An Interview With Myself (Part One)

During the last post, regarding newly given awards and "amazing predictions", I said was going to skip over the rule about naming the seven most important events in my life or some shit like that.  Since I, ahead of time, knew I would be doing this bit, I figured why bother.  It would be repetitious and with this present post, possibly a two parter, if I get too chatty or start rambling on about this or that, then posting up those seven amazing moments would make it seem I've got the ego the size of Donald Trump's or Mitt Romney's own ego.  And who wants to see that?  Gosh, certainly not magnificent lil' ol' me.

As the title suggests, I will be interviewing myself, revealing things I may have mentioned before here, some things I've never revealed, but also adding some clarification to misconceptions.  I'll also be adding some traces of sardonic or dry humor that some individuals may or may not perceive, successfully, depending on how sharp of mind that being is.  Not that I'm putting anyone down for having the intelligence quotient well below a snail's turd- but there have been times when I've read the comments on my blog or ones I've read on other's blogs and I've found it somewhat disconcerting to realize there's more than a few, uh, how should I put this in polite terms... mmm... dumbasses out there?

But, being the helluva guy I am, I'm throwing caution to the wind and going on with the show.  I want to inform you, my friends, entertain you and gently coddle you like tiny baby birds in a wasp's nest, keeping you feeling all warm and secure, inside and out.  No shocking diatribes, sarcasm and crude humor found in this humble abode of mine, I can assure you.  I certainly wouldn't do that to get an individual's attention to make one simple, friggin' point.

Ahh... there I go again with the friendly, idle chit chat.  On with the interview:

Inquisitor Kelly:  What's with the clowns?  Everyone believes you have this vested interest with clowns because of the heading on your page.  It's loaded with repeated images of clowns.  Are you afraid of clowns?  Do they arouse you, in some undetermined way?  A lot of folks, on and off this blog, have brought this "highly interesting' subject up time and time again and have this deep desire to know what's up with that.

Honest Kelly: I really don't care one way or another about clowns, actually.  When I conferred with the co-designer of the web page's layout, a couple years ago, she suggested that I keep the image of the clown from my old layout to use with this layout.    Her daughter even drew me up a jazzy, nifty looking clown and I have kept it on the blog ever since.  Why clowns?  I agreed for the sake of keeping with the theme of the blog.  Not because I like clowns or want to, hopefully, fuck one so hard in the ass one day that it's bright red colon explodes- but because of practical reasons. And to be truthful, I think every human being is a clown, just at different levels.  Some are more obvious than others.   Because of the clown question, it was, at one point, tiresome to read the same question over and over about it.  I didn't give a shit enough to give a reason for it.  Even now, I just don't care.  In fact, knowing that this insignificant image on my page supposedly frightens people, as I've heard it does with some freaks.. I mean... people... amuses me a tiny bit.

That goes for the black background on my site.  Some people say it's too hard to read my words on a post I'll put up.  To them I say, I like the black background.  Black matches the sometimes dark themes I bring up during my rants and stories on my charming blog.  I won't change it for anyone or for any reason.  Not for more followers.  Not for more hits on my pages.  In truth, the opinions of most people mean less than nothing to me.  This is because I'm too old, too wise and have had enough experience to imbue myself with the knowledge that people basically want things their way because they are selfish and narrow-minded.  Not to mention uptight and stupid.  Thanks for asking. 

Inquisitor Kelly: What was your childhood like?  Were you a normal kid?  Or were you a rowdy, screaming monkey child or what?

Honest Kelly: I grew up poor.  I lived in an old, four room, white-paneled house on farm land.  The cistern we drank out of, we found out later on, had quite a few dead and half-dead albino frogs in the water.  We didn't have a shower.  We poured buckets of water over our heads and washed with that water (which I think was from a creek up the hill) in a hand made metal stall my dad had built.

I had a swing and a tire on an apple tree I played on.  I also had a black and white cat named Pepsi, a German Shepherd named Happy and I often talked to an old large apple tree, out of loneliness, boredom and because I had a fertile imagination.  Finally, 6 years later, my sister was born.  I played with her toys, rode bikes with her and played with my own collection of Hot Wheels cars.  Each one of my Hot Wheels cars had his or her own personal name and military rank.  The President was in love with the Secretary.  Sometimes, I made them kiss.  The apple tree, outside, often told me to kill the useless weeds in the yard (they were the enemy).  So that I did, with pure, delightful abandon and with a large stick I'd whip around, cutting them down like a warrior.

Down the road, we had neighbor kids that enjoyed peeing into each other's mouths, for sport and dry humping the wiener dog.  They locked me in their spider-filled, completely dark old basement once, for hours.  They would make Kool-Aid, on hot summer days and their mom would serve it to us kids in unwashed, food-encrusted glasses.  I'm surprised, to this day, I'm still alive.  I'm not kidding about any of those details and I've talked about them a couple times on this blog.  When I was six, I had no idea what they were doing to their dog.  Later, I put it together and figured it out.  All I knew was that it's little doggy eyes rolled to the back of it's head while it lay on the slab of concrete while one of the brothers cheered on the human kid fucking it.

I found out later that Happy, my dog, was a bad doggy to a vet.  Dad said he had ran off one day.  No explanation was given.  I was shocked and saddened when I was told that as a kid.  When I was 16, Dad told me that he had to "put Happy down" because Happy suddenly bit a big meaty chunk out of a vet's arm during one of Happy's regular vet appointments.  The vet told Dad Happy had to be put down or he would make sure Happy was euthanized.  The way Dad described it, it took several shots to his big furry canine head before Happy finally died.  Hearing this story did not make me happy.  But I understood the reasoning a little later.  Happy could have killed me, at some point and that's what they were afraid of.  During our play time together, though, he was a really friendly and honestly happy dog. 

On a happier note: I really enjoyed the walks mom and I would take down the old gravel road that was named after us because Dad had done so much work on it, himself.

Every week, it seemed, we would pay a visit or visits to my grandma and grandpa's farm down the old country lane.  I was mostly a very shy, quiet kid.  I played with my Aunt Kay.  I remember one particular time when we set white milk stools together, down on their sides on the floor, in a line and sat in the open spaces.  We pretended that we were riding in a train and made "choo- choo' noises.  Those were fun times.  My Aunt Kay, who was more of a sister to me, now and then, says that she used to bully me.  I don't know about that.  Maybe it's repressed memories.

She would play tricks on me, of course.  She was a little jealous of sweet lil ol' me because I was the "new baby",so to speak, of the family.  It had been her for awhile.  One time, she blindfolded me and told me to take a big bite out of this juicy apple she had in her hand.  So I did as she directed, as trusting and innocent as a kid I was.  But no, it was a tomato, not an apple.  I shouted, "Yuck!"  I quickly took off the blindfold.  When I saw the mushy pulp and seeds of the tomato I wanted to puke, preparing my taste buds, beforehand, for a sweet, juicy apple.  To this day, I won't eat a tomato.  They repulse me.  I'd rather lick a cow's taint than eat a fucking tomato.

Pretty visual, eh? 

Because I was shy, I often got bullied on the buses, as I grew up.  I didn't know you could be thought of as being "stuck up", too, for being quiet but I heard it whispered that, that was another reason I was bullied so horribly.  Four to five bigger kids would gang up on me and smash their hard back school books on the back of my head on the school buses.  A few would punch my face.  The school bus driver would watch the action, in his rear view mirror and do nothing.  He was famous for this.  Anytime there was a fight or bullying, he did nothing and reported nothing.  I was too ashamed to tell my parents about it so they more or less didn't know about it.

I made a few friends in grades 1-8 in parochial school.  They were a couple of "misfits", as well, because they would not be picked out for team sports and were quiet and whatever else kids (and for that matter, adults) would use- as an excuse to pick on them and I.

Speaking of bullies, that's a subject that really pisses me off on many levels.  With all this texting and facebooking gossip shit going on between kids, telling lies and being cruel, kids these days are really having a hellish time with bullying these days.  They sometimes end up killing themselves, in fact, from what you read in the paper and on the Internet.  It makes me sick.  I hear and see crap about gangs of girls kicking the shit out of other girls and I wonder what the hell kind of values are their parents teaching them. Even my niece is getting bullied by school girls, calling her names and filling up her locker full of tampons, of all things.  My sister didn't put up with it, of course.  She went to the principal and told him to get something done about it or else.  Because of her being pro-active, it has stopped.

These days, there are more and more school departments or people you can go to if you're on the receiving end of bullying, but more, clearly needs to be done about it.  Kids shouldn't be killing themselves and feeling like they're not worthy of the respect they should be given during the time they're in school or out of it.   

I read a lot of books when I was young.  I also wrote a lot of stories, mostly about my parakeets, cats and my dog.  A lot of vivid imagination and descriptive wording (not so much that it was shocking and it was never vulgar) went into them and I was told I was a very creative writer by my English teacher.  I liked the compliment as they were few and far between.  Unfortunately, I had a teacher who thought I had too vivid an imagination.  I never wrote anything perverted, if that's what you're wondering.  I was just a kid.  The teacher's name was Mrs. Patterson.  She was one of two or three teachers who wasn't a nun at the school by the old church- but she did fancy herself as an amateur psychologist.  She really thought she knew a lot about psychology.  The bitch even tried to suggest to my parents that there was something wrong with me.  My parents were young and didn't know any better (I was their first kid) so they tried to convince me there was something wrong with me, too and that I should seek counseling.  I think I was like ten years old at the time.  It was around this time, I found out I was half-deaf, due to all the ear infections I had as a kid.

I had a fit, cried quite a bit and it really caused me to question adults and their fucked up motives.  Before that, I was questioning the motives of adults because of all the violent news of the Vietnam war that would be shown on TV.  Even at the ripe old age of ten, I knew it was wrong and I thought, quite often, what kind of mess of beings have I been thrown into, without permission.  These fuckers are nuts.  Well, I didn't think in exactly those words I just used, but it close enough.  I did think adults and kids were really messed up- not just because they bullied me but because they seemed to be preoccupied by violence- on TV and everywhere else.

This is me, when I was a kid ( had blonde hair until I was six), plus another pic of mom and I, when I was older and we were fishing at the time: 

Later, I went to high school, joined Drama Class, wrote articles for the school newspaper, continued to write serious and humorous stories, acted in plays, had a poem published, went to a lot of parties, got drunk and fried and really started opening up to people and getting pretty wild, in general.  My personality changed quite a bit in high school.  I was the one who started trends without even meaning to do that.  In reality, just as I do today, I just do whatever I feel like doing- within reason.  I'm not a serial killer.  And I don't sodomize animals on Tuesdays.

I've never tried to be rebellious or a non-conformist type of person.  One friend suggested that I was trying to be that way on purpose once.  That made me laugh and I replied, "If you know anything about me, you know I'm honest about what I say and about my own actions- to a fault."  And he said, "Yeah... you're right," after thinking it over for a little while and recalling the years of our twenty year friendship.  I just feel like doing whatever fits for me.  The need, as it did when I was kid, to fit in, doesn't work for me.  I'm my own person.  To each person, I believe, they should go his or her own way.  To the rest of those who blindly follow without questioning, fuck 'em. 

Inquisitor Kelly:  Would you say adults who were bullies or even adults who weren't bullies when they were children, but are now, don't understand what effect they have on people?  And perhaps, in fact, don't give a shit about what effect they have on people? 


      

Honest Kelly:  I think there are many people or groups of people who fall under the category of "Bullydom."  It's funny you should ask me this, Kelly.  But maybe it isn't so odd, since you are, in fact, me.  I wanted to do a blog post on bullies for a long time now.  And now... look!  I finally made it here.  Looks like the subject is being intertwined within this interview, after all.  Ha ha ha.  I'm laughing to myself, literally, I suppose.

There are, indeed, adults who are bullies.  Sometimes they are parents who really shouldn't be breeding, having children and shouldn't be brainwashing them with their own distorted viewpoints, neither should there be bosses who abuse their hiring/firing, pay raising/lowering power, police officers that abuse their authority and corporate entities that squeeze money out of the middle class and the poor for their own profits and gains.

Corporations can be the worst of all evils and of all bullies because they try to control and bully us in our short, precious lives here on Earth by pushing us into corners we have no escape from.  Sometime, you might feel a temporary escape by taking an anti-depressant (which makes your misery profitable for big pharmaceutical companies) or by doing cocaine, drinking booze or worse (which makes it profitable for drug cartels and, in turn, for the DEA and law officers- if you do your research).

Let's face it!  If we didn't outlaw drugs, there would be a lot of space in those jails and prisons and then where would the states and the government make their money?  Hell, we might have to actually put it into schools to educate kids, pay teachers what they deserve, hire and keep firefighters, fix roads or some other practical purpose.  God forbid!

I see, in the future, tobacco products becoming completely illegal within the next twenty years.  This will be great news for organized crime and others.  Just like it was when they made weed illegal.  Read that entire story here.  It will either disgust you or shock you or both.  Or maybe you just don't care.  A lot of people don't care about their privacy and personal freedom, either.  Look around!  There are sheeple, everywhere!  People have always had the (un)natural "talent" of being able to ignore being shit on or becoming obedient slaves to a centuries old man made system. 

Btw, marijuana, being made illegal, was great news and carefully planned by folks like our government and rich, white assholes such as Harry J. Aslinger and William Randolph Hearst.  Both had vested interests, for their careers, to make weed out to be an addictive drug, capable of killing and driving one insane.  Nonsense!!!  

The silly 1930's flick, Reefer Madness, was nothing more than a propaganda film, intended to scare the public.  Instead, it's watched today as if it is an absurd comedy movie. Good ol' propaganda!  Kind of like drawing people into a war with a country, in the name of patriotism, that we have no business in being in- except to drum up business for rich white people in corporate hierarchies.  They have what we want!  Let's wage war on them!  We'll set up our democracy there, afterwards, to keep the profits rolling in.

Well gang, I'm getting pretty tired.  I have just enough energy to do a quick re-read of what I've written, take a quick piss and hit the bed sheets with my exquisite self.  I think I will continue the second part of this interview another time.  Hope you enjoyed it.  I have more to say, since I'm a rambler, but it will have to wait.

Shock Has Stuck Around (Part 2)

Now where was I?

Oh yeah.... The different shocking experiences I've had throughout my life.

Not long after I turned ten, we moved into a decent neighborhood and a fully furnished house. I had friends there, as well as enemies and bullies and so on. But, at least there weren't any neighborhood kids pissing into each other's mouths and making a game out of it.

Also: The house we lived in was haunted, too. My sister and I experienced many shocks while living there. That story has been told in a previous post.

Moving onward...

I had a big shocker while I was in my Freshman year of high school. I was up one night, watching the 11:00 news on TV with my parents, when I saw a picture of my old Catholic school buddy, Russell, flash across the screen. I told Mom and Dad to turn up the volume because I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The news reporter was saying that Russell had hung himself in a mental institution. I hadn't spoken to him or seen him (because his family moved out of state) for a couple years before this happened. For the most part, we lost touch with the exception of one phone conversation.

Most of that conversation was about him "being so bored with everything". I remember trying to cheer him up and saying things would get better. But, obviously, things didn't. Later I would feel guilty for not staying in touch with him. That shock to the emotional and mental system in myself stuck around for awhile. But, all of it faded away, eventually.

I continued through high school, coming out of my quiet era with a gradual roar of thunder, so to speak. I continually shocked myself as my high school years whizzed by. I wrote articles for the school paper, enjoyed playing different roles in school plays and began to be one of the biggest party animals in high school. Drinking, smoking' "cabbage", a little vandalism here and there and general mischief making was all part of the fun back then. But even though I did all of that shit, I still was shy around the girls.

Being tongue-tied around the girls was one obstacle I didn't overcome until I was 21. Yep, I was a virgin until I was 21. Before that... a professional masturbator. The virgin thing was a big deal for me then. Presently, I look back at that time and laugh at myself for being so focused on something so trivial. I think that's understandable.

After graduating high school, I did something shockingly stupid. I joined the military. I was 18. I didn't know what to do with the rest of my life -so I joined the Air Force. While there, in 1982, the United States wasn't directly participating in any wars. The military didn't need half the people they had during this era.

There was nothing for us to do except some lame-ass, middle of the night guard duty and picking lint off of our beds. No, it's the truth. And what were we guarding? Nothing. Just standing by a door all night long. During the day, we picked garbage up from the grounds of the base. That was pretty much it.

I was too young to be there, really. Too homesick. Never slept but once the five weeks I stayed in Basic training. Had never been completely on my own before that, either. I was bored. I was pissed that I had allowed myself to believe the recruiter that came to school the year before. He made it sound like it was going to be like Disney World. LOL. And I was gullible enough back then to fall for it.

I rebelled a bit while there, as well.

I'll explain....

Our flight commander or whatever you call him, ordered me into his office to lecture me about my attitude problem. He was sitting in leather chair, smoking a cigar, waiting for me. When he saw me, he immediately began his lecture on "bad attitudes". I said, "Sorry, sir" after every sentence he spoke to irritate him. He didn't seem to care about that, however. After 15 or so minutes of berating, he ordered me to leave.

After the speech, I did an "about face" move. You know. Where you turn yourself around on one foot, sort of. Unfortunately for him, I was less than a foot away from his own foot. And then my foot stepped down directly onto his foot, causing him to scream. When I twisted completely around, with my full weight on his foot, his pain intensified. And then he really screamed.

It was an honest mistake but I laughed about it, afterwards.

It wasn't long after that, when I went to see the highest ranking officer on the base and told him I wanted to leave. After I gave him about five minutes worth of reasons of why I wanted to get the fuck out of the Air Force, he quickly said no (but not very enthusiastically) to that idea so I gave him an ultimatum: I said, "Either you allow me to leave the service or I'm going to make trouble". He waved his hand and said, "Well, okay, if that's how you feel about it". And that was that. As I mentioned before, this was during a time when we weren't at war, for once.

So I left the Air Force, got a job back home at a grocery store and eventually became a night manager while working there.

After saving enough money up, I took a trip out west to Arizona, by myself. It was a truly great experience! Since then, I've been to Arizona twice and I'd like to go back again -the next time with my wife. I love the scenery, the weather and the people that much.

During my first visit, I had the chance to walk in and around old Indian caves and saw some ancient artwork on the walls. I picked up various pieces of the pottery these Indians had used and examined them, as if I were on some archaeological quest. I was in complete awe that I was actually standing inside an ancient Indian dwelling. I was equally surprised that they allowed tourists to go in and out of these caves. On the floor of these ancient homes were the foot tracks of many tourists who had come. They were free to roam wherever they wanted to go, while there.

Presently, no one is allowed in these same caves, in order to preserve what's left of the natural condition it was in before.

Next, I visited the Grand Canyon -which is breathtaking, indeed. When I saw how huge and beautiful it was, I was not only shocked, but I was humbled by just how vast and deep it really the Grand Canyon was. I think everyone in the world should see this natural wonder at least once in their lifetime. Pictures and description don't do the experience of actually being there any justice.

Next on my list of shocks, would be the fact that a decent woman accepted my marriage proposal at the age of 23. My own friends tried to warn her about even dating me way back then. My fiancee then moved in with me into my apartment before we were married, to save money for our wedding and honeymoon. Some members of both her family's side and my own were appalled by us "living in sin". It's funny, now, when I think about the various reactions from them about our living arrangement.

Today, living together before or without marriage is more like a "who cares?" kind of thing.

For our honeymoon, we went to Disney World. I finally got to see fucking Disney World. The real thing -not the military version. LOL. Actually, that was my third visit there. Heh heh.

There have been many shocks since then, of course, throughout my life. Car wrecks. New additions (as in children, not leprechauns) to the family. Different jobs I've worked. Promotions. My foot deformity and other health conditions worsening to the point where I had to get SS Disability. I've also enjoyed wonderfully awe-inspiring out of state trips.

Sometimes, the trips were taken inside my head. Heh heh.

The worst shock, of course, came suddenly when my Mom passed away five years ago. It took around six months before the shock of that faded. Then grief took over for the next four years after the shock but that's another story I've told already numerous times on this blog in one form or another.

I could go on and on with this theme but I've been writing this post for so long tonight, my eyes are getting blurry and my brain has gone to "full mush" mode. I also have to get up early to dig my wife's car out of a snow drift before she goes to work in three and a half hours. It's 2:00 in the morning right now. Wish me luck!

I guess the moral of all of this, if there is one, would be: No matter how many shocks you are thrown in life, the most important thing to do is... PUSH FORWARD. And right now, I'm definitely headed in the right direction. And I'm not just talking about the way to my bed, either.

Goodnight, everyone!

Shock Has Stuck Around

From birth to present time, I've always been easily shocked by the actions or words of other people. Until I was in my teens, I didn't say much. Instead I chose to listen and observe people. The conclusion of 40 plus years of observation has led me to the simple fact that one thing unifies and defines everyone in this society. And that one thing is insanity.

Growing up in a small town, I originally, until the time I was ten, lived in a small four room house that had neither a bathtub, shower or toilet. We were poor but we made do. Our drinking water came from an old cistern. A kind of well. When it was later cleaned out, it had these little albino frogs jumping around down at the bottom of it. Yummo!

My only friends and neighbors for miles, until I was six, were a family called The Hogstons. Yeah, that was their actual last name. Their only kids were two young boys. They had a couple dogs as pets... and then some. For fun, the boys, David and Lowell (about my age at the time) would play "The Lemonade Game." If you're thinking that this game involved running around in circles, pissing into each other's mouths all the while, then you would be correct. sir. I even have memories of them humping a family wiener dog, but I didn't know back then what the hell they were doing because I WAS A GODDAMN KID.

Sure they would invite me to play their games. But usually, even while I would say "No thanks," unsteadily, I was in a state of shock. I would offer my own ideas like, "Let's go ride bikes." They would have none of those (normal) types of childhood hobbies.

The one thing they did that really scarred me for life was when they locked me in a cold, spider- infested, cobweb filled basement, with the lights out. I screamed for hours. When the door was finally opened, I was in shock and feared the dark from that day forward.

Eventually, I distanced myself altogether from them and collected shiny rocks off of the gravel road that led to our house and rode my bike for my main hobbies. I also collected matchbox cars and began making these little staple and paper books about the pets we had. I even included my own illustrations. Later on, I began writing short stories about anything. My imagination was great. When I wasn't doing that, mom and I would take walks down the road. I wish I had stronger memories of that than anything else. By the way, my new best friends, eventually, became an apple tree and a cat named Pepsi.

Anyway.... Back to the neighbor kids:

These boys could easily play that moronic cousin's family (Randy Quaid played the father) in the National Lampoon's "Vacation" movies. Inbred cousin-screwing morons are one thing, but it's quite another thing to drink your brother's pee and fuck the family dog. Even as a wee lad, I knew that was wrong.

My next big shock happened when I started going to parochial school. Catholic school. We had nuns for teachers. This was when nuns always had to wear the penguin outfits. (Watch "The Blues Brothers" movie) You know, black and white, curtain-cloth type garments that hung down to the ankles.

One sister was a principal. She might have claimed herself as a holy god servant but she was more like a husky quarterback-sized woman cursed with a bulldog face and heart of pitch black tar . She was also a cold hearted bitch... In case you didn't catch the implication before.

This sister -we'll call her Sister Harker, delighted in punishing whoever she thought was getting out of line. Sometimes, a ruler against the knuckles would be used. Other times, it would be a hard hand smacking you across the face with enough force to knock your teeth out. Ahh... precious memories.

My friend, Russell and I, quiet outcasts from the usual rabble of school kids, were walking to the daily morning mass before school one day. You would be forced to walk to church in two straight lines, never allowed to make a noise. It was almost like marching. Hell, it was more like they were the military.

At one point, during those 8 years of parochial school, Russell and I dared to whisper something to each other while walking down the hallway towards church. Remember: We were normally very quiet, even during recess, on the playground. This was a more rarer event than when Bush Jr. made a correct decision during eight years as president. Suddenly, as Russell and I whispered, our heads crashed together as if the gods themselves had struck us with lightening. Sister Harker screamed, "You are not allowed to talk!"

I was in so much shock, I didn't understand the words coming out of her mouth. My friend told me what she had said later on.

Harker grabbed my friend's arm and my own. What next? I wondered. Public execution? Instead she chose to present the both of us to the rest of the class and lecture everyone on not talking on the way to church. For the crime, the punishment, in comparison, was being made into a big Broadway play, of sorts. Luckily, or unluckily, I was watching the twittering little birds above my head. Tweet. Tweet.

I've never looked into the possibility of a concussion. Ha.

Sister Harker was as big and strong and mean as a rabid sumo wrestler. I found out she turned 95, just recently. More proof of that old saying "Only the good die young". Maybe living that long on this rock called Earth is her punishment.

Part Two of this post is coming up next.