Wait... I've Got the Perfect Plan!

tommyrawblog@gmail.com

Wait...

I’ve Got the Perfect Plan!

Now,

how many fuckin' times

have those delusional words

gotten you into a heap of trouble?

Wait...

I’ve got the perfect plan... MY ASS!! 

LoLoL

C’mon, you know that there is no such thing
as the perfect plan.


Nothing ever works out the way you want it to. Somehow, your parents find out, or the friend that you’re plotting against
overhears you talking.


I mean, James Bond can’t even pull off the perfect caper without getting shot at. So, how the hell can us mere mortals
ever expect to pull one off?


Well, I don’t know the answer to that. But what I do know is that no matter how high the odds are against us, we still attempt the impossible,
the improbable, and even the insane.


It’s in our blood to get over on someone. Day in and day out, people throw down the gauntlet, and attempt to pull off a scam
on some unsuspecting person.


Anything is possible...
if you have the right people,
in the right place,
at the right time.
It could be a possibility...


... except of course,
if you were my friends and I.


Somehow, our plans always seemed
to backfire on us.


Lemme give you just a few examples of our work. Maybe you’ve even read about us in the
Readers Digest, under the heading of
The Gang Who Couldn’t Scam Straight!
Oh man, we were the worst... LoL


Take for instance, the time that my friends and I had tickets to go see one of our favorite bands, Black Sabbath, play at Madison Square Garden. I'd say we were 16 or 17 years old at the time.

It was gonna be a great show and we were all pumped, so we thought that this night
deserved some extra attention.


We needed a plan!


Oh, not just any plan. It had to be the
perfect plan.
And believe me, it was.
In fact it was something that we could’ve
used over and over again.
If we weren't such dickheads of course!


The show was scheduled for about 8 or 9 o’clock in the evening. But, we were all going to meet up at the quarry first, for a pre-show party.


The quarry was a great place to hangout. Huge granite rocks and isolated from the surrounding neighborhood alongside Forest & Van Name Ave's on Staten Island.

Well, me, Ronnie
(Remember him?? Mario "fucking" Andretti)
and another friend, John,
came up with the greatest scam.


Finally, we would get something past
our parents.


So we thought!


We came up with the idea of setting up a tent in Ronnie’s huge backyard. This way we just told our parents that we were camping out at Ronnie’s house, when in the meantime, we would be out all night long at the quarry.
Before and after the show!


And the best part about staying in the tent was that we didn’t have to worry about sneaking past mom and dad with half-a-load on
to get to our bedrooms.


We could just head back to the tent and stumble right on in. Then from time to time just unzip, stick our heads out, vomit, then zip that baby right back up.


Fucking brilliant, right?


I mean we could’ve used this scam
for the rest of our lives.


Whenever something big was goin’ on,
we could’ve just said...


“Ma, I’m sleepin’ in the tent tonight
over Ronnies!”


I could just see it now. The dead of winter, a huge party, and we didn’t wanna go home.


We’ll be in the tent again tonight ma!

But it’s the middle of winter.

Oh, that’s Okay. I got on two pairs of underwear.


Now this reads really well, right?


But don’t think for one second, that my mother would’ve fallen for any of this Tom-foolery bullshit! My mom is as sharp as a tack!


But we still thought that this was such a brilliant plan. At the time anyhow. How ‘bout you guys? Doesn’t it sound pretty much fool proof?


But, we would never get a chance to use it!
And, come to think of it, it was probably better that we did get busted.


And here’s why,
from the beginning.


Like I told you before, we were really pumped about the concert. Black Sabbath was a band that we all loved. They were into wearing crosses, having a kind of Gothic style, and playing into that whole God versus the Devil thing. And even though alot of their lyrics were positive,
they still got a bad rap from many.

It was all a bunch of hype to sell records.
And man, did it work. Between the way they
looked, combined with their sound, and Ozzy's
powerful howl, they were and are,
a relentless musical force.


Well, we wanted the pre-show party up at the quarry to be great, something that no one would ever forget. So, we came up with the idea of burning a cross while everyone was hanging out.


That’s right, you read correctly.


Burn a fucking cross!


I’m thinking back now of how we were looking at the whole scenario. Ya know, no harm intended, having nothing to do with anything but the music and the band symbolism.


But we never thought about how the rest of Staten Island would’ve thought about it. I mean it had nothing to do with the KKK, or any of that racist crap whatsoever.


It was only about the fucking band.


Wow!
Ya know I’m really glad we didn’t do that.
Oh man, my balls just began to bristle with anxiety just thinking about it. LoL


Anyway, we went up to the quarry earlier in the day to set things up. We picked the highest point, dug a small hole for the cross, and scratched out a mock gravesite.


Man, were we out of our minds or what?


Like I said, we were about 16 or 17 years old
at this point. How did we ever
make it to adulthood?


We then walked into the woods, and cut down a couple of real thick, dead branches. Dragged them back to Ronnie’s house,
where we trimmed them down.


Then we nailed them together creating the symbol of the cross. It was about five feet tall, and impressive!


Next, we doused it with a gasoline soaked rag. We didn’t wanna have a dud on our hands,
now did we?


I then picked up the cross and stashed it behind Ronnie’s tool shed at the far end of his property. And, you know what? I’ll bet that damn thing is still there today, hidden underneath
the grass and leaves.


Maybe I’ll go take a look one-day and see if it’s still there. Or, maybe NOT!


So, the plan was right on schedule.


The mock grave was set.


The cross was soaking,
and the tent was up.


All we had to do now was get some beers
and wait for the party.


So, in the meantime, all three of us went home to get dressed and pack a few things
for the night’s festivities.


Well, while I was at my house getting ready, the phone rang. I was in the kitchen at the time when I picked up the receiver,
and heard John’s voice.


We went over the entire plan step by step and talked about how great this whole night was going to be. Starting with the party, then the concert, and especially the fact that we didn’t have to go home afterwards.


Man, it all sounded just too perfect.


I kept my voice to a low whimper.
Didn’t wanna be overheard now did I?


I remember ending the call by saying
something like...


“Okay John, I’ll see ya there!”


And then, like Jesus Christ himself, a voice came over the phone that rocked my fucking world.


“OH NO YOU WON’T!
YOU AREN’T GOING
ANYWHERE BUSTER!”


Oh fuck!!!!


“Ma, is that you?”


Oh crap, my mother had picked up the phone upstairs in her bedroom at the exact same time I had, and heard the whole conversation.


The entire insane conversation!


Ooooohh man, that’s dirty pool.
She heard it all.
From the party,
to the cross,
and everything in-between.


We were busted big time.
I couldn’t believe it.
But, worst of all was the fact that now we could never use the tent routine ever again. Kiss it goodbye baby, and man, that really sucked.


A beautiful plan cut down in its infancy.
We could've used that routine for the rest of our lives... LoL Ya know, like to get away
from our wives for a night.


Okay honey.
I’m goin’ over Ronnie’s.
And remember, I won’t be home tonight.
We’re camping out in his backyard.
Hee hee hee hee,
man that would’ve never gotten old.


Well, I had a lot of explaining to do that night. And, as you might’ve guessed, I didn’t get to go see the show either. Black Sabbath would have to go on without me :(


I missed everything!
From the party,
to hangin’ out all night with my friends
to the concert.
And it was all because of the perfect plan.


That muthafucking plan.
Why couldn’t I just go to the show,
drink beer, vomit, and then go home and get busted by my parents like a normal teenager?


What my mother must’ve really thought of me. Man, I don’t wanna know.


Could you imagine though, if we did actually light that fucking thing up?


I mean it was at a pretty high point within the quarry. Half of Staten Island would’ve rushed to the quarry with guns a blazing, waiting to see some kind of clan rally, or fuckin’ witch-hunt.


When instead, what would they have found? Hoods, and robes?
Nope, just twenty dumb teenagers, drinkin’ beers, and listening to Black Sabbath songs, anticipating a great night of music
and hangin’ out.


I get cold chills just thinking about the whole thing, and how it all could’ve really
exploded in our faces.


So much for my cross burning days!
Let’s move on.


Now this next disaster here involves Ronnie (Mario Andretti) and Joey.
(Clint Eastwood from the schoolyard).


It was Ronnie’s 17th birthday I believe, and we had a surprise party set up for him at his house on Van Name Ave.


Well, the main organizers of this bash, our older brothers, elected Joey and myself to keep Ronnie busy during the day while they set things up. And they couldn’t have picked two better people
for the job.


We were certainly more than up to the task.


So, what the hell could we do with this guy
all day anyway?


I got it!


Let’s get in my car and buy many six packs of Heineken beer. Both regular and special dark. And drive around Staten Island and see what kind of mischief we could find.


Sounds pretty good huh?
Yeah, we thought so too!


Well, lemme tell ya, we had the time of our lives. Joey kept feeding Ronnie fresh beers, while he shouted out orders from the back seat
like king fucking Tut!


“Let’s go here,
let’s go there,
I want pretzels,
no not those kind, the other kind!”


Well, you get the picture, right?


The drunker he got, the more ridiculous his requests became. We even ended up making a trip over to our high school, Port Richmond, where they were playing a football game
against another local school.


The place was packed with people.


“I wanna go see the game!”
the birthday boy ordered.


Hey, it was his birthday, who were we to say no to a request like that. It sounded harmless enough, right?


But there was one catch though.
He wanted us to sneak into the game, and not pay at the gate, like everyone else.


Hey, no problem.
Both Joey and myself were just as smashed as Ronnie was by now, so that kinda
sounded like a cool idea.


So, I found a spot around the corner from the school and came to a crash landing alongside
the now rubber-blackened curb.


We poured ourselves out, and made our way towards the back of the field to where the bleachers were.

I remember that there was a gate that no one bothered to check, and a fifteen-foot high fence behind the concrete bleachers.


We walked up to the chain linked beast, looked at one another, and then began cracking up hysterically like retards.


We were determined to scale that bitch. But, hell, at this point it didn’t matter if we were only trying to hop that three-foot high fence
that Charlie lost his leg meat on.


We were too far-gone for any high-flying acrobatics.


My goodness, it was just so funny. Here we were, three drunken morons, attempting to climb what seemed like Mount Everest at the time.


So, I’m sure by now you’ve guessed that we were doing a rather poor job of scaling that mountain. Lemme tell ya, we quickly discovered that beers, laughter, and climbing fences, really didn't compliment one another.


It took us about an hour to make it three quarters of the way up. Okay okay, maybe only five minutes or so, but still you could run a mile in five minutes.


But in the shape we were in, we couldn’t even climb a stupid fence in that allotted time.


Then it happened.


It happened right before our eyes, during our noble quest to avoid paying the dollar fifty entrance fee.


As we were hanging on for our lives, fingers practically bleeding, we all stopped and then looked down at the same time, and saw some dude open that gate...
that no one bothered to check.


That’s right; he just walked up to it, lifted the latch, and pulled it open. The stupid thing
wasn’t even locked!


How stupid were we?


He then glanced up at us in total disbelief, while we were holding onto that fence for dear life. He then effortlessly walked right on through the unattended gate onto the field without a care in the world, and without paying
his buck fifty either!


The disgust hit us hard, and pretty much stopped us dead in our tracks. We eventually all just fell to the cement sidewalk
with black-n-blued laughter.


After that we just said, fuck this,
and picked ourselves up, got back into the car and opened another beer. Who needed
that stupid game anyways.


Well, it was all pretty much downhill from there. You see, soon after our failed attempt at being men and climbing the enemy, we ended up at one of our other hangouts, P.S.22. Sound familiar?

Well, this was where both Joey and myself knew we had fucked up, and were going to get killed by the other guys who were setting up for the party.


The reason was because Ronnie began
to puke his guts up. LoL
Right there on those muthafucking steps
in that top photo... LoLoLoL


His face began turning different colors. He looked like a damn Skittles commercial! And, it was only about an hour away from the time that we were to get him to the house for the big surprise.


I’m tellin’ ya, we were fucked.


We tried to revive him, but it was no use. There was nothing else we could do but get him to the house in the condition that he was in,
and take our punishment like men
for being retards.


When we pulled up to the house, we had to carry Ronnie because he had passed out. Oh boy, this didn’t go over too well with the fella’s.


“What the fuck did you do to him you assholes? We told you to keep him busy, not kill him,
you fuckin’ jerkoffs!”


Nice tone right!?


We had absolutely no come back to that whatsoever.


“Oh...... uuuuuuhhh...... sorry!”


The guys threw ice cubes at us the rest of the night, just to remind us of what a good job
we did of ruining the surprise.


Man, were they pissed. But Ronnie did eventually snap out of it, and we all had a great time despite our going overboard.
What can I say...
every once in a while we did dumb things!
That's what being a teenager was all about.

So, yet another perfect plan had gone awry. All we had to do was keep him busy for a few hours, and that’s it. It seemed like such an innocent plan at the time. Man, didn’t anything ever workout right for us?


Of course it did!


Only we didn’t realize it at the time though, being stupid drunken teenagers and all. Wait a minute, didn’t you have to be twenty-one to drink. LoL


But things did go our way also. You see, somehow we managed to survive all of the stupid, and moronic decisions we’ve made
while growing up.


Like drinkin’ many Heineken's, and driving a
two-ton piece of steel-on-wheels without killing ourselves, or anyone else for that matter.


Okay, so we smashed a few things along the way. Like those metal reflector things on the side of the road, some hedges,
and possibly a stop sign or two.


But on a whole, we were pretty lucky to survive all those whacky "perfect plans" we came up with. So yes, you see, there is a silver lining somewhere within that forever-lingering cloud following our plans.


And it’s only now,
that I’m beginning to realize it!