Back in the ghettos of South Milwaukee, where the hos is sleazy and the mean streets is oozing with all the meth amphetamines your twisted little palpitating heart could desire.

And there goes my dignity for the morning. Mmmm.

That reminds me. I had a childhood friend of sorts (he was a total dickwad most of the time) who, when we were about 14 or so, assured me of the importance of being "streetwise" in this neighborhood. I told him that I knew what street I lived on, and then asked if that meant I could roll with the thugs. A look of disdain wrinkled up his nose and turned up the corner of his mouth as he rolled his eyes.

"You're gonna get'cho self killed wit' dat attitude, man."

Now let me clarify. South Milwaukee is about the most whitebread, uneventful suburb of paranoid, fat old people in all the cornfield-laiden hellscape that is the midwest. To most children in that neighborhood, a "rough day" is a day without a second Hostess cream-filled cupcake in their sacked lunch. But my friend was different. Oh yes. He KNEW what it meant to brave the lawlessness of gangsta life.

Unsurprisingly, I stopped regularly hanging out with that guy a number of years ago. I can only assume that he was taken out in a vicious terf war and died nobly popping a cap in some bitch, driveby style.
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In other news, I went to a conference in North Carolina where I gave a speech about non-violence. Got back from that and no sooner than the plane hit the ground did I proceed to attended a Dethklok concert wherein a group of 4 grown men on stage shredded their guitars, chortling out garbled lyrics about people and beasties chopping and dismembering eachother into meaty bits. What can I say, I love The Metal.

Of the concert, I've never seen so many nerdy white guys in their mid to late 20s packed into the same room.

Also, I've been thinking of contacting this girl I used to know here, but that's a fool's errand. She probably wouldn't recognize me after all this time. And her brother was the above-mentioned dipshit, as well.