dukewalker's posterous

upon graduating from college a couple things might happen to you.
some are sure to happen.
you will stand and fight and clean yourself of the old self while mantaining as much meat of your once-cooked-nature to justify "selling out" with career and early bed times.
i met this guy named Jerry who didn't seem to care for either option.
he took to the books again.
he asked more questions and wrote more.
instead of hoping your dad or some connection with a no-name-rich-guy (at least in your mind) might land you a job with ease, take the difficult route.
you will, most likely, hate your first job and move on. sure, you will have time to discover who you are and what you want and the process is a learning one.
so, it's okay that you favored your network rather than hard work.
well, that's true to a degree. but your satisfaction will remain fixed on high ground knowing you bled for it.

this is an example of bad advice. crooked, stupid, nonsense.
don't listen to people to speak like this.
find someone who actually speaks.
not necessarily a lover of words.
true exchange is better than a mess of words that mean nothing.

i had a dream about a child actor who never existed.
he spent his early days entertaining the streets of some power city
orphaned and homeless, he managed to stay alive
when the ferry came to town (taking the uptown masses to waterways)
he would jump in the harbor and grab hold of the gentle-moving-craft

but the tide was out this time, he had trouble finding a private spot, detected

he was embarrassed.
swimming away from the boat while the heartless women yelled after him

child arrived at the trees
he had followers, unwelcomed and aggressive
he needed to climb faster
tying a bit of rope around a drinking glass he had swiped,
the intruders where struck by the swinging weapon
they all fell bloody to the ground
orphan child became the older son on the Cosby show.

i took a nap at Fort Sumter
15 years after the first shots were fired.
it didn't seem like much could have ever happened there.
sure, the molten-brick-disaster calls you to imagine.
but other than a history story "you should remember,"
not a place for drawing threads and weaving condolences.

battlegrounds should do more for me than they do.
but i find too much solace in hospitals and cemeteries already.
since i was a child, funerals were the best of times.
family and cousin and football.
sandwiches with easy rolls.
soft sandwiches.
old people are there.
potato salad and egg salad and the mysterious gross one.
the one bite wonder.

restore the bully to the stage.
bring him to the necessary place of prominence in society.

he taught us more than our teachers.
how to slip by unnoticed.
how to disappear.
how to stand up, eventually, on something to make us taller.
how to stop avoiding the elephant we must acknowledge.

we must learn how to run away.
we don't know that we should run away.
see, we have never been properly cornered.

take the bully by the hand and welcome him into your house.

my dad has been gone for some time
but i like to think he's been gone even longer than a bit of time.
my dad was gone when he was born
sold off to a foreign world.

-

my dad had an eye for people.
not a judge of character but the person.
he didn't seem to be much into how you were or what you could be for him.
he just wanted to know you.
not something you might be by the size of your face or sound of your voice.
just you.