I was watching episode one of the third season of the BBC TV show MI-5.
The beautiful CIA agent in London, Christine Dale, was smacked across the face by her haughty British overlord.
I felt rising anger throughout my body. "Someone do that to me, and I’ll f— him up," I thought. "If I can’t beat him up physically, I have all my life and my blog to f— him up."
I had such a strong physical reaction to what was happening on my tele that I let myself free-associate and I went back to when I was a little nipper and I got knocked around quite a bit. I’d get slapped in anger and go flying across the room. I’d get spanked on my bare bottom until it was raw. That was the way we did things down under. When I got to California in 1977, I felt great relief that corporal punishment was forbidden in the schools. I was almost a teenager now and I didn’t get it from my folks anymore either.
I remember getting humiliated in high school in tenth grade. I wrote an article in the school newspaper about preferential treatment in the classroom for football players. A football coach and teacher brought me in front of his class and had me answer questions and then he just squashed me in front of everyone and I felt totally humiliated and I lost my best friend for about a year. The bloke, a non-football playing athlete, would no longer talk to me.
I was always a frail kid. I hated fights. I hated it when other kids beat up on me or dunked me underwater and held me there till I thought I would drown.
I got knocked around just like Christine Dale and between all those beatings, I resolved that when I got big, I’d find ways to take care of myself so that if anyone would try to needlessly hurt me, I could defend myself. Or if they got to me, I’d have ways to get revenge.
