"PURPLE Haze? More like a GREEN one . . ."

I almost got my head stomped on in when I was a teenager, because of those 7 little words.

My first day in yet one more new school, someone had warned me to avoid their worst bully, named "Danny".

I was only given subtle warnings, such as: "stay away from him", "toughest kid in school", "major druggie", "family problems", "goes into fits of rage", " can beat up guys twice his size", "always suspended for fighting", etc. etc.

GREAT. So, at the last class of the very first day, I was already nervous when I was told I HAD to sit next to him. It was at one of those two seat lab tables. As I sat down, I tried to be friendly and said, "hey" to him. He just scowled at me.

About 5 minutes into class, he was completely ignoring the teacher and everything else. He began "quietly" rocking out, swaying, "banging" his head and singing to himself.

Then he started singing Jimi Hendrix's, "Purple Haze". At that time, I actually owned the record - yes, RECORD - but for WHATEVER reason, I didn't know that it was that particular song he was singing. Then he got a little louder when he got to the words:

" . . . acting funny, but I don't know why . . . 'scuse me while I kiss the sky"

Because God and Jimi were apparently setting me up, I still didn't recognize it was "Purple Haze". Right then, my brain shut the REST of the way off and I turned to the toughest bully in school and loudly blurted out: "Did you just say, 'scuse me while I KISS THIS GUY?" I should have just punched myself in the face at that point.

People started snickering and some even laughed out loud, until he turned to look at them. Everyone would immediately stop, if he looked in their direction. Then he glared at me and simply said, "YOU'RE DEAD". I believed him.

The weirdest part is that I'm positive I somehow, miraculously avoided having him kicking my head in that day, and even for the rest of the school year. I do remember that albeit uselessly, I tried to persuade him that I also loved Hendrix and smoking weed. But it was far too late for any of that. He told me to shut up and repeated that I was going to be "dead", as soon as school was out.

At this point, I sort of blanked out. I retreated into my own mental world. I'm sure it was a world where I was probably a black belt and I didn't blurt out brain damaged comments as a cheap way of committing suicide.

That must be why I can't remember for sure how I escaped his boots and fists that day. Who knows, maybe the teacher grabbed him while I made my getaway and I then I kept myself as invisible as possible for the rest of the year. Maybe I bribed him with a promise of some free pot. Whatever the case, it took a while before I could enjoy the song without cringing at the first verse. All these years later and I have no clue what happened to that old record. I still regularly crank it up nice and loud, now it's just on my MP3 player. True story.

I wrote all this down because after all these years, I just discovered these 2 little known "facts":

1) It's the "world's most commonly misheard lyric"

2) Jimi deliberately chose (or even copied) those words so it could be sung and/or heard EITHER way

Seem hard to believe? Check out the claims at - believe it or not - KISSTHISGUY dot com! (The "Misheard Lyric Archive")

Don't let the name of the site fool you, it's safe to click:

http://www.kissthisguy.com/jimi.php

"I rear ended the car, trying so hard to read it . . . "

Saw an interesting thing on the way to work.

A bumper sticker that said "01-09-08 - Bush's Last Day".
It was right at a part of the drive where cars tended to cut in front of others vying to get in line for the on ramp to 405 North.

A couple of things struck me as interesting. One is the phenomenon where individuals who cannot cope well with life, reality, etc. will place all of their focus on what they hate, fear, etc. on one primary object. It is a way to try to function and deal with everyday life. Everything seems so chaotic and out of control that if we can find a singular thing to channel all blame, all discontent, all doubt . . . then we feel more as if we have retaken control from the otherwise uncontrollable mess.

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer half jokingly calls it "BDS" or "Bush Derangement Syndrome".

I know that psychologists would probably have another name for this mentally placing all of ones chickens into one basket, so to speak. At the very least, it is a weak attempt to try to shirk responsibility for the problems in ones life.

I find it interesting (or comical) that people who have chosen to place all their focus of phobias and anger on this one man (George Dubya), have no logical conclusion except to also take the route of this person and their bumper sticker, which is to believe that "everything's gonna be all right" once Bush is out of office.

Make no mistake. There will be cheering and partying and dancing and hoopla like you NEVER did see on his last day. But will it suddenly be heaven on earth? No. This is similar to the silliness that took place when the Democrats gained more seats in Congress in '06. There was cheering and partying and dancing and hoopla . . . then nothing. All the promises to get us out of Iraq fell through. All the promises to cut funding to Iraq so we would HAVE to pull out fell through. You get the picture.

One last thing struck me as interesting. A person was merging/cutting in right in front of that person, like they always do at that on ramp to 405, with one small difference. This anti Bushy would NOT let them in, no matter what. They practically had an accident. This is highly unusual for this area, even by those who hate the cutters.

I drove up once we got on the highway to see what the person looked like and saw what I considered the typical liberal extremist . . . it was a 55 yr old woman, about 4 foot nothing, buzz cut super short haircut, horned rimmed glasses, and an expression sour enough to spoil milk on contact.