It’s a cool, clear-skied, Autumn morning in Dallas, at least from where I’m standing. I’m in my condo courtyard enjoying the morning routine. Some fallen acorns have naturally grouped together, but I know better. It’s a peace offering. The Ogre of Oak Cliff wants to be friends. Too bad; I already have one of those.

A friend, I mean. I may have three or four, to be honest. Dallas is beginning to open up to me quite nicely.

Leaning against my truck, I “shined” to a moment of me and one of my younger brothers. I’d called him over to the truck so I could hit the Proto and tell him something privately. A good reminisce takes two, you know.

You see, I’d only recently discovered through a why not moment that he and I lost our virginity to the same girl. If we choose to deep-dive this, it opens an entirely new can of worms. I’m not ready to tell that tale yet.

Regardless of the details, she recently passed away, and I didn’t know if he’d heard. He had. News travels fast in the vacuum of redneck space thanks to that new-fangled inter-webbie thang. Spit.

To my point, I was wearing a purple and black hooded flannel. It matches my Les Paul, my game controller, and various other things around my home and vehicle. It’s my not-so-subliminal-anymore favorite combination, and I can trace it back to a specific date.

April 18th, 2001.

I was living with friends in Long Beach and working for Nortel Networks. I was new to hockey, and attending my first playoff game at Staples Center. The place was pure static. LA Kings vs. Detroit. Game 4.

Los Angeles was the underdog, just squeaking into the playoffs at the last second, and Detroit was mopping the ice with them. Then, by some miraculous turn of events, the Kings came back from a three goal deficit in the third period and won it in sudden-death overtime. The blast of energy emitted from the crowd when the last puck crossed the line changed me forever.

Their colors were purple and black back then, and it’s all I could see as I got lost in the celebration. You could even see me and my friends a few times in the telecast, forever etched into history.

When I came home to Dallas, I adopted the Stars as my team. Besides, there was no way I could walk around small-town Texas wearing a purple monstrosity during that one week of the year when the weather allows us to do such things without breaking a sweat from too many layers. (You have to read that sentence in one complete breath to really feel my convictions) Purple was one of those gay colors, hyuck-hyuck.

Seriously, I remember one of my grade-school bullies jumping all over a kid for wearing purple. He accused him of being homosexual, when the poor kid wasn’t even old enough to really be any kind of “sexual” whatsoever! Regardless, I didn’t want to be accused of anything new that could get my ass beaten, so I subliminally avoided wearing or liking purple anything throughout my life.

Mental health is a mo-fo, ladies and gentlemen. Listen to your kids when they’re bullying others when playing online; Gorilla Tag, Call of Duty, and such. They’re doing it for one of two reasons:

Either they do it just as well in the physical world, or they’re a victim to it, and this is the easier way to vent frustrations and take the upper hand for a change. Step in and stop this shit before it rolls over into yet another generation of bullies. Society is already near its boiling point.

Back to purple.

My brother flicked my flannel and said, “you’ve really got some kind of purple thing going on, Prince,” or something to that effect.

I replied instinctively rather than formulate a more intelligent explanation.

“Because I can brandish it openly without getting the shit kicked out of me now.”

It’s been a damn long time since I’ve been in the fifth grade; about forty years. My brain still instinctively pings purple as one of the bad colors before I calm it, and remind it that there’s no such thing.

The child within never dies.

Keep that in mind as you nurture yours.

In hindsight, I was a horrible father. I should know a thing or two about wrong-turns.

Preach truths, toke jokes, and shoplift Amazon.

Also, enjoy this jam. Dance around your house at some point today. You’ll feel better.

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While we’re on the subject of school-yard bullies…

Toby Liberman is nearing the end of his rope. After a fateful confrontation with his wife’s lover, he is chased into the woods only to be discovered by an unidentifiable creature. He is attacked and rendered unconscious. Upon waking at the scene of a gruesome triple homicide, Toby is arrested as the sole suspect and thrown into a jail cell with a strange man that knows way too much about his predicament. The stranger reveals to Toby that he now possesses the curse of the werewolf. Using his new-found strength to flee his captors, Toby begins to discover that things are not what they seem in the sleepy town of Twin Oaks, TX. Now hunted by law enforcement, as well as the town’s gun toting civilians, Toby seeks vengeance against his false accusers and embarks upon a quest to clear his name once and for all.

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