In The Name of Discipline?

The ads are appealing,  promises and guarantees that hard loving their teens would make them more likely to be good.    So many of their restrictions were flat wrong.  Using mail as a carrot stick was wrong on so many levels.   Subjecting them to strip searches and BCS,  were and are dehumanizing.    Add in lack of phones to parents and family,  and there is a great quotient for abuse.

“Parents teach children discipline for two different, indeed diametrically opposed, reasons: to render the child submissive to them and to make him independent of them. Only a self-disciplined person can be obedient; and only such a person can be autonomous.”
Thomas Szasz


Hey,  timeout was no big deal.   The backpacks were supposed to be 30% of their weight and the 70lbs they  bore is quite a bit more.   I have some links that are must reads,  because they talk about deaths and extreme physical abuse.   One Asian girl was thrown off a truck and died.


A movie called ‘Bootcamp’,  starring Mila Kunis pretty much sums up conditions and punishments doled out,  to intractible slaves (teens).    Besides the Cavity Searches and beatings,  make me think of Concentration Camps as to a catharsis from being out-of-control brats (which many were).

Abducting these kids with the permission of teens would be disallowed in the first place.  Called ‘Escorts’,  they would go to the kids and haul them off in handcuffs or being drugged,  ending up in some camp far away.   We treat criminals better than this.   Factor in some judges being paid to send kids off to jail or boot camps,  then how can that be right?



Thankfully the number of camps have been from like 18 to 3 camps and most have better safe-guards.   But while they do some things,  death is not among them.


Some of these kids are mentally ill and sending a kid who has real mental issues is a non-starter.


Misogyny 101. Rape is Rape





Nasty signs are depicting College Women as fresh meat!









Afterall, RAPE IS RAPE!

She Fell in Love. Can’t be help responsible!








(She fell in love in the first place)))














Dark Shadows Revisited – Building a Mystery

It was during the peak of the Vietnam War that a Soap Operative evolved from an ordinary into a cult classic.  I was only 10 years old and I crushed over the all girls but my favorite was the innocent Victoria Winters (Alexandra Moltke) who is still alive.

The girl is to the left is the fictional Sarah Collins,   the cherubic and sad victim of witchcraft in the series who is only about a year or two younger than myself.    She is 57.    On the right of course was the star-crossed maiden who was the focus of Barnabas Collins.   There was a bit of controversy over her,  that she played a dumb girl with no sense but Victoria was the innocence that seems out of vogue these days.

As an aside,  she was married to a famous man herself who was very rich and was suspected of murdering a past wife before Alexandra.  If I  am not mistaken he was a billionaire in the 70s.   But she was the glue along with Maggie Evans/Josette.     Barnabas tried to kill the evil witch Angelic,  but she put a curse on him and he turned to a vampire.

Angelic really screwed up his life and Barnabas was star-crossed  by the young beauties.


Who can blame him really?   The actors were recycled through the winding plots when the term ‘narrative’  hardly existed and purity of heart when in vogue.   Sadly the star whose real name is Jonathan Frid passed away in April 2012.    With his passing I felt loss,  both as Barnabas the vampire and the actor.    The cast members (those remaining) still collect royalties from fan clubs and appearances.

Shot originally in black and white,   which gave the macabre effect of something ancient and mysterious and even the cemetery seemed surreal.   The episodes had quite a few mistakes and fortunately they were not edited out.   I have the entire series on DVD which not ironically is in a coffin.    The feel,  the actual aura gives the viewer a sense of life and the death which are underscored as cast members die.

We are left to ruminate over the scenes and haunting music and the narration of Vicky.   Her voice portrayed a laconic yet powerful burst of other worldness.   It’s like dying yourself,   a tragic person trying to find love in the most strange and awkward.    It seems as Barnabas was coming of age despite his age and happiness just out of reach and you felt sorry for his pain and bad luck.

This was called the ‘Old House’ were some of the series darkest secrets,  with coffins and caveats and expiring young ladies and tragic children with melancholy natures and secrets too terrible for children so young.   Giving the idea of paradox and wistful associations.


This old house was a treasure trove of restless ghosts and troubled children while the young adult girls were the food of these particular gods.  As a virtual child myself when computers were like the size of  the WOPR on War games. (the movie).

The then young Vicky is around 67 and yet my affections have not changed and I am no stalker but I know I am not alone in that or the debates which naturally happen with cult followers,  Much like the survivors of Auschwitz,  the leading men and ladies enter for real into a place of dreams and conclusions.

Poor Vicky,  the girl who appeared on a teen magazine was actually younger the Elizabeth Stoddard who was supposed to be around 16-17.   So,  I guess my  be my way back to a time when I could be lost in nostalgia and pine for that kind of happiness that youth and dreams  confer.

As she was about to be hanged she disappeared.   She was kind of like a Jack in the Box with regards to séances and one has to wonder about the psycho-sexual component of the virgin’s predicament.     I think she was getting a bit anxious about being a seemingly helpless waif and wanted to move on.   These days she remembers this all a bit more fondly as I am sure the teen boys in the 60s and early 70s would and will appreciate.

So as we march to the Stairway to our own heavens,   we glide past signs and seasons to an inevitable end and if the journey is replicated by long dusky hallways and a row of doors on either side,  I will take what is behind door #2.  No reason but a spontaneous relish for the sublime and poetically sad riffs like a waning tide.   To a place where,  we are just long forgotten shadows and a dream to the newer batch of melancholy souls.









I want to shake you down. My child(ren) Love Story

I used to feel something.   Something like desperation.   

 We were like fugitives from another life, 

  riding the waves of orgasm and then

with little outlaws and outstretched fingers.  

The first blessing of two,   faded like a stranger, 

although I felt his spirit as he left,   saying “Dad do not worry.” 

I just had to say,  “Goodbye”,  because I really did love you both.

Then I told my lover,  “Little David is gone”.  

  I sat and watched as mother and child spoke silently, 

as only a mother can,  now—

  Another empty rocking chair creaked for the last time.

and the rocking chair sang a lullaby,   “Hush little baby,   don’t say a word”.  “

Surely as one ship sails from view,   another will come.   And it did.  

The news came about as a lighthouse parted the fog

but the jagged rocks once again appeared,  

 like little daggers that lined the halls,  

just getting their was perilous.   But the fury of the sea calmed, 

and another blessing appeared upon the stoop.    

But as one tragedy had faded,  another conspired,  

by this time mother and I were tired.   Little did I know or suspect,  

that the next day it was like a hole swallowed them both up,   

mother and child.    The twists and turns of this hallway with many doors, 

had very many vistas,    but some doors were locked.  

   Then one day some 15 years later,  an angel reappeared,  my daughter.  

A friend of my X said Rachel wanted her dad.  A tear and excitement

rocked me like a spewing volcano.  

   The  mother of my child was now no longer a harbor,  

but a battered port and Rachel,  my daughter,  paid for it.  

   The end of this story is a reunion that seemed like continuity.   

Like heartbeats over some rainbow,  the colors appeared brighter, 

than even before.    To hear my sweet day say,   “This was the best birthday of her life”.     I do

not know how to even express the waterfall of love that engulfed me.  

my story