Freddogg Off The Chain

Angle/D x M/A= H/M x T/D

Philly 1960’s Catholic School obscene equation

I had a friend named Congruent Head but close friends called him S.A. S. for side/angle/ side. That and the above equation were the only uses for math I ever found. I firmly believe that students should be tested in seventh grade for aptitude in the engineering fields and all others should never take a class involving numbers except some consumer stuff and how to read a ruler. And real consumer stuff like annuities ,car insurance mortgages and shit like that, you will never fully comprehend just realize you are being ripped off then go about the business of being an Ugly American with three cars and a color t.v in every room and maybe one in your car as well.

I am sure that 95 percent of American college graduates could never given a 100 years cut rafters on a pitched roof where one pitch meets another different pitch. A carpenter told me the hardest thing to make is a box that if you can make a box you can make anything. I told him I wouldn’t know because I can’t make no box but I can write creatively.

Back before computers schools used to spend hours teaching Special students fraction functions with no practical application to the life they lived. I once gave this large muscular Big Black Mike wrestler dude 10 fractions to divide.

Mike hated school but he liked me all right. And he was smart as in street smart which is a lot more practical than book smart or irrelevance smart.

Mike kind of threw his answers back in my face and I said. ”The bad news is there all wrong the good news is you made the same mistake on every problem.”

Mike just glared waiting for an explanation.

“You see in division you’re supposed to invert the second fraction before you multiply top to top and bottom to bottom.”

Mike glared some more. “Invert, you know, turn upside down or back around depends on how you like to say it.”

“White people are always trying to get over on somebody,” Mike said. ‘If it was supposed to be turned back around why didn’t you fucking do it?”

Euclid—the truck and the man- Ptolemy and Pythagoras and his gay brother Pyfagoras- all have their earth shattering theories and I’ve never used one because they have no practical place in my life.

I used to challenge my students in psychology and tell them that math in high school was a waste of time and that no one needed to understand the process leading to an answer with no practical relevance when you could get the same answer by punching numbers into a calculator.

I don’t understand electricity but I do know that when I turn on the switch the light comes on most of the time. That is all I need to know along with the don’t throw the radio in an occupied hot tub.

And math doesn’t exercise the brain because the brain is not a muscle which is why it doesn’t atrophy inside your skull.

Some one tell me where Algebra 1 turns into Algebra 2 then go tell the checker at Food Lion who will scan and scan the bar code until the frozen fish sticks beep.

Remember adding the square of the sides of a right triangle will give you the hypotenuse squared and I’m so happy about that because now I know the meaning of life which is—it doesn’t matter—none of it!


Peace Professor Freddogg

I walked into the garage at 11 a.m.this morning right through the nest of a wolf spider. I knew the web was all over me so the next thing was to find the actual spider, who is about the size of a half dollar.
Wouldn’t you know that cute little arachnid was right under my left arm. I felt like Sean Connery in that 007 movie where a tarantula was crawling under the covers up his hairy belly and over his shoulder. The key to not getting bitten is to remain calm. Punching myself in my own armpit was pretty calm for me.

Next it was time to cut the grass such as it is in the woods where I live. The last time I cut the grass a greenhead burrowed a hole in my ankle. This time the same thing happened in the same place. “Mother fucker!” I screamed, because it hurt. I went ar0und the yard and back to the same place and got stung again and again and again. I had rolled over a very active yellow jackets in ground nest. At that exact moment the mailman in brown mini van pulled up to my mailbox on the street.

He could see me smacking myself because I had never been under a nest attack before. He yelled he had a can of off and I ran towards the road and several of this sick bitches of nature came after me a couple stinging me on the back of the neck and yes they don’t die they just keep after you. His can of OFF was empty and honest to god he said, ”it’s empty you may as well keep it.”

I found a can of “hotshot” and I know your not supposed to mess with in ground colonies of 10 thousand mindless stingers during the day or stand behind a can of hotshot--but I don't belive in social Darwinism- I did both then I poured lawn mower gas down their stupid fucking hole.

Minutes late workers were back and I’m yelling stupid stuff like "go pull start your fucking unleaded queen."

I commence to cut grass in another location and this has never happened but a full sized brown wasp landed on my shin and stung me. I also called him a mother fucker and then just kept working.

Only this morning I read a cartoon in the New Yorker, a woman was having dinner with a bee and she said, ”It’s not you it’s the anaphylaxis I have a problem with.”

When I was a kid my Uncle Joe’s boxer dug into a nest of yellow jackets and they killed him. I do think they could easily kill a child who would just stand there screaming instead of running.

My neck, fingers, feet and shin hurt like hell. It’s a good thing I got the spider before he got me.

By the way this is all small potatoes-no pun intended-compared to a chigger chewing your scrotum.

Peace Freddogg

Are all you Micks suicidal drinkers and drivers? Yes we are and don't call us Dicks?"

Three days in Ireland and 15 hours of left handed driving and all the newspapers write about are Zidane the head butting Algerian Frenchman and carnage on the roadways. I have been in a dangerous road rally game for three straight days and I've gotten good at it.
I drove through a mountain pass today that was breath taking in a heart palpitating sort of way. I came to a tunnel without warning there were no markings on the roads and no lights in the tunnel but it gets better.
Because I was unfamiliar with my Nissan where shotgun is the driver's seat I couldn't find the lights. So I drove 100 kilometers an hour as senseless shadows roared past in the opposite direction.
Later on a narrow moutain road a freaking three story hay truck came around the corner pitching and rolling like the Posiden. Another big truck took the side mirror off the bMW in from of me and just keep motoring.
Last night in Kinsdale I made friends with burly Irish fold singer. He sang a couple anti war songs that brought tears to my ears--you know the killing and maming and senselessness of it all. A lady in the back of the pub said,@Start singing some things that are more Irish.
I though his reponse"I can't believe you said that you fucking cow,"was appropriate.

Another guy at the hotel bar whome we since tagged the Fly Guy sent back his glass of Jamison not just becuase there was a fly in it but becuase the fly was on the bottom.
"If the just fly in a die they stay on the top,"he told me. "When there on the bottom it means the little fucker's been in there a long time."
I was going to attach a few pictures but here at the Web Cafe a card reader cost 2 Euros to rent and right now I'm too cluttered to figure out what that means.
This country is one big party and one big "fuck off wha?" I kind of like it.

Last night my folk singer buddy said to me,"Watch this." Then he said John denver's Country Road.
The places was international mostly Irish and Europeans on Holiday and the entire place broke into song. I was somehow emotionally moved when they all sand,"Weest Virginia Mountain Momma take Me home country road."

The irony of it all is that John Denver died drunk flying forgetting to top off the tank of his small plane. It is a small plantet.

freddogg

Who ever said “life is cheap” never walked in my flip flops. Back in the summer of 1977 I was a Rehoboth Beach Lifeguard sitting on a single stand on Norfolk Street, a neighborhood I could barely afford to walk through let alone purchase property.

The mid summer day was close enough to perfect for me and there was a little wave action but not much. I watched the ocean because that was my job and it’s weird but with 300 heads bobbing around there was no chance I would lose sight of them. A trained guard notices what is different, it jumps up and screams at you. Sameness means safety but my peacefulness was interrupted by frantic cries of “Lifeguard! Lifeguard!”

I raced down to the wet sand and there was a grand mom in white bathing cap just lying unresponsive face up in the froth. I pulled her away from the water making sure to keep her head facing downhill. I told another guard to call 911 and went through the check down system to see if she was breathing. A crowd gathered around.

I detected no breath and felt to pulse. I sweeped my figures inside her mouth and her dentures came out. I threw them over my shoulder and some tourists chased them like a retriever on a tennis ball. I was jacked, adrenaline pumping, this life belonged to me and I was bringing it back from the horizon line of permanent departure. “No dying today, not on my beach!”

It was a time in my life when people were dropping dead near me and I was first responder dude. There is a difference between cardiac and repertory arrest but as a physician friend explained to me, the end result is still “way dead.” This woman was my fourth ‘bring em back alive" action in two years. One other guy came back who crashed his car right across from a hospital. I was assisted by an emergency room nurse and we got him back. I later ran into the old guy and he ducked down another KMart aisle figuring I was the blue light reaper.

Back on Norfolk Street Ester and I were getting friendly. I blew two breaths into her then straddled her body to do chest compressions. A person in the crowd flashed a CPR card and said, ”I’m certified. May I render assistance “back off bitch” was uncalled for but anyone carrying a card and “rendering assistance” wasn’t going to help me in a crises.

I blew more breaths, remounted Ester and practically drove her to China with force full compressions. I did that because on a rescue that didn’t succeed that was a criticism that big strong guys are afraid to push too hard. I heard a person say, ”If she ain’t dead she will be by the time this guys gets done killing her.”

Easter’s eyes came back from the top of her head and clicked into focus. I stayed where I was and offered reassurance, told her my name and that she was o.k. It is a god like feeling no question about it.

The rescue crew arrived and almost dropped her out of the stretcher on the trek across the soft sand to the ambulance.

That early evening I went over to the hospital to see if she made it. An actual real Doctor came out to see me. “She’s resting fine. You saved her life. I’m sure she would agree it’s worth three cracked ribs.”

The next day her family came to see me on my stand. They handed me an envelope and thanked me for saving their mother/grandmother. I was still flying after Ester’s reentry from the dark side and I could have cared less about money, in fact, the actual resuscitation itself was never shared with the overall Beach Patrol.

I waited until I got home and asked my wife how much a life was worth on an expensive beach? We both knew that life is priceless but we were curious what Ester’s family thought it was worth.

I opened up the white envelope and pulled out a five dollar bill. A note read, ”Thanks for saving mom’s life we will never forget you. Go and buy yourself a six pack.”

And that’s what I did and I savored every gulp and guzzle of life’s good fortune.

Peace Freddogg

http://www.mishalov.com/pueblo.html

Foreign policy is really rather easy to understand. Countries only act in their own self interest which doesn’t mean selfish interest. The State Department conducts foreign policy and that is their area of expertise.

The invasion of Iraq was a “good idea at the time” policy which has degenerated into a no good way to turn- no good way to get out- stuck in neutral policy.

Meanwhile the North Koreans want to fuck with us and so the question is should we take the bait and fuck with them right back?

I think we have four courses of action.

Laugh in their faces and say, ”When you figure out how to fly a transcontinental missile for longer than 35 seconds give us a call except you ain’t got no cell phone towers.

Convince the Japanese who hate those Koreans anyway that the first successful missile will cross the Sea of Japan and land right in the middle of Toyotaville. Let’s see if the North Koreans are ready for a little Bonsai action?

Let’s attack by night and recapture our own USS Pueblo that was captured in 1968 that is sitting in a North Korean port as a tourist attraction and symbol of how they fucked with us and got away with it. O.K. your right there are no tourists.

See where China is on all of this. Tell them the North Koreans are making abacus jokes and somewhere they are the ones harboring the bones of the missing Peking Man.

We could always send the fasting Hollywood stars over there to negotiate a “no more nuclear toys” treaty.

Professor Freddogg

Never ask for sympathy from devils especially if you’re an old nun teaching sixth grade in 1956. Sister Purifica looked mean just like the rest of them and I was sure she had every intention of smacking me around just like the other Immaculate Hearts at Our Lady of Grace Grammar school. I just knew that was the way it would go but because of my combat experience I was the slap happy kid and I could take any amount of insults and ridicule “Purificow” had in store for me but I’m not so sure she was up to the battle.

The first day of class threw me off as Sister rambled on about how she had a medical problem she couldn’t help but we shouldn’t worry about it and it was nothing to be afraid of. “I just make this little noise, ”she said. “But don’t be alarmed. I’m o.k.”

I looked around the room that was totally non-attentive and hadn’t heard a word she said. I scribbled in the front of my composition notebook. Makes little noise? Don’t be alarmed? I am alarmed. What is wrong with this beast?

Fall rolled into winter and everyday I made a notation “Where’s the noise?” I was not desensitized. I would be ready to imprint the experience which has always been what I do. I snap shot behaviors, freeze them, then thaw images out later in my life as necessary. This memory is downright cryogenic.

I remember having long wet hair that I could pull down the front of my face until it touched my chin. I was a speed skater and a dam good one for the Mammoth Casino Red Devils. I drank Near Bear. Think of the baggy pants obnoxious skateboarders of the new millennium. I was a much bigger jerk than any of those posers.

The end of school on a snowy day all us low middle class Catholic losers had worn rubber boots that buckled in the front. The hallways were filled with them. We all got our boots, put them on and were ready to go home but Purifica stood in the doorway holding up a single extra boot. “How is it that there is one unclaimed boot, ”she asked. “Will you all check to make sure you’re wearing two boots.”

I thought of the third boot trick all on my own not bad for a 12 year old. But I never anticipated what happened next. “This boot has no special markings except for a little red ball on the bottom, ”Sister said.

‘That was it, the class went NIKE Intercontinental Ballistic Missile into inappropriate behaviors. Back in 1956, a harsh nun just didn’t drop a “ball” on a class of sixth graders. They were laughing and pointing at her. “She said Ball”! I dropped my head and mumbled “this is just way wrong." Sister was absent the next two days and I knew by instinct she was on her way to the nervous breakdown ward and 50 years later no one yet understands what that means.

Sister keep me after class one day and told me I would look so much better if I cut my hair and went back to wearing the Italian Pete the Barber Regular or the Marion the Hungarian refuge high back. She said if I cut my hair she’d give me a special present.

I was curious and only 12 so I went for the haircut. Sister kept her promise and gave me a white caste religious statue of the blessed mother holding the baby Jesus. “Mary loves you,” she said. “Never forget that.”

It wasn’t the theology and that whole far fetched Immaculate Conception thing that I had questioned like a 12 year old Bertrand Russell. It was the sincerity of the Sister who had given me something I could look at for strength, a sort of Blessed Mother Mojo.

It was close to Christmas and my composition book was filled with “the noise is coming” notes. And one morning during the reading of the catechism it came. It was like a prolonged amplified burp pumped by a Sansui receiver through the woofers of a Bose speaker system. It was equal in length to the long version of Light My Fire. Sister’s eyes were frozen and not blinking, like a seizure. It was like a brain burp. Turrets burping, sometimes the body does what it wants and doesn’t ask us for permission.

I was stunned how badly the class reacted. They were all burping and ridiculing this poor woman, the one who told me “Mary Loves You.” I could stay in any fight if it was personal but never had enthusiasm for piling on chicken shit behaviors. Sister didn't deserve it and I didn't like it.

Purifica ran from the room and I never saw her again. Amazingly I was on a “Wanted Poster” at the convent because of the third boot trick. Those nuns never understood I was one of her final success stories.

My final two years at Our Lady of Grace it was payback for me from The Immaculate Hearts of Mary nuns for sending Purifica to the nervous hospital. The could have hooked me up with a couple of statutes and saved themselves a crooked number in the loss column. And Mary does love me becuase I'm her boy!

Peace Father Freddogg