Not sure how I feel about this situation...

As I start writing this post I have no idea how it will end. I just have a situation that I need to "get off my chest." Some of you may know this most probably won't. This story is really long but I will try to shorten it. When I was a senior in High School a former close friend of mine committed murder and killed a woman trying to steal her vehicle in our neighborhood. Through a very odd series of circumstances I became a suspect and my best friend (and blog buddy) The Mt. Cat's car was seen near the scene of the crime and was reported by the local newspaper as being wanted for information by the police. (skipping a lot of the story. I promised Vinny that someday I would blog it but never have. It's a tough story to tell.)

As the situation turned out I had a lot of information about what had happened and ended up giving statements to the police that cemented their case against my former friend. There was no trial because he plead guilty so it was not like I testified against him. He was given a life sentence in prison and even though I have never forgotten for obvious reasons I did move on in my life.

Last night I got a Facebook message from him giving me his phone number and asking me to contact him.

It's true he is out after serving 20 years of a life sentence and I actually saw a picture of him on FB at a fundraiser for our 20th HS reunion. It's almost impossible to believe where time went that someone could have serve their time on a life sentence for 2nd degree murder and is already out. Impossible, but it has happened.

All those feelings came flooding back to me this morning when I read that message. All the stuff that went down. All the guilt that my inaction caused the death of another human being because I wasn't big enough to tell someone that he had a gun and had threatened me with it.

I think that I need to call him.

I am going to talk to my father first. My father is a pastor and possibly the most wise person that I know. I know they shared letters over the years and my friend has accepted the Lord into his life and become a Christian. I think that I have to contact him. With all the baggage I carry I don't think that I can just let it go without talking to him.

I have no idea what I will say.

Thank you for reading and listening to me. Told you I wasn't sure where this post was going when I started it. At least I have a couple of hours worth of car ride to think about it. Is it ironic that I am actually going before a judge in court today?

-Doc

I'm with Coco (The Colon that is)

From the blog that brought you the worst mascot ever Petey the Pee Cup I now present to you the best mascot ever Coco the Colon. I heard about Coco on the radio the other day when Sheri Lynch from 107.9 the Link was trying to do an on air commercial and could not keep from cracking up because the name Coco the Colon is just so funny. Well apparently Coco is coming to Charlotte to raise awareness about colon cancer. Coco is a 40 foot long representation of the human intestines that shows healthy and diseased guts and is used as a teaching tool. I actually think this is a great idea and while funny is a good for raising awareness. While I probably won't get to go visit Coco because we will be out of town on vacation I wanted to bring it to everyone's attention because it's such a great idea and the catchy name is easy to remember. Enjoy your time in Charlotte Coco!

-Doc

The Worst St. Patrick's Day Ever...

Here I will reprint a previous post entitled "I woke up and I was walking" - It deserves a re-read. This is Mine and AbsolutGator's version of "The Hangover" where I had to call his mom and report that I had lost him. Couldn't find any pictures from that trip but here is one of us from just prior to a Jimmy Buffett concert in 02. Looks like Absolut is trying to show me how to smoke something. (look how thin we used to be)

You guys have heard a bunch of stories about Mt. Cat and I causing trouble. Today I am going to tell one on our buddy Absolutgator and explain why I will never willingly to go to Savannah, Georgia again.St. Patrick's day 1996. I was living in Columbia, SC at the time and a former roommate of mine (and Mt. Cat's) Paulie, my buddy Absolut and I decide that we are going to accept an invitation I had of a place to stay in Savannah Georgia for what is supposed to be the largest St. Patty's party outside of Dublin. Absolut and Paulie meet me in Columbia and along with a girl I worked with at the time named Angela we all pile into a rental car and get on the road. We decided that I would drive down there because I knew where I was going and so I wouldn't have to drive later that night.

On the trip down Absolut starts to drink a few so by the time we get to Savannah he is in full gear. This is where we meet Kelly whose place we are to stay at and her friend whose name I can't remember.It's going to be party time. Angela doesn't drink and agrees to drive us all home. Excellent lets go party. Well as it turns out Kelly and her friend had been having a few before we got there and her friend ended up passing out and not going downtown with the rest of us. Kelly was in bad shape too but we all set off to go to downtown Savannah for this huge party anyway.

During the ride Kelly is all over my hugging me and loudly whispering stuff in my ear and generally being very annoying. Absolut was very annoying too by playing with the radio and at one point tuning in an AM station that was just static. We were trying to find a place to park and it was really getting on Paulie's nerves. All he wanted was a few beers. After a few trips around the party section with no success in finding a spot to park and the drunks yelling Paulie and I had finally had it. We told Absolut and Kelly to get out of the car and assigned Angela to watch them and meet Paulie and I at the corner bar as soon as we could park. Of course we then found a space right away.

Now Paulie and I are really ready to party. We park and get out and head to the closed off bar street area where the party is to meet our friends. We weren't away from them 15 minutes, that's all. We show up at the appointed location and see Angela but no Ablsolut and no Kelly. We ask her where they are and she points to a bar. Wait right here for us and we will go get them! So Paulie and I wade into this mass of humanity and realize after another 10-15 minutes that we have no shot at finding them in this place we are going to have to wait for them outside and catch them as they leave. Fine, I want a beer.

Paulie and I get beers from a street vendor and decide to wait for them, because by this time Angela had disappeared too. Since we are at the arranged meet up site they would have to show up sooner or later right? Half an hour goes by... an hour goes by... Nothing. Keep in mind this was before everyone had cell phones all over the place and all we had was the phone # for Kelly's place and my directions there as well as the car keys. We started to get a bit concerned since we hadn't found anyone so we decided to call Kelly's house. We get her friend who is now awake and informs us that Kelly took a cab home and left us there. Where is Angela and where is Absolut? Who knows?

It's now 10:30 at night and we decide to go back to Kelly's house because at least Angela has the phone # and will wait for her call. Well she calls on our way there and says she is at "A very scary motel at the corner of JFK and Gardens, but there are two nice guys taking care of her." now starting to get really worried and fully sober Paulie and I go and pick her up and she tells us what happened. After they got out of the car Kelly and Absolut went into the bar and then Paulie and I went in after them. Apparently I just missed Kelly because she came out and took a cab home. Ok fine, no everyone is accounted for except Absolut. When was the last time she saw him? "Oh I was watching him and he picked up an empty keg and tried to throw it at a cop," she says in a very matter of fact manner. Are you kidding me? Please don't tell me that my buddy got arrested in Savannah, Georgia on St. Pattys day... We may never get him out.

Being good friends Paulie and I go to the police station and get the very rude desk Sargent to go through the 117 arrest records from that night and no Absolut. Wheew that was one little bit of good news but still has us no further to finding my one of my best buddies. What are we going to do? Well about 2 am we decide that we will walk over the town until we find him. We start with the party area. Going through the alleys and park benches where drunks are asleep and passed out and worse. We walked from one side of Savannah to the other. We walked until it got light outside. We did not find Absolut. We did find my cousin who happened to be there on break from school and said hi to him. We walked until 10 am when we decided that we had been about as good a friends as we could be and Absolut was a grown up and may have to find his own way home.

We had one option left and it was the option that I was dreading. We could call Absolut's mom. I did not want to be the one to call up and tell her that we were in Savannah Ga and misplaced her son, but I had no choice so I went ahead and made the call. She was not easy on me but after owning up that I was here and Absolut was not she told me that he had called her an hour before and he was at the bus station getting a bus ride back to Columbia. We found him just before he was going to board his bus. We asked him where the heck he been and what had done. He said he couldn't remember a whole lot (go figure right). He did have a pretty decent answer when I asked him when he realized that he was really lost. His quote to me was, "I woke up and I was walking."

I don't care what the enticement is, I don't ever want to step foot in Savannah, Georgia again for any reason and certainly never again on St. Patrick's day.

-Doc

Gun Safety or Lack Thereof

I woke up this morning blank with no idea what to blog about. This happens from time to time but I never really worry about it too much because this world if chock-full of idiots and nimrods who really make this blogging thing and pointing out their stupidity easy.
Well I have found one and need to point it out to you. It involves the NRA. Let me give you a bit of background. On point I don't have any issues with the ability to own a gun for hunting or protection of ones home or collecting as a hobby. I don't think that guns should be banned or that normal law abiding citizens access to them should be impeded. However I am not of the opinion that a 13 year old kid ought to be able to walk into the corner store and buy an Uzi or Mac-10 or that criminals should have the same gun rights as citizens. I do believe that guns were created to kill things including people and think it's disingenuous to say that guns were created for any reason other than to kill.
This post however is not necessarily about gun control it's more about gun safety. I read this article this morning and had to bring it your attention. "NRA gun instructor accidentally shoots Orlando student" reads the title. Well it seems that the NRA was training folks in the Orlando area how to be safer and keep from getting hurt with guns but their own instructor broke the rules and brought live ammunition into class. Don't you feel safer now?
In honor of this I figured I would post this modified NRA Gun Safety Tips poster for all to enjoy:


Be careful ya'll it's dangerous out there. Me personally I usually follow Jimmy Buffett's rule about guns: "I got a big suspicion about ammunition, I never forget to duck."

-Doc

Cybergrievances - Guest Post from Absolutgator

My kids, who are in elementary school, have teacher assistants that are parents of a couple of other kids in class. Their job, which they volunteer to do, is simply to help the teachers with special projects and to keep all the parents informed about things going on in the classroom/special events. On Wednesday, we received an e-mail notification that there was a case of head lice in my son’s class; no it wasn’t him. The e-mail had a Word document attached that came from the school nurse about how to check your kids and what to do if you found lice. Good job keeping parents informed, right?

Well not for one parent. To protect the assholishness identity of this person, I’ll call him Mr. Jobs. It appears that Mr. Jobs is not a fan of Windows-based computers and really is annoyed by the attachment:

I appreciate your e-mails, but can I ask... why would this come as an attachment? I'm not a MS Word user (it's one of the worst written programs ever), but I was able to open it in other programs (like Pages and Staroffice). There's NOTHING in that document that would require it to be in a word document. No special formatting, pictures, etc. This is a REALLY big pet peeve of mine.

1. For all the windows users, you are risking them getting a virus (I use a Mac, so that's not a concern of mine). Microsoft Office documents are the petri dish of the Internet.

2. You expect everyone to have a $200 word processing software just to read an e-mail.

3. It makes me have to open another application to read something that's just plain text anyway.

So... in the future, I'd like to ask that if you are going to send us e-mails that are simple plain text, that you send them as e-mails. Not word attachments. IF, you have a highly formatted document with pictures, your fonts, etc., then I suggest you export those as a PDF, which everyone can freely read.

Just as an example (and to help anyone out that got this e-mail and doesn't have the ability to open the latest word documents), here's how the e-mail should have been:

Mr. Jobs then goes on to take the text from the attachment and put it at the bottom of the e-mail.

This really got under my skin for a couple of reasons. First, he clicked Reply All. Did he really have to let it be known to everyone how unhappy he was that she forwarded what was sent to her? Second, she is a volunteer! She is not getting paid to help the teacher that this guy’s kid is taught by and shouldn’t catch flack from some coffeehouse Mac lover (what a pretentious ass!).

So, it got me thinking. With all the ways we communicate electronically today, what are your greatest annoyances? (If you missed it, mine is when people use Reply All when they really need reply to only one person.)

-AbsolutGator

UPDATE: The dumbass did it again! The teacher assistant forwarded an e-mail attachement from the principal this time. He replied all what it 'should have looked like' and said 'your welcome' at the end of his e-mail. This makes me think of an SNL skit..."This guy needs a beatin'!"

The Ultimate Jets Fan Bride

So those of you who follow me on Twitter already know about the wedding I was in in NY on Saturday and the surprise that the bride had for the cocktail hour after the reception. I figured I would share it here though.
My brother in law got married on Saturday and we were all in the wedding. It just so happened that service was at 5 pm which was during the Jets - Bengals playoff game. Kim the beautiful bride is a huge Jets fan so as a show of solidarity for her team she came down for the cocktail hour (before the reception) wearing her Jets jersey of Mark Sanchez. I just had to get my picture taken with her and post these here:

Classic and a very beautiful bride too!!
BTW - Maybe the jersey brought the Jets good luck. They won the game and continue on in the NFL playoffs!

-Doc

Heather Mills strikes again!

Well, everybody's favorite token 'Dancing with the Stars' contestant has scored a new gig! After her recent public and trash-talken divorce from Paul McCartney, Mills will be one of the judges for the Miss USA pageant, on this Fri.

I have to admit...sometimes I am such a girl. I LOVE pageants! I love all the fancy dresses and silly dance routines. I know all the arguments against them: beauty not brains, scantily clad bodies on parade, yada-yada-yada! Who cares! Sometimes a little girl just needs to dream! (And little boys can fantasize)

So, dear readers, give me your thoughts? Is Heather really qualified to judge? Do you think pageants are fair, or silly, or fun, or whatever adjective you choose?

-As American as Apple Pie

#1 Binge Drinking State

Here's a little ditty that comes from my home state of WI. Now, most people know us for our cheese (ask me about fresh cheese curds sometime, YUM!!) or the cows. What they don't know is that we actually only hold the record for being #1 in Binge drinking. Now there's something to be proud of!!! However, back in my day, we didn't have keggers like this.

Since I work with Youth all the time, I can truly appreciate the sentiment that went into this article. I mean, really, that must have been a huge bummer for the police. Here they are, thinking they're going to bust a bunch of kids and instead got it thrown in their faces! It just proves what our society believes in how our youth act. I love that some of them proved the authorities wrong!

Now I'm not saying that there isn't rampant teenage drinking going on. That's where all the fun is! It brings back some fond memories of my late teen years (I was a late bloomer) of hanging out back in a coulee with a bonfire and music blaring out of somebody's supped-up second-hand car. Let me tell you, cold weather isn't the only reason Wisconsin teens keep a blanket in their trunks! Gives a whole new meaning to the term "tail-gating". Post your thoughts or share a story from your drinking days.

Cheers!

-As American as Apple Pie

Pictures from My Vacation

So, last week the family and I went on vacation to Florida and Georgia. We had a great time and saw a bunch of friends and family so I figured that I would share some pictures with my blog family. So here they are. (I think you can click on them to see full size)


Here is a picture of Absolutgator and I posing by this big cannon in St. Augustine Florida (the oldest city in the USA):
Here is Absolutgator holding my son Patrick and trying to corrupt him with Florida Gator non-sense. I had to take the gator head away from him:
Here are a couple of pictures taken in Tallahassee Fla at Florida State University. Patrick, Mommy, and I all enjoyed the FSU hall of champions. Got our picture taken with the Bobby Bowden statue, and even ran into coach Chuck Amato...Way cool!
Here are a few pictures taken in Panama City Beach. We went to "ZooWorld" which is this really cool little zoo they have there. If you are ever there I suggest checking it out. It would be worth your while. This pic is of Mommy, Patrick and I near the turtles :

My favorite animal that we saw at ZooWorld was this really REALLY cool Panther We were really close to him and he was stalking all over the cage and growling and stuff. It was GREAT. I think he just liked the Panther shirt I was wearing that day. (as you can see in the above picture) My wife makes fun of me because I took a lot of pictures of him, but what the heck I love Panthers:
Here I am holding my son and introducing him to Sydney the giraffe:
Here is a picture my wife snapped of me while I was taking a nap after all the kids wore me out. My little buddy "Thor" had curled up next to me:
Here is a picture of me holding my son in Newnan, Georgia near Atlanta at my sister's house:

Here is Patrick wearing his new FSU hat and playing with one of his toys in Georgia: Yes he tried to jump that ramp in the background, I have pictures of that too:

Those are some pictures of our great trip that we had last week. There are others but I didn't want to bore you all to death. I hope you like and of course I use any excuse to show pics of (in my humble opinion) "The cutest kid on the planet" LOL!

-Doc

"I woke up and I was walking"

You guys have heard a bunch of stories about Mt. Cat and I causing trouble. Today I am going to tell one on our buddy Absolutgator and explain why I will never willingly to go to Savannah, Georgia again.

St. Patrick's day 1996. I was living in Columbia, SC at the time and a former roommate of mine (and Mt. Cat's) Paulie, my buddy Absolut and I decide that we are going to accept an invitation I had of a place to stay in Savannah Georgia for what is supposed to be the largest St. Patty's party outside of Dublin. Absolut and Paulie meet me in Columbia and along with a girl I worked with at the time named Angela we all pile into a rental car and get on the road. We decided that I would drive down there because I knew where I was going and so I wouldn't have to drive later that night. On the trip down Absolut starts to drink a few so by the time we get to Savannah he is in full gear. This is where we meet Kelly whose place we are to stay at and her friend whose name I can't remember.

It's going to be party time. Angela doesn't drink and agrees to drive us all home. Excellent lets go party. Well as it turns out Kelly and her friend had been having a few before we got there and her friend ended up passing out and not going downtown with the rest of us. Kelly was in bad shape too but we all set off to go to downtown Savannah for this huge party anyway. During the ride Kelly is all over my hugging me and loudly whispering stuff in my ear and generally being very annoying. Absolut was very annoying too by playing with the radio and at one point tuning in an AM station that was just static. We were trying to find a place to park and it was really getting on Paulie's nerves. All he wanted was a few beers. After a few trips around the party section with no success in finding a spot to park and the drunks yelling Paulie and I had finally had it. We told Absolut and Kelly to get out of the car and assigned Angela to watch them and meet Paulie and I at the corner bar as soon as we could park. Of course we then found a space right away.

Now Paulie and I are really ready to party. We park and get out and head to the closed off bar street area where the party is to meet our friends. We weren't away from them 15 minutes, that's all. We show up at the appointed location and see Angela but no Ablsolut and no Kelly. We ask her where they are and she points to a bar. Wait right here for us and we will go get them! So Paulie and I wade into this mass of humanity and realize after another 10-15 minutes that we have no shot at finding them in this place we are going to have to wait for them outside and catch them as they leave. Fine, I want a beer.

Paulie and I get beers from a street vendor and decide to wait for them, because by this time Angela had disappeared too. Since we are at the arranged meet up site they would have to show up sooner or later right? Half an hour goes by... an hour goes by... Nothing. Keep in mind this was before everyone had cell phones all over the place and all we had was the phone # for Kelly's place and my directions there as well as the car keys. We started to get a bit concerned since we hadn't found anyone so we decided to call Kelly's house. We get her friend who is now awake and informs us that Kelly took a cab home and left us there. Where is Angela and where is Absolut? Who knows?

It's now 10:30 at night and we decide to go back to Kelly's house because at least Angela has the phone # and will wait for her call. Well she calls on our way there and says she is at "A very scary motel at the corner of JFK and Gardens, but there are two nice guys taking care of her." now starting to get really worried and fully sober Paulie and I go and pick her up and she tells us what happened. After they got out of the car Kelly and Absolut went into the bar and then Paulie and I went in after them. Apparently I just missed Kelly because she came out and took a cab home. Ok fine, no everyone is accounted for except Absolut. When was the last time she saw him? "Oh I was watching him and he picked up an empty keg and tried to throw it at a cop," she says in a very matter of fact manner. Are you kidding me? Please don't tell me that my buddy got arrested in Savannah, Georgia on St. Pattys day... We may never get him out.

Being good friends Paulie and I go to the police station and get the very rude desk Sargent to go through the 117 arrest records from that night and no Absolut. Wheew that was one little bit of good news but still has us no further to finding my one of my best buddies. What are we going to do? Well about 2 am we decide that we will walk over the town until we find him. We start with the party area. Going through the alleys and park benches where drunks are asleep and passed out and worse. We walked from one side of Savannah to the other. We walked until it got light outside. We did not find Absolut. We did find my cousin who happened to be there on break from school and said hi to him. We walked until 10 am when we decided that we had been about as good a friends as we could be and Absolut was a grown up and may have to find his own way home.

We had one option left and it was the option that I was dreading. We could call Absolut's mom. I did not want to be the one to call up and tell her that we were in Savannah Ga and misplaced her son, but I had no choice so I went ahead and made the call. She was not easy on me but after owning up that I was here and Absolut was not she told me that he had called her an hour before and he was at the bus station getting a bus ride back to Columbia. We found him just before he was going to board his bus. We asked him where the heck he been and what had done. He said he couldn't remember a whole lot (go figure right). He did have a pretty decent answer when I asked him when he realized that he was really lost. His quote to me was, "I woke up and I was walking."

I don't care what the enticement is, I don't ever want to step foot in Savannah, Georgia again for any reason and certainly never again on St. Patrick's day.

-Doc

P.S. 4:00 update - It seems that my trip to Savannah actually could have been worse. Check out this news story about what happened there this past weekend.... Yeesh

A funny from the past

For anyone who ever wondered about the strange sense of humor that Mt. Cat and I seem to share here is a quick story he reminded me of last week. I bet none of you guys find this nearly as funny as we did...

Years ago before we were roommates we were headed out to the store together to get some things before going to a party. (which is a story in unto itself - Ya'll will have to remind me sometime to tell the story of "Julie's cat") We went to a Bi-Lo over off of Albemarle Road in Charlotte for supplies. After we had checked out when we were leaving the store there was a Coke machine with a sign on it to indicate that it was out of order. Instead of saying that it simply said "B-R-O-K-E" I pointed the sign out to Vin who started laughing so hard that he was about to fall over. I said something like, "Awwww, poor little Coke machine is out of money and it's broke. Maybe we should give him some money to help feed his family since he is so broke. " As if it were panhandling on the side of the street. We howled with laughter. At the time it was one of the funniest things ever. I wish we had digital cameras back then to grab a picture for posterity. It's still funny to this day the mental image of the Coke machine with the sign saying "Broke" on it and all I have to do is say, "It was broke" to Vin and he knows exactly what I am talking about.

See I told you all that Vin and I share a have really odd sense of humor. Does anyone else find that funny or should we be committed?

-Doc

Lenten McSacrifice

Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent for a good innocent virgin Catholic boy like me. Well this time of year always reminds me of a funny story that happened many aeons ago when I was a college scholar in the foothills of the North Carolina Mountains. (Doc you know already where this story is going don’t you?).

Back in 1994, one of my roommates….lets call him Cory. Well that is his real name, so why not call him Cory? Ok, Cory was a good innocent virgin Catholic boy too. He put himself through school and worked full time while taking 15 odd credits a semester. He becomes an assistant manager at McDonalds. Certainly not the prestige as the CEO of Proctor & Gamble, but hey it’s noble for a 22 year old in Boone, North Carolina. Anyway, Cory was strapped for cash all the time. But luckily for him, as an assistant manager, he was able to indulge for free in the epicurean delights that McDonalds had to offer. So basically he began to eat McDonald’s food virtually every meal, every day. So much so, he acted as if he was addicted to their food. Sausage, egg & cheese McMuffin and hash browns for breakfast. Big Mac, large fries and apple pie for lunch. But for dinner he would eat light and just have a Crispy Chicken Sandwich and small fries. Yes he was Morgan Spurlock’s wet dream. And if I remember correctly, he hated coffee so he had soda for breakfast too. Not quite a South Beach Diet. More like a South Bronx Diet.

As Catholics, during Lent we are supposed to atone for our sins by not eating meat on Fridays. A sacrifice for Yahweh. Now it is the first Friday of the Lenten season 1994. So Mayor McCory and I that afternoon were getting ready to drive to his McDonalds store for dinner. Suddenly, Cory realized he had a dilemma. This is when Cory turned to me and uttered the following phrase that still haunts me to this day: ‘I can’t eat meat today so that means I have to eat a Filet O’ Fish’.

The operative words in this proclaim is ‘have to’.
‘I can’t eat meat today so that means I HAVE TO eat a Filet O’ Fish’.
‘HAVE TO’!

That is fucking scary.

Cory had no choice. He backed himself into a corner and had to eat McDonald’s contribution to seafood cuisine in lieu of beef or poultry. Cory sounded like a heroin slinger addicted to his daily needle blasts into his veins. He had become brainwashed by the fascist McReich of Ronald McDonald and Grimace. He must have been forced to read McMein Kampf by the Hamburgler. Judgment at Nuremburger. Poor Cory. I figured with his diet, he was not going to live past 35. A heart attack in waiting.

Where is Cory now you say? Well I lost touch with him. Last I heard he did make it past 35 and is married with 3 kids! I doubt he still eats Micky Ds as much anymore but the man sounds like he is doing quite well for himself. But whenever I go near I fish sandwich, my eyes welt for a man who was once a McMenu hophead.

- The Mountain Cat

Back from the dead....

At least I think that I am. I am feeling much better today. I got rid of my fever yesterday afternoon and was finally able to eat something. Thank you to everyone for the get well wishes.... Wheew I needed them. It seems that other than my wife and I at least 4 other people from our Super Bowl party on Sunday came down with the stomach virus so that may have been the start. (and no it was not from partying too much)

I am sorry that I have not been able to be on the computer much and I am sure I have missed tons on all your blogs. Leave me some comments and let me know what blogs I need to read to catch up.... other than all the stuff I need to catch up on here at work... YIKES!

Happy Thursday everyone. Oh and I think that Thursday random thoughts will actually turn into Friday random thoughts this week.

-Doc

The origin of The Mountain Cat

Back in 1972 in a small village known as Brooklyn, a baby was born that would usher in a new era and change the evolution of mankind as we know it. Well didn't I? Ok, ok, never mind.

My last name in Italian means Mountain Lion. But I morphed it into The Mountain Cat as my stage name. (And isn't Cat easier to spell than Lion?). Actually to be honest I don't know why I choose Cat over Lion. Personal choose I guess. But I do refer The Mountain Cat's origin from the Jerky Boys 1992 first prank phone call album where Tarbash the Egyptian Magician wanted to bring his mountain cat on stage to 'terrorize people' for his magic act (Listen here).

But I have to admit that I have turned The Mountain Cat persona into a bit of an obsession. I recently had my new iPod engraved ‘The Mountain Cat’s iPod’. Also, I did donate $25 to the Mountain Lion Foundation. (They sent me a thank you certificate which I framed). This organization protects these animals from hunters and poachers so they don’t become endangered. And I was really upset when during a game former Mets pitcher Turk Wendell wore a necklace of teeth from a mountain lion he killed in Colorado. That bastard!

But probably my most over the top moment was when I got a vanity license plate when I lived in North Carolina in the 1990s. To fit on the plate, I had to shorten it to 'Mt. Cat'. But unfortunately too many people were reading it as ‘Empty Cat’. Oh well, I still think it looked cool.








- The Mountain Cat