Here is another essay I wrote 10 years ago for an Article and Essay class. It is about my experiences while deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1998-99. Being that I am headed for another long trip working with the military, I think it is fitting to post this here now.

Everything was in place for a good meal: good food, good conversations, good people, and machine guns.  The fortunate, like me, had 9mm pistols instead of M16 rifles.  Thousands of miles from home, it was time to eat at Camp Bedrock, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

To this day I am thankful the Army knew the importance of food on the morale of a soldier.  The dining facility (aka cafeteria) was nothing to laugh at.  It was one of the few semi-permanent buildings on a makeshift basecamp on the top of a rock quarry.  Possibly its best feature was that it was open 24 hours a day.  Bland white walls with our unit crest –the 1st Cavalry Division horse head- posted throughout, marked its interior like a bad attempt at brainwashing.  In the corners of the dining facility sat two large screen televisions, permanently set on the Armed Forces Overseas Network.

We took shifts from duty throughout the day to enjoy a meal made by local Bosnian workers.  Usual American entrees graced the buffet-like area.  An array of vegetables, starches, and meats were on my plate as I walked out to the seating area.

Work in the command post introduced me to many of the other soldiers in my unit.  After a second perusing who was in the dining facility, I knew exactly whom I wanted to eat with.  I walked over to the long white table and took a seat on the plastic white chair right across from Sergeant First Class Smith, Uncle Kev to his friends.

Uncle Kev was an army “lifer”, with about 16 years in service.  A short guy, with a bit of an attitude, he loved to rub people the wrong way.  To his friends and others who may be fortunate enough to share his extremely dry wit, Uncle Kev was the man.

Sitting besides me at the table was Specialist Wayne.  Wayne was very unique, to say the least.  He was one of the few people I have ever met who called his beer belly a “Buddha Belly” and claimed it attracted women.  Wayne’s physical “attributes” didn’t end there.  He would often have trouble eating due to the fact that he lost his two front teeth.  This unfortunate predicament led Uncle Kev and I to dub him the OTB, or Old Toothless Bastard.

In the Army, everyone has their share of nicknames and I wasn’t an exception.  While in Bosnia, I was known as Lawdy Law (a play on my last name), Busta Zit (for a never forgotten large pimple I had on my forehead for a day), to the HEB- Hoagie Eatin’ Bastard (for my habit of getting late night dining facility sandwiches).

There was never any of the stereotypical military speed eating when Uncle Kev, Wayne, and I were together.  We would constantly poke fun at any target we could find, to include each other.  None of it was malicious; it was all good-natured fun.  Being quick with either a comeback or a new subject was a necessity.

Although we rarely went to the dining facility during prime meal time hours when the dining facility was packed with people, we were never alone.  Because of the around the clock nature of the US peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, there were always soldiers coming to and going from the dining facility.  These soldiers provided some of the most ample targets for humor.

One afternoon, for example, a soldier with an extremely large head entered the dining facility.  Uncle Kev was quick to whisper to Wayne and I that we should look to our left.  Whispering was a very handy tool used quite often when talking about people in our vicinity.  Sure enough, when we saw what Uncle Kev was referring to, Wayne and I laughed.  He did have a huge head.  Then Uncle Kev joined us in laughter, with others in dining facility left to wonder what was so funny.  Situations like that made it very hard to get any food eaten so we could return to work.

After our seven months being stationed in Bosnia, my unit deployed back to the states.  Although Wayne, Uncle Kev, and myself would get together to eat sometimes, nothing we said or did would compare to the times when humor got us through the day thousands of miles from home.

With my creation story as inspiration, I thought it only made sense for me to want to marry a Playmate. For almost all of my teenage years, I wanted nothing more than to follow the footsteps of J. Howard Marshall, old dude extraordinaire and brief husband of Playmate of the Year Anna Nicole Smith. I remember my exact thought process was along the lines of, “she can marry me for my money and I’ll marry her for her body. It’s a far trade.”

(In hindsight, to say I was a bit misaligned in my thoughts on a healthy adult relationship would be an understatement. Yet for some reason no one pushed me back in the right direction. Maybe they thought I was joking. Anyway …)

My odd fascination with Playboy continued while I was in the Army. While deployed to Bosnia in 1998, I started a very brief (read: three e-mail) correspondence with Miss October 1994 Jennifer Lavoie. I was so super excited to get an email from a Playmate while a few thousand miles from home. I think I even printed out the emails and hung them over my bunk. Next to making a 35-minute movie about alien invaders, my letter from Jenn Lavoie was the highlight of my Bosnia mission.

Shortly after leaving Bosnia and exiting the Army, I enrolled at FSU. Not knowing a thing about Tallahassee, I signed up to live in the dorms for my first year in college. Being a 22-year old freshman in a dorm full of 18-year olds would have completely sucked if not for meeting two people: my future apartment roommate Zheke Snow and future Playboy Coed of the Week and Road Rules contestant Mary Beth Decker.

While Zheke Snow has little Playboy affiliation that I know off outside of the fact that he dug my poster of December 1993 Playmate Elisa Bridges, Mary Beth and I were friends for her one semester at FSU. She roomed on my floor, we shared Olive Garden, and I also snuck her her first drinks at Potbelly’s bar on our first night in Tallahassee. On that balmy Tallahassee night in August 1999, Mary Beth drove me to Potbelly’s in her Mustang and we talked about Tom Green, Pearl Jam, and how she planned to eventually get a boob job because dresses didn’t fit her small-chested frame.

After only a few months at Florida State, Mary Beth transferred to Texas A&M, where she told me all of her friends from high school went. Lo and behold, in 2003, shortly before I graduated, I saw a familiar face on Playboy.com. Mary Beth had not only gotten her boob job, but changed her hair color from blond to brunette and although she was cute before, her new look made her Playboy model style pretty. A few quick internet searches later, I also found out she was on MTV’s Road Rules and made a name for herself in reality television. I guess because she wasn’t at Florida State for very long, no one in Tallahassee made a big deal of it. But I thought it was cool. We shared cheese sticks.

Playboy girls and I drifted apart after my brief friendship with Mary Beth. In 2004, Playboy made a brief visit to Tallahassee to capture a few pictures for their regular “Girls of ACC” feature. Despite having classes with hundreds, if not thousands of girls at Florida State, I didn’t have any classes with Playboy’s FSU representatives. I did however shop at the local record store where Playboy took several of the girls’ pictures. Sadly, that record store (Vinyl Fever Tallahassee) is no longer open, leaving the Playboy pictorial as one of the few reminders of the place where I could find obscure albums without having to wait five to ten days for delivery.

I went through a bit of a Playboy drought from 2004 to 2010. Although I interviewed one-time-Playboy model-now-porn star Angela McLin on my old site, blogged about one-time Playmate of the Year Carmella DeCesare’s local charity bowling event, and even saw CJ Gibson, sister of December 2005 Playmate Raquel Gibson, at a Tampa beach bar, I didn’t meet, talk to, or make acquaintance with any Playboy models in the flesh.

My Playboy drought finally ended in February 2011 when I met cover girl and then-Tampa Breeze Lingerie Football Player Mikayla Wingle. While working as Social Media Adviser and Special Projects Coordinator for All-Stars Wrestling, I learned the Girls of the LFL were going to be featured in Playboy. After discovering who the Tampa Breeze girl was and finding her contact info, I coordinated for Mikayla to visit All-Stars Wrestling, sign autographs, and even cameo on the local shock jock drive-time radio show.

After exchanging emails and tweets with Mikayla for a few weeks, we finally met at the radio station prior to her going on the air. While we sat in the green room – which by the way wasn’t green – we hit it off and even kinda became quick friends. Mikayla made her appearance on the radio show and then re-met with me and we headed off to the wrestling event. While there, we took some awesome pictures and watched the show, making jokes, cheering, and booing the wrestlers along the way.

Before she left, Mikayla told me she worked at a bar in a Tampa suburb and invited me out to visit whenever she was on shift. After her visit to ASW, I visited her bar once a month to say hello, grab a beer, and catch up on her blossoming modelling and appearance career.

About a month ago, I learned Mikayla was following in the footsteps of my previous Playboy pal Mary Beth Decker and making an appearance on reality TV. But Mikayla wasn’t going to be on a seldom-watched obscure MTV show, she was going for the gusto and appearing on the one of the granddaddies of reality shows, Survivor. So far, she is doing well. Several weeks into the season she is still on the island, making more friends than enemies, and gaining fans and followers by the bushel.

Sometimes it’s weird meeting people who have been in Playboy. I know it’s a great career milestone for models, but as I get older it becomes less exciting of an accomplishment. Although I am proud of them, especially if I know them personally, I am no longer that teenager who wanted nothing more than to marry a Playmate.

These days, I’m not the type of person who will pose with a woman in a one-off meeting (unless it’s Reese Witherspoon, then all bets are off). However, if she is a fun person with a kick-ass sense of humor and she is wholly enamored by the power of the afro then you can bet your sweet bunny ears we will be taking plenty of pics.

And, if by chance, she ends up on a reality TV show, you can also guarantee I’ll be tuning in to support my friend on there as well.

Although back in the day we did not know the author of this great essay on roommates, I have since found it was a gentleman named Dean Rice on a website called Effenheimer.com. Sadly, that site has since closed. So I figured I would re-post the essay here. Everything below is Rice’s work. If he ever finds this, I hope he doesn’t mind, but this essay was that important for me and old Zheke Snow.

Roommates

by Dean Rice

I swear to god, every time I go home, my roommate has touched my shit.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not all about possessions, but it would be nice if the guy would have the goddamn common courtesy to get my con permiso, if you know what I mean.

I didn’t spend three years in the Navy with no privacy sleeping four guys to a bunk so I could go to college and have my stuff fucked with by some sickly, pale looking socialist from Shaker Heights, I tell you what.

For example, I don’t know if you are picky about this shit, but when I watch a porno, I want the god damn thing left where I stopped the tape, am I wrong?

There is nothing more frustrating than coming home from a night at the bar, finding no one home and your favorite spank tape has been forwarded to some part where they’re just talking about how “these car repairs are gonna cost more than I thought” and shit. You’ve got precious few minutes to yourself when you share a dorm room and when you need a good whack, the last thing you need to be doing is scanning for the next doggy style when you left it cued up to the best one. Is this just me? Am I on the wrong track? Am I crazy? What country is this anyway?

Another thing I can’t fucking stand is when the guy leaves his fucking water bottle in MY dorm fridge. There ain’t hardly enough room in there for my sixer of Bud Ice and a chicken pot pie or two for when I come home from the bar and want a salty snack.

Get a drink out of the goddamn fountain you yuppie prick! Comes right out of the fountain colder’n shit. You telling me you need to keep water in my fridge 24-hours a day just in case you need a sip of cold H2O you fucking gel-haired puss?

I was in the Navy for four years before I came to school and I never needed ice-cold water and I WORKED for a living defending my country from barnacles and waxy build-up, you pussy college boy.

I came home from the bar one night and grabbed a potpie and the damn thing was mushy. I thought, “Oh, fuck, my fucking fridge is fucking fucked up!”

Then I checked and the fucking thing was turned down to “6.” I clearly remember setting it on “7″ when I got the damn thing specifically to freeze my potpies and snickers. I never turned it down. So I asked my roommate what the fuck he thought happened… he tells me he had ice in his water so he turned the temp on my fridge down.

WHAT THE FUCK?!

So I told him all calm and rational that if he had ice in his bottled water, he might try letting it sit out on his fucking desk like a normal human fucking being! Then I told him he owed me 63 cents for the fucked up pie. It was only 49 cents, but I figured what the fuck, I might as well get him to pay me for a good one.

And he uses my hand towel. That’s just not hygienic and I should know since I was in the Navy for three years with some of the most unhygienic specimens of humanity before they kicked me out for smoking weed on the flight deck.

I tell you, the next time that scrawny wussy boy jacks around with anything of mine, I’m gonna beat him like a bitch and throw his ass out in the hall.

Am I wrong? Am I over-reacting? Has the train left the station without any passengers?

Does John Denver shit in the woods? This is America, right? This isn’t communist Russia?

I didn’t get on the wrong bus back in Appleton and end up in Canada with the lumberjacks, did I?

I didn’t fucking think so!

While traveling the New York City subway lines last month, major league baseball pitcher Randy Wolf had an encounter with a beautiful young woman. Their moments together were fleeting however, as after she asked him for directions they were separated and she was out of his life.

Of course, this has happened to everyone. Why should a baseball player be any different? A seemingly perfect 10 moves on without saying goodbye or allowing a chance for a second hello. Unfortunately, it is one of the sick games of the fates.

But Wolf attempted to change his fate and give destiny a second chance. He appeared on at least two nationally syndicated sports radio talk shows attempting to find the woman. He openly went on the air describing her appearance, her clothes, everything about her.

“There was something about her eyes,” he said.

Wolf also planned to place ads in several prominent New York newspapers in the hope that she might see them, remember him and reply, according to an ESPN Web site.

Besides tugging on the heartstrings in an almost Hollywood-esque way, Wolf’s search reminded me of the great power available to public figures. They often have numerous media channels at their fingertips, each capable of helping find a possible social interest.

Although definitely not of the public stature of Randy Wolf or of a sports radio talk show host, I like to think of my column as a media channel and of myself as a public figure in the Florida State universe. I guess that means I have a little power.

But, to quote the movie Spiderman (which was on HBO every day last month), “With power comes great responsibility.”

Would I ever dare use this column in order to get the attention of a certain young lady? If so, I would only get one chance. I couldn’t write to a different girl every semester and beg them to talk to me.

“Dear girl in the 2nd row, 4th seat of Professor Smith’s 11:15 English class, please say hi to me tomorrow. Thanks, Mike.”

Not only would that kill the “romance” of the search, but it would make me pathetic and desperate beyond belief.

I mention Wolf’s search and my own ponderance of power because a situation I was in on Memorial Day has forced me to contemplate using my column as a social tool.

As I was driving down Highway 19 (Apalachee Parkway) on the way to my grandparents’ house for a Memorial Day dinner, driving either behind me or along side me was a very attractive Florida State female student in a white Toyota. For over two hours, we (if I may be so bold as to use a pronoun that puts the two of us together) wove in and out of streams of holiday traffic on the way to our respective destinations.

As we eventually came to a stop at a traffic light in the town of Crystal River, I rolled down my window and thanked her for driving “with” me. She smiled and said, “You’re welcome.”

Then the light turned green and away we went again, with me eventually turning onto another highway in route to my grandparents’ town.

So should I use this column as way of getting in touch with her?  Maybe I already have.

Rule one: Don’t listen to anything by the band within 24 hours of the show. If you don’t know the songs by the day before, you won’t know them. Concerts aren’t college, there is no cramming. And you don’t want your ear influenced at all by the studio recordings. Enjoy the show for what it is.

Rule two: To quote the Wu-Tang Clan, cash rules everything around me. Merch vendors, bars, and some ticket stands don’t take Visa, Mastercard, or American Express, so “if you don’t have dollars, it don’t make sense”. Hit the ATM before you get to a show. It allows flexibility and convenience.

Rule three: Dress the part. Never wear a t-shirt of a band you are going to see. Wear a similar band, or someone of the same genre. But always dress to fit the scene. Don’t wear a Parliament-Funkadelic shirt to see Slayer.

There are two exceptions to rule three. The first is that you can wear a shirt from a festival featuring the band you are seeing. That’s simple enough as it shows community and that you have seen other bands. The second exception is the seldom used “memorable slogan clause”. If your t-shirt has an overly funny, clever, or all-round bad-ass slogan, you are accepted into the community of the performance.

In my time going to concerts, there have been two memorable slogan t-shirts that stand out among the masses. Both are engrained in my cerebellum not only because of their cleverness, but because of the stories associated with them. The first, a black t-shirt that proclaimed “Fuck You, You Fuckin’ Fuck”, was worn by a man named Manimal who I wrote about nearly three years ago. For those who missed it, Manimal was a bad-ass biker dude who forbid moshing in his general area during a 1999 Metallica concert.

The second most memorable slogan tee that stands out for me is a black shirt with the devil’s face and the words “God’s Busy, May I Help You?”. This shirt brings back memories of a concert adventure I had on my 23^rd birthday when my college roommate Zheke Snow and I traveled from Tallahassee to Orlando to see rock bands Isle of Q,  UPO, Full Devil Jacket, and Nickelback (after their first album, and before they jumped the music shark).  It was a night of obnoxious cops, tire problems, good rock ‘n’ roll, and driving around the Disney World Complex with the bassist of UPO as he yelled at his drunk bandmates who left him and didn’t tell him where the hotel was located.

It’s a classic story perhaps I’ll tell in full here one day.

Even though I have been to dozens, if not hundreds, of concerts since, I hadn’t seen either of those slogan t-shirts. Until a few Tuesday’s ago, when the devil’s question made another appearance.

The flyer stared at me from beside the keyboard at my work desk, a simple reminder that time was moving far too slow. Every minute dragged on with the full power of 60 seconds of might, as I fidgeted like a child who refused to dream of sugarplums and candy canes on Christmas Eve. Finally at 6:30 I flew out of the office like Meatloaf’s bat out of hell, sped down I-75 at 90mph, daring the Florida Highway Patrol to stop me, and cruised into St. Petersburg.

On the docket that night was one of my favorite bands, Maryland-based groove-metal band Clutch. I’d seen Clutch five times prior to last Tuesday, the latest time being with Black Label Society in October. Opening for Clutch was GroundScore from Washington DC and the Florida/Alabama-based Maylene and the Sons of Disaster. I was totally in the dark about Groundscore, but I had heard a few good things about Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, and I was also looking forward to seeing them.

Into St. Pete I drove, finding a spot in a parking lot a few blocks from the club. Needing money for a ticket, beer, and a new t-shirt, I walked over to a local ATM and pulled out some cash. On my way to the club from the ATM, I found two 2011 pennies with the new backing. One was heads up and the other was tails up. Although I usually think money is money and finding two cents gets me that much closer to retirement, I was struck momentarily by the symmetry of the yin and the yang.

After I bought my ticket, I walked into St. Pete’s State Theater, ready to finally get my rock on. One of the best things about a Clutch show it that it is usually attended by veteran rock fans. Fans who proudly sport their shirts of quality metal bands, such as Slayer, Danzig, or Judas Priest. Shortly after entering, I received a compliment on my shirt, the tour shirt from the aforementioned BLS/Clutch gig from a few months back.

Even though my shirt was highly regarded, I quickly hit the merch stand for a new Clutch shirt. To my amusement, the merch vendor was wearing another shirt I hold near and dear to my heart: an “Arm The Homeless” tee from a punk band called Tree who toured with Clutch in 2003. That was one of the few times I didn’t buy a shirt from my favorite band and opted for the opening act. I couldn’t resist walking around with a picture of an AK-wielding old lady on my back.

Now dressed to impress with a brew in hand, I walked into the theater and closer to the stage to check out Groundscore. They weren’t bad, a mix of 311 and Sublime, with elements of punk and metal blended in. They were definitely Warped Tour material or the soundtrack to a new skateboarding video game.

(Speaking of interesting t-shirts, the drummer for Groundscore had A Tribe Called Quest shirt on. I wonder how many metal fans caught that?)

During the Groundscore show, I perused the crowd, checking out the environment and doing a little people watching. No matter the type of music show, people watching at a concert is always fun, especially if the band isn’t entirely up my alley.

But that’s when I saw it: “God’s Busy, May I Help You?”.  I’m surprised the guy wearing it didn’t ask me what I was looking at I paused for a moment when my eyes hit his shirt. It was if Satan himself was telling me the night was going to be interesting. A warning from Lucifer for me to heed.

Second on stage was Maylene and the Sons of Disaster. Like I said, I heard good things from a few friends about this relatively new band. But because friends can sometimes have music tastes that don’t always jive with mine, I turned to my brother for his valued musical scouting report. That morning, his review came in: “Heavy southern rock/blues sounding”. Nice. My kind of music. I was excited.

Maylene didn’t disappoint. Although I couldn’t understand their lyrics on occasion, I was impressed with their sound. Throughout their set, I pulled out my phone and tweeted comparisons to Corrosion of Conformity, White Zombie, and Black Stone Cherry, all bands I hold in high regard. I closed my tweeted review with the simple phrase, “I like”. I’m going to have to buy some Maylene and the Sons of Disaster.

After the usual downtime between bands, the mighty Clutch came on stage. As to be expected (for me, at least) Clutch was absolutely spectacular. They played many of their most popular songs, from Big News I & II, The Regulator, Electric Worry, and the trace-like Spacegrass. As compared to the last time I saw them in October, Clutch didn’t have to worry about set limits, so they threw in a few jams between songs.

(Here is a youtube video of Clutch playing Escape From the Prison Planet and here is the concert review from the Tampa Bay Times.)

Being a long time fan, seeing Clutch brings out a sense of community for me. Other Clutch fans and I compare times and places we’ve seen Clutch, admire each others’ concert shirts, and no matter what song, we sing along, even if Neil Fallon’s lyrics are sometimes far too complex to understand (Songs about anthrax, redcoats, and elephants?).

Following an extensive set, Clutch ended their show with a mellow encore. And with that, the show was over. But little did I know the rest of my night was just beginning.

Across the street from St. Pete’s State Theater is a row of hole-in-the-wall bars and pubs. As I discovered after a recent House of Pain show, one bar, Fubar, usually has a band on the stage late and capitalizes on the crowd from State Theater to relax and buy some cheap beer.  After House of Pain, Fubar featured a local death metal band, so I was curious to see what they had on stage after Clutch.

On stage at Fubar was a DJ playing “dubstep”. I’m not normally an electronic music fan, but last year the Wu-Tang Clan put out an album with dubstep DJs and I was curious, so I grabbed a beer, unwound for a bit, and enjoyed a few tunes.

After my beer was finished, I made my way out Fubar. Shortly thereafter, I noticed something was missing.

My truck wasn’t where I parked it.

To my surprise, I parked in a lot guarded by a local towing agency. In a panic, I called the number on the sign and inquired as to whether they had my precious pick-up. After they confirmed it was in their possession, I frantically called my friend Keri, who I briefly saw at the show. Fortunately, even although she was well on her way back home, she turned around to bring me to the wrecker lot so I could get my truck. Thank goodness for friends, or I would have been sleeping with the homeless on the streets of St. Pete.

Did I mention I hate late-night towing companies? I think they are spawns of Satan, brought to Earth only to make life difficult for people. No one is going to use the bank at midnight, so why can’t I park there to go to the bar? I promise I’ll move my truck before the bank opens in the morning.

Anyway, 121 dollars later, my truck was back in my possession and my night was finally over. I should have heeded the t-shirt symbology and been more careful in the presence of the smiling devil t-shirt.

But thinking about those few highly stylized posters made me reminisce over all the posters I had. From age 10 to 18, the walls of my bedroom were always decorated with something, from posters to a massive collage of full-page Sports Illustrated photos to Hooters calendars to even a negative note a girl once wrote me (negative motivation!). But for the sake of memory and brevity, I want to share with you guys some of the posters I had.

The first posters I had were all Mets-focused. I had a Dwight Gooden poster, a Howard Johnson poster, and a Mets collage. Continuing with the all-Mets theme, I also had a 1986 World Series pennant, a 1993 Mets vs Marlins inaugural series pennant, and several Mets hats hanging throughout the room. If memory serves me correct, I also had an “American League All-Stars of the 1980s” collage. Overall, however, my room was a shrine to my favorite team.

While my Mets fandom didn’t wane, my need to vary my bedroom’s appearance did. As I grew into my teens, I started to incorporate some of the more stylish baseball posters seen in the aforementioned artist’s collection. I had the famous Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire “Bash Brothers” poster (framed, no less!) and a poster of White Sox slugger Frank Thomas entitled “The Hammer”. This was also the time the Mets started their famed “Worst Team Money Can Buy” era, so finding a worthy Met face to post on my wall was quite the struggle.

Like most teenage boys, I eventually migrated into a girls and music phase. After I bought my first Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, my walls were quickly covered with scantly clad images of Kathy Ireland, Cindy Crawford, and other top bikini models of the time. I also started listening to gangsta rap and bought posters reflecting my newfound taste, including album art Ice Cube’s “The Predator” and Cypress Hill’s “Black Sunday”. Of course, they went well with my early 1990s fashionable White Sox hat.

After I left for the military at 18, I had to adapt my poster tastes to both roommates and military rules and regulations. Out went the baseball posters and in came posters of December 1993 Playboy Playmate Elisa Bridges and classic rock god Jimi Hendrix. Each roommate I had was fortunately cool with my decorative tastes. My final military roommate even allowed for a poster of The Doors and a Brooklyn Dodgers collage.

When I arrived at Florida State, life in the concrete-walled dorms wasn’t conducive to postering. But I did venture into framed artwork, buying a triptych of Heironymous Bosch’s classic medieval painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights“. It was a piece I really related to and still have. I also wrote an essay on my thoughts on Bosch’s work that perhaps I will post here soon.

I eventually moved into an apartment with a fellow rock and Playboy fan. So while my bedroom featured a “me wall” of my military awards and certificates, in the living room went the art of Elisa Bridges, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix. Along with Bosch, the fact that all the sex and rock ‘n’ roll pictures were framed surely added to the classiness of our decor.

(Sadly, Elisa Bridges died of a drug overdose in 2002. Her death left my roommate and I in a very weird conundrum. We had several discussions on whether or not to leave the poster up. Elisa wasn’t a classic pin-up of the past like Marilyn Monroe or Betty Page, where her death doesn’t deter admiration. But do we make a big deal over taking the poster down? Do we replace her image with that of a living Playmate? How do we tell people the girl on our wall just killed herself? Unsure of the proper protocol, we left the poster up. It matched the furniture.)

After my college roommate and I split ways, I was once again able to decorate my place without the opinion of judgement of anyone. In my first solo bachelor pad, I maintained the status quo with Bosch, Jimi, and The Doors. In the half-dozen or so places I have lived since, I have added posters of Memphis-based Sun Records, a philosophical Native American phrase, a framed art piece of Nigerian desert warriors, and a commemorative poster of the 2009 Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival.

Well, this got kinda long. But it’s funny how an upcoming museum exhibit made me reminisce over my personal annals of decoration. Annals that show how I have changed from a kid overly obsessed with the New York Mets to an adult whose walls represent my wide range of artistic, creative, and philosophical interests.

Although I didn’t exactly hit the real world until three years later, after two years of grad school sandwiched by six months of unemployment on each side, there is a certain innocence to this, my final article written as an undergraduate student for the FSView and Florida Flambeau.

(Ed. note: I would also write for the paper during that summer and write a companion piece to this article that I’ll post on it’s 8th year anniversary.)

Enjoy.

During my college career at Florida State University, I would estimate I visited about 90 percent of all the popular college bars and clubs in town. Bullwinkle’s, Sloppy Joe’s, Chubby’s, the Irish Pub and the Leon Pub – you name it, I’ve probably been there at least once. Even with all the good times and the large amount of money spent, none of these establishments ever served me a stronger shot than the one I was given at the Leon County Civic Center on May 2nd, 2003.

That night, as I crossed the graduation stage, flipped my tassel and shook President Wetherell’s hand, I was given a “dose of reality.” It is one tough drink to swallow.

True, I knew I wasn’t going to find a job immediately after the semester, but not counting my position here at the FSView & Florida Flambeau, I am now unemployed. Unemployment office, here I come.

Even though it has only been three weeks since I graduated, I feel more and more like Matthew McConaughey’s character in the movie “Dazed and Confused.” You know, the guy who is still hanging around, saying dumb things and acting like he is still in high school. Yeah, that’s me, only on a college level.

Almost overnight, the bars and clubs I used to frequent became “my old college hangouts.” I hope I still resemble a college student in some way, shape or form. I have an eerie fear of being seen as one of those obviously out-of-place older people trying to get their boogie on at Big Daddy’s or Bullwinkle’s. You know who they are.

Like the places I go, most of the people I know have also changed recently. They are all now just “college kids” who don’t know what its like in “the real world.” It’s tough. Trust me. I haven’t got up earlier than 11 a.m. in three weeks.

The next time I hear one of these “college kids” say, “I can’t wait until I graduate.” I am going to quickly grab their cheeks like Adam Sandler did to the chubby third grader in Billy Madison and dole out the same dire warning – “Don’t ever say that.”

There is a lot I am going to miss about college. Studying all night, for example. Nothing beat walking into a classroom after having two hours of sleep the night before, knowing the test I was about to take was 50 percent of my grade.

Now before anyone labels me a procrastinator, keep in mind I was the victim of a vast conspiracy while here at Florida State. Before every semester, my professors, despite being complete strangers from often different departments, would met over coffee and schedule all my tests and papers for the same week. I know it’s true.

Despite my professors’ dubious plans, I managed to graduate with a 3.5 G.P.A. Pretty good, considering my high school G.P.A. was only 2.6. I haven’t met anyone yet with such a large increase. I guess that’s something to be proud of.

But my proudest accomplishment during my time at Florida State University has nothing to do with grades. Thanks to the help and support of many people, including President Wetherell, my idea of erecting a flagpole with an American flag and a POW/MIA flag at the Scott Speicher Tennis Center came to fruition. Although it doesn’t contribute directly to the effort of finding the missing Navy pilot and FSU alum, hopefully this flagpole and the flags it bears will remind people of the plight of Lt. Cmdr. Speicher and the many other service members whose whereabouts are unknown.

Thank you again to all that helped and supported me.

My Favorite Super Bowl Memory – Jan 28, 2008

Two years after “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was enacted, I turned 18 and I joined the military. One of the things I remember most about my recruiting process was a question on one of the final questionnaires.

“Are you a Communist?”

Yes/No

Before I could answer the question, the recruiter snatched the form from me and scratched out the question.

“We aren’t allowed to ask that,” he said.

Apparently, answering “Yes” meant automatic denial of enlistment. The Army didn’t want no stinkin’ Commie pinkos in its ranks.

I always thought “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” was created along the same lines, to limit recruiters from discriminating and limiting the ability to serve based on one lifestyle question.

The repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to me means recruiters can now ask whatever they want about the sexual lifestyle of a potential recruit. That’s not fair.

Following my recruitment, I did three years in a combat unit at Fort Hood, Texas. One of my fellow soldiers was very flamboyant, frequently did the downward wrist bend action, and sometime in 1998, the common rumor was that he was found in bed sleeping with another male soldier.

After the rumor died down and the novelty wore away, the popular consensus was that no one cared.

Now that’s just one soldier in one unit. I have no idea how things were/are anywhere else. But what scares me now is that some prick recruiter can screen recruits by asking a question about their sexual proclivitity.

Somewhere a platoon of Commies smiles.