Perhaps I should relate a bit of history so the reader can better understand what I like to call "the big picture"...Long time fans of the site will remember last summer when I started my own business called Crazy Larry's House of Discount Cheese. Well, I won't rehash the entire story now, but suffice it to say that there is such a thing as bad publicity and even a relatively mild dysentery epidemic will scare off the lion's share of ones clientele.
At any rate, my earlier failure was probably a blessing in disguise as it allowed me to move on to an occupation that allows me to give something back to the community. Fast forward to today where I am currently employed as an arc-welder at the medium security Men's Correctional Facility in Lodi, California. It was in the daily course of my duties that I met the man pictured above.
As usual a person's privacy is sacrosanct here at the Spatulas news desk. I'll refer to him only by the completely chosen-at-random name "Barry" or by his prison name, "Baby Buns". Barry, I soon learned, had been a semi-professional ball player that everyone expected would go on to be the next Nomar minus the OCD. His downfall began the day he fell for a woman that convinced him armed-robbery was "cool".
I've been working with Barry for a while now and I've seen some marked improvement. I told him it was ok to cry (just not around me because that kind of stuff will get you stabbed here in "the joint"). I've also taught him to redirect his passion to constructive ends by turning him on to a personal cause of mine: the environment.
Finally, I passed along a verse that has proved invaluable to me over the years. In the immortal words of Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force:
“It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, whether you're white, black, or Sasquatch, even. As long as you follow your dream, no matter how crazy or against the law it is... except for Sasquatch. If you're Sasquatch, the rules are different”.
