“BIRTH OF A GIANT: Part 1”

Listen up, soldiers… Tonight I’m gonna tell you how I was saved.

See, my godson — that smiling creep with the bowl haircut — well, I’ve told you he writes stories. What I haven’t told you is how he started.

CREEP?! *scoffs* i could take your tongue and fingers and NOBODY would say a word!!

Oh, Clayboy!….i-i thought you didn’t even care….

Y-yeah well…for a whole year I pretended I was gonna start a podcast. Maybe make a documentary about real operators.

Truth is? I was blackout drunk, talking to any man or woman who’d listen on my HAM radio. Gained 50 pounds the year before THAT…. Soldiers? Every single one who answered — some pros, real operators, some civilian — but everyone who listened is and always will be a goddamn warrior in my God Damned book!

Here’s how it REALLY went down…

The kid — Harold — he’d been listening the whole time. Recording it all on his little cassette player while I wallowed in self-pity. And you know what he did?

He wrote his own stories. Based LOOSELY on those conversations.

When I found out, I lost it. Yelled. Called him names. Smashed what I thought were his tapes. He scratched me. I tried to spray him with a water bottle — damn thing fell apart right in my hand. Harold laughed at me. Then I laughed at me… caught a glimpse of myself in a dusty mirror. Then I cried. Alone.

See, folks — when you’ve lived a lifetime one way, thinking it’d be like that forever, and then BOOM… bottom gives out…

Well, it was enough to make a once-proud, now-retired Brigadier General find himself spinning in his dimly-lit garage… divorced, civilian, over-sixty, overweight, drunk… …arguing with a CAT. Standing there scratched and bleeding, wondering why I only had one shoe on and no socks.

Kid just wanted to cheer me up. Every time I’d laugh on one of them tapes, Harold would write his own version of the story. He was doing it as a gift. Kid just wanted me to stop being sad.

I needed Mercy… he gave it. He deserved Justice… got it. We each needed to re-learn, after grief and trauma, that we were still worthy of giving and accepting unconditional love.

So we came up with MJL UNIVERSE. Mercy, through Justice — with Love. It means Mercy for those needing it. Justice for the ones that deserve it. And Love… well, I’m not stupid enough to try to explain that one, soldiers.

In our case? Harold showed my angry soul mercy with his gift of love. Then Justice was paid. First payment? Hearing his reasoning. Second payment? Realizing all those tapes I smashed were MY OWN mix tapes. Liberace and Barbra Streisand on Carol Anne’s side… Pure, untouched Creedence Clearwater on MY side — the “AL” side.

Now the tape lay on the floor. Some on top of Harold’s head. He pulled it away a few times, asking which style I liked best for his Rockettes audition.

REALLY AL?! No foolin? because i went to take pictures!! — i just never sent them in because.

…LOVE.

MJL is what you make it. Welcome home.