Who Am I?
Updated November 12, 2003
By Dave Laird
Founder of The Used Kharma Lot in 1986
For the record, I'm a 57 year-old network administrator and database programmer, a certified gray-head, published writer, an investigative journalist of record and poet/songwriter. I am a proud father to my son, Greg, a step father to Scott and Christina and a loving husband to my patient if not enduring wife, Suzie. That's about all you need to know other than what else in on the various sections of Kharma Lot web pages, many of which have recently changed direction, course and format. They always seem to be doing that.
I believe in what I do. I once told Bob Kirkpatrick I wanted to become the “Johnny Appleseed” of free web pages, and with his unerring and forbearing skill at hosting the entire Spokane hierarchy on his skinny shoulders, I must say have I have outdone my own prediction. The concept is to give away web pages for free, without any of those stupid pop-up ads, bogus cookies or other malicious tricks used by everyone who says they give away pages for free. A terribly naïve, arrogant musician by the name of Dan Gore once stated in public, to several former associates of mine, that I couldn't possibly give web pages away for free; there had to be a gimmick somewhere. Well, he's still paying for his overbearing pompous web pages, and I'm still giving them away after three years and counting. I already know Dan Gore's opinion of me, but I'll keep my opinion of him to myself, since I'm one or two up on him, anyway, but that's an entirely different story.
I also believe in giving everything in life for the love of God, Country, Family and Friends, and pretty much in that order. I also believe if you don't have a set of priorities that sound pretty much the same as mine, the chances are pretty good I probably will ignore you entirely and, in some cases, jump right in your face brandishing everything in my vocabulary just to watch you figure out what I just said. I've put my life on the line for friends, family.
I always remember a friend; I make it a deliberate point to never forget an adversary or someone who has wronged me.
I am very much a hopeless romantic, yet have not become either enamored of nor entangled in the morass of the phony New Age crap, since it has yet to develop a philosophical basis for all its various claims. I am, despite many of my philosophical, theological and emotional anomalies, very much an Old World man at heart. For most of my life, I have been a loner and an unrepentant rambler by choice, having spent the vast majority of my adult life living in solitude, frequently traveling across this great country of ours. Late one afternoon in August of 1983, sitting on a warm rock near Blanchard Creek in Idaho, I figured that I had resided in 26 States of the Union, with an average stay of somewhere between one to three years, and from that point forward, I simply began to settle down.
I have lived in my present location in Spokane, Washington for over 9 years, which sets some kind of a record, based upon my past. It is the longest period of time I've remained firmly rooted in one place.
I have been a professional college student, a bus boy, a professional musician, a minister, a runner for a bookie, a restaurant cook, a longshoreman, a truck driver, a heavy engine mechanic, a feature journalist, a copy writer at a radio station, a hard news journalist, an electronics supply business owner, as well as the owner of over a dozen different successful businesses in the last thirty-five years. For the last twelve years of life, however, I have worked as a contract computer programmer, a savage journalist about the computer industry I perceive, a free-lance writer and a half-hearted network administrator. Remarkably enough, I have a Masters Degree in journalism with a minor in Far Eastern Studies at Berkeley and BA from UC Santa Cruz. Go figure. Just because I lived like a beatnik doesn't necessarily mean I was stupid, now does it?
I am also proud of the fact, and not the least bit apologetic about the fact I have been sober for over twenty-five years, or that I beat alcoholism entirely on my own, with the help of a few good friends. However, I never once attended an AA meeting or anything like it. Also having been a repeated victim of ritualistic child abuse as a child, I am equally proud of the fact I have beaten the odds that sons of child abusers will abuse their own children, for I have never once beaten a child. I have evolved from hatred of my late father to one of pity, which is a quantum leap, considering where I last saw him, a man beaten, and calling out my name on his death bed.
Most of all, if I am allowed the self-serving gratuity of personal pride, I am honored, by all my friends, past and present. For without their caring, insight, support and understanding I would not be where I am today. Were it not for the original members of The Phoenix newsgroup, I would have never persisted in the pursuit of this idle dream I call The Used Kharma Lot. If it were not for their friendship, loyalty and unswerving compassion, I might not even be alive today, as my health is not as it once was, much as my patience is somewhat restricted.
For the last year and several months, I have been intensely involved in first the investigation and, most recently, the murder trial of Ralph Benson, a man whom I believe first shot and then decapitated one of my closest friends, Roger Erdman. I have paid a high price for my involvement in the homicide investigation, not just in terms of cash paid to my lawyer, but in terms of the number of friends, or at least people I thought were my friends, who bailed out of my life, once the going got tough. Along the way I scared a lot of sanctimonious public officials, and in general gave the cops only enough information to get the search warrant necessary to find the evidence that a homicide had, indeed, taken place. Everything else was a sham, a deliberate omission of facts, created to prevent them from ever using my testimony in court. That ruse, it seems, was successful, because I spent less than 15 minutes on the witness stand, with both the Prosecution and Defense scared half out of their addled wits that I might, in their own words, 'Open up a can of worms'.
Someone will judge me someday for my sins, both great and small, committed in the search for Roger Erdman. Given what I had to work with, which was little to nothing, and given the gross errors made by the cops, and given the facts of the case as were brought out in Lincoln County Court over the last four weeks, I believe my sins have been vindicated. Soon, very soon, the rest of the facts will come out, and then I will move onward. I have lost a great and humorous friend. On the other hand, the four agencies involved in the criminal investigation of the death of Roger Erdman will soon learn how and why I deceieved them with utter impunity blended carefully with contempt.
After all, in order to truly answer the question 'Who Am I?', you must first examine carefully all the men and women whom I honor as my friends and whom I consider to be my adversaries. Don't blink. You're either on one or the other list, or else someday we may meet, because you always know where you stand with me. Until then, let the sun shine gently on you, and a fair wind give you safe passage...