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as a yearly new kid, brainy at that, and pretty much a midget till age 13, i was constantly bullied and beat and i'd end up hating myself over it more than if i'd at least tried to fight back and gotten my ass kicked worse.
but once i hit 12/13, i found punk rock shows in l.a.
after a year of random elbows and steel-toes to the head in the pits of Jabberjaw while bands like Circle Jerks and Black Flag played, it became a LOT harder to to hit me with anything that would keep me down, and i guess i got that look in my eye that even bigger people don't tend to want to test.
i kinda outgrew punk by around 15, but i was still into pretty dark clothes, i just wasn't constantly pissed enough to want to fight much; i was more into psychedelia and philosophy. anyway, i had this 2ft kinda mad hatter top-hat i was known for, and some fool ripped it off my head while i was in line for the Rocky Horror Picture show and took off running.
he got about 20 feet ahead of me before i started off after him, and i just chased him without gaining on him for almost 2 miles around corners and alleys like that cartoon skunk chasing the cat till he turned around shaking and gassed, holding out the hat and saying "here dude, im not gonna fight you f-...." only he didn't finish because the shot to the ribs i gave him dropped him like a sack of taters. he squirmed a little so i kicked him a couple times, said something to the effect of going after baseball hats, not pieces of people's personality, and walked back to Rocky.
it was the first time i felt a little bad for roughing someone up afterward even if i was righteous, and although people have tested me since, they've backed down before i had to go in the years since.
the main thing i know for sure is that even if you're gonna get rocked, sometimes thats preferable to letting people simply get away with saying or doing certain things to you and living with yourself afterward.
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-my phobia drowned while i was gettin down.
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