Live Through This And You Won't Look Back

Nearly 7 years ago, I left Florida, the place of my dreams. I moved there because I was in love with sunrises over Sebastian Inlet, catching snook under the lights at nights, and the Orlando nightlife. I was very happy there, and I had no intention of ever leaving, but life decided otherwise.

In 2006, after a series of failed relationships, I met my ex-wife while working at Sprint in Orlando. It was a good job, not one that I was excited about, but it paid the bills. Very quickly, she moved in and promised me that she would be the best thing I would ever have. Within no time at all, thanks to her, I was in two car accidents in three days.

In a fog of pain pills, I agreed to marry her. I never planned on having kids, but she did, and made sure that she was pregnant before I slipped the ring on her finger, even though I didn't know.

It wasn't long before we hit financial issues. Once she realized that she couldn't stay unemployed, she took off and I didn't see my children for nearly a year after they were born. An old Navy girlfriend and I lived together for a couple more years in Florida, but I wasn't happy and decided to set off for greener pastures somewhere else. My job at Sprint had hit a dead end because I blew the whistle on fraud after 4 years of service.

A family member told me they could help me start a new life in San Francisco. I didn't want to leave my kids behind and Florida was where I was happy. Unfortunately, due to the poor job prospects and the threat of Florida's government to throw me in jail for being in arrears on child support, which I was paying, I hopped on a plane to California.

That quickly fell apart. Within two weeks, I was on a bus to Lafayette, Louisiana with just enough money to hit the dollar menu at the various McDonald's the Greyhound bus stopped at.


My luggage was stolen or lost in Houston. The only things I had left was a few t-shirts and some underwear when I was finally rescued by my mother in Lafayette. There was no money, no car, no job - but it was time to start all over again.

For the first few weeks, I had nothing. I picked pecans from the yard to buy some cheap beers from the store that was a mile away. I eventually landed a job back in the restaurant industry that I had hoped to never work in again. When I got my tax return the following spring, I was able to buy an old Honda and started looking for work elsewhere.

I finally found a niche job in the tech industry here and started rebuilding my credit. In 2014, I was in a horrific car accident where I was hit by a drunk driver, and the settlement allowed me to purchase a new vehicle and pay off some old debts. I then moved into an apartment, then purchased my own home. I've eaten some tremendous Cajun food and put on a few pounds, then trolled the ever-loving fuck out of our local bigots on our news channels.

Through all of this, I supported my kids. Not long after I moved here, I went on a blind date to a hockey game, and we've been together ever since. Her son is like my own. When we first got together, he associated my visits with a trip to the local crawfish joint, which is the cutest thing ever in my mind.

I purchased my home in the hopes that someday I would have custody of my children who were still in Florida. Their mother has an ongoing drug problem and had the kids removed from her custody multiple times before. Back in March, DCF finally stepped in again, and eventually released them into my custody on June 20th at the New Orleans airport.

My house is full now. We have three kids, two cats, and a dog who sleeps between us every night. We aren't rich financially, but we are comfortable in a house we own. We can afford the things we need and we have family that cares about us. I work for the local union and fight for worker's rights, writing some satire for The Red Shtick, along with running the website and the progressive Facebook pages I own. On days that I'm not at work, I whip up meals from my imagination and years of restaurant experience for my family - which gives me incredible joy.

All of those years ago, a friend introduced me to this song and said it would help me get through. He said that one day I would live through this, and I would look back one last time. How right he was.

A Virginian Ends Up In Louisiana

My adult life has been a long, strange trip. I was born in Virginia into a very conservative Catholic family, and ended up in Louisiana where I've been since 2010. Most of my new writing is now on Modern Liberals, but I wanted to put this here on the original blog where all of this began. This is a brief overview of the past decade since I moved to Florida, and then to Louisiana from Florida. It has been an interesting few years, and I'm glad that so many people have supported my writing since I began ranting online to save money on therapy. After getting divorced and wavering on the edge of bankruptcy nearly a decade ago, I've spent that time trying to rebuild everything I lost because of my ex-wife. Right now, I am better off financially than I have ever been, and I'm on the verge of getting full custody of my nine year old twins after years of fighting for them. I thought Louisiana would be a short layover in life. I figured that I could go back to working in restaurants get caught up on my bills, and then I would move on to bigger and better things in another state that wasn't as backwards as Louisiana. Writing started as a way to get out to the world the corruption that went on during my years working at Sprint, and it snowballed from there into politics and taking down political candidates like David Vitter. Obviously, the best-laid plans of mice and men don't always go the way we think they would. It wasn't long after I moved here that I found an unexpected love, and I'm not just talking about hockey or beer. Now we are on the verge of buying a house, combining our families, and I'm considering running for office as a progressive in an area that elected a wanna-be "street cop" to Congress last year. I want to thank everyone who has supported me in a variety of ways ever since I ended up in the last place I expected to be. All of this wouldn't have happened without you. There is no plan to quit political commentary or close any of my Facebook pages. I planned to take a break after the November elections, but Russian interference changed all of that. Maybe one day we will have a government that truly represents us, but until that time comes, I will be in the trenches.

This is not "class warfare"

Asking that those who spend more on private jets and catering than they do on taxes to pay more in taxes is not "class warfare". Demanding a fair wage from a company that posts profits quarter after quarter, yet balks at giving their workers any kind of raise, that's not fucking "class warfare".

So, what is "class warfare"? I'll tell you what it is. The real class warfare is billionaires shoveling unlimited dollars into political campaigns without disclosure. It is media outlets taking in billions in advertising from companies like Boeing, Northrup Grumann, BP and other heavy hitters to continue their siphoning of tax dollars for military contracts and subsidies. It is the constant cacophony of talk radio bigots persuading long haul truck drivers, overnight security guards and retirees that labor unions, immigrants and liberals are to blame for all of their problems, not the 1% or the constant race to the bottom for cheaper goods and labor.

Listen sometime, if you can bear it, to rightwing talk radio from time to time. Step outside your comfortable Twitter and Facebook feeds from Moveon.org, thinkprogress.com, or the left's version of Glenn Beck, addictinginfo.org. Listen to the pompous windbag Limbaugh, Mark Levine, Michael Savage and really pay attention to what they're selling, figuratively and literally. The advertisements are for testosterone replacement drugs, survivalist gear, gold investments and hair loss therapies. Who is this target audience? Think about it. What are they selling? Fear, ego, and greed.

Convincing people to vote against their own interests, then getting them to believe that someone other than their corrupt representative is to blame, that is classwarfare. Getting people to give up their rights to a safe workplace and and an honest wage, that is class warfare. Tricking people into thinking that if they just vote for one more tax cut for folks who make more in a month than they will in a lifetime, that the manufacturing job they lost 10 years ago will come back, that is fucking class warfare.

Look, I will never, ever begrudge someone who made their millions honestly what they've lawfully earned. If you've worked all of your life to create a product that people want, without pulling strings to eliminate your competition, without getting a politician to earmark you some subsidies or a bailout when you tank, then good for you. You deserve to have your millions and there's very few people who think your lifetime's hard work should be taken away from you in the name of the fictional "wealth redistribution", despite what the pundits at Fox News will tell you repeatedly.

However, don't forget that every business uses our infrastructure, our roads, our highways and workers, all financed at some point or another by our tax dollars. You didn't get here solely on your own, especially if your money was handed to you by the work of your ancestors. So when it comes time to pay your taxes, which by the way, just happen to be the lowest since the institution of income taxes, stop bitching about "Taxed Enough Already" and pay your damn share already.

99% vs 53% vs 1%

In an effort to undermine or disqualify the Occupy Wall Street movement, a few people have signed on to a new astroturf "we are the 53%" group. This 53% is supposed to be the percentage of Americans who pay a net income tax at the end of the year. The irony of the slogan is that it states, by logical process, that 47% of Americans live below an income level to which they would have to pay incomes tax. Saying that 53% of Americans pay a net income tax isn't something to be proud of, it is a condemnation of the economic situation that we find ourselves in. I used to be in the 53% tax bracket. I used to end up getting back only a portion of what I paid in over the year and do you know what? I was fine with that and I would happily go back to that bracket in a heartbeat if only I could.

Yet, politicians and their backers want to play class warfare by painting those who don't make enough money to pay income taxes as lazy. I hate to break it to you but not everyone can become a CEO, an investment banker, a trial lawyer or win the lottery. Some people are going to have to flip burgers, bus tables, scrape roadkill, fix flat tires, bag groceries or work as a security guard to make our society continue to work as we know it. Guess what? Some of us are OK with the cards that life has dealt us. Some of us have accepted that the "American Dream" may not be realized for us but we're still trying to get it for our kids.

Occupy Wall Street isn't protesting to ask for a handout, it is protesting to ask for a handup instead of the current system that primarily rewards people who climb the ladder, only to kick out the rungs below it. The 99% represents the people who the system isn't working for anymore, not those who want a free government check every month.

It is too easy to be mentally lazy and let Fox News tell you that we are a bunch of "dirty, lazy hippies". The problems we face are far more complex than some pasteurized 30 second sound bite. It is intellectually convenient to just write off a social issue that has come to a head as the bitching of a few who want something they aren't entitled to. It isn't that simple. Think for yourself.

When the revolution comes

It won't be the vegans, the hippies and all the other people the right wing pundits like to paint as enemies who will take up arms when political and social upheaval comes. In the US, most of those people wouldn't even know how to click off the safety, let alone know the difference between a 5.56 and 7.62mm round or what semi-automatic versus a 3 round burst is.

There are however, people anxiously waiting on the sidelines to use their caches against people they dislike. The liberals, the Jews, the Muslims, the intellectuals, immigrants, or union members. Don't believe me, check out sites like Stormfront (if you dare) and any other white supremacy/right fringe/conspiracy site and see the number of people who are just biding their time to open fire. Every once in awhile, one of them jumps the gun and goes off prematurely. No puns intended. Afraid of "jihad"? Have you heard of the people who anticipate the coming of the "RaHoWa (Racial Holy War)"? Those are the people I'm really worried about. Combine that kind of hatred with the militant useful idiot status they hold and that is a true recipe for massive bloodshed. It is only a shame that those people can't be placed on an island with the most militant jihadists while the rest of us get on with our lives.

What skinhead really means

If you knew the truth, most people don't. It's not about racism or the the Third Reich fetish that the news people have such a ratings hard-on for. It's is almost as if they have a mission to cast all of it as something so dangerous to keep people from looking at a way of life that actually has a moral code, a set of values and respect.

Real skinheads are not racists. Many of the original skinheads back in the late 1960's were in fact black Jamaican dockworkers who hung out with white working class kids and enjoyed the same music. So fuck the BNP, fuck Aryan Nations, fuck the National Socialists, fuck the KKK and the Hitler obsessed media. Fuck the Hammerskins, fuck the National Front, fuck Ian Stuart (and bless the tree he ran into), fuck Skrewdriver, fuck white power and fuck those who only believe what the media scoops out for them. There is no racial hatred with real skinheads but never let it be said there isn't a complete loathing and hatred for bull shit and racists.

What skinhead really means is being working class and not taking shit from middle management, being proud of your work ethic, having a sense of honor and decency, as well as the family you have. Whether your job is flipping burgers or working in a factory, you take pride in that and do the very best job you can. You work hard, play harder. You live the right way and take shit from no one. You give it all you got and never let the bastards grind you down.

As for me, I have been a skinhead for nearly a decade now. It was the next logical progressive step in maturity after growing bored with much of the nihilistic rebellion that is punk rock. I don't tell most people I deal with that I am a skinhead until I get to know them well enough. It really takes a person with an open mind to first accept the true story and then comprehend the thought of a Jew who is also a skin. Those people are few and far between but I am proud to call them my friends.