I would wager that bullying is pervasive in all societies. Bullying has been around for as long as there have been people strong enough to victimize weaker people. And to be clear, when I’m talking about bullying I’m not talking about occasional name-calling or the rare jibe at one’s expense. When I talk about bullying, I’m talking about constant, systematic victimization of one person by another (or group of others) designed to make that person feel worthless and alone, in turn granting the bullier a sense of self-importance and worth. If your first instinct when hearing about bullying is to scoff, you’ve never been bullied.

I was bullied from sixth grade through high school (and I won’t even get into the shit that happened at day camp one year…and no, I wasn’t touched inappropriately, just brutalized by both groups of other kids and older teenagers who were our supervisors). I was threatened, had my locker broken into and all my belongings destroyed, had my school projects vandalized and obliterated, was attacked both inside and outside of school, spat on during and after bus rides along with all the usual name-calling and social ostracization that comes along with bullying. I found myself making friends with other outcasts, some of whom were also bullying victims (and many of whom I’m still friends with to this day). Some of my friends were beaten unconscious in schoolyards. I knew a girl, all of 4 foot 11 inches tall, who was intentionally slammed into a locker by an older football player. No one got in trouble. Ever. Adults didn’t believe anyone who complained (and yes, I talked to adults about the problems, including my parents). We were on our own.

You know what was most ironic (warning: tangent)? That same football player who beat up on a tiny girl later killed himself building an improvised pipe bomb in his garage. Yeah, the jock who was all kinds of popular and respected in the school was building the pipe bomb, not the “freaks” like my friends and me. Luckily for all of us freaks (one of the theories was that the pipe bomb was for attacking us), he killed himself trying to make the thing. And you know what happened? He got all kinds of sniffly, pandering media coverage with the pictures of the hot high school chicks all hugging and crying over their lost, innocent lamb of a friend. Then the school gave him a two page “In Memoriam” spread in the high school yearbook. Yep, they honored this sadist who got his rocks off bullying peope who weren’t as strong, beating up little girls and building bombs. And people wondered why my friends and I didn’t trust authority and believed that there was nothing we could do to stop being bullied? How could we stop being bullied when those doing the bullying were invulvnerable even at their most psychotic? Hell, they were celebrated at their most psychotic!

Still, I don’t envy kids at all today. My day was easier when it came to bullying, I think. Sure, it was fucking terrible and I hated going to school all through Junior and Senior high, dreading each and every school day. Kids today can’t get away from it, though. With the pervasiveness of social media, bullys can attack on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, emails, web sites, and so forth and so on, giving them 24 hour access to their victims. These kids can’t escape their bullies like my friends and I did, they have to deal with attacks without pause, and have the abuse published to a vast audience (think about that for a moment, and remember how much young people rely on social media these days).

I also don’t envy Ms. Prince the simple fact that she was female, if for no other reason than her gender offered avenues of attack that aren’t as easily pinned on males (specifically the attack on her sexual activity). I can’t even imagine what it must be like for a young girl exploring and experimenting with her sexuality to have her encounters with an older boy used against her constantly by these bullies. Add to all this the fact that she had only recently moved from one country to another, and had none of the support that was probably available to her in Ireland. It must have been so devastating for her.

At least with social media, parents can see the evidence. I could never prove anything to my parents. I didn’t get beat up nearly the same way as some of my other friends, so I didn’t even have the physical evidence. Even when there were bruises and blood, parents tended to gloss over these inconvenient details. No parent wants to believe that their kid’s lives are that miserable, or that their kids are victims – they assume it’s just teenage angst (and really, there was so much teenage angst I don’t blame my parents for being unable to separate the really bad stuff from the angsty stuff). On the flip side, I’m sure most parents don’t want to believe that they’ve raised vicious bullies either. With all the social media, at least there’s a record. Unfortunately, most parent’s still can’t connect that bullying with the at-school bullying and see it as a pervasive whole.

I don’t know that any anti-bullying law is really going to help. I don’t think the law can step in and handle this situation. Bullying will just evolve to avoid big, clumsy things like anti-bullying laws. So you know what I suggest? Teach your kids to value others and instill a good work ethic in them, teach them patience so they can ignore as much as possible, give them the mental and emotional skills needed to try and work their way out of the situations they’ll find themselves in, and then teach them to kick ass so that when all else fails, they can speak the only language most bullies understand: aggressiveness. That’s right: teach your kids to fight. They don’t need those bullshit black-belts from the strip mall Karate dojo if you’re not into that or can’t afford it, they just need to know how to brawl. Most bullies will crumple under a real attack (they’re pathetic creatures most times), but if your kid can fight, then he can handle the rare tough-bully too, or at least make him/herself less of a target (bullies are predictable: they go for the low-hanging fruit, i.e.: the ones that don’t fight back). Just remember to teach those emotional and mental skills too, otherwise you’ll just be churning out your own bullies.

And for those of you who are shocked that I’d advocate teaching your kids to fight back: My parents did not allow violence or want us kids engaging in violent activity. They constantly espoused the Christian message of “turn the other cheek.” My other favorite cliche was the, “just laugh it off and ignore them – if they don’t get a rise out of you, they won’t bother you.” Yeah, not so much…try to ignore a bully, or try to laugh them off, and see how far it gets you. I’d tried it for years and the bullying only got worse. The sad part for me was that one time, waiting in line for the bus outside the Junior High, a bully was fucking with me and getting ready to punch me. I instinctively kneed him in the balls…a literal “knee-jerk” reaction. He dropped. Even more, he never fucked with me again. I was panicked. I thought he was going to get up and kill me. He didn’t. But I was so wracked with guilt over ignoring my parent’s axioms and engaging in violence that I didn’t realize I’d found the answer: fight back. No, I repressed my urge to fight back and went back to trying to grin and bear it. Hell, to try and fit in I joined one of the freshmen sports teams and played for a season. Instead of eventually finding acceptance among my tormentors, I discovered I was just a lone freak surrounded by jocks. As opposed to becoming one of them, I was further ostracized.

Need more proof? Check out this advice that I got straight from the mouth of a bully back when I was in High School metal shop. He said, and I still remember this guy’s name (which won’t be posted here), something along the lines of: “you’re a big kid, not just fat, I bet if you started working out people wouldn’t fuck with you as much.” He was right, and I thank him for that advice.

I found my way to (mostly) escape the bullies during high school (without violence), but the method is not one I’d recommend to anyone. I played the Satanist. Not just a metal-head, but a full-on, evil-personified Satanist. I dressed the part, listened to the music, carried around Anton LaVey’s “Satanic Bible” for shock value (and it’s an interesting read) and just fed my anger. Amusingly, the cousin of the bomber-wannabe jock (mentioned earlier) assaulted me both in the school halls one day, and then later one night outside of school with six of his friends, accusing me of putting a curse on the aforementioned jock that made him blow a large hole in himself. I managed to extricate myself from both situations by playing up their own fears. If they believed I could curse their boy into killing himself with a bomb, then what could I do to them? I was not attacked except for a few rocks thrown from a distance.

The sad thing for Ms. Prince is that she’ll never know this world without bullies. Nor will she ever learn that those of us who were “different” in high school are often much better equipped to deal with the real world (possibly because we learned how to deal with adversity). But if you think back to those high school days, I’m sure you remember just how important every little thing seemed back then, every little hiccup in one’s world was a crisis. I could barely imagine a time when I wouldn’t be around these people, judged and excluded by them. For Phoebe, it was apparently too much to withstand. And if she’d never dealt with that kind of bullying until she arrived in the States, it would have been even more overwhelming for her.

We “freaks” may never look back at high school as the best days of our lives, as so many people suggest it was supposed to be, but rather we’re experiencing them now, outside of that tiny hell that seemed so all-encompassing back then. I’ve never attended, and will never attend, a high school reunion because the majorty of those people are dead to me. The ones I care about are still my friends. The rest of them are merely bad memories that I’ve allowed to fall out of my head. But I’ll tell you one thing: my experience with being bullied for so many years of my youth profoundly impacted my development as an adult, in some positive but many negative ways.

Update: Apparently Ms. Prince even reached out to a School Administrator for help days before she committed suicide…and got none. This is a revelation because school officials have repeatedly said she never reached out to them.

I guess in some ways it’s inevitable. Some friends have married, some have children and some have moved. Our careers and life choices have diverged in many different ways. Our personalities, always very different, have been the driving forces of change in our lives and that change, on a personal level, often impacts the larger circle of our friends. I, for example, have spent much of my time focusing on my work. I’ve moved across the country and back for new job opportunities, changed careers and worked to exceed at each new endeavor. This stressful choice of mine led me to work long, strange hours and was probably a leading cause of my heart attack. It has also resulted in a modicum of success for me. The unintended result of this choice, other than the heart attack, is that I’ve devoted less time to maintaining contact with my friends and family. A positive result of the heart attack is that I’ve made good progress reconnecting with my family. Now my thoughts turn to my friends.

An interesting facet of my friendships with members of “the group” is the nature in which we orbit one another’s lives. Often we can be incommunicado for months and months yet as soon as we’re together again it’s as though no time has passed. This happened more when we were younger. Now that we’re older I’m finding that the gulfs between our worlds are expressed in awkward silences or the retelling of stories from decades earlier. It’s possible that these stories are the only connections left between us, though I find that a disheartening thought. Of course, these uncomfortable situations only occur when we spend time together, which is very rare.

The easiest thing to do is just to pick up the phone and reach out again. When I decided to make more of an effort at staying connected, I didn’t intend to isolate myself to either friends or family, as I just wanted to reconnect with everyone who was important to me. Yet I’ve not been as faithful in contacting my friends as I have my family, and I wonder why. Sometimes it’s because I leave message after message and never get a call back, which I take as a kind of hint to leave those folks alone, whether they intend it to be that way or not. Sometimes it’s because it’s been so long that the awkwardness of just reaching out again seems so overwhelming that I just don’t dial the numbers, as stupid as that sounds (and is). Still other times it’s because I have so little in common with some of my friends these days that there’s just nothing to talk about, no common ground.

And yet these are nothing but excuses and justifications. The simple fact of the matter is that if I value the friendships I have, I will reach out to everyone and find new ground upon which we can meet. We’re all very different people, but that which differentiates us is also that which I value. I can’t learn and grown from people who exactly like me, not that I’ve met many, nearly as much as I can from those people who have come from the same place as me but made different choices. They know me and my (many) faults, yet they’ve tolerated them to varying degrees all these years. Yes, they have their faults and they’ve sometimes been bad friends, but the exact same can be said for me. That we all can still get together and talk after a couple of decades (Gods, but we’re old) is a feat of which we can all be proud.

This then is my goal: to call each of my old friends and just catch up with them. They’re not heavy, they’re my brothers (and sisters).

What’s worse is that just a little while ago, Patriots fans (including myself) were shocked to hear Indianapolis fans booing a 14 year old girl for wearing a Patriots jersey while being honored for winning her age group in the NFL Punt, Pass and Kick challenge. It’s one thing to boo a bad call or to boo unsportsmanlike conduct, but it’s entirely another thing to boo a kid for representing her home team or another team that just played their guts out. Whatever happened to sportsmanship? It’s not just for the players on the field, people, its for the fans in the stadium too. How about showing a little class?

The same thing applies to the fans of the Red Sox, whom I consider to be some of the most boorish fans on the face of the earth. Is it really necessary to swear up a storm during a ball game where you’re surrounded by little kids? I’m all about free speech, but I’m also all about personal responsibility. And does the whole “Yankees Suck” thing make any sense to anyone? They obviously don’t, and chanting it in the stands or plastering the stickers on your truck don’t do anything to impress anyone, instead just demonstrating what a moron you are.

It amazes me when anyone complains that kids aren’t learning sportsmanship these days. From where would they learn this skill? All their role models, and I’m not talking about professional athletes but the people who are with them day in and day out, demonstrate nothing but classless and unsportsmanlike behavior. If they don’t learn it from the people they watch and play with, where are they going to learn sportsmanship?

I’m not saying we need to act prim and proper at games, nor am I suggesting that we should never act up in the stands. Hell, I’d be the first booing that idiot on the Steelers who guaranteed that they would beat the Patriots because he acted out of line. All I’m saying is that there is a time and a place for everything. Just as it seems obvious to me that booing kids is dumber than shit, it also strikes me that booing the losing team is equally as stupid, especially when that team is being praised by the winners (who are showing a bit of sportsmanship themselves). Show a little class, people.

Now, I’m not going to claim to be some great aficionado of Classical music and capable of experiencing some appreciation of the music beyond what the average person experiences, but I enjoyed myself a great deal. It was a matinee performance on a Friday afternoon so, as I expected, the place was packed with senior citizens, non-working affluent people and some tourists. I dressed up a bit and got myself there too late to catch the pre-concert speech, but in plenty of time for the actual performance.

My only experience with a symphony performance had been watching them on TV, so this was very exciting for me. The musicians straggled onto the stage in ones and twos to warm up, eventually filling the stage. Then Principle Violinist and Associate Concertmaster, Tamara Smirnova, got things ready to go with a quick tuning. Sir Colin Davis walked on stage to hearty applause and the concert began. Not knowing what to expect, but expecting the best, I was not disappointed. There’s something magical about watching and listening to a large group of musicians creating something so precise and beautiful. The cohesiveness and professionalism on display was incredible to behold. This is the end result of tireless human effort focused on a specific goal, and what a result it was to experience.

The sound was so clean and perfect to my untrained ears that I had a hard time believing that I was watching these people perform live and not listening to some recording. I usually use that argument to deride most concert events because I expect rock shows to be rougher and more spontaneous with less concern for technical prowess, but for the performing of Classical, this is exactly what I had hoped for. This is not to say that the music was performed without passion. Watching the expressions on the musicians faces as they played that same pieces that they must have played hundreds of times already conveyed a sense of love and joy for what they were doing. Then, when Ms. Uchida played piano for the Mozart Pianao Concerto, one truly got a feel for the passion of a performer.

A conductor herself, she knew the music inside and out and each note she struck was accompanied by an expression of sheer pleasure. She would breathe in heavily as she prepared to play and then her face would transform; smiles and frowns, closed-eye expressions of pleasure. I think I caught one mis-hit note, but beyond that it was excellence personified. She received three standing ovations. Sir Colin Davis received three ovations as well, mixed standing and seated. I feel kind of bad that the symphony players themselves don’t get more recognition from the crowd.

I plan to see more performances as time and life allow, but at least I can now say that I saw the BSO. I recommend it to anyone with an inclination.

My brother was able to give me some suggestions (three out of four were Barnes and Noble’s gift cards…I shit you not) so I went to a blessedly under-populated KB Toys tonight and purchased some Legos for my nephew. It was during this purchase that I understood that I’ve officially become old. When I said to myself, “I don’t remember Legos being like this at all”, I knew that I’d gone over the proverbial hill. Is it just me? It used to be you’d buy a Lego set and you’d get a bunch of multi-colored, multi-shaped pieces that could be put together however you wanted. I remember kits for specific things as well, but they still used mostly generic Legos and gave you instructions as to how to put them together to mimic the picture on the box. I couldn’t find a box of generic Legos to save my life and all the kits are designed so that they only go together one way. My nephew is quite inventive (and forceful) so I’m sure he’ll make them fit his will, but it still seems like half the fun of Legos is dead. If I can’t just randomly put the pieces together to make what I want, what’s the point? There’s no creativity, there’s only instructions to be followed. One way, the right way, and no other. Lame.

So this Christmas I’ve resigned myself that I’m old. For real. No more joking. Midlife crisis time, if I’m lucky. For fuck’s sake, I’ve had a heart attack and complained that they don’t make toys like they used to all in the same year. I’m fucking old!

Well, regardless, you all have a happy holiday season. For my friends (both in person and all my online buddies) and my family, I love you peoples and hope you all have a great end-of-year and a great next-year.

After getting a bite to eat, I decided to head to my regular bar to catch the Red Sox game. The place was packed, which was expected as tonight was game four of the World Series and a chance for the Red Sox to sweep the Rockies. I sat outside for a bit watching the game on an LCD screen near a large gas heater (a bit chilly tonight). Then I headed to the main bar and snagged a standing-room-only spot at the edge of the bar near the wait staff serving area. I spoke to the owner for a bit as well as several of the staff whom I’ve come to know over the several months I’ve been hanging out there. The owner was nice enough to buy me a beer and I got to enjoy a real pint glass (when it gets crowded they often switch to plastic to keep up with demand and to avoid potential breakage), which always makes the Magic Hat #9 taste better. Then as Papelbon struck out the last Rockies batter, the owner busted out a whole slew of champagne bottles and started spraying. I got drenched in champagne (managed to get my PDA phone into my pocket before it got hit too much), and I have to say it was a first for me. Bar staff then poured the rest of the champagne and handed cups to as many people as they could – many toasts were raised and the bar owner worked the crowd as rowdy as any fan. In a town where I know very few people and where most of my friends are far enough away that I rarely see them, it’s nice to have a place to go where, even though you know it’s business, you’re welcomed and made to feel at home. And tonight, it was good to share the experience of the Red Sox winning their second World Series in four years with a group of excited fans. Yeah, almost as cheesy as the theme music to “Cheers”, but the sentiment is legit.

The lead singer of the band Boston, I met Brad when I was working in radio in the city of, coincidentally enough, Boston. Working Marketing/Promotions for a Classic Rock station just when Classic Rock was experiencing a revival means that I met a lot of artists. Some were funny (Meatloaf’s response to a hot saleswoman asking if she should call him Meatloaf or Mr. Loaf: “You can call me Meat”), some were assholes (Joe Perry of Aerosmith was an arrogant ass who treated the radio station staff like his personal bitches) but Brad was genuinely a nice guy. There were other nice guys (Steven Tyler of Aerosmith was friendly as could be, unlike his guitarist buddy), but only Brad came across as completely genuine. I can only nod my head in agreement at the message on Boston’s website: “We’ve just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll.”

Tom Scholz is the technical genius of the band, but Brad was the heart. When I met Brad, Boston had just released their “Best Of” album with a couple of new songs, but Brad was focused on his Beatles-tribute band, Beatle Juice. They played several gigs for our radio station and they’ve continued to play at all kinds of venues for longer than the last decade. They are generally considered the best Beatle’s cover band around, and you could feel Brad’s love of the Beatles every time he stepped up to the mic. Just the other day, I’d heard an ad on the radio for an upcoming Beatle Juice show in my neck of the woods.

Brad wouldn’t recognize me or remember me, we weren’t friends or even acquaintances, we’d met only on business, but he’s always stayed in my mind as one of the few rock personalities I’ve met who I liked. It struck me that he wasn’t hung up on his fame or attempting to recapture some lost past, he was just happy because he could sing the songs of his favorite band for an appreciative audience. He was a true fan and a great musician. Goodbye Brad.

The fact that there were several police, fire and ambulance vehicles on the other side of the street from the bar should have been my first clue that this place was going to be a train wreck. Granted, they weren’t there for anything that happened at the bar but the omen seems apt. I entered the too-well-lit sports bar and saw no seats at the bar. I grabbed an empty, two-seater table across from the bar and started surveying the place. Lots of college meatheads with a few older meatheads; many TVs showing different games (which is good, because the area in Lowell where I live has, until now, had no sports bars); and a large contingent of wait/bar staff wearing red shirts bearing the name of the place. I also saw the owner of the place, whom I’d met at my usual place while watching a BC game and who had told me that he was opening a sports bar downtown. A quick shake of hands and a congrats (they opened just last Friday) and I waited to be served.

Tables in the bar area are generally serviced by wait staff, so I didn’t go to the bar because I didn’t want to fuck the girl out of her tip. She came nearby and started talking to the owner about the table next to me. Apparently she was worried that they’d walked out on the tab. She was just finishing up with him, noticed me, asked me if I was all set, to which I replied, “No, actually, can I put in an order?” She was then distracted by the owner as the guys at the table next to me returned to pay their bill. She then completely ignored me. I sat there for a good 10 minutes waiting to be served. Nothing.

Fuck. I hate that. And she was a cute little Asian chick too. In the meantime a couple of spots opened at the bar. I forsook my table and grabbed a seat…and sat…and sat…and sat. What the fuck? The bar staff was standing around doing nothing. I waved. I tried to catch eyes. I did everything but shout (I hate shouting at people – it seems so ignorant to me, and if I have to shout I might as well leave). It took me another 5 minutes to get someone’s attention so I could order a beer and a cheeseburger. The part that pissed me off the most about this was that they were serving around me, as though I wasn’t there. I literally watched their eyes slide right off me as they served people to my right and left. I’m a giant guy with a red beard – I’m not easy to miss. Lame.

The only reason I didn’t leave already was because I was hungry and this was one of the few bars that served food. I don’t have much food in my place right now (I hate grocery store crowds on the weekend) and wasn’t in the mood to drive to a chain restaurant. Meanwhile I paid my bill (before getting my food, I might add – poor choice by the bar staff making me pay that just because their shift was rotating, which accompanied by the slack service) and drank my beer while watching the game. The staff rotated and I hoped that the new guys (a guy in his 30′s and an older guy who must have been in his 60′s) took up the rotation behind the bar. While I will accept that the place was busy, I’ve spent more than my fair share of time in bars and know that a two-person staff can handle both wait staff and bar customers without ignoring people.

The old guy was mostly useless, though a nice guy. Couldn’t hear people’s orders most of the time and didn’t really seem to have spent much time working a bar. The younger guy played the same game as the first staff and only served those who yelled the loudest. I got my burger, which wasn’t bad, and finally got another beer. The old guy actually managed to refill my beer without me having to wait too long, so I hoped maybe a rhythm was developing.

No such luck. The game over, now watching the Celtics getting embarrassed by the Knicks in the first quarter, waiting for the Cal/USC game and I sat there with an empty beer waiting for service. And waiting…and waiting. The old guy was busy stacking glasses on the other end of the bar. The young guy served around me at least four times. I finally exclaimed, “fuck this” and threw a ten on the bar to cover my $9.75 tab and walked out.

I know the bar is new. I know the bar staff hasn’t worked out the kinks yet. I know that the place will probably get its act together. But on my first night of vacation just wanting to drink too much, watch too many games and wander home with a nice buzz on I was in no mood to have to fight for a drink. My local liquor store is right around the corner so I stopped in for a sixer of Magic Hat and am going to watch the game on my HD LCD TV at home in the comfort of my own recliner.

I’ll have to check the place out one more time to see if it’s improved. I may need to speak to the owner just to give him a heads up that their bar staff needs to get their shit together. And just a heads up: I usually am overgenerous with my tipping, as anyone who’s gone out drinking or eating with me will attest. 20% is the base from which I expand. 15% is given when you do a bad job. Less than that and you’ve pissed me off or offended me. The fact that I tipped the first crew a dollar on an $11 bill and the second staff a quarter on a $9.75 bill says a lot about the way I feel I was treated.

Ah well, the recliner is calling.

In that vein I spent this early afternoon wandering about my city looking for a diner, but sadly they were all closed (fell back on the Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast). I’m hoping to figure out their schedules because I’m jonesin’ for some fatty homefries, breakfast meats and omelets. There are at least three diners within walking distance of my apartment, so it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. I just got back from a long ride along the Merrimack River. It was nice to see that I wasn’t the only biker who hasn’t stored his ride for the winter, as there were plenty of people out on a variety of Hogs, Sport bikes and Metrics like mine. My plan for the remainder of the day is to catch some football or play some video games, then wander out to get some dinner a few beers. I noticed a new Irish/Sports bar opened up right on the main drag two blocks from apartment: this could be dangerous.

As for Thanksgiving, I think I’ll be heading up North to visit the family in Vermont. The goal there will be relaxation. I’ll have to remember to bring up a selection of bourbons and perhaps some snacks to try and offset the inherent costs of housing and feeding the fattest/drunkest sibling. Hope everyone else has a good Thanksgiving as well.