Another horrific experience has called for deviating from the normal (mostly) non-bloggy style of which this site is proud; your indulgence is appreciated, and we will return to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow,

The micro element of this trauma and drama is a molehill of an issue with Best Buy absurdly turning into a mountain that is behind a call to boycott that company that has a virtually stranglehold on the US brick-and-mortar market for electronics.

The Best Buy media-relations department did not respond to several calls to discuss this article. 

The macro view is that new Best Buy CEO Corie Barry and her fellow new breed of "suits," including Kevin Johnson of Starbucks, have rewarded customers who have helped the companies that provide them multi-million dollar compensation packages by completely throwing them under the Geek Squad van.

The straw that becomes a major pain below the back of your not-so-humble reviewer is addressed below. It comes a few months after figuratively telling Johnson, who has willfully turned a callous blind eye to his public, where he can pour his grossly over-priced (and more-often-than-not improperly prepared) beverages. (I have saved $100s and lost a few pounds in the interim.) 

Even more spot on, a pledge to never contribute another cent to the income of Barry and her fellow equally insulated executives comes a month after reading a New York Tines article illustrating how corporations determine the point at which customers jump ship and how those models of capitalism come perilously close to crossing it. A cited example is a cell-phone service provider waiting until a long-time customer cancels her service before providing an incentive to not switch carriers.

Suffice it to say that I have been a very profitable customer of Best Buy for more than a decade.

BACKGROUND

Before sharing the tale of woe behind this radical move, I want to state that I have communicated it many times to people at Best Buy in telephone messages, e-mails, and even tweets to Barry (@Corie_Barry). Barry has not acknowledged these communications in any form.

The other efforts to have my concerns heard either were similarly ignored or directed to the senior customer-service rep., who has become far more of the problem than the solution. He continues taunting me as to he being the only one whom Best Buy will have address my concerns. Team Barry has ample notice of this.

This all began a few Saturdays ago when I went to a Best Buy to buy a wireless doorbell. The employee who helped me asserted that she was trained in that area. Both the outcome and a subsequent discussion with a store manager proved that that was not the case.

The next morning, I followed my Sunday routine of checking the Best Buy website for the weekly specials. I learned that the company was running a promotion in the form of giving away an Amazon Echo Dot (a.k.a. Alexa) with the purchase of the basic Ring doorbell that I had purchased. I also saw that that promotion was ending that day.

Experience during the reign of CEO (now Executive Chairman) Hubert Joly inspired confidence that Best Buy executive service quickly would make all things right with the world. I copied and pasted the product page (which included the offer) and mailed it to myself for good measure. I will add that no one has acknowledged an e-mail to Joly. 

On calling executive customer service, I got the aforementioned rep. He was unresponsive from the start and stated that I could have forged the e-mailed copied-and-pasted product page from the Best Buy site.

The rest of this story was that the issue of the rep. was that I did not include a weblink in the e-mail with the product-page that I sent him. I responded that accessing a link on Monday would not document an offer that expired the prior day. The rep. responded that the link would reflect the expired deal because it would go to my computer. He would not acknowledge that that was inaccurate.

I then asked to speak to the supervisor of the rep. The rep. refused that request, stating that he was the only Best Buy employee to whom I ever would speak.

I then called the store where i bought the doorbell; an hour later, the store acknowledged the validity of the offer and pledged to send an Alexa. They did so later that day.

I called executive customer service back to report the development with the store. I got a different rep. than the first one. He told me that he would have his supervisor call me back; that never occurred. That rep. also stated that the first rep. easily could have looked up the offer that had expired the prior day. 

The second rep, promised to confirm the offer and call me back; he never called back.

The first exec. rep. with whom I spoke called back two hours later and stated that the offer was to buy a doorbell that was $100 more than the one that I bought to get the free Alexa, which had gone down from $50 to $25 since Sunday. In other words, his solution was to spend $75 more than I needed to in order to get a free $25 item to which I had an undisputed right.

This time, the rep. seemed unable to grasp that the offer that existed on Monday differed from that of the day before. He again refused to have his supervisor get involved. I hung up.

All this led to the extensive aforementioned efforts to get someone at Best Buy to address both my frustration and the deplorable manner in which the first rep. handled the matter; the futility as to that led to this article.

My "demands" are a meaningful conversation with the VP of customer service for Best Buy, an equally substantive acknowledgment of the offer and the poor job of the first rep., and credible assurance that Best Buy will reasonably act in the future to put right what once went wrong. 

Armchair Management

Cutting back on customer service is understandable; murdering it is not. 

Easy solutions for funding better service include a little pain "today" in the form of cutting the pay of anyone earning more than $100,000 by one-percent in exchange for an additional personal day each year to avoid having to eliminate their position "tomorrow." 

Corporations also could expand tele-commuting programs by offering that option in exchange for offering eligible employees that option in exchange for a five-percent pay reduction. 

On top of this, Barry and her fellow CEOs could make the gesture of a 5% pay cut to help their companies remain viable, 

Epilogue

I likely have saved $100 in impulse purchases by not shopping at Best Buy or looking at its website in the past month. Unless and until things change, I further expect that I will save countless hours and massive levels of stress not fighting when the inevitable molehills surface.

I will splurge on a special treat if and when Best Buy announces a need to close numerous stores due to poor sales. 

The good news is that the root of the conflict that provides this follow-up to the August 2018 "Avoiding Getting Inn Trouble" post in the Inn Credible New England section of this site supports the philosophy of these articles on boutique lodging in this region of the United States. This tenet is that it often is better to enjoy the convenience of driving to a place within a few hours of home and to spend a little more for a spectacular experience at a B n B or small hotel than to endure the direct and indirect costs of flying to stay at a cookie-cutter hotel. 

A tale at least as old as the time that most middle- and upper-middle-class households first had at least one car is that happily married (but professionally unfulfilled) couples went into the woods (or to the shore) for a weekend at a B n B and fell in love with the idea of owning such a place, The beginning of the almost inevitable end is that one spouse is much more excited about this potential life change than the other. 

Another ingredient in this recipe for disaster is that, as much as a couple may be in love, there almost always is a point at which familiarity breeds massive contempt. Additionally, feelings of inequity as the division of household duties and expenses are almost inevitable even if you share a tiny house. 

Dealing with the public always is stressful; having them in your home and having your spouse play host by being charming while you are struggling to clean the rooms and cook the food literally can invoke homicidal thoughts. 

The message here is to read between the lines as to mentions of the almost-always needed additional staff; you also should look for online reviews that mention one or more innkeeper constantly being stressed. "Been there, done that" ala working at a place where the constantly shouting couple apparently did not know that the inn kitchen was not soundproof warrants asserting that I know of which I speak. 

Although the wholesome CBS sitcom "Newhart" about a married couple running a Vermont B n B is amusing. a "Real Inn Keepers of [Insert Your Favorite Small Town]" would be funnier and more true to life. 

Like the first "Trouble" article, "Inn Credible" travel for this site inspired this diversion into Blogland. Learning the lesson related to potential for severe wintry weather from November through March prompted scheduling "get while the getting is good" trips. These included a desire to visit Brattleboro, Vermont in mid-September ahead of the New Yorkers invading during foliage season and the perfect storms potentially starting a few weeks later. (Blizzards as early as mid-October are not unheard of.)

I reached out to the owners of what seemed to be a charming place that strongly presented itself as a relaxing retreat for stressed out urbanites and suburbanites. The intense stress in the voice of the husband at the outset triggered my Spidey sense to the point that I almost hung up. My mistake was letting my strong desire to stay at that place override heeding my "Inn Trouble" advice to follow the "Jeopardy" principle of going with my first instinct. 

I repeatedly stated the dates of my desired stay only to have the husband ALWAYS respond with one date off; he ultimately stated that he could subsequently amend the reservation. I ultimately decided to hope for the best and make the reservation. Again, I really wanted to stay at that place. 

This progressed to the husband asking for my address; I told him my city and asked if he wanted me to spell it. He barked that he just needed the zip code, but repeatedly kept transposing numbers. I again offered to spell my city, but he kept insisting on taking the zip code. We (presumably) got over that hurdle. 

We fatally stumbled in the home stretch; he asked when I wanted to arrive and stated the 3:00 p.m. check-in time before I could respond. Both because of the length of the drive to Brattleboro and because I wanted to enjoy the highly touted serenity at the inn as much as possible, I asked if I could arrive at 10:00 a.m., leave my luggage in my car until my room was ready, and simply enjoy the guest common areas.

This really set off the husband; he yelled "we still will be serving breakfast and can not even think about assimilating a new guest that early." I could not imagine that this six-room place would be so busy with guests from a Friday night in mid-September on the following morning that the mere presence of an adult happy to "play in traffic" for a few hours was such a big deal.

I simply hung up. I then looked up Trip Advisor reviews and noted both that some of them noted that the couple was stressed and that the truly "better half" wrote polite and responses to negative reviews. I no longer did not, and do not, want to stay there. I did want to end things on a more friendly note and called back. I left a voicemail asking to speak to the "nice one" without phrasing it as such. I never got a call back.

The happier note on which this article will end is that, like the first "inn Trouble" article, the Rabbit Hill Inn (also in Vermont) provides a model. The real-life Loudens there consciously have their separate responsibilities. They also have a full staff, including an exceptionally gregarious inn manager, that allows them to keep the place running and to chat with guests without literally or figuratively having their hands around the throat of the person with whom he or she theoretically will not part until death. 

The current analytical thinking that leads to detours from reviews into Blogland shows that the underlying premise of Unreal TV is flawed. Unreal TV 1.0, which has evolved into Matt Nelson Reviews, is based on the idea that we need "unreal" sitcoms and other non-fiction fare to escape our cold cruel world. The actual truth is that we need '70scoms as our model for life.

Anyone with even advanced-beginner knowledge of television history knows that '50scoms typically revolve around suburban nuclear families in which every member presents a mostly idealized version of his or her real-life counterpart. This leads to the mid '60s in which a combination of greater awareness of our society, the Vietnam War, and the increasing popularity of the counter-culture give rise to "freakcoms." The outsider may be a hillbilly living in a mansion, a New York lawyer living among hicks, a clan (or two) of monsters in suburbia, a struggling rock band living in a beach house, or a genie or a witch co-habitating with her fella. 

The ''70s give rise to arguably the most realistic era of sitcoms. Our main man or woman is out in the workplace that typically is part of the story. Significant others who survive the TV Land purge of spouses  are almost as likely to bring home some bacon. 

The '80s represent the Cheese Age of television in which '70scoms jump the shark and become cartoonish versions of their former glory. The highly significant other of your not-so-humble reviewer notes that this is the period in which the Norman Lear groundbreaker "The Jeffersons" largely has Louise Jefferson and neighbor/best friend Helen Willis play cheap copies of Lucy and Ethel.

The new kids on the block mostly are silly fun with little or no substance. Of course, Fox entering the picture in this era contributes to this.

The '90s become the era of urban "friends" living in apartments that their real-life counterparts can only dream of affording. The better news is that the subgenre of gaycoms paves the way for marriage equality and other 21st century advances.

The 2000s are the "Two-and-a-Half Men" and "How I Met Your Mother era of crass and crude sitcoms that rely on shock value for laughs. The 2010s seem to be a free-for-all.

The reason for this recap is to show that '70scoms are the only ones that (as intended) most realistically reflect the American life of the era. The bad news is that things have greatly changed for the worst; the good news is that that we can change back.

The two '70scoms that first come to mind when thinking of the fare of the era are "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Bob Newhart Show." It is interesting that the former Tyler Moore series "The Dick Van Dyke Show" is one of the first that literally and figuratively gives the workplace and the home equal time. 

Starting close to home, it is nice to see folks who reasonably resemble the people in our lives. Further, reel-life friends and neighbors are not always so nice but at least are never toxic. The sad truth is that many people in 2019 start from a neutral stance but are quick to resentment and related anger. This is assuming that you even interact with the boy or girl next door. 

A public encounter from the era of the 2000 presidential election that can be considered the beginning of the end of civility in America perfectly illustrates how far we have fallen since the ''70s.

I have worn red polo shirts all my life without incident until randomly wearing one to the Michael Moore anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 911." Despite paying money to see a movie that is critical of Dubya and not having uttered a syllable in the theater, I soon became the object of active scorn based on my attire.

The first absurd aspect of this is the assumption that the shirt is a declaration of being a Republican; the added insult is that this perfect stranger is a monster who deserves such an attack. The truth is that I am am independent who vocally advocates putting a moderate in the Oval Office.  BILL GATES IN 2020!

Moving onto the workplace, it is nice to see a fantasy world in which most people get along and even foes co-exist in relative peace. An amusing  real-life aspect is often joking to someone involved in long-term conflict with a co-worker is that the solution is to lock them together in the supply room overnight, The very apt reply is that the resulting ceasing of hostility only lasts a week.

The first part of the final act lesson regarding all this is that everyone should remember the importance of working and playing well with others that the aforementioned shows reflect. Part of this that these series also reflect is that you do not have to love thy neighbor or co-worker but  must show that person common courtesy at least until he or she figuratively throws the first punch; even then, turning the other cheek is tougher but still is the best option. 

The second part of the lesson is even more important; one big reason that we are in our current hostile state is that our candidates for federal offices increasingly run negative campaigns that greatly contribute to the divisive nature of our society. Hating someone based on a snap judgment that he is a Republican now justifies attacks based on a perception of being a "Have" even when not much actually is had.

A sadly amusing aspect of this is regularly overhearing employees at Target and virtually every other retail business complain about the "rich people" with whom they interact. The reality is that it is highly unlikely that anyone with incomes in the highest tax bracket even shop at these stores. 

The relative (and mostly achievable) Utopia of '70scoms is a world in which your core group is your support system and rarely the cause of stress. Further, you are judged based on on your inherent qualities and usually are literally and figuratively invited to the party so long as you are a decent and caring person. Sounds good (and attainable)  to me. ​ 

A comedy of errors regarding a Valentine's Day dinner evoked strong feelings of the sitcom staple of the plans of a couple going comically awry on that special day. The consensus during a dinner at a restaurant that can I consider The Ninth Level of Hell's Dining Room and that many people apparently love was that it most closely related what was recalled as Joe and Helen of the "Cheers" companion series "Wings" experiencing Hell every Valentine's Day.

The consensus regarding the setting of our meal of extreme discontent was that it was the restaurant version of "The Golden Palace," which was the titular Miami hotel that The Golden Girls (sans Dorothy) owned and operated after their original series ended, We also determined that Queen of Ill-Conceived Promotions Linda Belcher of "Bob's Burgers" would have tried something akin to the failed concept that lead to adding insult to injury.

Also in sitcom style, our narrative is shifting from the present of the primary "sit" that provided the "com" to the genesis of those unfortunate circumstances. 

Back in July, your not-so-humble reviewer planned a "thaw-out" trip to Sarasota, Florida. This revolved around staying at the absolutely fabulous Hotel Indigo in that city. We subsequently learned more about the exceptional H20 bistro in the hotel. 

On booking the vacation, we discussed where to celebrate Valentine's Day. The then top-rated restaurant Antoine's seemed pricey. Then number-two (currently number one) restaurant Dolce Italia was mid-priced and seemed very good. I asked my highly significant other (HSO) to book the reservation on Open Table.

I mentioned the dinner several times in the interval between July and February and ALWAYS referred to the restaurant as Dolce Italia. My HSO always responded that the correct name was La Dolce Vita. Knowing that I was correct but determining that that error was harmless, I always dropped the matter. On the other hand, I constantly confuse the Mexican chains On the Border and Border Cafe; I cannot remember which one I prefer. 

We arrived in Sarasota on February 13, and the contradictions regarding the restaurant name continued. Having the privilege and the pleasure to speak with H20 Executive Chef Sol Shenker for an article on that eatery added more "com" to the mix in the form of Shenker repeatedly inviting us to have Valentine's Day dinner at his restaurant. 

I advocated for eating at H20, but my HSO reasonably wanted to honor our commitment to the other restaurant. Shenker shared that he knew the chef at DOLCE ITALIA  and that the food there was very good.

My HSO and I riding past Dolce Italia prompted me to say "there it is" only to be told that we were looking for La Dolce Vita, 

The following stage of the narrative requires disclaimers. First, I do not blame La Dolce Vita for any events up to this point. Second, I do not have a horse in the race, and there are plenty of customers to go around. I simply consider the entire experience adequately amusing and sitcomy to warrant a post. Part of this humor relates to the La Dolce Vita owner taking arguably undue umbrage regarding negative online reviews to which even the finest restaurants and hotels are subject, 

​Now back to our story. 

On arriving at La Dolce Vita, we were puzzled on sitting down and finding the menu in the below photo on the table. We wondered if we chose one of the two items in each category or got both and if the $59 price was per couple or per person. We also wondered if there was a standard menu that offered mutually desired ala carte options.

Neither the website nor the woman who called to confirm the reservation mentioned anything about a special Valentine's menu.

One issue was that I dislike any food that has lived in the water, and the menu was heavily slanted toward seafood. Additionally, my prior friendship with the three sheep on the farm of human friends had prompted me to stop eating lamb; one of the entrees was lamb chops. 

We considered leaving but decided to stay and hope for the best. 

A language barrier was a factor regarding our waiter not understanding our questions regarding the dining options. The prosciutto and mozzarella arriving merely by virtue of our sitting at the table contributed to the confusion. 

I asked the waitress who cleared our plates after that course if we could order off a menu. Her response of "no menu; you eat it all" has been a source of humor for myself and my HSO ever since.

I did not eat most of the dishes, and the wait staff seemed oblivious to all those courses going back uneaten. 

The real "com" kicked in on the restaurant owner coming to our table in the middle of the meal. My outward appearance reflected my being distraught, 

My HSO and I repeatedly told the owner that I was alright, but she deserves credit for stating that she wanted to know what was wrong. She earns less credit for insisting that she wanted me to 'fess up to her face rather than write something nasty online. That turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy,

Her response to our calmly and politely stating that we had no basis for believing that we would not have choices regarding whats was served was that it was not her fault. We also explained that I did not like most of the served items. "Had we known," we simply would have eaten someplace else that night.

The owner asking me what I liked created an expectation that she would send over the requested spinach and ricotta pasta and/or the also-asked-for plate of fettuccine without the shrimp and anchovies that came with it. That reasonable response would have made me happy.

Instead, it was as if we had never spoken to the owner. The disliked items kept coming. The only other time that we saw the owner was when she cleared items off the table without even making eye contact. 

I subsequently wrote a negative Trip Advisor review, which apparently is a trigger for the owner. The first copied-and-pasted reply by her is in response to my post, which mirrors this article. Although she asserts that we did not pay our bill, we have the $169 receipt that proves that we did not dine and dash. Additionally, we never stated that we were not going to pay. 

The additional two copied-and-pasted responses are her replies to the other negative Trip Advisor reviews that each granted her a respectable three chits. The responses are COMPLETELY unedited and are of equal comic value for their sentiment, rather than for reflecting a limited comprehension of English."

"I will NOT spend one words for your disgusting REVIEW! Remember...YOU DIDN’T PAY your bill! PERIOD as you told me last night! Enjoy your life ...it is to short to go around and complain for everything!"

"I really don't know what to said!!!
Why, why you didn't tell me when I stop at your table???
​
I always ask if everything is ok, and it seams it was.....but it seams it WASNT!
I need to know right away what it is wrong, so we can adjusted .
But for some reason, people like to said more in a review then in front of owners face.

And by the way, our tomatoes are from the farm, when they said wine ripe tomatoes we trust them!
And our mozzarella it is always the best quality and fresh , that's way you paid $ 10.95.

Anyway if you would like to give us another chance I will more than happy!"

"Thank you for your rewiew.
I'm surprise about your comment, because when I stop at your table, not only one time but more then two, you seems happy.
And when I ask if everything was ok you confirm that everything was OK.
I would like to know if somethings it is not good or not cook in the way my clients/friends are expecting.
That's the reason I stop at the table and I ask for it.
You know when the restaurant it is busy the way it was Saturday, can happen some mistake, but YOU didn't complained at all that same night.
And about the chicken parm price
It was only just a chicken, it was also a fresh FIOR DI LATTE MOZZARELLA,with a ORIGINAL PROSCIUTTO DI PARMA.
Those ingredients are expensive even for us.

I appreciate people that can said what they are thinking in front of me, not in one rewiew.

And I'm so sorry that you mentioned you will not come back, but as somebody said:
YOU CAN PLEASED EVERYBODY.

Thank you again "

The better news is that we had a decent dinner at another restaurant the following night and a last-meal worthy experience at H20 on Saturday night.

The morals of this story are to resolve contradictions in relationships and that restaurant owners who make a bad situation worse face the possibility of an accurate and sincere negative review showing up online. 

Having what I consider a relevant perspective and being a life-long political moderate who has always had Independent or Unregistered status (and last voted in 2015) is prompting this diversion in to Blogland regarding Brett Kavanaugh. 

Like many proper-thinking individuals, I am unsure if the allegations against Kavanaugh justify keeping him off the United States Supreme Court. I would want both sides to calmly and objectively state their cases. I do believe that the raising of the issues is ENTIRELY politically motivated and does not reflect a belief that he lacks the knowledge and the experience for the position, 

The aforementioned perspective is being a prep. school boy with first-hand knowledge of the environment of Kavanaugh during his formative years. This essay discusses the virtues and the ills of that system and addresses the related senses of entitlement and lack of oversight that can allow (and condone) bullying and other improper conduct that literally includes a covert sex tape. The sad part is that parents shell out big money to shelter their kids from those harms. 

POLITICALLY INCORRECT

A starting point is that one purpose of the three branches of government and the related checks and balances is to have the highest court in our land be free from political influences. Further, the past several nomination proceedings have demonstrated the flaw of having a president nominate a Supreme Court justice,

The means by which the Academy Award winners and popes are selected seem to provide a better model. Each time that there is a vacancy, the Supreme Court should PURELY randomly select a panel of federal judges to nominate candidates based on Congressionally approved standards. This slate should be then be presented to every federal judge below the Supreme Court level for voting, 

The checks and balances consist of existing procedures for removing judges for misconduct. 

A more underlying issue is that any court should not consider politics when resolving legal disputes. The uniform practice of exerting political pressure on the court has always greatly bothered me, Although the framers of the Constitution could not have anticipated modern issues such as marriage equality, ANY court should take a secular what would Jesus do approach and OBJECTIVELY determine the applicable constitutional principle.

PREP PROS AND CONS

The name of the respected prep. school that I attended for three years is irrelevant because news and anecdotal reports (as well as the '80scom "The Facts of Life") indicate that the same type of thing occurs at most of them. My experience overall was positive in that the smaller classes and living with teachers enhanced learning, being required to participate in a sport (fat kids took refuge in the drama department) prompted a MODIFIED exercise program that I still follow, and I remain in touch with some classmates whom I generally consider to be brothers.

A hilarious misunderstanding highlights the new friends and broadening of horizons of prep. school. A very nice black guy in my dorm always would greet me with a smile and what sound like "Hi Holmes" whenever we passed even though I doubt that he knew my name. Because I was a smart kid, I thought that he was calling me Sherlock Holmes. 

This guy laughed when this smallish white boy from an upscale area asked him about the term. He explained with absolute no ill will that the term was "homes" and that people in college used it to greet high school friends "from home" when seeing them in college. 

A current friend PERFECTLY describes a downside of prep. schools by calling them "kids' jails" to which parents send children to get rid of them under the guise of doing something good. I was agreeable to going to boarding school (and benefited from it), but my mother manipulated me into doing so to aptly facilitate moving to Washington to pursue her interest in politics; living with Dad was not an option. 

The relevancy of this to Kavanaugh is that the downside of even day school prep, school life is that many parents send their kids there so they do not have to deal with them. At the same time, teachers often do not properly fill the parental role and can just as regularly be concerned that bad acts not ruin the life of the offender. This makes it rough when the bully has 24-7 access to you.

Although Kavanaugh attending a day school, the same sense of privilege and lack of parenting seems to apply. All accounts indicate that he was a stud of the school and destined for great things. The apparent problem was that no one either saw or acted on the need to rein him in. 

BULLY FOR YOU

From the beginning, the Kavanaugh controversy reminded me of literally nightly NON-SEXUAL attacks during my prep, school days. I have since made peace with the main offender, who reminds me a great deal of the nominee. This guy had a similar ethnic background and was a star player of an aggressive contact sport, He additionally had a strong sense of privilege and currently runs a predatory business that greatly profits from the misfortunes of others. 

I lived on the same hall as this guy and his partner-in-crime (who now is a top-ranked finance guy) my junior and senior years. The lesser offenses of these guys was breaking into my room to take snacks and "borrow" a backgammon board, which they always would return, If I was around, these big guys would refuse to leave until I played as many games as they wanted. Of course, they would torment me during the game and do things such as lunge at me to provide them the amusement of watching me flinch,. 

The worse offense was bursting into my room into the middle of the night EVERY night just to wake me and try to scare me; they apparently did not realize that my knowing that this occurred every night precluded being scared.

Although (if true), the experience of Christine Blasey Ford was more terrifying, I can relate to her hesitancy to speak up. A prep, school community is smaller and more tight-knit than at a public school, and "ratting out" a fellow student can make life tough. The offenders living down the hall and your classmates always not being much further away exasperates this.

My tormentors actually driving a kid from the school further illustrates this. I knew that the midnight raids had extended to a small and frail boy who was a newly transferred junior when the bullies and I were seniors. This abuse prompted the kid to drop out after two months; I likely would have done the same if I had been targeted at the beginning of my first year at the school.  That year allowed me to establish myself and to establish a large group of friends. 

The dorm master, who was a burned-out senior faculty member with a minimal dorm presence and let two stoners play Frisbee on the roof every afternoon, did ask me if I knew who was tormenting the junior, I lied and said that I did not. My reasons included not wanting to ruin the lives of the bullies and knowing that only having one strike against them would not have gotten them expelled. I also mistakenly believed that covering for these guys would have gotten them to ease up on me.

SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE

A more recent incident at the school hits even closer to home. A random Google search of the school in June produced the surprising result of two relatively recent newspaper stories about a sex tape.

The condensed version of the incident was that the boy did not tell his girlfriend that he was taping their consensual sex. As always happens in prep. school settings, word of the tape soon spread. The police were called in and found the recording even though the boy asserted that he had only watched the tape once by himself and erased it. It was suspected (but never proved) that others saw the tape.

The boy left the school, and there was a court proceeding. The headmaster surprisingly condoned the act by writing the boy a letter of recommendation after learning of the tape. The stated justification was that the boy had done good work before the incident, and the headmaster had not wanted one incident to ruin those accomplishments.

The rest of the story is that the headmaster was a student when another sexual offense occurred and MAY have witnessed it, I had recently graduated and was told the story by a faculty member with whom I maintained contact. 

The synopsis this time was that a fully dressed female student was grabbed and thrown into the locker room of a boy's team. The girl was held down on the bench, and a boy put his exposed naughty bits in her face. The blurry details regarding this (recently confirmed) incident included a belief that the boy was the boyfriend of the girl.

The elements that make one sympathize with Ford this time include that the sexual history of the girl (including regularly climbing in the dorm-room window of one of my tormentors when they were "dating") was  a factor regarding the student body not being sympathetic toward her. The faculty member shared that the boy who climbed on her was forced to leave the school and that the students thought that the girl should have been the one to go This is another example of the price of going against the school stud, 

The relayed incidents (and other stories such as teacher having an affair with and ultimately marrying one of his students) are a few of numerous examples of what occurs in many (but probably not every) prep. school and the system that allows it to go unchecked. 

FINAL EXAM

My own feelings until talking (but not hugging) it out with my bullies suggests both that Ford would have obtained closure if the prep, school system was better designed to handle such matters. This likely would have avoided all the cost and turmoil related to the Kavanaugh proceeding,

The fact is that such campuses largely being self-contained communities and not paying property taxes enhances a sense that they are sovereign nations; the notable alumni (including the sitcom producer from my school :-)) and family legacies contribute to this sense of privilege.

On a related note, my best friends and the parents whom I liked the best lived relatively simply and did not flaunt their wealth. My parents not being very active in my life made me enjoy comfort-food home-cooked meals with friends, their parents, and their siblings who also often became friends, The mothers invariably cooked the meals despite having enough money to have live-in help, 

The best memory regarding this was befriending the doberman whom one family largely had for protection because of the nature of the work of the father, My smiling and saying "good boy" when the dog ran up barking and my showing him great love ultimately fully transformed him into a pet. The self-imposed rule for overnights was that I would not invite him on the bed but would not rat him out if he jumped up. I would make him get down before anyone else woke up. 

Forwarding this email to a former teacher/involved dorm parent who currently has input regarding prep. school culture hopefully will help change things for the better.

An episode in the 2001-2002 13th season of "The Simpsons" perfectly expresses the true current state of Gay Pride. The titular nuclear family is attending a Pride parade when the marchers start chanting "We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!" Eight year-old Lisa responds that the group marches every year and that the general populace is used to it.


The view of Lisa is consistent with that of your not-so-humble reviewer roughly since the era of the aforementioned "Simpsons" episode. The Gay Rights movement has made such strides by the beginning of the 21st century that skinny hairless boys only wearing a Speedo and rollerblades and fat hairy bearded middle-aged men wearing dresses merely show off and do not help the Pride movement. If anything, these acts reinforce the stereotypes that require Pride parades.


This criticism is presented in the dual context of  Pride Month 2017 and Breaking Glass Pictures releasing gay-themed films that reflect the spirit of Pride and the related concept that quality films from this genre present universal themes. Unreal TV is honoring this through a month-long series of retweets of Breaking DVD releases.


Breaking Co-President Richard Ross eloquently expresses the above sentiments in an Unreal TV interview earlier this year. This conversation includes how the themes in the breaking films "Retake" and "Lazy Eye" of seeking closure or a new beginning with the one who got away can apply regarding any variation of romantic relationship.This shows that Philadelphia literally should throw this man a parade next June.


On a larger level, Unreal TV is on Team breaking because their films avoid gay stereotypes. The young guys are neither doe-eyed nor have over-scrubbed skin. Further, all the men accurately reflect real-life gay men in that they are average blokes whose sexuality is not the center of their lives. Further, most of them desire the same stability and happiness for which we all strive.


This reflects the universal nature of the gay experience that shows that the fact that a boy likes other boys is no basis for either fear or condemnation. Releases from breaking and similar art-house film distributors prove that sexuality truly should be a non-issue for most of us.