A Warped POV by A. Dacosta Brathway

August 1st, Saturday/ Another one bites the dust! David Ortiz, Big Poppy, has been popping the big pilly and got caught! OMG... What news! What? News? It's not news... It's nonsense! Who (should) really cares? I will tell you who should not care... The fans!
Why should the fans care about this? Sports talk radio talking heads should care because they need BS to spin! The families of and the athlete, him/herself, should care because it is their body they should be concerned about. But the fans... Oh hell no!
Fans pay to be entertained. When they see a big, strong, strapping athlete step up to the plate, or foul line, or goal line, they want excitement, results and fireworks to take place! I am paying for homeruns! Swing away "Big Poppy!" If you are gonna go down, go down in flames!
But, I am listening to fans on the radio and all I hear is whining and crying about how the game of baseball is being cheated. So what? There is enough cheating going around for everybody on both sides of the plate.
Get the hell over it fan... It is not about you and how you feel. It is about what you pay to see! You paid, you saw, "you're out of there!" Go home and make sure your wife or girlfriend is not "cheating" on you because you spent the last 6 hours of your life at the baseball field instead if being home, spending quality time with your wife, girlfriend, and kids. Remember, it's only a (reality) movie... It's only a (reality) movie!

Excerpt from "My Life Sucked..." by A. Dacosta Brathway

Man, this whole drug thing is twisted. Young folks and some old folks) are killin' themselves with all kinds of weird drug concoctions and that puzzles all the hell out of me! Back in the day, I got into the drug thing. At first I started drinking beer. I lived over my aunt's store so I could go downstairs and sneak a bottle of malt liquor out of the fridge and have at it. It was cool, at first, but then I started getting drunk! That was some weird shit. I was dizzy and throwing up... I remember the room spinning around and no matter what I did to try to stop it, it kept spinning around and around and around...I got bored with that shit real fast. The only other way I was willing to get high was to smoke weed./ Now, out at the high school, thw white boys was doing all kinds of shit. It was the '60's and the hippie thing was in full effect. There was LSD that had cats straight trippin'... I was having no part of that. There was other things happening that did not interest me... But that weed... Oh man! I loved smokin' weed! The first time I did it at the high school, I was told, I pulled my pants off and ran the length of the football field, buck naked! I have no recollection of that but that's what I was told. However, I do remember craving potatoe chips and "Hostess Twinkies" and "Ring Dings" and "Devil Dogs" and lots and lots of soda! Back then a soda cost $.15 and any one of those cakes cost a dime. Potatoe chips cost 5 cents a bag. A bag of weed cost $5.00 and a lid was going for $20.00. Because I played ball, I knew all the dealers so scoring a bag for a discount was not a problem and my game was not even that tight. When I hung out with the "real" ballers the smoke was even better!/ I have to say that when I started smoking weed, I stopped giving a shit about school. I was too high to care. But, I did like the feeling. I guess when you are young, you don't want to care about anything. You just want to do what you want to do. I didn't have a whole lot to do so all I wanted to do was smoke. I think I started smoking weed because I was getting dumped on by chicks. When I was high, I didn't give a shit about chicks. I didn't even know when they were dumping on me after hitting a joint. I didn't care! What was cool about it was I liked being in an altered mental state. I had weird ideas when I got high. To hell if what I thought did not make sense to others. It only had to make sense to me! Obviously, I had to stop but, in my mind, I was real creative when I was altered. I thought differently about myself. I felt confident that whatever I did, I was cool with it. I wanted to be an artist and a musician. I couldn't play an instrument to save my life and the only thing I could paint was pictures by the numbers. It was like I was smoking confidence. When I came down, I felt like I couldn't do shit./ I eventually stopped getting high in college. The feeling got lost in translation. It was that and me getting thrown out of college after I got caught smoking a joint, in my room, during a surprise inspection during homecoming weekend when it seemed appropriate to smoke a joint in the first place!

CRAP/My Journal by Al Brathway

September 27th, Thursday/ I was watching ("should not watch") tv today and I saw a program about rock star daughters and how their lives unfolded being the daughter(s)and son(s) of rock royality. The drugs, the groupies, the road trips, the shows, the sex...! Oh the agony! Then there are the problems that existed because of this lifestyle. The neglect, the tears, the conflicts...! They also talked about the REAL problems; the mansions, the parties, the language, the antics... AND THE DAMN MONEY!!! / Having lived most of my life in relative poverty and looking back on it, given the chance, I would have traded my pitiful life for the rock star life in a (hot) damn heartbeat! Poverty sucks! And, it brings on a set of problems that makes the other lifestyle look like paradise! Hell, my father wasn't around and I was poor... That's like double jeopardy. At least the money would have served as a surrogate. I could have, at least, bought a father! Plus, I would have had a segway into show business instead of this "go to an interview and get your ass rejected because you don't fit their criteria bullshit!" Why would I care if I get hired because of nepotism? Nepotism trumps "qualified" anyday from where I'm standing! AND THE PERKS...!/ Crap!

CRAP/ My Journal by Al Brathway

July 6th, Friday/ I was watching the new Paula Abdul Show w/ a friend yesterday and we got to talking about what would make great reality TV? Paula's show seems to be staged because she acts so goofy (unless she really is on drugs, which I think she is!). However, we decided that Bobby Brown would post a GREAT reality show now that he is separated from Whitney. That other show he did was "aw'ight" but now is the time to let the cameras roll! Find him, sign him and let the shit begin! I like watching "train wrecks" man! It distracts me from the train wreck that is my life and I'm able to suspend my disbelief. I don't know why I find so much comfort in someone else's misery. Does that make me normal? Or, do I explore the sadistic dark side to my personality that way? Whatever the case, find Bobby Brown and get his ass back on the TV set. Bravo, you're fucking up w/ this Paula Abdul chick. (You know you are because she only got a half hour show!) Free Bobby Brown!/ CRAP!

CRAP/ My Journal by Al Brathway

June 26th, Tuesday/ Oh my god, Paris Hilton is out! That hardened criminal is back in the flow of society. Hide the cocaine and the booze... Lock the garage doors! Close the clubs! This menace to society is back on the scene. Man I'm glad I don't live in LA. It's the Son of Sam thing all over again./ I have to say it is kind of funny this whole thing... I saw the pictures of a smiling Paris as she walked to her freedom. Her family hugged her and reassured her that she can now resume her lifestyle of foolishness and stupidity. Never mind the fact that she now has a record. I'm sure they will find a way to twist it to make it look like that's a good thing. My question is will she stand by the comments she made about changing her life before she entered her cubicle? Will she be as committed to making those adjustments as she said she would be before she did her bid? Hell, I'll bet she's gone "commando" and drunk in a club right now to christen her release. I'd be surprised if anything changes w/ this chick. Before you know it, she will be back to her old self and America will, again, be exposed to the shananigans of Paris Hilton!/ CRAP!