I'm moving this discussion from the e-mail world to the blog world. At the end, if anyone has thoughts - send em along:
Dan: The 2nd of 4 important things to remember: You cannot instantiate an object from an interface. You can onlyinstantiate an object from a class that implements the interfaces.
Pat: Shakespearian. Is that right after 'You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd?"
Dan: You can't instantiate an object from an in-ter-face/But you can be happy if you've a-mind to I do about 15 minutes of programming training and suddenly I've gotthose little circles of birds flying around over my head, like someonejust dropped a piano on my head in Looney Toons episode.
Pat: I once hit my head so hard I saw spinning stars, not birds, but stars. The writer of that nonsense likes to keep his audience riveted! (ed. note: "Blazing Saddles" reference, here)
Dan: You slammed my head into the concrete floor in my parents basement and I saw goddamed stars. (ed. note: 18 years ago)
Pat: I don't remember that one. I seem to remember lobbing a rather large, heavy object such that it squashed your nuts, to which you replied,'WHY?!' Good times.
So...We again recount (cause we can't get enough of the re-hashing): the famous Trifecta of (non necessarily unprovoked or completely senseless, but) random Mixdorfian Acts of Violence (MAV). In the episode I recounted, I was wrestling and pinning you, like usual, and sitting on your chest. Suddenly, you swung both feet up around my neck and slammed the back of my head down onto the floor as hard as possible. I either saw stars or utter blackness, but it was outer-space, regardless. The third of the times - perhaps the most famous - was when I was slapping your forehead lightly (to which you may have been very warrented in asking, "WHY?' HOWEVER...) suddenly, you punched me in the head. HARD. Understand, in both instances, your reactions may have been considered justifiable (if somewhat extreme). But the real question still plauging psychologists till this day is: WHY? Why then? I was grappling with and tormenting your ropy ass almost every time we got together. What logic drove the unflappable Valedectorian to lash out in such a violent and suddent manner. It should be noted that I was constantly derided as "the violent one." But I wished to grapple, always. Never to inflict pain. The safety of combatants was always of overriding concern to me. Between Gibbons' lethal flailing on the basketball court and your rare, psychotic lashings-out, I think I was comparatively mild.
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6 comments:
From my point of view, I did not wish to grapple. EVER. I have never been prone to or interested in that sort of horseplay. It may be perhaps that I always was, or perceived myself to be, weaker than most others.
And so I either avoided or tolerated such activities, until... I couldn't tolerate it anymore. At that point I came to understand that I wasn't generally strong enough to overcome my tormentor short of fairly extreme 'violence'.
It is probably similar to the MT 'cornered space wolverine' instinct, although employed far less often. MT could feel threatened by a stiff breeze through his ample velvet locks.
I had and continue to have a high tolerance for all sorts of 'threats', but when I snap, watch the fuck out.
TClog felt this same wrath last year after he tried to run over a dog. (wink) Empathically I felt the threat to the dog and whacked his ass (actually his head).
Ah! Primitive fear-threat reaction!
No, actually it makes a little sense. I just still don't understand why you don't voice the "watch the fuck out," even once. In my recollections (admittedly probably a bit hazy after all these years), I recall you sitting there, accepting your "abuse" with the most serene look on your face, the veritable calm before the storm.
And how your natural inclination to steer clear of violence is abandoned in such mind-blowing and sudden fashion. I always feel like I have some sort of safety gauge that would be real hard to get past. Even if I was being attacked by a mugger, I feel that I'd have this crazy "OK, I'd better avoid the face" sort of thing holding me back.
I can't say that I ever tried to analyze this in any rational way.
The fact is, long before you ever sat on my chest hitting me in the forehead, I had endured all sorts of similar abuse (such is childhood) and over the course of that time I learned that warnings were ineffective and half-measures as likely to fail as not. The simple truth is that when in such situations, being in an almost entirely helpless position, you might only get one chance to extricate yourself.
That said, I really can't think of many other people that evinced such reactions out of me by that time of my life. Either I had learned to avoid the situations generally and only our extremely frequent contact made them possible, or else there was something else going on in our relationship that explains it. No homoeroticism implied here, more likely perhaps that you were doing to me what Sean had been doing to you, and your more generally physical nature needed an outlet for that sort of thing.
At the end of it all, my reactions were certainly over the top, and my breathless attempts to justify my actions afterward were pretty pathetic, but there was a strong element of bullying that started it all.
Sounds like a pretty reasonable analysis.
I never got wacked in college for making Pat eat my fat jelly rolls. I guess that I was lucky. Maybe the punch to my head last summer was head lock restitution. Hidden all of these years waiting for the opportunity to be unleashed?
Probably not what happened. Pat and I were just on opposite ends of the spectrum at the time of the situation. He knows that I was not bullying the dog or trying to run it over. For Pete sakes I don't dislike dogs that much. I was very surprised by what I call the Petrified Punch.
Maybe Pat has a natural response to uncontrolable situations. When put into a completely uncommon and incontrolable situation he gets violent briefly. Similar to what those goats who fall down when suddenly frightned. They can't help it, they just fall down in a stiff and clam manner. Our great friend Pat suffers from the same thing,except he gets violent instead of stiffening up and falling over.
The Petrified Punch as I call the incident will forever be funny and unbelieveable. I just hope that it doen't happen again! ")
I think Cory's theory ranks right up there with yours, Pat. Not quite so noble, but entirely plausible. Momentary freak-out.
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