North Charleston Murder: The Thurber Brigade once more goes wildly off topic

If you’ve been following this blog for some time, you’ll know that occasionally it will take a slight side-step and discuss something other than relationships or the differences between men and women.  This happened after the Ferguson incident and so, for pretty much the same reason (I’m agitated about bad police behavior), we’re going off topic again. 

 As a writer it’s my passion to tell stories (Jay's Place) and when watching a TV show or movie mystery, I try to guess the outcome or perpetrator.  So here's a dramatization of what I have theorized happened in North Charleston on Saturday, April 4th.

The Players:

Policeman— Michael Slager

Victim—Walter Scott

On a cool spring night in North Charleston, Walter Scott is calmly driving down the street listening to the local news on the car radio.  Police officer Michael Slager notices him as he drives by his parked patrol car. The first thing Slager notices is that the driver has a very, very dark tan.  He then carefully scans the driver’s car and discovers it has a broken taillight.

Within minutes Slager has pulled over the car and told Scott to get out of the vehicle.  The two men are soon standing face to face.

“What you doin’ on my street, boy?” Office Slager asks.

“I’m just driving home from work,” Scott replies.

“Welp, ya’ll got a broken taillight,” Slager says sternly.

“Oh, sorry, but that is a minor thing. I’ll get it fixed tomorrow,” Scott answers.

“You talkin’ back to me *black person?” Slager said, raising his voice.

“Hey, don’t be a *jerk, man.”

Officer Slager becomes incensed at this blatant resistance to his authority and pulls his Taser stun gun off his belt.

“What you doin’ *man?” Scott asked.  “I ain’t done nothing. There’s no reason for that.”

This really inflames Officer Slager’s mood and he shoots Scott with the stun gun.  This hurts Scott and knocks him to the ground, but it also energizes him enough that he understands this could get a lot worse.

Scott jumps up and turns away from the policeman and begins to edge away. “Man, you *evil guy.  I can’t believe you shot me.”

“That’s right *dark-skinned person, you better run,” Slager sneers. “I’m going to shoot your sorry *black person ass!”

Scott begins to run as fast as he can, but as he’s still sore from being stunned, he can barely limp away. Slager pulls his service revolver and fires repeatedly in the back of the fleeing Scott.

Scott falls to the ground mortally wounded and Slager hurries to his position.

“Told you *black person. Now put your hands behind your back!” Slager shouted.

“Ahhhhhhhh,” Scott replied softly as he slowly lost consciousness.

Slager handcuffed the lifeless Scott, then noticed he had forgotten to bring his stun gun with him. He quickly retraced his steps, retrieved the stun gun and brought it back to the body of Scott and dropped it beside the corpse. 

Very shortly, a second police office arrives.

“God, I was so frightened,” Office Slager told the other policeman. “I thought for sure this guy was going to harm me. He was almost like a wild animal!”

More police eventually arrived and wrapped up the event in standard procedure. Slager continued to state how he feared for his life and filed a report attesting to that. Since the other officers believed him and didn’t believe any thing was out of order (as this sort of thing happens often with *dark-skinned men they told themselves) so all carried on with their usual lives.

Of course, unlike other situations, this one was filmed. Luckily, the person who filmed it was brave enough to release it to the public. Normally this can be a very risky business as many times the witness can become a victim too. Eventually the evidence became too overwhelming for authorities to ignore and so many days after the incident, Office Slager is arrested for murder.

And so ends our little dramatization.  Of course, this is just conjecture, but more than likely, something very similar to this transpired. Will Officer Slager be convicted of taking the life of an innocent, unarmed man?  If history is repeated, probably not. However, that may be a future tale for The Thurber Brigade.

* Colorful metaphors have been replaced with less offensive words

The Thurber Brigade apologizes for once more veering off the road of the War Between Men and Women and assures everyone that it will return to the straight and narrow soon. Um, maybe. 

Ahhh, James Thurber

Mr. Hyde visits the Thurber Brigade

While jogging through the greenbelt near my home I encountered three kids huddled around a broken toy guitar. It looked like one of those things that if you push a button it would play a song and the user could pretend to be playing that song. Basically, a visible air guitar.

Anyway, it obviously was not working and the kids were trying to fix it. There were two boys and a girl. As I drew nearer I could hear them and the girl wanted to take it to her Dad to fix. However, the large boy to the right of her thought by banging it on the sidewalk it would fix it. The girl protested vigorously but as she was much smaller, and the other boy was rather muted (probably fearful of the larger guy), the big boy prevailed and proceeded to bang the thing on the cement.

Of course it didn't fix it, and for all I know (I had run past them) it broke even more.

Now, before I go further, let me state that I often do my best thinking while jogging. My mind seems to clear from other things and I can meditate on things I believe important, or can delve deeper into philosophical thoughts. On this occasion, it was the latter.

As I continued down the green belt I thought how those children were the perfect representation of our society. The female a representation of reasonable thought, the smaller boy just like the masses that go along apathetically, and the bigger boy the typical male who believes force can solve everything.

For years I've postulated that our society advances by male and female working in tandem. The male is the wild stallion whose muscle can be used to build; the female, using reason, must tame the stallion so that his work can be productive. 

In a previous blog I mentioned how often women think men are childish when we males begin to jostle and elbow each other. This isn’t childish behavior, this is male behavior. We’re a much more aggressive species and it’s natural for us to use this aggressiveness. But I’m not going to rehash that thought.

No, I just wanted to point out along similar lines that men often think it’s reasonable to use force to fix things. A guy is making too much noise at the next table? Shout at him angrily to get him to quiet down. A cop encounters a man sleeping on the sidewalk where he shouldn’t be?  Kick him in the side.  A guy cuts in line? Push him violently out of it.  A dictator of a country gives the president the finger? Bomb the hell out of that country.  Okay, this last one is taking it to extremes, but you get the picture.

We guys like to use force.  Some might say we're violent, often evilly violent.  I don't think we're inherently violent, it's more that we're aggressive and sometimes can take it to extremes if not controlled.  We’re bred and taught this at a young age. If you accidentally break the lamp while running through the house, Dad will spank you to teach you not to be so reckless. If you want to impress your friends at school, you have to prove your physical prowess, either through sports or pushing that little guy into the locker.

So this is where women fit in the society equation. They must tame that wild stallion.  Instead of letting Dad paddle Junior, maybe she can get him to talk to the tyke instead. Explain how the boy must be more careful. 

When rough-housing between men begins to escalate, instead of egging their men on to teach the other guy a lesson (think bar fight), maybe the women could urge both men to calm down and think of the consequences.

When wars are going on, men on the front line dream of going home to their wives.  Wives of men in power can often open those men’s eyes to the suffering of the men on the front line.

I mentioned this before in a blog too, one of the best episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 involved women in power. They were space refugees looking for a new home. When asked why men were not in charge, the answer was: oh, no, men are far too emotional.

What I am getting to in all of this is that as much as I think it’s funny to talk about the differences between men and women, to point out the goofiness, bad habits and traits of each, it’s quite clear that men and women belong together as a team.

Humankind has made some amazing advancements over the centuries and it’s all because the stallion and the horse trainer worked together to make it so.

Oh, I will keep making fun of women drivers, keep pointing out the mixed messages we guys get from women and probably irritate one or two feminists in the future, but rest assured I understand how the game is played.

 

The Chili Parlor Incident

Close Encounter, Part II

In a previous blog,  "Relationship C.V.",  I discussed a few of my less-than-successful relationships.  Partly for entertainment purposes (admit it, you like to hear about other people's failures), but also to point out my knowledge of relationships.  These were relationships that didn't go the distance. This time I want to tell about a "near miss." A situation where I had the intention of starting a relationship, but it just never got off the ground.

This might be a continuation of sorts, maybe a series, as I also previously mentioned an encounter with a woman and how a music video actress reminded me of her. That incident (Close Encounters, Part I) could easily be labeled a "near miss" too because I was a misplaced phone number away from dating her.

When you think about a near miss, you can't really claim it is good or bad. This is because you can't predict the future or tell how the possible relationship would have turned out. You could have gone on and married the woman or just as easily she could have knifed you in the back in a fit of rage over one of your bad habits. It's fun to think about the possibilities though.


Years ago my roommate and I (I'm a frugal guy, so had a roommate to save money back then) had a habit of hitting the Texas Chili Parlor.  A great dive/bar famous for it's XXX chili. Yes, I would occasionally try the triple, it tasted great, but you obviously pay a taste bud price for the heat.

However, we didn't go for the chili, we went for the "Magnums." These were just rum, Coke and lime (yeah a Cuba Libra), but they used a great name to draw us in to imbibe. Or was it my roommate who made up that name?

So on one excursion a new waitress, Nancy, caught my eye. She was a petite blonde with incredible eyes, but more importantly, she not only put up with us two obnoxious guys, she seemed to like us.

When I say obnoxious, I don't mean the type who makes snide remarks about the wait staff or gets in fights with other customers. No, we were the types who spoke too loud, thought we were clever (although the comments were more weird then witty), and who tended to not leave. That's right, we stayed until they put the chairs on the tables and mopped around our feet. Sometimes the staff would say something, but usually, they just tried to drop coy hints (the chairs, mopping, etc.). After all, we were really good customers.

So Nancy put up with the goofy banter and also would join in sometimes. Slowly, but surely, I think my attempts to get her to pay attention to me beyond customer status began to pay off. I could tell because she began to tell us something about her personal life, even if we didn't ask.

Okay, you are probably asking "why didn't you pounce right away" after she began to make more obvious signs. However, first off remember the blog about signs.  Women can sometimes give really misleading signs (not to be confused with the blog about women misleading men).

Second, most of us realize that waitresses are trained in "professional courtesy." This tactic utilizes various techniques from the easy (smiling politely) to the ultimate (the "I'm a good buddy" technique).  So when I attempt to make first contact with a waitress, I'm a little more cautious about jumping in with my heart. Sure, maybe I'm a little shy too.

Finally, after numerous weeks of going to the Texas Chili Parlor, drinking way too many Magnums and gently prodding her to garner interest, I decided to dive in full steam. I'd ask her for her phone number.  On our third drink I told my roommate about my plan. As I rushed to finish my drink so we could call her over, I could see him thinking this over deeply. Oh sure, I should have seen the warning signs. For either of us, drinking a lot and thinking deeply was not a good combination.

I waved at Nancy and got her to come over.

"I wonder if you'd give me your phone number so I could call you sometime and maybe we could go try out some other place sometime or something sometime, you know." (What? you thought I had a smooth line? You haven't been reading these blogs).

Nancy smiled broadly, but before she could even begin to tell me her number—and I'm absolutely sure she was about to—my roommate blurted out: "No, what would be better is for you to give her your number and then she can call you when she wants."

Taken aback, she blinked unknowingly, not sure what to make of this. I on the other hand, having consumed several strong drinks (if they liked you, your drinks were stronger than normal) thought that maybe my roommate had a great solution. Maybe he had figured out the right scenario for this situation and wanted me to take advantage of it. I thought this even though he hadn't had a girlfriend in years and was not known as a person to seek out dates. He was basically the perpetual "Wing Man." So of course, I gave her my number. We had a few more drinks then stumbled home.

You know the outcome of this already though. I've mentioned this countless times with different links leading to verification that women do not make first contact. After a few weeks we went back to the Texas Chili Parlor and learned she had moved on. No one knew where she moved to, although they were sure she still lived in town. It didn't matter though as even if I had know where she worked now, it would be like starting over.

 

Possible outcomes from a near miss relationship

So once again, another near miss that could have lead to something really great. Oh, I could blame my roommate (notice how I have yet to say his name) but as I mentioned, since we don't know the future he might have also saved me from a grisly death.  Therefore I just look at this as another adventure on the relationship battlefront of the War Between Men and Women.

(This has nothing to do with the blog; it's just included to inflame those radical feminists who are stalking me and hate it when I include pictures of provocative females)

Cover Up!

Yet another Thurber Brigade Side-Step

Right before the release of SEX and the AMERICAN MALE, I did a lot of promotion activities to get people interested in the book. This included Twitter tweets (w/pix) such as:

 Coming soon to eBook stores: SEX! (well, SEX and the AMERICAN MALE) A funny, satirical book, sadly, w/o SEX

And also FaceBook posts like this:

Very soon, you'll be able to buy SEX online! That's right, my next book is called: SEX and the AMERICAN MALE. So soon you'll be able to tell your friends that you got SEX for less than 2 bucks! ($1.99).

Almost immediately I began to face online assaults by a few radical feminists who had been stalking me online. I think they had become inflamed after my blog about women drivers.  They sent me tweets like this:

 

Apparently they thought I was promoting sex to the students I advise. I mean real sex, not my book SAM (my abbrev. for the book).  They hadn’t bothered to read any of my posts which clearly stated what I was pitching, nor read some of the details of the upcoming release.

I also discovered that they had also impugned one of my previous eBooks TAX BREAK because it has a racy cover.

I assume (I have done my best not to contact them to verify) that they didn’t like the image of a semi-nude female on the cover. Even though you don’t see the naughty bits (clever Monty Python reference) it must have inflamed their feminist angst that tells them any time a man uses an image of a female it is sexist.

Now, I’ve already blogged about how many people don’t seem to understand the difference between Sexism and Sexuality. So I won’t rehash that, but I will point out that some of the steamiest book covers come from the fertile minds of women.  Do radical feminists get upset with pictures of a semi-nude Fabio? I doubt it.

So anyway, to hammer the point home, here are a few book covers by women. I promote them on Twitter, so encourage you to check them out and buy them, but I think you’ll get my point. Yes, some include pictures of women as well as men in provocative poses. 

So SEX and the AMERICAN MALE seems rather tame to me. You should pick up a copy though, for although it might not have any hot, steamy sex scenes, it is pretty funny.

(some images courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/)

What did he say?

Okay, admittedly it's been a bit since The Thurber Brigade traveled down the path of relationships, but bear with me for one more blog about SEX. 

Of course, by that I mean SEX and the AMERICAN MALE.  For those who skipped the last blog (shame on you by being scared by the title), here's a little description:

Take a zany trip through American culture all within the pages of SEX and the AMERICAN MALE. Zack Hardiman loses his mind one day after he discovers he doesn't own a single T-shirt or magazine that isn't covered with advertising. After a short rehabilitation in Doctor Thomas’ World Famous Mellow Recovery Sanctuary, he begins an adventure to explore American life and soon discovers how advertising, politics and mindless sloganeering permeates and controls every aspect of our lives.

In SEX and the AMERICAN MALE everything is fair game in this quick, fun read as the author parodies and satirizes everything from America's fascination with massive gas-chugging autos to science fiction conventions.

Makes you want to log on to Amazon.com right now and buy it, doesn't it? Whatever.

That was a sly nod to the book by the way. I throw in a "whatever" now and then as a slight stab at Americans who use it relentlessly and usually as a form of conversational surrender.

The real purpose of this blog though, is so I can make up all sorts of silly statements readers of SEX and the AMERICAN MALE can make by being in possession of this funny, thigh slapping tome (did that description convince you to buy? Just $2 at Barnes & Noble)

Once you get SEX you will be able to impress your friends by saying:

• “Yes, I really enjoyed SEX last night.”
• "Sex last night was fantastic!"
• "Of course I enjoyed SEX on my flight to LA."
• "I have a little SEX every night right before turning off the light."

You can also try to make those relatives you are not fond of having over feel a little uneasy by casually saying these phrases:

• "My friends and I really enjoyed SEX last night—together."
• "My biker boyfriend and I so enjoyed SEX this afternoon, we may tackle it again tonight after you leave."
• "I laughed a lot during SEX the other evening. Your daughter did too."
• "The cops would probably be upset if they knew I was enjoying SEX while driving."

As you see, the funny and maybe a little bizarre statements you can make if you own a copy of SEX and the AMERICAN MALE are endless.  So buy a copy today (still just $2 at KOBO) and come up with your own SEX phrases.

Oh, did I mention the SEX FaceBook page? Surf over to it today and "like" SEX.

An Apology: I want to take this final moment to apologize to those readers who believe I am making fun of them because they might be a little queasy about seeing and reading the word SEX over and over.  Or to those who think I'm using it as a blatant ploy (like the advertisers I chide in the book) to get people to read this blog.  I am of course, but nevertheless, sorry.

SEX! This blog is all about SEX!

The Thurber Brigade takes another side step

Okay, this blog isn’t really about SEX. I’m sorry if I have evilly lured you in by using SEX in bold nearly ever sentence and in the title.  Why, it’s almost as if I’m using the word SEX to try to get people to do something like read my blog. Yeah, that’s evil.  I’m really writing about:

That’s right, I have a new eBook coming out shortly titled SEX and the AMERICAN MALE. It’s a humorous, satirical book about American culture and the running joke is that the author (me) keeps mentioning SEX all the time to make a point.

Here’s a snippet of the book’s description:

SEX and the AMERICAN MALE is a satirical jab at how advertising, politics, greed and more overwhelm the public and shape our society. This humorous book parodies everything from advertisements that use sex to sell massive gas-guzzling cars to mindless political parties and juiced-up science fiction conventions.

In other words, SEX sells.  Advertisers know that we humans, especially us male humans, are driven crazy by SEX.  Just seeing the word SEX makes us start to fantasize about all sorts of things and so they’ll use it to link to their product. So you may now be thinking about SEX, but also in your subconscious is that fancy new auto or beer. That’s why they don’t use Martha your 6^th grade teacher as a model in their ads, they use Bridget, the wafer-thin sex-pot model in a bikini.

Even though the woman actually sitting next to you in the car will invariably look more like Martha, the ad will still use Bridget to lure you in and seal the deal.

However, I don’t just make fun of advertising in SEX and the AMERICAN MALE. I also skewer greedy corporations, all the political parties and politics, mass consumerism, American greed, and of course, everyone’s short attention span.

HEY! SEX! No jumping over to that other person’s blog. Sheesh. I’m almost done you can hang around a little longer.

Anyway, I even wrap up the thing with “Clif Notes” (yes, I purposely misspelled that) to make fun of those of us who would look for a shortcut to reading the book we’re assigned in English class. In other words, I sort of spill the beans about what the book is about in my “Clif Notes.”

Two other great parts about the book:

1) I start the thing with an Ode to Douglas Adams. I began this book as a tribute to him, a sort of “Hitchhikers guide to American Culture.” With luck, the ode even sounds like his style of writing.

2) One of the main characters, and probably the most honest, is a group of microbes who make the main character go crazy. I even gave them their own chapter.  You’ll love them too after you read about them break dancing around, drinking Pepsis and singing in high pitched voices. Ahhh.

So be on the lookout for SEX and the AMERICAN MALE. It’ll be on sale shortly at all those fine eBook seller websites and will cost you less than $2!

Plus, once you buy a copy, you’ll be able to tell your friends things like:

“Yes, I enjoyed SEX last night.”

Or allude you’ve joined the “Mile High” club:

“Man, did I enjoy SEX on my last flight to LA.”

So get you some real soon.

I had to include a least one picture like this because, well, I always do. Plus, you are not going to find any in SEX and the American Male. You should buy it anyway.

(some images courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/)