Have you ever watched a junkie try and train a puppy?
Sit sit sit sit. Sit. Sit sit sit sit sit sit. Sit. Sit sit sit sit sit sit sit. Sit.
I have. I have hidden the methadone. I have looked for the methadone after it has been rehidden.
The first week I lived in Lawrence, Kansas, the first house, this album played and played. The first night, the cops came, because of a noise issue. The first night I ever met Stacy. Daniel was already there. He stayed, lingered for a bit. I remember him grabbing an blue enamel pot of boiling water, the handle was metal, and he screamed, “HOT!” I still scream that, when I get burned, it doesn’t help.
Josh bought that album at Lovegarden, probably. It became a staple of the day everyday. It became a soundtrack. It recorded in my brain. Over and over.
A couple came and stayed in our driveway. For the short term. They had a van, some guy had picked them up hitchhiking and then he got arrested. The guy who had picked them up left the van with them, along with a cell phone and his gun. He must not have been very bright, that van got lots of dents that week.
I wore heavy boots so that I could make the weight limit to donate plasma. Twenty dollars richer with a lowered alcohol tolerance, sitting in the Replay Lounge, I would eat one of those waffle-iron cheeseburgers and drink whiskey sours. Kathy and I would sit on those stools and talk about how our thighs didn’t touch when we sat down.
That record spun that week, Allen danced the electric shuffle across the wooden floors. We shared a bedroom and it was like summer-camp for drunk punk rockers. We slept head-to-feet until I was tired of seeing his big toe. “Boom! Look at that big-ass motherfucking toe”, he screamed, as he waved that thing in my face. We debated whether or not to build a lean-to in the backyard.
Walking around Johnson County Community College, with tribal markings drawn all over our faces with Sharpie Marker. We were mostly drunk from the night before, and we scowled at all the rich kids as we smoked cigarettes and renamed them, based on what we thought they looked like. 9 am drives, reliving the night before, singing along to a Blu tape or some road comp, made the winter prior. (Vodka days)
After less than two weeks we got evicted. I guess I could think of depressing and sad things, and associate them with this, but I refuse. Here it is. This is where I am. That house was happy, with the groceries and the bubble-baths, and Alice Copper singing along.
“All of my life was a laugh and a joke, a drink and a smoke, and then I passed out on the floor, again and again and again.”
I am anxious to hear this album, 13 years from now. I wonder what I will remember about it spinning and spinning in the winter of 2008? It will probably never be as happy and careless as those days. It will never be as dirty, it will never be as confusing. It means different things now, it waxes and it wanes.
So, if you could only listen to one album the rest of your life, what would you play? Again and again and again and again?
It was one of those Midwest winters where the snow would just not go away. The streets of our 250 person town were lined with snow banks where the plows had pushed it to the sides. All four girls were scrunched together in Dad’s white Ford truck and we slowly cruised down the road at 5 mph headed to the babysitter’s house early one morning.
This was before the days of infant carseats and seatbelts. We sat in that old truck, and older sister each with one of the baby twins on our lap. I was seven years old, my sister was five and the twins were almost one. There was always a fight between us older sisters about who would get which seat. To be truthful, each seat was a bad spot. If you sat too close to the gear shift you risked your shins getting bruised up from Dad’s jerky gear shifting movements. And if you sat next to the door, you were bound to take too long shutting the door, and you would get yelled at to hurry up. Dad worked nights at a factory and he was probably fighting some exhaustion and insanity at this point.
So there we were driving along, and we turned a corner, and then in slow motion, one of those twin babies flew out to the truck and into a snow bank. The moment is sort of froze in my brain. The baby in her fluffy snow suit, just laying there in all of that snow, wondering what in the Hell just happened. There was a moment of silence and then my dad yells…
“GET THAT BABY AND GET BACK IN THE TRUCK!”
So we got that baby, and we got back in the truck and continued on our way to the babysitter’s house. I am not sure how clear my memory is, but I do think I remember Dad smirking a little. We were all careful not to mention the experience to Mom for quite some time. Years later, GET THAT BABY AND GET BACK IN THE TRUCK is still one of my favorite things to say…
Yesterday my mother graduated. She now has a doctoral degree.
My mom started Nursing School when I was seven years old. She also had a nine year old, a five year old and two twins girls, who were 6 months old. I am not sure how she did it, but I know that her degree changed our lives drastically. We went from a one income family to a two income family. When she graduated from Nursing school, the twins were almost three years old, and we gave them a box of Band-aids, so they would sit still in the cathedral for the ceremony. At the end, it looked like the had full length casts on their arms and legs. Later, we had the biggest party for her, at our house. We ran around and played with all of our cousins and friends. My brother and I thought it was really funny the next morning when my uncle was puking in the bushes.
Those days were hectic. My dad worked the night shift at a factory, and took over the dishes and the cooking. He helped her study and supported her the best he could. The only financial help my parents ever received was a Pell-Grant. I remember waking up in the morning, the five of us, sitting around a round table eating breakfast. My dad would set out five bowls, and five spoons. And then he would put his head down on the table and sleep, while we ate, and the little twins smashed their rice baby cereal into their hair. I remember that table well. There was no room in our kitchen for two high chairs, so they had these chairs that hooked on the table. They had to be balanced in those chairs, or the table would start to tilt. We really thought that was funny. On Thursday nights, we all showered and then piled on my parent’s bed to watch to Cosby show with my mom. Those are some of my best childhood memories.
My mom went on to get a Bachelor’s degree at a private university. She found herself having to take Physical Education classes, as a requirement. She took Volleyball, and had all 18 year old rich girls as fellow students. She studied and also worked night shifts, taking care of children in Pediatric ICU.
She always had a good sense of humor and laughed about it. We always knew how to laugh, as a family, and I think that got us through all the crazy times.
She then went on to get a Master’s Degree by working three twelve hour shifts a week at a hospital and going to school the other days. She got her Master’s degree in Nursing in only two years! I have a picture my dad took of her the minute she finished. She wrote up all that research on our very high tech, Epson computer.and there she was sitting on the carpet, surrounded by hundreds of papers and drinking a beer. She was so happy to be done. The Master’s Degree changed her career path and she has taught ever since.
And then she went on to receive a Doctorate. I have read portions of her research and it boggles my mind. I cannot imagine such tedious work. She conducted her own research which, alone took a year, and then compiled all of that information into a giant body of work. Eeeek. No thank you. She did this while working full-time, so it took her awhile, but she finished, and that is the important part.
And thanks to my mom, making the decision to go to school, all those years ago, with all those little kids! Thanks to her, she has 4 children with degrees. And my brother, who doesn’t have college degree himself, supported his own wife through college with two little kids of their own, and she graduated Valedictorian! The best thing about my mom, is she lets us all be a part of it. We were all part of it when she received her Associate’s Degree all those years ago, and we were all part of it yesterday. She is so humble about her accomplishments and she would not even answer me directly when I asked her if she would add Dr. to her title. I could not ask for a more positive example of a mother or Grandmother for her 6 grandchildren!
If you do not like Amanda Palmer, I imagine ALL of the reasons you have for that are all the exact same reasons I love her. She is so over-the-top, she is theater gone bad. I stood at the Metro in Chicago and waited for her to come out, only to watch Neil Gaimen saunter out on stage and read something he had wrote about her “death”. I don’t know how any other person could have the entire Chicago Metro stand there hushed, while Gaimen reads his words. The Danger Ensemble was hidden, walking through the crowd, until they reached center stage, where they pulled veiled Amanda Palmer up into the air.
To express to you, my fascination of Amanda Palmer, all I can say, is that for the entire show, I only had one drink. A whiskey sour, served up by a waitress who was walking through the crowd. If the waitress had not been walking around, I would have had nothing, because I was not taking my eyes off the stage. I do not remember being so frozen and attentive during a performance, but the entire production commands your attention. Honestly, it was the same feelings, I had eons ago when friend’s dad dropped us off at Motley Crue. It was the same idiotic slack-jawed feeling!
I think Mr Pungsnotded had it right, when he said that all of the people at the show thought they were going to get to go home with Amanda Palmer. He was right, I thought I was going to get to go home with Amanda Palmer. There is just this spirit that surrounds her, and everyone wants to be a part. And overall, everyone is a part of the spectacle, because without the adoration of the audience, the crazy dramatic lighting and performances of the Danger Ensemble would not work!
Really, the ironic lip-synching of her own song, Guitar Hero might be my favorite of the whole show. So absolutely perfect, how else would you sing such a song! I loved this show, it exceeded and what exactly what I would have expected. And to have been there, in Chicago, this year, after the election, I think I will remember it forever.
ummm, hello? Vince? This is probably not appropriate on 18 different levels!
You following me camera guy?
You say Camera Guy, we say house arrest!
You are going to spend twenty dollars a month on paper towels anyway!
Who ever, besides maybe Tiny Tim, spent twenty dollars a month on paper towels? Twenty dollars? On paper towels?
Olympic Divers, they use it as a towel!
If there is anything Vince knows about, it is Olympic Divers! Seriously, Vince hangs out with Olympic Divers! They have beers together every Friday, now that those divers are saving so much money on paper towels!!
It sells itself!
Umm, Vince, umm, NO! NO, IT DOESN’T SELL ITSELF!! If it sold it’s own damn self, we would not have to see your face on the television every other commercial!
This is my most favorite commercial, maybe of all time! Maybe I love this as much as that RONCO food dehydrater, that would pay for itself in Turkey Jerky! Oh, move over Ron Popeil, a coke dealer named Vince has taken your place. At first I wondered why this annoying Vince guy would be wearing a headset, during this commercial. And then I remembered, oh yeah, coke dealer. I am glad that our country has such effective work-release programs for inmates, otherwise, can you imagine the horror of the daily abuse Vince would have to take as a prison wife? A Sham-Wow wouldn’t even begin to clean that mess up!
You all remember Vince. He was the annoying guy we were all got nervous about, when he showed up at our house parties. He was the one that walked around giving out free lines of coke, and then convincing our drunk friends that an eight-ball was going to last all weekend. All smiles, Vince had plenty more cocaine where that came from! And if no one bought anything, you can be sure, Vince would steal all your CD’s and cell phones.
It was sad when Vince went to jail and no one cared. But Vince didn’t let that get him down. He devised a plan, while watching television in his cell. He was going to sell the next big thing! And lucky for us, coke dealers do not spend much time in jail, so bamm! Vince was out of jail, ready to sell these towels to us, for our houses, our boats, our cars, and our r.v.’s!
There are a few holes in Vince’s plan to take over the world! He, hopefully, has learned an important lesson. Never hire a crackhead to write your script! Oh, who am I kidding, Vince has learned nothing, from his time at the big house. You better believe, he is back out there trading sexual favors for crack! He is a salesman, afterall!
I have many imaginary best friends. But today it is cold and snowy out, so it has to be one of these dudes. The one named Kris Kristofferson. Kris Kristofferson with a K. He has cool friends, just look!
Somedays we prank call Tom Cruise. I personally, do not have Tom’s phone number. But Kris Kristofferson has him on speed dial! We put the phone on speaker phone, and when he answers, we yell, “Hey hey hey HEY HEY HEY TOM? HEY TOM! Guess WHAT?” and then he says, “What?” and we say,”Nothing!” and then we hang up on that fool! Somedays we call until Tom turns his ringer off. But the joke is on you, Tom! We have Katie’s phone number, too! And Suri’s! Oh, Tom, you short, short man! GUESS WHAT?
Nothing!
Later on after we make chocolate chip cookies, and Kris Kristofferson vacuums the house, we sit around and I ask him about his hippie ways. I ask him why he doesn’t ever play a flying v guitar. He says he just never thought of it before. He also admits to me that sometimes he hates Janis Joplin’s voice. I knew it!
Then when it gets all darkish and 5 o’clock winter-like, Kris and I open a fifth of Early Times. We look out at the quiet falling snow. “Kris Kristofferson?,” I ask. “Yeah?,” he replies. “Gary Busey was always a total wackadoo, right?,” I ask. “Yeah,” he says. “I knew it!” And then I ask him if he still has that shirt, from the above photo, and he doesn’t know. But he tells me if he does, that I can borrow it to wear to the Amanda Palmer show on Wednesday.
Kris Kristofferson is not sure if that would impress Amanda Palmer. Mostly because Kris Kristofferson doesn’t know who Amanda Palmer is. Yet. He is thinking about buying a flying v guitar. Usually by the time the Daily Show starts, Kris Kristofferson has to leave. I send him away with a plate of cookies and a painting and he says he will come back and visit on the next snowy day! Goodbye Kris Kristofferson, I never knew ya!
