I have no idea if either of my parents had any musical leanings or longings. By the time I came along, if they did listen to music or sing or play anything, I never witnessed any of it. Mom did occasionally listen to music on the radio and I'd heard tell that Daddy was a great dancer once upon a time, but I did not grow up in a house filled with music. There were no family sing-alongs or performances. I was not musically influenced or inspired by my parents.
My siblings dabbled in piano. I guess they took some lessons. Mac played this same piece over and over. I think it was a Bach etude. Drove me crazy. I don't really remember Maggie playing although I do seem to recall a time when she taught me the dual Chopsticks thing. We had a piano because Granddaddy thought "the children" (meaning Mac and Maggie) should have one.
Maggie taught me to sing my first song, Herman's Hermits', "I'm Henry the Eighth," or whatever it was called, complete with a bad Southern hillbilly attempt at a British accent. "And every one was a 'enery..." I loved shouting, "Second verse, same as the first!"
I suppose she was trying to make up for teasing me about not being able to sing "Happy Birthday." If I'd known then what I knew now (I consider Happy Birthday to be a tuneless funeral dirge), that wouldn't have fazed me. But I didn't and I took it quite personally and once I was old enough, I began diligently singing along to her records. I had, apparently, a good ear. She doesn't make fun of me any more.
Grandmom had an organ. I don't remember ever hearing her play. I loved fooling around on it, though, pulling out all the stops, literally, and messing about with the pedals. The loudness was quite satisfying. I have no idea why she had one.
The same grandparents had a stereo and we did sometimes listen to music, especially at Christmas. Bing Crosby's White Christmas comes to mind. And Firestone Christmas albums.
I don't remember us having a home stereo but fairly early on, I must've either had my own record player or used Maggie's, because one record I loved to listen to was Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who. The piece about the "pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them" riding a bicycle scared the beejeezus out of me! And I loved the one about the woman with a bunch of children, all named Dave. "Come into the house, Dave!" she would yell, and they'd all come running.
At some point I got ahold of a copy of The Charge of the Light Brigade. My, oh, my, did I love the dramatic grandeur of that record. To this day, I have a thing for anthemic, larger-than-life music.
I also had one of the Firestone records. "Do you hear what I hear?" I loved that one.
The summer before fourth grade, my brother's boyfriend and my brother lived with us for a brief period of time. (I have no idea where they stayed or how this came to be. Quite shocking, really.) The boyfriend, Dan, played the trumpet and had it with him and he let me fool around with it. I was smitten. So when it came time to join the band that school year, I knew what I wanted to play: the trumpet. And when the instruments came in and I was handed mine, I'd been given a cornet. Now, perhaps this was an honest mistake but I did not read it that way at all. I was indignant! I felt certain that Mr. Hurt pulled a switcheroo based on me being a girl and that girls shouldn't play trumpets and cornets were more "feminine." I felt certain he hoped I wouldn't know. Wrong, Mr. Hurt. Wrong. Innocent mistake or not, let me just say, I got my trumpet.
I took the trumpet, and the idea that Mr. Hurt thought a girl shouldn't play one, very seriously. And spending weeks just blowing on the mouthpiece just didn't cut it. So I found two pieces of sheet music in the piano bench, "The Theme from Hawaii Five-O" and "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme," with which I was familiar, and taught myself how to play them. This was the musical equivalent of refusing to use training wheels when I learned to ride a bike. I'd show him, by God.
I guess there are two main paths to music: either you're born into it in some way, or you are drawn to it as a form of rebellion. Mine was obviously the latter. Maggie says I can't sing. I teach myself to sing. Mr. Hurt thinks girls shouldn't play the trumpet, I excel at it.
What started my songwriting and guitar playing? Hanging out with my Hippie sister and her boyfriend. They were older, cool, not rednecks, and NOT country. So, rebellion against the dullards that surrounded me, rebellion against living the expected life. Once Emily and I started writing and playing together, we planned to put our guitars on our backs and ride our bikes across the country, playing wherever we stopped.
I do not regret that we didn't ever make that bike ride. But I do regret that I did not learn to play the piano. I took lessons in my early teen years, but didn't stick with it very long. I tried again in college and enjoyed "class piano," but I wasn't really able to master the whole left hand/right hand thing by that point. I managed to get through the piece I chose, "The Moon's a Harsh Mistress," but not very fluently. I do still have hope that someday I might settle in enough to actually learn to play.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
Big Apple Band On the Run
To be honest, I don't really remember the exact content or sequence of events. What I have are little vignettes, stand alones without context or fluidity. I can't really string everything together properly.
I know KoKoKu was booked for a gig at Folk City soon after our open mic. (Yes, of course we said, "Yes!") I know we played there more than once. On another occasion we opened for Peter Tork, of The Monkees. I remember hanging out in the basement "green room" with him. He was bitter about The Monkees. Not long after, they embarked on a reunion tour. I guess he managed to put his hard feelings aside. On another occasion we were part of a New Year's Eve show.
But you see, even as I write these things I wonder, "Did that really happen? Is that what happened?"
Either at the open mic or at another show soon after, a classmate, Cathy, asked to be our manager. She had no experience but then, neither did we, so we said, "OK!" I have to say, she did pretty darn well. (She's now a successful filmmaker and professor-she was clearly up to the task.) In pretty short order she had us booked for several gigs around the city: fundraisers, a radio show, The Speakeasy, The Bitter End. We played gigs with the then up and coming Suzanne Vega and Lori Carson. We had a photo shoot by the East River. And Gio brought a producer on board, someone she had worked with on a previous project. He was keen to get us in the studio.
In other words, a whole lot happened very quickly. It seems hard to believe, but I think the whole thing only lasted about nine months, start to finish. Unfortunately for me, the emotional fallout of the band's break up lasted for many, many years.
So there we were, poised to go into the studio, making really good headway into the business. Rising stars. Gio had moved from upstate New York into the city in order to make everything easier. We all had girlfriends. Life was good!
And then we had a band meeting. I can remember us sitting around the table at Cathy's apartment on the Lower East Side. Delancey Street, I think. And Gio quitting, giving us some nonsense about her being more "professional" than we (Emily and I) were, knowing how to dress in a more commercially acceptable way.
You know, I guess she was saying we were coming across as too butch, which is kind of funny, given that all three of us were pretty butch.
I don't really know what happened. And you know how relationships are. It takes two and all that, only in this case it took three or more. I know that I was having a crisis of conscious about being a professional musician: was it really important? I think Gio was having a fear of success crisis. As for Emily, well, I don't know. I suppose in one way or another, we were all having our individual crises.
I think the bottom line was that it was a relationship crisis. We'd fallen in love, hard, and had many magical music moments together. Then, right on schedule (meaning, at about the six month mark), we all started having doubts. And as many relationships do once they reach this point, the make or break point, we broke.
I know KoKoKu was booked for a gig at Folk City soon after our open mic. (Yes, of course we said, "Yes!") I know we played there more than once. On another occasion we opened for Peter Tork, of The Monkees. I remember hanging out in the basement "green room" with him. He was bitter about The Monkees. Not long after, they embarked on a reunion tour. I guess he managed to put his hard feelings aside. On another occasion we were part of a New Year's Eve show.
But you see, even as I write these things I wonder, "Did that really happen? Is that what happened?"
Either at the open mic or at another show soon after, a classmate, Cathy, asked to be our manager. She had no experience but then, neither did we, so we said, "OK!" I have to say, she did pretty darn well. (She's now a successful filmmaker and professor-she was clearly up to the task.) In pretty short order she had us booked for several gigs around the city: fundraisers, a radio show, The Speakeasy, The Bitter End. We played gigs with the then up and coming Suzanne Vega and Lori Carson. We had a photo shoot by the East River. And Gio brought a producer on board, someone she had worked with on a previous project. He was keen to get us in the studio.
In other words, a whole lot happened very quickly. It seems hard to believe, but I think the whole thing only lasted about nine months, start to finish. Unfortunately for me, the emotional fallout of the band's break up lasted for many, many years.
So there we were, poised to go into the studio, making really good headway into the business. Rising stars. Gio had moved from upstate New York into the city in order to make everything easier. We all had girlfriends. Life was good!
And then we had a band meeting. I can remember us sitting around the table at Cathy's apartment on the Lower East Side. Delancey Street, I think. And Gio quitting, giving us some nonsense about her being more "professional" than we (Emily and I) were, knowing how to dress in a more commercially acceptable way.
You know, I guess she was saying we were coming across as too butch, which is kind of funny, given that all three of us were pretty butch.
I don't really know what happened. And you know how relationships are. It takes two and all that, only in this case it took three or more. I know that I was having a crisis of conscious about being a professional musician: was it really important? I think Gio was having a fear of success crisis. As for Emily, well, I don't know. I suppose in one way or another, we were all having our individual crises.
I think the bottom line was that it was a relationship crisis. We'd fallen in love, hard, and had many magical music moments together. Then, right on schedule (meaning, at about the six month mark), we all started having doubts. And as many relationships do once they reach this point, the make or break point, we broke.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Big Apple Band
After graduating from Sarah Lawrence in 1981, I lived in New York for the next 7 years. Those were heady times. New York in the 80's may have been better than New York in the 70's, but not by much. And I loved it. What better place to be in my 20's?
Emily found a place on E. 12th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues, at the time a borderline OK street. The East Village in general was pretty sketchy. Our building, however, was a co-op (this was a new thing back then) and the owner, Dieter something or other, managed to get permission from the other tenants to rent to us. I think he (and his wife?) actually lived in Germany and our apartment was an investment.
The apartment was quite nice. It was on the 2nd or 3rd floor, covering the left half of the floor, front to back. The front windows opened onto 12th Street. We had a back door that opened onto the roof. Huh. I guess we were on the 3rd floor, then. It had hardwood floors. And it wasn't very expensive. As a matter of fact (and you will find this hard to believe), I never paid more than $575 for an apartment in New York, and only one was kind of questionable.
I wonder now what we ate. I only remember going to the little Chinese take-out place around the corner. It was a walk-up place, long and skinny. No tables, just a man at a counter to take your order. I loved getting take-out. It was so cheap! I also loved buying challah bread. But did we cook? Shop? What was in our fridge? The only thing I ever really remember eating in that apartment was pesto with Italian bread. Gio had made some and brought it to a KoKoKu rehearsal. It was my first time having pesto. I was hooked.
I remember rehearsing in that apartment. KoKoKu was in full, albeit what would turn out to be a tragically short, swing. I remember playing Gio's electric guitar (a Gretsch, I think) and her making a recording of it, a rough cut of "Quite Happy." I wrote that song on the electric and have never been able to play it as well on the acoustic. Damn bar chords. Plus, it just doesn't have the same movement.
KoKoKu. I still think that's a cool name, 30 years later. Gio came up with it. She told us it was the name of a Laurie Anderson song. It fit because, as Gio said, Emily and I were KoKo and she was Ku.
Emily and I had been playing and writing together for several years, starting in Tennessee then continuing at Sarah Lawrence. (In fact, we are waiting this very moment for delivery of a long lost cassette of one of our concerts at Sarah Lawrence.) One summer day after graduation, Emily and I took the train to wherever Cheryl was living with Gio to rehearse. Only when we got there, Cheryl was in a pissy mood and didn't want to play. Gio piped up, "I'll play with you." Not wanting to have wasted a trip, of course we said, "OK."
My memory is that we all got our guitars and stood in a circle facing each other. Emily and I played one of our songs. Gio joined in, both playing and singing. And when we finished, we looked at each other, mouths hanging open. KoKoKu was born.
After a month or so of rehearsals, it was Gio who suggested we perform at an open mic night somewhere. She picked the famous Folk City. We invited a few friends to go with us one night. We signed up. We waited. I remember the interior of the place. Red. And so many framed photographs of everyone who was anyone in folk music from the 60's and 70's. Then it was our turn. We had three songs. I don't remember which ones we played but I'm guessing "Darkness," "In Your Way," and "Gimme Your Secret." One written by each of us.
I do remember loud applause and when we finished, the owners came up to us immediately and wanted to book us for a gig. KoKoKu was on.
Emily found a place on E. 12th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues, at the time a borderline OK street. The East Village in general was pretty sketchy. Our building, however, was a co-op (this was a new thing back then) and the owner, Dieter something or other, managed to get permission from the other tenants to rent to us. I think he (and his wife?) actually lived in Germany and our apartment was an investment.
The apartment was quite nice. It was on the 2nd or 3rd floor, covering the left half of the floor, front to back. The front windows opened onto 12th Street. We had a back door that opened onto the roof. Huh. I guess we were on the 3rd floor, then. It had hardwood floors. And it wasn't very expensive. As a matter of fact (and you will find this hard to believe), I never paid more than $575 for an apartment in New York, and only one was kind of questionable.
I wonder now what we ate. I only remember going to the little Chinese take-out place around the corner. It was a walk-up place, long and skinny. No tables, just a man at a counter to take your order. I loved getting take-out. It was so cheap! I also loved buying challah bread. But did we cook? Shop? What was in our fridge? The only thing I ever really remember eating in that apartment was pesto with Italian bread. Gio had made some and brought it to a KoKoKu rehearsal. It was my first time having pesto. I was hooked.
I remember rehearsing in that apartment. KoKoKu was in full, albeit what would turn out to be a tragically short, swing. I remember playing Gio's electric guitar (a Gretsch, I think) and her making a recording of it, a rough cut of "Quite Happy." I wrote that song on the electric and have never been able to play it as well on the acoustic. Damn bar chords. Plus, it just doesn't have the same movement.
KoKoKu. I still think that's a cool name, 30 years later. Gio came up with it. She told us it was the name of a Laurie Anderson song. It fit because, as Gio said, Emily and I were KoKo and she was Ku.
Emily and I had been playing and writing together for several years, starting in Tennessee then continuing at Sarah Lawrence. (In fact, we are waiting this very moment for delivery of a long lost cassette of one of our concerts at Sarah Lawrence.) One summer day after graduation, Emily and I took the train to wherever Cheryl was living with Gio to rehearse. Only when we got there, Cheryl was in a pissy mood and didn't want to play. Gio piped up, "I'll play with you." Not wanting to have wasted a trip, of course we said, "OK."
My memory is that we all got our guitars and stood in a circle facing each other. Emily and I played one of our songs. Gio joined in, both playing and singing. And when we finished, we looked at each other, mouths hanging open. KoKoKu was born.
After a month or so of rehearsals, it was Gio who suggested we perform at an open mic night somewhere. She picked the famous Folk City. We invited a few friends to go with us one night. We signed up. We waited. I remember the interior of the place. Red. And so many framed photographs of everyone who was anyone in folk music from the 60's and 70's. Then it was our turn. We had three songs. I don't remember which ones we played but I'm guessing "Darkness," "In Your Way," and "Gimme Your Secret." One written by each of us.
I do remember loud applause and when we finished, the owners came up to us immediately and wanted to book us for a gig. KoKoKu was on.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Journey Out of Knoxville
I'm going to have to put the Joyce Saga on hold. In the meantime, let me regale you with some fun facts about my life that you probably do not know. I'm inspired by a friend's FaceBook post.
1) I worked at the same car wash in East Knoxville two different times. Huber's, owned by the Huber brothers, Jimmy and Louie, on Magnolia. The woman who ran the cash register was nicknamed Butch. She chain smoked and pretended to keep an eye on things. Working there was very much as the the movie "Carwash" portrayed. We partied on site as well as off. During the slow times, Lil and I would sit in her car and drink Canadian Mist mixed with Sprite. Sometimes we would slip around the side of the building and smoke a joint. I played my guitar and wrote in my journal and drew. When things were really slow, Jimmy and Louie would send us all home. Then a group of us would buy some beer and head out to one of the many rock quarries in the area and hang out there. I never swam. The car chassis and tires in the water were a deterrent.
2) I did not want to go to college. This is how I ended up working at the car wash the first time for pretty much the entire year after graduation. Mom, however, was very afraid I would turn out like Mac so at her insistence, I finally enrolled in some kind of engineering program at State Technical Institute at Knoxville (S.T.I.K.), now known as Pellissippi. I have no idea how I chose the program. I had no known interest or aptitude in the field. I did briefly enjoy the course(s) in which we got to draw circuit boards. However, by the end of the first week of the second quarter, I was out of there. Somehow my ex-boyfriend and I had ended up in the same class. My recollection is that after class that first week, I told him I was quitting, left, and never went back. This is how I ended up working at the car wash the second time.
3) Two years after graduation, I met a woman at the local gay bar, the Huddle (just off Gay Street, by the way). She got me to join the lesbian softball team, the Animals. That's a whole other story but the point in this context is that she and another woman I met on the team were college graduates. And through them, I met another college graduate. It was because of them, college-educated lesbian Feminists, that I finally felt inspired to go to college. I finally realized that college would be nothing like high school. (S.T.I.K. felt exactly like high school.) So in the fall of 1980, I enrolled at U.T. I declared no major. I took classes that interested me: music history and theory, philosophy of film, life drawing, class piano. And I started living in Ft. Sanders. I loved it all. That was a really good period of my life.
4) However, never one to let moss collect on me, over Thanksgiving of that year, Debbie and I drove up to NY/NJ, she to visit her mom and step-dad, me to visit my friend, Emily, at Sarah Lawrence College. It was a fateful trip. Several of Emily's friends had stayed on campus for the break and we all ended up hanging out together, eating, partying, and going into the city. They all welcomed me with open arms and recruited me. "Hey, you should come to Sarah Lawrence!" they said at the end of our four days together. "OK," I said. So when I got back to Knoxville, I proceeded to apply as a transfer student. I guess the combination of being from the South and my essay on women's music and Meg Christian won the admissions people over. I started in the fall of 1981.
5) The summer of 1982 was the last time I lived in Knoxville for a long time. I came back and lived with Kari and Flash again on Freemason. At least, I think that's where I lived. Anyway, it was that summer that I got a job working at the World's Fair souvenir warehouse. We were responsible for pricing souvenirs. I got real good at slapping price tags on with the pricing gun. We also had to assemble that year's craze, the dealy bobbers (a plastic headband with objects sticking up like ears on springs), as well as foam alligators that were at the end of a wire; people "walked' them around the fairgrounds. The iconic structure for the fair was the Sunsphere (the fair's theme was energy) so there were a million different Sunsphere souvenirs. One was a small metal replica, about five inches high. I clearly remember pricing it at the beginning of the fair for about $25 and laughing at the absurdity. I laughed even more when by the end of the fair it had been reduced to about $5. Even though I worked at the fair, for some reason I thought it was a ridiculous event so I only actually went on the fairgrounds one time and even then I really didn't do anything but walk around. I admit that I regret this now.
1) I worked at the same car wash in East Knoxville two different times. Huber's, owned by the Huber brothers, Jimmy and Louie, on Magnolia. The woman who ran the cash register was nicknamed Butch. She chain smoked and pretended to keep an eye on things. Working there was very much as the the movie "Carwash" portrayed. We partied on site as well as off. During the slow times, Lil and I would sit in her car and drink Canadian Mist mixed with Sprite. Sometimes we would slip around the side of the building and smoke a joint. I played my guitar and wrote in my journal and drew. When things were really slow, Jimmy and Louie would send us all home. Then a group of us would buy some beer and head out to one of the many rock quarries in the area and hang out there. I never swam. The car chassis and tires in the water were a deterrent.
2) I did not want to go to college. This is how I ended up working at the car wash the first time for pretty much the entire year after graduation. Mom, however, was very afraid I would turn out like Mac so at her insistence, I finally enrolled in some kind of engineering program at State Technical Institute at Knoxville (S.T.I.K.), now known as Pellissippi. I have no idea how I chose the program. I had no known interest or aptitude in the field. I did briefly enjoy the course(s) in which we got to draw circuit boards. However, by the end of the first week of the second quarter, I was out of there. Somehow my ex-boyfriend and I had ended up in the same class. My recollection is that after class that first week, I told him I was quitting, left, and never went back. This is how I ended up working at the car wash the second time.
3) Two years after graduation, I met a woman at the local gay bar, the Huddle (just off Gay Street, by the way). She got me to join the lesbian softball team, the Animals. That's a whole other story but the point in this context is that she and another woman I met on the team were college graduates. And through them, I met another college graduate. It was because of them, college-educated lesbian Feminists, that I finally felt inspired to go to college. I finally realized that college would be nothing like high school. (S.T.I.K. felt exactly like high school.) So in the fall of 1980, I enrolled at U.T. I declared no major. I took classes that interested me: music history and theory, philosophy of film, life drawing, class piano. And I started living in Ft. Sanders. I loved it all. That was a really good period of my life.
4) However, never one to let moss collect on me, over Thanksgiving of that year, Debbie and I drove up to NY/NJ, she to visit her mom and step-dad, me to visit my friend, Emily, at Sarah Lawrence College. It was a fateful trip. Several of Emily's friends had stayed on campus for the break and we all ended up hanging out together, eating, partying, and going into the city. They all welcomed me with open arms and recruited me. "Hey, you should come to Sarah Lawrence!" they said at the end of our four days together. "OK," I said. So when I got back to Knoxville, I proceeded to apply as a transfer student. I guess the combination of being from the South and my essay on women's music and Meg Christian won the admissions people over. I started in the fall of 1981.
5) The summer of 1982 was the last time I lived in Knoxville for a long time. I came back and lived with Kari and Flash again on Freemason. At least, I think that's where I lived. Anyway, it was that summer that I got a job working at the World's Fair souvenir warehouse. We were responsible for pricing souvenirs. I got real good at slapping price tags on with the pricing gun. We also had to assemble that year's craze, the dealy bobbers (a plastic headband with objects sticking up like ears on springs), as well as foam alligators that were at the end of a wire; people "walked' them around the fairgrounds. The iconic structure for the fair was the Sunsphere (the fair's theme was energy) so there were a million different Sunsphere souvenirs. One was a small metal replica, about five inches high. I clearly remember pricing it at the beginning of the fair for about $25 and laughing at the absurdity. I laughed even more when by the end of the fair it had been reduced to about $5. Even though I worked at the fair, for some reason I thought it was a ridiculous event so I only actually went on the fairgrounds one time and even then I really didn't do anything but walk around. I admit that I regret this now.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
The Joyce James Saga, Pt. 2
Soon after meeting, our "sisters in Christ" relationship evolved into a letter writing contest. This was Joyce's idea. The letters would be declarations of our love for each other. Proof. The anticipation of every exchange made me anxious. Would I have written enough? Would Joyce still love me?
I can remember making an exchange during one of the bonfires, in the dark, by the light of the fire. We were off by the parked cars, meeting after sharing furtive glances at one another during the meeting. We exchanged more than one each because we accumulated letters over the course of the days when we couldn't see each other. I distinctly remember one of her letters simply saying, "I love you," written in very large print. Even at the time I thought, "This is cheating," but I said nothing, not wanting to upset her. From the beginning, I understood that I couldn't upset her without risking a big scene.
I don't remember exactly how Joyce conveyed to me that taking her love away from me was an ever-present possibility if I upset her, but she did, and quite effectively. I spent much of the next 3 years tiptoeing around her volatile moods. Hot, cold, indifferent, needy, accusatory, indignant, grandiose, magnanimous.
Today I would quickly recognize that she had a personality disorder and was an alcoholic. And a pedophile. But then, I knew nothing. I was a kid.
At some point, we started talking on the phone. This was before the days of answering machines and call waiting and, like our letter writing contests, talking became another way of proving my love. We had to "talk" for hours. I put that in quotes because often our time on the phone consisted of me being on the phone while she partied with friends, went to the store, or put others on the line to talk to me while she flirted with someone. She was always threatening to be with someone who loved her more than I did.
Wow, I've never written that down before. Doing so makes me feel sick to my stomach. I'm going to have to stop now.
I can remember making an exchange during one of the bonfires, in the dark, by the light of the fire. We were off by the parked cars, meeting after sharing furtive glances at one another during the meeting. We exchanged more than one each because we accumulated letters over the course of the days when we couldn't see each other. I distinctly remember one of her letters simply saying, "I love you," written in very large print. Even at the time I thought, "This is cheating," but I said nothing, not wanting to upset her. From the beginning, I understood that I couldn't upset her without risking a big scene.
I don't remember exactly how Joyce conveyed to me that taking her love away from me was an ever-present possibility if I upset her, but she did, and quite effectively. I spent much of the next 3 years tiptoeing around her volatile moods. Hot, cold, indifferent, needy, accusatory, indignant, grandiose, magnanimous.
Today I would quickly recognize that she had a personality disorder and was an alcoholic. And a pedophile. But then, I knew nothing. I was a kid.
At some point, we started talking on the phone. This was before the days of answering machines and call waiting and, like our letter writing contests, talking became another way of proving my love. We had to "talk" for hours. I put that in quotes because often our time on the phone consisted of me being on the phone while she partied with friends, went to the store, or put others on the line to talk to me while she flirted with someone. She was always threatening to be with someone who loved her more than I did.
Wow, I've never written that down before. Doing so makes me feel sick to my stomach. I'm going to have to stop now.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
The Joyce James Saga, Pt. 1
That's right. Joyce James, not vice versa. But a saga, none-the-less.
I met Joyce at one of the Jesus People functions. I don't remember whether it was at the coffee house or one of the bonfires. I also don't remember anything about our first meeting, or how it evolved into what it did. In fact, when I stop and try and remember, it's hard to understand how any of it happened. It seems almost unreal, mythological. I also don't remember exactly how old I was, although I think it started the summer after I turned 12.
12. What an impossibly young age, certainly too young to be romantically involved with someone who had graduated from high school and had a baby. Certainly too young to have one single clue about what I was getting into and to understand that Joyce had no business messing with me.
Joyce was 19.
19, African American (this matters because of the time and place, 1972, Maryville, Tennessee, the South), living in Alcoa with her mom and her baby, and an alcoholic (although of course I didn't understand that at the time). She was funny, smart, athletic. And charismatic. However it started, when she showed an interest in me, I felt "chosen," and being chosen by someone was a very powerful drug given that I felt abandoned by my mother, unwanted by my brother, and my sister was largely absent from my life.
The coffee house was above The Love Shop. The Love Shop's previous incarnation was a head shop, owned by my best friend's brother. We used to hang out there and feel really cool. Incense, leather jewelry, beads, black lights, "Jesus sandals," and posters. I guess he must've had pipes and bongs and papers, too, but I don't really remember all that.
But then Johnny got busted and sent away to the work farm and his mother took over the shop and turned it into The Love Shop, a Christian bookstore. Needing to roll with the situation and wanting to still belong somewhere, Diane and I made the transition from budding hippies to Jesus People. This wasn't too difficult given that all the Jesus People were ex-hippies (meaning they no longer smoked pot, supposedly).
I wish I could remember the who and how of everything. I guess because the coffee house was part of The Love Shop, Mom and Daddy didn't worry about me going there. I guess it seemed like a safe place. The thing is, I don't remember Diane's mom every being there. I just remember sitting around on bean bags and cushions and old couches, listening to preaching and guitar playing and singing.
"And that hammer fell
on the wooden nail
through his hand into the cross
and they laughed at him"
I remember being in love with Mickey and being into Courtney (a boy-I plaited his hair one time while he, Diane, and I sat in The Love Shop). I remember Joyce being mad at me for being into Courtney, making fun of me, even though she and I were just "sisters in Christ."
That's how she sold our relationship to me at first. Our love was Christian love, therefore it was all OK.
Oh, it was so not all OK.
I met Joyce at one of the Jesus People functions. I don't remember whether it was at the coffee house or one of the bonfires. I also don't remember anything about our first meeting, or how it evolved into what it did. In fact, when I stop and try and remember, it's hard to understand how any of it happened. It seems almost unreal, mythological. I also don't remember exactly how old I was, although I think it started the summer after I turned 12.
12. What an impossibly young age, certainly too young to be romantically involved with someone who had graduated from high school and had a baby. Certainly too young to have one single clue about what I was getting into and to understand that Joyce had no business messing with me.
Joyce was 19.
19, African American (this matters because of the time and place, 1972, Maryville, Tennessee, the South), living in Alcoa with her mom and her baby, and an alcoholic (although of course I didn't understand that at the time). She was funny, smart, athletic. And charismatic. However it started, when she showed an interest in me, I felt "chosen," and being chosen by someone was a very powerful drug given that I felt abandoned by my mother, unwanted by my brother, and my sister was largely absent from my life.
The coffee house was above The Love Shop. The Love Shop's previous incarnation was a head shop, owned by my best friend's brother. We used to hang out there and feel really cool. Incense, leather jewelry, beads, black lights, "Jesus sandals," and posters. I guess he must've had pipes and bongs and papers, too, but I don't really remember all that.
But then Johnny got busted and sent away to the work farm and his mother took over the shop and turned it into The Love Shop, a Christian bookstore. Needing to roll with the situation and wanting to still belong somewhere, Diane and I made the transition from budding hippies to Jesus People. This wasn't too difficult given that all the Jesus People were ex-hippies (meaning they no longer smoked pot, supposedly).
I wish I could remember the who and how of everything. I guess because the coffee house was part of The Love Shop, Mom and Daddy didn't worry about me going there. I guess it seemed like a safe place. The thing is, I don't remember Diane's mom every being there. I just remember sitting around on bean bags and cushions and old couches, listening to preaching and guitar playing and singing.
"And that hammer fell
on the wooden nail
through his hand into the cross
and they laughed at him"
I remember being in love with Mickey and being into Courtney (a boy-I plaited his hair one time while he, Diane, and I sat in The Love Shop). I remember Joyce being mad at me for being into Courtney, making fun of me, even though she and I were just "sisters in Christ."
That's how she sold our relationship to me at first. Our love was Christian love, therefore it was all OK.
Oh, it was so not all OK.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Church
I went to my first Catholic mass yesterday morning. The Sisters of St. Francis church in Oldenburg, Indiana. I liked it. However, I suspect it was more like a Unitarian service than a traditional Catholic service, thus making it both accessible and pleasurable. I liked being surrounded by stained glass saints.
I grew up attending First Baptist Church of Maryville. I went to church nursery there (basically kindergarten at the church), which I loved. It was there that I was heading the day Mom snapped my favorite photo of me, wearing my Roy Rogers cowboy outfit and looking over my shoulder as if to say, "Yeah, I'm badass and I know it!" God bless my grandparents for getting that outfit for me from Sears! Of course, even though I tried to convince Mom that everyone was wearing their guns and holsters to church nursery, she didn't believe me so in the photo I am without them and, instead, am unfortunately carrying a flowered lunch box, tulips and a little Dutch girl. Bless her heart, Mom tried for many years to make me be a little girl. Easters were a disaster.
One of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Trentham, was killed in a car wreck when I was 3 or 4. I cried and said to Mom, "Why did she have to die? I wish it had only been a fatal accident!" She gently explained to me what fatal meant.
Mrs. Trentham was replaced by some woman who didn't get me and one rainy day, Micky and Ricky, the twins, and I were chasing each other around the room over some keys. I think one of them had brought a ring full of them from home and I wanted to see them. They were teasing me with them. I am a Taurus. They might as well have been waving a cape. So after them I went. And indignity of indignities, I got in trouble and had to have a time out. Let's just say, this did not endear that teacher to me. In fact, here I am over 45 years later, still feeling disgruntled and wronged. Did I mention that I am a Taurus?
I don't remember whether or not Mom, Daddy, Maggie, and I went to the actual church service on Sundays. I know we went to Sunday School before church and Training Union on Wednesday nights which, if you don't know, are basically bible study classes. And I know we went out to eat on Sundays after church, often to the Blue Circle or Shoney's Big Boy.
My memories of church are sketchy but here are a few: Eddie Seals stepping out from under the stairwell and punching me in the stomach for what I don't know. Flipping pencils during Training Union every time the teacher left the room. Memorizing the books of the Bible. Being Baptized in the tank behind the pulpit. (Thank goodness we didn't have to go over to Pistol Creek!) Having to wear dresses.
About wearing dresses. I put up with that as long as I could wear socks with my patent leather shoes, which was acceptable up until I was, oh, a teenager? At that point I was supposed to switch over to wearing hose. I was having none of it and it was at that point that I stopped going to church. However, lest you be worried about my soul, I soon started going to the Jesus People bonfires and coffee houses and began my short-lived life of "witnessing," which means asking strangers if they've accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior into their souls. Shocking, but true. I did that. I remember going on some sort of Christian retreat at Lake Junaluska and walking around with people, witnessing. I walked up to some poor man who was working in his yard, pamphlets in hand, and asked him that question. I think it's amazing he didn't run us off with a shotgun.
Anyway, I stopped going to church and Mom and Daddy didn't try to force me. Most likely this was more about saving their energy for dealing with Mac and less about really being OK with me not going but regardless, I didn't have to go. I do remember one time when Diane wanted me to spend the night on a Saturday, her mother bargaining with us: I could stay over if I went to church the next day. I do believe that was the last time I went to church until I went to the Unitarian church three years ago.
Long before the hose-wearing line-in-the-sand, I'd become acutely aware of the rampant hypocrisy evident in the differences in behavior in my school mates at school and in church. One boy in particular, Charles, was such a total jerk during the week, only to transform himself into Mr. Pious at church. Of course, he wasn't the only one nor was this glaring difference limited to kids. What I noticed the most was how mean many people were outside of church, only to transform themselves into "loving" Christians on Sundays. So, in truth, I think my rebellion against wearing hose was more about the underlying hypocrisy of being judged at church for what I wore.
I'll save the Jesus People story for another time because it leads into The Joyce Story, which was a long, dark period of my life, but suffice it to say, the real reasons I started going were: 1) they played guitars and sang at the coffee house, 2) they were a bunch of hippies, 3) Mickey (a young woman, not to be confused with one of the twins) went to the bonfires and coffee houses and the retreat and I was enamored, and 4) I actually felt like I belonged and could be myself. Powerful stuff at the age of 12.
I grew up attending First Baptist Church of Maryville. I went to church nursery there (basically kindergarten at the church), which I loved. It was there that I was heading the day Mom snapped my favorite photo of me, wearing my Roy Rogers cowboy outfit and looking over my shoulder as if to say, "Yeah, I'm badass and I know it!" God bless my grandparents for getting that outfit for me from Sears! Of course, even though I tried to convince Mom that everyone was wearing their guns and holsters to church nursery, she didn't believe me so in the photo I am without them and, instead, am unfortunately carrying a flowered lunch box, tulips and a little Dutch girl. Bless her heart, Mom tried for many years to make me be a little girl. Easters were a disaster.
One of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Trentham, was killed in a car wreck when I was 3 or 4. I cried and said to Mom, "Why did she have to die? I wish it had only been a fatal accident!" She gently explained to me what fatal meant.
Mrs. Trentham was replaced by some woman who didn't get me and one rainy day, Micky and Ricky, the twins, and I were chasing each other around the room over some keys. I think one of them had brought a ring full of them from home and I wanted to see them. They were teasing me with them. I am a Taurus. They might as well have been waving a cape. So after them I went. And indignity of indignities, I got in trouble and had to have a time out. Let's just say, this did not endear that teacher to me. In fact, here I am over 45 years later, still feeling disgruntled and wronged. Did I mention that I am a Taurus?
I don't remember whether or not Mom, Daddy, Maggie, and I went to the actual church service on Sundays. I know we went to Sunday School before church and Training Union on Wednesday nights which, if you don't know, are basically bible study classes. And I know we went out to eat on Sundays after church, often to the Blue Circle or Shoney's Big Boy.
My memories of church are sketchy but here are a few: Eddie Seals stepping out from under the stairwell and punching me in the stomach for what I don't know. Flipping pencils during Training Union every time the teacher left the room. Memorizing the books of the Bible. Being Baptized in the tank behind the pulpit. (Thank goodness we didn't have to go over to Pistol Creek!) Having to wear dresses.
About wearing dresses. I put up with that as long as I could wear socks with my patent leather shoes, which was acceptable up until I was, oh, a teenager? At that point I was supposed to switch over to wearing hose. I was having none of it and it was at that point that I stopped going to church. However, lest you be worried about my soul, I soon started going to the Jesus People bonfires and coffee houses and began my short-lived life of "witnessing," which means asking strangers if they've accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior into their souls. Shocking, but true. I did that. I remember going on some sort of Christian retreat at Lake Junaluska and walking around with people, witnessing. I walked up to some poor man who was working in his yard, pamphlets in hand, and asked him that question. I think it's amazing he didn't run us off with a shotgun.
Anyway, I stopped going to church and Mom and Daddy didn't try to force me. Most likely this was more about saving their energy for dealing with Mac and less about really being OK with me not going but regardless, I didn't have to go. I do remember one time when Diane wanted me to spend the night on a Saturday, her mother bargaining with us: I could stay over if I went to church the next day. I do believe that was the last time I went to church until I went to the Unitarian church three years ago.
Long before the hose-wearing line-in-the-sand, I'd become acutely aware of the rampant hypocrisy evident in the differences in behavior in my school mates at school and in church. One boy in particular, Charles, was such a total jerk during the week, only to transform himself into Mr. Pious at church. Of course, he wasn't the only one nor was this glaring difference limited to kids. What I noticed the most was how mean many people were outside of church, only to transform themselves into "loving" Christians on Sundays. So, in truth, I think my rebellion against wearing hose was more about the underlying hypocrisy of being judged at church for what I wore.
I'll save the Jesus People story for another time because it leads into The Joyce Story, which was a long, dark period of my life, but suffice it to say, the real reasons I started going were: 1) they played guitars and sang at the coffee house, 2) they were a bunch of hippies, 3) Mickey (a young woman, not to be confused with one of the twins) went to the bonfires and coffee houses and the retreat and I was enamored, and 4) I actually felt like I belonged and could be myself. Powerful stuff at the age of 12.
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