The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes...Screw Them.

This past weekend, I bought a pair of old school red Converse sneakers. I have a black pair that I got at Target, the best store in the universe, and found the red ones on sale at Hot Topic. At the risk of sounding totally "Sex and the City" gay, I had to have them. In just three short days, they have become my favorite footwear.

Currently, Converse are hot, so naturally, they're overpriced. So getting my red pair on sale at half the regular price was a real coup. I wore them to work this morning, proud to show off my red Converse, with their blinding white laces. And people noticed. A woman I didn't know commented that she liked my sneakers because they reminded her of the Keds she used to wear as a kid. She had to be around my age. I know that because most of the people wearing Converse today didn't wear them as a kid. When they were kids, their sneakers had silhouettes of Michael Jordan on them, or the famous swoosh that told them to "Just do it." Now, Converse All-stars and Chuck Taylors are fashion statements, worn by the creative community and pissed-off rockers who give the finger to paparazzi. I'm not wearing them for any of that. I have no plans to flip off any cameras pointed in my direction, or to show that I am a card-carrying member of the "creative community." I've always wanted a pair, but they were hard to find. But like that woman this morning, I like them because they remind me of my past.

They feel like my childhood, running around the streets of South Philly in my awesome new sneaks. Playing stickball, riding my bike with the banana seat, butterfly handlebars and sissy bar in the back, and chasing the Mr. Softee truck. Of course, back then, we called similar sneakers "bobos." There was even a song, sung to the tune of "The River Kwai March" that went: Bobos, they make your feet feel fine. Bobos, they cost a dollar ninety-nine. Bobos, they're worn by hobos, so get your bobos, your bobos today." What a shining moment in music history.

You actually could buy them in five and dime stores. Yes, we had five and dime stores when I was younger. If you don't know what they are, picture a smaller, homegrown version of Wal-Mart, where you would ride over on your sweet Huffy, walk around in your canvas and rubber sneakers and buy cheap candy, cool Six-Million Dollar Man t-shirts, the latest 45 RPM singles, a new goldfish, and Revell monster models, all for the change in your pockets.

The sneakers remind me of summer days when it was a daily occurrence to disappear from the front of your house until lunch, then again until dinner, then once more until curfew. And never once did my mother call the police to report a missing kid or worry about strangers leading us off to our doom. They were on my feet when it was perfectly acceptable to play with toy guns and shoot imaginary bad guys, like Nazis and VietCong, not in a video game, but out in the street. I used to have sneakers like this when I would ride over to Annamarie Martino's house to see if she was outside playing. I remember attaching those metal skates to the bottom of my Converse, using that key that you always managed to lose, and rolling on metal wheels up and down Colorado Street. In fact, by the end of the summer, my pair usually bore the scars of those metal skate grips up at the front. I was wearing them the first time I snuck a peek at one of my dad's Playboy magazines. And when I first discovered Mad Magazine and Archie and Batman comics. All of these things helped shape who I am today and why I do what I do. So, I might consider these sneakers my personal time machine, leading me through the path of how I got here.

I pity the people who see these sneakers and just don't get it. I understand if they're just not your style. But some people just consider themselves too mature, too sophisticated, too conservative to wear them. And they consider anyone my age wearing them to be too old and immature to be wearing such frivolous things. They chuckle when they see people like me still wearing them, as if I must be crazy. But, let's think about it: if we lose those slivers of fun and creativity and simplicity we had in our youth, it's time to hang it up. If you can't get up and dance around your house to a song you loved as a kid, even when you're alone, or name a toy you loved as a child, then you probably have a little soul-searching to do. I'm not trying to recapture my youth, just embrace it. I'm comfortable being different, moving away from the mainstream white sneakers that scream "Corporate America!" Hell, mainstream isn't just boring, but it saps the youthful innocence out of the world.

Oh yeah, you could say that they're just a pair of sneakers I got on sale. But they will keep me dancing to cheesy hits from the '60s and '70s. In them, I'm once again roller skating on my street, running home to get there in time for Prince Spaghetti night, and checking out my dad's Playboys. Okay, that last one has changed somewhat thanks to the Internet. But, I'll enjoy my time in red Converse without flipping the bird to any paparazzi. Because, after all, I am constantly being pursued by the gossip rags. I'll save that for another posting.

By the way, this is a first for my Live Musings Nightly. The photo is an actual shot taken by me, not some stock image downloaded from the Internet. Wow, technology doesn't always suck.

Where there's smoke...

I know it's coming. Soon. The kids will ask me if I've ever done drugs. And then the dilemma hits. Do I tell them the truth or do I lie? Do I tell them that I did a lot of pot, but I didn't try it until I was in college, but man, do I have tons of hilarious stories about being high with the guys. However, that doesn't mean they should try it. Or do I just say that I never did drugs? Their mom can honestly say that to them, I can't. Not that I haven't lied to them before, I mean, hell, the Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy trifecta is one big fat lie that millions of people perpetrate upon their simple-minded kids. Or the one time I told them that all the beaches in the country were closed for cleaning, just so I wouldn't have to take them all the way down there. But this is a bigger issue. I assume my kids look up to me. So telling them the truth could be bad in two ways. They could lose (more) respect for me, or they could figure that it's okay to go out and experiment with drugs. Yeah, I know, a little pot never hurt anybody, but it's still disconcerting to know your kids are doing it.

So, that's my dilemma. And while my last attempt at smoking pot a few months ago left me with a massive headache and a lousy taste in my mouth, I'll never forget some of the stuff that took place when I was younger and the stuff had a much more enjoyable effect on my brain.

I'm sure everyone out there who has ever taken a toke has at least one really friggin' riotous story about while they were stoned, dude. So, at the risk of sounding like a pothead pining for his youth, let me share a couple of tales with you. Call this, "Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams, only without two Hispanic guys, and a bunch of South Philly imbeciles instead." Oh, yeah, these stories in no way condone the usage of marijuana cigarettes.

So my brother once saw Jesus. Oh yeah. He was wearing all white and he was behind a tree. He saw him as we smoked in our car, parked behind some tennis courts at the local park. My brother freaked out. We told him Jesus wasn't there. He swore Jesus was there. We told him to calm down and we would go get him $40 worth of Chinese food. He wouldn't calm down, because Jesus was watching him from behind a tree. We watched the tree in question. Suddenly he appeared. Only it wasn't Jesus. It was a homeless guy in an old t-shirt taking a leak. We left the Son of God in the park and went to get $40 worth of Chinese food.

A lot of stories like this revolve around my younger brother and his friend, who shall remain nameless for the sake of his privacy, and because he's bigger than me and could kill me with his big, hairy Italian palms. You see, he was the guy that could get the stuff, and my brother was neurotic and nervous to begin with, so it was always extra funny to get him high.

When I lived in North Jersey, these two boneheads decided to come and stay with me on their spring break. Oh, what a great idea. For them, it was one long week in stoner heaven. For me, it was one long week of having two fat, high gavones farting in my apartment and eating everything in sight. I went to work one morning and warned them not to eat the ice cream my roommate had in the freezer. It was like talking to two glassy-eyed Saint Bernards. They looked at me with their tongues wagging and assured me that my roommate's favorite chocolate ice cream would be safe.

I came home from work to find the kitchen covered in chocolate handprints. There was chocolate ice cream melting across the table, mixed in the Chinese food, and dripping down the sink. Again, they assured me that the ice cream was safe. So I smoked a fattie and broke the news to my roommate. He wasn't happy. But he smoked with us, and all was better. Pot has that effect on people. Bad blood can go away pretty quickly. After all, no one will remember why the other was pissed. Whether it's chocolate ice cream or acts of terrorism, maybe if everybody just smoked some pot, it would all be okay. Everyone except my kids, that is.

Okay, so anyway, there was this other time when the bunch of lugnuts I like to call friends headed to our favorite summer weekend destination, Wildwood, New Jersey. There were about 6 or 7 of us, and the majority of us were pot smokers. All but Anthony. He didn't want anything to affect his tennis game, so he stayed far away from the stuff. Until we decided to bring it closer to him. As he grilled burgers out on the back porch, we sat inside working up an appetite. And I don't mean exercise. It just so happened that we had a lot of extra stuff on hand. So we called Anthony inside and one of us went out and sprinkled some buds into the coals. By the time Anthony got back out to continue his grilling, the coals had a good buzz going and he went to work flipping burgers. The smoke engulfed him as we sat inside laughing our stoner butts off. Before you could say "well done" so was Anthony. For the very first time in his life, he was stoned. And it was the funniest thing we had ever seen.

Of course, just about anything you see when you're high is the funniest thing you've ever seen. It could be Caddyshack. It could be a person falling out a 15th story window. It could be a dog on a leash. It's friggin' funny.

None of this will help me decide how to answer the inevitable question from my kids about my drug use. They would find the stories about their uncle very funny. But that doesn't make any of it right. Some people have said they would lie. Some told me they would be honest. And some are going through the same dilemma as I am. I'd love to get your comments. What would you do? And can I buy some pot from you?

Jose Can You See?

So it was the big Fourth of July holiday weekend, offering every American the freedom to sit on damp grass to watch loud, colored bombs exploding in the sky, to wear cheesy t-shirts with eagles and flags on them, and to eat meat that's been burned over coals in the backyard. Such amazing freedoms are denied people in many countries throughout the world. For example, I understand that open-aired grilling of pig by-products in Armenia will get you locked up in an iron mask for 35 years. It's the one weekend of the year where Republicans, Democrats and Ralph Nader can sit down together to commemorate the founding fathers' spirit of independence. Not that any one of them would ever really comprehend the immensity of such a feat, nor would any of them have the heart to strive through such a struggle. Especially after the seventh or eight can of Bud.

I thought about what freedoms we have here and realized that a lot of the things that are considered freedoms for some mean taking away freedoms from others. For example, in many parts of the country, smoking is banned indoors. In bars, restaurants and other public places, smokers cannot enjoy the freedom of lighting up. Not that I disagree with that, because trying to enjoy a bowl of wings and a cold beer in a bar while someone is puffing toxins my way is not fun. However, there's an example of a one freedom outweighing another. I have the freedom to enjoy a smoke-free environment, while smokers have been stripped of something that 10 or more years ago was the norm.

For me personally, I think the freedom to park wherever I want has been crushed by the freedom of "handicapped" people to get special "handicapped" parking signs in front of their homes. Okay, some may actually be handicapped, while others are just friggin' lazy but happen to know someone who can pass paperwork though. In South Philly, parking is at a premium, much like finding a gold nugget in a can of Campbell's soup. But there must be half a dozen of these privileged parking spots on every block, and I know that some of them are stealing my freedom to park there.

How about the freedom to get early doctor appointments so that I can get to work being usurped by the freedom of seniors to take up the early time slots? I mean, really, what do they have to do all day? Just because their internal alarm clock doesn't allow them to sleep past 5:30AM, does that mean I can't get an early appointment? It sure does. So my freedom to get my eyes examined before work is gone so that some 80-year-old can get there and get home in time for their 9 AM bowel movement. Freedom, denied for me. Not for them.

Finally, what about the freedom to enjoy a movie that I paid 10 bucks to see without some annoying jackass either talking or having a rotten brat with them? Okay, so that means their freedom to yak away or bring a noisy rugrat into the theater outweighs mine? It happened to my son and I once. We went to the movies and right before it started, a group of youngsters with their grandmother sat right next to us. They wouldn't shut up the whole time. Finally, I turned and shushed them, and got angry words from the grandmother. How dare I shush them? She wanted to know. I dare because it's my right to enjoy a movie that I paid good money to see, without your ADD little spawn that shouldn't even be in a PG-13 movie, making like it's a Saturday afternoon at the ballpark. That's my right, my freedom. So it was my son and I that had to move seats to enjoy my freedom. Not fair, but such is the case.

My point is that for every freedom, there's someone to dispute it. There's always someone to say that one freedom takes away theirs. From the upper echelon of the Supreme Court down to the fifth row of the theater during Batman Begins. It doesn't matter. Freedom is really only true to those that think it's theirs, and no one else matters.

Oh say can you see?