Karma Happens

            This blog sure is getting dusty, and to all my dedicated reader, mom, I apologize. As many of you may or may not know, the past few months (actually more like 7) I’ve been working at a pizza shop in my hometown of West Chester, PA called Saucey Pizza. I’m actually really surprised I have yet to write anything about it here, I guess my excuse is I’ve been busy with grad school. Some of you are probably wondering, "What kind of name is Saucey?" It comes from ether the saucey swirl we put on our pizzas or the state people are in when they walk through our doors on a Friday or Saturday night at 2AM. Both suit the name well. If you’re from this area you know that because Saucey is set up in a college town within the vicinity of roughly 20 bars it acts as a refueling station for those sober enough to remember its location (the main intersection of town across from our three story courthouse). This job has offered me the opportunity to deliver pizzas to the crack dens of downtown West Chester, clean up vomit off the floor, break up fights over nothing, and party with my boss. Aside from the crack dens it’s like college all over again! I actually did get to party with my boss in college (shout out to the Rickster if your reading this), but thankfully I never had a reason to knock on the doors of any notorious Harrisonburg meth houses (this is the only blemish to JMU’s otherwise friendly mountain town). I studied English at JMU, and lets just say my knowledge of W.E.B Dubois and the concept of double consciousness is useless at Saucey. The majority of people I serve have no consciousness. But that’s neither here nor there. The reason I’m writing this piece is not to inform you how wonderful my life is, but instead to offer some proof that the sometimes misinterpreted idea of karma does in fact exist within our lives. The story I’m about to share is a pretty extreme example of how it works, but it is still an example nonetheless.

            Let's first set the scene. It’s Thursday night somewhere between the hours of 10pm-12pm, essentially the lull between the hungry college kids who just finished a late night of studying and the stampede of booze hounds that arrive after the bars let out. My coworker Gage, a few years out of high school, is in the back chatting with our cook Jose as he swings around a foot long piece of dough by his waist side. There’s a brother hunched over the corner counter with a hazed over look in his eye munching away on a couple of slices. I’m at the register helping a sweet girl who’s acting extremely giddy. I can’t tell if she’s taken aback by my good looks or if she’s just this way all the time. As I take her order I glance at the door and see an older gentleman walk, sorry, stumble in and he begins to start a conversation with Gage. I couldn’t hear what he was saying initially, but from what Gage later told me the man excessively used the word “jamoke” to describe the brother hanging out in the corner, adding this extremely racist piece of advice, “You make sure to tell your boss you keep all N****** outta this establishment. I won’t accept that.” (Sadly this still exists in our world and if I had heard this at the time I would’ve refused service on account of bigotry). What I did hear was, “That guy (pointing to me) is he a jackass too?” By this time I had finished serving the girl and was now staring straight at this forty something year old white guy wearing an orange polo and a navy windbreaker. He had a disheveled comb over and a face like John Calipari. This is what ensued.

            “Are you talking to me?” I replied.

            “Your damn right I am.”

            “So, you always go around calling people jackasses?”

            “Just you.”

            “Ok. Do you want pizza?” (Surprising how fast people change their attitude when you have something they want.)

            “Yeah yeah, I’m just fucking with you!” He extended his hand as if to conjure up some type of formality. “Billy Edwards.”

            “Billy, I’m not shaking your hand. What do you want?”

            “Come on. Lighten up!”

            “Ok. What, kind of pizza do you want?”

            “Come on, just shake it.”

            “Tell me what kind of pizza you want or you can leave.”

            “Alright. I’ll take that one.” Billy pointed ambiguously toward the the glass display case housing the pizza.

            “Um, pepperoni?”

            “Sure, sure, whatever.”

            I looked over towards Gage who was standing behind the glass display and gave him a nod. He grabbed a slice of pepperoni and slid it into the oven. Billy now had his arms folded with his elbows resting on top of the counter. I decided to see if I could piece this guy together as I waited for his slice to warm.

            “So, what do you do Billy?”

            “What do I do? You wanna know?

            “Yeah, I do.”

            “I run the fuckin’ mafia.”

            “You run the mafia. The West Chester mafia?”

            “NOPE. The Italian, the Irish. Run ‘em all”

            “What about the German mafia?”

            “The German? Just know that I run this goddamn town. Don’t even think about fuckin’ with me.”

            “Alright, not fuckin' with you. I think your pizzas done.” I turned around towards the over, opened the door, put the slice of pepperoni on a paper plate and dropped it on the counter. “It’s going to be $2.50" 

            “$2.50!? You know what, how about I try your pizza before I even think about paying you for it?" He reached across the counter, picked up the slice with one hand and sloppily raised it above his mouth and chomped down on it like only a smashed forty something year old man could do. “Hmm, pretty good.” He dropped what was left of the slice back on the plate, threw his right arm in the air, middle finger displayed and slapped his left hand against his right bicep and casually blurted, “Fuck. YOU”. He then turned around and slowly staggered out the door.

            “Don’t ever bother coming back here again!” I yelled at him. Feeling as though that didn’t quite do justice to what just transpired I tried for a more personal insult, “I hope you drive!” Being an otherwise gentle soul I almost said, “Don’t” instead of “I hope”, furthering the frustration of the moment. By that time he was already out the door. The next customer in line was a couple who just witnessed what went down and bursted out laughing at my departing comment to Billy. They tried to make me feel better by joking about Mr. Edwards mob connections, but there was no denying the awkward tension still in the room. Gage was pretty dumbfounded by the whole situation, and afterwards he called his stepdad who owns a salon in town and is apparently friends with all the big wigs of West Chester. He had never heard the name Billy Edwards in his life.

            The next fifteen minutes of that night went along pretty normally, and then I looked out the window and saw a police SUV parked in front of the shop. An instantaneous feeling of redemption came upon me as I left my post behind the register and went outside to investigate. Located on the corner just to he left of our entrance I saw a group of three police officers surrounding a man in an orange polo. I immediately went up to the police officers who were standing with their hands on their hips staring at Mr. Billy Edwards, head down and shoulders shrugged with his hands in his pockets. I introduced myself to the officers, explained what had happened just a few minutes ago and told them all I wanted was an apology from Billy. He apologized, but it wasn’t gratifying at all, only because it felt like a parent making their child apologize to a neighbor for wrecking something on their lawn. If they didn’t catch Billy there’s no way he would’ve apologized, but at the very least he did pay for the slice and even gave a dollar tip. That also didn’t mean much to me. When I asked Billy what were supposed to think next time he comes in the shop, one of the cops interrupted and said I’ll most likely never see him again as he was “out of state”. I thanked them and as I began to head back I saw one of the officers detach a pair of cuffs from their belt as they motioned for Billy to turn around.

            When I got back to the entrance of the shop there was a group of five or six people congregated outside. They had seen me talking to the officers and filled me in on how Billy got nabbed. Apparently he had been walking in circles up and down the block and when he decided to cross the main intersection to get to the other side of the street (ignoring all crosswalk signs of course) a police car coming the opposite way almost hit him before laying on his horn. Billy was stunned by the horn and just stood in the middle of the street glaring at the officer. After he continued walking across the street the cop circled back around the block and found him on the corner in his inebriated state.

            While this remains the most belligerent customer I’ve ever dealt with, it comes nowhere close to the drunkest, as Billy was still able to form coherent, albeit offensive sentences. It's never fun dealing with bigots, but I was thoroughly entertained as I am most nights. More importantly, that run in reinforced my belief in karma, an age-old concept derived from a balance of morals and actions that run our universe. As most of us understand, the more good you put out into this world the more you’ll receive, and the same goes for the bad. I’ve seen it work both for me, and against me, and it seems the older we get the more we become aware of this universal truth. There remains however, a fine print that goes along with this theory, and that is for those who commit good acts only on the basis of expecting something good in return, the less likely some kind of good will be reciprocated in the way they are expecting. This is because karma isn’t a predictable system of exchange created by humans, its driven more by faith and a willingness to believe that everything you need and deserve will be provided for you when the time is right. That’s why people who ask themselves daily, “What about all the good I do? I’m always doing the right thing and I never see anything in return!” don’t seem to receive the benefits of karma.  It’s like watching a tree grow. You can give it all the sunlight and water you want, but if you sit by it and stare at it all day you will never see any growth come about. However, if you come back periodically with the belief that it will in fact grow, the more easily you will see the change and benefit from its fruits. In the case of Billy Edwards, he burnt down whatever kind of tree he had and got to experience an instant kind of Karma.

            With all that said I hope you go about your day doing good things and spreading love because it’s the right thing to do, not because you expect something in return. Know that all good deeds will eventually be repaid and that all wrongful actions usually find a way to come back around and bite you. 

            Thanks for taking the time to read this and keep stopping by the blog, as the summer months begin approaching I will be updating it more regularly!

Merry Weather

All these spots reversed the clock

Where we found blue hen glass made to last

Ribbon burnt along the road

And brought us through to Timbuktu

Cheese and butter was the other 

Grilled by hands without a brother

Roots reached through empty glass

Out the window overpass

Now or former was rewarded

To the man from which smoke distorted

Buying vegan water from a martyr

Didn't make us any smarter

But the show goes on

And kids still dance on our lawn

We never tried to play for keeps

Each of us a daydream feat

Duct Tape Hustle

White page, neon heart

Tell me, when did the beating start?

I found it underneath a triangle frame

And made it spread to quench a flame

Just like you I dreamed of cardboard robots

Designed to kill but still unable

Made from shoeboxes and broken cables

At the height of schools we learned much

and from tap dancing on hollow floors,

Forgot it such

Dreams disappeared like the corners of your toast,

Then landed on my shoulders,

Chipped until arms couldn’t be raised

When the wire snapped I switched the string

The bridge hadn’t broken but the cracks remained

It plays back now into a broken record,

Into a crescendo of only seconds

Little did I know

The song was written before we tasted it.

You wrote the melody.

I, the words.

The Friendly Lion

I took a time machine back to being a kid again thanks to my six-year-old niece this past Thanksgiving. Days were spent playing micro-machines, kinex, legos and the occasional American girl doll tea party (these were short-lived). We even progressed from our free style music sessions this past summer to actually crafting our own songs with lyrics.

One such song was titled “Gobble, Gobble, Gobble,” a thrilling tale of a turkey who flys away “High above the farm” so as not to be eaten for thanksgiving dinner. Guinevere came up with all the lyrics herself, I simply handled the melody by plucking away on the ol’ fiddle. These songs were put on in front of family members and at my own request, without the use of video.

We also performed a riveting rendition of Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer in the family room. I again led on acoustics, and Guinevere starred as lead vocalist with the occasional back up mumbles from her two-year-old sister Isabella. We couldn’t hold these “concerts” without some kind of colorful backdrop, so of course, arts and crafts were another necessary component to the weekend. I was glad to guide the way on two vibrant holiday posters, one of which my drawing of Rudolph looks a little “creepy looking,” as she put it. All the creative energy that flowed from my room could have powered a small toy-making factory to say the least.

What really brought me back down to earth and feeling like a kid again was when Guinevere came up to me on our last day together, looked me in the eyes and said, “You know you’re my best friend.” I started thinking wow; I can’t remember the last time someone’s told me that outright. And then I thought, can a twenty-three-year-old and a six-year-old really be best friends? Of course they can! My own feeling, that were all just big kids at heart came rushing back to me. Even one of my friends that works as a secretary at the art center told me the other day, “I just never choose to grow up.” And I ask, do any of us ever really grow up, fully? I don’t think so.

The weekend wasn’t quite over yet. The rents thought it would be a good idea to take the kids for a ride to Christmas village, this insanely rigged mini-town that must take a hundred thousand light bulbs to light up. It’s nestled just behind a lake close to Reading, and when you pull up over a telling hill you think you just hit the Christmas village from Nightmare Before Christmas.

Guinevere suggested we ride to together, and so we did in the backseat of mom-mom and pop-pops car. She fell asleep on the way up and when she awoke I asked her if she dreamt about anything. She said she had been petting a lion, and no one else was around and the lion was letting her pet it. I suggested maybe she become a zoologist when she grows up. But nope, she said she wanted to be a “volcanologist” (I didn’t even know that profession existed). Then she said she wanted to be a teacher, and then she told me she wants to be something different every day. I told her I thought that was awesome.

We left finding a profession for later and pulled up to this real life Christmas village where we were first greeted by frosty, and then Rudolph. We got to walk around the town and follow model trains, Cardboard cut outs of Winnie the Pooh and Charlie Brown characters, and even got to see Santa; no pictures though, that was an extra eight dollars.

All of this culminated into a ride home where Guinevere asked If I had any games on my phone and I told her I didn’t, but I did have this job search app called “Glassdoor”. We began searching teaching positions, and then music instructing jobs. I was making up the descriptions of the jobs as I read them out loud and we finally found one as a music history teacher.

In this game though, I told Guinevere we couldn’t get the job without going to college first, and so we made up a class schedule for Guinevere, complete with theatre and creative writing classes. Things then got a little too real when she started asking what days she was going to class and how she could afford a meal plan.

As great uncles do I switched the subject when we got home and gave her a piece of paper and a pencil and said, “Why don’t you write a story?” And so she did. It’s called “The Lonely Giraffe”:

It’s tough to tell from the pictures alone but the moral of the story has something to do with human (or animal) connection. As Guinevere told me, the days the Giraffe was sad she was missing all her spots. The day the Giraffe got some of her spots back was the day she met the lion.

What she understood as a six year old is we all need the help and connection from others to gain a true happiness. Even if its just a few spots we gain everyday, it still adds to our overall demeanor and well being. Remember, its only real when shared.

Obama Drama

A lot has been going on these past few months with our mighty American government. Lots of unhappy citizens without insurance, lots of national parks shut down and a lot of money squandered in the process.

This was my interpretation of our government three years ago while taking a general Art class. I was assigned to make a collage and apparently I choose to make it political. Take notice how the weather is part of his brain.. 

You may ask, is it still accurate today? And I ask you, is that a football located on the donkey's ass? You can decide.

Also, there's some kind of general election tomorrow. Let your voice be heard!

To Read or Not to Read?

I’ve never really enjoyed Shakespeare; the man confused the crap out of me in high school with his sonnets and soliloquies. The only thing I really got out of those classes was how the structure of a play is formed. 

Then I got to see my first Shakespearean performance a couple years back in Staunton, VA . The venue was the Black Friar Theatre and its the only place in the United states that still puts on his plays.

That night I remember throwing down a few “Festie” Starr Hill beers and having a great time seeing these whacky guys in costumes shouting at each other in old English and running in circles around the stage.

Once you witness one of his plays live, you realize it’s true what they say; they were never meant to be read. The majority of people living in England during the days of the Globe theatre were very much illiterate and thus play acting was the only way to convey such an art.

Today high schools and colleges continually push his textual presence down our throats. It’s somewhat understandable as we can’t go back in time to the 1600 London, we don’t all live in Staunton, VA, and we can’t all act. So we do the next best thing and read them; he is after all tagged as the greatest play-write of all time.

But those plays are still painstaking to read if you have no interest in literature. Even as an English major I shunned ol’ Will. I was reminded of this the other day when I came across several of his works I purchased but have yet to read. 

Books on Books

There’s Othello, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, even Macbeth. Pretty much his entire works. I read several of them in a Brit Lit class, and I was originally going to take Shakespeare for my senior capstone course but had a great opportunity to take the same credits through a Toni Morrison author course (One of the most prolific African American female writers of our generation).

Although I was happy with my decision, I still have 12 New Cambridge editions and bookstores everywhere will only take them back for a few dollars a piece. (If you are seriously interested in these books please find the contact tab!).

Still, I have a small place in my heart for the man. Amongst the confusing dialect there are a lot of easily understood lines in his plays, one of which has modernized itself into the Weezer song: “I’m the greatest man that ever lived.”

This jam recently came up on my shuffle and the following lyrics are a direct nod to his genius:

Somebody said all the world’s a stage

And each of us is a player

That’s what I’ve been tryin to tell you

In Act 1 I was struggling to survive

Nobody wanted my action dead or alive

Act 2, I hit the big time

And bodies be all up on my behind

And I can’t help myself because I was born to shine

If you don’t like it, you can shove it

But you don’t like it, you love it

So I’ll be up here in a rage

Til they bring the curtain down on the stage

Customary to Weezer and their roller coaster chord shifts, this song thrashes, lulls you down and then turns it back up again after this brief lyrical interlude. 

Next to “to be or not to be,” “All the world’s a stage” has got to be one of Shakespeare’s most recognizable lines. It’s also one of the most insightful metaphors any poet has contributed to world literature.

Thinking of our own society and the specific roles that we choose to pursue, certain jobs that must be done and even the jails that are filled, it’s pretty clever to call us all players. We’re only a single cog in the great machine, and Shakespeare was a master at exposing what it means to be that cog.

One cog example: movie actors. Situated at the upper echelon of humanity, they have taken the greatest que from Will by mastering the role of playing a role. For this, society pays handily; not many of us can turn over our personalities on a dime.

We look up to these players because they inspire and awe us, with much credit due to the director, writer, producer, cinematographer, sound guy, and the list of cogs goes on.

What we don’t consciously think about is the same stage actors get on everyday, so do we. What we do on that stage and how we convey ourselves to the audience is solely up to us.

Tight Doodle

For the time being Shakespeare’s memory will remain under my desk until I decide whether or not to sell out his plays for a few dollars a piece.

Hey, I’m just another player and I need to get paid. I think he'd understand.

What It Means To WHAM

The first “Moment” I ever had was a simple conversation on the VIP floor section at Firefly Music Festival waiting for the Red Hot Chili Peppers to come on stage. Like most conversations at music festivals, you never really remember how they start, they just kind of flow from whatever current music conditions await your ears.

This is where I met Pam, wide-eyed and musically enthused toting a drink in hand ready to share all her love for the red hots with me. Little did I know our conversation about Anthony Keidis would turn into an awakening to one of the most innovative iphone apps I’ve ever come across.

Pam turned out to be the creator of “We Had A Moment,” or more simply, WHAM, a stylish little app that lets you pin point the location and time of an interaction you had with a particular person or group on a user friendly map.

Navigation

I thought her idea was pretty clever and wanted to know more, so she continued to describe her baby and what kind of features and circumstances made the app thrive.

The first step to using WHAM is having the desire and awareness to catalog a certain moment you find entertaining, emotional or valuable. Think about the last time you met someone awesome, thought wow, this person is awesome, but I may never experience this awesomeness again because of several reasons:

1. I’m not feelin’ the vibes right now to ask said person in said moment for their number.
2. I don’t have my phone on me, in fact, neither of us do.
3. I’m at a party and the alcohol content in my body is prohibiting me from remembering any kind of name/number whatsoever.
4. I simply let an organic conversation fly and didn’t even think about gaining contact information during that moment.

Now, you my think, are all these moments related to potential romantic relationships? Why don’t I just go on tinder and swipe through hundreds of potential suitors so I can get laid that way? Well, other then the fact that Tinder is one of thee creepiest dating apps of our generation, We Had A Moment’s premise is to make of it what you want.

What the app has going for it is the amount of potential moments that occur to people everyday are endless. So to are the locations. Were you at a bar recently conversing with a potential business client but never closed or got a name? Maybe that person sitting next to you on the airplane really enjoyed swapping reading lists with you, but you’ll never speak with them again, or will you?

Peep, peek, maybe a pee?

With the foundation of a mutual happening that’s already occurred, it doesn’t seem so weird putting a moment out there and letting it develop to whatever extent the users decide. Privacy may seem like an issue because anyone can view the moments posted, but once you respond to a moment, the conversation becomes strictly private.

I’ve found from my own experience that festivals and concerts are some of the most organic locations for moments to go down. With bad cell phone receptions and people having little time or desire to remember your phone number, much less your full name (spelling for facebook!) WHAM fills the void as an easy pathway to make a simple connection that lasts long after the show.

I’d say if this is your first time hearing about WHAM give it a shot, you can create moments online at wehadamoment.com or do it the convenient way by searching the app store for “We Had A Moment”.

You may just make a moment that changes your life, or maybe you’ll just trade some hip music with an awesome new friend. You’ll never know unless you WHAM!