MY LIFE - SEPTEMBER

Tuesday, September 26, 2000

I woke up at 8:50am today. I had to leave at 9:25am. It was crunch time in terms of getting ready for work. First, I ran over to the sink and washed my hair really quick since there was no way in hell I was going to get a bath in. Then I quickly dried my hair, found something that looked half decent to wear to work, shaved, got dressed, and was out the door at 9:30am. I got to work right at 10 and was not happy with myself as usual. I got in and was immediately filling scripts since Tom must not have felt like it today.

I also had a wholesaler order to put away and fill the scripts that we owed people on while trying to answer a phone that didn't really stop ringing early on. After about an hour, I finally finished putting the order away and waited for the rush that never came.

Sheesh has it been dead the last two days. I keep waiting for some sort of big rush that just hasn't come yet and it's left me wondering if it's coming tomorrow or Thursday. It better not come tomorrow because there's a chance we won't be open after 3pm. We have a pharmacist from 9-3, but from that point on it's up in the air. Of course, we won't find out until 2:30 either, but that's the way it goes, isn't it?

Thursday's truck day, so I don't need a rush then either. Something tells me it's going to be with 77 year old John Bedas as the pharmacist on Friday. Shit, last time I worked with him on a Friday, we did 45 scripts the first hour and were busy until about 3pm. It was non-stop that day. Then he went and blamed it on me for whatever reason. I came in early that day too. I was scheduled to come in at 10, but I came in at 9 because I had a bad feeling.

Now if I ever have a good feeling turn out to be right, I'll be happy.

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That's been the strange thing about me. Whenever I've had a bad feeling about something, I'm typically right. Whenever I have a good feeling about something, I'm typically wrong. That's just wrong if you ask me. Like when I was writing about my dad seeming awfully calm back in December and I said I had a bad feeling the night was going to be a long one? The next night was the night when the coffee table went flying, my mom got kicked, my dad got arrested, and I lost a day of work from being a wreck.

I had all sorts of bad feelings about most of the houses we were going to try and buy last winter. Anytime my mom came home with the news that she might have found something, I just got a bad feeling about it all. Almost every time I was right, except for the last one. That last one happens to be the house I'm living in right now. But I never had a good feeling on the bids.

Whenever I'm watching the Indians and they're losing late in the game, I get a bad feeling. Surely they won't come back, and most of the time they don't. So each time the ninth inning comes along and we're down, I almost don't want to listen anymore. I don't want to hear them lose another close ballgame.

But it's just a feeling and I really shouldn't get into so much. If I keep worrying about it, things will never change, will they?

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Feagler is at it again. He just can't seem to get off this whole "dirty rap lyrics is destroying our culture" argument, can he? Today he wrote yet another column dedicated towards this subject, so I've got a nice little response to him:

Dear Mr. Feagler,

Regarding your recent column in The Plain Dealer, in which you once again take offense to dirty rap lyrics from various artists, namely Eminem (who's an award-winner for a reason, mind you). I find it atrocious that you'd continue to link dirty lyrics to violence and the so-called decay of culture. I happen to be a 19 year old going on 20 who has listened to rap since I was 11. I am not running with guns, shooting people, and causing general chaos as you seem to think someone like me might be doing. No, instead, I'm working full time and going to school.

Each one of your articles seems to insinuate that young people who listen to rap and its dirty lyrics will be poisoned by their content. And while that's true of some kids who obviously haven't been taught very well by their parents, the sad truth for you is that many of us don't turn out to be menaces to society. You claim dirty lyrics are bad for children, but unfortunately, you've forgotten something.

Most children don't initially hear dirty words from rappers. They hear them from adults who swear just as much. I was in a grocery store the other day and for ten minutes, I listened to an older gentleman cuss continuously about the line in the store. He wasn't using mild language and he certainly wasn't quiet. Other adults swear all the time. The people I work with swear, and some of them are in their fifties and sixties. I probably swear the least among all of them.

Now another thing about this, many times, those who have done violent things listened to heavy metal and singers like Marilyn Manson. Blaming just rap is being narrowminded in this case because it isn't just rap, it's a little bit of everything in music and culture in general. Blaming Eminem must be the easy thing to do though, since he's always making noise. However, I've digressed.

Now I understand your concern over the lyrics and the excessive violence in rap songs. But, as much as you'll hate hearing me say it, it's free speech. Eminem and every other rapper can swear as much as he wants on a $17 album because someone will buy it. I'm one of them. If you don't want to hear it, don't listen to it. Ignore it. I'm sure even you're capable of doing such a simple thing.

You seem to think that people like me are going to be tragically deprived. How ludicrous is that? My tastes are certainly different from yours and I don't consider myself deprived. I haven't gone to the movies for three years now. I enjoy the older movies. I watched "Citizen Kane" and enjoyed it immensely. I don't need all the modern arts to sustain my life or make me feel that I'm being enriched. I'm as fed up with popular culture as the next person, but according to you, listening to rap will leave me deprived?

Mr. Feagler, please give me a break. You do have some points, but you have no right to say that all young people are deprived. You are doing the worst thing possible, and that's using a stereotype. It's up to the parents and the stores to be responsible about this, not people like you who just bemoan things you don't like.

Old folks aren't always right. Working in a pharmacy has proven that time and time again. Young folks are very rarely right. Going to high school and college has shown me that. However, that doesn't give you an excuse to blame rap for any misgivings that we may have.

Sincerely yours,
Dave Kreal
Cleveland, Ohio

Now, as you can tell, I've really had it with him. He continues to act like he knows everything, and as much as I'd like to have respect for the guy, it's really hard to have it when he's constantly putting my generation down. I don't like them any better than he might, but he can't blame what he thinks are our problems on rap music.

There are millions and millions of people who listen to rap who aren't replicating that lifestyle, yet he's acting like it's the other way around. He seems to think that anyone who listens to rap is going to go around and act like their favorite thug and shoot up every place they visit. Or we're going to go and treat women like shit all the time.

I'm not going to be doing that, so don't pull that stereotype out like you've been doing. It's not right and it's not fair to the millions and millions who aren't acting up.

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Tribe Watch 2000

Minnesota Twins, 2
Cleveland Indians, 4

Summary

The Indians scored two runs with two outs in the fifth inning on a walk by Kenny Lofton, a double by Omar Vizquel, and a single by Robbie Alomar. The Twins tied it in the the sixth on a home run by Torie Hunter, but the Indians regained the lead with a run in the seventh and a run in the eighth on Jolbert Cabrera's second career home run to make it 4-2. Chuck Finley pitched seven strong innings to get his 15th win of the year and Bob Wickman picked up his 13th save with the Indians.

Record

86-71