Gold Teeth

When I wrote this story for class nobody believed it was true. But it is.

c 2007 Gennaro Brooks-Church

My mother bought me cowboy boots one size too big, allowing space for the money to fit. In each boot she placed a wad of bills, carefully wrapped in brown paper so that it looked like an insole. She helped me put the boots on, and when I said they fit, she rubbed my head and said, “You’re a good son. Only thirteen years old and you’re helping like a man. Your father will be proud.”

My mother and I boarded a plane in Canada, and flew direct to Peru. We drove to the hotel where we recounted the money: Thirty-five thousand dollars, all laid out on the bed in one hundred-dollar bills. She repacked my boots and the next day we went to the prison.

It was in a shantytown on the outskirts of Lima and I had heard that the prison was a world of its own, a cowboy town with no rules. Some people had been jailed so long that their records couldn’t be found any more. They had gone crazy a long time ago and nobody remembered what they were in for. We stood outside the main gate with hundreds of other people, mostly women. Some were there to see their male relatives and others were vendors who had come in hopes of selling food. On the way there, I had seen the official lunch rumbling along in barrels on the back of trucks. Some of the containers had no lids, exposing what looked like watery lentil soup to the shantytown air. Inside, nobody ate the prison food if they could afford to buy their own. But I had overheard from my father that the vendors not only sold food; they sold their bodies too. He had said that plenty of womanly men were available inside, and the inmates were allowed dogs, cats and chickens- in my father’s compound one dog had become such a popular sex toy that the owner rented it out. But if they wanted sex with a woman, they had to buy it from the vendors. I looked at the women in the crowd. The ones with modest clothing and somber faces had come to visit relatives, but I suspected those with short, tight dresses and heavy make-up would visit anybody who could pay. I wondered if my father ever slept with them. The way he talked, he probably did.

We entered the prison much faster than the rest of the people because they were Peruvian, and my mother, using the power of our white skin, moved to the front of the crowd and through the gate with ease. We walked past tables and guards who searched the food that the women brought, using bits of wire to rake through cooked rice and soups, checking for concealed weapons or drugs. We passed the chief guard who looked my mother in the eyes but did not say hello. He peered dreamily at me with calm, pale gray eyes. His lips drooped and the corners of his mouth were wet. My mother whispered to me that he was the one who had agreed to get my father out. For ten thousand dollars he was going to dress my father in a guard uniform and walk him out of prison during the midnight shift. The rest of the money was for fake passports, traveling and bribes.

We walked into one of the female body search booths. My mother joked with the woman guard who frisked us. She had no reason to suspect us, being white foreigners. My feet hurt, but I showed no signs of it. I was good at hiding my feelings. Kids at school said I was too serious, and sometimes I burned to tell them that my family dealt drugs and my father was in jail, but I couldn’t trust anybody. The silence hurt me badly.

In the concrete courtyard I met my father. Tall and handsome with a bushy moustache, a suntanned, bare chest and tight jeans. My mother said that he looked healthy and he said it was because of all the time he had to do push-ups and jog around the courtyard. When he said this, I was hardly listening. Something about his mouth gripped my attention. As he opened and closed it, and especially when he smiled, which he did often, he revealed a mouthful of gold. All his teeth were made of gold! Noticing my wonder, he said, “Like my teeth?” He spread his mouth wide to reveal gold as far back as I could see. He explained that he got them after the guards did a cell search. They dragged the men out of bed and lined them up in the courtyard. The authorities were looking for the owner of a knife that had been found in somebody else’s ribs. Since nobody confessed, they made the inmates lie on the concrete face down, naked, and went down the line, kicking people at random. My father was one of those picked. They kicked the back of his head, ramming his down turned face into the concrete. “After it happened the fuckers didn’t give me a dentist for three fucking days, man. Finally I got some money to the right guy, and voila! The Peruvian Special!” He smiled sarcastically.

We sat and talked in the courtyard. I hadn’t seen him for a year and I wanted to cry. I could not speak and felt sick. The hot sun hurt my eyes. The sun, that’s why my eyes watered, I said. He told me about the prison. The foreigners had one section of the prison to themselves, much cleaner than the rest and on the first floor nearest the courtyard. Four-storied buildings surrounded the courtyard on all sides, and on the upper floors, I saw people peering down through iron bars. Contrasted by the bright sun, they were in darkness, muted figures with bright eyes that reflected the outside glare. Seeing me look up, he said, “One of my Peruvian friends lived up there, he escaped last month, killed three guards…yeah, a mean mutherfucker. His name’s Raul, one of the best bank robbers in the country. A mean mutherfucker. Last year, he got a price put on his head because he beat somebody at poker. That night a bribed guard left Raul’s cell door unlocked so that people could get to him. He had his own cell; all the murderers and terrorists are kept alone at night. One by one they came…with knives, shards of glass, sharpened bed legs, pieces of brick.” Again he slowed down, speaking very quietly and close to my face, “But he fought like the devil, and the next morning there were eight dead bodies around the door. After that, nothing happened to him, his reputation scared even the guards, and they’re the meanest fuckers of all. He escaped a while later… Did I kill anybody? No. Once, I caught somebody stealing my dollars, and I beat him so hard that my knuckles bled, but that’s the worst. I’m a fast talker, I use my mouth to get out of trouble.” He smiled at this, his teeth glittering, and added as an afterthought, “Having friends like Raul doesn’t hurt.”

After a while, the sun hurt my head and we went inside to his communal cell. It was a large room, as big as a basketball court that housed about two hundred men in partitioned sections. He shared his cubicle with three men, and they left to give us space. I took off my boots and handed him the money, which he put into his own cowboy boots. I felt proud.

“Yep, here’s my money to freedom, brought to me by my very own son. Soon there’s going to be a very rich guard and a very happy gringo,” he said quietly with narrowed, sparkling eyes.

After that, I left with one of his cellmates so dad could have sex with my mother. They didn’t tell me but I knew. This took up the rest of the visiting time. Before leaving he gave me a tooth bracelet from a recently killed monkey, but I didn’t wear it once I got back to Vancouver. The teeth still had blood in them, and I knew this would gross out the girls at school. I never wore the boots again either. I hid them in the closet with the monkey-tooth bracelet, the bullet, the arrowhead, the tiger tooth and all the other stuff my father had given me. Over the years, my collection grew. The chief guard never kept his promise.

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

Web 2.0 and organic sites

A quick google search returned no results for the term 'organic site" so I'm claiming it. I have been at odds describing the web 2.0 site dinamic. I would call them interactive sites, pull sites, enterprise level sites (sort of) but mostly people give me a blank stare. Then I thought of the term organic site. It conotes a feeling that the site changes organically, that it grows in a natural way. This is web 2.0 for me. The site is an interactive give and take between the site and the users. Without the users the site really doesn't exist and vice versa (of course the users exist without the site but hey it sounds good).Think of YouTube, which is very web2. Without the uses uploading content it is nothing. That is diferent from a web 1 site like Pet.com or amazon.com from the 90's. Those sites had huge amounts of content and the site didn't really change whether people used it or not. That is a push site. It pushes content on you. Web 2 sites are pull sites since they pull content onto the site from the user. That creates an organic environment on the site since it grows as more live bodies come to it, like water on a plant.So next time somebody asks me what kind of sites i build I proudly say, "I build organic web sites." I'll still get a blank stare but my following explanation is a lot easier. 

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

The Universe is Abundant

I am reluctant to reveal my business knowledge in case competitors should use it. I reveal it anyway because I think that reluctance is ultimately the same as saying that there is not enough for everyone, which there is I hope. This post is about abundance and not business knowledge.

The universe is abundant, right? But there is so much evidence on this world to the contrary. Clearly there is not enough for everyone and it has been that way since the beginning of humanity. You might have reasons for why this is and theories for what needs to be done to solve it but the truth is that reality right now is not abundant for most people on the planet.

Real is real.

Ok. BUT. That doesn't mean MY reality needs to lack abundance. i do think we are biological blobs and biology is deeply competitive. It is a blob eat blob biosphere. Just ask any T cell. But don't get too close because they will decimate you without a second thought. Our bodies are programmed to stay alive above all else. So if you harness this killer biology you can kill yourself to the top and attain abundance.

You might be feeling a little uncomfortable.

Now what if we lived in parallel realities? And I think we do. What if there were more than one universes? Then I could live in an abundant universe on the same planet with others who lived in scarce universe. universe = mind perception.

Then I could reveal all by business secrets because my universe is abundant. My reality is that I will be abundant no matter what (as in rich and happy etc, not abundantly fat or something). Even if others take my secrets and use them to the utmost effectiveness. Even to the point where they put everyone including me out of business. My abundant universe would not be harmed in the least.

So a fear to reveal my secrets is a fear that MY universe is not abundant. Who cares about other people's universe. It is my universe that I have to worry about.

And that is where the competitive biology comes in. You take care of your own reality and you are improving your chances of survival. Expand your awareness and you improve your biological standing.

Ok. You might be uncomfortable in your seat again.

I think we are all supremely responsible for the welfare of our bodies. We all carry genetic code that is crucial to the continuance of humanity. Each one of us carry a part. We are guardians of parts of the whole. It is absolutely crucial we do everything in our power to further ourselves so that our genetic secret can continue. I need to further my own development, you need to continue yours.

It is a totally selfish act. Yet it is selfless. If I use my competitive biology to increase my awareness I raise the awareness of not only myself but everything.

Man, I need to go to sleep. I'm getting out there.

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

Buying Good Domain Names

So here goes: picking a domain name.

I register about one a day so I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes a good domain name.

My rules of thumb are:
Keep it short (under 10 letters is best)

Keep it .com (.org is good for certain sites but the others not so good. It is like real estate and .com is by far the more impressive)

Keep easy to understand (it should roll of the tongue and stay crisp. couchsheets.com is a terrible domain name and probably available. it slurs in the mouth)

Keep it unambiguous (rest4life is not good since when you speak it there is no way of knowing if it is restforlife or rest4life)

Keep it at least below three ideas (bigbluecar is three ideas: big, blue and car. ideally you want one or two)

Make it easy to spell (duh!)

Make it an easy word to understand (prodigalson.com is nice but what the hell does prodigal mean? reckless might be a better substitute since more people know what reckless means)

Keep the spelling clean (recklessson.com is just plain ugly. Copyyourrat.com is another great bad domain)

Don't use useless words unless you really have to or if it adds meaning (icar.com, houserentalweb, foodadviceonline, enetworkpeople. i, web, online, e, the, your, my - only use them if they add to the meaning of the domain. for example icoach, networkonline, myspace, youtube etc)

It should tell a story and ideally have more than one meaning (one site i worked on was called redcowboy. i like that because it tells a story. the name tells you it is a ballsy site with edge)

It should be easy to remember (pick up a book on techniques to increase your memory to get an idea of what I mean. for example the brain likes something it already knows but that is presented in a new way. so pinkballoon.com is better than siennaoval.com both describe a round color but sienna oval i less familiar to most people)

And for the most important rule of all….
Always ask yourself this question:
Can you easily yell the domain name across a street to your friend? Will your friend remember it when they get home to their computer? If the answer is yes then you probably have a winner. Either that or your friend has very good hearing and memory.

There are exceptions to the above rules. For example TheFoco.com. By my own rules that is a terrible domain name. What the hell is The doing there? What can I say, Foco.com was registered in 1996 when I was still writing letters to people and sending them by mail. But also it IS The Foco, not just Foco. unfortunately that doesn't translate well to a domain name. But what the hell, it really is The Foco, so its ok. That's not to say that the owners of Foco.com don't know who I am and they are very aware that I want to buy the domain.

Another exception is to play with the other extensions. For example I am doing a site in a very competitive market so all the cool domains were taken. Then I thought of a genius domain. Genius. You ready? Here it comes. One, two three….

Mogul.LA

The .la extension if for businesses in Laos. Who cares? What does Mogul.LA make you think of? It tells a story, it is short, it is catchy. If you had to guess what would the site be about? It is a networking site for the film industry.

In terms of buying domains, I search for them on enom.com and buy them at ipowerweb.com. And don't take your time. If you find a good domain name, buy it! Don't take a week to think about it. There are sites out there with programs that actually track domain name searches and buy them up. I know this. It has happened to me. I searched for it then my brother searched for ti across the country. A script noticed that there were several searches for the domain, thus it might be a good one, and it baught it.

I got the domain back by sending a nasty email saying that we owned the rights to the name because we had a business by the same name. We didn't go to court or anything. It is not worth it to the company most of the time. We want it much more than they do and so would be willing to fight for it more. They know that. They could have offered to sell it to us but we were lucky or they just knew we were right.

So if you ever do loose it that way, contact the company, they might give it to you.

Also if you let your domain expire it will be bought by an automatic script that just buys anything. Contact the company and they might give it back to you.

I let that happen with SaomiSunshine.com. I gave them a sob story about how it was for my daughter's photos to show to her grandmother. I don't know why they gave it to me. Maybe they knew that it probably wouldn't sell or maybe they actually have a heart. But it worked.

To find out who owns a domain name go to whois.net

Happy domain hunting.

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

Shaky

I can't handle sugar. It sends me into a crash that is both emotional and physical. I know that so I don't eat it. What I learned today is that sometimes I need sugar. I have low blood pressure and I actually have low blood sugar levels. That is why I crash so hard after the sugar high passes.

But even if I haven't eaten sugar I might be tired or haven't eaten enough and my blood sugar is too low. It makes me fuzzy in the head, grumpy, tired. But one thing it makes me that I never really noticed is that it makes me shake. It might not be shaking hands but it is a mild shakiness like as if you've been in the cold. Your body is just a little shaky. And sometimes lightheaded.

So anyway I was at a meeting last night and a nurse mentioned how low blood sugar causes shaking. That really clicked for me. I had never realized I had low blood sugar or that I shake until she mentioned it. Somehow mentioned the two together made a connection for me.

And sure enough the next time I was in a funk, which was only a few hours later I took a scan of my body and the rubbery light headed feeling was definitely shaking. I grabbed a little handful of dried cranberries and chucked them in my mouth. It was amazing. In less than two minutes my symptoms went away and I was clear headed and strong again.

The moral of the story? Your weakness is not one sided. You might be fat because you eat too much of one thing but you might also be fat because you don't eat enough of another. if you are fat it is probably because you don't metabolize correctly, which means fattening foods make you extra fat.

But it also means you don't metabolize healthy foods that well either, which you need to have a healthy metabolism. (note: by fat I mean above your healthy body weight. second note: sexiness is directly connected to being your healthy body weight, no more no less).

But anyway, back sugar. You might be unable to handle refined sugar but totally eliminating sugar from your diet is not the solution either. Sugar plays a big role in our health. But it needs to be the right sugar, such as fruits, grains, vegetables and berries, all of which have plenty of healthy sugar.

Speaking of sugar, have you ever craved it after a healthy meal? You have gone out of your way to cook a healthy vegetable dish with brown rice and all you can think of for desert is tipple fudge ice cream? It is probably because you have not consumed enough oil. Try spreading a healthy slab of butter on some brown bread. Really smear it on.

I strongly believe natural oils like organic butter are not unhealthy. I don't think they make you fat. I do think they make your skin, hair and nails shine, as well as feed your brain with needed nutrients. Your brain is one big glob of fat after all and it needs oil to function. So try the oil trick instead of sugar.

Other options are nuts, which contain large amounts of oils. Macadamia, almond, cashews etc. They also work well, especially if mixed with some dried berries or raisins. (note; nuts should never be roasted and berries should be free of sulfites).

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

Self managed vs. managed server

I used to host with Ipowerweb. It was a managed server where they took care of all the server stuff. A thing would go wrong and I could call them up 24/7 and they would fix it. They also happen to be hugely incompetent and accidentally deleted a whole site that was 9 months in the making.

So I left them and went with the exact opposite - EasySpeedy.com. They have a box in Denmark. They don't even have a password to it. I had to install the operating system, mail system, ip manager, control panel, firewall, you name it. It was a blank slate. The only thing they check is that the the box is plugged into an electric socket.

So I've had the full spectrum of server hosting. My take? They are both a pain in the ass. A self managed server like easyspeedy is a total nightmare unless you have a team of coders to back you up. Luckily I do and I still think I'm saving money and increasing control. But it is only for people who want to be reseller host companies or who have many sites to manage.

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

Tech Issues

Sometimes I wonder about tech. You decide to create a wonderful fantastic web site but it requires it's own server, which requires a backup script, an operating system, a server admin, firewall and a whole slew of other things that can and do go wrong. You end up spending huge amounts of time fixing things. And when all is said and done you might of been better off just creating a nice simple site that is up and stays up.

Does this mean I will do that? No. Like it or not I am destined to keep pushing the boundaries of what tech can do, headache and all. I write this after one of my coders informs me upon waking that he has spent the whole night with a crashed server and no idea what is wrong. Six hours of tension and stress later we found another server admin who discovered it was a misconfigured firewall. What a pain in the ass.

Posted in Blog | No Comments »