all-scout-blog

[all-scout-blog]

The Late Night Economy

Late at night inside Catch-22, a popular bar in downtown Tuscaloosa, a crowd of people gather. Through the thick cigarette smoke and adjacent the collection of liquor bottles often stands a few weary looking line cooks wearing chef’s coat and slip-resistant Crocs fresh off a long dinner service. In the booth in the corner, a few servers are jovial and choke back cigarettes as their aprons rest on the seat beside them.  A line cook from one restaurant takes a shot of tequila with a hostess from another. A server closes his tab and gives a fat tip to the bartender for pouring his drink a little strong and for tipping well at his own restaurant.   

Peyton Winstead sits down a table outside on the patio. He is a server and kitchen runner at 301, an upscale American bistro a few blocks away and is here with a few other friends from work.

“This is the Mecca of service industry folks,” Winstead said. “I may have only made $50 tonight, but I’ll probably spend $30 of that.”

Winstead is one of the many people that work within the service industry in Tuscaloosa, the restaurants, bars, and shuttle/taxi service that make up a large portion of the buildings and businesses that cater to the nearly 40,000 students of The University of Alabama. Like many within the service industry, Winstead spends a large majority of his time when not working at a restaurant going out to eat or drinking at other restaurants.

“I spend probably three or four nights a week going out,” Winstead said. “You just can’t escape it. You spend so much of your time around food and drink, that when you get off that’s all you want to do.”

Along with spending a large majority of his time, Winstead spends a large majority of his income on food, drinks and tipping.

“For expenses, I probably pay around $415 a month,” Winstead said. “I spend double if not triple that on going out. Some may see it as a problem, but I see it as me having fun with my friends.”

Across town, Onur Oztas zooms across the road on a 7-seater golf cart between dormitories and student housing. He’s dropping off a few freshmen girls that were at a fraternity party for the night for his job with Joyride, a golf cart Taxi service that covers a small area around campus and popular apartment complexes. Each girl hands him $3 and walks off.

“It’s not a bad gig,” Oztas said. “I get to ride around in a golf cart and meet new people and get paid. The freshmen and girls don’t really tip well, but it’s ok.”

Oztas get’s paid a 50 percent commision on all he makes. Football game days are particularly busy for Joyride and the rest of Tuscaloosa restaurants and bars. On a typical game day in Tuscaloosa, Oztas estimates he collects in around $500-$700, most of which comes from fans from out of town.

Unlike Winstead, Oztas is careful to set back the money he makes from working at Joyride.

“My parent’s cover most of my bills, rent and the other stuff,” Oztas said. “School is taken care of mostly by scholarships, so the rest I just put back and save. I honestly don’t spend much on going out.”

Oztas says his lack of contribution back into the late night economy might also have to do with the subtle perks and incentives that come with a job around service industry workers.

“Pretty often I’ll give rides to bartenders or bouncers I know and they’ll tip me really well or give me a free drink next time I come into their place,” Oztas said. “It’s a cyclical system.”

What Oztas describes as a cyclical system is the service industry worker’s way of bartering from establishment to establishment. Drinks, rides and other favors like these often go unrecorded and may not be taxed, but the effect of these small exchanges still may greatly benefit the overall local economy.

According to studies done by Civic Economics, a private firm that collects data on economic development, for every dollar spent on a locally owned restaurant in cities with comparable size and access to resources as Tuscaloosa, roughly 70 cents is ultimately returned as revenue in the city.

Since 2007, Station ABC 3340 of Birmingham reports that  city of Tuscaloosa has seen the population increase 20 percent with a 15,000 growth in students to the University. Along with the boom in population, the city has experienced a growth in unique businesses that fall directly in or adjacent to the late night economy.

Jason Spikes remembers destroying the plaster off the side of a wall with a jack hammer while renovating an old barbershop on University Blvd. while building a brewery with a few of his friends. Spikes is a part of the new wave of craft breweries that has come to Tuscaloosa within the last 5 years. Some may see it as meeting the demand of the growing market of students and residents.

“The passing of the Overlay is what did it,” Spikes said. “That’s what really helped bring a lot great stuff downtown into this thriving and cool area.”

Spikes references the Downtown/Riverfront Overlay District, a set of zoning and commissioning regulations and restrictions adopted by the city of Tuscaloosa in 2007. The Overlay covers areas along the Black Warrior River and around the University’s campus and was adopted to retain the functional and visual look of Tuscaloosa to promote business. The regulations have a host of restrictions that mostly limit businesses along the Overlay to restaurants and bars, office spaces and retail shops.

Al Spencer is the Vice President of Economic Development and Public Policy at the West Alabama Chamber of Commerce.

“The Overlay actually made it harder to open up business downtown and along the Strip,” Spencer said. “Those business that do make it through that extra loop usually end up stronger and contributing better to Tuscaloosa.”

Peyton Winstead leans back and finishes his beer on the patio chair of Catch-22. He gets up,  chucks his plastic cup away, and goes back inside only to return with two more beers in his hands and a shot of pickle vodka.

“Damnit, Carlo did it again,” Winstead said. ”He bought me another round of drinks.”

“Who’s that?” a friend asks.

“Some guy that works at another restaurant,” Winstead said.  

[all-scout-blog]

The first draft of The Grassy Lot

This is a first draft a a story that I particularly liked writing. I hope to complete it soon or whenever I find myself back in that same head space.

Walk out either door of my childhood home, the door facing Lauderdale St. or the door that faced Green Ave, it didn’t matter, but take two turns clockwise or counter-clockwise and you would be on the opposite side of the block, directly across the street from the old grassy lot behind the Methodist church.

On every Sunday, most Wednesdays and the Tuesdays we had Boy Scout meetings, my family and I would take that walk. It was a nice walk, and it was a nice place to gather with nice people.

The pamphlets for Sunday’s service were printed with the most recognizable feature of the church, the sanctuary.   It was a tall rectangular structure with angles that formed to look like the bottom hull of a boat. I always felt  it looked like Noah’s Ark if you flipped it upside down with the inside matching the same dark wood color of old ships and the windows acting like portholes. I guess the Biblical symbolism was affected early into my little brain.

On what would have been the bow of this upside down boat was a glorious round stained glass window that cast down on Jackson Ave., the main street of Russellville. The opposite side of the blue, red and green collage of tinted glass shown down rays of light seemingly directly from God. The light came in from the east on the early morning sunrise and focused on what required the most attention from the Almighty: the balcony where all the older kids and troublemakers sat during the service.

What was most not printed on the pamphlet was the grassy lot behind.

The grassy lot wasn’t much. A ancient oak tree sat on Madison Street where everyone parked and a splintery playground with swings sat in the middle. The space between was perfect for kickball, football, dodgeball and even wallball. Perfect for a child to run unabided.

Boy Scout memories of the grassy lot run like a blur from an orange Tiger Cub uniform as a five-year-old to the awkward khaki years of Webelos and as a real Boy Scout in high school. It was out on the grassy lot that we raced the rain gutter regatta, tied and re-tied bowlines, and played after meetings like only boys knew how.

Over the years, the grassy lot evolved for better or worse.

Granny always talked how they needed to be a space for older people to get into church easier, and in her twilight years, they finally built a drive port with a roof and handicap accessible entrance. The ensuing concrete driveway that was built provided an excellent place to skateboard and play four square. This addition to the grassy lot was very much welcomed.

As I grew into my early adolescent years, the congregation began to discuss a great new project that the preacher was spearheading. They were talking about building a Ministry Center on top of the old grassy lot. We were all excited. It was to be big and grand.

Tithe! Tithe! Tithe! was often the theme of sermons during those years. The preacher said much praying was needed to make the Ministry Center a reality.

They finally broke ground on the new Ministry Center with a gold spray painted shovel. The ancient oak tree was chopped down and the grass was tilled up to expose the red clay soil underneath. The construction provided an interesting and muddy new play space, but was only temporary as the brick foundation went up quickly and the adults said it was best to leave the area formerly known as the grassy lot alone.

It was maybe a little over a year from start to completion of the Ministry Center. A year of potential memories of the grassy lot lost. On completion, the new Ministry Center was admittedly pretty impressive. It was a towering structure, bold and squared off along the edges of the property. However, the newness slowly faded and was replaced with some reservations and grievances toward my opinion of the Ministry Center.

The light on the side facing Washington Ave. was absolutely the wrong hue. It was a single high watt industrial fluorescent light that was way, way too bright and ruined the feel and comforting darkness of that corner of the block. The brick on the outside was the wrong shade of brick from the original church. The new shade of brick was tacky and reminded me of the same color the thousands of new buildings being built across the south. I figured it would become dated and easily classified of as of this time. Inside, the Ministry Center was painted a underwhelming beige that was uniform from floor to ceiling. The area that was directly over the grassy lot proper was now mocking my 5-foot shorter than average white kid stature and athletic talents. The space that once held intense and competitive games of kickball and football had been replaced with a three-fourths length basketball court.

I hate basketball. I am no good at basketball.

I now believe this became the time and area in which my perversion and distancing from the church took place. The new youth room, above what used to be the four square area, took over the balcony in where the teenagers made trouble. My peers and I were now well into the hormonal years as a young men and woman and inappropriate actions stemmed from there. It was in that room I learned the affairs of the youth pastor and how many years ago his wife caught him sniffing the panties of another lady. It was up here that I could look down to the tables set up at dinner and catch my dad shooting scornful glances at the preacher. He would start to use adjectives like “asshole” and “prick” when describing him now.

I began to play drums in the early service praise band, but as soon as I had a license and was able to drive, that same drive port that became Granny’s swan song was now my escape door from sermons. After my responsibilities in the the first set of songs for the service was finished, and If I hurried, I could make it Jack’s, grab a chicken biscuit and make it back to play the final song. But if the line of cars was long, I took my time or if the preacher asked the band to come back on early, there were no drums in the last song.

[all-scout-blog]

Waning Hours of the Semester

It’s coming down to the final few days of the semester. I really am experiencing an up and down of how I feel about things. 

In some ways I feel pretty. I’ve learned a lot over the various classes I’ve been in and I’m excited with the progress I’ve made towards my career.

Other ways, I feel I haven’t been able to shake the same bad habits and attributes I wish I would have lost by now.

Ultimately, I feel that this is about exactly where I expected to be and I’m in an alright spot. 

They say the journey is the best part, and I say I agree. 

[all-scout-blog]

Thanksgiving Gut

I’m in Holiday Recovery Mode. 

I’ve been assessing my waistline in the mirror that is now a few inches bigger. I feel much more bloated in not only my gut, but my energy and enthusiasm, too. 

I’m feeling worn out and sick of lots of things with this semester. This is a familiar feeling I have around this time of the year. Projects and assignments are stacking up on top of each other and I just continue to shut down and put them off until the very last moments culminating in frantic late nights. 

Procrastinating.

I keep telling myself I’ll do better each time and not continue to put it off, but I end up procrastinating procrastinating. 

Anxiety. 

I wish I inherited better traits growing up. I wish I would have been born a go-getter, a non-procrastinator. I wish I could have been born a lot of other things. 

[all-scout-blog]

Bouncing back

 I had a friend tell me that when you finally come out of a slump, you bounce back better than before. I definitely feel that is true. 

I was in a bit of slump there for a second. A week or so when I felt everything I did was terrible and my work was no good. This past Wednesday I produced a radio piece that was actually really good and bright my confidence in myself way up. Feels a lot better being this way. 

I hope that I can continue this confidence and have it translate to other facets of my life and school. Spanish is looking pretty rough for me at this point, so I’m trying to hang on and finish our the class strong. It’s getting progressively harder I’m getting pretty confused at this point, but we’ll see.

[all-scout-blog]

Script to Donnie’s story

Here is the script I wrote to the radio story I produced in the previous post.

Meet the Alabama Leaning Man… He’s prone to lean, funky as hell and he’s turning 75…

He’s a living legend straddling two different generations of songwriters from the hit recording capital of the world.

His songs  have been performed by artists like Ray Charles, the Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan and now I find myself in the same 5 x 5 study room as him in the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library….

That’s FAME Studios he’s talking about. The place where numerous other local guys from around the Shoals just like Donnie gained their fame as session musicians cutting tracks for soul and funk artists throughout the 60’s and who are still around today. 

Later, Donnie would meet a former army helicopter pilot turned counrty musician and begin his over two decade long career as the keyboard player in his touring band.

Kris Kristofferson is a character himself. A story goes that he got the attention of Johnny Cash by landing a helicopter in his yard in Nashville. His success in singing was soon to follow. And there was Donnie, leaning on the Wurlitzer right behind him the whole way.

In the 70’s, Kris started acting in a few films.  A director named Sam Peckinpah would approach Kris and Donnie and said they had a great look for outlaw characters in a movie he was doing about Billy the Kid…

If you ask Donnie though, he’ll say his love for movies started before that, and it started in a place that’s relevant even today.

Donnie’s 75th birthday is a benefit concert to help raise money for the place the led him to meet and be inspired for a lot of the work he did. Musicians with connections of all types to Donnie and the Shoals have flown in to play and celebrate.

I was told the show was sold out at 750 people and they even brought in 50 extra chairs to make more room.

The different musicians took their turn on the stage playing their hits from back in the day and telling funny anecdotes about Donnie.

With these old guys coming and going on the stage, some even with canes, you can’t help but compare their careers. Some of the old guys are definitely retired and some are still pretty active yet definitely limited to their careers way back when.

Donnie is different. Donnie’s influence straddles both the heyday of FAME studios and now with the newest iteration of the Shoals.

In 2015 Donnie released his newest album on Singlelock, the new record to pop up. These kids he mentioned are Jason Isbell, the Alabama Shakes, Belle Adair, and St. Paul and the Broken Bones.  They’re defining the modern sound coming out of the Shoals and making just as big a splash as the old guys did back in Donnie’s day...

About an hour into the show and Donnie finally shuffles on stage and sits behind his black Wurlitzer. He’s rocking the same black leather jacket, cowboy boots, and black sunglasses he had with me in the library. He’s got the quiet attention of everyone in the room and begins playing a saw he wrote for Willie Nelson just a few year’s ago….

And he’s still at it.

Donnie says there’s plans in the works for a new album. They’re cutting it now in the Singlelock studios just down the street and it should be finished by the end of the year. They’ll start a tour of the U.S. and Europe in the spring.

Not bad for 75. Happy Birthday Donnie...

[all-scout-blog]

Here is a radio story I produced!

The Alabama Leaning Man straddles two generations of Muscle Shoals music. Even at 75, Donnie still holds his own as a prolific songwriter who's work has affected many people throughout the years.

Listen as we talk Ray Charles, acting in Mexico and a benefit concert at the Shoals Theatre.

[all-scout-blog]

Chaos goes on a Run

It’s getting closer towards the end of the semester, and I’ve started to feel the effects. A lot of major projects and assignments are starting to be due and I’m all frazzled. It is classic me to have put things off and procrastinated enough to were everything has culminated into making me a depressed and anxious piece of shit. 

I’ve been prone to suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder in the past. I think it’s the decreasing lack of light and preference to sleep all day that causes me to spiral into a mode of general apathy towards everything. I just want to sleep all the time and eat food that’s not good for me. I end up satisfying my most basic impulses and almost nothing else. I gain a few pounds and gain more self loathing. 

On expressing my sorrow with some friends at the bar this past weekend, a few of them suggested I get out and go run. Get active and keep it a habit to help me feel better throughout the coming winter months. 

“No one have said ‘man, I wish I wouldn’t have went on that run,” a friend of mine said. 

That’s tough. I usually like to stay active and consider myself in somewhat good shape, but it’s always a chore to get out of bed, put shoes and gym shorts on and actually start running. 

I gotta build this habit I keep telling myself. Build a habit of running that will hopefully translate into a habit of me staying happy and upbeat, and hopefully that will translate into getting out of this chaos. 

[all-scout-blog]

The Process Feels Shitty Sometimes

I feel shitty, and like most times I don’t quite understand why or know how to articulate it.

This particular time comes from a moment in my radio storytelling class. On the surface I am pretty bummed and feel pretty shitty, but as I go deeper into it I feel I know this is a good thing. I am being challenged, and this introspective is like my muscles aching from a workout. My horizons and perceptions are changing. This is good.

It starts with just a story. It had to be 3-5 minutes long and be an interview with someone you did not know. I took that idea and ran with it. I wanted to interview someone within what I call the Late Night Economy of Tuscaloosa. A bartender, server or someone that works and makes most of their income primarily during the time when everyone else is having their fun on the weekends or nights.

I found the job of the Joyride driver, the drivers of the golf cart taxi service around campus and the Strip, to be very interesting and something that would provide an insight into a world that most people only know for a few drunken minutes at a time.

Halloween night at 12:52 a.m. I left my apartment with a Marantz audio recorder and shotgun mic with windscreen and $20 for a tip with the intent to ride around with a Joyride driver. It didn’t take long to find a guy in a 7-seater golf cart waiting outside Gallete’s. I asked if I could sit with him and ride around for 30 minutes or so and ask him a few questions. He totally agreed and was all for it.

We rode around and picked up a few people. Several drunk sorority girls and people on their way home from Halloween. I got lots of great tape of being(including myself) being very silly and also some great stuff from my driver talking about how he fits within the late night economy. I was super excited with the interview and ready to start cutting and producing the piece.

I spent a few hours at Rogers Library compiling everything and making the cuts for the story. I had a couple ways I could frame the story, and ultimately I decided to make it a light hearted look into the world of sorority girls and this driver.

I played the story in class the next day for my fellow classmates and professors. I thought it was pretty good and had worked pretty hard. The listening was odd. I got a few chuckles from the places in the story were I thought there would be, but at the end everyone seemed really quiet. An awkward silence hung in the air.

In the critic, my professors really did not like my work. They had all kinds of things to say about the inappropriateness of including tape with some drunk girls who rode in the cart. They felt we had a new standard for what our stories should be and this was not living up to that.

I felt frustrated. This was the work I was wanting to do. This, in a way, was my identity as a radio producer. And now I was getting shit on for low quality work. It was disheartening.

But, it didn’t take long for me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and feel better about myself. I knew I couldn’t get too down on myself.  This was part of the process. This huge blow to my confidence was what I needed to reevaluate the work I was doing and get better.

In a way, Im glad this happened.

[all-scout-blog]

Here is a first of a story on the Joyride golf cart taxis in Tuscaloosa. 

[all-scout-blog]

Ectrodactyly

We had been driving from Tuscaloosa towards Birmingham on I-59--past Vance past Woodstock, somewhere close to Bessemer. We pulled over to grab something to drink and some smokes. There was bright modern Shell gas station and a seedy looking non-descript shithole. We decided, “let’s get weird.”

So, we did.

I got out, walked inside and wandered around the shelves. Riley was in the restroom and I was next. He finished and I walked in to see the walls covered in graffiti. Messages from poor souls that had found themselves at this gas station were sharpied all up and down the concrete brick walls.

No need to flush, no need to wash your hands. You were probably better off in doing so.

I had no need for a snack and I was at a full pack of Marlboro’s, so I headed back to the car. Not that weird a place I thought.

I made it back to the camry, propped up against the door and tried to reach a moment of calmness before the next two hours to huntsville.

A cling of the bells on the door and I see Danny walk out, the only movement in landscape of the parking lot. Danny’s eyes were noticeably wide and excited even threw the backlight of fluorescent glow.

“Dude, there is a real life alien in there,” said Danny. “Thing’s did get weird. Real weird.”

“Wait, what? What?”

“This guy in here, he’s a real life alien. He’s got hand’s super long, like this long.”

Danny extended his already large hands across his body.

“Easily, 10 inches.”

That same moment Riley busted out of the door. The same exact expression played out across his face except even more animated.”

“Holy shit, we gotta go, we gotta go!” said Riley. “Homeboy’s got some long-ass finger’s, man. I think he’s going to cast a spell on us.”

I’m intrigued now.

“Woah. Wait, what?”

Against my instincts to not gawk at someone’s oddities or disabilities, walked toward the door. I tried my best to look interested in the shelves and find something to buy. I wasn’t hungry, wasn’t thirsty. In the case that I was caught in the act of just walking around, I tried to think of an obscure item to say that I was looking for if the guy behind the counter asked me if I was looking for anything.

Cashews. That was a good thing I decided. Not many gas stations have just cashews. I’ll just tell him I was looking for cashews…

I began to walk back out of the store and attempted to catch a glimpse of the hands that both Danny and Riley were talking about. I peeked from the corner of my eyes at the counter and immediately I caught his eyes. Shit!

I went blank and froze. He looked directly at me and as he mumbled something I saw them.

He caressed his face with these long and willowy appendages. I wouldn’t even call them fingers.

I was terrorized. Not only was I spooked, but I immediately felt an overwhelming feeling that I was doing something wrong. I had come to stare at this man like a circus exhibit. I immediately regretted my decision.

In only a matter of seconds, through the frame of his strange fingers I could see the outline of his face. It was a thin and emaciated with a high jawline eerily similar to the classic look of aliens on movies and TV. Huge eyes looked back at me reflecting the same fluorescent glow, but yet still empty and dark as the vacuum of space.

I still couldn’t make out anything he was saying, but I could only assume it was something about not buying anything or stealing something. Whatever it was, I could sense he knew exactly what I was doing.

I, too, mumbled something back. I think it had something to do with cashews, but I was busy just trying to get out the door.

I returned to Danny and Riley at the car and immediately got in the driver’s seat.

“You’re right, we gotta go. I’m creeped out. That’s some serious alien shit,” I said.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, we looked up and and saw him. He was standing outside of the door beside a pump and gave us a cold stare, motionless. He was backlit by the fluorescent lights and I swear there was a slight fog around him.

[all-scout-blog]

My attempt at a Play

Chapter 5:

The Man Of China

A monodrama by Alexander L. Richey

(DRAWS WITH FINGER IN THE AIR)

C-H-A-P-T-E-R - 5

T-H-E-M-A-N-O-F-C-H-I-N-A

There…

Is that right, Momma? Momma. Mom. Mom!

It is? Yes!

I’m a great speller.  My momma says so at least. How many other 5 year old boys do you know that can spell ‘chapter’ without forgetting the ‘H’?

How many other 5 year old boys do you know with such cool boots as me? These are my cowboy boots. They’re my favorite. I saw a chicken truck driver wear some boots like these and I want to be a chicken truck driver when I grow up, so I knew I had to get some.

They’re good for runnin’. Good for playin’. And good for taking dirt from the backyard to the front yard in my Big Jake.  

Oh, yeah!

(POINTS AT BOARD)

See this? This is my story I’m making up. It’s about a Chinese man. I don’t know much about China, but it seems like a really fun place. All I know is they have good food there.

I bet the food in the real China is just like the food at the Chinese place in downtown Russellville. It’s called New China. It’s my favorite place to eat.

If I had to be stuck on an island for the rest of my life and had only one thing to eat, I would eat fried rice.  

New China has the best fried rice. It’s got little pieces of ham and egg in it. I’ve learned this trick that if you put the rice in a bowl and turn the bowl upside down and put it on a plate and let it sit for two minutes, you can take the bowl off and the rice will stay like the shape of the bowl. It looks fun and makes eating more fun. I feel like a chef.

Oh yeah, but right now I got to feel like the Man of China if I’m gonna finish this story.

I don’t really know what to do to feel like a real Man of China, but I got this cool orange Star Wars gun and I bet real men in china do this!

(RUNS ACROSS STAGE, JUMPS AND SHOOTS GUN)

Pretty cool, huh?

That’s all I’ve got of the story so far….

I I figured it would be best to start on Chapter 5. Skip all the boring stuff in the middle and get to the exciting stuff like shooting guns and being a cool guy. Plus, I got to make up something quick while mom is going to get the the video camera.

She said she was going to videotape me playing my story. She said we’ll keep the video so we can watch it when we get older. I wonder what I’ll be like when I get older?...Oh, well. Don’t care.

Uh oh! Here comes mom.

I’m ready mom!

(WALKS OVER TO BOARD)

Here, right here!

The-Man-Of-China

(RUNS ACROSS STAGE AND JUMPS, SHOOTS GUN, LAYS ON GROUND IN PRONE POSITION, SHOOTS GUN AGAIN, GETS UP AND BOWS TO THE CAMERA)

You liked that momma? It was good wasn’t it?

She eats that stuff up…

Well, that’s my Chinaman story. It got me hungry now talkin bout fried rice and moving around such. Better see if I can get anything to eat in the kitchen…

(WALKS TO OTHER SIDE OF STAGE AS IF INTO A DIFFERENT ROOM, LOOKS AT SOMETHING ON STAGE AS IF IN DISGUST AND TRIES TO AVOID IT)

Oh yeah, that’s my sister. Her name’s Liza Jane.

Life was good when it was only me and my older brother Art, but now that we got her it’s all these barbie dolls and girly things.  She’s alright I guess. Mixes things up sorta. She’s not like having a brother, though. I can’t treat her rough, like Art treats me rough. It’s fun playing that way. I reckon it’s what makes boys be boys and what makes girls be girls. But I can barely even look at her without her falling down and pitching a big fit. Mom says just being dramatic. I don’t really know what that means really, but I know she got it from my Dad. It must have been the first thing he gave her, because she’s had it a long time.

Oh great, mom brought the board back in here. She wants me to spell my story again on camera.

(LOOKS BACK AT MOM)

Ok mom, I’ll spell it again!

C-A-P-

No, no, no.

(ERASES BOARD)

C-H-A-P-T

(SWATS IMAGINARY LIZA JANE CHARACTER)

E-R-5

(SWATS AGAIN)

Stop Liza!

Oh great...See, she did it again.

She falls down, cries a little, Mom says she’ll give her a treat if she stops, she gets up and then she’s fine.

See, there she goes, walking away just perfectly fine. She’s pretty good a this whole being dramatic thing..

But you know, as silly and weird as she may be, she’s still my little sister. I got to love her. And I really do. She’s my family. Just like my Aunt Mary, my cousin Bill, my Dad, my Mom, we all love each other. It’s what we do.

I hear my friends talk all the time about how they hate their mom and dad, they hate their brother. I know they might be kidding, but I would never say that. That’s really mean.

It’s a tough life out there for us 5 year olds and it’s only gonna get tougher. I start Kindergarten next year, and that’s the big leagues. I gotta step it up.

My brother Art has helped me learn a lot, and he’s helping me get ready for going to school. To Liza Jane, I’m her older brother. One day I got to help her get ready for being a tough 5 year old and for going to school and for tying her shoe. It’s my job. It’s what we do.

It’s called being in a family.

(Walks over to Liza, gives an apologetic hug)

I’m sorry, Liza. Hope you’re ok. I didn’t mean to push you like that.

One thing, though. Since mom said she’d get you a treat, you want to make that treat a trip to New China to get some Fried Rice?

END

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We ain’t nothin’ but a nation of god-damn chicken-shit, horse-shit, tattle tale, pissy-ass, whiny, fat, flabby, outta shape, facebook-lookin’, damned twerk-fest, peekin’ out the windas and slippin’ around, listenin’ in on the cellphones and spyin’ in the peephole and peekin’ the crack of the god-damned door and listen’ in the fuckin’ sheet rock. You know - Mr. Putin, please, show some fuckin’ mercy. I mean, come on, drop a fuckin’ bomb won’t you?

National treasure John B. McLemore (via celestina-warbeck)

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Here is the final progression of my memoir piece. It really came into its own and I’m proud of the end result. 

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My Way of Thinking

Sometimes, when I find myself in a pensive mood at 3 or 4 in the morning, I go for a ride on my bike. I dress in all black and blast Philip glass through my headphones. It’s not the safest thing, but at this time of the morning there’s not much traffic and I can blend into air. I ride around downtown. The bars are closed, but there are still beer bottles and leftovers from just a few hours ago laying on the sidewalk, so I take the streets.

I have no real destination, I just ride. I blend in and observe the surroundings. The music is playing a heavy handed piano melody. I wander. Both in my mind and in my path. I’m getting thoughts out or soaking them in. It doesn’t matter which, but as long as they are flowing.

I’m hyped up on caffeine or coming down from a few glasses of bourbon. The buzz, the feelings are different, but the intent is the same. I’m quiet and so is the sound of my bike.

The moisture hangs heavy in the air making my handle bars slick. The brakes lose half their touch and take a little bit longer to come to a complete stop. This is a risky ride I take. It’s a bravado I don’t particularly deserve, but the gamble is there.

I play the same song on repeat.

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Three White Lights

At that time of our life, our family had the tradition of spending Christmas Day evenings with the rest of our extended family in Huntsville. It was always a ton of fun and lots of presents. It was a great time to be a kid. Christmas of 2004 started off just the same. Dad, Art and I were in one car on the way to Aunt Jane’s. It was dark and the drive from Russellville to Huntsville is uneventful, flat and suited for a nap. I normally love long car rides and the inevitable conversations with my dad and my brother, but a long day of opening presents and all the breakfast pizzas you can eat will plum tucker you out. Plus, this time provided a much need break to save up some energy for all the cousins you’d see at Aunt Jane’s. The traffic on the trip over was almost non-existent. Certain stretches were nearly desolate, including the skies. I’m not sure if I still believed in the Santa Claus and his reindeer, but I do remember gazing up at the sky more than usual. It was a clear night and the stars were pretty and crisp. Even Art, who is usually the one so intensely occupied in conversation with Dad was looking up. Somewhere along interstate 565 we noticed the sight of an airplane low in the sky up ahead. A small triangle of three white lights flying in a straight-line path. Nothing out of the ordinary with how close we were coming to the Huntsville airport, but given the particular time and day, we found it a bit odd. It seemed a little sad that these poor people were just now getting to their destination and would only have a few hours left of Christmas. Dad and Art went back to their conversations and I continued to stare out the backseat window, but kept noticing the airplane. It continued to drift lower and lower in the sky. Surely it was going to land at the airport. Where else would it be going? A few miles later and we had passed the airport and the airplane was still getting lower, at this point obviously not in the correct approach for the airport. These three white lights were coming lower, and were headed over the overpass and towards the Wall-Triana intersection; the exit we took to get to Aunt Jane’s. It only was only a quarter of a mile away and not more than 100 feet off the ground, but it was still hard to truly gauge the size of this aircraft.   

The only I could make out were those three white lights. Strange as it was, it was not out of my character to jump to such drastic conclusions. First thought was that this was a commercial airliner and that it was about to crash. Somewhere deep –seated within my brother was a sense of dire distress the manifested itself as this quiet anxiety that only came out when a friend went to fast in a car on slick ice or when someone offered to let us ride a Sea-doo. It had rubbed off on me growing up and people diagnosed it as us just being ‘worry warts.’ Hence why both he and I were freaking out. It was surreal. We had all driven this same route numerous times and seen airplanes fly around all over Huntsville, but none acted like this. No aircraft ever flew this close to the highway and this low.   It flew over the overpass low and slow towards the intersection. Dear God, this is happening. Christmas Night we were going to see a plane crash. People were going to die. A flaming ball of metal would hit the side of the Schlotzsky's Deli and explode bodies across Wall-Triana. I was going to be traumatized. Never to fly again. By this point we had reached the end of the exit ramp. Dad ran the red light and sped across the overpass as fast as a little Suzuki Forenza and its 4 cylinders could go. If there was a time more fitting and appropriate to use the term “I shit you not” this was it. We look up to see the moment of impact and, I shit you not, those three lights were over a gas station-- motionless. Awestruck and screaming we all were. “Look at it! What is it doing? What is it? Dad go towards it!”

Dad ran another red light, pulled around the median and gassed it towards the gas station. We made it to the parking lot, but this thing began to hover towards a chicken finger restaurant directly across the street. At this point any normal person might have been a little more cautious in how to approach this…thing. But the Richey’s are not “normal.” We crossed the street and pulled into the parking lot of the chicken finger restaurant. There it was, directly above us at about the height of a tall pine tree. Even still, the only thing we could make out were three white lights. I rolled down the window, but there was only silence.

Any sort of normal man made machine of this size or power was bound to make a noise—any noise. The only I could think that could do anything like what this thing was doing would be a helicopter, and that logically it would be making a tremendous racket with rotor wash included. This thing was silent. Only five seconds was enough to burn this mental image in my head forever. Those three lights as high up as a tall pine tree sitting motionless in the Huntsville sky. After those five infinite seconds were up,  this thing began to slowly move back in the way it had come. Dad chased it back across the intersection, back across the overpass, but by this time, it was gaining speed and left us in the dust back into the sky getting higher and higher, farther and farther. “Did…..did we just see a UFO?” we all said. The ensuing conversation the rest of the way to Aunt Jane’s was jittery and full of excitement and disbelief.

Art had always been skeptical of those that talked about seeing UFO’s and other metaphysical stuff, but he was the one most convinced this was beyond the realm of reality.

We arrived at Aunt Jane’s and burst in to tell all the cousins and family what happened. The back playroom would become the stage to tell the story for those that would listen. Art was perfecting his performance complete with hand motions reenacting the thing over the more and more we told the story. We had the benefit of Uncle Al to give an educated guess as to what happened. Back in the day he had worked on the arsenal and saw lots of crazy things. Some things he still can’t talk about. His guess was that it was some sort of super secret government unmanned aircraft that they were testing out in real life situations.

Think about it, it makes perfect sense. If you needed a time to test your super secret aircraft with limited exposure to civilians, Christmas night was the perfect time to do so. Everyone would be inside or at home and there would be clear skies to fly around. If the government or defense company were to ever do such a thing, Huntsville was the place. Over the years as the progression of U.S. involvement in the Middle East has ramped up and the increased use and controversy of unmanned aircraft or ‘drones’, Huntsville has garnered more and more attention. This was back in 2004. Before the term ‘drone’ was common in most people’s vocabularies. It’s without a doubt Huntsville and the Redstone Arsenal were crucial in developing the technology of these aircraft and arguably changing the future of how we fight wars. And to think, we may have seen one of those things up close and in person. Not many other people would have had that view. If they did they were either hush military personnel or some poor bastards in Afghanistan on the receiving end of freedom in the form of high-powered explosives thanks to Uncle Sam. They say experiences really bring people together, and in some odd way I believe this crazy thing really did. I’ve told this story countless times to tons of people and refined it throughout the years. I’ve had a guy come up to me at a bar and say he’d been telling my UFO story second hand to other people for years.

No other story that Dad, Art and I experienced has ever been so vivid, so transcendent of normal family vacations or other normal memories one might have. It will forever stick with me, I love that about my dad and brother. Our Christmas UFO Story I’ll forever have.

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The Song of 209 Madison St.

There’s a cadence to Aunt Mary’s house.

The gate swing,

The screen door swing,

The Refrigerator door swing,

All sounds announcing your arrival, returned by a greeting. A question, then declaration.

Meaning everything and nothing all at the same time

The gate swing follows your means of transportation.

In my younger days it was played on a bicycle, a skateboard or simply a walk through the back yard from my house.

Now, its plays as an ignition shutting off and a lock of the door.

Through the slap of  the screen door there came the yelps and pitter patter of the numerous chorus of dogs that had the pleasure of calling Aunt Mary’s their doggy residence. What a great life that would have been.

A few more steps; a right turn into kitchen. Regardless of where else in the house one goes, the kitchen is where you go first. The kitchen is HQ. ←---militaristic

Since us siblings have grown up, moved off, Aunt Mary’s house is home,

and the kitchen is more literal than metaphorically, ground zero ← of the idea of

‘Home’ in my head

Grasp the handle on the refrigerator. Swing it open. Inside is almost always a full stock of the liquid manifestation of pleasure itself.

Cool touch of condensation, a click of the pop tab and a long pull of all 23 flavors of red burgundy can

Dr Pepper.

* * *

But more important than any other drink, dog or skateboard, is the woman herself.

If drawing comparisons, making meaning with things, it goes without saying Mary Francis Flippen is love.

All who enter that house, all those that walk through and are blessed to play this same song, maybe different rhythms, different melodies, different interpretations

but all inspired, conducted and produced by our wonderful Aunt Mary.

The Song of 209 Madison St.