On Second Thought

Spring Break

Partying in Palm Springs. Galivanting through Cabo. Rolling the waves off Waikiki. Yep, that’s me on Spring Break…yeah, that’s not happening. I’ve always been intrigued by the college ritual of Spring Break. Any excuse for falling down drunk, orgies, drug-tainted nights where you surrender yourself to whatever whim and desire you wish with the promise you will not remember a bit of it the following day or the next week, so there will be no guilt that you acted wildly out of character and hopefully anonymously. The fear of exposure makes you pucker up your brain and shrink away into a corner to hide.

I remember days like that so long ago, and I wasn’t attending college. It was more than a lifestyle. It was a mission to see how many party days I could fit into one day, to hell, one weekend. I proved that one could fit more hours into twenty-four hours, squeezing minutes into seconds, hours into minutes, and days into hours. Time was stretched and compressed so much that you lost the rhythm of the space-time continuum. Back then, there was no point in a watch. What would be the point? The watch could not measure the stream of lies you told yourself that this would be the last time you got this high and this drunk, the last party you would attend and then forget about it as soon as you left (Who are all these people? How did I get here?).

In 1980, driving a friend’s Volvo (What a great car) back from Miami to Washington, D.C., we stopped in Daytona Beach to catch our breath. Who remembered that it was Easter weekend and Spring Break? Well, we sure didn’t as we traveled up and down A1A looking for an empty room and finding laughter from the motel clerks instead. What do they say about perseverance and patience? Hey, it was a bed in a room with a shower and the sounds of drunkenness and sex and a party next door until they broke night, and you realize that there’s not going to be any sleep in this room.

Everyone outside has to be at least twenty-one or two or eighteen or even seventeen, not that it mattered as you walked the beach sands. You could swear there was a rule somewhere that driving your car in wet sand was not a good idea or even legal. Still, there they were, racing north and south through a gauntlet of screaming, hysterical, barely standing, barfing college students (I just assumed they were all college students, but something told me that this was also Spring Break for high school students too). We stood at the water’s edge and wondered why we felt so old in our early thirties, and partying like this was a strange occurrence. The only difference between them and us was that we were drunk in a two-story row house or the Hawk N Dove and not on an Atlantic Ocean beach. We also didn’t drive a convertible up and down Rhode Island Avenue half-naked, drunk, stoned screaming. No, we were a little more circumspect and cautious that we didn’t perform gratuitously in front of the police (Funny, I don’t remember ever seeing any Daytona Beach police). There was no sleep to be gotten that night. Not with hard-core partying on either side of our room (what was that rhythmic stomping coming from both rooms?). That was one of those nights that you knew you would write about one day.

This week, I’m content with hanging at Seal Beach and Sunset Beach and taking photos of the sky, ocean, and beach. Sitting at the sand’s end and closing my eyes and listening, a quiet close listening, for the sounds of the enormous container ships as they ride the still waters to their final destination. The screeching seagulls ride the waves of air, showing off their wide wingspans, teasing us to look up so they could aim for your head. Yuck. The sand was wet from last night’s storm. But there are the brave folks who, on an early weekday morning, are either walking across the sand or are firmly ensconced in a beach chair smoking a joint with only Catalina Island in front of them the twenty-eight miles from shore, the wealthy million-dollar homes lining the beach behind them. I’m cool with the peacefulness as I pump my meditation music into my earphones, allowing it to flow into my head and my body down to my toes. Spring Break. It’s just another excuse to search for and find those rare quiet moments when you can flush the bullshit out of your life, breathe easily, lazily, comforted by the inner voices that speak to you in many tongues, and you hear them say, it’s all cool. Daytona Beach is a million miles away and a thousand years ago, and that Spring Break is not this Spring Break.

With four or five weeks left in the semester, I am trying to get ahead in my studying, so I will use some of my driving and beach time to catch up on some reading and writing. It doesn’t mean I can’t mix chilling into the life I always dream about. The one where I’m done with twenty-four-hour parties and being reckless in Sodom and Gomorrah and trying to prove some dumb point which I forgot what it was a long time ago. No, I’m good with this life—this Spring Break.

The Ocean
	i look at it
	never setting my feet
	in it…not even the sand
	touches me.
	on the edge
	scanning the horizon
	searching for what’s 
	out there
	the surfers in their black suits
	sailboats dodging 
        the container ships	
	that dwarf them
	your cars, furniture, 
        spring clothes
	deep in their bays
	passing me and don’t have a
	care in the world
	because it’s the ocean i wish upon
	the majesty of its vastness
	the deepness of its body
	the hope of its promise
	waiting for me
	to stand at its edge 
	and pray (not in that way)
	pray that it will always 
        welcome me.

golden tequila hangovers

The following poem was originally written in 1994 when Tequila was my poison of choice. It was edited on August 3, 2022. I have been sober for twelve years this coming September 11.

wake up/if you can

rolling over/from one dead
day/into the next

your mouth
a dirt filled trench/
shoveled with/bad vices

an empty fifth/evidence
the gold bottle cap/spilled
across the room/
the stained paper bag/
at the edge/of the bed

your aching body/aching
screaming/

STOP IT/YOU’RE KILLING 
ME/

tequila gold/
burning fire/
drunk maker/
liver sodomizer/

what a head/ache
you’ll wake up/

if you can. 

9/24/1994

Snitch (Part 2)

The following narrative was written as my final submission for English 404, Creative NonFiction, during the Fall 2022 semester. Read Part 1 HERE.

“It’s always the ones with the dirty hands pointing the fingers.”
Sonya Teclai, musical artist.

Snitch — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

“Think of it as we’re building a pyramid; you would never start at the top,” the AUSA (Assistant U.S. Attorney) explained. “You begin with the foundation, then build upwards from there,” he droned on. The analogy didn’t make me feel any better. I pictured myself and my friends as bricks getting piled on each other, layer by layer, wondering how much pressure I could stand as they kept building their damn pyramid.

Washington, D.C. might be an International City and the capital of the free world, but trust me, it is, at heart, a small town. There are few secrets when it comes to elected officials and bureaucrats. I knew it was only a matter of time before the whole world got wind of my snitching.

My ex-girlfriend was someone I suspected would be another brick in the pyramid. Forget that we had been separated for nearly a year, my lawyer explained, “The feds would try to squeeze her for leverage over you. You must reach out to her.”

This was not going to be an easy conversation.

We met in one of those dive bars in a part of town that we would never have been caught dead in when we were dating. I guess it didn’t matter much now. Anonymity was the goal. I gave her the bad news, and she didn’t take it well. “What the hell does this have to do with me?” she exclaimed as her voice rose a few octaves to no effect on the few customers in the fine dive establishment. Then, any hope that I could trust her to keep the matter confidential evaporated quickly. “Are you wearing a wire? Are you trying to entrap me?” She leaned forward, speaking into my chest, “I knew nothing about your craziness back then. Do you hear me, whoever is listening to us?”

There was no wire, no one was listening to us, and I was not trying to entrap her. I thought it was fair to warn her that I was a bigger jerk than she knew me to be when we were a couple. But all I could tell her as I got up to leave was to Get a lawyer and that I was sorry.

The marble bench was still uncomfortable. The subpoena stated that I was to appear outside the Grand Jury room at an appointed hour, and someone would come to give me further instructions. Considerable time had passed, no one had come looking for me, and my lawyer hadn’t arrived. I considered looking for a pay phone to call his office, but I was afraid to move. All I could think about with every ticking second was how I would explain what I was doing outside a federal grand jury room if someone I knew stopped and asked me questions.

I suddenly recognized a woman walking down the corridor with a group of people heading toward another jury room. Our gazes locked for a second, and I turned, looked down at my cards, and pretended that I was intensely reading them. My stomach had passed into my throat and then collapsed like a rock back into place. When the group had passed, I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the back of her head. She never looked back.

The relief was short-lived. I thought about my parents and family in New York and how I would explain everything. My lawyer and the feds told me there was no guarantee my name wouldn’t be made public once the grand jury had completed its work and someone had been indicted. In fact, due to the high-profile nature of this investigation, it was a good chance that my name would be splattered across the front page of the Washington Post, the New York Times, and every local radio and television outlet in Washington. “You’ll be famous.” I don’t want to be famous.

Priests — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I was preparing to sign the immunity agreement when I suddenly realized I had a question or two. I hesitated for what must have been a second too long when someone, the AUSA or the DEA agent, slammed their hand down on the table. Hard. Addressing my lawyer, “Sir, you better speak to your client. He is either prepared to answer all questions before the grand jury, or this agreement will be torn up.” Both men suddenly got up and left the room, leaving my lawyer and me.

Shaking from the confrontation, I got up from my seat and walked to the sole tall narrow window overlooking the plaza in front of the courthouse. I pondered my fate as I watched the people below briskly moving about their business, oblivious to my panic and the world falling around me. How the hell did I get to this moment?

I knew the answer, of course. Greed. Recklessness. Now I was in a room in a courthouse, getting ready to sign an agreement that would make me a snitch. I didn’t want to go to prison. It was either them or me. I once spent four hours in a police station lock-up in 1968 and was close to losing it.  A federal penitentiary, I’m sure, would be worse. Sign the damn agreement.

My lawyer finally arrived, insisting on last-minute instructions. “Tell the truth, but be very specific in your responses, and don’t go off on tangents.” I heard him, but my mind was somewhere else. At that moment, I steeled myself.

My vision narrowed, staring down a tunnel with no light at the other end—only darkness. Afraid I was being sucked into a vortex, there was nothing to hold onto as I free-fall, twisting and turning, rolling and spinning, my eyes wide open because I couldn’t close them. No, I think I will be forced to witness my fate, feel it, like a million shards of glass cutting into me. And I wonder if this is what hell would be like if it existed.

All I could think about was asking for forgiveness, a new beginning, and wishing I could quietly slink away in anonymity.

The mahogany-colored door to the jury room opened beside me, and a woman stepped out. “Mister Ruiz, we’re ready for you.”

Snitch (Part 1)

The following narrative was written as my final submission for English 404, Creative NonFiction, during the Fall 2022 semester.

“It’s always the ones with the dirty hands pointing the fingers.”
Sonya Teclai, musical artist.

So here is the truth, as close to the truth as I can recollect or want to. Strips of memories have been peeled away over time, so all I’m left with are hazy recollections, unremembered names, blurry sequences of events, and a desire not to smear the names of people I’ve hurt. Thirty-nine years later, it’s still difficult to admit I was a snitch. Not just any snitch. A snitch willing to bring down a friend, allegedly the mistress of the Mayor of Washington, D.C. I’m not proud of that decision, as I’m writing about it now, but I’d like to think of it as, while painful, therapy. To say that I have felt shame, regret, or embarrassment at any juncture in my journey would be an understatement. The pain in my conscience eases when I tell myself that most people would have done the same as I did. Testify before a federal grand jury against your friends, or else find yourself on a fast track to the hell of prison.

The Elijah Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse on Constitution Avenue Northwest in Washington D.C. was a twenty-minute walk and a mile away from my East Capital Street studio apartment with an awe-inspiring view of the top of the U.S. Capitol building. It took me five years of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll to make it to that marble-decorated courthouse hallway and the hard-ass marble bench outside a federal grand jury room. I sat there, my ass and legs constantly shifting as I searched for comfort on that bench.

I shuffled the three-by-five index cards given to me by my lawyer, desperately trying to memorize their content. One card spelled precise instructions on pleading the fifth amendment if I thought an answer would incriminate me. How would I know that? “Use common sense,” my lawyer scolded me. “If they ask whether you have ever personally dealt drugs to the mayor, you should assume it’s a trick question and take the fifth.”

I wish you could be there. Grand Juries, I learned, don’t allow witnesses or potential defendants to have a lawyer present when questioned. “That’s why I gave you the second card,” he explained, “tell them you want to step outside the grand jury room and speak to me if you feel uneasy about a question.”

This is the point in the story when I try to poke my memory for what I felt back then. I was scared shitless about going to prison. I’d seen enough gangster and prison movies to know that only gang rapes and death by shivs awaited me. One wrong statement spits out of my mouth, and the Federal prosecutors would pounce on me, claiming, “Oops, you fucked up,” except in more legalese language.

When I received the first grand jury subpoena and figured out what the hell was going on, I called the target of the federal investigation. Are you fucking kidding me? I remember exclaiming when we met at a downtown Washington D.C. restaurant, one of those gentrified places that the next generation of movers and shakers frequented. During the day, I was the Executive Director of a government commission appointed by the same Mayor. Talk about irony. At night, I was snorting my way through ounces of cocaine and selling grams of the South American export with an abandonment, expecting that my two lives would never intersect. I was delusional. I’m living in the nation’s capital during the war on drugs. What would make me think that a semi-high profile bureaucrat would never attract the attention of every illegal drug-chasing federal agency while living less than two miles from the White House and FBI headquarters? That is the definition of recklessness.

Waiting for my lawyer, I thought about an earlier meeting with the Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) and a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. That was when I agreed to become a snitch. To betray my friends, to sacrifice whatever moral high ground I lived on in exchange for not being charged with any federal crimes.

Conspiracy — Image by Markus Winkler from Pixabay

The nightmare always comes to me like a wave of cascading emotions. There’s the narrow high ceiling office with one lone window. My lawyer and me on one side of a small desk, the AUSA and the DEA agent opposite us. My lawyer tells me he’s hammered out the details of the immunity deal, and the meeting was a formality. “You can ask questions,” my lawyer told me, “Just remember, they hold all the cards.” That didn’t seem like a choice. More like blackmail. I knew there would be questions about the target of the investigation, but there was nothing to stop prosecutors from asking about other people. Suddenly, shockwaves of doubt and remorse throttled through my body. All I could think about was the long list of people, some with serious political and street creds, who bought drugs from me. But I visibly shuddered when I thought about the people who sold me the drugs. What would happen when they found out that I had snitched on them?

To Be Continued…

Meditations

I recently wrote about my morning ritual. Listening to new age music, consulting several books: Everyday Serenity by David Kundtz and 365 Tao Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao, among others. During those sixty minutes, my world is focused on words that inspire, challenge, and ask more questions than I ever thought I needed. This is my time. A meditation on one moment in my life. To begin the day aware. I am prepared to make every second count, even if that means doing something or just letting life pass by me by doing nothing. And I’m okay with that.

“No matter how much restriction civilization imposes on the individual, he nevertheless finds some way to circumvent it. Wit is the best safety valve modern man has evolved; the more civilization, the more repression, the more need there is for wit.”
“Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious” (1905) Sigmund Freud

I probably don’t laugh, tell, or listen to enough jokes. Or laugh at me enough. Be silly enough. Speak enough witty statements. Look at the world and scream laughter at how silly this all is. It’s shocking and laughable all at the same time. How foolish we are here in the United States of America, where the past is being exposed as untruth for some, and for others, the past is being revealed for its truth. Someone has been lying all the years I’ve been alive, or maybe they believe what they want to think. I should laugh about that more often because, in the end, I need to understand how all this will impact me at my age.

“Remember that you are always your own person. Do not surrender your mind, heart, or body to any person. Never compromise your dignity for any reason.”
“Youth” Page 239- 365 Tao Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao

I often tell myself I am a leader more than a follower, but I question that sometimes. I come across a piece of writing that grabs me, and I tell myself I would like to write like that. I read about a person who inspires me with a quick wit and charming charisma and is a famous writer, actor, or visual artist, and I’m like, “I wish I could be like them.” And I know that’s silly because I know that I have much to give and be, and I find those qualities endearing and with a certain amount of charisma and hell, I’ve made it this far without being successful at killing myself, and I think “That has to count for something.” It does. I know it does, so why do I sometimes think that’s insufficient? One is unsure of themselves because they have spent a good part of their adulthood (45 years to be exact) running away from themselves and smothering themselves with drugs and alcohol and fear and insecurity. Yet somehow, there were flashes of brilliance, genius, hard work, successful work, and play that didn’t involve unnatural stimulants, illusions, or delusions. Just naked me. Open to all possibilities.

“Living life as an artist is a practice. You are either engaging in the practice or you’re not. It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying “I’m not good at being a monk.” You are either living as a monk or you’re not.”
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin

I dream of being an artist. And yet the truth is that all along, I know I am. I have been one since I first remember looking up at the clouds when I was very young and seeing people, animals, buildings, and plants in them. My imagination would run wild like a spinning merry-go-round that has come loose and is out of control—spinning faster and faster. It took me years to slow it down and realize that I was going around and around and seeing and being the same things. To change and strike a single path forward to open myself up to different views of life, different people, and truths that were opposite of the ones I believed for a long time. Being an artist allows me to immerse myself in life even when it often feels too much to take in at once, and I would drown, even if it was for a moment, three, or years.

These were the painful moments when I would shut myself down and be blind and unable to hear, speak, or feel. I didn’t want to feel anymore because it hurt. Deep down inside.

Now and then, a sliver of light would break through, and I would create a poem, a story, a video, a line of great thought, and there would be a relief, an insight, a truth that would inspire me to do it again and again and again. But, the pain would return, and I would have to wrap myself in a cloak of doubt, insecurity, denial, confusion, and wonder if I could ever live free again.

Learning. Opening my pure self to new life, new thoughts, and new experiences that’s what drives me now. To create. To put out evidence of my art while being my art. Living unencumbered by foolish memories and instead using them to hold back any thoughts of pain and to focus instead on the warmth of the sun, the tranquility of the ocean, the unique nature of a flower, the shade of a tree, the sizzling touch that comes with hugging those you love and the friends who support and love you with their trust and support. And in turn, you give back a hundredfold in the circle of life.

It’s all good. It really is.

Jose, Can You See?

Apathy — Image by Mediamodifier from Pixabay

Jose, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, police stopping you, asking questions, driving while Brown, walking while Black, living while any color other than white. Where you from? No, where you really from?

What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming, Graciela, can you see when they stopped you in the store, harassed questioned you. Papers, please! We did say please. Your children screaming, you barely whispering, But, I was born here!

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, Manuel, can you see you movin’ too slow. Sirens screaming through the perilous fight. How many cops does a beat down need? Next time, don’t drive or walk, or take the bus. Hell, just don’t breathe.

O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming? Juanita, can you see a knee shoved into your back, down on the ground, on your way home from the ten dollar an hour job wearing that little black dress. Miss, don’tcha you know prostitution is illegal, as your arrest is streamed live on WorldStar. Next time, don’t walk home.

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Jesus, helicopter spotlights will make you famous, sprawled on the ground, Face up hands out hands up, a gun, cold and draped in the flag, at your head. Eyes wide shut as the rocket’s red glare the bombs bursting on your head and all you did was ask a question Why was I pulled over?

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there, María Elena, proud of that AA, BA, MBA, from Taco Stand to Taco Empire but you a little too brown for a CEO, your English a little too accented, speaking Spanish to your mother at Tiffany’s while Karen and Ken scream at you This is America and in America we speak English. Proof that their flag is still there.

American History — Image by SEDAT TAŞ from Pixabay

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, Luis, they’re still screaming at you stop or we’ll shoot. INS, DEA, FBI, DHS six abreast six deep, it’s an overtime circus racing to make sure that their star spangled banner is yet waving.

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? Dylcia, can you see the march protesting your son’s death, the gas canisters, bullets in the air, what goes up must come down. Iphones Google Phones, recording for tonight’s TikTok moment (No one checks Facebook anymore). You just wanted answers but now you just one more brown person getting the shit kicked out of. Dylcia, can’t you see…you are not in the home of the brave or the free.

Life Expectancy

I don’t quite know why, but suddenly, I’ve become obsessed with the issue of Life Expectancy. Every day, I watch or read a news report about someone younger than me (I’m seventy-four) dying of what seems to be natural causes. They appeared healthy a second ago, and now they’re gone. Or they’re a little older than me, and now they’re gone, and I’m thinking, is that the age I will zero out on? I’m moderately healthy except for obesity, high blood pressure, prostate issues, and inability to sleep six hours (forget about eight). Of course, there’s the subject of a lifetime burden of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll I’m convinced is still in my physical system (Do I get extra points because I quit nearly twelve years ago?). Aside from all those worries, I’m sure I’ll be fine. That’s because I’ve been consulting life expectancy calculators lately.

In a recent post, I quoted the Social Security Administration’s calculator when I claimed that I have an additional “12.5 years in life expectancy subject to a “wide number of factors such as current health, lifestyle, and family history that could increase or decrease life expectancy.” That means, at eighty-six-point-six months, I will be sucked into the black hole. Wait, I forgot the second part about “current health, lifestyle” qualifier. Damn, I’m doomed.

Maybe not. As part of an assignment for my Gerontology class, I need to write a research paper about life expectancy. I took the test yesterday, and wow, I’m going to live to be ninety-nine years old and have an opportunity to add another one-point-six years onto that prediction. It was a little confusing, however. I could swear it also told me I would die at seventy-five, which is coming this December 8. Okay, that’s kind of not cool. I’m unsure what that all means, but that didn’t help build my confidence about living to a ripe old age. I have plans, and this interferes with them. Hell, I’m supposed to graduate next Spring. I can’t die before then.

Not satisfied with those calculators, I decided to check with another one and then average all three. So I checked with the life expectancy calculator sponsored by The U.S. Small-Area Life Expectancy Estimates Project (USALEEP). According to their website, “USALEEP is a partnership of the National Center for Health Statistics, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), and the National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS).” Their life expectancy estimates are calculated based on where a person lives. Zip Code, to be exact.

I punched in my address and zip code and got a message that I don’t live in a census tract they track (too suburban, I guess). The Life Expectancy Project quotes the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “life expectancy at birth in the United States is 76.4 years—73.5 years for men (a decrease of 0.7 years from 74.2 in 2020 (Well, at least I beat that.) and 79.3 years for women (a decrease of 0.6 years from 79.9 in 2020).” What are the leading causes of death? Heart disease followed by cancer and COVID-19.

The calculator coughed out 80.80 years for all of California (I can live with that). Los Angeles County, where I live, is a whopping 82.29 years (Now we’re talking, but it’s still a little limiting for the long-term goals on my bucket list. All these numbers are colored by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic (You do remember the recent rampage by Death?). If you read the qualifiers on the website, you’ll find the reality check about where we are as a nation.

For the first time in our history, the United States is raising a generation of children who may live sicker and shorter lives than their parents. In 2020 and again in 2021, we witnessed the steepest plunge in life expectancy since World War II, primarily fueled by the coronavirus pandemic.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Knock on wood, but I’ve been able to avoid the plague so far. But, the small print speaks about reversing the trend will, as they say, “…depend on healthy choices by each of us. But not everyone in America has the same opportunities to be healthy.” But how much of those healthy choices can we control? According to the project, mitigating factors impact who lives longer and who doesn’t. They write that “…the drivers of inequitable social, economic, built, and physical conditions within and across place and race can dramatically reduce opportunities for better health and well-being.” I guess there’s nothing simple about trying to live longer.

Now, I live in what might be described as a middle to an upper-middle-income neighborhood on the east side of Long Beach. However, I live less than a mile from two freeways that carry thousands of cars every hour spewing their pleasant exhaust fumes all over our beautiful Southern California skies. There are also a couple of power plants nearby, but I have no idea what they’re spewing, so I don’t count them, although I’m sure my lungs do (just saying).

Texas — Generations- Grandpa with Anabella- Fort Worth (Photo by Antonio Nelson Ruiz)

As I write this essay, I realize that none of this matters in my daily life. I could get mugged and killed at any moment, slip and fall on my front steps, get t-boned on the 405 freeway, and get squashed into the concrete divider and be compacted into a small square. Worse (it could get worse?), I could get COVID-19 and get carried into an ICU and, with my health issues, never make it out alive. It could happen.

By the way, if my math is correct, when I average out all the predictions, I will live until the nice ripe age of 83.28 (Something not to aspire to). The reality is, and I know it is, that how long you live depends on many factors; some you can control, and others you can’t. So instead of obsessing about an arbitrary number, I should focus on factors I can influence, like diet, exercise, mental health, and the one aspect that has influenced so much of my life: determination. The determination to outrun death and its manifestations of sickness and incapacitation. So far, so good.

UPDATE: Someone Stole My CAT…

Stealing — Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay

…Catalytic converter, that is. And I wasn’t alone. According to neighbors, at least two other cars on the block were also hit on the same night. Have you ever driven a car without a catalytic converter? Sounds like a herd of elephants running alongside your car.

UPDATE: Am I just the luckiest guy alive, or what? When I first contacted the auto repair business about the delivery time for a new catalytic converter, I was told it would be four to six months. It seems I wasn’t the only unlucky person to end up in catalytic hell. Well, in a matter of days of turning in my car and picking up the rental, the call came. My car was going to be ready because they had found an aftermarket converter. I was there quicker than the time it took to saw off my CAT and immediately took it to a muffler shop to have them install a CAT shield. Yes, the universe came together. Shout out to my insurance company, the Auto Club; the repair shop, Crash Champions; and the muffler shop, High Flow Muffler.

Whoever said that misery loves company doesn’t know my misery or that of my neighbors. It is a pain of inconvenience; I am pissed and feel violated. I’m not alone, and I don’t mean just my neighbors. State Farm Insurance company reported in a newsletter last October that “auto claims data reveals continued surge in catalytic converter theft.” According to CARFAX, which provides vehicle data to individuals and businesses, the U.S. Department of Justice recently announced “that a combination of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies took coordinated action against a “national network” of people” who were involved in thefts worth tens of millions of dollars. Well, you can add my CAT to the pile of money. Yes, I reported it to my insurance company and the police, but all that does is add me to the statistics, and there is no pleasure in that.

One of my neighbors whose CAT was stolen lamented, “Hell, we could have just given them the money” and not suffered all this hassle. Funny, I don’t feel that way. I feel like an organized ring of thieves violated my space and time; if anything, they owe me compensation and an apology.

I’ve been robbed twice before in my life (not counting when I was roughed up in St. Mary’s Park for my raffle money when I was twelve years old). It was a burglary of the house in Washington, D.C. I was living with two other people. Long story, they didn’t steal much except some gas cards and expired credit cards (they did miss the pound of cocaine in a picnic basket. Come on, I’m just kidding). Strangers, we assume, broke into the house through a window under the front porch, busted the basement door to the kitchen, and ransacked the house in search of whatever. That’s right, not once but two times. Aside from the psychological pain and the inconvenience of repairs and police reports and not sleeping well for a few nights, the more incredible feeling was violation and questions about why. Could the thieves have just knocked on the front door and asked, “Listen, we’re thinking of burglarizing your house tomorrow, and we’ll probably do some damage in the process, which will cost you a shitload of money and inconvenience? Say, you give us the cash value now and save yourself the misery.” Now, that’s forward-thinking.

You ever hear the old saying, “A neo-conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality?” Supposedly said by Irving Kristol, who has been described as the “godfather of neo-conservatism.” Well, I’m not changing political parties or philosophies any time soon, but I am always intrigued by the human condition. Why do humans continue to F- over their fellow humans, pummeling them monetarily with everything from billion-dollar Wall Street Ponzi schemes to cybercrimes to stealing catalytic converters?

Now, I know it sounds like a naive question but don’t tell me you’ve never once thought about it. Or that you weren’t taught the seventh commandment, “Thou shall not steal.” Or if you as parents haven’t taught your children not to steal. Okay, maybe, in the back of your mind, you might have added a couple of exceptions to the rule. You know something about who will ever know if you keep it to a small amount. You steal it from a friend, or maybe you steal from your multinational corporate employer (hell, they got plenty of money). Okay, you didn’t report that thousand-dollar Superbowl bet you won (the government has plenty of your cash already). I mean, is it thievery?

Author and University Professor Sheila Kohler wrote an article for Psychology Today, “Why Do People Steal?” with the sub-heading “Some people feel it’s their right to steal.” In the article, Kohler uses some examples of stealing that seem rational. The adult casually takes a “box of Kleenex from a hotel room, and some might even purloin a towel or a bathrobe, thinking most probably: I’m paying enough for this hotel room.” What kind of parents did they have? Or the people who sometimes steal because they are hungry and their children are hungry, and the world is cruel, and you have to do what you have to do to survive.

Kohler even quotes Socrates, “that no one knowingly commits an evil action, evil is turned into good in the mind.” According to her analogy, thieves convince themselves that they have a right to the object they desire, “He needs it more than the other does. It is rightfully his.” Well, I tell you what, I need that catalytic converter more than the thieves do. I’m facing the prospect of having no car for four to six months and juggling the use of my wife’s car. Doesn’t sound like a fair deal to me.

The idea that someone else or even you or I am entitled to something that doesn’t rightfully belong to any of us doesn’t seem like a nice thing to think. Throughout human history, we (as human beings) just have looked for any excuse to take what we covet because we believe it’s ours and F- the other person. Maybe, that’s the problem. It’s the rationale behind wars, Imperialism, colonialism, genocide, Ponzi schemes, petty thefts, and stealing my damn catalytic converter.

Next time, knock on my door and ask me for the cash. I’ll be waiting.

Someone Stole My CAT…

Next time, knock on my door and ask me for the cash. I’ll be waiting.

I Can’t Think of Anything to Write About

“To retire is to begin to die.”
Pablo Casals

1966 James Monroe High School Yearbook Photo

Weird. I usually have a million things on my mind to write about. I mean, I have a list. I’ve wanted to write about police brutality, what I should call myself (Hispanic, Dominican-Puerto Rican, Latino, Latinx), how white liberals are going to get us killed, the GOP delusion, how much reading I must do this semester for school; I mean I have a very long list. Yet, I can’t seem to put two sentences together this week. Nothing is coming out of my mind into my fingers onto the keyboard.

I’m just so busy with my three classes this semester. Seriously, I didn’t even think about how much reading and writing I would be doing as part of my classes and assignments. Take, for instance, Gerontology 401 (the study of aging). I just finished our third week, and I’m already overwhelmed with so much reading and writing, but I must admit, it’s interesting as hell. Theories of Aging, the biology of aging, the genetics of aging, and the three categories of aging (Young-old, Middle-Old, and Old-old) are right up there with lessons on physiology. I feel like I’ve walked into a medical school classroom. I learned some of this material in Anthropology at Long Beach City College, so it’s not entirely foreign to me. I’m glad I decided to take the class. When you’re 74, you discover you need all the knowledge and tools you can gather to deal with your aging.

One of our assignments this week was to write a 500–750-word essay about ourselves in the context of why we are taking this class. I wrote:

According to the Social Security Administration, I have an additional 12.5 years in life expectancy subject to a “wide number of factors such as current health, lifestyle, and family history that could increase or decrease life expectancy” (Unites States Government). I’m hopeful that my family genes will play a more significant role than my past health issues in determining my life expectancy. I have family members on both sides who have lived into their nineties and seen their centennial birthdays.
Discussion Post for GERN401

Until I wrote those sentences, I hadn’t thought much about aging. Honestly, I feel young except for the slow-moving getting up from a chair or those aches in places I never thought I had and the getting up in the middle of the night two or three times for the lonely journey to the bathroom (it’s a man thing). But a look in the mirror or the spider-like skin growing on my hands, along with those medical appointments to check my plumbing, all are severe indicators of aging. Yeah, I’m glad I’m taking this class.

My U.S. Ethnic Writers class, English 375, is beginning to heat up. In the last two weeks, we’ve watched two documentaries, Agents of Change (2016), directed by Abby Ginzberg and Frank Dawson, and Race: The Power of an Illusion, both critical films about race, whiteness, and culture in this here America. Particularly disturbing were the familiar battles over ethnic study programs in the late sixties and early seventies spotlighted in Agents of Change. Here we are in 2023, still fighting the same struggles with basically the same group of conservative white Christians, primarily men (accompanied now by more women), telling us People of Color who we should be and what we should learn about ourselves. Yeah, I have two words for you, and it isn’t a merry christmas. Thank goodness, I’m not tired yet.

Journalism 415 Diversity in the Media has turned out to be a surprise. This class isn’t what I first thought it was, and I’m cool. Here’s an excerpt from the syllabus:

This course is designed to give students a theoretical, as well as practical, experience with issues of gender, race, class, and sexuality as they manifest in mediated artifacts of popular culture. The course is taught from a cultural studies perspective where students will gain skills in critical analysis and media literacy. Concepts of power, privilege, justice, representations, hegemony, consumption, and resistance will be woven throughout course readings, films, assignments, and discussions.
Excerpted from syllabus JOUR 415: Diversity in the Media

Now that’s a mouthful. In practical terms, this past week, I spent much time listening to various podcasts like Scene on Radio’s “Seeing White: Turning the Lens,” and Code Switch’s “Can We Talk About Whiteness,”along with watching a documentary called White Like Me. Catch the theme? That makes two classes in the same week address the issue of race. The right wing in Texas and Florida must be pissing in their pants. Look, seriously, I know these are complex subjects to discuss that make people uncomfortable, but I can tell you from experience that these are not new subjects. American history is full of these subjects and will be for the foreseeable future until, if ever, we accept and deal with the foundational narrative of America. It hurts and will continue to be a sore on the soul of this nation, so pull up your britches and grow up.

This Spring 2023 semester marks fourteen semesters (hey, you don’t gulp fine wine, you slowly sip it) of college (Long Beach City College and California State University, Long Beach) with only two more until the Spring of 2024 when at the ripe middle-old age of seventy-five, I will graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Creative Writing. The journey has been both exciting because I’ve met so many inspiring students, teachers, and staff and because of the universe of knowledge and wisdom that has been opened for me, including Math (Stats) which I am not a big fan of, but which proved to be my biggest challenge over the past seven years. I got my only B in all my years in college in that class, surprising me (no, not that I got a B, but that I even passed the course).

I have often told myself that retirement is outdated in the digital age. There are too many opportunities to enrich your mind, body, and soul at any age, especially now. If I can walk, talk, and think, I intend to keep pushing my boundaries of living by learning and grabbing up as many degrees as I can fit on my wall. After that B.A., a Master/MFA is next. Hell, why stop now? I don’t play golf.

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To Be Continued…

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