Chapter 77 - November 20, 2012

A dog with a bone was crossing a bridge. The bridge was crossing a lake that was super smooth. There was no wind. The water was super smooth. The dog got to the middle of the bridge and looked down in the water. Oh yeah, the dog was carrying a big bone. Anyway, he looked down and he saw another dog with a big bone. He thought, "Well, I want that bone as well." So he quickly tried to grab the other bone. It turned out to be his own reflection and he lost everything cause he tried to be greedy. The moral of the story is, don't be too greedy. I have no idea why I thought of that, but I thought I'd share it with you.

Hi everybody! Welcome to another week in paradise. Man, I'm getting tired of this traumatic brain injury stuff, but I've got a new therapist who's pretty cool. He got me on my stomach again. Remember, a couple blogs ago I mentioned I got on my stomach? Well, it's a bit of a strange feeling because I've been on my back for 2 years. Anyway, I did some yoga stuff on my stomach, and my next thing is to try and crawl. I can afford a new therapist because of my spend-down from Medicare. Let me quickly explain what spend-down is. When you get Medicare, they will pay for your therapy, but you have to also in effect kick back to them a large amount of money. I can deduct some therapy from this kick back. It's all, how do I say politely, it's all, um, bullshit. It's also confusing, but, hey, I'm just playing by the rules. I didn't make them up. Anyway, therapy is going good and my eyesight is getting better. It’s hard to describe, but it's like my body's waking up. I mentioned it before, but it's a long, slow process. It's like when you wake up in the morning, but it goes on for months and months.

I'm pretty tired of talking about this traumatic brain injury. I'm going to tell a few stories. Remember, I've been on my back for a long time and when I kind of freak out I think of things from the past. Here are a few random things that happened to me. These are 3 random stories.

The following story took place in Paris, in the '90's. My friend had a restaurant and at the end of the night, we would lock the doors, pull down some curtains, break out the calvados, turn up the music and party. Well, my friend had a big dog. A big Great Dane. It used to sleep under the spiral staircase in the bar. Anyway, I was sitting at the bar one day and I said to another friend, "Hey, see that dog over there? If you touch his balls, it'll bring you good luck." I was a bit drunk. Well, my friend said, "I need some good luck," and he went over and touched the dog's balls. Well the dog looked at him like - did you just fucking touch my balls? I thought the guy was gonna lose his hand but it all happened so quickly, I don't think the dog had time to react. Well, the next day, out of the blue, my friend got a phone call. He was a photographer and he got an assignment to photograph a famous actor on the cover of a big magazine. He was psyched. Well, we had to celebrate so we went back to the restaurant and partied all night, and he said to me, late, at the bar, he said to me, "It works! Touching the dog's balls will give you good luck." I said, in a drunken state, "Well, I need some luck." and I went over and touched the dog's balls. Well the dog raised his head and in a Scooby Doo voice he said "Hmmm?" He looked at me like; you didn't just do that did you? Anyway, it worked because the next day I got an assignment to go to Italy and photograph for a famous fashion magazine. It worked. Well, I got back from my trip, we went to the bar to celebrate. There were some cute girls at the bar, and I was trying to explain to them, in my drunken state, I was trying to explain why it's good luck to touch the dog's balls. That didn't go over so well. For some strange reason, they wouldn't talk to me.

The above reminds me of many nights at that cafe. One night I was talking to my friend and over his shoulder, out the window, I saw a beautiful Mercedes going by, upside down. Sparks going everywhere. The car hit the median strip and flipped over. Well we all ran outside and being the drunken idiots we were, we pulled the driver out of the car. He was covered in blood. We said, " Are you all right man?" He said, "Oh man, my friend is going to kill me." He smelled like he had had a few drinks. Well, we rushed him into the bar. "Quick, drink some of this," and we poured him some of our favorite drink, calvados. He started drinking and the police arrived. They said, "Who's Mercedes is that upside down in the middle of the street?" The driver slurred, "It's mine." Well, you can use your imagination. It was a crazy place, that cafe.

I'll tell a few more stories.

The following story took place in Texas. I was on my dirt bike with my brother in law at the time. We were driving up a dried up riverbed. I saw a path leading to the riverbed. I stopped my bike, went out to check out the path. It looked like it was well used. I decided to explore the path. My brother in law came with me. Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you the reason why we were on our dirt bikes out in the middle of nowhere was because we were looking for arrowheads. It was kind of mini adventure. Anyway, we started walking down the path and the path led to a small hill in the middle of the desert. We followed the path up the hill and it led to a cave. The view from the cave was a mazing. I had my camera and I started to set up to take a shot. Then, I looked down to my right. There was a clear area where something large had been sleeping. There was fur matted down everywhere and there were bones scattered around. I thought to myself, oh my god, I'm in a mountain lion den. Not good, so I said to my brother in law, "I think we should go." Well, we started to leave. I have heard that if you face a big cat, you're chances are greater for survival if you facing him, so my brother in law faced backward I face forward. We were back to back walking down the path. We looked like a couple of young idiots. Thank god no one could see us. Anyway, this moveable feast was going down the hill. I looked down at his feet. He was wearing cowboy boots. He was a big guy, a big football player. I was a slight, shorter runner, and I had my running shoes on. He looked at me, and he said, "What are you looking at? Your running shoes?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "You think you can outrun a mountain lion? I said, "No, I can't outrun a mountain lion, but I can outrun you." Just kidding. I would never leave him behind. Anyway, we got to our dirt bikes and took off.

OK, I'll tell one more story'

The following story took place in the Bahamas. It was the late 1980's. I was on assignment to shoot a beauty story for a famous British magazine. I was shooting a girl in a beautiful dress underwater. Every once in a while, I would come up to the surface and direct the girl. Well, I looked over to my left, there was a very famous actor. He was just taking a swim. Well, I got bored with the model and I thought, I’ll scare the shit out of the actor. I swam under water over to him, and as he was swimming on the surface, I came out of the water like a Polaris missile and said, "Cheese" and showed him my camera. For some reason, he didn't think it was funny. The guy almost had a heart attack. Well, I apologized to him. I didn't mean to scare him, but then he started getting feisty and we had words. I think the last thing I said to him was "Why don't you shave your back?" I've never seen a hairier back in my entire life. The guy looked like he was wearing a sweater vest.

Anyway that's all for this week. I continue to work hard and do therapy. Remember, I'm doing this to help people who might have traumatic brain injury. Remember, when things get tough, remember some event or things that have happened to you. See you later. Love, B. Nice.

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