Month: November 2025

I’m not my father’s son

/ fightmasterwrites / Leave a comment

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

My friend LC, is a therapist who among other things, specializes in working with folks who are adopted, were in foster care, or don’t know their bio parents.

She reached out a couple of months ago to ask the following:

“I am hosting an event at Novel on Nov 14th, it’s called Voices Unheard. Its an event where people who are either adopted, were in foster care, are a NPE (having the shock of a DNA surprise), or grew up without knowing a biological parent can share about their experience on the stage. If you are interested in submitting to this, I would LOVE to have you.”

I immediately said yes, although it did give me some fear. I have never read something I’ve written aloud before and it’s been 20 years since I’ve spoken in front of any size group.

Well the event was held on Friday night and I did my thing. I asked a couple of people to record it for me and well here it is.

Before you watch, I was the only speaker who was not adopted. And I was only one of two men speaking. All of the speakers were powerful in their own way, all with different stories to share. It was a small space and there were around 60 people in attendance.

PS: I wrote the intro/bio at the beginning. Everyone else was super academic about their writing, recovery etc. I was nervous when they go to me, because I wrote about Adam and my cats. The most important things in my life.

Enjoy!

I’d like to teach the world to sing!

/ fightmasterwrites / Leave a comment

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

It’s been 1,929 days since I drank my last Diet Coke.  Crazy HUH!

I switched to soda water, and haven’t looked back.  

Soda water has turned out to be tricky though, especially, when you are out and about.  

McDonald’s has the world’s best fountain sodas.  Period.  No matter what you are drinking, there is something magical in the formula.  The same is true when it’s just soda water.  

The hard part about soda water at McDonald’s is, first you have to convince them they have it.  It’s on the automatic dispenser.  They just don’t always know.  

Then you have to be willing to accept the charge being whatever it is.  It’s never the same amount.  Even three hours later at the same McDonald’s.  

On any given day, I can pay:  Nothing, twenty-two cents, fifty-four cents, a dollar eight, a dollar seventy-nine, or sometimes more than two dollars.  There is no rhyme or reason.  

The problem is that although it’s on the machine, it’s not in the POS, so they can trigger the automation to make it.  Often, they’ll ring in a Sprite, special prep.  Only, it’s almost always a Sprite they give you when you get to the window.  Sometimes they charge you for a tea, so that it doesn’t trigger the machine, but tea costs more and all you are getting is water.  

I’ve learned to just pay whatever they charge.  I don’t question it, even if it’s only been five minutes since I drove through the last time.  

It has gotten better since 2020 when I stopped drinking Diet Coke.  They hardly ever tell me NO anymore.  And usually, they know what to do.  But every once in a while, you’ll get a new person and then it’s anybody’s guess. 

Meanwhile, if I’m at a real restaurant, sitting down for dinner, getting a soda water is a crap shoot.  It’s become a little game that I play to see what happens.  

About 75% of the time, I get it, but it takes 15 to 20 minutes to appear.  Sometimes. It never appears.  And once I ordered it when we ordered drinks, and it arrived with dessert, with condensation on the glass, with the ice melted.  It had clearly been sitting on the bar, the whole time we’d been there.  

Once again, I never say anything.  I just patiently wait to see what happens.  Occasionally, Adam will remind them that we are waiting on a soda water, but I tend to sit back and just wait.  

I also order my soda water with no fruit.  I’m mildly allergic to citrus, and so I tend to stay away, except a few times a year, when I purposefully order a margarita or mojito.  

It hardly ever arrives with no fruit.  My favorite experience is when my Manhattan arrived with no fruit and the soda water arrived with extra limes and lemons.  

I never say a word.  Just place it on the table.  But it is funny, that this happens.  Not just occasionally, but a lot of the time, whether it’s a nice restaurant, or a diner.  

I will note that without exception, Adam’s staff at his restaurant takes  excellent  care of me.  They keep the soda filled and I never go without.  

Alas, these are the trials and tribulations of not drinking Diet Coke.  

PS.  I was told when I stopped drinking Diet Coke, my complexion would improve and I’d lose weight.  Neither of those things happened.  And canned soda water is significantly more expensive than Diet Coke cans.  

Hmmmm.  

Maybe, I should go back.   

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway.

/ fightmasterwrites / Leave a comment

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Picture this Sicily, 1923. 

Actually, picture this.  New York City.  1983.  

My first trip to NYC. 

It was speech and drama students from Scott County Senior High School, seniors, who’d participated along the way.  Some of the specifics are a little fuzzy, but the stories are 100% true.  

My mother was pissed that I was going.  I’d never asked for permission.  I forged the permission slip.  When I told her, she asked who was paying for it, and I said I was.  By that time in my senior year things had gotten very contentious. 

We left on a Thursday.  We all piled in to Jason’s dad’s tricked out van. Our teacher Ms. Moore was driving.  The drive up was not memorable.  In fact, I remember nothing about it.  The trip back was much better with the story of all stories to share.  

We got to NYC and checked into the Howard Johnson, in Times Square.  I still have the ashtray from our room.  It’s on a shelf in my office.  

I don’t remember the order of the stories, but these are things that happened.  

One morning around 11:00 we all walked into a bar, sat at a table and ordered drinks. It was my first drink in a bar. I ordered a whiskey sour.  We were served, with no question.  

One of my classmates spent the night throwing up, and was HUNGOVER the next day.  VERY hung over.  

We went to Macy’s.  I remember the wooden escalators.  

We went to Tiffany’s.  There were four of us I believe.  We got our own personal security guard who followed us from floor to floor.  42 years later I’d get an engagement ring from that store.  

At one point we got on the subway, we had no idea where we are going.  We get on.  The doors start to close as a family is entering.  The mother and father get on, but the doors close in front of the daughter.  The subway starts to move and one of us says pull the cord, so the only time in all my time of riding the subway, someone pulled the emergency stop cord.

We WERE YELLED AT by a million people, but the little girl was reunited with her parents.  

The subway starts again, and we are immediately plunged into darkness.  We ride several stops with absolutely no lighting.  

We were on our way to the Bronx Zoo.  We ride and ride and finally get off.  We go up to the street.  And we are the only white people as far as the eye can see.  We weren’t scared, really, but a kind cop, suggested that we go back down and go back in the direction in which we came.  

One day, late afternoon, we are walking in Time Square, and a man approaches us about buying a camera. I had been wanting a camera and said, sure I’d buy a camera from him.  He tells me to follow him, and I very smartly gave my wallet to someone I was with.  I followed him with my 40 bucks and when I got there, he asked me for my wallet.  I said, I didn’t have a wallet but I had 40 dollars.  He took the money and left.  I looked around and there were people doing drugs in the entry way I was in.  Shooting up you might say.   Whoops.  Better luck next time.  

If any of you are wondering where our teacher was during all of this, she had sequestered herself in HER hotel room and was grading term papers.  We only saw her when it was time for dinner and a show.  

Speaking of shows.  

On the first night we saw CATS.  I remember I fell asleep during Act 2.  

However.  The show started late, because they were holding the curtain.  Around 8:15, there is a murmuring through the crowd and Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter enter and sit a few rows in front of us.  Along with Amy.  They both sign autographs during intermission, which I also have somewhere.  

During intermission, Ken Page, who was playing Old Deuteronomy, sat on stage and signed autographs.  I have that as well.  

The next night we saw 42nd Street.  I did not sleep through that.  To this day it’s one of my favorite shows.  I’ve designed it twice and seen it at least four or five times.  So fun, but no autographs.  

Of course, with our teacher grading term papers, there was much wandering the streets at night.  

One night we were out and about and met Edward Herrman.  I had no idea who he was.  

But.  

The biggest highlight of the trip was meeting Bob Hope.   It was at least 3:00 a.m and we were just walking around.  He just appeared.  We stopped him and talked to him for about 90 seconds.  He was wearing orange tennis shoes and was with a “bodyguard”?  I asked him for his autograph but all I had was a check and he wouldn’t sign it.  Which I find funny now.  

On one of the nights, we went to Sardi’s.  I remember very little about the dinner and I’ve never been back.  

Then it was time to head home.  

We are driving overnight.  And at some point, early in the morning, one of my classmates, who had really never participated in speech and only had done one show, starts having a vivid sex dream.  We all sat breathlessly, as she moaned and groaned her way down intestate 64.  We never knew if it was real, or if she was just doing a performance.  Finally, she climaxed and all was calm.  We all looked at each other and never spoke of it again. 

I’ll end by saying this.  I love seeing film and photos of NYC in the 70’s and 80’s.  I can’t explain it but that’s how I remember the city.  The smells, the chill in the air, the look and feel.  Those grainy pictures are exactly how it was.  The porn advertisement all over Times Square.  The prostitutes.  The edginess.  The questionable danger.  Scary and fun all at the same time.  

Today the city is in full cinemascope, with color and grandeur.  

But the 70’s and 80’s were a different story.  

PS.  It would be several years later that our drama teacher went back to NYC with students.   We had kind of ruined it for her.