The Sticker King

When I was a kid, during the 90's, I walked that fine line of children actually achieving things instead of adults just handing out 'congratulations' and 'great win' like free samples of shitty ice cream.  It was a weird time to be alive because I'm pretty sure I was competitive against my fellow fifth graders in just about anything.  In fact, I remember specifically this really sadistic game that only children of the 90's could get away with.  The premise was simple:  Two teams lined up ten bowling pins on opposite sides of a court with a line, that could not be passed, in the middle of the court.  Playground balls were given to both sides and melee ensued as the winner was simply whoever knocked over the other side's pins first.  I laid out for a ball that was surely headed for a pin on my side and came skin to concrete and just chucked it up as that these are the scars that we earn in battle when we go for the win!  That was the fifth grade.

Then things took a turn for the worst...also in the fifth grade.  My essay, which I wrote for the D.A.R.E. program did NOT get picked as the winner of the one that would be read at 'fifth grade graduation', which confounds the Hell out of me considering I can write and I DON'T DO DRUGS but hey maybe that committee can be bought...

But the absolute worst thing, the thing that I still think back and shake my head about was that I had a first year teacher.  She was great, probably the nicest woman in the world at that time to deal with us and she made sure that each and every day was the best it could be for us.  Well, when it came time to 'graduate' she made sure that no student was left behind and everybody got a certificate.  Here's where the lines get a little hazy and even the morons got recognized for something.  Basically my teacher went to a store like, say, probably Party City and bought a bunch of mock certificates and filled them out herself to encourage the spirit in all of us as we ventured into the vast, unknown world...of middle school.  It was a sweet thing to do, and she was a first year so she gets even more credit, and we were probably assholes anyways and didn't deserve such a nice notion.

Only my certificate read, "The Sticker King."  That's what I was credited with.  I collected the most stickers.  We had 'Show and Tell' every week for the entire year and eventually I ran out of things to show these douche bags and brought my sticker collection just as a filler and now I'm the goddamn Sticker King?  I wrote a musical based on the songs of Meatloaf but you want to see the stupid ass stickers in my notebook?!  Unbelievable.  Obviously that certificate isn't hanging about my mantle but it's probably mostly because I don't have a mantle.


Then the collective people went up in arms about the ESPY choice of the Arthur Ashe award for courage.  The award went to Kaitlyn Jenner, formally Bruce Jenner, and current transgender.  I've heard all the jokes, I've listened to them and I probably laughed at a few good ones.  That's all in the past because what's important is getting the message across.

What's the message?  I feel like that's lost because a lot of people don't exactly know who Arthur Ashe was and most people fear the unknown.

Ashe was a champion tennis player, let alone a champion American tennis player, but a black American tennis champion.  Chew on that for a bit.

He died from AIDS-related pneumonia and he got the HIV from a blood transfusion, which at the time, just a little before I was deemed the Sticker King, was one of those scary terms we were dealing with.  The HIV?!  Only homosexuals get the HIV...right?!  See, the world didn't know, so Arthur went to work and made them aware.  He spent his dying years teaching the world about something they were all petrified to get but they didn't know how and they weren't exactly sure why.  He was the embodiment of courage in that he couldn't save himself from it...but maybe he could save you.


I personally do not know why a sports-centered empire needs an award show.  They've gotten increasingly sentimental over the years and have incorporated several celebrities because I feel like even they don't know why they have an awards show.  But they do, and it's called the ESPY's, and they named an award after Arthur Ashe and they called it courage...and I agree with that.  Then this year they gave that same award to Kaitlyn Jenner, formally Bruce, and she went up there and said the exact same heartbreaking speech that so many before her have had to say.

She knew that she would be the target of ridicule, of jokes, and of criticism of why she got that award but she stood up there and said that it wasn't it about her...it was about all of the people that felt afraid that they were living in their wrong bodies and took everyday in fear.  All of those that were unsure of themselves that night finally had a role model.  If you can stand there on national television as a former male and say that you are finally free as a female and that there is hope for the others that feel the same..and also win an award at the same time...well then I'd say that's pretty goddamn courageous.

Was the right platform a sports awards ceremony?  Sure, as long as the cameras are on, because who the Hell is watching that crap anyways?  They already get awards...they're called million dollar paychecks and trophies.  Use whatever platform you have to get people to listen.  Kaitlyn Jenner used her voice with the ESPY's and that's all I hear about these days so you know she did something right and apparently people are watching the ESPY's...

Must be that star power!

Float on, graceful swans...and also geese.  You're more than welcome to share the pond.