I started a new job today. I'm logging videotapes for a production company in Pasadena. I'm making the same salary I made back in 1992.

What is this notion that you have to steadily improve your life? A steady increase in standard of living? Saving during these "productive years?" Pshaw! I've set out to buck that trend! I understand not these concepts! <--- Yoda speak

The job is a start... the next few months will likely reveal it to be either a footnote or a life transition. There might be opportunity for growth. And the office is near Bally's, so I can start taking care of myself again. I can make my own hours while I figure out my next move.

Blacklist - Black Karma

In other news, a friend responded to my "Blacklist" by giving me a 20 year old update on good ole Paul Bailey. Seems that after Paul left our school system, word came back that he had been beaten up by a "bunch of black guys."

As suburban white kids growing up in the midwest, there was no fear worse than getting "beat up by a bunch of black guys." Looking back, it's almost as if they were figures of myth and legend planted deep in our psyche, perhaps by the post-desegregation paranoia of our middle class elders. These randomly roaming black guys became an integral part of the laundry list of parental warnings.

"Don't cross your eyes, your face will freeze that way!"

"Don't go swimming yet, you'll get a cramp and drown."

"Don't stay out after dark, you'll be beaten up by a bunch of black guys."

Who were these "black guys?" Why would they be so angry when they came upon me? And where did they come from? Well, the answer to that one was easy. According to my grand parents, the black guys came from "Colored Town."

When I was little, my grandfather (and maybe even my dad) used to sometimes comment while driving. "Oh, we're in Colored Town now." I would look out the car window curiously, halfway expecting to see signs at it's borders. "Colored Town; Population 1000." Or maybe, "Now Leaving Colored Town: You May Relax Again!" I think I was finally a teenager before I realized that Colored Town wasn't a real town with its own mayor.

It's all just a funny and interesting transition in American culture now, but as I heard of what happened to Paul Bailey, it took me right back to that time in my life. Now I know that the "black guys" were more than just myth... they were an instrument of karma.

Thanks guys.