Posts by TerryWalstrom

22

Jehovah's Witnesses: the Brotherhood of Delusion

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

i am a curious person.

i am challenged by the unknown.

i can be driven, out of sheer frustration, to penetrate a closed veil of conspiracy.

TerryWalstrom

A fellow who was the number one salesman for an insurance agency told me one day, an amazing thing I've often thought about since then.
I had asked him what sort of person is the easiest to sell to.
He didn't hesitate for even a second.
"Salesmen! You can sell them easier than anybody."
I had to ask why, of course. He laughed and told me his opinion.
"All great salesman start believing their own bullshit. They have a style about them which is so convincing. It isn't acting or lying--it's total acceptance of what they're saying. This makes them highly susceptible to other great salesmen. The rhythm and magic of a good sales presentation is filled with the kind of thing they already do and say and believe. It's just a piece of cake to make a sale, selling to another salesman."

The Governing Body certainly believes their own B.S. As Ray Franz termed it in his book, "They are Captives of a concept!"
Whatever they print in a publication simply must be true--even if it isn't.
_________

If you want to observe this in action--listen to 2 JW's lying to each other about some story of demon activity they "experienced" or heard about.
The story gets exaggerated with each new telling. The original story has to be total fabrication or misunderstanding--yet it catches fire with each telling until it is a terrifyingly acceptable TRUE tale of Satanic malfeasance.

6

The Four Horsemen of the Biker Bar (a true memoir)

by TerryWalstrom in

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19nx89q5w0ztcfs2qw5_dvqgr60xf7ovelgeibutfufe/edit?usp=sharing.

TerryWalstrom

Four Horseman of the Biker Bar (A True Memoir)

2012

_____________

THE FOUR HORSEMEN

“Well, here we are.”
My good buddy Bob steered his Chevy over a broken driveway filled with annoying rocks and potholes. We surveyed the parking lot. About a dozen tricked out motorcycles swallowed space in front of the bar like wild stallions belonging to fleeing desperadoes.

The ramshackle bar was a dive--a lowdown, loud music, pool playing, cigarette smoke kind of bar where members of the Punishers Biker Club (i.e. gang) gravitated on weekends. Hell, their oldest member owned the damned thing. He obviously didn’t give a rat’s diaper what it looked like--cuz, Junior-- it was nasty.
I had been to some bad places with Bob, but this one set a new record in my mind. I didn’t question or balk. I sucked it up. I was wearing my Big Boy pants. You only live twice, Mister Bond.

Inside, an old red carpet had worn down to the wood floor around regulation pool tables surrounded by a Star Wars cantina assortment of bizarre creatures. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I adjusted that opinion. These were humanoid bar flys. Had I been walking down a street and saw them, I’d have immediately crossed to the other side. But not here and not now. No such option.
Bob told me he had been inside before for a couple of beers after work. He actually liked what he called the “ambience.” At first, I thought he’d said, “Ambulance.”

Behind The Four Horsemen bar, a decent sized plot of land, fenced in and rendered not visible by outsiders, stood on the old dirt road next to the seedy motel with its flickering sign: NO TELL MOTEL. Yeah. That one.

It didn’t take Sherlock to predict what went on in the secluded backyard patio. Bikers and their kindred spirits brandished hash pipes and exchanged dainty pleasantries in the open air. The CCTV system allowed denizens of the darkness to spy out the front parking lot just in case a police car should happen to pull up.

Inside The Four Horsemen, unique specimens of near-humanity drank, cussed, played pool, listened to live music, fed quarters to vintage video consoles, and exhaled fumes--then re breathed thick, noxious smoke with merriment and wild abandon.

Into this fine establishment one fine night, yours truly walked in--a man surely as out of place in such a bar as a man could be.
Thanks to my good buddy, Bob, I had entered a world of nightmares and terror. Thanks Bob!

Bob and I had been friends a dozen years. His daughter and mine became fast friends at school and we found ourselves at Camp Carter twice a year for Father and Daughter weekend campouts. No two guys ever had more in common. Bob played drums for a performing band in Canada in younger days. He was now an I.T. engineer for BNSF. Warren Buffett owned the railroad and my friend was one of hundreds of security technicians who couldn’t wait for the weekend to cut loose and get wild.
We simply clicked.
Friday evenings, Bob and I sought Live Music venues where we could sip beer and talk music, discuss life, and unwind.
Bob had spent his youth in lowdown bars and unsavory nightspots with the band, knocking the slack out of his drumheads--learning to fear nothing! Wrongly, he assumed I too feared nothing. Actually--I feared EVERYTHING!

What do you suppose was running through my mind? What about the minds of that bar’s inhabitants as two past-their-prime nerds strolled in like Rubes at the County Fair?

______

Into the Belly of the Beast

Here I am, inside a rat’s nest called The Four Horseman. Every set of beady red eyes is sizing the two of us up. Are we Narcs? Cops undercover? Looking to score crack? Nitwits who are lost? I leave it to you to sort that puzzle toward its unsurprising conclusion.

Bob makes his way through biker chicks sporting love handles and insurrectionist tattoos; weaving confidently around each cluster of bearded, bandana-on-head motorcycle ‘enthusiasts’ as he sidles up to the bar counter.
A much bosomed young thang smiled and asked Bob “What’ll you have?”
Feel free to write your own dialogue.

I joined Bob at the bar counter and tried to blend. I said tried.
Bob is chatting up the tender bartender with the kind of silly ease guys assume when they once were a real hit with the girls back-in-the-day.

I stage an intervention at once!
Smiling, I toss off my gambit:

“Is this bar named after something in Revelation, Chapter Six?”

The young bartender, named Melanie, blinks wide-eyed. I may as well have asked her what a quadratic equation is.
A peculiar old gent with a scraggly white beard standing next to me sticks his head in close and startles me with his response.

“Original members of The Punishers are the four horsemen. When I bought this bar, I named it after us. I’m Fast Eddy. Who the fuck are you?”

____

Within the next ten minutes, Bob and Fast Eddy are great friends and drinking companions. Bob has a special charm about him. I listen and observe and practice shallow breathing inside the cloud of smoke where I stand. My ears melt from loud music. My eyes sting and water. I resemble a white mouse with a head cold.

We all drink Killian’s Red beer on tap from a pitcher as our tympanic membranes stretch into crinkled trampolines of abused scar tissue. Miraculously, Bob understands every word Fast Eddie speaks.

I, on the other hand, cannot hear. I understand nothing spoken--yet I have a genuine flair for nodding sympathetically. That’s my contribution to the ‘nonversation’.

______

Bob and I are propped up on red cushioned bar stools--the swivels-in-all-directions kind. He is laughing and telling me things drowned out by ambient noise. I am nodding and smiling. Every once and awhile, I toss in a facial expression of appreciative appraisal. Ours is a Kabuki conversation. Finally, the live band stops playing. I welcome the semi-quiet, so refreshing to my jangled nerves.

Fast Eddy has been challenged to a match of eightball by a little redneck in a straw cowboy hat and ostrich boots. This hotshot is not just drunk--he’s sassy--full of himself. He’s telling Fast Eddy how bad he’s gonna whoop him at eightball.
I see by Eddy’s eye crinkles that he is mostly amused at the runty little gnat.

Bob asks Melanie who the finest pool player in the joint is. Fast Eddy tops her list!
I explain to Bob where the name Fast Eddy comes from. He never saw The Hustler with Paul Newman.
Really?
Yeah, well--he’s about five years younger than me. Go figure.
Bob suggests we go outside in the backyard and sit on the patio deck so’s we can capture oxygen in our lungs and lengthen our lifespan.
I jump at the chance and snatch up the newly filled pitcher of Killian’s Red and off we go. Bob’s got the frosted mugs trailing close behind.

____

The smell on the patio is acrid--in a druggy sort of way!
I’ve never tried and never will try, drugs of any description. I’m a Sissy.
I had lived in California for ten years. Sure, I was offered everything on a regular basis.

“Why don’t you just TRY it and see if you like it?”
“What if I DO like it? I’ll end up like Janis Joplin, Elvis, and other geniuses like myself--dead as yesterday’s biscuit.” That was my rap. It worked.

This particular night, the scruffy crew on the patio have no such reservations about drugs!
Apparently.
Bob and I sit way off on the extreme end of the wooden deck. There are lounge chairs aplenty. The evening is pleasant and mosquitoes are enjoying themselves inside our air space. The skeeters who penetrated the necrotic haze at the other end of the deck and sampled crack whore blood have suffered unspeakable damage, never to return.

I and the Bobster settle in and finally talk--really talk--about music.
It never gets old. We like ALL kinds of music. We appreciate the details, drifting from one era to the next and back again.

Every now and then, the denizens of the dark come to waddle, creep, or stagger over and introduce themselves and offer us a hit, a toke, a smoke, a this and a that. I explain that I’m in recovery from congestive miasma and as such, can’t violate the terms of my parole or I’ll end up back in Alcatraz.
I get sympathetic nods and solemn head shakes. They truly feel my pain.

I’m finally fitting in!

_____
Horseman Down!

After a couple of hours and as many refills, Bob and I wander aimlessly back inside for bathroom duty and to check what condition our condition is in. The bar has dwindled down to a manageable rumble of voices, laughter, coughing fits, clinking mugs, and the sound of the cue ball colliding with kindred spheres.

We have taken up residence on the barstools just in time to see the end of the marathon pool game between Fast Eddy and Half-pint Ostrich Boots.
Fast Eddy has lost!! Horseman Down!
Lord Gawd Amighty!

ZZ TOP reaches into his pocket and peels off some impressive bills and hands them over to the winner. The weasel-eyed runt unsnaps the breast pocket on his western shirt and deposits the wad of cash.

“Go agin, old man?”

The Ostrich booted upstart is obviously pressing his luck.

Fast Eddy pauses and snuffles. . .hesitates. . .smiles and shakes his head.

“Nope. You’re the better man.”

Folks who know Fast Eddy have paused to watch and listen. With those momentous words hanging in the air, a titter of quiet amazement passes around the room kinda like the smell of a well aimed fart.

And that is when he walks in--the Man.

________
THE MAN

The mood in the bar suddenly shifts. Everybody seems to have won the lottery or something.

“Hey, Ray--how they hangin?”

The dozen characters remaining in The Four Horsemen are like kids around the ice cream truck on a hot August afternoon.
Hands are out for shaking.
Grins are hauled to the top of the flagpole unfurled.

The very large, impressive black man has his back slapped, hand shaken, ear filled with good tidings and compliments enough to set Bob and me to wondering who the heck this hero is who has graced this shabby bunghole in hell with such magnitude.
Our latter day Moses parts the Red Sea of fawning worshippers and makes his way, lumbering on polished alligators, toward the barstool next me at the bar counter and eases onto the stool as graceful as a butterfly on a dainty tulip.

He’s big. He looks to be at least 6 feet 7 inches and 265 pounds. His bigness is not simply a matter of size. He’s BIG, as in IMPORTANT.
To me, he’s anonymous--nobody I’ve seen before in my life. That’s what you’d expect from a Nerd, wouldn’t you? He’s almost certainly a major sports hero--a realm unknown to my sort.

Melanie’s beautiful young face becomes a starburst of fulsome energy! She dashes out from behind the bar and rushes up to the great man and throws her arms around him for a never ending squeeze that almost knocks the air out me just from watching!

Meanwhile, Bob has cornered Fast Eddy to get the lowdown on our guest.

“Is he somebody important?”

Fast Eddy purses his lips and nods a slow up and down movement with his whiskered chin and says not- word- one. He’s too busy staring a hole in the vision of Melanie and the Big Hug.
Call me intuitive.
I can suss out how it is--Fast Eddy doesn’t like Melanie and Mr. Big hugging on each other. I quickly theorize: Old Z Z Top here is infatuated with Melanie!

In the next few minutes, the old man will creep over to the pool hustler in the Ostrich boots and whisper a suggestion in his sweaty ear. I notice out of the corner of my eye as it occurs.

After the slobbering welcome has ended and Melanie is back behind the bar, Mr. Big makes a glacial slow turn to his right and his eyes lock on to mine. My face is a blank.
I’m just watching and waiting--not worshipping. What rules of the road have delivered this demi-god to my side? Why am I not drooling, I can see him wondering.

“I’m Rayfield Wright. Everybody knows me. I’m a Philanthropist & Humanitarian. I’m a two time World Champion Dallas Cowboy Super Bowl winner. You see these two rings? Those are Super Bowl Winner rings. I’ve played in five Super Bowls. I’m a Hall of Famer who retired at the age of 34. I’m a most valuable player winner. ”

The BIG CAT reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a business card. He hands it to me like he’s offering a hundred dollar bill to a starving third world child. The card reads:

Rayfield Wright, Philanthropist & Humanitarian, blah blah blah etc.

Now, it’s my turn.

“Yeah--me too!” I said it with a very straight face. Dead on.

I arched my eyebrows and offered him my hand. . .the way the Pope does when he wants his ring kissed.
_____________

Now, I never played football or developed the quasi-religious fervor for the game your average Texan is born throbbing with. I don’t watch Super Bowls. I don’t know player’s names, as Rayfield Wright has come to expect every-damned-one-of us to know and react accordingly. It is his legacy, you see?
My not being impressed has puzzled him for only a few seconds. Behind his penetrating brown eyes, inside that helmet-like skull, the gears whirred and a conclusion is reached.

“You’re a jokester!”

He grins and slaps me on my shoulder with his hefty boxing glove sized hand and I suddenly concuss like a test-dummy in a car crash at General Motors laboratory.

“Heh heh heh. You’re a jokester. Yeah, man.”

And that was that. First impressions are over.

In the next fifteen minutes, 66 year old Rayfield Wright has knocked back about eight or nine shot glasses of J&B on the rocks--except, without the rocks. He’s only warming up!

He gets up and heads toward the bathroom. Melanie leans in and gushes about The Man.

“He’s a Philanthropist & Humanitarian, ya know?”

I can’t stop myself from blurting, “So, he says--and he’s got a card to prove it!”

You see, I’m not being an asshole, not really. I just don’t understand a man tooting his own horn so boldly to a stranger. I mean, would Mother Teresa introduce herself as a Philanthropist & Humanitarian and a saint?”

Melanie goes on to explain how Rayfield calls her up every week or so. If she needs money, he gives it to her to help her out. Her girlfriends too. All of them. Hmmmm.
A picture is beginning to emerge in my dirty little crow’s nest of a mind as to the definition of Philanthropist & Humanitarian.
I keep wondering to myself, why is a Super Bowl Champion in a biker bar outside the city hobnobbing with misfits when he could be someplace / anyplace else?

“He invites all of us to his suite when he’s in town on business. He gives the most wonderful parties!” Melanie’s eyes glisten with fairy dust as she purrs.
Gushy details spin out of control and pass the boundary line of TMI too much information.
Bob gives me a look and I return the same look.
We both reach our conclusion as to what enchantment this bar holds for the Champ.

The bathroom door opens wide.

As Mr. Big Cat emerges, guess who is standing in his path with a cocky, hat-on-the-back-of-the-head challenge to a pool match?

Fast Eddie’s better man. The Half-pint in a straw hat and Ostrich boots.

My guess is that he’s been put up to it by old ZZ TOP himself, wanting to see his competitor for the hand of Lady Melanie bite the dust at the hand of a runty nobody. Or, failing that--he’ll see the runt bite the dust at the hand of a black giant.

Either way, Fast Eddie was in the catbird seat.

Popcorn anybody?

Machiavelli with a beard

At the sight of the two men talking--Melanie has a sharp intake of breath, like you hear in horror movies when the Creature leaps out of the water with those webbed claws splayed.
Bob makes his inquiry and Melanie offers insights.

Little Half-pint and Rayfield the Magnificent hate each other’s guts, she tells us.

Half-pint is a racist of the down home, shit-kickin’ variety. But he’s a rarity in a couple of ways.

You see, Half-pint has been tossed out on his skinny ass by the Four Horsemen in the past for using racially charged language.

Say what? Since when are bikers racially sensitive?
Oh, Yeah--I left out the part where the black police officer was in the bar at the time!
You see, that makes the little diaper full in Ostrich boots a deliberately provocative revenge move on the part of Fast Eddy.
How Machiavellian! No matter who wins or loses--this will spell trouble for them both. The giant and the mosquito. Goliath and little David. This match is shaping up to be something worth witnessing!

Now, what happened next is a story I’ve been itchin’ to tell for a number of years and simply haven’t done--mainly because it has to be told just the right way, patiently and with keen attention to detail. Otherwise, it’ll be wasted. I couldn’t risk that--no no--not my best story!

________

_______ Duel of the Titans_______

I must tell you first off--our two gladiators are hammered as shit. Wall-eyed and wonky. Too drunk to fall down; drunker than gravity.
I’ve never before witnessed a drunk lining up his shot--steady on for a minute and a half, to within a centimeter of dead-solid-perfect, only to miscue and send rocketing off the table like a missile launch at Cape Canaveral, the hapless cue ball!

At least a dozen times in an hour, each man whiffed it!

Somehow or other, when his turn to shoot came for Rayfield Wright, a supernatural grace crept in. Imagine a ballet dancer wearing skis or a high diver holding an anvil and you’ll acquire a notion of what I’m describing. How’d he do it?

Rayfield the Giant was a terrifying, hardcore competitor.

He’d rather let red ants eat honey off his balls than to lose to a redneck racist runt. His concentration was chilling. Determination brimmed. Focus was deeper than Grand Canyon riverbed--and yet. . .he was spinning inside his head like a pinwheel on a merry-go-round. And all the while, the gnat in a hat was workin’ him, psychin’ him, with ungentlemanly gamesmanship.

“Hey Champ, how is sex for a man your age?”

Rayfield froze and stared down at him like a man who has put his Sunday best shoes in dog shit. He snorted and grinned.

“It’s like shootin’ pool with a rope.”

Fast Eddy, at the bar, watching with keen interest, gives a belly laugh.

“Hey Champ, you ever won any money playin’ pool?”

“No. Have you?”

Half-pint glances over at Fast Eddy and winks. “Yeah, I always walk away with a little pile of cash.”
Rayfield snorted.

“You probably do that by starting out with a big pile.”

Fast Eddie again--another belly laugh.

What are we witnessing here--vaudeville or a duel to the death? From moment to moment the mood shifted. Jolly to solemn. Angry to giddy and back again.

Every so often a clean shot would fire like a bullet, hit its mark and the targeted ball dropped like a coin in an old payphone. Ding ding ding.
The Half-pint came within a gnat’s eyebrow of running the table after his first break. No such luck. The moment passed with an awkward fumble and miscue.

The little guy’s face reddened and he stumbled backward onto a stool.
Rayfield stepped in and sent the rest of the remaining numbered circles whizzing and caroming off the cushions into the sweet little pocket like money from home. End of Game 1 of 3.
SCORE:

Rayfield: 1 Ostrich boots: 0

Rack em’ and stack em’

___________

As inebriated, lubricated, saturated, and decimated by alcohol as Rayfield is--he steps lightly back to the bar counter where Melanie has topped off the shot glass with gleaming J&B--the elixir of the gods.
On the other hand, the Racist Half-pint is tossing down Boilermakers: a shot glass of whiskey dropped inside a mug of beer. The difference in size and weight of these two guys is day and night. There is no way possible for a little man to match drink for drink with a man three times his size!
Suddenly, Rayfield stands up straight and tall and announces to whole joint:

“Drinks are on me! I’m a Philanthropist & Humanitarian!”

I decided to believe him there and then as every spectator excitedly orders the most expensive drink the human mind could imagine on the spot.

The second game lasted forty-five minutes with half an hour spent bending down and picking up balls batted off the green felt onto the floor by the two drunks.
The Half-pint is soon forced to use his rake on a tricky shot with a blocked ball toward the end of the table. Rayfield has set him up for a certainty to fail. It is an impossible shot.
Half-pint squints and gulps. His eyes are swimming inside his sockets like guppies in a fishbowl. It’s not a certainty he can even see the pool table, let alone the ball.

Rayfield starts giggling like a schoolgirl with a hand up her dress and Half-pint froze and stood back from the table until things grew silent again.
“Hellfire--I beat Weenie Beanie and Squirrelly Joe last Saturday and I was drunker than now.”

The Half-pint suddenly shouted as he took a deep lungful of air and popped the cue into the white ball and set the spheres scrambling, dashing like cockroaches when a kitchen light snaps on. The crazy fool made the shot!
Rayfield stood and saluted.

Fast Eddie yanks at his scraggly white beard and moans, “Well, fuck me!”

Bob and I break out in gobsmacked applause like teenagers watching Elvis shake his ass.

Filled with confidence, booze, and raw ego--the Half-pint goes for the kill. Each line up is easy peasy like stringing pearls or spearing fish in a pond: bing, bang, bong. Score a win for the Runt in the Ostrich boots!

SCORE:

Rayfield: 1 Ostrich boots: 1

Rack em’ and stack em’

___________

Fast Eddie never sits down. He has a nervous energy like a skittish hunting dog. He makes the rounds of the bar emptying ash trays and whispering something to each customer as he passes their table. He’s back in a flash as the final game is racked for first shot.

Melanie says something I can’t hear and Bob has to repeat it to me.
She says, “Fast Eddy is taking bets on the winner.”

It’s not clear to me either man will stay conscious for the entire third game. If they were in bad shape for the first two games--they’ve been on a steep slide to ruination in a hurry. The little Half-pint is starting to get mouthy. Melanie senses trouble brewing with the unerring intuition a bartender develops serving all sorts of nasty men night after night.
I hear her say something distinctly to Rayfield who is half sitting, half standing next to his barstool. He’s barely upright at all.

“I’m brewing you a pot of black coffee, Ray Ray.”

His solemn face widens into a wide, white grin of appreciation which creeps up into his eyes.
“Thank you, Baby.” The music in his voice says it all.

Half-pint has fed a handful of quarters into the jukebox--feverishly punching numbers and letters he obviously cannot see with clarity.
The crackle of a 45 rpm single sizzles aloud, followed by Eric Clapton’s voice and guitar:

“If you want to hang out, you've gotta take her out, cocaine / If you want to get down, get down on the ground, cocaine / She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie, / Cocaine. . .”

Meanwhile, Rayfield chugs a hot cup of steaming black coffee like it's iced tea. His ears perk up like hound dog and he stands, clapping his hands to the beat, shouting,

“Awwww Ri-i-i-i-i-ght! My man, Clapton!”

Half-pint sneers and pulls his straw hat off his head and slams it on the floor with a shout.

“Goddamn it! I didn’t play THAT--I wanted Waylon and Willie!”

Fast Eddie belly laughs and Melanie begins to sing along.

The Half-pint scoops up his hat and loses balance toppling over like a house of cards. Quick as a panther, Rayfield Wright has snatched him off the floor like a wide receiver gaining possession of a fumbled ball.

“Where ya goin’, my man--it ain’t over till the last ball drops?”

Half-pint is livid with embarrassment.

“Shit fire--I’m about to beat your ass--let’s get er done!”

About now I’m realizing this little fellow hasn’t really said anything racist all evening.

A man this drunk--if he’s of that sort--is loose enough with his tongue to say anything if provoked. Our little hero has been cool enough for Sunday school, start to finish. He’s not the type to be scared, he’s not smart enough and his ego is too big. I’m thinking whoever has labeled him racist misjudged him.
I lean over and wave Melanie over to ask her something.

“What is it he said to the black policeman the day he got thrown out of here?” I point at the red-faced Half-pint as he chalks his cue tip.
Melanie rolled her eyes a moment and nodded.
“He said out loud he refused to buy Crack with that Pig standing there. He was pointing right at the black cop.”
I frowned in puzzlement.
“How is that racist?”

Melanie gave me her best are-you-kidding-me face and replied.

“Duh--the cop was Black! There were two cops standing there and he pointed to the black one.”

I let it go. Who cares at this point? I’d say the jury is out on that one.

It was getting to be closing time at The Four Horsemen bar. Last Call was shouted out and the free rounds piled up--two drinks each. Rayfield had better win this game just to break even on the cost of the alcohol.
The front door swings open and the air changes inside. A little Mexican guy not more than five and a half feet tall creeps in carrying some kind of ice chest by its plastic handle. He walks up to each patron and offers to sell them the contents of the container.
Bob wonders aloud what the cabellero has to offer.
Presently, it’s our turn. The lid opens and home made beef carne asadas are revealed. A quick parlay and Bob purchases one for me and one for himself. They are hot and delicious, filling a very large empty space in our belly.

This pool match is dead even.
Roy Orbison is Crying on the jukebox, and Rayfield is suddenly as steady as the mast on a dinghy in a typhoon--which is to say--he’s about ready to tank.
There has been scratch after scratch, back and forth the entire game. Now, the last ball must be sunk and it’s Rayfield Wright--Philanthropist & Humanitarian for the win. IF. . . and only if.
The entire biker “club” is standing around the pool table now and the Half-pint is holding on to a nearby stool for purchase against a faceplant. Rayfield is as blind as a dead skunk.

He grabs another red hot cup of java and let’s it roar down his throat without touching his tongue. All of us watching cringe like it’s us on fire.

Melanie leans forward across the bar counter with her ample bosoms pushing up like the twin moons of Mars. She smiles at Rayfield with the sweetest smile a master artist could paint on his best day.
“You are a World Champion, Ray Ray. Winning is what you’re all about.”

And with that vote of confidence, Rayfield Wright stands up taller than the Washington monument, strides over to the pool table and lifts the Half-pint’s cue out of the little man’s hand.

“Let me borrow this--will you, Son?”

He turns, lines up the shot and--in one firm stroke sends the eight ball into the corner pocket after calling it.
The room echoes with deafening applause.

So let it be written-- so let it be done.

SCORE:

Rayfield: 2 Ostrich boots: 1

Game and Match

__________

6

The Four Horsemen of the Biker Bar (a true memoir)

by TerryWalstrom in

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19nx89q5w0ztcfs2qw5_dvqgr60xf7ovelgeibutfufe/edit?usp=sharing.

TerryWalstrom

Our company's firewall blocks that site.

Can you post the story here?
______________________

Okay, will do. See below.

8

Strange Goings On at a Biker Bar (A True Memoir)

by TerryWalstrom in

strange goings on at a biker bar (a true memoir).

you’re going to disagree with me, but when you do, you’ll be wrong.

i was raised to be a sissy.

TerryWalstrom

Thank you, Giordano!

I have other memories and facts at my disposal, but I can't write about them because they could be viewed as "actionable" :)

6

The Four Horsemen of the Biker Bar (a true memoir)

by TerryWalstrom in

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19nx89q5w0ztcfs2qw5_dvqgr60xf7ovelgeibutfufe/edit?usp=sharing.

TerryWalstrom

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Nx89q5W0ZtcFS2Qw5_dvqGr60Xf7OvelGeIBUtfufE/edit?usp=sharing

8

Strange Goings On at a Biker Bar (A True Memoir)

by TerryWalstrom in

strange goings on at a biker bar (a true memoir).

you’re going to disagree with me, but when you do, you’ll be wrong.

i was raised to be a sissy.

TerryWalstrom

I did a quick re-write and finished the story. I shall post separately.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Nx89q5W0ZtcFS2Qw5_dvqGr60Xf7OvelGeIBUtfufE/edit?usp=sharing

22

Jehovah's Witnesses: the Brotherhood of Delusion

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

i am a curious person.

i am challenged by the unknown.

i can be driven, out of sheer frustration, to penetrate a closed veil of conspiracy.

TerryWalstrom

In today's videos straight from the throne room of the GB, there is very little magic. There's only propaganda.

Fear-mongering videos about jack-booted thugs crowding into basement hideaways and cringing JW's facing Great Tribulation persecution is the stuff of fantasy.

This is all they've got now. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, it's all distilled down to: Do What We TELL YOU or else.

None of the teachings can be defended, you see.

There is no excuse for the handling of child molestation issues.
So, all that remains is fear and obedience.

This is their epitaph.

8

Strange Goings On at a Biker Bar (A True Memoir)

by TerryWalstrom in

strange goings on at a biker bar (a true memoir).

you’re going to disagree with me, but when you do, you’ll be wrong.

i was raised to be a sissy.

TerryWalstrom

Strange Goings On at a Biker Bar (A True Memoir)

Sure, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to disagree with me, but when you do, you’ll be wrong.
I was raised to be a Sissy.
No, not on purpose--it was just circumstances.

I had three generations of women rearing my sorry butt and paddling on it. Discipline meant “spare the rod, spoil the child.” Nobody wanted a spoiled child! They’d settle for a Sissy instead.

I had no Daddy around--he had flown back to Detroit. I was stuck in Fort Worth without a clue as to what a manly man with manly ways could possibly be, or how I could become one.

I’d have no way of knowing how to hit a baseball, catch a tossed football, or throw a right cross over a left hook to take out a bully. Nope. I had a different set of skills to learn, such as saying, “Yes, Ma’am and No Sir.”
I went to bed at a decent hour without being told when that hour was. I got up early and had perfect attendance at school. I earned straight A’s and won the spelling bee.

Now, do I have to ask you if that sounds like becoming a manly man is my destiny?

Thank god for movies!
I found my heroic stereotypes writ large on the Silver Screen and I took to the task like a Terrier grabs at a rat. I seized the day!

Thanks to Glenn Ford in The Fastest Gun Alive, I learned to draw my six shooter and fire before the bad guy could pull off even one shot. Thanks to Will Rogers, I could toss a lasso around a fence post in one throw. Thanks to Jim Bowie, I was a deadly aim with a throwing knife. Robin Hood created the desire in me to be a dead eyed archer. I swung from tree to tree like Tarzan. When Steve Reeves appeared as Hercules--I went crazy slinging barbells and dumbbells three times a day to develop a perfectly chiseled physique!

Yet, for all that effort and fantasy, I was a Sissy. I was scared of my own shadow. Neighborhood ruffians squealed with glee when they spotted me out on my bicycle and made short work of me without raising a sweat. I looked exactly like what I was: easy prey, a Momma’s boy and a Sissy. If you were a bully, you got down on your knees at bedtime and thanked the Good Lord for placing Terry inside your territory!

In reaction to my situation, I always had a Heroic dream.
I wanted to be a person others admired, looked up to and celebrated and yet, in school--nobody celebrated a spelling bee winner over a football player. I memorized 5840 new vocabulary words, learned the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by heart, recited Pi to 50 decimal places and committed to memory a plethora of snappy patter songs from Gilbert and Sullivan and The Music Man--but I was still a Sissy!

When my first best friend convinced me to join his religious cult--I threw myself into being the best I could be as a door-knocking, scripture-slinging, religious fanatic. I even served time in Federal Prison demonstrating my steely willpower and unwavering courage in the face of persecution, declaring myself a Conscientious Objector.
I was terrified of Jail, Prison, convicts, and assault, yet I faced every one of those and came out the other side bloodied, but unbowed.
I was obviously trying to prove something about myself.

I was a flaming heterosexual interested in girls ever since before the 1st grade! But I was so painfully shy and non-athletic--there just didn’t seem to be a subtle, low-key way I could compete with the other guys. The correct adjective is Clueless.

What can you say about a guy six feet four inches tall with blue eyes, slender build, a quirky sense of humor, who sings Broadway songs and collects movies soundtracks on vinyl? I was a natural artist, music lover, and movie fanatic who never missed a new film. I knew all the Directors, lighting technicians, Directors of Photography, and scriptwriters to each film. I was an avid reader and I wrote poetry. Well--what could you say-- I mean, other than SISSY?

Having said all that, I can now begin my little story. . .

It wasn’t until a few years ago I met a “by God genuine hero!”This fellow was a winner! He was loved and admired and celebrated. He was everything I wanted to be and wasn’t. However--in meeting him and watching him--I suddenly learned a simple life lesson I want to tell you about.

If you’re still interested at this point, stick around. Here we go. . .

_____________

THE FOUR HORSEMEN

This ramshackle dive was a bar--a lowdown, loud music, pool playing, cigarette smoke kind of bar where members of the Punishers Biker Club (i.e. gang) gravitated on weekends. Hell, their oldest member owned the damned thing. He obviously didn’t give a rat’s diaper what it looked like because it was nasty in the sense of being a weigh station to hell. An old red carpet was worn down to wood round the regulation pool tables. The restrooms smelled like--oh, I won’t inflict a description on you. You’re welcome.
Behind The Four Horsemen bar was a large plot of land, fenced in and rendered not visible by outsiders on the old dirt road next to the seedy motel with its flickering sign. NO TELL MOTEL. Yeah. That one.
It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what went on in that backyard patio. Bikers and their kindred spirits could brandish the hash pipes and exchange dainty pleasantries in the open air. A CCTV system allowed these denizens of the darkness to spy out the front parking lot just in case a police car should happen to pull up.
Inside The Four Horsemen, always crowded with unique specimens of near-humanity, just outside the city limits of Fort Worth, patrons drank, cussed, played pool, listened to live music, fed quarters to vintage video consoles, and otherwise re breathed the thick, noxious lung soup of smoke and raucous merriment.

Into this fine establishment one fine night, yours truly walked in--a man surely as out of place in such a bar as a man could be.
Thanks to my good buddy, Bob, I had entered a world of nightmares and terror. Thanks Bob!

Bob and had been friends for a decade. His daughter and mine became fast friends at school and we found ourselves at Camp Carter twice a year for Father and Daughter weekend campouts. No two guys ever had more in common. Bob had played drums for a performing band in Calgary, Canada as a youth. He was an I.T. engineer, a movie buff, and music aficionado.
We clicked.
Once each week, on Friday evenings, Bob and I would search for Live Music venues where we could sip beer and talk music, life, and unwind.
Bob had spent much of his youth in lowdown bars and unsavory nightspots--he feared nothing! Wrongly, he assumed I too feared nothing. Actually--I feared EVERYTHING!

What do you suppose was running through my mind and the minds of that bar’s inhabitants?

______

Here I am, inside a rat’s nest called The Four Horseman, and every set of beady red eyes is sizing the two of us up. Are we Narcs? Cops undercover? Looking to score crack? Nitwits who are lost? I leave you to sort that puzzle toward its unsurprising conclusion.
Bob made his way through Biker chicks sporting love handles and enigmatic tattoos, weaving confidently around each cluster of bearded, bandana-on-head motorcycle ‘enthusiasts’ and sidled up the bar. A much bosomed young thang smiled and asked Bob “What’ll you have?”
Write your own dialogue.
She was way out of place, too young not to be dumb, an asset in many thinkable (and some unthinkable) ways which enhanced Bob’s appreciation of The Four Horsemen.
I joined him at the bar and tried to make myself invisible.
Bob was chatting up the tender bartender with the kind of silly ease guys assume when they were a real hit with the girls back-in-the-day, but which selfsame ‘skills’ are now defunct and no longer applicable due to the passage of time and--well--the cornball factor of an aging man and a young woman having ANYthing whatsoever in common.

I staged an intervention at once!
I smiled and tossed off my usual banter:

“Is this bar named after characters and descriptions contained in the Bible book of Revelation, Chapter Six?”

The young bartender, named Melanie, blinks wide-eyed. I may as well have asked her what a quadratic equation was.
A peculiar old gent with a scraggly white beard standing next to me sticks his head in close and startles me with his response.

“Original members of The Punishers are the four horsemen. When I bought this bar, I named it after us. I’m Fast Eddy. Who the fuck are you?”

Within the next ten minutes, Bob and Fast Eddy are great friends and drinking companions. Bob has that special way about him. I listen and observe and practice shallow breathing inside the cloud of smoke where I stand. My ears melt from loud music. My eyes sting and water. I resemble a white mouse with a head cold.

We all drink Killian’s Red beer on tap in a pitcher as our tympanic membranes stretch into crinkled trampolines of abused scar tissue. Miraculously, Bob understands every word Fast Eddie speaks. I, on the other hand, understand nothing, and yet I have a genuine flair for nodding as though I thoroughly comprehend the secrets of the universe.

______
Bob and I are sitting on a red, cushioned bar stool--the kind which swivels in all directions. He is laughing and telling me things. I am nodding and smiling. Every once and awhile, I toss in an expression of something or other--made up on the spot. It’s working.
Finally, the live band stops playing. If I were Catholic, I’d say my rosary...or whatever you do to give thanks. At any rate, the welcomed semi-quiet refreshes my spirit.
Fast Eddy has been challenged by a little redneck cowpoke wearing a straw bronco buster hat and ostrich cowboy boots. He’s not just drunk--he’s sassy--full of himself. He’s telling Fast Eddy how badly he’s gonna get whooped!
I see by Eddy’s eye crinkles that he is most amused at this runty little gnat.

Bob asks Melanie who the finest pool player in the joint is. Fast Eddy tops the list!
I explain to Bob where the name Fast Eddy comes from. He never saw The Hustler with Paul Newman.
Really?
Yeah, well--he’s about five years younger than me. Go figure.
Bob suggests we go outside in the back and sit on the patio so’s we can capture oxygen in our lungs and lengthen our lifespan.
I jump at the chance and snatch up the newly filled pitcher of Killian’s Red and off we go.

____

The smell on the patio is acrid--in a druggy sort of way!
I’ve never tried and never will try, drugs of any description. I’m a Sissy, remember?
Others, loitering as they are, on the patio, have no such reservations about drugs!
Apparently.
Bob and I sit way off on the extreme end of a wooden deck. There are lounge chairs aplenty.
We settle in and finally talk--real talk--about music.
Every now and then, the denizens of the dark waddle over and introduce themselves and offer us a hit, a toke, a smoke, a this and a that. I explain that I’m in recovery from congestive miasma and, as such, can’t violate the terms of my parole or I’ll end up back in Alcatraz.
I get sympathetic nods and solemn head shakes. They truly feel my pain.

I’m finally fitting in!

_____

After a couple of hours and as many refills, Bob and I wander aimlessly back inside for bathroom duty and to check what condition our condition is in. The bar has dwindled down to a manageable rumble of voices, laughter, coughing fits, clinking mugs, and the sound of the cue ball colliding with kindred spheres.

We have taken up residence on the barstools just in time to see the end of that marathon pool game between Fast Eddy and Runty Ostrich Boots. Fast Eddy has lost!!
Lord Gawd Amighty!
He reaches into his pocket and peels off some impressive bills and hands them over to the winner.
“Go agin, old man?”
The Ostrich booted upstart inquires, obviously pressing his luck.

Fast Eddy pauses and snuffles. . .hesitates. . .smiles and shakes his head.
“Nope. You’re the better man.”

Folks who know Fast Eddy have paused to watch and listen. With those words hanging in the air, a titter of quiet amazement passes around the room kinda like the smell of a well aimed fart.

And that is when he walks in--the Man.
THE MAN.

______

The mood suddenly shifts. Everybody seems to have won the lottery or something.
“Hey, Ray--how they hangin?”
The dozen characters remaining in The Four Horsemen are like kids around the ice cream truck on a hot August afternoon.
Hands are out for shaking.
Grins are hauled to the top of the flagpole to unfurl.
The very large, impressive black man has his back slapped, hand shaken, ear filled with good tidings and compliments enough to set Bob and me to wondering who the heck this hero is who has graced this shabby bunghole in hell with his magnitude.
Our latter day Moses parts the Red Sea of fawning worshippers and makes his way, lumbering on polished alligators, toward the barstool next me at the bar.

He’s big. His bigness is not simply a matter of size. He’s BIG, as in IMPORTANT.
To me, he’s anonymous and nobody I’ve ever seen before in my life. That’s what you’d expect from a Sissy, wouldn’t you?
Melanie’s beautiful young face becomes a starburst of fulsome energy! She dashes out from behind the bar and rushes up to the great man and throws her arms around him for a never ending squeeze that almost knocked the air out me just from watching!

Bob has cornered Fast Eddy to get the lowdown on our guest.
“Is he somebody important?”

Fast Eddy purses his lips and nods a slow up and down movement with his whiskered chin and says not word one.
Call me intuitive. I can suss out how it is--Fast Eddy doesn’t like Melanie and Mr. Big hugging on each other. I quickly theorize: Old Z Z Top here is infatuated with Melanie!

After the slobbering has ended and Melanie is back behind the bar, Mr. Big makes a glacial slow turn to his right and his eyes lock on to mine. My face is blank. I’m just watching and waiting. What rules of the road have delivered this demi-god to my side? Who or what or why or when or where?

“I’m Rayfield Wright. I’m a Humanitarian. I’m a two time World Champion Dallas Cowboy Super Bowl winner. You see these two rings? Those are Super Bowl Winner rings. I’m a most valuable player winner. Everybody knows me. ”

The big man reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a business card. He hands it to me like he’s offering a hundred dollar bill to a starving third world child.

Now, it’s my turn.

“Yeah--me too!”

I arched my eyebrows and offered him my hand. . .the way the Pope does when he wants his ring kissed.
_____________

Now, I never played football or developed the quasi-religious fervor for the game your average Texan has. I don’t watch Super Bowls. I don’t know player’s names, as Rayfield Wright has come to expect every-damned-one-of us to know and react accordingly. It is his legacy, you see? My not being impressed has puzzled him for only a few seconds. Behind his penetrating brown eyes, inside that helmet-like skull, the gears whirred and a conclusion is reached.

“You’re a jokester!”

He grins and slaps me on my shoulder with his hefty boxing glove sized hand and I suddenly concuss like a test-dummy in a car crash at General Motors laboratory.

“Heh heh heh. You’re a jokester. Yeah, man.”

And that was that. First impression are over.

In the next fifteen minutes, Rayfield Wright has knocked back about nine shot glasses of J&B on the rocks--except, without the rocks.

He gets up and heads toward the bathroom. Melanie leans in and gushes about The Man.

“He’s a Humanitarian, ya know?”

She goes on to explain how Rayfield calls her up and when she needs money, he gives it to her to help her out. Her girlfriends too!
A picture is beginning to emerge in my dirty little crow’s nest of a mind.

“He invites all of us to his Suite when he’s in town on business. He gives the most wonderful parties!”
Gushy details just spin out of control and pass the boundary lines of “too much information.”
Bob gives me a look and I return the same look.

The bathroom door opens, and as Mr. Big emerges, guess who is standing right in his path with a cocky, hat-on-the-back-of-the-head challenge to a pool match?

Melanie has a sharp intake of breath, like you hear in horror movies when the Creature leaps out of the water with those webbed claws splayed.
Bob makes his inquiry and Melanie offers insights.

Little Runty Ostrich boots and Rayfield the Magnificent hate each other’s guts.
Runty is a racist of the down home, shit-kickin’ variety. But he’s a rarity in a couple of ways.

You see, Runty has been tossed out on his skinny ass by the Four Horsemen in the past for using racially charged language.

Say what?
Oh--I left out the part where the black police officer was in the bar at the time! Otherwise . . .

Now what happened next is a story I’ve been itchin to tell for a number of years and simply haven’t done--mainly because it has to be told just the right way, patiently and with keen attention to detail. Otherwise, it’ll be wasted. I couldn’t risk that--no no--not my best story!

________

Next up: THE STORY! Strange Goings On at a Biker Bar (A True Memoir)

1

What are the Three Words?

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

new words for your day (for those who care)during the protestant reformation, 3 words became the most important words in the world.today, not one person in a thousand is aware of these words, or much less conscious of the importance of their definitions.what are the 3 words?could you be an intellectually honest christian person who declares they are a "spiritual" person and not have these words answered inside yourself?that question is what made these 3 words so important to learn._______notitia (no-tish-ee-uh) literally "information" assensus (uh-sins-suss) literally "approval".

fiducia (fuh-doos-ee-uh) literally "confidence".

notitia.

TerryWalstrom

NEW WORDS for your day (for those who care)

During the Protestant Reformation, 3 words became the most important words in the world.
Today, not one person in a thousand is aware of these words, or much less conscious of the importance of their definitions.
What are the 3 words?

Could you be an intellectually honest Christian person who declares they are a "spiritual" person and not have these words answered inside yourself?
That question is what made these 3 words so important to learn.
_______

NOTITIA (no-tish-ee-uh) literally "information"

ASSENSUS (uh-sins-suss) literally "approval"

FIDUCIA (fuh-doos-ee-uh) literally "confidence"

Notitia. Notitia refers to the content of faith, or those things that we believe. We place our faith in something, or more appropriately, someone. In order to believe, we must know something about that someone, who is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Assensus. Assensus is our conviction that the content of our faith is true. You can know about the Christian faith and yet believe that it is not true. Genuine faith says that the content — the notitia taught by Holy Scripture — is true.

Fiducia. Fiducia refers to personal trust and reliance. Knowing and believing the content of the Christian faith is not enough, for even demons can do that (James 2:19). Faith is only effectual if, knowing about and assenting to the claims of Jesus, one personally trusts in Him alone for salvation.

____________

Today, most Christian teaching and reading consists of memes, feel good philosophy, and tales of visits-while-dead to heaven or hell :)
During the Protestant Reformation, the most important subject in the entire world was Christian teaching, deportment, character and attitude.

Times have changed, eh?
Well, not really!
Have you ever heard of the THIRTY YEARS WAR?

92

There is no such thing as Agnosticism. Agnostics do not exist!

by nicolaou in

many here seem to believe that the position of agnosticism is somehow more reasonable than theism or atheism.

nonsense!

it is a misconception to believe that belief or non-belief in the existence of god/s are the two extremes which glare at each other over the fence of agnosticism.

TerryWalstrom

I simply say, "I'm no longer in the business of offering belief statements about God."
What I think about God is now private--that is, IF and when I think about God.

I think I've skirted all definitions of what I am!