In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood

I get it, how he came to do it. It’s happened to me plenty of times. She just won’t stop talking, or doing what I tell her. All that screamin’ and cryin’ and threatening to tell my wife. I don’t know what came over me that last time, the time I had no plan, the time I got caught.

See usually I have plenty of self control, like walking away when I’m burnin’ up inside. Like at a bar. I used to drink too much and get into these fights. I’d have killed plenty more if not for my friend Ralphy. He’s bigger’n me and back then he did plenty of thinking for me, knowing I didn’t want to kill nobody in front of a barroom full ‘o witnesses. What I do is wait a day or two, ‘til the fool gets into it with a half-dozen other low-lifes that’ll look just as good for the killin’ as me. Then I watch for a day or so, get to know his habits. When there’s a good place, isolated, you know? Like a dark parking lot or street or something, that’s when I do him. I make sure he knows who he messed with and why this face is the last one he’s gonna see in this life.

I don’t use no weapons, never, just these big ‘ol hands God gave me. It’s easy to snap a neck or pop a pipe if you know what you’re doin’. It’s like this, I walk up to him, real quiet, then when I’m in position I make a noise, maybe clear my throat or even say his name. That surprises them, puts them in a small panic, then a quick pop in the middle of the face, I keep my middle knuckle raised a bit to really sting the sinuses. Nobody can deal with that. If they don’t go down they squeezes they eyes real tight and the tears flow, along with blood, usually. That’s when I get my hands around their throat and bring them down, like I said, if they ain’t already. Then I say what I’m gonna say, look ‘em in the eye the whole time and watch the fear well up, kind of come to the surface like water coming to a boil.

I get a real shiver in my chest right then, just before that moment when they know this is it for them. Now this gonna sound real bad, but I want you to know. I get this feeling in my chest, like my whole upper body is a big ‘ol penis ready to explode. My privates don’t get that, I think that’s sick, but from my throat to my waist, that what I get and there ain’t nothin’ like it. When it’s over I usually have my trunk lined in plastic and take ‘em up to this special spot I know along the lake. I got real good at knowing the rip tides and putting just the right amount of weight so they move along for a good while. OPP found one of mine up near London a few years back and pinned it on one of their own. Got a kick out of that. Canadian cop so much as said since it wasn’t a gunshot it couldn’t ‘a been from the US side. Laughed at that for days.

So when that ex-cop killed his baby momma, I 100% understand. Probably wanted her to get an abortion or move away or somethin’. More child support. You don’t mess with a man’s money. That’s what happened to me. Just got sloppy, I guess.

This is a character from one of my Mystery-Thrillers. It is not me...I don't think...

We Are All Witnesses

"The best way I can describe it is sky-writing. It was beautiful, soaring, and for the most part unreachable and fleeting. He talked about John McCain as though they were already opponents in the national election. Smart."

HUDSON, OH -- That is a phrase that is tagged with banality to an athlete. We know it well. It is draped across a wedge of a building near the place where this young man plays basketball. Yet every morning before a primary another game of round-ball is being played. Not for a $65 ticket and a multimillion dollar contact, but to keep a candidate healthy.

As I mentioned in an earlier piece, there is something historic happening here. It is the rise of stratospheric rhetoric and electrifying charisma and audacious hope and maybe - God help us maybe - a change for the better. Mr. Obama calls himself a "hope-monger," it is a clever ear magnet. His speeches are a combination of Kennedy and King, Reagan and Graham. He promises new ways for Americans to tap into the collective resource of a massive and growing government.

He is clearly a liberal; a progressive, if you prefer. I watched his speech tonight, preaching to the choir in the most liberal town in Middle America, Madison, Wisconsin. I also watched Mrs. Clinton trying to coral the lead in Texas and Mr. McCain with a small crowd of supporters in Virginia. Here's what I noticed: it did not matter what they said. Much of the speeches I watched with the sound down. Mr. Obama looked like he was already president. Mr. McCain looked about the same as he has over the last two decades. Mrs. Clinton appeared, frankly, desperate.

Then I turned up the sound. Barack Obama's speech was much like his writing and other things he represents. The best way I can describe it is sky-writing. It was beautiful, soaring, and for the most part unreachable and fleeting. He talked about John McCain as though they were already opponents in the national election. Smart. He spoke highly of the American hero McCain. Smart. And he talked to the folks, identifying with the challenges of everyday life. Smart. Hillary Clinton was offering local flavor, as though she were a longhorn, one of them, and together they aren't about to let this outsider mess with Texas. Not smart enough.

We are witnesses, and once again Ohio is the prize. I can only hope that when Mr. Obama completes his monumental sprint toward history, he remains flexible and learns how to govern. Because right now all I see is a projection of the president he hopes to be. Should he win, reality will overtake hope like a fast break from you-know-who.

XM X’d Out

They say that writing while angry is a good thing; that the emotions flow and the words jump from the screen and poke the reader in the eye. Right now I feel like I have been poked in the eye and other less convenient places by a very unwelcome assailant.

And it all started with an otherwise very friendly phone call.

I have been a subscriber to XM Satellite radio almost from day one. It is a great service with one glaring exception. As far as the programming they provide is concerned I have nothing but praise. But when I called to change my plan – actually disconnect a radio that I am no longer using – all that goodness went right down an especially nasty drain.

Three years ago I extended my plan on three radios to three years. The price was right and at the time it was well worth it. That is no longer the case. I can’t afford to spend that kind of money – over $900.00 – on a convenience that we don’t use as often as we once did. In the course of talking to “Listener Care,” the woman mentioned that the card on file had expired. Fair enough, I was going to redo a modified subscription and its well to get that out of the way.

By the time I had talked to another woman and gotten an arrangement that was more fitting, the card I had given was charged an auto-renewal for $916.00; another three years! Wait a second, let me repeat that. They charged me nearly a thousand dollars without one word indicating that they were renewing the very subscription I was calling to change – and now cancel.

Would you be furious? Would you feel as though this big company reached into your account and robbed you? I did, and someone had to pull me off the ceiling.

We have a credo in radio: make one listener happy and he will tell ten people; make one listener unhappy and he will tell one-hundred, who will tell another one-thousand! This is a great way to ruin a business, especially one that is struggling to get off the ground. Satellite Radio may have a 21st Century name, but it has yet to make a dime. Practices like this will keep it steeped in red.

My problem was taken care of, sort of, with a few more phone calls and a little restraint. But I am still surprised and annoyed that it came to this. I promised the account supervisor that I will wait until I am sure there was no charge placed on my card before I make a final decision about severing my long-time relationship with XM.

Trapped in limbo is the merger between the two satellite radio providers. In the balance could be the very existence of this medium. After this morning I’m not at all sure there is a future in, “the future of radio.”

Butts and Cutts and All That News

"At the end of the day she will exercise to exhaustion, pour it all out to trusted friends and peers and she will cry her eyes out. It's that kind of story. But the next day she will look some attorney or cop or other professional distracter square in the eye and her five-two visage will become a six-four intimidator. I've seen it happen."

Here's a little secret. I'm going to reveal it under duress, and many of my colleagues will cringe when I let the rather scummy cat out of the bag. Here it goes: news is a filthy business and the filthier the better. Gone are the days of the gentleman journalists - if there ever were such times.

And those tight, often symbiotic relationships with the reporter and those who make the story have morphed into extreme chess matches with white hot pieces and professional life or death as the prize or concession.

The men and women who do this for a living - and I am not one of them - love it when the blood flows and the mud gets in the politicos eyes. Most of them, anyway: the good ones.

We have some real news doozies forming around us. You will certainly keep up on them with the help of Ed Esposito and his stellar news department. That's both here at AkronNewsNow.com and on the air at 1590 WAKR, if you will allow the plug. Ed's blog, Letters To the Editor needs no help from me, it is one of the most popular political and news blogs in the state already!

What I like to offer here is not the news side of what they do, but the human and cultural angle. I am not a big news junkie. Yes, I program a station with News in its fist name, along with Sports and Oldies, but I leave the news to Ed. To do anything else would be foolish.

We have a mostly young staff of journalists bringing you the biggest story. The Bobby Cutts trail, for instance, has a lead reporter named Tina Kaufmann. She is bright, determined and not the biggest woman among the slew of local and national reporters. She will do a great job mainly because she knows she is wading in with crocs, gators and snakes. They have already tried to bait her, flatter her, trap her and insult her. Not going to work. Tina is armed not only with great guidance from seasoned professionals, but with a spirit that is unflappable.

At the end of the day she will exercise to exhaustion, pour it all out to trusted friends and peers and she will cry her eyes out. It's that kind of story. But the next day she will look some attorney or cop or other professional distracter square in the eye and her five-two visage will become a six-four intimidator. I've seen it happen.

You will get the real story about a double homicide in Stark County. While the Gretas and Nancys and whoever else in the national media is sucking up the spotlight, it is Tina and the other young reporters sitting through the horror everyday who will truly understand, and tell you first.

The Real Generation Gap: King vs. Malcolm

"These were the young radicals who saw Dr. King as another "Tom" giving into the establishment by not taking up arms against the oppressors. They formed groups like Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ...The Black Panther Party and molded the Nation of Islam into a force for change."

HUDSON, OH -- There are many reasons why being a black family in the 50's and 60's was difficult. As a child of those years most of the challenges were hidden from us by well-meaning parents and a distilled media. But there were many signs that the two Americas were moving along on different paths and at different speeds.

The Civil Rights Era coexisted with the Beat Era and the Vietnam Era, the Drug Era and about a half-dozen lesser periods of history. Yet the problem of segregation and inequality predated and outlasted anything that so moved this country.

Inside those families that the movement affected most, families like mine, there was a different kind of argument. It could be summed up like this: nonviolence or by whatever means necessary. Generally the older generation followed the words, actions and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the only Black American honored with a true national holiday. But the younger tended to hang on the words of Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Bobby Seals, Huey P. Newton and Malcolm X. These were the young radicals who saw Dr. King as another "Tom" giving into the establishment by not taking up arms against the oppressors. They formed groups like Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (often forgetting about the second descriptor), The Black Panther Party and molded the Nation of Islam into a force for change.

There was hardly a unified front among those demanding equality.

To this day there are some who revere Dr. King, and rightly so, while secretly wishing the revolution had taken place. What revolution? The one openly called for by these men and women who let hatred and anger distort their view and pervert their intelligence - many were quite intelligent - the impatient ones.

As The Last Poets once proclaimed: The Revolution will not be televised, it will be live.

And so it is. Again, you can argue, but borrowing from Dr. King's famous words we are more likely to be judged by the content and quality of our character rather than the color of our skin. We are, finally, closer to being a unified America dealing with economic, health and the microscopic battles of living and working with others. A black president is a real possibility and white America is on the verge of becoming just another minority in a nation of minorities. There are still strata of privilege and power and there always will be. There are the poor and the oppressed of all races, but there is also compassion and opportunity. There is the struggle and the road ahead.

And there always will be.

Dying Mad

"And if his last breath should come soon he will use it to scream at a nurse or doctor or aide who is trying to help him. Such misery is no life, but it just might be his fitting end."


PINELLAS PARK, FL - I am writing this in Florida. Not the good Florida, the fantasy land we all dream about right around mid-February, but the trailer park, aimless youth, flea market and dingy strip mall Florida. The kind of place where even sunshine seems to smell like generic cigarettes and scratch-off wax under the fingernails; where being tat-less and body puncture-less means you are old and just trying to stay below the radar else those with destructive appetites notice you and make you a victim.

In other words, this is no Disney vacation. I haven't seen anything close to a beach in the days I have been here and would love nothing more than to see my breath condensing as I warm up the car after a 10 hour day in West Akron. I am serious.

So why am I here? Many of us are gappers, that is we fall between generations. One is just getting their footing, if we are lucky, and the other is on their last leg. We are here because of the latter.

Two things have been reinforced on this trip. For one, my wife Monika is a saint - not an angel, she does not bear the burden softly - and my 98-year-old father-in-law remains mad at the world, perhaps to the bitter end.

Even getting up when he should have known better while in nursing care and slipping on his own waste is somebody else's fault. Breaking his hip and being rushed to emergency is someone else's fault. And if his last breath should come soon he will use it to scream at a nurse or doctor or aide who is trying to help him. Such misery is no life, but it just might be his fitting end.

My mom died two years ago in December. She was not angry nor frightened nor remorseful. She was 92 and if she could have predicted it, her last breath would have been a laugh; a good old fashioned belly laugh.

I don't know how much time Danny has left. I would like to think he has enough time to recapture the charm he can show others and the determination that afforded him nearly 30 to 40 years more life than the average American man. We were ready to bring Monika's mom home with us to Hudson and leave Danny in the capable hands of the long-term care professionals. That has changed. Monika cannot leave him with such uncertainty and I will return alone on Tuesday.

There are lots of ways we are dispatched from this life. And few of us have a choice or a chance to choreograph the event. If I learned anything from the gracious and accepting people I have seen in their final moments it is this: don't stay mad at the world.

Exit laughing.

...and Black Men are from Jupiter

A couple of things landed my mood in a particular team locker room today. You know what I mean, we all have teams. Some of us are golfers, some are recovering-whatevers, some drive faster than we should and some eat way too much garlic.

The point is we have identity markers that come and go and are either used or ignored until the next time they become relevant.

Some people make a living out of being on one team or another. A gay activist or Al Sharpton are examples of professionals in this sense. Recently one of my teams has come under a great deal of scrutiny and I don't mind telling you it is a very somber club house right now.

I won't mention the players that tend to give us a bad name. You know who they are. What I am moved to do here is remember a Golden Age. I want to remind you (and me) of the men who propped up a generation, several generations on broad shoulders and dared us to be better than what America was expecting. One of those men was Bill Willis.

I grew up calling this great athlete, scholar and cultural pioneer 'Uncle Bill' because he was one of my dad's best friends. Dad did not have much of a family growing up. Maybe that's why the family he and mom created was more important to him than anything. So he created a circle of friends, of brothers that stayed in close contact and helped each other every step of the way. That term, brothers, has become something of a team nickname that few understand. Bill Willis and Al Collins understood it. It meant being there, teaching and guiding. It meant doing what is right, period.

Bill Willis achieved great things. He is in several Halls of Fame and deserves every accolade. But what is not inscribed on the plaques is the contribution he made to another team: young men and women of color, and many who do not claim that distinction, who still walk along the path he cleared.

No matter what team you are on, we are all better because of men like these.