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chapter 4: TransformeR—More than making fries
Photos/Images:
Ch 4 (Page 209): "Seventeen years in the making…making what and why?"
Videos/Clips (Memories and Messages in Memes)
Chapter 4 (Page 210): "That’s why 'scared straight' tactics didn’t work...we didn’t like to be pushed...that didn’t stop a few church groups from trying...ex–gang bangers whom we found self-glorifying, hypocritical, pushy, and generally on thin ice with us....although not frail like interventionists at school... figures like this lacked sufficient tools and credentials/accomplishments to serve as successful role models or guides whom we wanted to be like or follow, thus they were ineffective."
WARNING: Some Clips Contain R-Rated Content (Mature Audiences Only)
Oops!
Chapter 4 (Page 210): "In fact, it was an 'anti' gang movie [Duke of Earl by Victory Outreach] that did more to inspire me to become a cholo than any other medium or influence: That’s because when I finally met them up close in Whittier (cholos), I’d already had in my head, for years, how exciting and romantic the culture was. That’s the problem with 'anti' movies and movements: they always seem to have the opposite effect, feeding the energy and mass of what it is they claim to oppose...
Another case in point is Full Metal Jacket: It was supposed to
be an 'anti' war film, yet it continues to serve as the USMC’s greatest
recruitment tool...
Duke of Earl, like Full Metal Jacket and Menace to Society, created for us anti-heroes. 'Anti,' yes, but heroes, nonetheless."
Role Models Show What Right (AND Wrong) Looks Like
Chapter 4 (Page 225): "We must, at the very least, identify a role model to serve in or in addition to the role of a mentor: someone on whom to literally 'model' ourselves after. We don’t even have to have direct contact with this person. It can be a famous person today, a historical figure who is no longer with us, or someone from our past who truly inspired us. Someone who showed us 'what right looks like' (thanks, Armed Forces Network [AFN] PSAs!)."
Taking a Break (?)
Chapter 4 (Page 233): "'But what about our vows?' I reminded him, to which he responded by whistling like a locomotive and the 'excited' wolf on Looney Tunes...'What are you doing, fool? That’s not going to work with
those kinds of girls,' I scolded him once more, to which he responded,
'They’re stopping! Let’s go!'"
Not So Different After All
Chapter 4 (Page 236): "It turned out this girl and I had much more in common than I thought, despite being from completely different tribes. I was like Nacho Libre when he realized Sister Encarnación also loved toast and 'poopies' (puppies)."
The Architect and the Entertainer
Chapter 4 (Page 239): "Her Myers-Briggs personality type has always
been, and still is, ESFP (the outgoing 'Entertainer/Performer')
and until only recently, mine had always been INTJ (the reclusive
'Architect/Mastermind'). Now it’s INFJ (the 'Advocate/Sage'),
but we’ll discuss that much more in Vol 2. In the meantime, I
recommend you take a free '16 personalities test' online [16personalities.com]."
That's NOT What Right Looks Like!
Chapter 4 (Page 247): "I screeched into the driveway and
jumped out with my cartoonishly huge gun. I must have looked like
Jack Nicholson’s Joker in the original 1989 Batman reboot .."
My Breaking Point. Next Stop: Rock Bottom!
Chapter 4 (Page 249): "I turned around and ugly cried all the way to my car. I poured my sobbing body into the driver’s seat and took off toward my old neighborhood. I couldn’t believe how bad and instantaneously that broke me. After all I’d been through those past two years, I hadn’t cried or showed emotion like that once...it broke me."
Getting "Exorcised" From School
Chapter 4 (Page 255): "The final nail in the coffin to my traditional high school career was hammered in by an English teacher who kept getting me kicked off campus for, yet again, the damn dress code...She looked and sounded exactly like Zelda Rubinstein, the eccentric psychic in the ’80s Poltergeist trilogy. 'Stand up and turn around,' she’d command before kicking me out. Her goal was to humiliate me in front of everyone"
Songs
Chapter 4 (Page 234-235): "With perfect timing, I said, 'This is my car,' pointing to my beloved [and once sky blue] 1988 Cutlass Ciera, which was serendipitously parked right in front of our last stop ('Be Thankful for What You Got,' 1974, by William DeVaughn, was my new favorite song at the time. Give it a listen today and pay attention to the lyrics!)."
Chapter 4 (Page 235): "Following her lead paid off, too, because once I started being 'just me,' we really started to hit it off. Then, right at that moment and right on time, the song 'Natural High' (The Bloodstone, 1973) came on over the radio, and we had our very first kiss. As usual, from beginning to end, the lyrics would describe our relationship perfectly from the day we met to all those that followed. So much for taking a break."
My friend wasn’t doing any better keeping his oath in the living
room where instead of love-soaked oldies, Mighty Morphin Power
Rangers: The Movie (1995) serenaded them in the background."
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