Ahh, Brooklyn. Land of "fageddabowdit" and "are you tawkin' ta me?" Land of the definitive style of Americana and patriotism. Brooklyn is where you will find Coney Island, named by the Dutch for the multitude of rabbits that inhabited that spot of land near the Atlantic Ocean where the waves gently washed ashore used condoms from our friends in New Jersey. Ahh, Brooklyn, land of where I was born. Home of the free and the not so free lifestyles of those who went on to greater things--Barbara Streisand, Bobby Fisher, Tiny Tim, and me.
This photo is my gym that I belonged to as a Brooklynite, wanting a body that could only be hurt by kryptonite. But this gym is owned by a suckworthy guy who makes his living off of the innocent. No more will I beat a dead horse or say about the gym and how I was screwed, except that moving to Canada has given me enough time and distance to look at the matter with emotional distance and maturity. That f**k**g guy deserves to rot.
But enough about him and why he reminds me of pond scum. Let's instead reminisce with a walk down Memory Alleyway.
I moved to the neighborhood where this gym is located when I was 8 years old and the gym was actually a carpet factory. Across the street were clay tennis courts where I got all my balls, you should pardon the expression. To the right of the gym were trees on the outside of the fence separating the tennis courts from we "normal" non-tennis-playing-no-faggots-here Brooklynites, and in those trees I spent one afternoon refusing to go to school. I played "the hook" or hookey, as we say, (in India, it's called "bunking class"). Playing the hook was not a regular habit of mine, I was generally an obedient servant of my parents--garbage boy, paper-getter (we didn't have a dog), and generally nice kid. But just this once I played the hook because I hated my teacher so much, that I felt my failure to go to class was her failure to get me to go.
Of course, the rest, as they say, is history--"his story" that is, and I'd like to believe that growing up in Brooklyn was a phenomenal learning experience.
Moving to Canada, on the other hand, is a phenomenal hockey experience for which I am now a fan and will be until the day I'm pushing up snowballs. 'Nuff said.
This photo is my gym that I belonged to as a Brooklynite, wanting a body that could only be hurt by kryptonite. But this gym is owned by a suckworthy guy who makes his living off of the innocent. No more will I beat a dead horse or say about the gym and how I was screwed, except that moving to Canada has given me enough time and distance to look at the matter with emotional distance and maturity. That f**k**g guy deserves to rot.
But enough about him and why he reminds me of pond scum. Let's instead reminisce with a walk down Memory Alleyway.
I moved to the neighborhood where this gym is located when I was 8 years old and the gym was actually a carpet factory. Across the street were clay tennis courts where I got all my balls, you should pardon the expression. To the right of the gym were trees on the outside of the fence separating the tennis courts from we "normal" non-tennis-playing-no-faggots-here Brooklynites, and in those trees I spent one afternoon refusing to go to school. I played "the hook" or hookey, as we say, (in India, it's called "bunking class"). Playing the hook was not a regular habit of mine, I was generally an obedient servant of my parents--garbage boy, paper-getter (we didn't have a dog), and generally nice kid. But just this once I played the hook because I hated my teacher so much, that I felt my failure to go to class was her failure to get me to go.
Of course, the rest, as they say, is history--"his story" that is, and I'd like to believe that growing up in Brooklyn was a phenomenal learning experience.
Moving to Canada, on the other hand, is a phenomenal hockey experience for which I am now a fan and will be until the day I'm pushing up snowballs. 'Nuff said.
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