I'll tell you something, the older I get the more I realize I am more like my father then I ever would have thought.

Now before we get too far into this I have to tell you something about my father. He was a midget and a midget wrestler, well actually he was a dwarf, but I hardly expect half of you out there to know the difference. As any of you who read my hair article and saw the pics of me, will know I am myself not a dwarf. Now if you are paying attention you might catch on to an area where a lot of my bad attitude originated. When I was a kid we would go to malls, people would stare and point at my dad, that you got used too. What really pissed me off as a kid was when kids asked their parents about him, and the parents would shh them away. Fuck man, just say that that man is different, and that there are lots of people who look different than the "norm". I used to pick fights with grownups and children alike when I was a kid, anyone who would stare at my dad.

Now, with that out of the way, you might also be able to guess that I've never felt that I was that much like my father. We were at odds most of my life, up until the few years before he died when we made up, but that's another story all together.

The thing is though, that almost on a daily basis I find myself doing things he did when I was growing up. You ever walk around your house turning off all the damn lights? Fuck man, I do that all the time now. I'm like a general around here. Just the other day I said, "Am I heating the entire block out there?" What the fuck is with that man?

The other thing I've come to realize is the intense pressure that a man who supports his family feels. My wife isn't working currently, and man just the sheer weight of every decision we make is killing me. I just took for granted I guess the freedom you have when you are young and single. See, there I go again, what am I growing up or something? I would never have even thought something like that a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, it's all cool and I love where I am in my life, it's just more serious I guess. Shit I'm gonna be thirty this year. Damn, I am an old man.

I'm buying lottery tickets now too. Man I didn't even know how to play a 649 a couple years ago. Now I'm organizing pools for this and that hoping to hit that big jackpot and take care of my kids for life. See another thing like my dad, he always played his numbers. I never really understood my dad I don't think. I never realized the pressure he was under, the things he sacrificed for us. I guess I just wanted to share that with all of you. Yet another glimpse inside the dark recesses of the mind that is downs.

The new dawn is coming.
Follow he who is …

DOWNS

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