddley’s Chess recordings “stand among the best singular recordings of the 20th century.”

Diddley’s other major songs included, “Say Man,” “You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover,” “Shave and a Haircut,” “Uncle John,” “Who Do You Love?” and “The Mule.”

Diddley’s influence was felt on both sides of the Atlantic. Buddy Holly borrowed the bomp ba-bomp bomp, bomp bomp rhythm for his song “Not Fade Away.”

The Rolling Stones’ bluesy remake of that Holly song gave them their first chart single in the United States, in 1964. The following year, another British band, the Yardbirds, had a Top 20 hit in the U.S. with their version of “I’m a Man.”

Diddley was also one of the pioneers of the electric guitar, adding reverb and tremelo effects. He even rigged some of his guitars himself.

“He treats it like it was a drum, very rhythmic,” E. Michael Harrington, professor of music theory and composition at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., said in 2006.

Many other artists, including the Who, Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello copied aspects of Diddley’s style.

Growing up, Diddley said he had no musical idols, and he wasn’t entirely pleased that others drew on his innovations.

“I don’t like to copy anybody. Everybody tries to do what I do, update it,” he said. “I don’t have any idols I copied after.”

“They copied everything I did, upgraded it, messed it up. It seems to me that nobody can come up with their own thing, they have to put a little bit of Bo Diddley there,” he said.

Despite his success, Diddley claimed he only received a small portion of the money he made during his career. Partly as a result, he continued to tour and record music until his stroke. Between tours, he made his home near Gainesville in north Florida.

“Seventy ain’t nothing but a damn number,” he told The Associated Press in 1999. “I’m writing and creating new stuff and putting together new different things. Trying to stay out there and roll with the punches. I ain’t quit yet.”

Diddley, like other artists of his generations, was paid a flat fee for his recordings and said he received no royalty payments on record sales. He also said he was never paid for many of his performances.

“I am owed. I’ve never got paid,” he said. “A dude with a pencil is worse than a cat with a machine gun.”

In the early 1950s, Diddley said, disc jockeys called his type of music, “Jungle Music.” It was Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed who is credited with inventing the term “rock ‘n’ roll.”

Diddley said Freed was talking about him, when he introduced him, saying, “Here is a man with an original sound, who is going to rock and roll you right out of your seat.”

Diddley won attention from a new generation in 1989 when he took part in the “Bo Knows” ad campaign for Nike, built around football and baseball star Bo Jackson. Commenting on Jackson’s guitar skills, Diddley says to him, “Bo, you don’t know diddly.”

“I never could figure out what it had to do with shoes, but it worked,” Diddley said. “I got into a lot of new front rooms on the tube.”

Born as Ellas Bates on Dec. 30, 1928, in McComb, Miss., Diddley was later adopted by his mother’s cousin and took on the name Ellis McDaniel, which his wife always called him.

When he was 5, his family moved to Chicago, where he learned the violin at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. He learned guitar at 10 and entertained passers-by on street corners.

By his early teens, Diddley was playing Chicago’s Maxwell Street.

“I came out of school and made something out of myself. I am known all over the globe, all over the world. There are guys who have done a lot of things that don’t have the same impact that I had,” he said.

I finally settled on applying at a small A&P grocery that was a few blocks from where I lived. The store had been around since the 1940s, as well as most of its customers. A friend of mine, Johnny, had worked there. He told me as far as jobs went, it was okay. You didn’t have to wear those silly, scratchy uniforms the bigger stores pushed on you. And, according to Johnny, the management consisted of a bunch of old burnouts who were oblivious so it was an easy gig. Johnny had been planning to help me get hired but before this could happen his parents bussed him out west to rehab for his drinking.
My money had run out midway through summer so I went to the store to get an application. The jig was up, I was going to have to get a job.

I walked into the store and looked around. I had been here with my old man a time or two, but he didn’t shop here often because he thought the prices were too high.
There were only four checkout lanes, and one of them was covered with stock. The place was busy, with the other three lanes filled with shoppers. I noticed even the registers were old in this joint. While the newer stores had the registers that would scan the barcode, you still had to key in the price at these registers. If you were slow of finger while running a register you could find yourself facing a long line very quickly.
I walked over to the office. It was little more than a raised platform surrounded by cheap wood paneling and plastic windows. There was an aging, beleaguered gentleman sitting inside. As I approached and got a better look at him he appeared to be hung over. He slumped in his chair and looked out upon the store with disgust. I stood there for a long time before he finally saw me. He continued to sit there staring at me with a look of disgust on his face. It was clear he hated everything, and I wasn’t going to change that.
“Can I help you?” he finally asked.
“I’d like an application.” I said.
He exited the office. He was a broad man, but life and drink had sagged everything about him. He was the embodiment of a broken man.
“My name’s Hutto. What’s yours?”
“Magnus.”
“That’s a funny name.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Come with me, Magnus” he said.
He set off down one of the aisles. I was confused but followed. We walked to the back of the store, the stock room. I began to wonder if this old drunk bastard was going to ask me into the bathroom. I made note of the two exits in case I had to make a mad dash.
He stopped in the middle of the stockroom, reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He lit the cigarette and surveyed the room, seeming surprised to see me when his gaze came around to me.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Sixteen.”
“You ever worked a job before?”
“No sir.”
“Why do you want to work here?”
“I knew a guy who worked here. He said it was a good place to work.”
“Who was your friend?”
“Johnny Dabney.”
He only grunted in return.
“When can you start?”
I didn’t want to start immediately.
“Immediately,” I said.
“Come in tomorrow, okay? 4 o’clock.”
“No problem.”
“Don’t be late.”
“I won’t.”
I hurried out of there just as another manager was entering. This manager was a small, thin man who walked hurriedly into the backroom reaching for his own pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. He was a grotesque little figure, sweat and sleaze oozing out of him from his cheap clothing to the molester moustache that covered his upper lip. He and Hutto huddled close together puffing away and talking in low voices.
I took a quick stroll around the store. I saw a few guys my age or slightly older putting stock on shelves, punching prices onto stock with a price gun or just cutting it up. I didn’t recognize any of them from my school.
Up front the lines of customers had dwindled. There were two teenage girls and a woman who looked to be in her thirties running the registers. They were all distracted with the chattering old people who were filing through their lines. Exhaustion was set in their faces so much that they were no longer capable of smiling at the customers, which only infuriated those in line more.
I walked out the door, happy to be out of there. The afternoon was settling into evening. The air felt good, smelled better. This was my last day of freedom, though I didn’t know it at the time. All I could keep thinking about was how simple job hunting turned out to be. Why it had taken my father months to find another job after being laid off now made no sense to me.
“I got a job,” I told him that night.
“Where?”
“The A&P a few blocks over.”
This pleased him. I had joined the working class.