Revolution Sets In

I'd really always wanted to start a revolution.

 

I guess I'm just that kinda guy.

 

Who doesn't admire a revolutionary?

 

In the fifth grade, Sister Martin nailed it when she said 'View... you're an instigator.'

 

Behind her back I always said 'there's no fartin' around when Sister Martin's around' but I gotta give the nun some credit.

 

She called it.

 

She said it with such conviction that even at my tender age I knew it was true.

 

I knew just by the way she said it... and the number of times that she'd said it... that I had no choice but to embrace this aspect of myself whether I liked it or not.

 

I tried to talk to the Mayor...

 

out of respect and decency and the 'order' with which things like this should be done.

 

I sent him a fax explaining what'd happened and how I felt about it.

 

I included the statement that my wife had sent the Chief of Police the day after the incident.

 

People had told me good things about the Mayor before... they'd said he was a 'no nonsense' kinda guy and that he was pretty reasonable.

 

I figured a guy like that and myself could come to see 'eye to eye' over this whole debacle.

 

There was no reason for me to think anything but that once reasonable minds came together and saw that night for what it really was... a giant clusterfuck that wounded my family pretty deeply... that calmer heads wouldn't prevail and make all of those accumulated wrongs 'right.'

 

I never doubted that I was 'in the right,' but I sure was wrong.

 

First off, the Old Man... the 'real Mayor' had just 'retired' and handed over the keys of his fiefdom to his young son.

 

Maybe it was a month or two before all of this went down.

 

I guess I'd be one of the first real tests of him and his political instincts.

 

Except he really didn't have any 'political instincts.'

 

If he would've, he would've seen that the only 'winning' course of action that he could have taken was to apologize to my family.

 

And chew out the officers that did that to them.

 

That's what I figured any reasonable guy would do... especially a 'family man.'

 

I don't know why The Kid responded like he did... but the way that I saw it he did nothing but 'double down on a bad hand.'

 

They seemed to do that at every step of the way.

 

He dug in.

 

I like how Kenny Rogers sung it in 'The Gambler'... 'you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em... know when to walk away... know when to run.'

 

The Kid wouldda done good to listen to some Kenny right then.

 

Even I could see he was out of aces.

 

He had to be... because I was holdin' five of them.

 

Maybe he wanted to show everyone that he had the kinda balls that the Old Man had.

 

Maybe he was really just an idiot.

 

I'll probably never know.

 

But not only did him and his cronies dig in... they did what I considered to be 'the unthinkable.'

 

They defended the actions of those officers that night.

 

And they publicly lied about what my wife did.

 

Pretty much anyone could see it...

 

but I saw it all too clearly.

 

I saw insult added to injury.

 

And I saw that it was my family that was the victim.

 

It was time to dust off my well worn copy of Sun Tzu's millenium's old masterpiece 'The Art of War' and do some deep thinking and some effective strategizing.

 

I wondered how I could come at them.

 

Where exactly was their 'achilles heel?'

 

'How does one guy go about taking down a dynasty' I asked myself.

 

I'd like to claim that the 'revolution' I fired up was in some way the result of some deep inner genius of mine, but the truth is that it wasn't.

 

I'm really not that smart... I've just got a big vocabulary and a 'velvet tongue.'

 

If anything, it was balls and persistence with a buncha stupidity thrown in...

 

that and simply reacting to the stupid shit that they said and did.

 

It wasn't that I was smart... it was that they were idiots.

 

Any of my kids would look like Mensa members if they stood next to these numbskulls.

 

What's that saying... 'in the land of the blind even the one eyed man is king'?

 

Funny enough... I'd learn after I tried to challenge him to a duel that The Kid only had one eye.

 

I lit the fuse on the story one day a few days after the whole thing went down.

 

I figured I'd start off with the little local newspaper... take it up a notch here and there as the situation warranted.

 

Maybe after one little story got out there they'd realize the 'error of their ways' and give my family the apology that I thought they deserved and drop those charges.

 

Nope.

 

They dug in deeper, doubled down again on that rotten hand that they had and pretty puch brought it all on themselves.

 

Defending the indefensible, Sun Tzu would tell you, is the highest order of 'stupid' imaginable.

 

That story blew up like a bag of really dry gunpowder thrown on a blazin' bonfire stoked by Satan himself.

 

It kinda dazed even me and singed my eyebrows the way it went up.

 

The media was amazed at their audacity.

 

They seemed to want to crucify those assholes as much as I did.

 

Maybe more.

 

Because first they tried to 'defend the indefensible' and I guess when they realized the stupidity of that plan, they retreated and tried to just avoid the press.

 

That my friends, I have learned that the press does not like.

 

If you're not gonna come out and let your own idiotic words crucify you, the press will find some other way to do that.

 

Publicly it was 'we cannot comment on an open case.'

 

Privately and behind fake screen names there seemed to be a campaign of further persecution against my wife and even my loveable self.

 

The audacity!

 

It didn't take much for the story to go national and spin out of anyone's control.

 

The Deadwood Police Department was gettin' hate mail from around the world a few days after that.

 

I even squirmed a little bit just watchin' 'em take the heat and the hits.

 

Even in the media, I only asked for an apology and that the charges be dropped.

 

That's all they hadda do.

 

It was the right thing to do too.

 

But they just couldn't do it.

 

I know better than to corner an adversary like that... I always gave them 'the out.'

 

An 'honorable out' at that.

 

I might have limited their options to exactly what it was that I wanted... but I would have never rubbed their faces in it.

 

I wasn't out to humiliate anyone... I just wanted them to do the right thing.

 

As soon as they did I woudda shook their hands and said so much.

 

Hell... they could've hired me after that to run PR for their next campaign.

 

That woudda been the 'winning move.'

 

I appreciate people who do the right thing.

 

I wanted to show these guys the 'the right path.'

 

Where I went from that position to 'all out warfare' I don't exactly remember.

 

At some point I just realized that these people were dirty as all get up.

 

Their little 'whisper campaign' on the internet was what I think did it.

 

I poured over Sun's metaphors and meditated on the battle I saw in front of me.

 

'WWSTD?'

 

'What Would Sun Tzu Do' became my mantra.

 

I started a Public Relations company.

 

That way I could put out press releases.

 

And did I.

 

I still can't believe I got away with that.

 

Then I started a News Group... which utilized my public relations company to get it's message out.

 

It was called 'Family News-Group' and it specialized in disseminating news important to families... well really just my family in a way... but I had to laugh when I heard major mainstream news reporters say 'according to Family News-Group' when they covered the story.

 

I remember hearing Rush Limbaugh quote one of my press releases as he shook the paper by the microphone.

 

I almost got into a car accident I was laughin' so hard.

 

I think Dr. Phil and Matt Drudge quoted me on me too.

 

It almost felt like cheating.

 

It was like shootin' fish in a barrel really.

 

I didn't make anything up though... I didn't lie... I just told a very biased version of the story no doubt.

 

Who wouldn't if you owned a news group and a public relations company?

 

Even if it did have only one employee.

 

The truth was on my side.

 

And the other side wasn't talking.

 

At least publicly.

 

I really had that going for me.

 

Man did I tear those assholes a new one.

 

I lit a fire that just like the time I lit the garbage can on fire in my old man's garage... was outta control and way too big for me to handle in just a couple of minutes.

 

The internet was my weapon and I weilded it in the most effective ways I could.

 

The enemy was stunned... they were put off balance and they never seemed to recover.

 

Yet they persisted.

 

As did I.

 

The collateral damage was incredible.

 

People lost their jobs, reputations were ruined, minds were lost and criminal acts were exposed.

 

Attorneys made a lot of money.

 

All they hadda do was cry 'uncle' and they coudda made it all stop.

 

I know that it was the media running with the story that applied the pressure that caused the state to drop the charges.

 

But that was just the end of the first battle.

 

And by that battle's end my enemy had shown me a little begrudging respect.

 

I had always respected my enemy.

 

I knew better.

 

Sun Tzu told me:

 

'If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles... if you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat... if you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.'

 

But after all of that went down, one of the enemy higher up's paid me a compliment that I'll never forget.

 

He told a reporter 'if I ever get arrested my first call is gonna be to View Minder... then I'll call my attorney.'

 

That made me smile and admire the first good sense I'd seen any of them exhibit.

 

A little decency and respect was all that I ever asked for for my family.

 

The Gambler

 

 

 

 

 

Done