Four Beads: My Brief Tenure In Indian Guides

I did not do Boy Scouts. I had no interest. All the kids at my school who did Boy Scouts were bad at recess football and when you are in second grade this is how decisions are made.

Kids who were good at recess football did Indian Guides. I don’t want to overstate my ability at recess football, but I’ll say this: I did Indian Guides.

Kids do Indian Guides with their Dad. I had a Dad. Indian Guides had a lot of weekend outdoor activities that required camping. I had the wrong Dad.

My Dad did one event. We had to set up a tent on the beach. He had no business being this bad at setting up a tent. I went through my entire life avoiding camping because of how hard he made setting up the tent look. A tent is a couple rods and a tarp and it broke him.

With another father’s help he got the tent set up and then it was like, waiting for darkness? Camping never made sense to me. It eventually got dark. We sat around a fire and sang with other sons and dads. We also did a bunch of weird--by weird, I mean extremely made up and inappropriate--native american rituals. It would be like if aliens wiped the human race off the map and then every weekend went to the wreckage of a once standing strip mall and pretended to be us. 

My Dad and I watched these CFOs and divorce lawyers pretend to hold a Chiricahua tribal council. The bonding my Dad and I had was in quietly acknowledging to one another that this was very stupid. Eventually we got spared from nonsense and we got to go back to our tent for the night. 

We did not stay in the tent for long. My Dad set up camp on the side of a sand hill so we were sleeping on a slope. We also didn’t establish a Don’t Kick Sand in The Tent policy so the floor felt like the inside of a bathing suit. Small militias of sand got everywhere. Every two seconds I was getting out of the tent to walk to the water and flush the sand out of my eyes. I would come back and kick more sand in the tent. We did this for a couple hours until I heard my Dad say, “I’ve had enough of this shit.” He and I got out of the tent. He ripped apart the tent enough to pack it into his car and we bolted back to our real home.

Each Indian Guides family got a “spirit animal”. Each member of the family would then throw a fun little thing in front of it. Like, if your family was the Bear family you could be Strong Bear or Happy Bear or something else that is probably offensive.

But I wanted that poorly made up, offensive Native American name. I wanted to be able to boil my family down to one animal. But the James family wasn’t in Indian Guides long enough to get an animal. Camping on the beach was too much for the patriarch of the James family to endure. Hanging his head in shame, he brought me to what amounted to the Indian Guides orphanage and left me at the front steps. In reality he brought me nowhere. He sent an email.

I was Indian Guides Adopted by the Wilkinson Family. They were Owls. My friend JoJo was Spotted Owl. His Dad was Strong Owl. I was Keith Owl because I did not speak up about my desires.

The next event was a camping trip in Borrego Desert. Strong Owl got the tent set up real nice. We did some hiking. I ate a Lunchable. I was really getting a taste of the southwestern Native American culture.

When it got dark all the Dads did their fake tribal stuff, we sang songs, but we did this one activity that I have brought up to like, three separate therapists. It was this bead trading activity where each kid gets five beads and then you get to trade your beads with other people. All kids got FIVE beads. My socialist, liberal montessori school raised brain was like, we are all going to walk out of this shit with FIVE beads. The beads will change, to be expected with trading, but we will all walk out of here with FIVE beads.

NO. As soon as the event started, some parents started giving their kids MORE BEADS. So I am trading with kids who have whole Ziploc bags of beads. And some of these kids had shiny beads. We all wanted shiny beads. The kids who stuck to their government-funded beads did not have any shiny beads. The kids with shiny beads either wanted more shiny beads or wanted you to give them multiple beads for shiny beads. So we are moving past one-for-one bead trades. I had to make a tough call. 

I decided to get emotionally attached to my original five beads. I was UNDERSTANDABLY INFURIATED that these asshole fathers fucked up this fake Native American tradition, but I made peace with the situation. 

Sort of. When the activity ended I had four beads. Somebody stole one of my beads. My adopted Dad, Strong Owl, did not understand why this was a big issue. He was like, “Just get a bead from JoJo (Spotted Owl). He has a whole bag of beads.”

SPOTTED OWL HAS A BAG OF BEADS AND KEITH OWL HAS FIVE BEADS? DO WE NOT FEED OUR SONS EVENLY FROM THE SAME BEAD BOSOM?

Spotted Owl did not give me any of his beads because they were, and I quote “His beads.” I left Borrego Desert with four beads. All of my therapists agree that this is sad. 

I am classified as an adult now. I STILL think that no one should have given their kid more beads than anyone else. I STILL believe that every kid should have walked away with five beads. But I know as an adult that the world is not built to accommodate these measures.

In some sense, I’m still trading beads. I have seen enough to know that I had a bag of beads bigger than most. I’ve also had a lot of beads smacked out of my hands during a few horrible life events. Some beads are mine and I can’t really trade them and they give me more advantages than others. Guess what color those beads are.

I am going to have a kid soon. My kid is going to run into bead situations her entire life. And I honestly don’t know what to teach. Do I give her a big bag of beads? Do I teach her to steal beads? Do I stand next to her and make sure every deal she is making is fair?

Beads, man.

Ron’s Real Estate Rundown: Major Life Update - I Menopaused Big Time

Hey everyone. Sorry I haven’t been super active on the blogs. I promise that I will get back to giving you insider insight on the San Clemente real estate market. The fact of the matter is that I had a major life shift. I menopaused in a massive way and it’s changing how I function in society.

Full back story: a couple Tuesdays ago I didn’t feel one hundred percent. I was driving. I had to stop driving. I pulled my Nissan Xterra over to the shoulder of the interstate. I killed the engine. I felt a hot rush and my leg kind of cramped up. So, I knew. Menopause.

My wife is skeptical. “Jerry, you are not going through menopause.” But I am. I’m sure of it. She says I am sure about a lot of things that are incorrect or not real, but this is different because my body is beautiful and changing. She says I use that argument too much. Whatever. She’s alone in this fight at home because my kids love it. They get to leave school early to take photos of me at the beach. I wear all my turtlenecks and I stare at the sunset. They capture my golden years. It’s beautiful.

My friends could not be more supportive. It’s nice to have good friends when you are going through menopause. They took me out to a couple bars for some drinks. They met some women, but honestly, you would have had to tell me they were women because I’ve lost all sexual instincts. Having the hostess explain all the artwork around the bar was enough of a rush for me.

Menopause is a mixed bag, but I really lucked out. It’s been great. I purchased an oversized Tweety Bird shirt and I joke with my wife how much my feet hurt. She doesn’t joke back but I’m at an age where I’m very secure with myself and my sense of humor. It’s wacky. It’s me.

I haven’t been going to work that much. I can work, but I’m having trouble finding room in my schedule to get a day in at the office. Between pottery auctions in Santa Fe and thinking about trips to Aruba, I’m booked.

Son, Please Bring The Trash to The Front of The Driveway

My son. Today will be different than the other days. Today, your protests will not work. You will bring the trash to the front of the driveway.

This is not “the worst thing ever.” My son. There are things in this life that if you had to endure, would cripple you. If taking out the trash cripples you, you were meant to be crippled.

Last week, I asked you to bring the trash to the front of the driveway. Do you remember what you said? I do. You said that if you had to bring out the trash, you would steal my credit card and go to Logan Paul’s suicide forest and kill yourself. You would let a strange stumble upon your hanging corpse. Yet, you caved. You brought the trash to the front of the driveway.

Here we are, a week later. How was your suicide? You are weak. Pause your game, Brandon. If the game can’t be paused, then turn it off.

I was thinking about my father recently. You remember Gramps, don’t you? We went to Vermont to attend his memorial. When me and the other pallbearers brought my Father’s casket in, you honored him by doing the latest Fortnite dance. Very tasteful. Then, when my mother--grief-stricken from losing her husband and friend of 60 years--couldn’t remember the WiFi password to St. Paul’s Catholic Church, you admonished her, saying under your breath that she was being “such a fag.”

When I watched my mother recoil in pain from your awful words, I started to think: one day I will be close to death. And, if my son manages to attain some morsel of human dignity, he will be at my bedside. And I hope my final moments will be remembering the few good moments in his company.

But I’ll be honest, Brandon. I will only remember moments like this: standing in your bedroom doorframe, pleading that you stop failing to be a man, and take the trash to the front of the driveway.

Now, I will no longer plead. You will take the trash to the front of the driveway. You will take the trash out every Thursday night until you leave my house. When you have your own house, you will take the trash out there until you are lucky enough to have a child of your own.

And I hope they are like you, screaming racial slurs into a video game headset and treating every adult like their biggest inconvenience. I relish the image of you pleading with your horrible spawn:

Son, please take the trash to the front of the driveway.

Big Sexy Hollywood Story

I’m nineteen. Spent my life working on a farm. Took a girl out on a Friday night. Saw a movie. His Girl Friday. Clark Gable. I knew I had to leave this shithole.

I’m on a bus. Headed for LA. I got six-pack abs and blue eyes and I want a piece of what Gable has got. Didn’t kiss my girl goodbye. Didn’t have the guts.

Get off the bus. I’m surrounded by palm trees and girls in bikinis. A newspaper hits me in the face. I open it. An audition for a big movie. Two blocks away.

I make it just in time. No one is in the lobby but me. I sit for two minutes. Long enough for someone to walk by me and tell me I’ll never make it in this town. I think about the farm.

Some guy calls me in. Three people are in the room. I tell them my name. They ask me what monologue I would be doing. I don’t have one. I tell a story about my father waking up at four AM to start his day. How he would kiss my mother on the forehead.

They stop me. Give me a five-picture deal with Paramount. Five million dollars up front. Cool.

I head to my new LA house. Ten bedrooms. Don’t know which to choose. I’m alone. I choose the master bedroom. Makes sense.

My phone rings. I pick it up. My agent’s on the other line.

Get your ass to the lot. They want you in The Godfather.

I shower. Call a limo to the Paramount lot. What a grind.

I get there. Head of the studio tells me I’m getting looked at for Michael Corleone. But wait. I got competition. Al Pacino. He’s big-time. I’ve been in LA for thirty minutes. I’m cooked.

His phone rings. Bad news: Al Pacino was helping a woman across the street and got hit by multiple cars. Dead before he hit the ground. The head of the studio throws me the script and tells me to learn my lines. I get back in my limo and head home.

I finish the script before I get back to the house. Good, not great. I call the studio.

“I don’t want any men other than myself in this movie. Brando. Caan. Duvall. Get them the fuck out of there. This is a movie for women.”

I give them a list of names.

“Streep. Goldberg. Davis. Also, take out the violence. All the conflict in this movie can be avoided if everyone talks it out.” Now that Pacino is dead I’m the main guy in this town, so they feel my weight. I don’t know if I’m making the right call, but this business is about feeling.

I was wrong. The movie made no sense. The violence was important. The movie ended up being twenty-eight minutes long.  My deal with Paramount is torn up. I’m thinking about the farm again. Woe is me.

I take a breath. I jot some things down. I look down at the paper after I’m done writing. It’s the first draft of the screenplay Star Wars. Seems fine. I call my agent. I tell him I wrote Star Wars. He says he’ll run it up the flagpole, but he doesn’t think anyone will bite.

Someone bites. I get 200 million dollars for the script. Phew. Things are looking up.

They say wait. You gotta direct.

Direct? Fine. There’s always some kind of catch in this town.

I show up to the lot. First day. Producers give me notes.

Luke can’t say no to Obi Wan Kenobi. He has to leave his planet and do other stuff. I say “No.” The movie is about farming. It’s my life, but in space.

They don’t bite. I’m kicked off the set. I go see the movie a year later. They were right. He had to leave. People don’t want to hear about some kid on a farm. I’m torn up. I try to blow my brains out. I miss.

Close call. I cool off. I write and executive produce Dallas for thirteen years. I do coke and sell coke and start a gang that likes to do all those things, too. The guy in the lobby was right, I’ll never make it in this town.

I get caught selling cocaine and being in a gang. I go to jail. Life. Before I get to my cell on the first day inside, I’ve had sex with a bunch of guys and I am the top dog in prison. But I just want to sleep.

I get a call. Two kids are on the phone. Hollywood types. I laugh. Hollywood is never through with you. The two kids want to write my story. Farm boy turned drug kingpin.

I got a better one. How about two kids from South Boston. One of them has a therapist he doesn’t like but then he ends up liking him. Also, math.

They bite. I don’t know how the movie does, but every month I get a little cash put on my account. Helps me buy toilet paper to wipe my ass.

I run prison, but I am rotting as a person. Really sad stuff. I try to hang myself but my bunkmate never sleeps. Keeps catching me in the act. We hug and cry and I never get any closer to kicking the bucket.

Twenty-one years later, my cell door slides open. I’m free to go.

Why? Bunch of Hollywood types got together to spring me out. Said I was wrongly convicted. I wasn’t, but I know when to keep my mouth shut in this town.

Limo picks me up. I get in. Good drive. Driver is nice. Black guy. I say to him, “Imagine if I was black and you were white.”

Boom. Lighting from above. I jot some things down, and, yeah.

Green Book.

Lessons from My Father, Who Hung The Shen Yun Posters

My father would wake me each morning before the sun broke the horizon. In the dark, I would find my day’s clothes. I would walk softly down the stairs as to not wake my mother or sisters.

My father and I sat at a small table in the kitchen and hung our heads in prayer. Over my father’s whispers, I could hear stalks of tall grass touching softly in the wind. We would eat in silence.

When our plates were clean, we left our family home. We would not return until dark.

During the day our Lord gave us, our fellow countrymen fought and died to keep free, my father and I would go from sandwich shop to sandwich shop, and hang Shen Yun posters.

When I became old enough for school, I was old enough to hang Shen Yun posters, and hanging Shen Yun posters is all I have ever known. My hands grew hard and sticky from paper cuts and bits of tape. Every night my mother would rub lotion on my father’s raw stretch marks from reaching towards the tops of store windows. His low, man-style cries would shake our Christian home.

There would be days that ran too long for a body to take. During those days, I would turn to my father helming the wheel of his old Chevy pickup and ask, “Why?”

“Why do we hang Shen Yun posters?”

My father’s eyes would grow soft and wet. They would narrow and set to the road ahead. After pushing down the lump in his throat, he would speak.

“Not every family can strike oil or sell barley to Budweiser. And we ain’t never been much for computers. But my father, and his father before him knew hanging Shen Yun posters. And what you know is how you live.”

We made no money hanging Shen Yun posters. Every morning we ate pieces of the FedEx box the Shen Yun posters came in, and drank pee-pee from our own weiners. What we did not eat of the FedEx box we gave to my mother and sisters.

Just like the man assembling a car for a wage that could never afford him one, my father never saw Shen Yun. And neither will I. But like my father, Shen Yun posters is what I know. And like my father, I will drag my broken body up the stairs of our family home to wake my son, so he can hang Shen Yun posters.

In the quiet of our prayers and the tranquility of our pee-pee drink time, he will embed himself in the roots of his family’s purpose: that he is to rise each morning, and hang Shen Yun posters.