Chapter One: "Meet MasterCard"


NOTE: 99.9% of this story and the tales that are to follow are the god honest truth, as far as my recollection can extend that is. While not all quotes may be completely accurate, I've tried my best to make it as close to what really happened in my past according to my memory. These are all personal stories and not all are drug-oriented (though the best ones definitely are), but more so a detailing of my weird, awkward and ofttimes hilarious life growing up in southwestern Ohio as a teenager and beyond. I've never shared much of my life with any of you guys on any substantial level, and I feel like I have a wealth of great, embarrassing stories to tell you here. So without further adieu, hope you enjoy and let's rip that narrative bong....

Our story begins at age 13. For some background, I was a pretty shy kid with little-to-no friends in a remote, corn-covered Midwestern town. I've always posted that I'm from Dayton-Cincinnati on here, but the truth of the matter is I grew up in a little Podunk pasture named "Jamestown", population: bumfuck. Truthfully, I did grow up in Cincinnati off notorious Vine Street as a kid, but after my biological father and mom divorced and my mom met my step-dad (whom I've always referred to as just "dad" since the age of 3), I've called this little town my home until recently. Being 20 miles outside of Dayton, always hanging out there, working there and crashing there - it just made it easier to say it was my home on here so people weren't asking "where exactly is that colonial corn-tastrophe you call home? Never heard of it..." Anyways, now that we've established that.... Jamestown is a quintessential small American town. Everyone knows everyone, generations upon generations have called it home and everyone has a cousin they didn't know about (literally. I found out years later some girl a grade above me was a first or second cousin to me directly and had never even known. I was so damn thankful I never found her attractive.) Don't get me wrong though, this isn't West Virginia... though I would definitely forgive you for confusing it with Kentucky. Technically a village, there's about seven churches and three graveyards in total for a town of barely 2,000, which was around 1,500-1,800 when I was in high school. The town's divided between the main village and a man-made lake called Shawnee Lake, which is a lot more upper class though it's certainly not The Hampton's. The accent divide between the two is enough to make you feel like they're two separate towns, but it's still a classic story of have's and have-not's. Now that we've painted the backdrop, time to enter dreaded 7th grade. I was unaware of what a lot of things were, and marijuana was one of these things, though also around that time I was starting to pick up some bad habits hanging while hanging around people who were similarly bad influences, specifically a guy who lived down the street from me named Larry. Larry was a shithead, to put it bluntly (became an even bigger one nowadays, but that's another story), but since we both walked home after-school and lived on the same street, I guess you could say we became "friends". Our friendship mostly involved throwing rocks at stop signs and stealing Black & Mild's and Sour Skittles from Town Drug. To make matters worse, my parents were starting to have complications with their marriage (over Everquest of all games and things, lol) and the cracks of normal every day life were really beginning to show.

Every week I'd watch That 70's Show with my mom, but I had no inkling as to what marijuana even was, despite the constant references and circle scenes, I guess it just merely flew over my head at that age. I had a friend named Chris at the time who didn't hang out with anyone else, but became close because we shared two passions: WWF and heavy metal music. Chris was basically a drum prodigy - the dude could shred it on a double pedal at the age of 8-9'ish, and was good enough to play in a real band at this point time. I'd write lyrics and try to sound like James Hetfield the best I could on a mic, but sadly, we didn't have anyone on guitar (I was nowhere near learning how to play one at that time) and most of it was just us fucking off. So one night after playing WWF No Mercy on his N64, Chris comes up to me and asks: "Hey Justin Rad... wanna smoke?" which certainly confused me. I'd told Chris before that my mom had gone through treatment for thyroid cancer in the past and I'd never smoke cigarettes (spoiler: that idealism sadly didn't prosper), to which Chris had a good laugh. "No, man... weed. Lawlz." "Weed???" I responded with a deafening silence, "Yeah man, like what they smoke on That 70's Show. It makes you feel good. I think you'll like it... Are you cool with that?" Suddenly, it clicked. "Okay, so that's why there was always smoke in the background of the circle scenes... ahhhhh" I thought to myself. Chris had an older brother, god forgive me I can't remember his name. He was ex-military and about seven years older than us, and a real smartass. Chris's drum setup was in the basement, which was also where his brother just so happened to be packing up a massive glass bong as we came walking down the steps. "Hope you're ready, Justin..." Chris' brother says to me as we sit at the roundtable.

"Meet MasterCard." 

*hands bong over to me, I check it out*

"Awesome... Why do they call it MasterCard???", I asked.

His brother simply smiled: "'Cause it's approved by stoners everywhere. Ready to take a rip?" I thought I was ready, and I enjoyed new experiences, so I nodded my head and got into position... or, well, what I thought was position. See, I've got pretty big lips, and well... I didn't exactly know how to put them on a bong, so it ended up looking like I was, well, y'know... needless to say, the boys got a kick out of that. I also was completely unaware of what a carb even was, so my first hit I barely got even anything from that. After it made the next round and came back to me, Chris' brother made sure to light it for me so I got a proper hit, and... 

SPOILER: Click to show

Fatality, bitches -- I coughed my fucking balls off. I coughed so loud and so furious that I developed super hearing... No, actually it was my normal hearing heightened -- fuuuuuck: Chris' dad opens the door, walks down, makes an excuse that he's looking for... *batteries, I think?* but then starts asking us what we're doing. Chris' brother had sneakily hid MasterCard somewhere and, well, long story short - we got away with it. I still to this day have no idea how their dad didn't smell that, but part of me feels like he knew but wanted to try and scare us or something or maybe send some kind of message to Chris' brother - who knows man, it's been damn near 20 years now. I damn near fell from my chair getting up, and I learned my first valuable lesson of weed-smoking that day: standing up after sitting down helps it kick in even stronger. After half-crawling up the steps, I learned my second lesson of weed: it turns you into Takeru Kobayashi in a room full of Nathan's hot dogs, except my hot dog's were bowls of cheerios -- three in succession, to be exact. Then came the third lesson: it's literally the best sleep ever. I caught some of the greatest z's of my life that first night, becoming a comatose vegetable for the whole Sunday after as Chris proceeded to introduce me to two comedies that I still hold near and dear to my heart as some of my favorite movies of all-time: Office Space and the then highly underrated Wayan's Brothers 90's classic: Don't Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood... oh yeah, and Demolition Man, too. What the hell was up with that virtual sex scene? Why did society itself fall apart at the seams but somehow Taco Bell managed to survive? I guess we'll never know..... 

SPOILER: Click to show

Stay tuned for Chapter Two, where young Rad experiences the pure anxiety of having to show up at school that week, how music and playing it changed everything and when young Rad finally finds a group of like-minded individuals to finally call friends...

Chapter Two: Regressive Development


The previous chapter was simply to paint the picture, but there's a lot of canvas still left. To continue where we left off, dumbass me thought that I was somehow still high that following Monday at school. I was profusely sweating and paranoid that my homeroom teacher knew I was. Looking back I wasn't - I just had a case of anxiety at the fear of being caught for it. One thing I left out from the previous chapter was Chris telling me: "It's illegal, so be cool. Don't tell anyone we smoked with my brother or you smoked with me" and so that was resonating hard in my brain at the time. Short story even shorter: nothing happened, I got myself worked up for no reason. If you caught the drift of my previous installment, then you'd know that I wasn't exactly considered Mr. Popular back then. I was a chubby ginger who had a bad case of acne, specifically blackheads that lined my entire upper lip like some fucked up, pubescent constellation. I didn't know how to talk to girls and since I got picked on throughout most of elementary, I didn't trust people to have or make friends. To make matters worse, I went to a school with about 500 kids in total, not even 100 in my own graduating class at that time, so the whole "everybody knows everybody" thing was maximized ten-fold when it came to school. Enter Malacai. I'd known Cai since I was in the 2nd grade - he'd lived right down the street from me and we waited for the same bus standing literally across from each other every day. I remember we used to talk about Dragonball Z and Pokemon religiously to pass the time, but eventually I went to middle school and had to take a different bus and we drifted apart as close friends since I was a grade above him. Fast-forward back to 7th grade and one day I'm walking down the hallway, only to see the fattest and tallest bastard in the school picking on Cai and holding his beanie up above his head in a game of cat-and-mouse before chucking it around to his other hilljack cronies. I don't know why I did it -- I always avoided conflict, and often still do -- it's just never been something I'm good at and definitely not something I enjoy, as I either blow the fuck up and possibly black out, or I don't really say what I want to say. But somehow, in that moment, I did know what to say and I was going to say it.

Before you point it out, yeah -- I say "dude" A LOT... wayyy too much, especially back then.

Rad: "Hey, ya fat motherfucker -- Why don't you leave him alone and pick on someone your own size?" *I know, reallll original, Rad*

Fat M'fer: "And what are you gonna do about it, prep?"

Rad: "Dude, you're calling me a 'prep'? You're literally wearing K-Swiss, my dude."

Fat Mf'er: "Skater, prep, whatever ya are, ya fuckin' weirdo."

Rad: "Dude, if you even stepped on a skateboard you'd probably break the motherfucker in half!"

Y'know you've got 'em when even some of their friends start snickering. Needless to say, Cai got his beanie back and from then on out, we became brothers and best friends. Living down the alley from one another made it extremely easy to hang out after school and, even better -- Cai was learning how to play the electric guitar and even had a little practice amp to plug into. Though I'd been a fan of metal and other heavy music, it was from first hanging out with Cai that I really began to change the way I dressed and the music I listened to. I traded in 80's thrash metal for nu-metal, I started buying my clothes from Hot Topic on the weekends at the local mall two towns over and started hanging out there because there was fuck all else to do around that town. Through Cai I made more friends, before making friends from those friends and soon enough we had our very own clique of misfits. We were innocent in these times, really -- sure, I made dirty-minded comic books during the middle of class and we were certainly not angels -- but as far as smoking was concerned, it was a rarity. This was usually through the aforementioned friend of ours named Chris who we would occasionally go over and smoke with. Cai's first time smoking over there was an experience, as he coughed so violently that he thought he was experiencing a heart/panic attack. It took Chris' mom coming down to the basement to bring him root beer and talk to him before he calmed down and felt okay. But yeah, otherwise at this point, we had yet to blossom into the foul-mouthed, juvenile stoners that we were soon destined to become. Chris didn't really have any personal stash unless his brother left him some, and we didn't know anyone else that could get any at the time, so it was kind of a rarity, not to mention that we were focused more heavily on music around then. We put together a band called "Kurtosis" (don't ask me why that name, I liked how it sounded without realizing it's something sort of set of equation or philosophy used by mathematicians) which consisted of me on vocals, Cai on guitar and Chris on drums. Chris was really the one steering the ship but Cai was just as dedicated himself, though at this point his musical acumen mainly consisted of just power chords and little else. By far the funniest memory from this time was when we decided to cover "Blind" by Korn. Chris had some nice cymbals, specifically his Zildjian china that he would strike the bevel of to mimic the intro of that song, and it sounded dead on. Cai got the riff down, and I..... botched the opening line of "ARE YOU READY!?" worse than Sin Cara on a trampoline. It literally sounded like my balls had completely gone from my groin then kicked all the way up to my throat on the very last word, and all the two of them could do was point and laugh while I thanked my lucky stars that they were the only two to witness such vocal atrocity.

But back home, things weren't so funny. The chaos and confusion of my parents marital problems was awful. They both worked opposite shifts from one another, and neither would be home by the time I got off school. My biological father had been abusive to my mom in the past (hence their divorce) and so my grandparents had always been overly protective of me. I keenly remember it being the only time I ever yelled at my grandmother, and I still regret it to this day, as she was scolding me over walking home by myself in the winter with no one to supervise. Looking back it makes total sense to me as an adult, but back then - I thought she was just babying me. This all critically came to a head when my dad pretty much stalked my mom to her friend's house, after noticing she had put on lipstick (which she never did), only to find out that her friend had invited over some gentlemen. Turns out both of them had been talking to other people on the EQ servers behind the others back, basically cheating on one another virtually. The two had a heart-to-heart, went to counseling, ironed out their issues and I'm happy to report that they're still going strong now almost 30 years later. Though it was a really dark hour for me and I can't even imagine for them, it made all of us stronger and closer in the end and could have been a lot worse. Honestly, I got a taste of what kids with divorced parents go through, but I'm still very fucking grateful that's all it ended up being. Bad enough at puberty, but I can't even imagine at an even younger age...

SPOILER: Click to show

In the next chapter, we'll discuss more of these wacky characters that I called friends, the revenge of the Fat Mf'er, my 8th grade year and one of the douchiest people from my past -- the dreaded... LEE.

No, not Lee...... I fuckin' wish, dude.

Chapter Three: "Go Back Inside.... We're FIGHTING!!!!"

So for starters, here's a casting call of those misfits I left out from before, excluding Cai and Chris who I've already made mention of:

Things 1 & 2: This is how my dad first referred to my friends Adam & Richard. They were both rocking shaggy mop-tops at the time and always wore similar band tees and if you were looking for one, you could most likely find him hanging out with the other. Picture the two kids from South Park who always laugh about everything and say "that's gay" all the time - pretty close depiction, honestly, though not nearly as brain dead. 

Cora & Blasian: All of us had a crush on Cora. She had a seat belt fastener for a belt, wore tight jeans and was a tomboy to the extreme. She never really smoked or partied much, and we drifted from each other in high school at some point. She's a teacher now, so yeah - she was smart and had her priorities straight, so no wonder. Blasian was half black and half Thai, and well - all of us had a crush on her, too. What can I say? Her and Cora were best friends and most of us lived within 4-6 blocks of each other so we were always hanging out. The best memory I have is the two of them convincing me and Cai to let them give us makeovers. Thank god no pictures were taken because I made for one ugly-ass girl.

Bobby: I'd known Bobby longer than anyone in the group. He lived two streets behind me and we rode the bus when he was in kindergarten and myself in 1st grade. My dad didn't like him coming over a lot when we were younger because he always seemed unkempt and smelled bad, I guess. Anyways, Bobby and I shared a lot of similarities; both being ginger, sharing the same birthday and our favorite NFL team was the Green Bay Packers. Bobby moved to another town 10 miles away for a couple years and kind of drifted from the group for a little, but started hanging out with us again in high school after moving back. 

And then... there was mother... fucking... LEE. Lee was in my grade and was a new kid who moved to our town at the start of 8th grade. He was a dorky looking kid with curly blonde hair, glasses and lips that pointed forward like a duck's bill. One day me, Cai and Chris notice that no one was talking to the kid and thought "what the hell, let's go say hi to him." At first Lee seemed pretty cool and chill. What initially sparked our interest was that he said he knew how to play the guitar and had a nice Fender Strat and Marshall amp that his mom had just bought for him. We asked him if he'd like to jam with us sometime and he seemed excited and down to come play with us. The big problem was -- Lee didn't even know how to play or had the slightest clue on how to even fake it. You know when you're playing (erm, well, used to play) Guitar Hero and you keep fucking up the notes and it makes all those awful feedback sounds as a result? That's basically what it sounded like. From that moment on, Chris didn't trust Lee - he thought he was a liar and a douche and, well - we probably should have listened to Chris in the long run. The douchery of Lee is likely to span its way through a few more chapters, so we'll make it brief here: while this should have been the first warning sign, a room covered from ceiling-to-wall in ICP black-light posters should have been the biggest wake-up call of all. But did we listen? No.... I wish we would have.

As mentioned before, there's still the revenge of the Fat Mf'er to address. Fat Mf'er didn't like me punking him out in front of his boys and embarrassing him on the day that I stood up for Cai. This culminated in him blocking the doorway as I was about to walk home, urging me to fight him which... I didn't. Sure, I wish I could go back and put my money where my mouth was but trust me when I say I was far more worried about dealing with the repercussions of school and home from getting in a fight rather than fighting this dude who was twice my size but a grade below me. Obviously, I had yet to accept my "fuck, I don't care" mentality at that point. Fat Mf'er proceeded to call me a pussy, and I proceeded to tell him to meet me somewhere if he really wanted to fight me. Well, this never did happen, because.....

[THE NEXT DAY, ALSO BEING THE ONE FUCKING DAY I MISS SCHOOL] Cai had taken enough of Mf'ers mouth and proceeded to roll his fat ass down a set of bleachers and beat the living crap out of him, in front of the entire school during an after-school prep rally. Cai kind of became a legend around school for a time being and I'm sure a lot of people haven't forgotten it (even today) since it was probably one of those "holy fuck, I did not expect that" moments from school, which he honestly would end up becoming notorious for in general (as you'll read later on).  I ended up finding out all about it from Cora and Lee knocking on my door and telling me the story. I still remember the look of disbelief on their faces: "Justin RAD! You're not gonna believe this shit!" Turns out one of Mf'ers friends called Cai out at the skate park just down the street after school and the two had also gotten in a fight, literally minutes before Cora and Lee had shown up to my house. I'd love to say Cai won this one, but sad to say I think the toll of two fights in one day and 500 pounds of girth steamrolling you through rows of shabby bleachers may have ultimately done the damage. After this fight though (the one the school did see) -- NO ONE fucked with Malacai anymore. Pretty much everyone that wasn't a hilljack got a long with him, and I'd venture to say he earned the respect of our school for standing up for himself. Honestly, as much as I'd love to change history and go back to fight Mf'er when he first confronted me, a part of me also doesn't because maybe then Cai wouldn't have had such an awesome story of self-preservation and respect to tell. Who knows, dude?

Despite all of Lee's flaws, there was one benefit. Being from nearby Beavercreek where the mall we always hung out was, many of Lee's friends from there were local girls who we ended up hanging out and becoming friends with and even dating/hooking up with. I'm not proud of it, but looking back we kind of used the kid. No, if I'm being a straight up honest adult -- we did. Gradually Lee's female friends became strictly our friends and our hangout sessions became prime moments to trash him. In a lot of ways he brought it on himself; he was a compulsive liar, to the point where nothing could be believed anymore. He was always jealous if we were hanging out with the girls (some of them ex-gf's of his) instead of him and combated this by spilling their dirty secrets to us in a way to level the field, I gather? All I'm saying here is -- Lee wasn't an angel and we weren't exactly spawns of satan, either. It wasn't our intention from the beginning honestly, it just kind of gradually became a reality. As time passed, we stopped hanging out at Lee's frequently anymore and mostly kept to ourselves going into high school, especially after Lee had the balls to call my girlfriend at the time a "fat, ugly bitch" literally as we walked in front of him. But, more of that in our next chapter...

SPOILER: Click to show

In our next chapter, Rad gets in his first fight and... kinda rips Lee a new one for his big mouth... or the two just end up rolling around the corn like a couple bitches, guess you'll have to wait to find out. Also, Rad and the misfit posse ditch their mall goth drab for some color, give themselves a name and the sacred ritual goes from monthly, to weekly to "damn son, PACK ANOTHER!" So stay motherfucking tuned, dudes and dudettes.

Chapter Four: "Okay, Enough Of THAT Shit..."

The transition from junior high to high school was awful at first, but it would end up being such a better time by comparison. It was made a whole lot easier by the complications of our school system. See, what I forgot to mention before was that I was the oldest of the group, a grade above everyone else (aside from Douche Littleblow, Male Juggalo) so the anxiety of having to go to high school by myself as a freshman was terrifying. I was pissed, really. FINALLY, I've got this awesome group of friends and now my socially anxious ass has to basically hit reset. Luckily for me, the old elementary schools we had gone to were now being shut down, and the kids from those schools were being sent to fill up the building we had been in before. It's honestly a clusterfuck to explain, but basically...

Elementary: K-4
Middle: 5-7
High School: 8-12

I'm pretty sure this is how they decided to organize the schools, for whatever reason. All I cared about was the fact that, not only were all my friends coming to high school with me -- but I wasn't going to be left hanging on the lowest rung of the proverbial totem pole. Win-motherfucking-win. Though I hadn't gone into great detail of it before, we were basically mall goths who thought we were goths but we're really a bunch of kids in black clothing who had shitty taste in music. Slipknot, Mushroomhead, Korn; Tripp pants, black fingernails - that whole douchey deal. Around that age you think "this makes me stand out, it makes me unique" but then you eventually realize "fuck, I don't even wanna stand out, this is just making me a target and worst of all - I'm playing a part, I'm not being Justin Rad myself," or at least I ended up feeling that way myself. What really changed my whole attitude was when me and Cai watched the Woodstock Musical Festival DVD for the first time. The music itself changed us in a way. We were so blown away that we basically gave up our black attire for tye-dye, seemingly overnight. Cai started growing out his dreadlocks even more and was wearing dashikis; I traded in that awful Slipknot shirt for a higher grade Bob Marley. Around this time, me, Cai, Adam and Richard really became the four musketeers rather than three. We pretty much did everything together and had branched off in a way from the original group. Occasionally we spent time with Cora and Blasian, Chris or Bobby, but it was mostly the four of us looking for something to do together every weekend. Very, VERY rarely was hanging out with Lee even a thing anymore.

With all this change came an uptick in the sweet green usage, and with that came Steve, the first guy we ever bought weed off of. Steve is a character (and I mean this to the fullest extent of the definition) that you're going to get to know a lot better as this series progresses, but I'll set the record straight right off the rip: Steve was an acquaintance more than a friend, and certainly became less than even that as time would go on. I daresay though -- we were complete amateurs when it came to buying our first bag. We had literally saved up our lunch money for an entire week and combined it together, which totaled out to $20 in goddamn quarters. Steve was our middle man basically, and took us to the local laundromat where we bought the shit right there on the steps leading up to dude's duplex apartment on the second floor, out in the damn open. We then proceeded to venture off into the woods by the nearby bike path to smoke, only to realize that we hadn't even brought anything with us to smoke it out of. Conveniently, Steve had a bowl to sell us, which ended up being the biggest rip-off of all and the first piece of paraphernalia I ever owned -- good ol' MIKE JONES. Mike was a porcelain bowl that had literally broken completely off at the shaft and was nothing but the bowl piece itself. Steve had jerry-rigged a pipe shaft with aluminum foil and masking tape and sold it to us for $10. It was the shittiest piece of shit I ever owned or smoked out of in my entire life and I hope it died a thousand deaths; the $10 I spent to go watch The Village in theaters was more worthwhile than the $10 spent on burning my fucking lips off of shitbrick reggie. Nowadays, they're practically throwing high-quality pipes at people (sometimes literally), whereas then you'd have to drive to nearby Yellow Springs (also to become a heavy fixture in future stories), then convince and ante up a little extra for a local to buy you something, which was too much of a pain in the ass and often didn't work until we got older. During this time, Cai and I were making our own comic books at school; a passion we had both shared and didn't even know we had in common until lunch one day. Cai began a new series after we started working on some together, based completely on our group of friends as pot-smoking, alien super heroes. The series was so wacky and over the top and our arch nemesis was the owner of the local grocery store who had kicked us out for hitting each other with wiffleball bats in the store. Through this comic series, Cai gave us all a name that some of us are still referred to as to this very day: "The Dordians". 

Cai = Trogg, born from a wicker basket with the power of dread-senses *like spidey-senses but from his dreadlocks*
Richard = Juby, big ears that he can use to fly and fully equipped with X-Ray vision goggles
Adam = Griz, a literal ball of fur and muscle that can communicate with animals
Justin Rad = Mongo, barbarian with pepperoni nipples who can throw boulders at great distance

In turn, these became our nicknames and a lot of friends only referred to us by these names, rather than our real ones. This too was kind of an organic thing. We started getting real ridiculous with it though, but in a good way; we made a Myspace page *feels even older now* listing Kimbo Slice and The Baconator as our heroes, wrote up our very own constitution and started knighting people with cardboard tubes that we hotboxed them with. Don't get it fucked up, though -- we acted like we took this seriously, but that only made it funnier because some people thought we were weirdos and really believed this shit -- which created WAYYYY more lol's in the end. It was a joke that kind of took on a life of its own, and crazily, some people even still refer to me as Mongo, fucking 15 years later. The same woods by the bike trail that I had mentioned from the last chapter where Mike Jones was bought literally became Dordia itself in real-life and our favorite hang out spot. We would often go there to smoke and get away from the rest of town, and this soon transitioned into breaking wood apart and beginning to build tee-pees out in the woods. Don't ask me why or how this transition happened, but the faux-hippie thing I guess was really starting to kick in full speed for us. Turns out... these woods were, erm... private. This wasn't exactly my finest hour, either. Everything we'd built in these woods and all our utensils were promptly destroyed or discarded of *rightfully so, looking back on it -- we were literally trespassing, though I actually didn't know that at the time and assumed it was public* and thus the farmer who lived here *who wasn't even really a farmer* was transformed into the penultimate comic book villain: motherfucking Farmtron.

Taking a break from the somewhat illicit drug talk, Rad bagged his first girlyfriend at the end of 8th grade, and he was driving all of the misfits completely bonkers. I met Becca through Lee, and I really deserved what was coming to me. Initially, I had been hooked up with another girl who had the same circle of Lee's friends on AIM (god damn, bringing up AIM made me feel old) and met her on a blind date with friends at the mall, and, well.. let's just say I didn't find her too attractive. So instead of just being a reasonable gentlemen, douchebag Rad proceeded to flirt with her best friend's friend who ended up being Becca and breaking the poor girl's heart *cue the tomatoes and hook*  To make it brief: 8th grade Rad wouldn't shut the fuck up about this girl. It's all he ever talked about, and her damn modeling picture was even hung up on my wall. It got so bad, that my friends would always threaten "you say her name one more time and I'm straight up tackling you, dude" and yes, it did end up progressing to this stage. This was the foundation of "Extreme Basketball", which was basically (forgive me for lack of better terminology) "Smear the Queer meets Basketball" and involved tackling people wherever, whenever. No fouls, basically. My dad ended up not being a big fan in the long run, considering his garage door stopped working shortly thereafter. Sorry, staying on topic now... Becca didn't last long. She ended up cheating on me, and well, karma prevailed. I learned a lesson not to be such a douche and not to get so attached, one I would continue to keep learning from. Later down the line, I got with a girl from the same circle of friends named Nicole, and we became an on-and-off thing, mostly accelerated by the fact that she'd moved to North Carolina when we were first together. When she finally moved back, it happened to be in time for the dreaded Lee's birthday party, which I actually agreed to go to. Before the aforementioned fight, Lee was bitching and moaning and whining like a little kid about me sitting in his chair. At first I was just messing with him, refusing to give it to him, but the more he whined and complained the more it annoyed me. I was, to be frank -- completely sick of Lee's shit by this point.

So we take a walk to cool off. Me and Nicole walking in front, Lee and our three mutual friends Jimi, Randy and Sterling walking behind. Literally the entire party at this point. We're just walking up the country roads in the dark of night out in the middle of nowhere corn country, when suddenly I hear: "Yeah, well fuck Justin. And fuck his fat, ugly bitch of a girlfriend, too." Unfortunately, the same reserve I'd shown Fat Mf'er was not extended whatsoever when it came to Lee. This was my first experience of blackout anger. All I remember is turning around, and then next thing I was tussling in the corn. Apparently I'd whipped right around, knocked him down with a solid shot and then once he got on the ground, Lee tried to wrestle me but... it was a lot more like a worm trying to play footsie with your entire body. Lee tried to lock me up, I tried to throw some mount punches but couldn't get off much force because, 1.) It was like trying to fight limp jello, 2.) I had ZERO fighting experience and didn't know how to put much force behind my punches while knelt down. So basically, what could of been my finest hour boiled down to a minute and a half of rolling on the ground like a couple of topsy-turvy turdburglars. Nicole and I wouldn't last long and became more friends than anything as time went on. As for Lee, we stopped hanging out. That was pretty much the end of our friendship. About a year or two ago he added me on Facebook. He did some time in the army and is very conservative and pro-Trump now and we still remain two completely different people. I don't think we've even messaged each other. Time certainly does change things...

SPOILER: Click to show

If you've made it this far, I'd like to thank you. I promise this only gets better and better and the stories get wilder and wilder the older I become. I had a pretty unique and also really basic American experience in my high school years; ripe with embarrassment, intrigue and a whole lot of laughs. I know that some of this might be hard to digest at times (some of it even hard to believe as you go on), especially the relationship stuff, but from this point on it becomes a pretty crazy ride. So, in concerns to the next chapter: Rad and friends embrace the faux-hippie lifestyle and start spending their weekends in the nearby hippie capital of Ohio: Yellow Springs. Cai goes on a journey like no other described on here before, and a whole wide world of experience opens up for our friends as they discover the joys of sex, psychedelic drugs and playing live music!

[/spoiler]

Chapter Five: Minimum Waste

I actually got my very first job by complete accident back in 2005, and it was all thanks to Cai and the coolest Wendy's manager who's ever managed a Wendy's: #ChangeMyMind, #YouWon't. Cai already had an interview arranged there, and I merely went with him because we were already hanging out and we did everything together anyways. Before the interview even begins, the guy shakes Cai's hand, notices his Pink Floyd shirt (yes, he showed up to his first interview with a DSOTM shirt on, same one he's wearing in the picture posted below -- no fucks were given, dewds) and exclaims "Oh wow! You like Floyd? I went and saw them at Ohio Stadium back in the '70's, best show I ever went to before or since!" The interview proceeded to become a 20-minute music discussion and less than 1 minute discussing the actual job. Before it ended, he turns to me and asks "Are you looking for a job, too?" and, well.. fuck, he made it that damn easy and is this cool, why the fuck not? Well, in a perfect example of life's shit sundae-ness, that dude ended quitting the job that very same week, before the two of us started working or had even cleared the physicals for our legal work permits. Guess who was waiting for us at Wendy's? MOTHERFUCKING LEE. Not even joking, Douche Juggalo already had a job there and we hadn't had even the slightest inkling of an idea. Talk about fucking awkward, right? Turned out it was a blessing in disguise. The girls we worked with had no shame in shooting him down every chance they got, or teasing him (which I actually didn't agree with even then; I mean, no one likes to be teased... unless you're a weirdo who's into "the chase". I dunno about you, but I'm a water buffalo, not a lion - let's just get it over with. I must be a dick cause I still took too much enjoyment of watching him make a complete ass of himself five days a week. Cai actually didn't last too long at the job, he ended up putting his two weeks in for whatever reason. I myself stayed for about a year before getting tired of missing out on parties and the good times, so I followed suit a few months later. Most kids were concerned about saving up for a car, but I was terrified of driving. To be honest, and everyone always laughs, including myself -- I had never even learned how to ride a bicycle up to this point. I was a stubborn kid with few friends who gave up easily, and so my usually patient dad gave up on talking through to a wall and I just never pursued it as I got older. It's really funny, sad, lame and even more funny and sad looking back, 'cause all my friends owned bikes, which meant I was the only dude walking half the time. They'd get tired of me slowing them down and would start riding circles around me laughing before taking off and yelling, "Sorry Justin Rad! Guess ya better go learn to RIIIIDDDE A BIIIIKKKE!!!"     

(Circa 2005, L to R: Justin Rad, Cai & A-A-Ron)

Around 2006, I started making wayyy more friends outside of Jamestown by way of music, joining my first real band and meeting a lot more people through music venues, because the one thing I did save up for at Wendy's was a 4-string, natural grain Washburn bass and a little 150 amp (can't recall which brand it was, pretty sure it was a Peavy). I had taken guitar lessons in my youth at the very same place my closest cousin had gotten horse riding lessons, but my attention span was extremely brief at five years old. I don't know what or why I was possessed to pursue the instrument, but I was always that kind of guy who wanted to do what others weren't doing *typical angsty teen* and chose the less popular option. People always joked that bassists never got laid, yet I was probably over there thinking: "Well, fuck... I'm not getting laid anyways, might as well look cooler doing it!" My first real band was named Mango Tango. Another one of my close friends, Ben, was the absolute hippiest of the faux-hippies at the time and has, perhaps, with one of the funnier origin stories of all my friends. The local town festival is called the "Bean Festival" of all things, and every year, my mom (and myself, honestly) get super cravings for some damn funnel cake. I distinctly remember her giving me $20 to walk up town and buy ourselves some of that sweet, diabetes-inducing deliciousness, and being a generally well-to-do son, I complied. How could I have possibly seen the storm that was to barrel through me and my prized fair food? Out of nowhere, two dudes looking like they were straight out of the 1970's come rushing up and ask if they can have a bite of my funnel cake, stoned out of their gourds. A simple "yeah, you can have a bite" turned into one, two, three four and more before the goddamn stoner carnivores had eaten almost all of one of those funnel cakes.... Fucking no good funnel sharks, man. My mom got hers, but I got scraps. Sounds like a real shitty foundation for a friendship? Well, they were stoned and the situation was just so damn funny, that every time I'd see my future guitarist I'd hear "HEYYY, MANNN! REMEMBER THAT TIME WE ATE YOUR FUNNEL CAKE! HAHAHA! THAT WAS SO FUNNY!"

(Circa 2006, from L to R, "MANGO TANGO": Justin Rad, Ben, Sam & Nick)

Honestly, swear to god... if you need a genuine description of mid-2000's Ben, it's literally fucking Kelso from That 70's Show; Bar fucking none. He pretty much lived that role. Before Mango Tango, Ben and our other friend were in a band called the Neo-Hippies *everyone acknowledged the name was terrible, I think they stuck with it maybe to be tongue-in-cheek, who knows?* and I used to check out their shows in the nearest by town named Xenia at a local venue called The Cavern, which nowadays has long been closed. Some of my best memories come from these days, including the time me, the band and the owner's daughter all watched midget porn for the first time, with the shop closed while we were high as kites -- damn good times. Back on point -- I went to their shows pretty often, and me and Ben struck up a friendship and when they kicked him out, the two of us decided to start forming a band once he read some of my lyrics. His younger brother Sam was super talented on the drums at just 12-13 years old, and Sam's best friend of the same age would eventually become our rhythm guitarist and later... bassist, like me. Guess we'll have to save that part at least. This became the nexus of the original group, with me and Ben functioning as the primary songwriters. We grew obsessed with Kings of Leon *back when they were kick-fucking-ass raw rock n' roll, not the pop rock Billboard 100 you see nowadays* and began covering songs like "Molly's Chambers", "Four Kicks" and a few other classics. We had a nice mix of covers and originals and became regulars at The Cavern after a couple months of practice. The Mango Tango saga is an interesting and lengthy one that could really be a long-ass chapter of its very own, but for now, we'll pause there and come back because, well... Rad DID promise ya'll some sex and psychedelics. When it comes to most of this kind of stuff (especially the sexual), I'll be leaving out most real names out of respect.

The first thing to note is that I did leave out a girlfriend -- Monique not only cheated on me, but my entire passive-aggressive town persisted on always asking me if she was black: "I wish, ya fuckin' assholes". We had actually planned to do the deed but she chose someone else to do it with instead, and boiii... talk about eating your heart. As time passed, I met the girl I'd eventually lose the v-card to online of all places, but only about 20-25 miles away in Fairborn. It's the same town where some wrestling fans might recognize the Nutter Center; its the only place WWE traditionally runs through (other than Cincinnati/Indy metro) that's near me. She was a sweet girl really and never cheated on me like the others, and we had decent chemistry but distance and difference in religion and some other things would ultimately undue things. It's awesome because now we're friendly with one another and even message the other from time-to-time to see how they're doing, so it feels good to have a breakup that had a somewhat happy ending. Anyways, let's get to the JUICE of the matter, shall we? Ol' Rad lost his virginity...

SPOILER: Click to show

On a damn kid's jungle gym -- my ass was literally cold from the slide below me. I feel bad for the kids who slid down and played on it from there on out, but I'm sure we weren't the Lewis & Clark of this expedition. It was never planned this way, we just started making out and then she says "I'm ready" and well, who was I to say no? Here's a run-down of what happened:

1.) I made her cry. This isn't so much me being braggadocios, more so her being weirded out by fingering herself and so.. yeah, you can only imagine. I tried to tell, but... no dice.
2.) I lost my damn Sublime wallet in the process. Some good samaritan literally mailed it back to me, nothing stolen with all my cards and even the little bit of cash I had left in there. I still regret not sending that person a thank you letter, she could have easily been a shitty human being about it.
3.) We tried a second time a week later, laid out a blanket in the nearby woods, but... repeat process... no dice; Rad learns his balls turn blue.

My first real experience with psychedelics began with LSD, and the first few times it was sold to me, me and my friends were getting ripped off and I had all but given up on the psychedelic experience up to that point. I knew no one who sold mushrooms and acid was cheaper, but when it's not working for you, it's definitely not worth it. That is, until it pretty much falls into your lap. In the nearby aforementioned Yellow Springs, there's a local Street Festival that brings in thousands of people from all corners of the region, state and some even from out-of-state. It's literally asses and fucking elbows in humid-ass Ohio all day, twice a year. Luckily, there's a nearby nature reserve called Glen Helen, bearing the very same orangeish-yellow springs that give the town its namesake. While often overcrowded nowadays, back then? Not nearly as much. If you came to the fest to smoke and just hang out with the locals or the other nearby townies like ourselves, rather than shopping and sight-seeing, then the Glen was the place to be. Very soon, this was to become our home-away-from-home, but before one of my first Street Fairs, a friend of mine we all called Mayo had helped me fix the awning on our porch, a chore that dad had promised to split pay for both of us. Not done out of any intentional selfishness, I bought a single dose of LSD when the cute hippie girl offered it to me for $20. Needless to say, Mayo's response was: "What the fuck, man!?" Don't worry, karma wasn't far behind me yet again. 

Unbeknownst to me, Malacai was also tripping, and our two separate trips were about to become polar motherfucking opposites. After apologizing to Mayo several times and then just dosing it myself because he refused to take it, my stomach began to grow sour, I started to sweat profusely and my energy became drained. I suddenly realized "I didn't eat anything before I dosed... I didn't drink any water, either... FUUUCK" and this, combined with the heat and the anxiety of the situation, created a real psychedelic powder keg for me. My friends, even Mayo, grew worried about me and had me sit down on a rock near the exit of the reserve, as my friend Aaron (different Aaron, the real A-A-Ron Rodgers) took off to Subway to buy me some Sun Chips, because it's all I apparently wanted in that very moment. Aaron comes rushing back with the chips, I take one bite.. and then comes the horror. The taste of blood devoured my mouth, and in my state I misperceived the sun chips as my own teeth and so to no surprise, I violently spit it all out seconds later. Mayo would always laugh years later when the story was ever told "I JUST CHEWED MUH OWN TOOTH!"   

Things didn't calm down until I was forced to chief a cigarette and then a recently rolled blunt to the point where it would make me vomit and flush out my system, which proved to be the solution. I definitely could have done without it looking like battery acid though. The rest of that evening I drank nothing but water, and that's about all I remember, other than meeting Ben down by a secluded lagoon locals call "The Blue Hole" where he was literally colored and shifting in color as if he were a prism, all while playing his guitar. If not for this moment, I wouldn't have been able to truly adjust myself back mentally. It goes without saying that this very experience left a lasting imprint on me with concerns to 'cid: try and try as I might after that, I could count the number of actual good trips that I had based on maybe two or three fingers. It took all that effort for me to grow up and finally realize "dude, stop forcing yourself to have a good time tripping -- maybe it's just not for you" and I'd say it's been probably 5-7 years now since I last dosed, something like that. Meanwhile, Cai was having the time of life. As we progressed through town both during and after my bad trip died, we kept hearing these crazy stories about Cai, how he was tripping balls, holding himself out of a moving car and running on rooftops throughout the village. So imagine me, already paranoid and being consumed by this hellacious mental trip, and I'm hearing all these ridiculous stories about my best friend being a psychedelic madman. Hours later, we ran into Cai at a bonfire and he was 100% A-okay, confirmed everything we heard was true and proceeded to tell me it was the most fun he ever fucking had.... and I wanted to both laugh, punch and hug the bastard all at once.

[/spoiler]

Read through a bit of this during downtime at work. Just doled out some preemptive likes in the style of 🤯 . Will read more thoroughly later tonight.

Life Stories is rapidly becoming my new favorite PW genre.

Also, rad looks just like my 6th & 7th grade friend Chris B. The resemblance is uncanny. You ever play Signs by Tesla in your school's talent show?

Jun 5, 2020 20:09:52 GMT Baker said:

Read through a bit of this during downtime at work. Just doled out some preemptive likes in the style of 🤯 . Will read more thoroughly later tonight.

Life Stories is rapidly becoming my new favorite PW genre.

Also, rad looks just like my 6th & 7th grade friend Chris B. The resemblance is uncanny. You ever play Signs by Tesla in your school's talent show?

No worries, be prepared - I didn't realize how difficult of a read it was until going back and reading it. Guess I was having so much fun writing this down that I forgot to, well - proofread. Real amateur hour over here. Expect this to get better with time, I haven't written a real project since WCW Powerrr forever ago.

A doppleganger? Niiiice. I've definitely aged since that picture, but it's mostly longer hair, thicker beard and a grumpier face now. It's funny you should mention the talent show because it was going to be a part in this but got scrapped. I'm pretty sure we played every year except for my senior year.

Freshman: "Master Of Puppets" - Metallica (Me, Cai & Chris)
Sophomore: Original songs - Mango Tango
Junior: Original songs - Mango Tango

I was going to focus on the freshman year. We actually had a really good performance, but there were guys who played even better than us or just as good... We all ended up losing to the head of the cheerleading team and her dance recital. Not at all saying we should have won, but my high school definitely played favorites. There were even some parents of the kids who stayed after the show to complain about it. Looking back, I'm surprised I had the balls to do that. A stage out in some venue was one thing, playing in front of everyone you have to shit, eat, breathe and live around for five days a week for 9 months is a different story lol.

Chapter One: "Meet MasterCard"

Love the way you described your home town

Can't for the life of me imagine an Ohio accent, much less the nuances of variations thereof

Man I love this though, reads like flowing prose

I think it just now clicked why all the font is green

Pre-pubescent James Hetfield wannabe is hilarious to imagine

Justin Radikal

I too don't know how long it took young me to realize what was up with those circle scenes

Hahaha fucking yes to deep throating Mastercard. Love it

Think Chris's brother's dad just wanted in on the party but knew he couldn't

Don't need to stand or sit with gummies brother

Preach on the cereal though. And the sleep

Uh oh, office space... don't tell Baker-man

I always confuse that virtual sex scene as coming from Judge Dredd
Taco Bell is the cockroach of fast food, it survives the apocalypse

I'll have to read and respond to the rest of these
One at a time

You write so well though, I want to just keep going

Excellent use of spoiler tag for rhythm

Jun 6, 2020 1:26:27 GMT 🤯 said:

Can't for the life of me imagine an Ohio accent, much less the nuances of variations thereof

With certain people there's really no accent at all, it's just a typical television-style American accent... if that makes sense? I think I sound that way, but then again I've also been told by people I've met from out-of-state that I have an accent, so who knows?

Other people, especially south of Columbus, you know right away they were either raised by family or moved here from Kentucky/Appalachia. Southern Ohio is basically Northern Kentucky/Westernerrr Virginia the closer you get to either Cincinnati or Athens. Northern Ohio is more like the state of Michigan, Buffalo and Pittsburgh were booked in a triple threat match but once the bell rang, not a single one came out a winner. *drum crash*

The wild thing is though, that Kentucky accent doesn't waver one damn bit once you cross the bridge over the Ohio River.

If you need a visual reference, this pretty much sums it up:



*I'm in the South, first county over to the right of "Pilots" (aka Dayton)*

Think Chris's brother's dad just wanted in on the party but knew he couldn't

Interesting theory, I could maybe see that and if I'm not mistaken, I think Chris and him did end up smoking together at some point. Shit... you could be right, and considering I was fairly new over there maybe he just didn't realize they were smoking with me and didn't feel comfortable *to be honest, I wouldn't either now that I'm somewhat close to that age myself* Hard to remember because *spoiler, kinda* me and Chris drifted apart over time. What I do 'member is that he liked to show off his Les Paul Supreme to me, flush with golden humbuckers and tuning pegs -- that axe was one fine, fine lady.

SPOILER: Click to show

It was an earlier model but this is a pretty damn close example. I've always wanted one but they cost an arm and a leg, as most if not all Les Paul's rightfully do.

Thanks for the review and encouragement, PI. Don't worry, the free-form style will definitely stay, just going to kind of keep it more structured and streamline if I can; my mind has always had subconscious love affair with going on excessive tangents... as you can tell by the reply, lol.

Finally read the whole thing in earnest. 10/10. Would read again. Looking forward to the next installment.

High enough to want to keep reading

But totally forgot

Until I saw rad just post elsewhere

=====

Chapter Two: Regressive Development

=====

Yesss the holdover high fear
I love it
Have gone into work several times with it
One time convinced I was legit still high though
While up in Massachusetts

Whoa, something /whatever you wrote reminded me to go check @admin's Twitter
Back now to focus

Oh I remember know, the illegal comment
Made me think of my first outerspace high
Which I documented or recapped on twitter

Jesus what a brutal description:
"I was a chubby ginger who had a bad case of acne, specifically blackheads that lined my entire upper lip like some fucked up, pubescent constellation."

Have you seen Big Mouth on Netflix? Sound kinda like Andrew Globberman. Globerman?

Cai is such a cool name

hilljack cronies - is that Ohio nowhere slang? @ness, confirm.

Man, rad I think we're zeroed into the same exact spot in our generation. 1985-1988?

Jun 12, 2020 2:48:45 GMT 🤯 said:

High enough to want to keep reading

But totally forgot

Until I saw rad just post elsewhere

=====

Chapter Two: Regressive Development

=====

Yesss the holdover high fear
I love it
Have gone into work several times with it
One time convinced I was legit still high though
While up in Massachusetts

Whoa, something /whatever you wrote reminded me to go check @admin's Twitter
Back now to focus

Oh I remember know, the illegal comment
Made me think of my first outerspace high
Which I documented or recapped on twitter

Jesus what a brutal description:
"I was a chubby ginger who had a bad case of acne, specifically blackheads that lined my entire upper lip like some fucked up, pubescent constellation."

Have you seen Big Mouth on Netflix? Sound kinda like Andrew Globberman. Globerman?

Cai is such a cool name

hilljack cronies - is that Ohio nowhere slang? @ness, confirm.

Man, rad I think we're zeroed into the same exact spot in our generation. 1985-1988?

Edit: didn't mean to post yet. Mistook that for the enter button to return

Holy shit you're a masterful story teller
Like Raven in the ring
You know what you're doing

Honestly, so far, even already
This is like Catcher in the Rye and Perks of Being A Wallflower
But so so much better

I'm fucking loving this, more and more with every sentence fragment

LOL, hot topic and nu-metal. Epic combo

Man, root beer while high sounds great (root beer, the true king of beers)

Hey man, trampoline Sin Cara or not, you got more balls than me (Baker-man has dem big nutz too) as at least you were frontmen. I always fancied myself in that role, but was too puss to try. Even now

Oh shit, and now shit gets heavy

Ah man, who yells at a grandma - yours or otherwise?

What an EQ server?

Whoa, it's incredible what determined couples can work through. My promise, I know

Whose that in the picture!? You!?!? Or just Lee?

Epic cliffhanger teaser
This still reads so amazing

I don't see a reason why not to read one more tonight

So...

Chapter Three: "Go Back Inside.... We're FIGHTING!!!!"

=====

Love Thing 1 & Thing 2
Cora sounds like the name of a girl everyone would have a crush on
Wasn't expecting Blasian to be a girl, but 50% black and 50% Thai sounds 100% HAWT
Is Bobby UT!? 🧀 Heads Unite!

Ready for more stories of Lee the Douche
Insane Clown Posse is ALWAYS a wakeup call

Trouble with whooping ass a grade level down
Is big whoop, you beat a kid. Younger than you. Baby abuse. No matter the size differential. And if you lose to someone a grade down... Woof.
Similar dilemma if you had to wrestle as girl.

Holy shit, go fucking go, Cai! Roll that fatty for this pimp daddy (to be) right down the bleachers!

Why am I already sensing Lee is gonna skeeze squeaze in on Cora?

You're a selfless one, rad - led to Cai's awesome story

Whoa, swerved me on who'd be skeeze squeazing whom when it comes to Lee. Poor guy being used, but hopefully at least he got his wet too

But looking back, WAS she a fat ugly bitch?

Can't wait for corn rollin'

In response to 🤯, since organizing all those quotes is too much of a pain in the ass, I'll just number it off:

1.) The "chubby ginger" era was brutal. I left out the disgusting part where I used to Jackass-style push them out because I got so sick of them, lol. Eventually they went away after a few years and I've been relatively acne free since.
2.) I did watch Big Mouth, but *spoiler* I gave up after what's his face (Joel?) bangs the bean-pillow. I just... couldn't anymore, lol. No amount of marijuana can recover it from that point on. That being said, I do love Nick Krohl -- I almost always find him hilarious.
3.) "Catcher In The Rye" is a major compliment, I've never read Perks though but do think I've watched the movie.
4.) "Hilljack" is slang from here at least, it's like a worse version of a hillbilly. I think Cai is the one who always said hilljack and ever since it's been burned into my own personal lexicon.
5.) EQ server was referring to the game "EverQuest", which is just Diet Warcraft basically. My dad actually still plays sometimes to this day, apparently the servers still run for whatever reason, even 20 years later. You're totally right; folks are awesome for still sticking together by each other's side through all these years, I agree. A lot of married couples cheat, continue to cheat, or just take the easy road and give up chasing someone else. I respect them for staying loyal and working out they're issues together like they've had, not many people would or do.
6.) The picture is me on the left. The guy on the right was actually the bassist in Cai's band at the time (me, Chris and Cai stopped jamming and Cai went on to start a new band with 3 guys from the next town over) and that was actually taken at the high school homecoming of another school. He's more of an acquaintance than friend. I actually don't have a picture of myself with Lee, but here's a description: imagine Norbert from Rocko's Modern Life, just add blonde hair.
7.) Lee tried to do just that with Cora multiple times and she always refused. Fucking called it, lmao. Now as an adult, I do feel bad how we treated him to an extent, I mean, we kind of used him sometimes. Not that he didn't bring that shit on himself a lot but that's not an excuse. I dunno if I'll have time to share this story but I actually made a friend through him, and we first met staying the night at his house. Totally bonded by doing that old feather/shaving cream prank on him and then started hanging out together without him, and then later later on he became my dealer for a time. As much as I hated him, I really did make a shit ton of friends through him (and his suffering) in the end.
8.) She wasn't a 10, but she was attractive. I've dated maybe one girl who wasn't plus-size, it's kinda my bag, but back then I wasn't as confident about my preference and so I think that stoked the fire a little more, too. By the time we got out of high school she was a stone cold fox, really. We almost hooked up one night drunk off our asses but our friend (same girl I dumped to date Becca, actually, we later became friends - world's fucking weird sometimes) wouldn't let us because she made her promise not to let her and I do the deed because it'd ruin our friendship. So we ended up showering together instead... nah, threesome didn't happen... Oof. *walks away sad*

Thank you and Baker, I appreciate it guys. Gonna pump out Chapter 6 very soon. Preview: It's titled "The Munchie Marathon", the tale of me and my three friends failed Harold & Kumar-inspired venture that landed Cai & Richard in the back of a police car.

Holy shit, I summoned you.

Then you summoned me

Don't respond to me

Too meta

Holy shit rad confidently into plus size girls

System, watch out, rad coming for your Nia Jax

And you definitely need to read the book Perks of Being A Wallflower

Think I'm on this one

Chapter Four: "Okay, Enough Of THAT Shit..."

=====

Thank God for inefficient education systems

What coincidental good luck, you get to stay with your friends

From slip knot to tie die overnight

Still the same ol sweet green usage tho

No need for paraphernalia with gummies

=====

Taking rightful shots at The Village

You & Cai discovering your comic book connection
Reminds me of Dale & Brennan

Of course Cai would dub thyself Troggdor the Burnanator

Jesus, gotta warn us before throwing pepperoni nipples out there like that

Kimbo Slice and The Baconator were good heroes back then

Breaking wood apart like mechanic @ness working on motorcycles

motherfucking Farmtron
Yesss

rad was all Beetlejuice on Becca

Love rad not being afraid to loop the full Q (like dropping the hard R) for historical contextual accuracy

Shit dude you really do need to read Perks of Being A Wallflower. You're like the Iowan version (but in Ohio)

Jun 22, 2020 4:06:36 GMT 🤯 said:

Think I'm on this one

Chapter Four: "Okay, Enough Of THAT Shit..."

=====

Thank God for inefficient education systems

What coincidental good luck, you get to stay with your friends

From slip knot to tie die overnight

Still the same ol sweet green usage tho

No need for paraphernalia with gummies

=====

Taking rightful shots at The Village

You & Cai discovering your comic book connection
Reminds me of Dale & Brennan

Of course Cai would dub thyself Troggdor the Burnanator

Jesus, gotta warn us before throwing pepperoni nipples out there like that

Kimbo Slice and The Baconator were good heroes back then

Breaking wood apart like mechanic @ness working on motorcycles

motherfucking Farmtron
Yesss

rad was all Beetlejuice on Becca

Love rad not being afraid to loop the full Q (like dropping the hard R) for historical contextual accuracy

Shit dude you really do need to read Perks of Being A Wallflower. You're like the Iowan version (but in Ohio)

Fuck posted too soon again

=====

topsy-turvy turdburglars, in the running for line of the chapter... If not, whole thread

Whoa... Didn't expect Lee to become an ex Army vet pro Trumper

Oh shit, can't wait for you to drop acid next

Chapter Six: "The Munchie Marathon"

So as most of you will remember, Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle was THE stoner movie in the mid-2000's. It was basically the new Half-Baked when it came out, and was instantly beloved by my friend group. Specifically, myself, Cai, Richard and Adam, the original four Dordians, established a fort in my storage closet (one giant walkthrough closet on the side of my room) where he cramped together to play video games, smoke out of a homemade gravity bong and eventually watch the comedy goodness that was and is Kung-Pow. I specifically remember this night for it was the switching of the proverbial light bulb of all great stoner ideas -- let us walk 12 miles from the bike path of Jamestown to the nearest Taco Bell (the only restaurant in town at that time was a McDonald's) so that we may take solace, pride and savor in that sweet, sweet assemblage of Tex-Mex excellence..... TEX-MEX-CELLENCE!!!! And a long the way, we were going to smoke so much weed to fuel our never-ending hunger, that by the time we reached T-Bell, we were ready to put that White Castle scene to absolute shame. What could possibly go wrong!? When I tell you we put some thought into this, I mean it -- we planned this shit out. We had the date set, we saved our money together like usual but bought a bigger bag than per the norm and pre-rolled our joints for the adventure; we even brought a long a camera to tape the entire journey, footage which I still wish was around these days. So now you're probably sitting here left wondering....

Needless to say, my mom found out. She had to know we were stoners (and did, as I would later find out) but that wasn't exactly her issue -- me walking all the way from Jamestown 12 miles to Xenia on just my escalegs and lamberfeeties most definitely was. She was an overly protective mother and I'm her only child, so hell, I can't blame her now, but at the time -- I. WAS. PISSED. She refused to let me leave the house and so this entire epic adventure that I had seen play out in a movie and envisioned was about to now play out in real life had suddenly been dashed in an instant by my "overbearing, coddling mother" as I probably would have put it then. So, Cai, Adam and Richard were forced to depart and leave without me. One funny thing I do remember from the footage is the guys smoking and doing these mockumentary interviews where they'd address me and apologize to me for my mom not letting me have any fun. Fuckin' bastards, lol. My mother got the last laugh though in the end, though I know she didn't view it that way at all. A couple hours later after initially being made to stay home, my mom gets a call from either Cai or Richard (apparently Adam had already gotten picked up, if I recall? Something like that? My specific memory here is a little fuzzy) asking her if she can come pick them up as they've been picked up by a Xenia police officer due to walking on the highway and are under age. Turns out that we actually hadn't planned as well as we thought, because if we had, we would have realized that the bike path leading to Xenia cuts off before it even enters town, meaning you have to cross 2-3 miles on the side of heavily trafficked country interstate. You see three teenagers dressed as hippies carrying a camera and some backpacks out in the middle of bumfuck Xenia country... well, yeah, it's going to raise a few eyebrows and potential questions. Luckily the cop was cool but just wanted to see them both get home safe, and given it''s such a drive, I can see why they put in the call to have him picked up instead of driving them home. Funny enough, this would not be the first time that the closed off bike path would end up... crossing our paths again. Also, if the name Xenia rings any bells, it's because of the movie Gummo which was a film set in Xenia but not actually filmed there. The entire town was destroyed by the 1974 Super Tornado and if you look up pictures of it, it was completely devastated. US President Nixon even commented saying it was as bad or worse than any warzone he'd seen, paraphrasing of course. That much of the film is true, the rest was director Harmony Korine's impressions of the people in Xenia and Xenia itself, which if you've watched the film, tells you all need to know about it, considering there's rednecks literally wrestling a chair, a kid eating a chocolate bar even after he's dropped it in dark murky bath water that he's already soaking in, said kid and his buddy hunting down cats while riding their bikes so they can sell them to the local Chinese restaurant -- it's fucked, basically. Totally not saying Xenia's exactly like that, but... I'm also not saying that it isn't.

So the Munchie Marathon was a bust, but we were quick to focus our sights on something bigger -- making our own movie. This had been a dream of mine and Cai's that would persist throughout the years, often with me and him both sitting down and bouncing ideas off each other and then generalizing these concepts into the rough draft of a sketch. Our first endeavor was a Star Wars parody titled: "Star Wars Episode -6: You Got Served!" and I actually have the hilarious original movie poster that we had made for it still to this day. Next time I venture over to my parents house I'll make sure to snap a photograph and edit it or post it on here for the future. We went to a thrift shop in Dayton to purchase our costumes, and hilariously, I chose these high-heeled brown leather boots to give my walking an awkward appearance and force myself to stumble through the duration of the film. It's a fucking shame that we never finished this film and an even bigger shame that we have no idea where the footage is to this day. I still swear it was copied onto a VHS tape, lying around somewhere in my parents house where I just haven't looked, but alas -- it's a piece of personal lost media as we speak. Nevertheless, what few scenes we managed to record and the descriptions of them I can still recall from memory: The opening scene of course involved the top-down Star Wars text (which was actually us just slowly moving that aforementioned painted poster slowly up and down) which then transitioned to the first fight scene. There were also outtakes, purposeful bloopers and backstage "shoot" interviews that were even more hilarious and off-the-cuff filmed in my backyard. The one line that stands out to me from Adam's character: "THIS MUH PIMP HAND, HUH-HAH! BETTA CHECK MUH PALM PILOT!" and I have no fucking idea why I remember that specifically, lol. The fight scene involved Cai and Richard leaping out of two parallel porta-potties outside of my school where we all engaged in the most epically bad fatal four lightsaber duel known to man. Yet, production had to be halted on this purposefully terrible comedy/parody masterpiece once we received the terrible news.... 

Richard was moving away, all the way to fucking Oregon. I can't begin to tell you how much this sucked. Truth be told, sometimes me and Cai drifted apart as he was a much more socially active person than me, and there for a while, it was me and Richard kicking it nearly every day. Some of us literally cried when we heard the news. We were such a tight-knit group that we couldn't imagine our brother departing us 2,000 miles away on the other side of the country. His mom and dad were divorcing and his dad wanted Richard to move with him as he had found a new job out there. The end of sophomore year was awful, and at the time I didn't realize it, but it was the first of many deaths to the Dordian friendship. Not literal ones, just ones that would begin to strip away at the fabric of the friendship like both distance and life itself does with all great relationships over time. But if you think this is where our story ends, then you're sadly mistaken -- this is just the beginning. Who said we were keeping this linear? I sure the fuck didn't! There are several amazing stories left to tell, several of them might even sound far-fetched, but some of this shit you just can't make up. Join me here soon as we travel down the Mango Tango rabbit hole, my first slightly successful (and I use that term extremely loosely) musical endeavor that I have briefly mentioned before, full of crazy adventures like streaking down the highway, vomiting profusely and making an ass out of myself the first time I had a little TOO MUCH to drink, the lost art of Finger Fencing and much, much more!