Merry Holidays!

                   Fifty Christmas: Hand Held to cynical. Part one.
                                       By Mark William Darus.

　

This Christmas I was given a view to see xmas’s past.

Perhaps it’s the medications working, but my memory seems to be able to run backward over time on a single day of recurrent memory.

Christmas day.

As tiniest memory took hold, I so remember the smells of childhood.

My older and sisters and I would desperately wait at the top of the stairwell for mom or dad to give us the ‘all-clear’ to run down and see what Santa left for us. The smell of English Tea always hit me first. Mom would make me warm tea in a Skippy Peanut butter jar. She’d make it for me with the right amount of sugar and milk. Delicious!

We’d run down the stairway, and through the childhood view of things, see the same things we saw the night before. Colourful room of magnificent splendor where all things looked brand-new to us. Packages shining against a fake fireplace.

Setting the wayback machine, Sherman.

I remember Christmas eves with my fathers mother. Besides funerals and weddings, this was the only time there’d be a gathering of the Darus’. The food was always great, and though my elder sisters have a different memory of this, I was still happy to see my cousins and uncles.

Their memories became twisted with their experiences and should be seen as real to them. I being younger saw things through lens’ vastly different and much less cynical then theirs.

I was about 6-8 then.

Granted at that point I had a knowledge of death. My dad faced his first heart surgery that back in the late 60’s to 70’s was a 50/50 shot at best.

Death? Well, that was when the nightmares become real when you awake and all you love is gone, right?

　

So many xmas days I’d run downstairs to see what Santa left for me.

More Importantly to me: How my dad and I would put them together to make work! Slot car sets, train tracks, Lego, Lincoln Logs and Erector Sets. During this wondrous point, my father and I would meet and work together. He’d give me his time, so incredibalbly important looking backward, so blown off by me back then. Sometimes hitting the rewind button hurts.

One of my fondest memories was that of my father and I building an Eldon Slot car set around 1970 or so. Wide track like that of Carrera 1/24 Scale. Cars would fly off the track and he’d laugh at me as hit the throttle too strong.

Years later, he’d get me a Tyco set. It would take he and I hours to make the track. So patiently we, by his guidance, would place the guardrails on the corners to keep the cars from blasting into the otherness of living room furniture and dogfood bowels.

End of Part one…

　

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Mark William Darus. 12252012

Earth Angels: Those that see and respond.

                            
                Finding self while walking with Strangers: Earth Angels
                                         By Mark William Darus.

　

I awoke about 3pm this afternoon. I let the dogs out and while doing so, filled their food bowls. Both dogs romped about on the white surface of the snow and seemed happy in doing so. As they did so, I replaced my sleep clothing and donned items more suitable for the outside world.

I brought the dogs in, gave them snacks and they ate as I left the house.

Chilly air hits me as I walked to my truck. Brisk air, biting at the nose as footfalls create a ‘crunching’ sound with each step forward.

I look about me. A film of white covers objects of steel, raised concrete and wood.

A season attempting a foothold over the land. Wishing for its rightful place here at this time, taking baby steps to later walk and reach a full run.

I start my truck and open my gates. I glance at my tiny pond, not frozen, I feed the fish in it.

I reenter my truck, back out and head to the ‘Morning Store’ where I have gotten coffee from for over 18 years. Best coffee in Tremont, Cleveland Ohio: Tremont QuikMart.

Having coffee that I take a huge swig of, I light an L&M with full inhale, and begin to drive.

It’s always fun watching people develop ‘winter feet’. That area where they acclimate themselves to driving their vehicles on ice.

I go by the West Side Market area of Clevelands Westside. Bustling with life and energy as people happily walk about visiting it’s many bars and restaurants. Long-haired blonds with skinny legs, men in t-shirts, brunettes in low-cut tops. Nice.

I decided to hit the upper area of Edgewater Park. This became very interesting indeed. Apparently the salt trucks did not visit here. I saw tire tracks aiming at trees, utility poles and sidewalks.

                       

Speed limit 10MPH. No shit, I did about 5MPH and spun out twice. There is something to be said about the sensation of losing control of a two ton object at such a low speed. You truly view things a tad different with each near miss of a curbs, trees and poles. My breathing and heart rate stayed the course as I powered my Trailblazer forward.

I cackled like some child on Xmas day getting a slot car track with each close call avoided.

Eventually finding a place to park, I gulped a beyond large swig of coffee, it’s spillings covering my grey beard and dropping to my lap, creating a familiar warmth.

I set my camera in place after wrapping her leash several times around my right arm and left my truck.

　

Ignorantly wearing a baseball cap instead a head covering worthy of this time of year, I walked on.

Looking around me I was immediately held by a beauty that can only be seen this time of year here. It’s ability to be cold in air, stark displaying of leafless trees against foreboding skies and yet bring a warmth of heart reaching the mind.

Oh yeah, I was psyched for this.

I started firing shots left and right. I saw a family sledding and spoke to them.

Watching their children thundering down the slope, their parents cheering them on, sharing words between us. Seeing their children pulling plastic sleds behind them, their massive smiles, I could feel their tiny hearts pounding violently in their chests. Triumphant, exhilarated, wanting another turn at bat, another round. C’mon mom/dad, just one more time!

These things hit me hard. I don’t know why though. I soon walked away.

I leaned against a tree and lit a L&M. The tree was icy and leaning against it soon took me downward. Gravity works and in little time I was on knee and one foot. Being someone that has never really hated the feeling of falling since I learned how to ski in the ninth grade (thanks Mom!) I let myself fall down.

When I hit our great Mother Earth, I saw this, and took a shot.

This was the beginning of a sunset that has me writing this entry.

　

How’s that for windy intro? Yes, I know, I do get highly wordy and most gusty in my mental tossing’s here as well as on Facebook. Well, perhaps not so much on Fbook as here…

　

Wrong hat on head, tiny winds blowing across Lake Erie slowly numbing my earlobes, I strolled across crispy ice covered grass.

CRUNCH-CRACKLE-CRUNCH: Each footfall took me further on with the sounds of car horns above me. There were no birds chirping, no gulls crying yet the sounds of jets heading toward Hopkins chimed overhead.

Vibrant nature captured me. Bare lonely limbed trees, water crashing over cold rock with the background of changing skies of shades of greys and blues. I’ve always held the changing of seasons in my city by the lake. This year I can try to capture the miniscule moments once again.

I thank my god of “otherness” for this. When I say ‘otherness’ it may be the same god you pray to. Any of you that have read my blog knows my thoughts. What you have as a higher power is what you have. Makes no difference to me as I don’t judge. I don’t judge your country, nationality, creed or anything. Atheists to me are the same as anyone else.

We all share this place. We all work, and sometimes don’t, with one another. We talk and walk with one another, share close space in check out lines, bump into each other at gas stations, and tend to all agree over increasing prices.

We’re connected and are one, whether we like it or not.



Sorry about that, I do off on tangents that seem to only make sense to me alone.

　

I start pumping pics. I walk down an odd set of stairs and hit a beach I have never seen.

I find a fallen tree over the sand and begin to fire more photos.

“Are you okay?”

\ I hear a womans voice from nowhere. I thought I was like walking on the moon here, alone.

There is a lady and her man, arm in arm, looking at me. Behind them is a snowy white blanket against rock and dead trees.



“I’m, fine. Isn’t this gorgeous tonight? Why do you ask?”

“You’re crying.” she says. Her man shares an expression of concern.

Concern?!?!?! My mind runs on this one. Concern, over me??? I do inventory with my free left hand, my right holding my camera. I discover their fingertips hitting water that seems to be coming from my eyes. Startled, I step back in shock and hit the wet sand with my ass after stumbling over a fallen log.

“Are you okay?” her man asks this time. They pull each other closer as a jet screams overhead to Hopkins Airport.

Well, I have always been an idiot when it comes to personal falling/impacts. After learning skiing and correct way to fall, when I do tumble, I can laugh it off as if never hurts and must look funny to those that see it as I simply go into a Jello glob and ‘THROP’ about.

Laughing, I smile at them and say: “no, really, I’m okay.”

“But you were crying.” She looked me solidly in the eyes.

Her gaze hurt! I felt pain! I wanted to run, but couldn’t. I wanted to hide under a fallen tree, burrow into the sand like an ostrich. Her eyes somehow drilled into me like a titanium bit, going further than it should have. I looked at the cold water of Lake Erie, thinking…

　

　

“Don’t you even think about it!” He said in a genuine tone of compassion.

“About what! Huh?” They were both looking at me. I have never felt so utterly small in my life. My mind ran the gauntlet of a myriad of psychological things: Fight or flight, reject, project, deflect. My mind ran verging on short-circuiting my brain.

And their eyes never waived as they look down at me.

Fuck, Shit, Run! Just run…

Run, Mark.

Mark, Don’t let them into your kitchen.

Don’t kill us. We’ve held you in one piece.

　

They step toward me and my body on sands I’ve never known.

I am so frightened. I don’t cry. I don’t feel anything. I killed those parts of my life and have done okay this way. This gives me strength…

Her right hand held by his left, they both reach down to help me stand. The view behind them from my angle show the clouds, water and landscape in a beautiful moment.

Laying on cold wet sand, I am sobbing. I can feel my body heave air in and out with no control. Hearing my own sounds as I snort and blubber things from nose and mouth. My glasses are shot with moisture, there is snot going toward my mustache. I Idly think: Well these photos are a bust…

Looking up to them, raising my upper body to my knees, I bury my head between my knees. Like a worthless version of Sonic the Hedgehog on a Spin Attack, I didn’t move anywhere.

I am a flesh-ball on this Earth. Standing 5 foot 8 inch frame reduced to that of a 2 and a half foot booger of space. A mere fly dead on your windshield at 60 MPH on freeway.

My mind runs to earlier this week, and I say out: “I just started a new job!”

“You’re name is Mark, right?” she asks.

“yuh-yes,”

“You were crying and didn’t know it.”

“So, what does that mean? How’d you know my name, not that I care at all…”

“But you do care,” the guy says. “if you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be crying in the first place.”

“Oh yeah, and you didn’t want to bed your mother.” I express in retort.

“Mark, no one without emotion can do what you display while taking pictures.” she spoke as my eyes locked on her face. She is brunette, slender and has big green eyes.

“You are at a turning point, Mark.” the guy said as he smiled at me.

“HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME!!!” I demanded.

Never changing expression, she softly said to me, “you spoke aloud as you split. It’s okay, really…”

Their hands embraced by each other, I lifted my left hand to them as I met their eyes.

They lifted me up.

They both threw their arms around me.

Angels exist. And I Really don't thing religion has anything to do with this.

Mark William Darus.

post script: I dedicate this entry to Five Women. Two of these women are my sisters, two are my daughters and the last I've known for over twelve years now. They all have an equal place in my heart. You cannot put them together in the same room though. I have wrestled with this for a long time and I fully know the only time this would ever happen at my funeral.

Yet they all mean so very much to me.

Christ know's I've given you all many areas of my life to rethink your thoughts on me. During this process, I can imagine what you thought and such. Sorry for this.
My road attempting to allow myself the feeling of emotions is not going to be easy. That's okay by me.

MERRY CHISTMAS TO YOU ALL!

Another Life: Day Two

                                            Another Life: Day Two
            When physical aches bring personal satisfaction of feeling alive.
                                            By Mark William Darus.



It has been so long since I felt physical aches and pains of working. Honestly, I can’t remember when the last time was but it surely must’ve been over 25 years ago.

It had to have been when I worked for a company called ABAR MFG. When I wasn’t grinding 3M Oiling Rolls or driving the trucks, I hoisted 50lb bearing boxes, lifted bearing assemblies or tore apart hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders that ranged from 12 inches to 30 feet in length.

Right this very moment my arms are throbbing quite well. My fingers are developing pad calluses which will become my good friend a few days/weeks down the road and my cuticles are swollen and highly red in colour. My lower back is doing the : ‘You fuckin’ idiot! Left with your legs’ routine as I feel something like a dozen midgets jumping up and down on it like some Oz version of Michael Flatley’s River Dance finale. I’ve always been blessed with great legs. I think this came from running track and cross country back in high school and downhill skiing. About 20 years ago, I could leg=press 500 lbs. I bet in several weeks, I’ll be able to repeat that.

I’ve never been a hugely body-proud person. Frankly, I’ve never really thought much about my physical appearance and seldom ever dress appropriately. It just doesn’t matter to me what I looked like and have never had an issue conveying that to others. I’ve never judged anyone on their appearance, lack of hygiene skills, or weight. That’s just how I am. I take people as they are. I also don’t really care how they look at me. It is truly astonishing how many people are offended when you say these things to them face to face.

Okay, let’s have some historical fun. It is the holiday season, after all, a time for smiles and warm memories.

When I was a kid, my dad worked for Republic Steel. He was the second generation steel worker in the family, following my grandpa, my dad’s father in law.

When working swing shifts, (for those of you that don’t know what ‘swings’ are, they are 8 hour shifts that run around the clock. Basically 11PM to 7AM, 7AM to 3PM and 3PM to 11PM. Think of it like the saying: We’re open 24/7! From an Industrial standpoint in the USA, it has nearly become a thing of the past) and dad would be there for dinner, he’d tell us what my sisters and I referred to as Dad’s Lost Limb Stories.

Imagine the horror and shock my sisters and I were subjected to listening to him talk about this person losing a hand from and unfortunate sledgehammer accident and how the severed hands fingers still twitched after moments later. He’d go on and on some guy losing a chunk of thigh when a Signode band let go on a 15 ton steel coil and whipped-slashed and caught him. He was quick to say it didn’t hit his serious vien and mom, who’d been a surgical nurse would add: The femoral artery, Ted.

He’d tell us about tow motor, crane and trucking accidents that always drew anything from mediocre hacks at the flesh to full blown gushes of blood shooting like an oil well hitting pay dirt.

All while we would eat wonderfully blood-red steak, Chinese food <and those noodles always reminded me of the very same tapeworms my mom told me about from her surgical nurse years> , and my all-time favorite Spaghetti and meatballs. There sincerely is nothing quite like talking about free flowing blood, hunks of flesh clung to cold steel while eating pasta with red sauce. This type of thing is something to behold and cherished. I thought it was both great and hilarious!

With all honestly: I loved that time in my life. My sister Holly seemed excited by dad’s stories (possibly one of the very reasons she studied journalism could have come from dads stories of work. I think this also played a hand her becoming a life-long steel worker.) My sister Heidi handled it differently. In all honestly, Heidi never did develop the perverse and disgusting sense of humor that Holly and I grew to either make people laugh or puke with our straight forward thoughts and words we’d express.

I’d call this the Amazing difference of siblings. You are tied together by blood. You share the same memories over mutual points in space and time, though varied over the distance in years apart from one another. To me it goes back the Mesh Theory of the mind: What catches in your mind might slip through mine and vice versa. No sweat, it’s all good! To put it another way, some people can quote every Major league pitchers stats while others can tell you about every minor player in the American Civil War regardless of how obscure this person was portrayed or the massive impact they had on history.

Subtle point, though worth bearing mention. In the time I started writing this entry, most of my aches and pains have subsided. I am not suggesting that all pain can disappear by simply writing them off, but having a passion for something in this life truly helps. As the saying goes in Navy Seal training: It’s mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it won’t matter.

I have to say these last twelve months in my life have been the most turbulent and off-setting in my entire life. I’ve experienced poverty on a scale I didn’t think I’d ever know. I have had help with this from the loyalty of others and for that I am most thankful. Granted, I don’t think this aspect is over yet, but things are looking much better.

I never lost the intrinsic value of Hope no matter how dark things got. I attribute this to being blessed with the mind I was given by my parents and the spirit from Otherness. Everyone has their beliefs of a god and savior. Even with Atheists and their beliefs in themselves over all are huge in their lives. No different than me, you hold those beliefs firm to your heart, deep to your soul and very being of your existence.

Some things, long hidden and self inflicted may be returning to me.

I have come to understand myself greatly in the last twelve months. To the very things that make me ‘tick’ as a human being as I searched my eternal question: What makes us human?


I believe psychopathy is not a lifelong affliction. I am in the most profound of minorities on this, though there are others that share this kernel of thought.

From a medical aspect though, a person can rewire their neurons to the point of no return. Basically saying: you can waste the emotional part of your brain, the Amygdala, over time and with your sheer will power to create Emotional Lerposy. This is close to changing a hardwired circuit pattern on an electrical board: When doing so, some currents change flow in a different direction, causing the original design to fry, become useless and unfixable.

And yes, I think Emotional Leprosy is the best way to describe what those like I did. I kind of like that line/title <Emotional Leprosy> and declare it for my own.

I’ve described on this blog how this occurs in earlier entries, so I won’t ramble on now.

I cannot say I will ever return to being an emotional human being again.

I do know things are ever changing within me.

Yes, once again…

We all have our own paths we must walk. Most of us have no clue as to why we walk them yet stroll across the mine fields >mindfields< with the innocents of a happy-go-lucky Black Labrador Retriever walking toward its master over a field of razorblades.

There is such a huge pain factor in learning when it comes to personal growth.

I will never ask for forgiveness in regards to my thoughts or my actions.

I am what I am: a changing part of this world that gives up on no one.

God knows, when I go to sleep to later awaken, I’m sure my body will hurt somewhat like those the day after a car crash.

The aches will pass as all things do in time…

Mark William Darus 12202012

Another Life: Remembering and Rebirth

                        Another Life: Remembering and Rebirth.
                                   By Mark William Darus.

　

I started a new job at 4pm 12182012 and ended my first day at 2AM 12192012.

This job is industrial in nature, far and away from the work I have done for the last twenty years.



Far removed from dealing with irate people blasting petty complaints over the slightest things. Example 1. “How much is the pet coverage on my auto policy?” they would ask with a certain tone.

“Pet coverage with free when you have comprehensive and collision.” I’d answer enthusiastically.

“Well, that’s all fine and good. I don’t have any pets!” their agitation grows.

“Okay, I understand. It’s just a free coverage we offer should you have pets. It’s absolutely free.”

“Bullshit, fucker! Nothing’s for free! <they’d give you just long enough to start talking before they would cut you off> “Look! I’m on a tight budget! I know you’re charging me for this!”

“But, ma’am/sir, we’re not charging anything.” I’d maintain a calm tone of voice as I always did. >what I really wanted to do was say something like: “Look shithead, it’s FREE! Do you understand what free is?”>

“Well, you don’t seen to be understanding me! If I were you, I’d be figuring out how to lover my rates without a lack of coverage! You best be doing this, or I’ll have your JOB!!!”

You know, I always wanted to say to many of these idiots: Why, is there something wrong with the job you have?”



It was surprising how many people would get so perturbed that they’d make totally ludicrous statements like: “I want your boss!” >not: I want to talk to your boss…<

Having mostly female bosses at Progressive, I often wondered how they’d respond to: “Okay, cool, I guess you’re tired of your husband and want to step out! Eh?”

Good God, the crap phone reps have to take is amazing! If you ever saw the movie Office Space, >thanks to DB for cueing me on this film< you can get an idea of what it’s like.

You do phone work enough years and you really do develop a certain numbness in your tone that sounds good at work, but doesn’t translate too well outside of work. You apologize repeatedly for this events you had no control over in the first that the words ‘I’m sorry’ become totally meaningless. This too, runs into your life outside the job, making others close to you acutely aware that you seem totally insincere. Sad part is, you’re not insincere at with them.

I can’t remember who said this, but it holds true in many forms: Look into a mirror and repeat your name a thousand times. You will feel worse after doing it. It becomes further meaningless the more you repeat it.

The same goes for things like: I’m sorry. I can try to fix that. Allow me to apologize…



Imagine having a job where you find yourself saying the above three things about anywhere between 60 to 100 times a day, quite often doing so many times in the same call. Now, multiply that by 261 days a year (average working days less vacations) then multiply that by 5, 10,15 and 20 years and I think you’ll get my point.

It’s surprising the things you encounter with phone work and the truly ‘special’ people you speak to. Now this wasn’t only at Progressive Insurance as I had done phone work at an alarm monitoring central station as a dispatcher.

In the years I worked as a dispatcher, I’d heard an amazing about bizarre things. This company: Security Associates International. We handled: fire, burglary, hold-up alarms as well as medical alarms )you know, like the ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!’(. We also handled temperature alarms for major chicken and pig farms and nuclear power plants.

Can you fathom a high temperature alarm at a nuclear power plant? Yeah, that can’t be good! Lol….. We always expected to hear about mushrooms clouds blooming over Nebraska or Pennsylvania.

Of course, had Chernobyl had something like this, well, perhaps things might have gone differently.

I remember a night me and my shift boss were pulling a double-plus. We’d call a double-plus working anywhere between 16 and 24 hours straight. We were at hour 18 of work and he gets this fire alarm from some small town in Bum-Fuck-Egypt USA. Well, this town, like so many across the USA has a volunteer fire department. He calls the pager number. In seconds he’s on the floor, laughing and crying like a maniac! I mean, seriously, I can’t remember a time when I saw someone laugh so hard I thought they’d hyperventilate.

“Dude, you okay?” I started to laugh as well. Why? Not sure but I think exhaustion played a part.

“M-M-Mark. C-call the num-berrrrrr on-my S-Screen.” he said while cackling freely.

So I did.

I dial the number.

What greets me for a pager message?

I hear this evil sounding voice that says: “THE WEAK SHALL PERISH!” And no, it wasn’t in the Bible-belt.

“JESUS CHRIST GREG! THIS IS THE ONLY NUMBER LISTED HERE!” At that point my eyes blast water like a sprinkler and I began to laugh hard I pulled a stomach muscle.

Two other dispatchers, who were kind enough not to call off that night, came over to us.



Meanwhile, Greg’s nearly turning blue, I’m laughing like a lunatic. I pointed at the screen and said: “Handle that!”

Next thing you know, everyone’s laughing.

Four of us sent multiple pages and never received a call-back.

Guess we didn’t fuck up though as the company didn’t get sued. That time…

I got this one alarm that almost freaked me out. It was on a medical system with audio. I hear this lady shrieking! It sounded like she was dying. “MY GOD! HELP ME!!! OH GOD! I’M CLOSE, JESUS!“ I try to reach her over the two-way: “Ma’am, are you okay? Do you need an ambulance?” Well, you’d go by the protocol, ask twice and dispatch rescue. So I did.

Twenty minutes later, I get a call back from Watch Commander. He sounded like he was about to hurl. He said we’d scarred his EMS people for life with this call.

“Uh, Sir, what did they find? It sounded like she was either having a heart attack or suffering severe pain.” She had a huge medical history, which we’d convey while dispatching. At this point I’m thinking: oh shit, was she murdered?

“What they found, after breaking in her front door, hearing her screams… Sorry, God, uh…”

“Are you okay?” I ask him.

“When they went upstairs, after calling for Police back-up was, well, disgusting!” His voice is getting an edge, a harshness.

“They found your 83 year old woman riding on her 47 year old boyfriend and let me tell you, she wasn’t in pain!”

I lost it! I began to laugh. Luckily for me, this Watch Commander did the same. Apparently while she mashed flesh with Studly Screw Right, she’d hit the alert button on her pendant.

“Oh, I bet you will never let them live this one down.”

“You know, son” he said. “Is there any way I can get sent an audio of the alarm?”

Feeling confident as to why he wanted it, I quickly said, “For Quality control, absolutely, Sir!”

He starts laughing and thanks me.

Within 3 months after starting at the alarm company, I was training new hires. The turnover rate there was sort of fierce. Here’s one of the reasons why.

I’d have a trainee with me their first day as just an observer. Numerous times, we’d get a ‘failed to test’ alarm. These were always medical in nature. One of the requirements for most medical alarm systems for the elderly or disabled is to have them press the ‘check-in button’ on their pendant. Depending on the severity of their situation, they’d have to do this either in 12 or 24 intervals. When you’d get a fail to test, you’d first call the home. If no answer, you’d call a Police Dept Watch Commander and have them send a squad car to check it out. If the Sub (subscriber) had hidden key info, we’d pass this to them. If the Sub didn’t, they’d break into the dwelling.

Many was the time we’d get a call back saying things like: “You need to call the next of kin. She/he has passed.” That was what we’d refer to as a gentle callback. This didn’t happen very often theough.

More often than not, we’d be told things like: “Son, her corpse is so still you could use her for a diving board!”

My personal favorite were things said, like: “Well, this ain’t good. She’s been gone at least X-number hours (and depending on the month of the year and location) She smelled like spoiled pork and covered with flies. I sent the Meat-Wagon. You gonna cover the NOK (next of kin.)?”

“You betcha. I got it covered, man. Thank you and your troopers, please.”

I always liked how they’d tell me, “Roger that, brother. You sound like you got it.”

In my mind, while calling NOK’s, usually leaving messages on answering machines to call us immediately, I’d say prayers and such for the families.

When training others, you have to give them some slack. After all, how many jobs does the average person have to deal with this kind of thing, right. I was always a good trainer. I could read them fairly well given my background reading psychology books. If they look upset, as most would, understandably, I’d tell them to take 5 minutes, go outside, have a smoke, whatever.

In my years there, we’d lose about 50% of trainees after a call like that. I believed it a natural response to a situation they felt blind-sided by. Depressing in so many areas, they freaked out and ran. They ones that came back though: Some of the best people I have ever worked with.

Now what’s funny were the numbers of NOK’s, when given the bad news would respond with: “It’s about damn time they died!” I lost more than a few trainees after those calls. Go figure…

Then the holidays would roll around.

Who doesn’t love the holidays? Families and friends getting together for a joyous event. The amazing smells of turkey, prime rib, a Honey Baked Ham.Baked Brown and Serve rolls, garlic butter on top. The intoxicating whiffs of fresh cobbler, not to mention people that have been intoxicated for hours.

So nice, so peaceful.

That is until the fire department arrives and their house, questioning why their alarm company sent them. Most people with fire alarm systems have a ‘dispatch immediately’ rider for all fire alarms.

After dispatching on a fire alarm, we’d call the location. When verified, via passcode, we’d attempt to call off the fire department. About 94% of Fire departments will not call off their crews. Keep in mind, long before any Holiday, we’d send Sub’s a notice to either shut off their systems while cooking these feasts or simply call us to have them put on ‘test’ mode for several hours. Most don’t read them or follow those memo’s.

Most cities fine people for false alarms, back when it would be between 500-1000 dollars a false alarm.

Well, the Sub’s failure for doing the preventative measures we suggested generally made for fairly irate callers. It is truly amazing how much an over-cooked bird can cost ya!

I’m getting tired now, so I’ll close this for now.

Before I do though, I must say this: I love my new job. It’s extremely nice not having to say you’re sorry for things beyond your control. It’s nice leaving a shift and smiling on your drive home. It’s great being able to talk like a real person with coworkers and not having to think how saying the words: “shit, damn it, hell or fuck.” Will cost you your job!

It’s 5:33AM here, and I feel great.

FUCKIN’ A!

Mark William Darus 12192012

Another week coming: Who will make further deaths?

Another week coming in America. My Presidents speech and my thoughts.

By Mark William Darus.

　

OH MY GOD! JUST A FIVE DAYS AWAY FROM DEATH BY THE MAYAN CALENDER!!!



Like that was a real threat at all. Back in Y2K didn’t people scramble about? Hun, Christ my god, hon, let’s get the back up gennie from Home Depot running!

　

“Fuck, Brah! I ain’t walkin twenty seven stories to get home again. I’m a doctor, I’ll find a place to sleep when power goes out…”



　

I believe that no matter what our elected leaders most recent speech conveyed did little more than place a bandaide over a shotgun wound. Let’s face it, how could he provide little else?

　

How does one speak about areas they and their staff our so unfamiliar with they could hope make any sense of? I almost hate to say this this way: But they don’t live here and see the shit that happens everyday in the hoods that cris-cross America.

Obama did speak words about this. Thank your higher power he did! He acknowledged there is no easy way to solve such an issue.

No shit!

When you break it down to its simplest form: Mass Killings is way easier than say: Find another job, gain entrance to a better school, get beyond a drug test, and find a way to waste people for little further reason than we can.

　

Let’s take a look a mass killings, shall we?

　

How truly hard is it for someone to commit an act of homicidal mania on a mass scale?

　

Not hard to accomplish.

Born and raised in downtown Cleveland Ohio, I could see hundreds of ways mass killers could jump out and trash lives. If this could be done in Cleveland, tell me where higher populations like New York City, Boston, Los Angeles this somehow does not occur?

I cannot remember what movie this line came from, but it did: ‘A thousand throats can be but by a missioner man with a knife.

　

How real is this kind of fear here?

When my GF, her son and I left a good store, the cashier bid us a peaceful journey to our car….. A peaceful walk to our conveyance? I wanted to kill this woman! She held firey red hair and svelt in frame. I told those with me I nneded to pee, and walked back. I met her eyes. It is so seldom I meet another like myself.

I endeavored to her” “ Are you at all?”

“like you? I smelled you. Nice to meet you.”

　

Perhaps in order to fight internal terrorism, one must do as I have for decades.

　

Think like a terrorist and how to kill to make a point.

Back in the late 1970’s I learned how to make weight based detonators using simple Aurora or Tyco slot car tracks to deliver death and destruction.



If you want to stop school killings, you must think like them.

　

I think I can do this.

　

What more do people need to read?

　

I can do this:\\

　

I hate my mother, father, sneaky uncle.

I want them dead.

　

My kindergarten teacher saw me pee. According to mom and dad, I’ve been scared for life by this…

My sitter caught me. I had my hand on my penis looking at National Geographic. She yelled at me and my penis went soft.

　

Back when I was young, I learned how to make both large bombs and detonators. Christ knows, there have been plenty of areas of personal life I could have applied this to and didn’t. I read a book, that like psychology books, changed my life forever.

　

How disgusting my was my childhood? I knew how to kill someone without annihilating his family. Even in the late seventies, I could waste a father without nailing his kids and wife/girlfriends.

　

Late seventies. I was what? 14-17?

　

Even back when, we knew how to make bombs, firebombs that would take out hundreds like Dresden, with multiple blasts, we still didn’t do this.

　

　

　

My personal beliefs.

As the United States falters further, we will witness further school slayings and mall disasters.

People die.

And when you really look at it, does it really mean anything at all when it comes to the age of the victims?

　

Are the dreams of an 8 year old held higher thru expectation than that of a sincerely recovery heorin addict as gunshots….

　



We are in the strongest of countries on the Planet, aren’t we? Isn’t it this very aspect that makes us sleep better at night?

Those with some sense of conscious think and dream differently.

　

Mark William Darus 20162012

Sandy Hook Elementary school shootings

                                   Second shooting spree of the week!
                                      There is no longer any safe place.
                                        Our youngest get gunned down.
                                             by Mark William Darus

　

We’ve seen high school shootings. They’ve become most common place here from small town America. We’re had a history of the Bell-Tower kids on college campus’ that sniped at and killed others from the God-spot of higher ground. Hell, we even had a nut that backed up his rusting pick-up to a school of Amish kids and gunned them down. Amish kids, lambs to a slaughter.

Well, if those weren’t the makings of movies, this latest will surely be.

Son of kindergarten teacher kills not only mother but some of her students and others. Total kill count: 28 including the shooter, though I really don’t his death should count.

　

They guy killed a bunch of elementary school kids.

Okay, think about this…

You are walking a hallway, you and somewhere between 7 and 11 years old. You’re talking about upcoming xmas, video games, nasty homework and some asshole starts firing at you.

You see your friend get hit, blood splashes around and sprays over you. Stunned, you either duck, run or try to hide.

Even at that age, you instinctively know fear if you haven’t already learned that from video games.

At that age, you cannot tell the difference between male and female screaming as puberty is a tad down the road. That is, if they survive this span of minutes in time that will affect them for years/decades to come and most probably bankrupt their parents from the cost of psychotherapy here in the United States.

Imagine your child, nephew, friends kid:

“and I hope I get the Project Runway Barbie and…”

“Why’d she have to ask us to write a paper on Sherman over break? I’m gonna cut and paste…”

“My dad said he’d take us to Vermont to ski! I can’t wait…”

“I need to tell santa I want my moms cancer to go away..”

And bodies hit the floor, stopping all words spoken sharply.

The stench of iron fills a hallway and hot metal vaporizes blood as it passing through tiny flesh.

A blink of an eye passing, and peoples children are now dead and injured. Writhing heaps of small bodies in agony thrash about one tiled floors. The sounds of crying after moments of agonizing silence fills the air, echoing off steel lockers.

There are children under the age of 12 on the floor. Their blood creating rivers upon shiny floor as their hearts begin to stop pumping. As they fail and die. Innocently they walked this Earth. Innocently they passed.

Innocent.

At this point I could so speak of the Innocent dead of wars that rage eternal across our so ‘enlightened’ planet, yet on this I won’t.

This killing spree was not the result of any religious, political or war over oil rights.

I think this was the case:

The sad pussbag Lanza, will be found to have issues of a psychological nature. I think we’ll hear people saying things like: He always said his mom had more to say about her students than him…” I am so tempted to play, Stings Be still my beating heart as I write this, but I will not. “All she talked about was her kids and shit, man. It’s like he didn’t even exist to her…”

I’m listening to Los Lobos: One Time, One night. <it’s better fitting, I’ll share the link.>

　

Bottom line: More people are dead in my country, and these are tiny children.

The United States of America spends more money worried about outside threats than the internal ones that fill our land every day of the every damn week.

I’m sure your tired of numbers, but I really don’t care.

Pearl Harbor: death count: 2,402

911 death count: 2996

Granted, the American Civil War had single dally kill rates much higher than that…

Antietam: 3650 dead

Gettysburg: 7058 dead (day three)



If you consider this: The American Civil War in just two battles totaled way beyond any foreign enemy total kill count. Hell, our civil war killed more people than all the wars this country has fought combined. Over 500,000 Americans died on their own soil for their beliefs.

　

As you read my words, perhaps absorb my thoughts, I have to believe you have a mind that thinks. I do not care if you laugh at what I say or not.

I think my country still feels some need to kill for no reason other than it can. Our budget is defense based: If we can’t find an enemy to thrust against, how can we justify our budget? It must’ve hit these men of power hard when Russia killed the Cold War.

We just shifted gears, heading to the Mid-East. Sacrifices our children for oil?

Cool. And it is cool. We let it happen. Each and everyone of us.

I ask again as I have a few times on this Blog: When was the last time the American people ever voted for war?

Are we so ignorant one cannot vote on a subject that sends our people to battle and perhaps die? Are we so ill educated we cannot make an informed decision? >and if that is the case, why did this country fail to educate us on this?<

Are we little more than mindless, thoughtless babies to those elected by the people. I find it hilarious on this: They trusted the peoples judgment to elect a leader, yet won’t give us any power over the conflicts we enter into and those we )and I say we because whether you vote or not, if you work and pay taxes, you are funding the killing machine. I have never voted as I know it doesn’t matter in the big picture. I pay taxes when working though. I know more of my money goes toward human destruction than preservation and growth. Yeah, if you work, we’re all guilty. Guess that gives us a right to bitch and be pissed off.>



At this point I could say I am sorry to friends and family over my thoughts. Can’t do it though. I am not saying those that died for the United States died in vain or anything like that. I do believe the foot soldiers, Marines, Air Force and Army did as they were ordered. They preformed bravely and many died. I can’t imagine the horror of flying in a Bell copter and seeing your best friends faces exploding before me. Can you? Have you?

But when did their families and friends: Americans all have any say in their outcomes?

Strongest country on the planet?

Be serious here….

　

If that were true, why do we have to buy our friends in other countries? We fund them with guns that always seem to get turned against us. I guess that has a simple answer: a few men here make big bucks in arms companies and make a fortune via research and development and shipment of weapons. In my country, it’s all about making cash, coin, gold, profit. No one is responsible, no one person is to blame.



It is an amazing colored Disneyland of putrefied death and destruction with total ‘plausible deniability’ cascading over the

　

　

26-28 people died on my soil today. Okay, not on my front lawn as it occurred a few states away from me.

On average 46 people are killed every day here in America from violent crimes.

What’s another 26-28, right?

Add to this the 3 death count from earlier this week.



Wow, 31 on killings in media attention.

Uh, 46 a day….



I believe I can globally say the world is sorry for the deaths at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Having readers from over 68 countries I believe this to be accurate.

I think this trend of school killing massacres will only exhilarate massively here.

　

“Americans Love a winner. What Americans can’t stand is a loser! No one gives a hoot and hollar over who placed second. The mere thought of losing is hurtful to Americans…”

-Gen George S. Patton. (besides William T. Sherman and Stonewall Jackson, I believed him to be one of the best generals this country spawned. The best general here was Robert E. Lee.)

I think the death bell will ring louder and higher reaching.

Sometime, the major cities in the United States will face this media event.

　

I still find it odd this happens in more less populated areas than major ones.

　

We all know metal detectors fail with most school systems… It’s with these nationwide failings that brings higher awareness for better metal detectors and the need for more funding. This funding never seeming to hit this area as others get raises that weren’t listed in the agenda.

　

Ask me and send me an email as to why I don’t vote on anything.



I stray, once again as I so often do on the subject of moronic death.

28 people died today. They didn’t die from a terrorist attack or a smart bomb. They just got snuffed cold by yet another American Lunatic on a mission.

I am currently listening to Stone Temple Pilots: Conversations Kill.

On that note I will end this.

I light another L&M Red, music blasting and I want to dance with someone now. I want more. Perhaps after writing like I do, expressing such, human arms around me would be good. Guess I’m lucky. Hookers around here only charge two dollars for 15 minutes of hug time.

　

How cool is that??? You get what you need without annoying questions.



How many school kids are going to get gunned down in the next three weeks?

Jewish schools don’t have the same breaks Christian schools do.

Are they next?

I don’t think so. I believe their security would never let this happen.

I hope to Moses, I’m right on this.

If I’m wrong, I’ll write about it.

　

In the last week there have been at least 355 killed violently in

America.

Next week, not sure, but the trend is going upward.

　

Keep your spirit alive!!!!!

　

Mark William Darus 20152012

Of Holiday Ex's contacting: a few thoughts.

 

                                                            
                                  The Holiday Ex's: Undying love.
                                        by Mark William Darus.

Hi,

Tonight you spoke to me of areas where past men said things to you that made little or no sense. You expressed a concern over their stating an undying love for you, while only two of them used the love word while you were together.

First off: I tried writing this while blasting Lionel Richies Endless Love. I thought it fitting. Failed miserably in all aspects. Made me nauseous, my cat ran upstairs and the dogs began to urinate all over the place. Sorry, Lionel, I loved Dancing on the Ceiling, but this song isn’t working.

Second: I switched to old school metal bands: WASP, Scorpions and Judas Priest. Most quickly, the cat came down, the dogs stopped peeing and I stopped barfing. Pretty cool if I say so myself.

Sorry for the sidetrack shit, but that is me in all regards.

　

I have some knowledge of you. A sense of you and what makes you what you are. You said that ’and that Makes me a target.” Well, sadly, it does. I don’t say this in an attempt to provoke change on your part. I cannot caution you against such a thing. What you are is what you have learned to be, and at your age, do not change the direction of your heart for anything. You have the biggest of hearts to help, aide, sooth others and teach others. That is a gift from somewhere that was created in you before you were born. A gift of spirit, if you will. Tender, kind and knowing while being understanding. This is something one should never toss away no matter how hard life hits them nor the relentless hits from those that acted caring for you for their own gain.

Undying Love: Well, when it comes to ex’s in our lives, this can take on many meanings, most of which are both sick and disgusting to the thinking mind.

Problem is, most people are emotionally based. When they hear such proclamations aimed at them, especially when they were the ones left by the other, their brain swims into waters best left alone.

People seem to have some bizarre drive for acceptance that propels them blindly down dark alleys. The average person would rather try to regain the attention of the ones that left them versus a brighter hope in going forward and taking a stroll down different pathways.

When encountered by ex’s, they hold, depending on the duration of the relationship, an arsenal of devices to attract the ones they’ve hurt. They say the right things: “ you remember when we went to…” triggering a place of a happier time, solid memory, causing you to fall backward before their breaking with you. “you know, no one understood me like you…” “Wow, did I make a mistake..” and my personal favorite: “ Baby, I’ve grown so much since then…”

Married men that are ex’s can be for worse. The smart ones begin asking how your life is going. They respond accordingly while adding bits of married life and its downside while tossing in elements of how things were better when with you. On this they attempt to provoke a predatory response in you. This starts with you beginning to feel superior to their wives. Over time, usually very short >a few hours to a few days< in duration, you open a door and let them into your life once again. This is a mistake.

As said so well in the movie The Lost Boys: “Never let a Vampire in your house, silly boy! It makes you powerless.

The more you listen to their words and fake emotion, the further you suck them back into you. Oddly, you let your own heart (emotionally speaking) become your prison. You trap yourself in a web your emotions and mind create.

And that sucks to high heaven if you’ve ever been there.

I’m not slamming you though. We all fall into the traps of others where pasts are concerned. Maybe it’s their gentle stroking of our egos, memories they share we thought they’d forgotten or simply just our own wanting to be wanted. We will fall many times in our life where love is concerned. We do this with open hearts and open legs, longing for some desire to be unique in anothers eyes and mind.

Why do men tend to do this more than women?

Well, we do it for many reasons.

When a man chucks a woman (or another man for that matter) they more often than not do this for a ‘greener pasture’ syndrome. They believe they can go further, get farther or to say the very least, have a less boring and predicable relationship with a shiny/newer partner. Women can be the same way, though their motives seem to be more economically/status based if their good at it.

With some, they wish to go after an ex because of their sheer desires for conquest over one they hurt in the past if for no other reason, to see if they can do it and succeed. When accomplishing this goal, they get a rush likened to main-lining heroin or a good snort of coke. To them, the rush is all they want. The time leading to it is merely needed foreplay to stroke their victim into submission.

With married men looking to their ex’s: They do this because they feel some sense of neglect or unworthiness. C’mon, when they say sex dies with marriage, it generally does. Men, being physical and visual in nature, base their lives on their prowess in bed and lifting heavy garden objects that once made their women sigh as muscles bulged moving heavy pots and fertilizer bags, that now make say they need to strike less poses and move faster.

I am not justifying unfaithful men. This is just the way it is.

This is one of the reasons men do contact ex gf’s while married. I find this odd though I think a mans mind is more prone to ‘greener pasture’ syndrome when wanting to hunt again.

Why do ex’s so freely use the word: Love?

Because it works in their favor. Besides a six week old puppy, a newborn baby with a sniffly nose, what else can make an ex melt faster than the word love?

They use this single word to play on your weaknesses.

The word love is so twisted, I hate you using it.

Do not let this time in your life make you cynical on account of others. You need to stay yourself and be true to it. This is your life and your very being above all else.

Ask yourself this question: Is it worth changing myself to feel less targeted?

Bottom line: You do not have to change yourself. Just learn to deflect shit that would cause you to change your life to a bad course.

　

Hope this helps you.

Mark William Darus 12142012

 

Clackamas Town Shooting. Jacob Roberts:Failure!

                               Clackamas Town Mall shooting.
                                       By Mark William Darus.

　

Portland Oregon USA: 12112012, a lone male wearing body armor and carrying an automatic weapon casually strolled into Clackamas Town Mall. Parking lot cameras saw his travels.

Once in, he began to open fire.

As bursts rang out, ricochet’s smacking off steel beams, concrete pillars and smashing thru a Hickory Farms kiosk, people ran for their lives in frantic fashion.

A witness told CNN he tried to help a wounded woman who was lying on the ground by a cell phone store.

"She had apparently been shot in the chest, and I couldn't get her turned over to help her," said Antonio Charro, who had been shopping at the mall with his daughters. "There was no one around. She wasn't breathing."

(courtesy of CNN)



I cannot imagine the screams of small children as their parents yanked their arms to keep them safe.

Take a second and try to place yourself their.

“John, we must get the to see Santa today. We’re so busy between now and Christmas…” a hurried looking Sara tells her husband.

“I don’t want to see santa, momma. He scares me!” a shy girl of six tells her mother wearing a dress she was placed in.

“C’mon dad, Santa does not exist, “ a male of 8 tells his dad. “I’m gonna flip off the photographer, dad!”

“Your mom is in the hospital. She wants to see you with santa!”

“yeah, right.”

“I’m too old for Santa-pics, mom! Can’t we go the FYE first?”

“This line is too damn long, Casey! I’m going to the car. You stay with them…” a tired looking man with graying hair says to his wife.

POP POP POP POP!!!!! Bullets ring out against the murmur of crowds, the gentle splashing of fountains and music filtered thru the mall.

You either honestly grab the hand of a loved one or you split on your own as you rush toward safety. Either way is okay as you only have to wake up with yourself.

Some create human shields, covering their young in a blanket of fragile flesh while others recklessly dive for cover hitting benches, decorative waste baskets and shrubberies.

In the tiniest amount of time, you make a single physical statement with your actions. This statement will keep you company the entire remainder of your time on Earth. Perhaps how you act goes back to your upbringing, school years or overall life skills, but you respond. And how you respond is seen by others. You see either their glances of wonder or looks of disgust based simply on what you do as your life flashes before your eyes.

Conflicted hourly workers: You alone know how you felt as bullet hits bone.

Did you run for shelter, attempt to assist patrons, scream aloud, cry furiously? It doesn’t matter and you should not feel ashamed for your actions. You surely know that you are little more than a tiny cog in a huge wheel. Most of you are smart enough today to know American companies don’t give a molecule of shit for their employees. You also know the biggest bullshit artists of these companies are the ones that offer counseling services after witnessing such things.

>>> Personal Note:Take it from me, go to any area of personal psychological events and they will find a way to fire you. The state will back them on this. I’ve learned a lot from this.<<<

　

To the workers of Clackamas Town Mall, regardless of your actions for the benefit of self or others in direct proximity, I SALUTE YOU! At minimum wage jobs, you should NEVER feel you did anything wrong regardless of how your bosses might say. They have pressure from their bosses, that would so freely state you somehow did an injustice to the loyal patrons of the store.

Like those execs would give your kids little more than an up-yours card had you’d been shot doing something heroic.



Clackamas employees, YOU DID GOOD!!! I

　

Let’s scramble some eggs on this skillet, shall we. The managers of this shops/stores of this mall. We live in such an odd economic world in the USA, don’t we? I’m quite certain 96 % of you have a sense of conscience, of the difference between right and wrong. I have to believe you knowingly consider what is best for you and your family before what it best for your employees. I firmly think you that as managers you react in a way and hold a presence of strength that inspires employees. I am sure you weighed these variables as the bullets flew about.

I implore you: Do not let your bosses ridicule your employees responses to this event and have you fire them. Stand by them as you did when the shots fired out. Don’t throw them under a bus. >I think most of you will though. You aren’t going to chuck a good job to help others. Not these days, not here in this economy.<

“Fuck, Martha!” Santa screams out as a decorative candy cane splits in half before him, shards of white and red plastic burst about. Santa’s elf’s duck behind cotton snowcaps and cardboards packages. A single happily smiling penguin loses its face as a shot hits it just below the nose, exploding it violently.

　

“I’m gonna die!” a shabbily clothes homeless man yells, liking the mall only for its daytime warmth during winter.

“Where’s the fuckin’ security here?!?” a slender blond finely dressed states as she crouches next to an Aunt Annie stand. She is smelling fresh baked dough, buttered, like that of a movie theatre and gun powder. More pissed off than scared, she wonders who she will sue for this derailing of her shopping schedule. ‘Someones going to pay for this,’ she thinks.

“Follow me!” a boss at a Spencers gifts yells to all in her store as she guides them to the back area for safety.

　

People do what they do during extraordinary circumstances. There is no right or wrong at the moment when the worlds of the rational and violent intermesh. Each responds to both their gifts and their flaws as they see fit.

　

The shooter is identified as Jacob Roberts. >>> know this point in history. He is the first shooter of a ‘thrill-killing/spree-killing type in my knowledge to possess no middle name.<<< Like the Colorado theatre shooting, where James E. Holmes shot many, I do not believe any motive will ever be found. Unlike the Colorado event, Jacob blew his brains out after killing three people.

　

As a writer and photographer, I must say to Jacob: You must have felt you were a failure with some profound justification to get even. I cannot imagine how low you must have felt as you decided to do this. I further have merely the smallest of clue as to why you would do this.

You died far beyond that of a fucking idiot and moron. You had body armor, an automatic weapon and some point to make.

You failed. Horribly so in your last endeavor.

Christians: I must ask this of you: If this man, some I’m sure would call him less than such, asked Jesus for forgiveness before his last brain cell was cut off from his personal kill-shot, would he go to heaven?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have more respect for a WallStreet pavement diver than this asshole after decimating others lives.

Automatic weapon, free view, potential kill shots at every glance. This sad man walked. Perhaps unequipped and unprepared for real world events as he pulled the trigger. Maybe he changed his mind as bodies hit the floor, heard the shrieks and saw the faces of tiny children.

A witness walking toward the mall saw him. She saw his machine gun and they looked into each others eyes. He didn’t fire on her and she kept walking.

　

How should I finish this entry?

3 Killed at shopping mall!

Do I need Kevlar to shop at Macy’s?

Should Santa pack a 9mm under his beard?

Just another sensational killing in America?

I have to laugh at that last thought. I laugh not because I am stupid or ignorant, just because I love the way media attention at such things grows them beyond the very same things that occur around many citiesUnited States every day of week on a regular basis.

Let’s do some small mathimatics, shall we? Just some numbers to tide you over. As you watch TV in reference to the Untited States, you see the killings, slayings and homicidal mania. You see these events more when they hit White suburban America more than anywhere else.

Columbine high shooting: 15 dead.

Colorado Theatre killings: 14 dead

Bart Township: PA. An Amish school 6 dead

Chardon Ohio school shooting: 3 dead.

Clackamas Town Mall, Portland Oregon: 3 dead. <and the Christian Science Monitor is all over why there are only 3 dead.)

I not only hope those 41 RIP, as I hope their families find some peace in their continual horrors they face every holiday.

I am a prick though and must point this out.

Over 16,000 people get homicidally killed in the United States of America every year. That breaks down to 43 humans a day.

That’s kind of cool if you think about it. 43 dead every day here. I guess it only means something if it’s someone you know, or if it hit’s a mall somewhere high profiled, right?

God knows, around me there is much in the area of homicide. Oddly, I haven’t seen a single bloodied body since the 1980’s when I found a babies corpse in a dumpster when I delivered for a drugstore, but I know many that have in the last 15 years. Just in my area (a space across about 5 blocks squared, there’s been about 18 homicides in the last 5 years,) Looking back, we of this ‘hood’ are reaching an anniversary when 3 people got killed within two dwellings of my house. My girlfriend tried to give CPR over a woman and saw her die. <this woman had just given birth a few weeks before taking a dirt-nap. A year after that, two people were chopped in half by a shotguns.

Bottom line: Many people get dead every day from violent crimes. This is wrong, though I believe most of these dead meet their killers at least half way.

Yet, in a shopping mall…

Jacob Roberts: Failure! You’ll either burn in hell, or be forgiven in heaven. I will talk to you though sometime….

Mark William Darus 12132012

DEATH: HOSTESS BAKERY AND OTHER PLACES.

Caption: Me?! Eat the last of the Pringles....


                        Death of Hostess and other American places.
                                            By Mark William Darus.

Well, the Hostess upper echelon didn’t get monster bonuses for trashing the best bakery in America, but they got bonuses all the same!

Nice.      



Wouldn’t it be nice if their employees, the rank and file, received bonuses for their years/decades of loyal servitude keeping an American mass bakery tradition alive?

What a great Xmas seasons all these folks are going to have this year!

Missing Ho Ho’s, forgetting about Beefsteak Rye, Home Pride and Wonderbread, I began to wonder how would purchase Hostess’ recipes and processes for those wondrous products and remake them exactly the same way.

I believe Hostess will not sell any of those things.

They will simply start the company over again under another, yet to be promoted flag and simply hire cheap labor to produce them. And why shouldn’t they? Plenty of other companies here have tried such cost-cutting measures.

Look at Circuit City <1949-2007> and their last attempt to cut costs and stay afloat: Fire all experienced hourly employees making good wages and hire part timers to replace them. (okay, this is a poor analogy at best. CC didn’t create anything except dismally poor Public Relations with this announcement and it only bolstered their stock for a few days. The company collapsed soon after.

I have to give CC credit though. They at least had the balls/tits to go public with their plan instead of having it hit the media via disgruntled employees and such.

More recently, besides the Hostess massacre, let’s look at Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants, owned by Darden Restaurants Inc. After receiving some serious backlash over their stance of chucking some 75% of its full time help for part timers as a result of the new medical benefit requirements, announced on 5 Dec 2012, they were going to rethink and reverse this stance for the time being.

Go figure they’d say this: It is the Xmas shopping season and more people, more families, will Eat-Out this time of year than any other. C’mon, do you really want to spend money at a place that says their gonna cut your sons, daughter <a single mom> hours to zippo? Right before Xmas no less…

I think they’ll do their choppin’ after all the shoppin’ is done this year. They’re just trying to save face at this point and not kill their business for the holidays.

I prefer steak, but those chains bit the dust long ago or simply re-flagged under a banner that never quite did as well historically. Brown Derby, Mountain Jacks, York Steak House and Ponderosa died over time. Brown Derby re-flagged Brown Derby Roadhouse, but never has nailed the restaurant share of the market it once proudly held. A pity, oh well.

Texas Roadhouse is alive and well. Founded by a man that started for Kentucky Fried Chicken, known know as KFC, back in the days when restaurants called Kenny Kings were alive and well. Apparently, besides learning cooking skills, he must have frequented a restaurant called the Ground Round. One of the biggest signatures of the Texas Roadhouse chain a bucket of shelled peanuts at every table.

TRH is okay, but to me fails compared to the old Brown Derby. Something about Brown Derby, perhaps my memories of youth in building things larger than life made it different, less tacky perhaps, than anything modern times has to offer.

Perhaps in modern times it’s a superficial attitude so well described in Mike Judge’s Office Space that holds American eaters so well. Pieces of flair should be adorned by wait-staff. Buttons with witty sayings, words displaying such gems as: We’re not in Kansas anymore, Is it Friday yet >the buttoned face with a tired gaze< or a white and black face that reads, How am I doing?

America: I have to ask this.

Do we really want attitude or flair when going out to eat?

Do we really need to see a cardboard reenactment of old cartoons plastered on a wall to gain our attention?

Don’t we just want simple friendly service and food that is better than we can cook for ourselves by adding seasonings on our very own grills or in our own kitchens?



Times get tougher further still.

Not so long ago, we had family style restaurants to run to for Comfort Food.

　

I know that in my segment of this globe, there use to be hundreds of places where a person could get a home-cooked style food breakfast, lunch or dinner. I sincerely am not exaggerating on this, there were hundreds around a ten mile radius of my home. In the last 5 years or so, most of their creators dreams died after many a year of success after them cutting back to simply doing breakfast and lunch before their glass paned doors forever closed for good.

I have to ask: Why is that? Most of these places could make a meal cheaper and, in most cases, better, than could be performed by us.

I guess the real answer is the ‘trickle down’ effect. When a large local company down-sizes or shuts down, it has a cascading effect that, like a single drop of water on a still pond, spreads waves of disturbance across a once calm surface of the lake it lays upon.

If coming to Cleveland Ohio, USA, as far as 24 hour food-troughs, we have left to date: >>> and I hear arm-fart trumpets blasting with this proclamation<<<: 4 of standing!

These magnificent places should stand proud above and most tall! Denny’s (staying as big as when I remember them in the late seventies/early eighties when I my eldest sister took me there. She is eight years older than me and would meet me behind dads garage at 1120 pm for dinner. We‘d go and she‘d treat me to a British Burger and and choc shake) , Steak and Shake (the realitive newcommer here, about 5-6 years) My Friends (11616 Detroit rd, formerly known as Vienna Deli lasting from the 1980‘s and holding strong) and Steve’s Hot Dogs, 5004 Lorain Rd or at the Biddulph Ridge shopping plaza. Steve’s has been around since the 70’s, perhaps earlier. Good food at fair price. This place can fill you happily on the smaller end of cash with good service and make you feel glad you did. Not many places, at least with me, I could hold so high a place.

There was a place called Luna’s on the Parma/Parma Hts border just east of the Pearl rd and York rd borders. Lunas was a marvelous place that for at least a decade smashed the 24 barricade and graciously fed people of diverse ethnic backgrounds. A mere slender passing time period ago, at any hour, you could happily stroll into this land of killer/over the top rich decadent deserts seldom found anywhere during any hour of the day, much less at 4:30AM in the morning and have Matzoh ball soup served fresh.

Kosher?

Luna’s always did. I’m sure they still do.

　

　

I miss them in the a 24 hour area….

Seriously, on the west side of Cleveland Ohio, where the righteous hell can a gentile get a good bowl of soup since Luna’s killed 24/7 operations? No where. Luna’s is Greek in origin, but holds a belief in community and likings of its area. Best Matzoh ball soup on the West side of Cleveland< albeit somewhat south of Cleveland-proper down a ways a bit from off Rt42 and Archwood avenue.>>

　

There was an Italian restaurant in Solon Ohio. Nice place, generous in garlic buttered bread building a second tier smoking area for its patrons. FAIL! This plot of land now up for sale.

　

Location. Location, location location… But this place had both, adjacent to an Oriental restaurant of high acclaim and a Mr. Chicken on the other end. Such a mixture of scents filled the nostrils of on the corner of Rt 91 and 43 in Ohio.

Stuck for long enough by calculated red-lights, your olfactory senses would be blended by creations of Arby’s, Boston Market, Mr Chicken, and Imperial Wok. Downshift, your nose might be caught by one of the few McDonalds remaining that has no drive-thru and the garlic tainted exhaust of Pizza hut.

　

All Fast food places are hiring here. Most of the serious places to eat as well.

No lack of places to eat in Northeastern Ohio.

But where do you wish to spread your hard earned cash?

　

I’d like to say most think before they spend, but I am an idiot. Humans can and will find rationalizations for every aspect of their being.

Even Jews do this around xmas. Why shouldn’t they be any different than Gentiles on this?

To make some happy at cheap cost…..

　

Let peace ring out.

I know damned well it won’t.

Nest entry will be my version of the first Noel.




Mark William Darus.

12102012

　



　

　

　





　



　













　





Death of Hostess bakery and other American things.

By Mark William Darus.

Well, the Hostess upper echelon didn’t get monster bonuses for trashing the best bakery in America, but they got bonuses all the same!

Nice.

Wouldn’t it be nice if their employees, the rank and file, received bonuses for their years/decades of loyal servitude keeping an American mass bakery tradition alive?

What a great Xmas seasons all these folks are going to have this year!

Missing Ho Ho’s, forgetting about Beefsteak Rye, Home Pride and Wonderbread, I began to wonder how would purchase Hostess’ recipes and processes for those wondrous products and remake them exactly the same way.

I believe Hostess will not sell any of those things.

They will simply start the company over again under another, yet to be promoted flag and simply hire cheap labor to produce them. And why shouldn’t they? Plenty of other companies here have tried such cost-cutting measures.

Look at Circuit City <1949-2007> and their last attempt to cut costs and stay afloat: Fire all experienced hourly employees making good wages and hire part timers to replace them. (okay, this is a poor analogy at best. CC didn’t create anything except dismally poor Public Relations with this announcement and it only bolstered their stock for a few days. The company collapsed soon after.

I have to give CC credit though. They at least had the balls/tits to go public with their plan instead of having it hit the media via disgruntled employees and such.

More recently, besides the Hostess massacre, let’s look at Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants, owned by Darden Restaurants Inc. After receiving some serious backlash over their stance of chucking some 75% of its full time help for part timers as a result of the new medical benefit requirements, announced on 5 Dec 2012, they were going to rethink and reverse this stance for the time being.

Go figure they’d say this: It is the Xmas shopping season and more people, more families, will Eat-Out this time of year than any other. C’mon, do you really want to spend money at a place that says their gonna cut your sons, daughter <a single mom> hours to zippo? Right before Xmas no less…

I think they’ll do their choppin’ after all the shoppin’ is done this year. They’re just trying to save face at this point and not kill their business for the holidays.

I prefer steak, but those chains bit the dust long ago or simply re-flagged under a banner that never quite did as well historically. Brown Derby, Mountain Jacks, York Steak House and Ponderosa died over time. Brown Derby re-flagged Brown Derby Roadhouse, but never has nailed the restaurant share of the market it once proudly held. A pity, oh well.

Texas Roadhouse is alive and well. Founded by a man that started for Kentucky Fried Chicken, known know as KFC, back in the days when restaurants called Kenny Kings were alive and well. Apparently, besides learning cooking skills, he must have frequented a restaurant called the Ground Round. One of the biggest signatures of the Texas Roadhouse chain a bucket of shelled peanuts at every table.

TRH is okay, but to me fails compared to the old Brown Derby. Something about Brown Derby, perhaps my memories of youth in building things larger than life made it different, less tacky perhaps, than anything modern times has to offer.

Perhaps in modern times it’s a superficial attitude so well described in Mike Judge’s Office Space that holds American eaters so well. Pieces of flair should be adorned by wait-staff. Buttons with witty sayings, words displaying such gems as: We’re not in Kansas anymore, Is it Friday yet >the buttoned face with a tired gaze< or a white and black face that reads, How am I doing?

America: I have to ask this.

Do we really want attitude or flair when going out to eat?

Do we really need to see a cardboard reenactment of old cartoons plastered on a wall to gain our attention?

Don’t we just want simple friendly service and food that is better than we can cook for ourselves by adding seasonings on our very own grills or in our own kitchens?



Times get tougher further still.

Not so long ago, we had family style restaurants to run to for Comfort Food.

　

I know that in my segment of this globe, there use to be hundreds of places where a person could get a home-cooked style food breakfast, lunch or dinner. I sincerely am not exaggerating on this, there were hundreds around a ten mile radius of my home. In the last 5 years or so, most of their creators dreams died after many a year of success after them cutting back to simply doing breakfast and lunch before their glass paned doors forever closed for good.

I have to ask: Why is that? Most of these places could make a meal cheaper and, in most cases, better, than could be performed by us.

I guess the real answer is the ‘trickle down’ effect. When a large local company down-sizes or shuts down, it has a cascading effect that, like a single drop of water on a still pond, spreads waves of disturbance across a once calm surface of the lake it lays upon.

If coming to Cleveland Ohio, USA, as far as 24 hour food-troughs, we have left to date: >>> and I hear arm-fart trumpets blasting with this proclamation<<<: 4 of standing!

These magnificent places should stand proud above and most tall! Denny’s (staying as big as when I remember them in the late seventies/early eighties when I my eldest sister took me there. She is eight years older than me and would meet me behind dads garage at 1120 pm for dinner. We‘d go and she‘d treat me to a British Burger and and choc shake) , Steak and Shake (the realitive newcommer here, about 5-6 years) My Friends (11616 Detroit rd, formerly known as Vienna Deli lasting from the 1980‘s and holding strong) and Steve’s Hot Dogs, 5004 Lorain Rd or at the Biddulph Ridge shopping plaza. Steve’s has been around since the 70’s, perhaps earlier. Good food at fair price. This place can fill you happily on the smaller end of cash with good service and make you feel glad you did. Not many places, at least with me, I could hold so high a place.

There was a place called Luna’s on the Parma/Parma Hts border just east of the Pearl rd and York rd borders. Lunas was a marvelous place that for at least a decade smashed the 24 barracade and graciously fed people of diverse ethnic backgrounds. A mere slender passing time period ago, at any hour, you could happily stroll into this land of killer/over the top rich decadent deserts seldom found anywhere during any hour of the day, much less at 4:30AM in the morning and have Matzah ball soup served fresh.

Kosher?

Luna’s always did. I’m sure they still do.

　

　

I miss them in the a 24 hour area….

Seriously, on the west side of Cleveland Ohio, where the righteous hell can a gentile get a good bowl of soup since Luna’s killed 24/7 operations? No where. Luna’s is Greek in origin, but holds a belief in community and likings of its area. Best Matzah ball soup on the West side of Cleveland< albeit somewhat south of Cleveland-proper down a ways a bit from off Rt42 and Archwood avenue.>>

　

There was an Italian restaurant in Solon Ohio. Nice place, generous in garlic buttered bread building a second tier smoking area for its patrons. FAIL! This plot of land now up for sale.

　

Location. Location, location location… But this place had both, adjacent to an Oriental restaurant of high acclaim and a Mr. Chicken on the other end. Such a mixture of scents filled the nostrils of on the corner of Rt 91 and 43 in Ohio.

Stuck for long enough by calculated red-lights, your olfactory senses would be blended by creations of Arby’s, Boston Market, Mr Chicken, and Imperial Wok. Downshift, your nose might be caught by one of the few McDonalds remaining that has no drive-thru and the garlic tainted exhaust of Pizza hut.

　

All Fastfood places are hiring here. Most of the serious places to eat as well.

No lack of places to eat in Northeastern Ohio.

But where do you wish to spread your hard earned cash?

　

I’d like to say most think before they spend, but I am an idiot. Humans can and will find rationalizations for every aspect of their being.

Even Jews do this around xmas. Why shouldn’t they be any different than Gentiles on this?

To make some happy at cheapy cost…..

　

Let peace ring out.

I know damned well it won’t.

Nest entry will be my version of the first Noel.




Mark William Darus.

12102012

　



　

　

　





　



　






Death of Hostess bakery and other American things.

By Mark William Darus.

Well, the Hostess upper echelon didn’t get monster bonuses for trashing the best bakery in America, but they got bonuses all the same!

Nice.

Wouldn’t it be nice if their employees, the rank and file, received bonuses for their years/decades of loyal servitude keeping an American mass bakery tradition alive?

What a great Xmas seasons all these folks are going to have this year!

Missing Ho Ho’s, forgetting about Beefsteak Rye, Home Pride and Wonderbread, I began to wonder how would purchase Hostess’ recipes and processes for those wondrous products and remake them exactly the same way.

I believe Hostess will not sell any of those things.

They will simply start the company over again under another, yet to be promoted flag and simply hire cheap labor to produce them. And why shouldn’t they? Plenty of other companies here have tried such cost-cutting measures.

Look at Circuit City <1949-2007> and their last attempt to cut costs and stay afloat: Fire all experienced hourly employees making good wages and hire part timers to replace them. (okay, this is a poor analogy at best. CC didn’t create anything except dismally poor Public Relations with this announcement and it only bolstered their stock for a few days. The company collapsed soon after.

I have to give CC credit though. They at least had the balls/tits to go public with their plan instead of having it hit the media via disgruntled employees and such.

More recently, besides the Hostess massacre, let’s look at Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants, owned by Darden Restaurants Inc. After receiving some serious backlash over their stance of chucking some 75% of its full time help for part timers as a result of the new medical benefit requirements, announced on 5 Dec 2012, they were going to rethink and reverse this stance for the time being.

Go figure they’d say this: It is the Xmas shopping season and more people, more families, will Eat-Out this time of year than any other. C’mon, do you really want to spend money at a place that says their gonna cut your sons, daughter <a single mom> hours to zippo? Right before Xmas no less…

I think they’ll do their choppin’ after all the shoppin’ is done this year. They’re just trying to save face at this point and not kill their business for the holidays.

I prefer steak, but those chains bit the dust long ago or simply re-flagged under a banner that never quite did as well historically. Brown Derby, Mountain Jacks, York Steak House and Ponderosa died over time. Brown Derby re-flagged Brown Derby Roadhouse, but never has nailed the restaurant share of the market it once proudly held. A pity, oh well.

Texas Roadhouse is alive and well. Founded by a man that started for Kentucky Fried Chicken, known know as KFC, back in the days when restaurants called Kenny Kings were alive and well. Apparently, besides learning cooking skills, he must have frequented a restaurant called the Ground Round. One of the biggest signatures of the Texas Roadhouse chain a bucket of shelled peanuts at every table.

TRH is okay, but to me fails compared to the old Brown Derby. Something about Brown Derby, perhaps my memories of youth in building things larger than life made it different, less tacky perhaps, than anything modern times has to offer.

Perhaps in modern times it’s a superficial attitude so well described in Mike Judge’s Office Space that holds American eaters so well. Pieces of flair should be adorned by wait-staff. Buttons with witty sayings, words displaying such gems as: We’re not in Kansas anymore, Is it Friday yet >the buttoned face with a tired gaze< or a white and black face that reads, How am I doing?

America: I have to ask this.

Do we really want attitude or flair when going out to eat?

Do we really need to see a cardboard reenactment of old cartoons plastered on a wall to gain our attention?

Don’t we just want simple friendly service and food that is better than we can cook for ourselves by adding seasonings on our very own grills or in our own kitchens?



Times get tougher further still.

Not so long ago, we had family style restaurants to run to for Comfort Food.

　

I know that in my segment of this globe, there use to be hundreds of places where a person could get a home-cooked style food breakfast, lunch or dinner. I sincerely am not exaggerating on this, there were hundreds around a ten mile radius of my home. In the last 5 years or so, most of their creators dreams died after many a year of success after them cutting back to simply doing breakfast and lunch before their glass paned doors forever closed for good.

I have to ask: Why is that? Most of these places could make a meal cheaper and, in most cases, better, than could be performed by us.

I guess the real answer is the ‘trickle down’ effect. When a large local company down-sizes or shuts down, it has a cascading effect that, like a single drop of water on a still pond, spreads waves of disturbance across a once calm surface of the lake it lays upon.

If coming to Cleveland Ohio, USA, as far as 24 hour food-troughs, we have left to date: >>> and I hear arm-fart trumpets blasting with this proclamation<<<: 4 of standing!

These magnificent places should stand proud above and most tall! Denny’s (staying as big as when I remember them in the late seventies/early eighties when I my eldest sister took me there. She is eight years older than me and would meet me behind dads garage at 1120 pm for dinner. We‘d go and she‘d treat me to a British Burger and and choc shake) , Steak and Shake (the realitive newcommer here, about 5-6 years) My Friends (11616 Detroit rd, formerly known as Vienna Deli lasting from the 1980‘s and holding strong) and Steve’s Hot Dogs, 5004 Lorain Rd or at the Biddulph Ridge shopping plaza. Steve’s has been around since the 70’s, perhaps earlier. Good food at fair price. This place can fill you happily on the smaller end of cash with good service and make you feel glad you did. Not many places, at least with me, I could hold so high a place.

There was a place called Luna’s on the Parma/Parma Hts border just east of the Pearl rd and York rd borders. Lunas was a marvelous place that for at least a decade smashed the 24 barracade and graciously fed people of diverse ethnic backgrounds. A mere slender passing time period ago, at any hour, you could happily stroll into this land of killer/over the top rich decadent deserts seldom found anywhere during any hour of the day, much less at 4:30AM in the morning and have Matzah ball soup served fresh.

Kosher?

Luna’s always did. I’m sure they still do.

　

　

I miss them in the a 24 hour area….

Seriously, on the west side of Cleveland Ohio, where the righteous hell can a gentile get a good bowl of soup since Luna’s killed 24/7 operations? No where. Luna’s is Greek in origin, but holds a belief in community and likings of its area. Best Matzah ball soup on the West side of Cleveland< albeit somewhat south of Cleveland-proper down a ways a bit from off Rt42 and Archwood avenue.>>

　

There was an Italian restaurant in Solon Ohio. Nice place, generous in garlic buttered bread building a second tier smoking area for its patrons. FAIL! This plot of land now up for sale.

　

Location. Location, location location… But this place had both, adjacent to an Oriental restaurant of high acclaim and a Mr. Chicken on the other end. Such a mixture of scents filled the nostrils of on the corner of Rt 91 and 43 in Ohio.

Stuck for long enough by calculated red-lights, your olfactory senses would be blended by creations of Arby’s, Boston Market, Mr Chicken, and Imperial Wok. Downshift, your nose might be caught by one of the few McDonalds remaining that has no drive-thru and the garlic tainted exhaust of Pizza hut.

　

All Fastfood places are hiring here. Most of the serious places to eat as well.

No lack of places to eat in Northeastern Ohio.

But where do you wish to spread your hard earned cash?

　

I’d like to say most think before they spend, but I am an idiot. Humans can and will find rationalizations for every aspect of their being.

Even Jews do this around xmas. Why shouldn’t they be any different than Gentiles on this?

To make some happy at cheap cost…..  AMERICA! Sorry, but I learned how to make candles when I was twelve yrs old. Granted, I also learned, at the same time, to make plastic explosives and had mom own mother blow a picnic table to toothpicks as she thought a late RC car would just sprint from an outdoor table and crash.  Sorry, she did as I said and an entire backyard pine table went schrapnel, and the cops were never called.



 


　

Let peace ring out to all readers of this blog from the many nations that propels it.

 




Next entry, this entry will be a surprise.



 






Mark William Darus.

12102012