Freddogg Off The Chain

Dear Juan

I’m sorry I called you a frog eyed coon and invited you to “eat me.” Please except my apology. I hope we can continue to be friends.

Amy

Dear Amy

And I am sorry I called you a freckled face bitch and retarded puppet looking somebody. There’s no way you derived that. I mean deserved that.”

Juan

Dear Mr Frederick

I’m sorry I lost my temper in class and called you a fat old dry joke telling motherfucker. Please tell them not to suspend me.

Juanita

Dear Juanita

Nobody likes to be called fat. You must have confused me with your mother. Perhaps they can suspend me I could use the time off.

Fredman.

Dear Fredman

My mom said to tell you, you ain’t funny and you’re still fat and white and eat cheese toast during class.

Juanita

Yesterday basketball player Tim Hardaway, no relation to Whirlaway, was a national story because on a radio program he said that he hated gays and that he was homophobic. And then in a written apology he used the insult inside the apology letter by saying he was sorry he said he hated gays.

And now every sleazy talking head in America is talking about a man who when asked his opinion freely gave it. And not many are talking about Tim the community service and philanthropic millionaire who gives back time and money to the community.

We still maintain the right to hold opinions in this country that are offensive to some and if I were gay and a season ticket holder to ‘Heat Games’ I would keep coming and stay gay which rhymes with Hardaway. You know the old saying “the devil you know is better that the devil you don’t.”

I hear people say all kinds of stupid stuff and all peoples occasionally say something stupid and when is the last time you had a couple over for dinner who didn’t look mostly like you, who wasn’t sexually oriented like you, who wasn’t educated like you, and from the same economic strata with the same religious beliefs. And what would you do if they began to snort lines during dessert except to join them or become outraged and appalled. Just how much into differences are any of us?

And so Hardaway’s friends run for deep cover because of course no one shares any of his views on the subject. I know being a joke telling satire writing observer and commentator of people behavior that when the righteous come on the counterattack –‘what do you mean Flaming Caucasians’- that you stand alone under the Heat Lamp of criticism while the bewildered defenders of the constitution demand that you be silenced.

“And It’s One Two Three what are we fighting for ? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, ”Next stop will be Iran.”

Pappa Joe and the Dead Fish

Freddogg

Love is a lark until it is tested. My parents loved each other and never anyone else. Too bad it all turned so tragic and so unlike any Chicken Soup bullshit or Hallmark Card tunnel of love amorous amusement ride to Ozzie and Harriet Nirvana.
The long story is not long enough so let’s rewind to a Valentines Day when I was such an incredibly annoying child racing around the house chasing the beagle who had become the rabbit.
I was just going Cape Cod crazy while on the bottom floor in the bedroom down the end of the hall my father lay in a hospital bed with metal bars on the sides. He was emaciated and almost senseless except for hearing. He barely had enough strength to grab the potato masher and bang the rails which meant he needed help or in this case “knock it the fuck off and stop driving everybody crazy.”
I stopped on the stairs and did characters through the see through squares of the knickknack shelves. My face dislodged a little vase of a man and woman holding hands with a heart in the middle. It read:”I love you.” The vase crashed and the little guy broke off and shattered to bits.
My mother walked over to pick up the pieces but the guy was gone and he wasn’t going to be put back together again. Tragic symbolism was everywhere. A young wife and her young life scattered in ceramic splinters. I stood there frozen in the moment. The beagle shut down and sprawled head first under the sofa.
I had killed my father on Valentine’s Day. The bars down the hallway were rattling. But no one answered.

Beagle Freddogg

Last night I was the spontaneous perpetrator of the perfect crime. Real intelligence involves figuring out the not so obvious when all the clues are present. Perhaps 1 in 200 people puts it all together and they become the genius of that group. When no one in a crowd of 500 can figure it out then you have what the Anthropologists call “High School Wrestling Fans.”
The match was over and the home team held on with a dramatic pin in the final bout to secure the victory. Grapplers were taking up tape used to connect the three section oily mats and young kids were rolling up the mats like large and color rubberized blunts. I was interviewing the head coach.
Scattering about the yellow rubberized floor were hundreds of black things and assistant coaches and interested parents looked down and pondered, ”What is that stuff and where did it come from?”
One coach had the nerve to pick up a carcass, rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, still had no idea, looked at me and said, ”You’re the guy who knows everything, what is this stuff.”
“It looks like a black oiled sunflower seed,” I said. “It is to the wild bird what salted striped ones are to the baseball player. Speaking of baseball, can we get a little chatter in here, a little bit of the bingo-bango, C’mon Bobby, C’mon Bobby , not your pitch, pick out one you like, be patient, “C’Mon Bobby! Swing batter!”
I was wearing my Gold’s Gym pull over rain slicker the perfect disguise for the sports writing grandfather and his alter ego “Big Loser Boy.” When I pulled the jacket over my head waiting to do post match interviews all these sunflower seeds fell out of the pocket. Evidently when you fill up a bird feeder you shouldn’t stand below it and catch the overflow in your freaking pocket without knowing it.
Years before I had done a similar maneuver reflective of one standard deviation below dull normal shaking a product called ‘Squirrel Away” into the bird feeder. I was quickly blinded, staggering and screaming, putting down the house in search of a hose bib. Finally, I was power washing my own head and was joyous as beams of natural light kaleidoscoped back into my Looney Tooned pin headed life.

I found Bernie the Chief custodian and former track athlete of mine. Bernie can do anything mechanical and in the carpentry category, he drives a pick up fishes and crabs. He is a big old 6'3" 300 pound black redneck and he can’t look at me without laughing. I asked him for a broom and dust pan because I didn’t think it was right not to own up. “Bird seed Fredman? Hey Jake, Fredman threw bird seed on the floor.”
They told me not to worry that they would get it but it was too much fun watching all those fans circling and trying to figure out how it got there to sweep it up right away.
I started to talk and they laughed saying I was the funniest person they had ever met and to go just go on home with my birdseed self.

Birddogg Fred

Last Thursday I was telling this really interesting close to pop riveting story to the counter girl at Jiffy Lube who seemed really interested but then she interrupted, ”Do you want Pennzoil Signature Service? You’re do for a differential exchange of fluids, do you want it?”
“How much is it?
“Eighty dollars.”
“Sure I’ll do it but only if you can summarize the story I just lost track of and tell me where I left off.?”
She laughed like a mule and told me her job was to keep track of oil changes not every story that came in the door. ‘Great stories happen to great story tellers, ”I said, but she retorted with the mule laugh again and my grandmother always said "don't take things personally unless you’re the only other person there?"
Later I was at Gold’s Gym boring some young fit women about some shit or other and I could see they really liked me for two minutes but at five I was overstaying my welcome.
I trumped that today by meeting for the first time a young graduate student in Marine studies and before the 5 k race returned to the finish chute where she was helping out I was talking about photography and composition of images and external hard drives and she said something about how she couldn’t wait to go back out to sea where she enjoyed being cold, lonely and quietly nauseous.
I’m off to the medicine cabinet in search of Jiffy Ludes. Maybe Signature Servive is just that, step off and shut up no one wants to hear your stupid balloon dog story.Again!

Peace Freddogg on the Down Low

My Aunt Rose used to work at a Sperm Bank but she quit when they moved her to the Drive-In window.

Anna Nicole Smith’s half sister is now claiming that this “unclaimed freight” baby may be the child of the dead billionaire guy whose sperm was harvested while he was alive and recently inseminated into Anna and Jesus if it’s true how freaking weird and disgusting is the image of a 90 year old with a girly magazine in one hand shooting at a stationary beaker painted in neon to be more visible?

And so here we go again with test tube babies, Utube babies, surrogate mothers, Barnegat Bay mothers, frozen embryos, Walt Disney, exhumations, posthumous proxy paternity suits, cryogenic spermatocytes electrolyted to life swimming towards an egg addicted to Xanax.

I once read a story of an infertile husband who allowed his wife to be inseminated with the sperm of an anonymous “donor with a boner” then the zygote was removed and re implanted into the maternal grandmother who had a drinking problem and ethical issues abound like never before in the history of the human race except for certain improbable stories in the bible.

Can blue eyed parents have a brown eyed baby girl? Remunerate and Inseminate on that riddle.

See you at the drive in window

The Freddogg in your Yard

Postulate ridiculously and counter argue vociferously. That is the academic arena where all presented theories are plausible until proven implausible.

Last year at a Math and Science Conference for women at MIT the President of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, postulated that “intrinsic aptitude could help explain why fewer women than men reach the highest ranks of science and math in universities.” He made that remark to a conference for women in Math and Science and “the bitches went crazy.”

Now it could be totally one hundred percent traditional cultural discrimination that accounts for this disparity or it could be that Lawrence Summers was right. He postulated that sex “could be a determiner” which promptly indicted anyone representing that sex who just flat out couldn’t entertain that notion as in –“don’t rock the boat baby.”

Harvard just announced that Drew Gilpin Faust will be named the first woman President of Harvard in its 371 year history. This is a scary story because it proves to me that although no truths are self evident which must pretend that they are.

Harvard just went scientifically stupid to quiet the maelstrom. I want to see a crew all women build a 747 from conception to completion then I want to see them fly it with a cargo of 700 men across the Pacific Ocean.

I love and respect all women; my wife is smarter than me in absolutely everything including math and science. Am I getting on that plane on its maiden form voyage?

As we Tom Turkey’s say, ”Not this Gobbler!”

Professor Freddogg

The best place to recruit high school athletes for a particular sport is during lunches in the cafeteria. Sports like basketball recruit for themselves and the same goes for lacrosse and field hockey.
But track and field and wrestling, sports where reluctant talent hides in plain view, may require a little cajoling and persuasion.
I have never coached girls track so I was spared the awkwardness of suggesting to a young woman that perhaps she would make a good shot putter. I know who the girls are and really some big girls are really strong and coordinated so why not show them the avenue to athletic success and a college scholarship?
The New York Times ran an article on big girl athletes and how heights and weights are always in the program for men but never for women. The story featured a college basketball star at Oklahoma the girl Courtney Paris 6’4” and 240 pounds and making no apologies for it. Her dad Bubba Paris had been a Forty-Niner but ended his career when he couldn’t bust 325 and was cut like a side of beef.
Serena Williams won the Australian Open then reporters scoffed when her weight was listed at 135 pounds because in person “Sererna is A Beast” in the most flattering sense of that word and she is straight out of Compton where the cost of living is going up and the chance of living is going down.
I always tell the story of a beautiful middle distance Homecoming Queen All State Chorus girl who blurted out in class that her track coach was an Oblong headed stupid red necked mother fucker.
“Whoa where is that coming from, ”I asked her.
She said she asked her coach what she had to do to run under 2:20 in the 800 meters and Coach said, ”Drop 20 pounds. Who is he to call me fat?”
“He’s just saying that the less weight anyone carries the faster they run and unfortunately for distance runners it’s true, just look at the Kenyans and Ethiopians.”
Look at football where fat guys are put into non skilled positions and not allowed to touch the ball. In basketball wide bodies can back down a lighter opponent with their big butts and last March during the NCAA men’s tournament Billy Packer wouldn’t stop talking about how Florida had great length which simply means long and tall, lithe and slim runners, at least I hope that’s what it means.
I guess it’s o.k. to be the Queen but not to be Queen sized? Talk about a mixed message. And as Queen sang, ”Fat Bottom Girls They Make The Rocking World Go Round.”

Hovering Like a Helium Blimp

Freddogg

Reality Bites! “Sing sour grapes, they can laugh and stare, sing sour grapes, I don’t care.” John Prine

Sour Grapes- is rationalizing- a psychological defense mechanism- that argues what you didn’t get you didn’t want anyway. The opposite is Sweet Lemons a defense from reality that rationalizes you are glad you got what you deserved even if it is a terminal illness.

I remember a little boy down the block who made being grounded look so great my own kids begged to be grounded too and wanted me to get divorced so they could visit me on the weekends just like their broken home buddies visited their whacky daddies.

I always told my high school students to develop a firm and realistic grasp of their own identity and to be o.k. with it because there are times in life when you’re feeling pretty damn good about yourself when suddenly and without warning someone will just chop you off at the knees

It happened to me yesterday one knee at a time. The medical and anterior ligaments just ripped loose. And I went sour and sweet because I don’t care and in fact enjoy exclusion from the ring of honor almost as much as inclusion into the phylum off assholes.

I had come from the gym where one guy told me how much he enjoyed a feature I wrote and told me ”You are such a great writer” then another guy came up and shook my hand and thanked me for starting a Polar Bear Club that has helped raise 3.5 million dollars for Delaware Special Olympics.

I was feeling pretty damned special myself as I walked into my Cape Gazette office and checked my hard copy mail.
There was a letter written by a guy I had labeled the Singing Custodian because he sang the National Anthem before an away wrestling match in rural Laurel home of the nation’s largest Watermelon Auction.
This letter sounded like it was written by Ernest Hemingway and by the end had me agreeing that yes, in fact, I was a classless asshole, and I rationalized that it was all good for business and that I didn’t care anyway.
Then there was the phone call to a guy I deeply respect from the world of sports, a guy who is educated and Christian and feels no need for diplomacy.
He asked if I knew I had been nominated for the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame then said the problem was that no one on the Board of Directors had ever heard of me and that my nomination didn’t crack the top 30-he inferred that it was unlikely it ever would-then asked if I would like to be on the Board of Directors but first I’d have to fill out the online membership form and have my credit card debited 40 dollars?
I enjoy being outside the circle and my family would take no solace or joy if I’m ever put into a sports mausoleum dead or alive.
“Nobody ever heard of me” kept rattling inside my noggin. A state that’s 90 miles long and 50 miles wide and no one ever heard of me, well actually, most never did ,which makes me want to do what? Defend my legitimacy as Hall of Fame caliber guy or maybe run down some networked jocks already in the Hall as unworthy?
It is all funny really, no really! Everyday on my life has been a Hall of Fame experience. I have been blessed with family and friends, been uncontained,unrestrained and defamed for damn good reasons. My grandmother once told me, ”One man’s asshole is another man’s role model.” Then my Aunt Jenny, a Colored woman and my grandfather’s girl friend added “You ain’t nobody, we ain’t nobody, nobody is anybody but the lord loves everybody.”

With a philosophical foundation so strong how could I be anything but lowdown and almost level to the ground?

Perhaps you’ve heard of me?

Freddogg

Looking for silliness at 5 a.m.this morning I found it on http://www.msnbc.com/ website before I even got to the Astro Nut diva in a diaper mace in the face love triangle story.
Apparently the Superbowl Snickers Ad which has two auto mechanics accidentally kissing has been pulled—no pun- because of the possibility or implication that it was anti gay.
Remember in Planes, Trains and Automobiles the scene of Steve Martin and John Candy cuddling in bed and then they spring to their feet and Candy says, ”How bout Dem Bears?” Ironically, a large burly gay is called A Bear inside the secret culture of leather and lace when outted from the hibernation of straight coveralls.
All I say is, “who cares?” one way or another. Prior to watching Imus each morning I listen to the gay news anchor kibitz with the gay weather guy usually after the entertainment feature. I like it as I am a champion of diversity and I wonder how long before the complaints inspire a closed door meeting where some boring executive tells these guys to stop acting so gay so early in the morning.
Speaking of snowing and will schools start late, 20 years ago a local gay weatherman-believe me I know-was looking at a menacing map as my fifth grade twins were looking at him.
“ It looks like North Carolina will get socked with 10 inches of snow but I predict this system will move off the coast and maybe give us a dusting with no appreciable accumulation.”
“Shut up faggot!” one of the twins yelled and they both were angry and I was like” Did you just call Dennis the Weather Guy a faggot?” where did you learn that and one mumbled that “Mom sometimes calls you that when you’re not home” and I said, “stop and don’t implicate her because I know that’s not true.”
You see I raised straight children in a downtown gay neighborhood and they were good with words but didn’t really know what they meant. Like the time I asked “How come you guys don’t play with Bill and Luke anymore and they said, “because they’re butt buddies and will only play with each other” or the time one wet his head then combed his hair into a pompadour then asked his mother, ”Hey mom! Do you think I look like a faggot?”
I know that people who take themselves too seriously do not get taken seriously at all. Basically gay men will laugh at a non malicious joke while gay women just throw punches.

Freddpuppy




http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16566275/

The flipside of laughter is hostility like beware the one who isn’t laughing for they may be contemplating ways to hurt you.

What is left of my family non nuclear out to the sides has not only disowned me but there is a “living contract out” the next time I’m spotted at a family funeral. And all because they can’t take a joke which I admit ain’t funny if you represent let’s say an amphibian with developmental lag syndrome.

“Why did you let them get a copy of your book,” my brother asked about two weeks after Aunt Mary’s funeral in Absecon or Cosecant New Jersey. The Aunts and cousins told me to tell you not to ever show up at a family function which there hasn’t been any since the last time somebody died.



Fat Aunt Rose ain’t fat no more not that I cared I just needed her character. She didn’t like the reference of being buried elbow deep in a vat of potato salad her own 20 inch sweaty arms provoking her suggestion that it doesn’t need salt.

They also didn’t like reading that except for Little Joe who is now a 6’4” 260 pound bald headed drummer in a Jersey Shore Wholly Bully Band the rest looked like sea creatures or that Poppy called his own grandson Harry a Frogman. I even have images of cousins riding piggy back aboard mommy in an above ground pool sporting a juvenile erection beneath a Sears bathing suit and my brother looking at me and saying, ”Forget what you saw here today and don’t ever ay anything. You’re only eight years old.”

I thought they would be proud to have a writer in the family. I can’t even use real names here because of the random ion known as Google but a cousin recently died of flesh eating bacteria and my god what a horrible story which was later amended to drug overdose or maybe cancer and I felt really bad but his twin is 6’4” with red hair and drives a truck and has never forgiven me for nicknaming him “No Case” after he wiped out on his bike and slid sideways into our breezeway.

I am just stuck alone with no place to turn. Family functions involve my wife’s relatives who are moderately amusing if you like stories about other people’s vacations in Scotland or hearing of the humorous tales of Cricket the indoor/backyard Yorkie pain in the ass who drowned under the pool cover one winters day evoking no sympathy from me because I didn’t hate the dog just the never ending stories of the stupid assed yapping bitch.

There are all kinds of infirm individuals related to me to say nothing of a female schizophrenic cousin who lives in a trailer with the floor rotted out not because she has to but because it was free.


And so why can’t they give Cousin David some latitude for his behavior? Humor comes at a price which I extract from them whenever I get a chance. But I have been tossed from the tank. It's a good thing I am amphibious too.
Freddogg

The new Principal from a small Catholic school in Northern Michigan arrived at Cape just in time for a Tuesday night basketball game. The game was marred by a halftime fight involving young and very strong but at least loud black guys from different combat zones inside the school district.
The next morning the throw down would get down again in the school’s cafeteria before the start of school. The Principal who looked like the copy repairman guy waded into the battle and flew back out again. “Welcome to the Jungle, Sweet Child of Mine”, I pulled from my Guns and Roses joke book.
This guy was pretty tough but looked weak. And it became apparent throughout the extended public school community that he and his family thought they made a mistake and immediately started laying plans to get back to northern Michigan and white Catholic people.
I was doing my usual skipping of mandatory meetings but for some reason showed up for a demonstration of how to run the new copy machine which was the size of a small submarine. The Principal gave the most in depth demonstration of something I didn’t care about I ever listened to. I had no idea copying machines could do all those things. The anal sect of teachers was downright expulsive in their exuberance and said Ron was the greatest principal ever.
That May afternoon two young athletes from my undefeated track team arrived at my door at the beginning of period six. They wanted to work on high jumping but said the Phys Ed teacher needed a pass from me to say it was o.k. and a viable alternative from dodging arrows in archery class.
I signed a pass then another then for three other guys then I locked my door because I was becoming predictable pass writing chump and I had better things to do like tell stories and make kids laugh and wonder what was so funny?
Towards the end of the period the enraged principal was at my door. I could see that the beating he had been taking for months was going to be confronted at my expense.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Go, you’re on the clock!”
“What are 25 members of your track team doing practicing at 1 p.m.in the afternoon? They all said that Coach Fred said they could do it. They are wearing uniforms and now the softball and baseball teams want to practice during school as well.”
I, of course, was stuck inside a real job without the flexibility to roam around wondering about students running and jumping and loving life. I didn’t like being interrogated in a doorway with my students behind me.
“I mostly don’t know what you’re talking about, ”I said. “But instead of trying to shake me down and not giving me all the love that I need why aren’t you out there solving the riddle.”
Then he hit me with unsuspected directness.
“I don’t like you,” he said. “I know these kids all think you are cool and funny and they appear to love you but I don’t, in fact, I don’t like you at all. “
I responded, ”In the words of Elton John, ’Don’t go breaking my heart.”



The principal went back to Michigan and wasn’t heard from until he showed up in a tragic national news story.
An English teacher at Principal Ron’s school was incompetent but instead of saying, ”You’re incompetent and can’t work here anymore” the administration started building a paper trail.
Real men don’t build paper trails and don’t get trapped while blazing them either.
I would always tell my students, ”Don’t disrespect a person and then just leave them standing there because they will come back and get you. If you must ruin a person’s life then you better kill them before they kill you. The moral of the story is to never be the person who can destroy or disrupt a family or rob someone of their identity by taking away a career.
The English teacher was called to an after school meeting with the principal and superintendent. He was allowed to bring representation a sure warning that his job was in jeopardy. But he came to the meeting alone.
And then the unraveling of reams of paper, all serving to indict this veteran teacher and the hits just kept coming. The man sat there and didn’t say a word but an experienced police officer may have noticed the thousand yard stare. The man was dissociating which in psychotic behavior when it works. And then it happened.
He pulled a pistol from his pocket and shot the silent superintendent dead in the forehead. The he turned to the principal who had reacted by climbing up the drywall like a human fly. The principal was shot in the leg as the teacher threw the gun to the carpet and returned to his second floor classroom to continue grading papers.
This story was brought out again by Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press on the ESPN sports reporters program. Yes Mitch is the “Tuesday’s with Morrie” author.
Mitch closed the program by telling the story of the Michigan shooting. But the story centered on the Superintendent who was a “great guy” loved by everyone in the community. This Superintendent had pitched his town to the Little League World Series Championship when he was 12 years old.
Like a line drive back through the box sometimes you can’t get your glove up in time. He certainly didn’t deserve to go out like that.

Freddogg