Death of the Paper Boy

 When did they faze out paper boys? Why did they get replaced by creepy guys in wood paneled station wagons?

 I was a paper boy in 7th grade. I took over for Erik Webb, a kid from a few blocks over.  It was the Daily News route in my neighborhood and the day before I started, the route supervisor called and offered me a double sized route. Some other kid quit and I could take over Erik's route and the route adjacent to it . I took it and proceeded to make more money than any other kid I knew. I was taking in 80 bucks a week in the spring of 1981. I was rich!!!

 It was no walk in the park. Daily News required delivery by 7am, rain or shine. I set my alarm clock for 5am everyday. My Dad had a crazy old bicycle from the 1940's. He put a basket over the rear fender and attached a plastic milk crate to the handle bars. When fully loaded, it weighed a TON. Sundays?....4 TONS!!!!!

 Whenever the forecast called for rain, my Dad would wake up early and help me put every newspaper in a double wrapped plastic bag. My customers were ecstatic and tipped me accordingly. :)

 So the photos below are examples of "UNACCEPTABLE!".

Page Six: RUINED!!!

Waterlogged Post

"Thank God the recession is over."

What a deal!

Eddie Fisher's in My Garage

  So Eddie Fisher died on Wednesday and I find this in my garage on Saturday.

Coincidence?

  * Plus, last night I just happened to catch Carrie Fisher on "Celebrity Ghost Stories".

Tramp Stamp Rebel.

Out of You

Craigslist is Frosty

  I had an Ikea kitchen table & 6 chairs from my old apartment up on Craigslist. It was listed for $50 and I got no bites. It sat in my garage all summer so rather than calling special pick up, my girlfriend suggested I relist it for less. So I put it back up Tues. night for $30. Within a half hour I received my first email. It was from a guy named Keith and we agreed he would come pick up the items the next day at 3:30.

"What a deal."

  Well 3:30 came and went. I called Keith at 4pm and again at 5pm. There was no answer. At 5:45 he called and said he'd be there in 5 minutes. I moved everything out to my driveway and moments later a Jeep Wrangler pulled up.

"Hey Dave.", scratching his head. "Oh boy, this is bigger than I thought. I don't know if it'll fit in my car."

 "I'm pretty good at Tetris. We'll make it fit.", I interjected.

 Keith pulls out twenty bucks and looks at me and says, "Ah man, I only got a twenty. Is there a Chase bank around here?...unless you'll let me have it for twenty."

 "Are you for real? I listed it for $30, it's a steal." But I was thinking if this guy leaves to go to Chase, he may never return and I'll be stuck with this stuff and have to put it back in the garage.

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a coupon booklet for ten free "Frostys" from Wendy's.

  "Will this cover the difference?"

  I'm afraid it did. Now I've got a little more space in my garage, twenty more bucks in my pocket, and a bellyache.

Adrienne Barbeau affected my adolescence.

In the 80's, this woman did me right. It was oh so wrong.

Frank Stallone is Dead.

  I was playing baseball in 5th grade, up the block from my house. There was about 6 of us in a  kid named Wayne Buttner's backyard. The ball was pitched and hit over the stockade fence separating Wayne's yard from the yard behind. Wendy (Wayne's little sister) climbed the fence to see where the ball landed and yells, "Hey guys!!! There's someone sleeping back here!!!"

  We all ran and up the fence we went, 6 kids looking down. Sure as shit, there was a grown man in the fetal position on the ground. He was laying in between the fence & the neighbor's garage. The baseball only inches away. We were in shock. Speechless. Frozen.

  After a minute, I sputtered,  "Hey! Ma..ma..ma..Mister. Wake up!"...and he didn't move. So I said,  "Get me a rock." Wendy hopped down, retrieving a stone, she handed it to me. I looked and all eyes were on me. I counted, "One, two, THREE!!!"...and launched the thing right at his head. We all panicked. Dropping off the fence we ran up the driveway into the street. Regrouping, catching our breath..we slowly walked back into the yard. Hestitating about 20 feet from the fence. Saying nothing, I grabbed another rock, climbed the fence and launched round two, this time only ducking and not jumping off. Slowly, I peered over and down. He still had not moved. I called to my friends to get me a stick.

  Everyone climbed on up, staring down at this man in army fatigues. I climbed higher, with my waist on the points of stockade wood jamming into me, I stretched, arm extended. I poked, my heart pounding in my 11 year old chest. I poked again.  I turned and said, "This guy isn't sleeping. This guy's DEAD! Wayne go get your father."

  Wayne calmly looked at me and said, "No. I can't tell him. I'm not allowed to climb on the fence."

  "What?! Go get HIM!!!"

  "NO!!! My Dad will freak. I'm not allowed to climb on the fence. The only way we could've found this guy is by climbing the fence. I'm gonna get in trouble."

  I couldn't believe it, so I again hopped down. This time running, faster than I had ever ran, down the block and into my house. My mother was making Sunday sauce. I screamed, "Mom!!! Mom, I found a dead guy!!! I found a dead guy!!!"

  My mom, still in her Bel-Air Nursing Home uniform turned, bewildered, "Huh?"

  "A dead guy!!! Me and my friends, we found a guy. He's dead. Behind Wayne's house!! I swear!!!"

  At this moment in time I saw my mom move faster than any other time in my life. Out the house, up the block, over the fence. She touched the guy. Shaking him. Cool as a cucumber, looking up at 6 pairs of eyes wide open. "Wayne, tell your dad to call the police."

  "No, I'll get in trouble.

  "Wayne, get your father, now!!!!!"

  A few minutes later the neighborhood was buzzing. Police cars, fire trucks, an ambulance. Later, a reporter from Newsday even showed up taking statements.

  It ended up that this guy was a Vietnam vet, he had come out to Long Island to surprise his aunt & uncle. They weren't home so he went behind the garage, shot up some dope and overdosed. His name was Frank Stallone.

Not this guy. This guy is still alive.

Decisions

                                                             Decisions

Looks Like Rain.

 

The LIRR is shut down because of a fallen tree.

That's Not Snot.

I liked two things when I was thirteen, Atari and masturbating.

April 1982: My mom knocks on my bedroom door and walks in. I'm sitting Indian-style on the floor in front of my 13 inch Sony TV, playing Ka-Boom!. She has an annoyed look on her face and is holding one of my t-shirts.

  "David, you have to stop blowing your nose in your shirts!"

  Calmly staring at my TV screen, controller in my hands, I reply, "Mom....that's not snot."

 "Gasp!"

My mom, the devout Roman  Catholic, drops my shirt, grabs me and drags me down to the laundry room. She shows me how much detergent to use and how to set the dials. She looks at me and says, "From now on...you do your own laundry."

That's my sister Linda and me at 13. The good Catholic.

Going Number 1

I'm just an average middle class white guy from the suburbs.

Friends have been suggesting I start writing down my "true life" stories and blogging for a few years now, but I didn't start thinking about it actually coming to be, until last summer (2009). That's when my girlfriend started "not so" subtlety bringing it up and selling the blog idea to me. She even bought me a blogging "How to..." book. So here I begin, my first blog, my first post.

I found a dead guy in 5th grade. I had a 3rd degree burns & a cardiac arrest in 8th. I became "Johnny Puke", the lead singer of a band called "The Up Chucks" in 9th (Johnny Puke & The Up Chucks had dog tags made up but never actually performed or rehearsed.) In 10th grade I found a copy of Dead Kennedy's "Plastic Surgery Disasters" in art class and it changed my life. In 11th grade I cut out of school and saw The Ramones for the first time (They played at Nassau Community College at lunch time on a Town of Hempstead Show Mobile.) and it changed my life. By 12th grade I was bar tending & I had a college-age girlfriend (1/2 German - 1/2 Russian...she looked like the girl on the St. Pauli Beer Bottle).....and I began realizing I was finding myself in the coolest situations/strangest situations.....over and over...and over again.

At 21 I began working at a radio station on Long Island (the now defunct WDRE 92.7 FM). This is where I started meeting celebrities, rock stars, etc...on a regular basis and this is what I refer to as "being allowed to play on the other side of the fence". All of a sudden the people in the videos were in the same room as me. The people I've heard coming from my stereo for years, where now sitting across from me at dinner. I have tons of stories from this period.

I never thought of my experience as different or special. It's just my life. I always felt I was surrounded by friends that had this same "coolness" or similar cool things happening to them. This is the norm. This is our norm. This is my norm.

So here I am at 41 years old, happier than I've ever been. I hope you'll give me some of your time and enjoy this. This is my 1st post, my 1st blog, the beginning. I hope to learn from this. So follow me, I am the rainbow.

Thanks,
    Dave