Friday the 13th….do I really want to write about the evils that lurk in the un-timid darkness at our feet? I mean, this is the prelude to Halloween; preseason scares and bewares. A gentle time to practice the art of startling; bars design special drinks, bosses pretend they’re closing the office early then land another pile of scary I wants and needs on your desk.
Heck! Even Hollywood is MIA.
No Saw XXXVI or Freddie Kruger in Dancing with the Stars. No Michael or fish or alligator adventure about eating people. Nope! We’ve get Scott Pilgrim vs the World with Michael Cera, Eat Pray Love with Julia Roberts and The Expendables featuring Sylvester Stallone and his cast of super heroes from Movie City past.
Being horribly afraid of Friday the 13th has gone the way of 8-tracks and 45’s. I blame it on video games! They’ve become so real that authenticity doesn’t stand a chance.
What we need is Hee Haw to come back to TV. Every Friday night they’d sing, “If it wasn’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all.”
People don’t know what bad luck is any more. The economy changes, out sourcing steals your job, it becomes company policy to sell out to the competition—nobody calls it bad luck…we’ve entered a world of shrugged shoulders followed by a solid, “Oh well…guess it was meant to be.”
It’s like walking into a restaurant that’s rated 85 or C…I’m extremely guilty of being gullible enough to believe the manager who says, “Oh you know how they are…they took note of the broom placed next to the trash can outside and it cost me ten points.” Instantly I feel sorry and pay for it the next day. Not bad luck! Oh well…guess it was meant to be.
A medicine man once sat me down and scolded my behavior of trusting too much, “Medicine doesn’t always mean a quick fix. Medicine isn’t always connected to herbs and spices that enlighten. Medicine can be a single man who hears changes coming so he encourages the elders to move. He once could spot where elk, deer and buffalo roamed convincing followers to put prints in their sand.
Medicine was also a way of thinking…for there to be bad luck you had to live bad luck. If you shared black magic or a curse against someone who might not be so friendly, for it to be experienced through them you had to feel first what was being delivered. Why then play in the depths of Friday the 13th if what’s being created is another reason to take away from the 1/1000th chance of you having a great day?
Oh well…I guess it was meant to be.
I never spoke those words when my stepfather Joe would tan my hide, “You’re right Evil Empire leader of all Universes I shouldn’t have pushed my sister Susan to the floor. It doesn’t matter that she swiped my only copy of The Starland Vocal Bands Afternoon Delight…I guess this beating was meant to be.”
I didn’t work that way! If the Dude wanted to whip me into place he had to work for it! I took off across the front yard jumping over the pitch back, through the homemade wooden boat that always sunk and around the garbage cans in a real alley where it was extremely legal to burn your trash and not take over mountainsides. Once caught he didn’t have the energy to pound common sense into my butt…so what if he took away my rebuilt ten speed that had only two gears…I walked…forward and smiled the entire way.
Parents didn’t like me hanging out with their kids…truth is even my brothers and sisters labeled me too much of a trouble maker. But at least I worried about Friday the 13th! It’s the one day of the year that brought me serious amounts of heeby jeebies—if Jesus was coming I wouldn’t be ready because all my attention was focused on trying to keep bad luck away from the wooden trunks that hid my world.
But things have changed including the self I’ve become. No day passes that I’m not quickly tossing my hands in the air erasing words someone threw up there, “Don’t let the Universe hear you say that! Keep it away from the Universe!” I think it was Oprah who taught me that trick. Maybe Anthony Robbins….then again it’s just me being me and nobody does me better than me who has to explain to the eyes in the mirror everyday that if he can do better to reach out here and make it happen. He never swings at me. I like that guy in the mirror…as long as he’s always there…how can anyone have bad luck on something as silly as Friday the 13th.
No more talk about this being the day that it is! It only exists on calendars found on computer screens, bad business promotional items and things you carry and only pull out during times you either totally forgot or feel like life is running too late. And as I write, those who truly know me are thinking, “The Universe is going to kick his ***.”
I gotta go! I need to locate a front yard to run through! Anyone got pictures of my stepfather’s boat that always sank? It’s not going to be a fun run if I don’t do it right!
arroecollins@clearchannel.com Monday it could be Bob Harper newly inducted member of the Universal Witness Protection Program.
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