jameson presents on bugsy seigel: it's what we've always wanted as parents... that our son could portray a gangster

jameson recently had to do a project for class on a famous nevadan. at first when he told me about it, he said the person had to have been born in nevada and that the person had to be dead. that really narrows the field quite a bit seeing as how hardly anyone is actually born in nevada anymore. everyone's a transplant. and anyone who is famous and from nevada, is still alive.

the obvious choice would be the blogmaster since i am a proud native, problem is, i'm still alive and i wasn't about to take one for the team just so the boy could do a presentation on me. when jameson first told me about the project, i spent some time in deep thought trying to be a helpful parent, but wasn't really able to come up with anyone. after a while i just forgot about it and figured he or mrs. blogmaster would figure it out.

next thing i knew, he had been given the option of presenting on bugsy seigel or benny binion. ah yes... two of nevada's favorite sons. we nevadans can all hold our heads high in honoring the memory of these two examples of model citizens who blessed our great state with their presence and respective contributions. oh, that every parent could have a son or daughter grow up to be a gangster/murderer who establishes mafia run gaming in a desert town before being taken out by the mob himself. on the other hand, if the mafia is out of reach or one doesn't want to set his/her sights quite so high, each child can still set his/her sights on opening a trashy casino or two and be implicated in a murder and other crimes. allegedly. we should all be so lucky.

virginia has chumps like thomas jefferson and george washington, but we've got bugsy and benny... at least our guys didn't own slaves. apparently, the teacher changed the requirements of the assignment since bugsy wasn't born in nevada. i just think it's funny that nevada's heritage lies in a bunch of knuckleheads like these dudes. on the other hand, what else should i expect from a town that lives and dies the poker table? besides, i shouldn't judge... we've all been faced with the option of: should i kill this guys or not... he's losing me money? it's not an easy choice to deal with.

back to jameson...

so, jameson put together a report on bugsy's life along with creating a tombstone replica of bugsy's tombstone. i helped jameson with the report and ended up researching bugy's life quite heavily by skimming wikipedia. first, let me just say that writing papers for kids these days is so much easier than it was when i was a kid thanks to the internet. i can't complain though, 'cause i can't imagine going through college or law school without the internet either.

thing is, i think kids shouldn't even waste their time learning how to write anymore... what's the point? if someone wants to learn latin, morse code, how to use a rotary dial phone, a fax machine or how to write, then to each his own; but, do it on your own time. schools should be teaching kids how to type from 2nd or 3rd grade on. to people like mrs. blogmaster, penmanship is an art that should not be undervalued... i say, bullocks, it's an inefficient waste of time, especially for error prone kids. word processing for kids would make every parent's life easier... plus, end products would look much better.

the reason i bring this up is because jameson had to hand write his report. no big deal, if you get it all right the first time. but not so good when you have to erase a few times here and there with a cheap eraser... after a while the report starts to look like an ancient manuscript that survived a world war or two. so, instead of having more time to do important things like play x box or watch the suite life of zach and cody (kill me now), jameson has to re-write his paper. consequently, while elementary school kids and the guys who still use those really old school printing presses that required you to place every letter on a page in backwards in order to print it are wasting their time with that stuff, the rest of us are typing blogs, emails, books, and the like in a fraction of the time.

can you imagine if i had to handwrite this blog? one good thing is that my posts would probably be shorter. but, they wouldn't be nearly as legible and they'd probably be less coherent than they already are.

back to jameson again...

at some point that night before his project was due, we finished it. i was pretty involved in helping, maybe too involved... but that's debatable. i couldn't let him turn in garbage when it comes to writing, i just couldn't... not the blogmaster's son. it was actually an oral report he was going to be giving, as well, not just a paper he turned in. so, i'm sitting at work the next day and i get a voicemail from jameson saying that the vice principal liked his paper so much that he wanted jameson to come back the next day to be videotaped as he presented it.

my first thought was, uh oh, was i a little too helpful on jameson's project? but, i quickly rationalize it all (a git we lawyers have) figuring it was all good since wikipedia was literally the sole source of research for the project and he physically wrote it out. all i helped him with was sentence structure, grammar, overall paragraph organization, and research. not that much, really. anyway, like i said, he did write it out all by himself... three times. let's just say, jameson tries to get his homework done before i get home so his mom will check it and go over it with him instead of me. it's funny, because i learned that lesson early on in life, as well (to avoid having my dad help me with homework). thing is, from about 2nd grade on my mom wasn't able to help with any of my math homework... that stuff was way too complicated for her.

bottom line: jameson did a splendid job preparing and presenting his report on someone who should be very close to all nevadans' hearts: bugsy seigel. if you live here, hang a picture of him on your wall next to Jesus (or moses, if you're jewish, or oprah or any holywood star if you're spiritual, but not religious, etc.).

here's some pics of jamebo and his ilk looking very debonair in his gangsta' get-ups: