Andrew Sullivan: Dopehead foreigner

Deport this outlaw immigrant drug addict!

Political commentator, author and writer for The Atlantic magazine Andrew M. Sullivan won’t have to face charges stemming from a recent pot bust at the Cape Cod National Seashore — but a federal judge isn't happy about it.
U. S. Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings says in his decision that the case is an example of how sometimes "small cases raise issues of fundamental importance in our system of justice."
While marijuana possession may have been decriminalized, Sullivan, who owns a home in Provincetown, made the mistake of being caught by a park ranger with a controlled substance on National Park Service lands, a federal misdemeanor.
The ranger issued Sullivan a citation, which required him either to appear in U.S. District Court or, in essence, pay a $125 fine.
But the U.S. Attorney’s Office sought to dismiss the case. Both the federal prosecutor and Sullivan’s attorney said it would have resulted in an "adverse effect" on an unspecified "immigration status" that Sullivan, a British citizen, is applying for.
At the hearing, Collings observed that Sullivan would still have to state on his application that he had been charged with a crime, and he asked both the prosecutor and Sullivan’s attorney, Robert Delahunt Jr. (cousin of U. S. Rep. William D. Delahunt), for more information about why paying the $125 would have "any additional adverse effect." . . .
Collings says he expressed his concern that "a dismissal would result in persons in similar situations being treated unequally before the law. … persons charged with the same offense on the Cape Cod National Seashore were routinely given violation notices, and if they did not agree to [pay the fine] were prosecuted by the United States Attorney … there was no apparent reason for treating Mr. Sullivan differently from other persons charged with the same offense." . . .

Forget about the Mexican drug cartels -- save us from the AIDS-Infected British Dope Menace!

UPDATE: Via Memeorandum, I see that my buddy Dan Riehl beat me to it:

Chill out folks, it's only pot. It isn't like he was caught using caffeine.

Notorious martini addict VodkaPundit observes:

Make point about the media feeding frenzy if, say, George Will had been busted for pot

.As a former teenage hoodlum who used to deal dope in felony weights, allow me to offer my Darwinian/draconian case for strict enforcement: Anybody stupid enough to get busted for dope is a danger to himself and others and should be locked up for the good of society. Dude, if you can't outsmart a narc . . .

Also, you put all the stupid stoners in prison, think of the positive impact on American culture. To begin with, nobody would ever again listen to The Grateful Dead . . .

UPDATE II: Thanks to VodkaPundit for the link-back, and to Freeper ABB for the linkage. Also, my libertarian friend Jacob Sullum now has a post at Reason magazine.

Though I consider myself in most senses a libertarian (priding myself on being a "top Hayekian public intellectual"), in the eternal struggle between law enforcement and hoodlums, I side with law enforcement, based on extensive personal experience as teenage hoodlum. And it's not just because I'm more than two decades past the statute of limitations that I feel the need to speak out about this.

Juvenile delinquency can be a valuable learning experience. Most journalists and intellectuals we goody-two-shoes in their youth, and therefore they don't even get my full meaning when I say that I dealt felony weight.

If you're a nickel-and-dime dopehead, occasionally selling a quarter-ounce of weed to your dope buddies in order to support your habit, maybe you can afford to be stupid and sloppy. But when you are selling by the quarter-pound, it's a different story altogether.

Since the '70s, the law has distinguished marijuana possession as misdemeanor (an ounce or less) or felony (more than an ounce). When you are buying dope by the pound, your stash constitutes irrefutable evidence not only of felony possession, but also of possession with intent to distribute, a felony in its own right.

Because you don't want to be caught holding, a smart dealer moves the merchandise fast -- and I was the Sam Walton of Weed: Deep discounts, undersell the competition, make the profit on volume. So if I bought a pound of weed, I'd first get one of my trusted buddies to buy a quarter-pound at 20% above cost. That way, I quickly recouped 30% of my capital investment and only had to sell another 12 ounces (at a higher mark-up, but still slightly below the going rate) to be dope-free, once more an upstanding "legit" citizen with nothing to fear from the law.

Well, if you sell someone a quarter-pound, your customer is also automatically holding evidence of a felony possession, you see? If he gets busted, he's going to be under serious pressure to rat you out, and personal loyalty has its limits. Therefore, don't sell large quantities to stupid people. And you never, ever, sell dope to people you don't know.

While I won't explain the entire rulebook of smart dope-dealing here on the blog -- that might aid law-breakers, who should be locked up immediately -- my experience means that I have zero sympathy for an idiot like Sully.

Sully is no better than those moronic losers you see on the TV show COPS, pulled over for a broken turn signal and busted for a roach in the ashtray, a dime-bag in their pocket, or a crack-pipe the glove compartment. A smart doper doesn't do stuff like that, and however Sully got caught, he is a "victim" of nothing but his own stupidity -- just another dumb hoodlum who ought to be in jail.

Never give a hoodlum an even break, or he will become arrogant and thus more dangerous, both to himself and to society. Read more about my hoodlum past in my blog memoir All Girls Named Tonya (a work in progress).

And somebody hit the tip jar -- this kind of valuable ex-hoodlum insight ought to be worth something, even if no sane book publisher would ever buy it.

UPDATE III: You're invited to join the Concerned Patriotic Americans Committee to Deport Andrew Sullivan. Join now -- it's for the children!

UPDATE IV: Dan Collins:

You know, The Atlantic can’t fire him, because that would have an adverse impact on his immigration status, and besides, he’s gay.

And you knew Ace of Spades would have a field day. It's sort of like the AOSHQ Fitzmas.

Pass the Vodka and Marlboro Reds!Keep Your Kids Home on Sept. 8

After I woke up about 2 a.m. this morning, I saw that Smitty had linked a Hot Air post in which Allahpundit declared, "I'm with CJ" and ridiculed VodkaPundit's advice to parents to keep their kids home from school next Tuesday rather than subject them to the Obama Mass Indoctrination.

Hey, Allah hates me and, considering I've been keeping my kids out of public schools for nearly 15 years . . . well, what's the Green Room for, anyway?

I still love to hang out with hoodlums, like VodkaPundit: "The President of the United States --whether an Obama a Bush or a Lincoln -- is not my son's daddy." You tell 'em, Steve! I'm with VodkaPundit!

Read the whole thing. Composing a 3,800-word essay in less than seven hours? Not bad for a hoodlum. Ah, if only Tonya could see me now . . .

UPDATE: School's out for kids in Mrs. Malkin's class:

Thanks to the National Tea Party Coalition, which is one of the sponsors of the Sept. 12 Taxpayer March on D.C. Hey, how's that for a field trip, kids? Just get one of your hoodlum buddies to hot-wire a car . . .

UPDATE II: What Would Ferris Bueller Do?

CELEBRITY NEWS UPDATE: Shanna Moakler and the Child Molester

You remember Miss December 2001, Shanna Moakler. As an official of the Miss California USA pageant, Miss December decided that Carrie Prejean was unqualified to wear the crown.

You may also remember that Miss December once starred in a short-lived MTV reality show with her husband, rock musician Travis Barker, from whom she subsequently divorced.

Now, for today's celebrity news update, I owe a hat-tip to someone in the comments who asked me to link this TMZ story:

According to the Barrington [R.I.] Police, the drama began when Travis went to Shanna's Rhode Island home to drop off their two kids. When Travis noticed a car belonging to a convicted child molester near the home, he got into an argument with Shanna -- and she called the cops.
When police arrived, Travis told police he didn't "want to leave the kids in the residence with a pedophile and wanted a certified nanny with the kids."
Cops read the court order explaining the custody agreement between the couple, which stated that the man who owned the car was not allowed near the kids. . . .
Shanna's rep just told us: "It is really sad at this point that Shanna can't enjoy her children with her family in peace. Why would police let the kids stay if this apparent 'uncle' was actually there. Shanna and Travis need to work this out without the media being involved. There are young children involved and it's just not fair."

Note that, according to Miss December's publicist, the media pose a greater threat to the children than does a convicted child molester with whom, evidently, Miss December continues to associate.

Travis Barker deserves our sympathy, as it seems he has belatedly discovered the truth of a venerable proverb well-known in my native culture:

Lie down with trailer trash, wake up with herpes, child-support payments and a restraining order.

Genuine hillbilly wisdom, of the sort that inspired my online memoir, All Girls Named Tonya.

All Girls Named TonyaThe Disturbing Case of David Copperfield

Several aspects of this case are disturbing:

A Seattle woman has filed a federal lawsuit against magician and entertainer David Copperfield, claiming he sexually assaulted and threatened her while she was a guest on his private island in the Bahamas two years ago. The lawsuit was filed even as the U.S. Attorney's Office is considering whether to file criminal charges in the case.

In the first paragraph, this story has already destroyed the fantasies of millions of 14-year-old geeks around the world. "You mean, even if I become so rich that I've got my own private tropical island, I don't get to have sex with any 22-year-old woman I desire?" Disturbing.

The woman, a 22-year-old fashion model and former Miss Washington USA contestant, filed the lawsuit on July 29 in U.S. District Court in Seattle against David Seth Kotkin, Copperfield's given name. That date was the deadline for a two-year statute of limitations in the case.

His name is "David Kotkin"? Disturbing.

The Seattle Times is not naming her because she is an alleged victim of sexual assault.

Whoa! Sweetheart, at the moment you file a lawsuit against a guy who flew you to his own private tropical island, I become deeply suspicious of your status as "victim." I'm just guessing your name is Tonya. Disturbing.

The woman is seeking unspecified damages for infliction of emotional distress, false misrepresentation and false imprisonment.

"Unspecified damages"? Disturbing.

On Wednesday, [Copperfield] issued a bare-knuckled response to the lawsuit. . . . He accused the woman of "extortion for money, plain and simple." The woman, according to Copperfield's attorneys, Angelo Calfo and Patty Eakes, "has a history of lying ... which continues in this lawsuit."

Worse than "a history of lying," she now has a history of not putting out for guys who fly her to their own private tropical island. Disturbing.

The woman alleges she met Copperfield during a January 2007 performance in Kennewick, when he called her on stage to perform in his act. After the show, the lawsuit alleges, an assistant took her personal information, snapped her photograph and said Copperfield might be interested in helping her career.
In July 2007, the woman alleges, she was invited to Musha Cay, Copperfield's $50 million private island in the Bahamas. The woman was assured, the lawsuit said, that others would be on the island and that she would have her own room.
The lawsuit alleges Copperfield and his assistant misled the woman and knew that she would be alone with him. The woman claims that she wouldn't have gone had she known she'd be alone with the magician.

Right. The guy offers to fly you to his own tropical island, and you accept, but you're afraid to be alone with him. Disturbing.

She said the 52-year-old magician drove her to the beach her first night on the island, and then returned to her room and removed her passport from her purse.
After dinner and watching a movie in Copperfield's room, the woman claims, he "attacked [her] and sexually assaulted her" on the bed, threatening to kill her if she didn't perform certain sex acts.

OK, you're a show business superstar with your own private tropical island, yet you can only score with chicks by threatening to kill them? Disturbing.

Throughout the assault (the woman) physically and verbally resisted Defendant Copperfield and struggled to get away from him," the lawsuit claims.
The next day, she said, she tried to hide but Copperfield found her and took her back to the private beach outside his bedroom. She said the magician held her head underwater until she thought she would drown after she refused his demand to "get naked."
"He then told her, 'this is an example of what you will get if you tell anyone.' " The lawsuit alleges he took off her swimsuit top and forced her to perform another sex act.
She claims a third assault took place when Copperfield dragged her from the shower in her room a short time later.

At this point, I'm thinking that David Kotkin, a/k/a "Copperfield," needs to spend a little less time working on his magic act and a little more time working on his romantic act.

The business about demanding that the chick "get naked"? That's never worked for me. I've been married for 20 years, and if I demanded that my wife "get naked," she'd laugh in my face. On the other hand, maybe if I had my own private tropical island . . . Disturbing.

Copperfield has disputed the allegations from the outset. His attorneys say that there were more than 40 people on the island during the woman's three-night, four-day visit.
"Her allegation that there was no one on the island to help her — even if she needed help — is preposterous," his statement says. The woman met and talked with other guests, sunbathed "and swam on island beaches, day after day. She even had dinner with a group of island guests," according to the statement.

Regardless of the truth or falsehood of the claims in this case, this "victim" has already exposed a disturbing pattern. Whenever a 52-year-old show-business superstar invites a 22-year-old ex-beauty queen to his own private tropical island, she might have reason to think he's going to expect her to "perform certain sex acts" with him. (You've been warned, ladies.)

This disturbing pattern is not limited to 52-year-old show-business superstars and 22-year-old ex-beauty queens. Generally speaking, if you're a chick and a guy says, "Hey, wanna come over to my place?" you should be suspicious. Whether it's his college dorm room, his apartment or his private tropical island, a lot of guys seem to have this misguided expectation that a chick who comes over to their place is just beggin' for some action.

This expectation -- "If she comes over to my place, she's ready to put out" -- is disturbing, especially when stated in such blunt terms. What's more disturbing is that any woman, even a 22-year-old ex-beauty queen, could be so stupid as to be unaware of the existence of such expectations.

Even if David Kotkin a/k/a "Copperfield" didn't forcibly rape the 22-year-old ex-beauty queen, you've got to figure any guy would have had his feelings hurt if, after flying her to his own tropical island -- four days and three nights in the Bahamas -- she were less than enthusiastic about his (surprise!) erotic interest in her.

This is why you find a lot of guys who are resentful toward the entire notion of "date rape." Having swept away all the norms and rules of traditional society, the sexual revolution and feminism have created a world in which the rules appear to be contingent, improvised and whimsical.

However, whereas the old rules were widely recognized and thus easily enforced by informal means -- slap his face, "unhand me, you cad!" and then ostracize the creep henceforth -- the new rules seem routinely to require federal lawsuits and grand jury inquisitions to sort them out. We've abandoned rules enforceable by individual action in favor of rules requiring enforcement by trial lawyers.

We await legal disposition of the disturbing case of Doe v. Kotkin, but the verdict is already in on the sexual revolution: It's been a complete catastrophe.

For the benefit of any young people (or 52-year-old show-business superstars) forced to sort out the new rules for themselves in this disturbing environment, allow me to offer a few suggestions by way of etiquette:

• In general, be careful about situations where you are alone with a person of the opposite sex.

This is especially true in terms of someone you don't know very well. Even if nothing happens, people talk.

• Ladies, if you're going to turn a guy down, turn him down up front, and be clear about it.

Apparently, some women use ambiguity in an effort to avoid hurting a guy's feelings. They don't like a guy "that way," but don't want to say so, and therefore allow the guy to waste his time in futile pursuit of a romance that is never going to happen.

This kind of ambiguity seems to be implicated in most college "date rape" scenarios. The guy asks the girl to come to his dorm room or apartment, she agrees, he interprets her agreement as de facto sexual consent, she resists and, next thing you know, there's a girl crying at the campus clinic and the Womyn's Studies department is organizing candlelight vigils for a "Take Back the Night" rally.

The fact that these "date rapes" tend to occur after the consumption of massive quantities of alcohol only adds to the disturbing stupidity of it all. To put it in the bluntest possible terms, any drunk 19-year-old guy is a potential sexual predator. A drunk 19-year-old guy will screw anything with a pulse. Any girl who doesn't understand that is probably too stupid to be attending college.

• Guys, a selfish attitude about sex is self-defeating.

What is so stupidly disturbing about this case against David Kotkin a/k/a "Copperfield" is the evidence that he has a stunted, puerile notion of sexual entitlement. Whatever it was that actually happened on his private island resort -- and we'll leave that determination to the legal authorities -- it appears that Copperfield more or less expected this 22-year-old ex-beauty queen to deliver the goods.

However reasonable that expectation must have seemed to Copperfield -- "For crying out loud, I'm a show-business superstar with my own private tropical island!" -- it was decidedly not an expectation in accord with chivalrous customs of generous hospitality.

While I've never owned a tropical island in the Bahamas, I think that the principles I learned back in the day of inviting girls to visit Room 215 Patterson Hall would apply equally well in Copperfield's situation:

• OK, the girl's accepted your invitation. You might be in luck. But you've got to play it cool. She shows up, and you greet her with courtesy and hospitality. ("Would you like a delicious cold beverage? I've got some wine coolers here in the fridge . . .")
• Don't move too fast. Unless she's totally making the moves on you, chill out and read her signals. If she just wants to talk, just talk. No pressure, see? This girl's got friends, and you don't want her telling her friends that you're such a desperate loser that you started making the moves on her and she turned you down. The key to developing a reputation as irresistible is to avoid provoking resistance.
• If you're going to make a move, make a move. Forget that slowly-work-your-way-up-to-it approach. Assuming you're reading the signals correctly, a green light means "go." Chicks dig the bold proposition. Take her in your arms and tell her you've been burning with desire for her ever since the first time you saw her. Gently kiss her neck and whisper your passionate intention to ravish every inch of her glorious naked body.
• Be willing to take no for an answer and to apologize for any unintended offense. Hey, even an ace pilot sometimes accidentally locks onto the wrong target, OK? This girl came over to your dorm room to study for the art history exam and when she started talking suggestively about Michelangelo's David, you took it the wrong way. It happens.

Chicks sometimes aren't so clear about the signals they send. My senior year in college, on the afternoon of a big concert on the quad, a girlfriend of my girlfriend came over to my dorm room. Lucy kissed me, got completely naked and still ended up saying, "no," an answer I was obliged to accept.

I never forgave Lucy for that -- which is why I feel no compunction about naming her -- but I had to accept it. (Even though I had been burning with desire for Lucy since the first time I saw her.)

When you get to be a senior in college, you ought to understand stuff like that. Certainly, by the time you're a 52-year-old show-business superstar with your own private tropical island, you ought to understand that stuff. And if you don't understand it . . .

Disturbing.

* * * * *

All Girls Names Tonya (And Other Lessons of a Misspent Youth) is one of those books that no publisher in their right mind would ever pay me to write. But if you don't think these stories are completely worthless, please hit the tip jar.

• Part I: Lessons of a Misspent Youth
• Part II: Don't Start Me Talking . . .

All Girls Named Tonya (Part 2)Don't Start Me Talking . . .

Don't start me talking.
Oh, I could talk all night.
My mind was sleepwalking
While I didn't know what to write . . .
-- Elvis Costello, "Oliver's Army"

She is a respected Atlanta businesswoman now, but after reading the story I had e-mailed her, she felt the need to call her old classmate from Turner Middle School and Lithia Spring High. Bad boy though I was, Vicky remembered me as having been a nerd -- a "brain" -- in middle school, which may explain how I eventually became so dangerous.

What kind of hoodlum plays trombone in the school band? Actually, lots of us, although bad as the trombone section was, we weren't total outlaws like Mike Stevens and the drum line.

For some reason, low brass and drummers were always the evil guys in band. Whatever happened to my hoodlum buddy Bo Collins, who was also so talented on the French horn, baritone and flugelhorn? Bo's sister was a majorette, as was Susan McDade and . . .

I digress. By eighth grade, when I managed to sneak a peek down Vicky's blouse -- a glimpse that permanently etched itself in memory -- her days as a nice girl were rapidly disappearing in the rearview mirror.

Vicky and I talked for more than an hour Friday afternoon, and at one point she began naming her boyfriends in consecutive order, beginning with Forrest Bennett, the first boy she ever kissed. Forrest, whose good looks I always envied, was probably the first kiss for a lot of girls in Lithia Springs, and more than kissing, too. He died a few years ago when he dove into a too-shallow swimming pool and broke his neck.

Vicky named Forrest and about three or four other guys as having been her boyfriends up through seventh grade. Then, one day she and Ginger Whiteside did some blotter acid.

"After that, I was pretty much everybody's girlfriend," she said.

Ah, Vicky -- but you were never my girlfiend!

Bad Boys, Wild Girls and Cool Cars
Bad as I tried to be, I never had a cool car, and girls like Vicky only rode with guys who had cool cars. Even after I grew my hair down to my shoulders, learned to play guitar, and became running buddies with one of the biggest dope dealers at Lithia Springs High (a saxophone player and math geek who bought his first ounce of Columbian goldbud from me) I was never cool enough for Vicky.

Kirby, however, was that cool. In high school, my older brother drove a red Mustang with a 289 V-8 -- a few years later, it was replaced with a green Chevy SS -- and he also had dark hair, a mustache and a cool charm that his goofy younger brother could never quite match.

Vicky and I had talked for more than an hour, and I had already twice said, "Well, it's been nice talking to you . . ." when I mentioned Kirby, who still lives in Douglas County.

"Oh, yeah, I remember Kirby," she said. "One time, I had a menage a trois in a motel with Kirby and T----- G-----."

Like Vicky, TG was a former cheerleader. The threesome occurred, Vicky said, about 1978 or '79, in a motel off Thorton Road. Her mother had finally kicked her out of the house, and Vicky was dating a South American gentleman who was in the import-export business, so she had a lot of cocaine. Also, she had a supply of valium to take the edge off, as necessary when she needed to get some sleep.

So naturally, Vicky managed to hook up with Kirby. By 1979, my older brother had already been in the Army (101st Airborne), been married, fathered a son named Tony, and gotten divorced. Exactly how Vicky's menage with Kirby and TG came about . . . well, the details are kind of fuzzy in Vicky's memory.

Puking and Other Memorable Events
That's one thing about being a survivor of the '70s. You know you engaged in some bizarre decadence back in the day, but the details tend to be a bit sketchy. For example, I mentioned to Vicky that 1977 Led Zeppelin concert -- the last time Zep played the old Omni in Atlanta, on their last world tour before John Bonham died -- a memorable occasion of which I actually remember only bits and pieces.

"Oh, yeah!" she said. "I went to that with Tim Foreman and his brother John. I don't remember anything from that. Except I'm pretty sure I puked."

Puking at rock concerts was routine back in the day. I puked at my first concert in 1975 -- Rod Stewart and the Faces. Jeff Beck was also on the bill and the opening act that night was a band from Boston that was just then becoming nationally known for songs like "Sweet Emotion" and "Dream On." I went to that concert with an older guy named Tony Wheeler, whose skinny redheaded sister, Becky, played flute in the band. I'd briefly gotten to second base with Becky our freshman year, on a band trip to Florida, but don't remember exactly how I ended up hanging out with her older brother a year later when his date for the Rod Stewart concert called to cancel.

What I remember is that we bootlegged a pint of Canadian Mist whiskey into the concert, shared it with some guys behind us who reciprocated by sharing their weed, and. . . Well, I don't remember Aerosmith at all. I remember that Jeff Beck was a jerk who stormed off the stage after complaining of problems with the P.A. system. I remember Rod Stewart's encore was "Twisting the Night Away." And I remember puking.

Hereditary Traits
That's how the '70s were. So, of course, my older brother's three-way with Vicky and TG remains in Vicky's memory only as fragments.

"I remember doing it in the bathtub with Kirby," she says. "And I think it was just like, hey, let's get T---- in here so she can try this."

Vicky did, however, recall a certain detail -- some traits are hereditary -- which confirmed her story to the necessary degree of certainty required by a professional journalist. And a phone call to Kirby added more details.

First of all, Kirby didn't remember the names of either Vicky or TG. He vaguely recalled TG having been a cheerleader at Douglas County High, but did not realize that Vicky had been a former classmate of mine.

Kirby was in a bar -- probably the Crystal Palace, a rowdy Southside after-hours club on Stewart Avenue -- when he met Vicky and her friend. He invited them to go smoke a joint.

So, Kirby says, they were riding around getting high in his Chevy when Vicky said, "F--- this smoking-a-joint stuff. I've got a bunch of coke. Let's go get a hotel room."

Kirby got home about 1 p.m. the next day and was cooking himself something to eat when the phone rang. It was Vicky saying, "Hey, I got some more coke. You want to come over again?"

When he went back, Kirby said, Vicky was there with a different girl than her girlfriend from the night before. Evidently, Vicky had been telling another one of her friends about the wild ride on this thoroughbred champion -- "Give him some coke and he'll go all night" -- which had occasioned the invitation for a repeat performance.

Vicky definitely remembered Kirby, and when I called her back to tell her Kirby's side of the story, she was a bit hurt that he'd forgotten her name. (As I said before, she is no longer known as "Vicky.") She didn't remember how she'd ran into him and had forgotten the name of the Crystal Palace, but she did remember that her rendezvous with my brother lasted more than one night.

"Oh, we might have partied for two or three days," she said. "I did that all the time. It was crazy back then."

Survivors, Casualties and Mysteries
A few weeks later, Vicky moved in with that South American businessman, who had a mansion in Midtown, and things got even crazier. The mansion was often the scene of wild coke-fueled orgies and one day Vicky regained consciousness -- "I didn't wake up, I came to" -- and looked around.

Naked bodies were sprawled everywhere, and there were still two big lines of coke, apparently laid out the night before by someone who must have passed out before snorting them.

"I remember saying to myself, if I don't get out of here, I'm gonna die," Vicky remembers. And soon she moved away to Athens. She didn't quit partying, but she had passed a turning point. She had made the decision that led to her survival.

"It's only by the pure grace of God that I'm still here," she says.

When I got that glimpse down Vicky's blouse during an eighth-grade class at Turner Middle School, that must have been about May 1973. She had already taken fateful steps, beginning when she dropped acid with Ginger Whiteside.

Ginger was killed instantly in a car accident while we were in high school. She was 15 or 16, I think. Vicky said she's still got the obituary somewhere, but she remembers something odd about Ginger: She had often predicted she would die young, as if knowing she was doomed from the day she was born to be riding in that brand-new Corvette that wiped out on Sweetwater Road. And at Ginger's funeral, the song they played was "Time" by Pink Floyd:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.
Fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town,
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Ah, memories. It was the '70s, so the details of some events are sketchy, and lead to mysterious questions. For example, why did I never get past second base with Becky Wheeler? And whatever happened to Bo Collins?

Still, I do remember Ginger's sad eyes. And I remember Vicky when she was a pretty blonde cheerleader at Turner Middle School.

She was naturally thin, with a delicate bone structure and long slender legs. For some reason, however, Vicky had never been one of those girls I had crushes on, like Carol Purdy. Until that spring day in 1973 when she wore a certain blouse and leaned over a certain way, so that at a certain angle I could see . . .

Oh, some things you never forget.

* * * * *

All Girls Names Tonya (And Other Lessons of a Misspent Youth) -- click here to read Part One -- is one of those books that no publisher in their right mind would ever pay me to write. But if you don't think these stories are completely worthless, please hit the tip jar.

UPDATE: Part Three: The Disturbing Case of David Copperfield.

All Girls Named Tonya(And Other Lessons of a Misspent Youth)

One of my favorite mental exercises is dreaming up titles for books that no publisher in their right mind would ever pay me to write. For example, my history of the 30-year war between neocons and paleocons would be entitled, First, They Came for Mel Bradford. and the story of my 10 years in the newsroom of the Washington Times would be called I've Served My Time in Hell.

Idle minds are the devil's research-and-development department. An early and persistent aversion to doing assigned work -- in college, I always felt a compulsion to read the selections in the Norton Anthology of Literature that the professor did not assign -- led to a habit of dreaming up mischief, some of which mischievous schemes actually came to fruition.

I'm just thankful the Internet and digital cameras had not been invented when I was in middle school. Me and my hoodlum buddies would have cooked up some felonious trouble quicker than you can say, "Hi, I'm Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC."

There can be no doubt that Turner Middle School in 1973 enrolled a few girls who would have been hanging out in the wrong chat rooms, had Internet chat rooms existed in 1973. But me and my hoodlum buddies would have probably scanned in the yearbook photos of Vicky Jones in her cheerleading outfit, created a bogus online profile ("blondchrldrvicky"), and found some way to monetize it, reaping profit from the lascivious interest of old creeps . . . kind of like Dateline NBC does, really.

Vicky Jones is now a respected middle-aged Atlanta businesswoman, no longer known as Vicky Jones, but if you were to ask her today, she'd tell you there were some very bad boys at Turner Middle School back in the day.

When the school band sold candy for a fundraising drive, who stole that candy and re-sold it -- one piece at a time -- to their fellow students?

When one of our hoodlum friends discovered that a local scrap-metal dealer would pay a certain amount per pound for stainless steel, who organized the scheme to pilfer spoons from the school cafeteria?

Hal Coffee ratted me out to Mr. Bell when I came back to science class with both pockets full of spoons. Then I screwed up by telling the assistant principal the name of the scheme's mastermind -- I should have exercised my right to remain silent -- so me and my friend each got a paddling and a week's suspension, and my friend also nearly strangled me for naming him . . . which I shall not now do, as he also is eminently respectable in middle age.

'Noble Savages' -- Not!
We were wicked, you see? I hung around the hoodlums because (a) they were more fun than the nerds, (b) if you've got enough hoodlum buddies, nobody messes with you, no matter how scrawny you are, and (c) Original Sin.

OK, I was a kid from a respectable middle-class home, whose parents spared no effort -- Baptist church, Boy Scouts, music lessons, youth sports, their own stern discipline -- to steer me into the paths of righteousness.

Thanks to parental guidance, I had every opportunity to do right and yet, by the age of 12, I was already a notorious hellion. I nearly didn't graduate high school because of repeated suspensions (e.g., showing up drunk for homeroom) and those four days in April 1977 I spent in the Douglas County Jail (subsequently acquitted at trial, having learned my lesson about the right to remain silent).

So when I got to college and was presented with the naive theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and other altruistic philosophers, I recognized that stuff for the dishonest scam it was.

"Noble savages," my right butt-cheek! Somewhere, in one of those unassigned anthology selections I insisted on reading, Mark Twain dispatched rather brusquely with the notion, then prevalent among certain East Coast "reformer" types, that the American Indian (whom political correctness had not yet converted to a "Native American" or, better still, "indigenous peoples") was the embodiment of the natural virtues of humanity unspoiled by the supposedly warping influence of civilization.

The "state of nature," and all that rigamarole, you see. Twain exposed that Rousseauean myth of the Noble Red Man for the hokum it was, describing the reality of the situation with such cold brutality as to make anything I've ever written about David Brooks seem mild by comparison.

A childhood spent in the companionship of hooligans and ne'er-do-wells -- hanging around the kids your mother specifically told you not to hang around with -- sort of spoils a man for Rousseauean myths. An early and direct acquaintance with wickedness makes it difficult to believe that people always act on motives of sincere goodwill.

All Girls Named Tonya, the title of that childhood memoir no publisher will ever pay me to write, derives from a principle of human psychology first postulated by a genuinely evil little bastard who became one of my dope buddies in 10th grade. That title is 67% of what I call Art Hembree's Law:

All Girls Named Tonya Are Sluts.

If your name is Tonya, I apologize on my old friend's behalf, but as a lowlife trying to score some easy action circa 1978-86, I can testify that Hembree's Law proved amazingly reliable.

When I was a freshman in college, I was deeply in love with a sweet brown-eyed girl named Amy, who was still in high school back home. My dad didn't allow me to take a car to college, so one Friday in mid-February 1978 I hitchhiked home -- about 100 miles from my college -- in order to be there for a big date with Amy I'd been dreaming about.

Lithia Springs High School was playing a home basketball game that Friday, and there was going to be a "Valentine's Dance" afterwards. I was a pretty good dancer, and my plan involved taking Amy to the dance, leaving early and . . . well, taking the long way home, so to speak.

A Likely Excuse
Alas, when I called Amy, she told me her mother refused to let her go that night. (Maternal intuition, no doubt.) This infuriated me, as I believed the mom-won't-let-me-go story to be one of those lame excuses girls use to avoid dates with boys they don't really like that much.

In such a mood, then, I got slicked up for the dance, hopped into my '73 VW Bug and went off in search of trouble, which I soon found.

Of course, I did not actually go to the basketball game (lame), and by the time I pulled my Bug into the parking lot off County Line Road, the game had just ended and everybody was on their way to the dance in the cafeteria.

Now, I was never one of those cutie-face boys, but I was lean and funny and had figured out a few things about maximizing whatever advantages came my way. My acne was in remission that weekend, my hair was a cool shag, and my wardrobe was disco-fantastic. So despite the infuriating misfortune of Amy's refusal, I felt like a million bucks when I paid my $2 at the door and strutted into the dance.

No one was dancing. Teenagers are self-conscious and nobody wants to be the first one out on the floor, but I was always bold and shameless. So I grabbed a girl named Lori (one of Amy's best friends) and dragged her onto the floor, where we danced for one song before I went off to chat with some of my old hoodlum buddies I hadn't seen in months.

Out in my VW, an eight-pack of pony Millers was chilling in the February night. Legal drinking age in Georgia at that time was 18, which made for surprisingly easy access to alchohol at far earlier ages. As a 14-year-old freshman playing the part of Pappy Yokum in our high-school production of "Li'l Abner" in spring 1974, I'd arrived at the cast party after consuming at least half a quart of Boone's Farm strawberry wine, and by the time I got there, the seniors had already spiked the punch with PGA. (Violent 2 a.m. wretching ensued.)

Hello, Foxy Lady
Fast-forward to that night in 1978 when, with my eight-pack of cold ponies, I was ready for whatever action came my way at the dance, which didn't take too long. When I went looking for trouble back then, I seldom missed it.

Soon a girl I knew approached me to explain that there was another girl who had seen me dancing, and thought I was cute, and wanted to dance with me. This girl I knew led me over to a gaggle of her friends, amongst whom I espied a girl with bleach-blonde hair in wing-shag "Farrah" style, platform shoes and tight faded jeans.

This blonde displayed two telltale signs that any perceptive 18-year-old horndog in 1978 would have recognized instantly: She wore light-blue eye shadow (ding!) and a black T-shirt with gold-glitter script declaring herself to be a "FOXY LADY." (Ding! Ding! Ding! Like you just hit the slot-machine jackpot, baby.)

As fate would have it, this Foxy Lady was the very girl who had seen me dancing earlier, and who was most grateful for the invitation to join me on the dance floor. We boogied through a funky number (maybe it was "Brick House") and then the DJ played a slow song (maybe "Always and Forever"), and when I danced slow, I danced slowwwwww, with whispered conversation in my partner's ear.

Within five minutes of the end of that slow-dance, Foxy Lady and I were on our way to my VW in the parking lot and perhaps I forgot previously to mention an important fact: Her name was Tonya.

Hembree's Law proved reliable and, after quickly consuming a few of those pony Millers, Tonya and I were parked at the end of a dirt road near the Vulcan rock quarry. The Bug had reclining seats and we were at third base, with a home-run clearly to be anticipated, when an unprecedented thing happened.

I thought about Amy. Somewhere in my cynical young hoodlum soul, a warm ember of conscience still flickered, which now flared up into a most inopportune flame of guilt.

"Ah, maybe I better take you back to the dance," I told the disappointed Tonya, as we zipped up and I cranked the VW for the return trip to school. No, I thought to myself, it wasn't worth blowing my chances with sweet brown-eyed Amy just to score with this other chick, Foxy Lady though she was.

Is there a moral to this story? Is there even a point? asks the exasperated reader. Well . . .

• Amy found out.

At some point the next week, there was a school assembly, at which Amy found herself seated near Tonya, who happened to be regaling friends with tales of her night of passion with that cute college boy named Stacy.

Douglas County was (and still is) kind of a blue-collar place, so dating a college boy was considered a prestigious thing, which partly explains Tonya's boasting. And boys named Stacy were as rare then as ever, so Amy didn't need any further corroboration to know what I'd been doing the night of the Valentine's Dance.

Ironic, you see. Tonya was letting on to her friends that we'd gone all the way, with certain notorious details -- derived from her visit to third base -- which had the effect of providing Amy with entirely superflous corroboration of a tale which, nevertheless, was a lie.

• Amy broke up with me.

Oh, the bitter recriminations which resulted from that February night! While I was certainly guilty of a sort of infidelity, it was not unfaithfulness in the first degree. And, after hitting the brakes when Tonya was giving me green lights all the way, I had congratulated myself as having done the right thing in the end.

Perhaps I should have done the wrong thing. After everything blew up, I cursed myself for having missed a chance. Had I gone all the way with Tonya, and added a few endearing words to our assignation, perhaps she'd have felt the kind of emotional bond that would have ensured our affair remained a guilty little secret.

Instead, having had but a fleeting grasp of passion -- yes, I was notorious for a reason -- Tonya felt entirely free to boast of the legendary magnificence, so that nothing I could say in my own defense would exculpate me.

• I blamed Amy.

Odd how an arrogant sinner can never accept responsibility for the consequences of his own sins. Pride and impatience go hand-in-hand, and the Sunday after that February dance, Amy's mother let her come to my house for a dinner that I tried to make as romantic as possible. How easily I might have accepted her Friday night refusal and decided to skip the dance, but . . .

Still, it burned. If she hadn't turned me down, I'd have never been at that dance alone, and Tonya the Foxy Lady would have had to take her chances with some inferior fellow. (Obviously, a girl named Tonya wasn't going to do without on a Friday night.)

Amy's refusal to accept my explanation or give me a second chance seemed entirely unjust, given the extenuating circumstances. For all my disco-hoodlum ways, I genuinely did love her, and this heartbreak was painfully damaging.

Henceforth from that breakup with Amy, it is fair to say, my attitude toward romantic life became tainted by a spirit of vengeance that blinded me to the fact that my female companions might be as deeply in love with me as I had once been in love with sweet brown-eyed Amy. No, they were all just faithless little heartbreakers, undeserving of trust or consideration, no matter how (temporarily) innocent they might be.

Ladies, I did you wrong. And it wasn't Amy's fault or Tonya's fault. Blame only me, and I am without excuse.

Force of Habit
What became of all those broken hearts? Oh, they got over me, I suppose. Surely no man could ever be as special as I imagined myself to be back then. And so I but rarely hear of any of those girls, and Tonya's fate remains a mystery, but what friends have said of Amy racks my conscience. Blame only me.

Youthful habit is a powerful force in life. Now a happily married father of six, those old habits are sublimated (rather than dishonestly denied or, as they say, "repressed") as harmlessly charming flattery. What my arrogant young heart craved, I came to realize in belated maturity, was the praise and admiration of women which my impatient hoodlum passions led me to solicit by the most direct means possible.

Fool! Even old and ugly, I now get abundant admiration by the merest exercise of innocent courtesy.

Oh, yes, and the sequel was most interesting to any student of psychology. In 1988, I brought a lovely young lady to Atlanta for an inexpensive but romantic evening that included visits to meet some of my kinfolk.

Dad was polite and friendly enough, but initially less taken with this latest girlfriend than he had been with her buxom predecessor, green-eyed Christine from Marietta. Aunt Pat was her usual gracious self, making quite a favorable impression on my date.

What I remember most, however, was the reaction of my older brother Kirby, when my date and I visited him at home with his wife and new baby daugther. Leaving his wife to get acquainted with my new girlfriend (they were about the same age), Kirby invited me outside for a smoke.

"Damn, Stacy," he said. "Could you have found a better lookalike for Amy . . .?"

Well, it took me 10 years to find her, and though I really think Mrs. Other McCain is much better-looking, the resemblance was indeed striking, though it never occurred to me until Kirby pointed it out.

Twenty years into our marriage, Mrs. Other McCain -- whom I told all about my misspent youth -- keeps a watchful eye on me, and is always keenly suspicious when I go off to Washington for one of those "events" I must cover from time to time. I assure her she has no need to worry, as I would not impair the magnifent legend by permitting any improper contact with my middle-aged decrepitude.

Ah, but she knows me too well, and Mrs. Other McCain's suspicion is actually quite flattering, as if I were still the Speedo-sporting prime stud she married.

Nevertheless, I'm still mindful of Art Hembree's Law. Even an old guy can never be safe around a girl named Tonya.

* * * * *

Well, as I said, All Girls Named Tonya is another one of those books no publisher would ever pay me to write, but I don't think that little story is entirely worthless. Do you?

Hit the tip jar.

UPDATE: Thanks to all those who have hit the tip jar, and to Melissa Clouthier, who calls this "a slice of genius." (Let's not get started about girls named "Melissa," OK?)

Meanwhile, I got a call Friday from Vicky, who read this and says she sure hopes none of her clients in Atlanta -- who know her as a respectable middle-aged businesswoman -- read Part Two: Don't Start Me Talking.

Some things from the '70s are easily forgotten, but the legendary magnificence is a hereditary trait.

UPDATE II: Part Three: The Disturbing Case of David Copperfield.