Dead at the Table

Watch Out Men!
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

Dead at the Table

So, these two outlaws here were playing a game of cards you see.

And they got in a mean old scuffle. They’re a yelling and shouting and a screaming at each other one minute. And then suddenly, when it starts to get real hot in here, I mean broiling, the cowboy with the black kerchief (they called him the black bandit I heard!) pulls out his pistol; then the other one does the same, but lightening-quick; and then, Bang! Bang! one shot right after the after.

So, mister, what you see here is what you got, two shots and both were left dead at the table.

Word is that they were brothers, and they got in a dispute over some lady or uther.

Can never be too careful when it come to them women-folk you know, they’ll distract ya! And before you know it you’ll be fighting over them, even if it is yer own bruther! Dag nab it!

They women-folk ain’t no good I tell ya! Devil’s brew, witching ya all the time with their luuuv-spells and magic batting eyelashes, lookin’ at you like you was Ulysses, hero of the Seven Seas!!

And they make you believe it too! “Ohhh, you’re so strong, and ooooo, yer so this and yer so that…”– meanwhile they’re emptying out yer pockets, and then its your bank account! “Buy me this and buy me that….”

The other night I dropped a whole lot of silver for one of them dames. She kept kissing me and telling me, “Come on now darling, just buy me one more drink! Just one more…?”

I tell her, “Look darling you’re depleting me of my life savings."

Quick as silver, she bats them long and lovely lashes, puts her hands on her hips and with a wicked smile wiggles me a little witchy dance, “Well, I’m an expensive date you know!”

“Yeah, I know, but are you worth it?” I countered, “Am I gonna be able to take you home tonight?”

She just smiled, wicked and all, bewitching me, and she replies with a wile that was a mile long, “Just buy me another drink cowboy, and put you’re pistols back in your pockets! I just need one more drink…”

Smiling all innocent and all..Jeessh.

So, of course, what did I do? Well, I bought her another drink of course. I felt like I was back at the gold rush again. All excited and all, panning in the stream, looking for that magic gleam in her eyes, but this time it wasn’t the stream I was dreaming about, it was this little sass of a lass called Lydia. Ol’ Lydia! What you do to me! Oooo, eeeee!

Anyway, they’re man-eating sirens I tell ya, every one of them! At least, all the pretty ones are…I know cause Lydia ate me alive, swallowed me right up!

But no, we don’t learn do we? Even after being swooned and tormented over and over again, we just continue looking, standing on the corner watching all the girls by…waving our fishing poles, hoping one of them is hungry enough to take a bite.

So, then when we got them - and they really got us - and were listening to them (or at least pretendin’ to, you know what I mean men? Snicker, snicker) we get sucked in anyway! Pulled in like a sucker!

Dag nab it!

Evil, just plain evil.

So, careful out there fellas, because they’re all out to get ya; and if one of them don’t do you in, you’ll probably end up like these two men, killin’ each other over a little ol’ lady friend. Shame, shame I tell ya, what a shame….



You’ve to know when to hold ‘em
Know when to fold ‘em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run.

You never count yer money
when you’re sittin at the table
They’re be time enough for counting
When the dealin’s done!

- The Gambler, Kenny Rogers -

First Grade Education

First Grade Education 2
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

Last Sunday, my six-year old and I sat down to play an innocent game of Scrabble.

Thinking I had the upper hand as an adult with years of experience and a more extensive vocabulary, I gave him home court advantage and told him to go first.

Smiling, he throws me a curve ball and puts down S - E - X.

Shocked, I laugh and ask, "Where did you learn that word?"

Smiling bigger then ever he blurts out, "Skateboard Camp!"

I roll my eyes in response, not sure what I should think and then place my word extending left from the e: D - A - T - E.

Enzo once again proceeded to surprise me with his next word, S - I - N.

The congruency of the words and their meanings was all-too uncanny and laden with significance, especially considering that a six-year old still had another good ten years or so before he would truly understand the weight of these words and their overlapping inferences.

More importantly though, I thought about how at this sprite age he was safe from having to deal with the guilt associated with the social phenomena that was being played out upon the board.

Or was he? At what age should this sort of education begin? Intuitively and based on my own personal coming-of-age experience I feel that it is not until mid-adolescence that I will need to teach my boys about the birds and the bees. God knows that I was kept in the dark until high school and it seemed to keep me out of trouble, for the most part.

Alas, knowing as I do know, knowing that perhaps there is no God, knowing that religion was merely an easy and good way to bat down the primal urges and keep my libido in check, what moral course do I take with my own children?

This question is especially pertinent since our oldest is already a budding scientist. He just finished an anatomy class at Montclair State University for gifted children and has taken other likewise designed science courses there for the last couple of years including rocket science, engineering (invention convention) and basic chemistry.

Hence, therein lies my dilemma, for how can I encourage his scientific curiosity when I also feel that I must still hide some of the basic information about how we function, what motivates us, and how we come and came into being, in order to protect him from our innate proclivity to err.

It is a delicate balance to say the least, and it is not always easy to straddle between playing the fool who sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil; and the all-knowing father who wants his little boy to be fully aware and endowed with the knowledge that will enable his fullest intellectual potential.

That said, upon pondering the issue of timeliness and our little lad’s education, I realized that albeit I was not hitting home runs until I was sixteen, I did begin to pique at a relatively early age, as one particular piece of confessional verse attests: My First Pique.

Thus, at the same age as Enzo, I was already motivated to leer and stare and wonder, as little boys do when the ballyhoo begins down under. So, even though at this innocent age I may not have had all the right words with which to reference my first intimate experiences—something was indeed happening. And even though ultimately my parents did not sit me down to explain things, I discern that I was still quite fortunate to not have made any critical missteps along the way due to my ignorance.

That said, our precocious little boy apparently enjoys looking at my big Taschen picture book—The Great American Pin-Up. His mother said she found him one afternoon about a year ago carrying it around with him wherever he went.

We decided to put it on the top shelf—high and out-of-reach, much like modern-day morals.