Them Kids Is Alright, Part Three: Club Soda

These days, I find myself longing for the serenity of being miles away from everyone surrounded by rolling hills, trees and critters. I miss the quiet but most of all, I pine for simplicity. The city gets so complicated and messy. It's funny how things change as you get old. To me, the city is like a relationship I would form in my early 20s. Month one; thrills wrapped in a blanket of lust and mood altering substances. Month two; the dreaded exes and jealousy rear their heads in a fury of lust and mood altering substances. Month three; broken hearts and heads in a fog of lust and mood altering substances.

FIN

However, the anticipation of that first encounter, the first glance, touch, caress, kiss, what have you, would keep me going for far longer than what would be the life span of the relationship. More often than not, the preoccupation of my object of desire would be a hell of a better time than the relationship itself. Healthier, too.

When I was a kid, I would sit on the fence looking towards the northwest corner of our fields to the property line and pretend I could see the very tip tops of the sleek skyscrapers of Columbus Ohio. Granted, Columbus is no New York City, but it is Gotham compared to the six stoplights I hailed from. The only thing in the world I wanted, was to be in the epicenter of the city. I wanted to be where the pulse originated. I wanted to be where the action was and I wasn't even 10 years old.

By the time we had moved to the bourgeois mecca of Landen, twenty miles north of Cincinnati, I was ready to chew my leg in half to free it from the trap of being an adolescent stuck at home with people telling me what to do. Factor in that school sucked being surrounded by a bunch of rednecks, assholes and twats; I was itching to bust out of that hell hole but was lacking the means and number of years of my life ticker to succeed. People frown upon 13 year olds living on their own, so the only choice I had was to be patient. I had run away a handful of times, only to be caught or to puss out before getting too far. I liked having some money and a place free of bed bugs and body lice to crash. Some more hardened and road worthy may deem me a poseur and all I can say is "oh well", if having credibility means sacrificing my health and good smelling armpits, then call me Green Day.

In order to satiate my wanderlust, I was forced to settle for hanging out places I could either walk to or places my Mom would agree to drive me to. Nothing more than 15 minutes and she hated driving on the interstate. Living 20 miles outside of the city center, my options were extremely limited; amusement park, shopping center, shopping malls and the indoor skatepark/ teen dance club, Club Soda. American Heavy Metal Weekends, indeed.

It is not to difficult to be punk rock where ever you go, for there you are....punk as fuck. We were punk as fuck hanging out, smoking cigarettes, at the local Kroger. We were punk as fuck, hanging out, smoking cigarettes and huffing rush, before riding The Beast at Kings Island. We were punk as fuck, smoking cigarettes and hanging out in front of the Music Town at the mall, coveting their only copy of Penis Envy by Crass. Everywhere we went was punk as fuck and smoking cigarettes. Just writing this fills me with crushing shame at the lethal levels of bershon that was clogging my veins in my teens.

Some days, lady luck would totally tongue kiss us and we would end up spending our Friday nights at the mighty Club Soda. Club Soda was an oasis for skate boarders and freaks stranded in the suburbs. It was an indoor skate park equipped with ramps, and all of that stuff that skateboarders like. Skateboarders had a legitimate and productive reason to be there. At night, the staff would clear the floor and someone with a sideways haircut would set up their DJ station in order to spin the songs of the angst ridden and misunderstood; Teenagers. It was far less productive than skateboarding and we would sway our hips to the throaty howls of Peter Murphy and the forlorn prose of Morrissey, without trying to look like we were enjoying ourselves or burning one another with our cigarettes.

One of the most intriguing beings to a teenage girl caught in the throes of rebellion, is the skateboarder. Their hair, their skills, their indifference. To me and my hormone infested friends, the sound of skateboard wheels on the pavement sent our pheromones into maximum overdrive and a billow of estrogen and Love's Baby Soft would fog up our entire perimeter. The crushes were hard and the disappointments that would ensue were Earth shattering. However, I still remember the rush of adrenalin that would practically paralyze me when I would catch a glimpse of their Overkill t-shirt and their Skulls and Dagger deck. I would try to play as aloof as humanly possible, only to have my stare give me away. Not that it mattered, these dudes were used to it and they could have hardly given a fuck. They were there to skate. I was there to stalk while acting like I didn't care, either.

Ah, youth is wasted on the young!

Club Soda was as sporadic as it was coveted. Running a skatepark is a lucrative as running a pineapple farm in Alaska, so the hours were never reliable and eventually, the lack of funds shut it down. However, it was a truly bitchin place while it was open. A lot of great skaters made their way through there, which was completely amazing at the time. However, I will always remember it as a place of refuge for those who were certain they were cooler than everyone else, yet, were not old enough to have a drivers license to get them to the way cooler places.

Here is some G&S footage featuring Club Soda around 5:09..... this guy just oozes asshole.... be still my beating, 13 year old, heart.

Them Kids Is Alright, Part Two

Ray, this is 1987. Did you know a girl can be whatever she wants to be?

In 1987, my mother changed careers and embarked our single parent family on a move from the sleepy farm town of London, Ohio, 150 miles away to the new-fangled and unfamiliar suburban landscape of Cincinnati, Ohio. My brother, sister and myself were all born at the Madison County Hospital in London, Ohio; raised within the confines of cornfields of past familial generations, which accorded us a sense of comfort. Upon our arrival to the subdivision of Woodfield, in the Towne Properties monstrous development of Landen within Maineville, Ohio, we were fish out of water.


Landen, Ohio was a intricate web of new construction, lakes, ponds, bike trails, swimming pools and other recreational facilities. It looked more like a social experiment in suburban perfection, than an actual town. It was marketed as the perfect place to raise a family.. It was "safe"... meaning "white" and radically conventional. The neighbors did not greet diversity and adversity with open arms, and god forbid you didn't cut your grass in the careful, diagonal pattern that the Neighborhood Association encouraged.... You'd be better received by lighting a bag of crap on fire in the middle of your cul-de-sac!

My siblings and I embarked on a period of adjustment, which was not easy. Our new residence was completely different. When you live on 32 acres of land with woods, creeks, barns, animals, and a house with maid quarters that the kids are allowed to use as play quarters, you get used to a certain amount of unabashed freedom. It was pretty commonplace for us to walk around outside in just our underpants, as well as take off to the more secluded parts of our property for some alone time. We had gotten used to solitude, and it was nice. Moving into a home a quarter of the size of your farmhouse with neighbors 20 ft (!) away, was completely foreign. We never had to be quiet on the farm, as our closest neighbor was a half mile away. Being so close to our neighbors, who were for the most part, nosy assholes, kind of sucked.

The people of Landen were completely different than the people of London. Don't get me wrong, London had their fair share of assholes and mean girls. (I remember all of you, and I still think you all suck at life....and were ugly children, who more than likely grew up to be ugly adults.) However, the people of Landen were jaded. Jaded in a "I get everything I want and what I really want is to be better than you and I will apply any means necessary to achieve my goals." It was a sentiment held by both adults and children alike... Also, I had no idea what racism was until I moved to Landen. There were less than ten people of color in our entire school, not to mention a card carrying faction of kids whose parents were in the Ku Klux Klan. Keep it classy, y'all!

After a year of contorting our personalities into foreign shapes, my brother tired of trying and just stopped. I was soon to follow. We fell into a crowd of misfits and wanna-be miscreants. We began to shave parts of our hair off, wearing combat boats, listening to music that was never to be played on pop radio, but were lucky enough to live within the listening radius of WOXY, 97X.

It was a whole new world. It was a world of creativity and rebellion. One was free to be as weird as one wanted to be and it was liberating... Sure, in the confines of the classroom and high school halls, it was a different story of harassment, bullying and general meanness... However, when your opinion of the people who are making fun of you is as low as mine was for these mouth-breathing, hillbilly, sister-fucking, rednecks, you tend not to care.. You eat their hate like love and it only makes you stronger.

to be continued........
Next up: Club Soda, 97Xtra-Beats Teen Dances and the Mythical Land of Short Vine.

Them Kids Is Alright, Part One

This topic of this post has been at the forefront of my brain to write about for, I don't know, forever? Yet, when I try to convey my thoughts to words on the matter, I always come up empty handed. I still really don't know what to say about this part of my life. It was such a chaotic and confusing time, but the time of my life that I learned the most about living, friendships, and standing up for who you are and your beliefs.

I spent my adolescence and early adulthood deeply involved in the punkrock counterculture of Cincinnati. This is what makes me who I am today. I marvel at the complete inappropriateness of being 13 years old and sneaking into bars and clubs to see bands like Nirvana (before Nevermind, I thought they blew) Seven Seconds, Circle Jerks, GBH, Exploited, The Ramones (the list goes on and on, and yeah I'm name dropping, lick me) and I feel horribly for what I put my parents through.During these days, I also found myself in the midst of a heavy drug culture and culture of extreme violence. To be perfectly honest, it is quite an act of God that myself and many of my friends are alive to this day. Contrarily, many, and I mean MANY, of my friends are dead. At age 34, I have been to three times as many funerals, as I have weddings. It's very sad, however, a sobering reality of the counterculture.

Just as in the halls of every high school, the scene on Short Vine had several different cliques of misfits who had all found their way to this mile long street, trying to escape the doldrums and bigotry of their suburban homes and high schools. Some were runaways, some were old enough to live on their own, but many were just weekend warriors, myself included. There were the punk rock kids called Crayola Kids, known for their vibrantly dyed hair, who were also part of an older group of veteran punks and skins, known as the Family. Many members of the family were also formerly a part of a loose organization called SHARP, SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice. There were The Noble Savages, a mixed bag of beefy, martial arts enthusiasts. The Galley punks, named after the SubGalley, the dive bar they resided in to drink and shoot up heroin. The Brothers, which nobody knows if they were really brothers, but they were a bunch of train jumping travelers, who could be found in Cincinnati during the summer months. The 513 Forkburn Crew, which consisted of a bunch of Straightedge Hardcore kids from Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo, as well as the Queen City Bootboys, a group of skinheads who took no political stance and were basically in it to kick anyone and everyones' ass. The 513 and Bootboys were my friends. There were also a bunch of kids who floated between the few cliques, like walking, talking embodiments of Switzerland.

It was an exciting time, well, for a stupid teenager like myself.

I will never forget during the summer of 1990 after Fugazi played at Bogarts on Short Vine, the riot that all started over a stolen Mag-Lite, an alleged sugar-daddy who used his position as an AA counselor to create same sex affairs with young, desperate kids, as well as teenaged angst and bravado. As bodies swarmed the streets like a drove of irate bees, jaws were broken and a barrage of bar stools were hurled into on-coming traffic. Ian Mackaye, Fugazi/Minor Threat lead singer and Punk Rock Icon, emerged from Subway (the sandwich store), like a Phoenix rising from the chaotic ashes, to appeal to our sense of unity as societal black sheep and cease the senseless violence......then somebody nailed him with a bottle and shouted, "FUCK YOU IAN MACKAYE, YOU DON'T LIVE HERE!"

Good times.


This is the point where my thoughts and memories bog me down into a pit of reminiscent confusion. Next up: How I came to be such an asshole, juvenile delinquent.

Mike: Doing What Mike Did Best.

oxboard drain live at the buzz club jan' 97 from Cincinnati Local Music Scene vid on Vimeo.

I am a ball of nostalgia, wrapped in a blanket of tears, battered and fried.

Done Grown

We done got old! We're reproducing like a virus and dropping like flies!
Last summer, an old friend of mine was involved in a pretty serious car accident that totaled his truck, but apparently only bruised his elbow. A week after the accident, he suffered two massive strokes as a result of his carotid artery being severed by his shoulder belt.

He survived, but will never be the same.

Needless to say, this has been devastating to his fiancé and two very young daughters in a myriad of ways. Their father is incapacitated and a shell of the man he used to be. I say shell, because his soul and conscious are still there, but the ability to operate and control his body is gone. So he's essentially imprisoned. His fiancé now has to be a caretaker to three people in the family, two of which are completely dependent upon her; her infant and her fiancé. To say this is physically exhausting and overwhelming is the understatement of the century. Pile on top of that a bureaucratic system designed to hinder instead of help and social workers whose only advice is to drop the father of your children off at a VA hospital and forget about him.

AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!

His fiancé set up a CarePages profile for him, which she updated often. Many friends and myself were keeping abreast of their struggles and donating what we could, all the while feeling incredibly helpless about their dire situation. Our social group is comprised of artists, punks, do-gooders and liberals...... all of who are not known for their vast financial resources. It was frustrating to continually read about all of the heartbreaking obstacles this family was facing and really not being able to do a fucking thing about it.

One night while sipping some beers around a local bar, owned by some swell friends of mine, we discussed the heartbreaking situation our mutual friend was going through and the dissolution we were feeling with the systematic refusal to help them from the government and how life was unfair, and we wished we had money, and yadda yadda yadda.... When five facts dawned upon our thick, inebriated skulls:

We have friends in popular bands
We have friends who own bars
We have friends who own other types of businesses
We have big mouths, eyes for detail and good organizational skills
We all wanted to help in any way we could.


BENEFIT SHOW!

Duh, dumb-dumbs!

We created a benefit show and tagged it as a reunion of sorts. A reunion for all of the Cincinnati punk rockers, skinheads, rude boys and girls, and straightedge hardcore kids from the late 1980's and 90's, who all hung out on Short Vine Street. As we started to pull it together and raise awareness for the show, it became evident how much time had passed. I know in my rational mind that it has been over 20 years since I have seen some of these people, and the last time we saw each other, we were absurdly young. Much too young to be pulling the kind of shenanigans we were pulling at the time but so be it.

I started going through picture after picture from "back in the day" ( I really fucking hate that phrase, I need to find a new one... I am too lazy) and comparing them with recent shots.

Many thoughts were racing through my wee brain, but the ones that stood out the most were:

WE ARE FUCKING OLD. LIKE "MY PARENTS SUCK!" OLD.

MANY OF US ARE FUCKING DEAD. STONE, COLD, DEAD.

The picture album was eerily similar to an "in memoriam" album and it was quite depressing.

One of the side effects to the alternative, rock and roll lifestyle is early mortality and I have the pics to prove it, Internet. I really cannot believe how many people we have lost and how much we used to take life for granted. Cliche but true: Youth is wasted on the young.

Each and everyone of us who are still here and not imprisoned are fucking lucky ducks, because Xenu knows, I have done my fair share of life risking and crime committing, as many of you.

So come out to the show for Ben Stigar. We'll eat, we'll drink, we will sing, dance and ring in the new! HAIL ATLANTIS!



See you there. RIP Iron Mike.

Mortality Smack in the Face. Again.

I used to have a friend named Mike. Mike towered over many of us with his giant bald head, brilliant smile and congenial manner. He was a real sweet potato.

We were the 90s; playing in bands, being in the scene, putting regretful tattoos on our bodies, blazing trails and taking numbers. Mike played in a band called Oxboard Drain with some of his closest friends. They were metally, hard core fun.

We were all young, we all needed the money, but none of us had started to care quite yet. We were tripping on youth, rebellion and freedom from responsibilities (other than the $350 in rent we scrounged up monthly from wait service jobs).

Time marched on and little by little, we all started to grow up and out of touch. Degrees, jobs, babies, marriages, mortgages, lawyers, guns and money. I would run into Mike from time to time, bask in his fantastic bear hugs, then saunter on back to my life in my world, on the other side of town. Taking life for granted, the ironic juxtaposition of existence, thinking I would see him again real soon.

Sunday morning, Mike finished up his bar-tending shift, went home, and went to bed.

He would never wake up again.

Iron Mike was a son, brother, husband, father and friend. He was a really special person and last night I had to say goodbye to him without his signature, affectionate embrace. I looked around and saw how his absence was affecting the people that had come out in droves to say goodbye. We were all waiting for a bear hug we would never get again. We all cried.

Goodbye Mike.

Guesting

Check me out at Blue Velvet's Sorry For Partyin'.

Baby Used To Rock and Roll.

What the fuck happened to me? I used to rock. I was a quintessential "Rock Chick". I was adventurous, hot, fun, funny, drunk and slutty. I was reckless, I was fantastic. I would travel near and far for shows, whether I was with the band, or with my friends. No city was too far, money was never an issue because all that mattered was rock and roll. From the Vogue in Indianapolis, to The Magic Stick in Detroit, to Coney Island High or the Continental in St. Marks; I had been to all of them, several times for several shows with several friends, new, old and some to never see again.


For a period of three years, I gallivanted around the country, hopping from one tour bus to the next, going from show to show. I was always backstage partaking in the swag, food, free-beer and the finite adoration of the fellow I had decided to follow around the country for a week or two. It was really fun. I never became attached, diseased, or pregnant. I would leave venues on the arms of "rock stars" and for some reason people would ask me for my autograph, which I never understood.

I'm sure that many of you are shocked to read my candid words of my adventures as a very loose young woman, however you must realize that I was raised in an Episcopalian household of Swedish/ Anglican descent. Loose morals were not only permitted, they were encouraged.... Kind of like how Amish families give their teenaged children a chance to go out and live amongst the sinning English before they commit themselves back to the life of the plain, however, this is not encouraged as a way to learn right from wrong and to chose a Pius life, but as a way to hone your sex and drugs skills as to not become a sloppy lover in your later years.

I was young and I took advantage of my youth and freedom. Though it sounds as if I was working out some low-self esteem, daddy issue laden lack of self worth, it really wasn't. I was having a blast, honestly.

I don't know when I changed or if it was even a conscious decision, but it struck me that eleven years ago today after finishing my final exams, I received a call from the band dude of the month with whom I was infatuated with and was off to Columbus Ohio to tag along with him for awhile. It seems like it was just yesterday while simultaneously seeming like eons ago.

I have been thinking about my life so much lately and all of the choices I have made, the person who I was, who I am, and the woman I want to be. I feel that I am at a Crossroad. I am not a mother, nor do I desire to become one, so I have not had to experience that jolt of responsibility and instinct that kicks in with the birth of a child. What has happened is that I am about to get married, I need to quit smoking and my fiance's cholesterol is a little too high.

The writing is on the wall.... it is time to grow up.

It's been years since I have jumped on a tour bus or partaken in any of the shenanigans I was into ten years ago, however, I am still a party girl. I still go to shows, I can still hang until 4 in the morning, which is not uncommon for the crowd I hang out with. I still like to have fun and I like to get wild, but other than becoming a tad monotonous, it is also incredibly fucking exhausting.

Drinking too much makes me feel shit like in a whole new variety of ways! Once all I needed to do was to barf, brush my teeth, drink a McDonald's Coke and down some French Fries and I was good to go!

NOT ANYMORE.

A night of partying will most certainly ruin the next day for me. I don't need to barf anymore, mainly because my body lacks the energy to do so. What I can do is lay on the couch for 8 hours and slurp chicken broth. FUN! Get my laundry done? Nope, I'm going to lay here like a slob at 33 freaking years old and watch the Bridezilla marathon, because that isn't pathetic AT ALL. It's just gross.

I'm too old.

The Mr and I were also discussing the fact that we are both life long smokers. He has been smoking for 25 years and I have been smoking for 19 years. We have both been smokers longer than we were non-smokers, so this is more than a nasty habit and addiction; it's a way of life. I don't remember what is was like to not smoke. I am not even a heavy smoker, I am triggered by situations that make me want to smoke and to drink, for that matter. I have come to realize that my vices are a direct result of my social anxiety and insecurities.

I started smoking to fit in. Everyone does. Nobody picks up a cigarette and thinks, "YES! THIS is how I want to live my life!" That's ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is starting the habit because "That's what the cool kids do!" Yet, when have teenagers been known not to make ridiculous decisions with their lives? Exactly.

I started drinking to fit in as well. I admit that while I was a teenager, I did not gravitate towards drinking as easily as smoking. I guess I like to suck, *natch*. Not that I didn't drink in high school, I did. But, by Junior year, I was in love with my first boyfriend and the thought of the two of us sitting around getting drunk, really didn't appeal to me. I went through many "Drinking is stupid" phases until I turned 21 and discovered the wonderful world known as "the bar."

Drinking not only got me a crowd, but it also made me relax, which was great for a person as high fucking strung as myself.

As with anything in life, it's just time to move on. You can't keep behaving in the same manner and expect anything to change... Ever. I not only want to live a healthier life, I am just bored with it all. I'm beginning to find it rather tacky and gauche to be whooping it up with the 24 year olds every weekend. I'm older than they are! I'm not old in any sense of the word, but keeping the same social habits for over ten years is BORING.

It's also depressing, (*warning:Schizophrenic posting ahead*) because though I am not "old", I am too old for this behavior. When I am hanging around a bunch of 24 year olds; acting like a 24 year old, though it may appear that I am having fun, it is actually reminding me that I am 33 years old and most people my age are spending their time more constructively....... and that maybe, JUST MAYBE.... I need to act my fucking age. Which isn't old..... but it does have things like debt, mortgages, and 8:00am staff meetings.

So, in short, partaking in the Shenanigans of the young; makes me feel fucking ancient.

I'm not admitting to some drinking problem here nor am I quitting my wine. I can't quit wine. I'm like Jesus, I love wine. I am quitting smoking, (which funnily enough, makes your hangovers eleventybillion times worse than alcohol alone) and I am also quitting the all night dance parties forever..........Maybe.......... Maybe not forever.......Maybe like once every few months? Only on birthdays?

Whatever... But the smoking is done. DONE I SAY!

Baby's going to have to learn to rock and roll in a new way.

The Great Experiment: Farm Teeth

Being raised on a farm, I was outfitted with balls of steel. Situations that would make your average city dweller cringe, vomit, or breakdown crying with compassion, I found common. Castrating pigs, gutting cows, or hurling petrified cow turds at my brother, were just everyday happenings on the farm.

Our farm was infested with groundhogs. Groundhog holes are dangerous for livestock because they can fall into the holes, breaking their legs, ultimately killing them. Livestock are incredibly expensive commodities, therefore damage control is imperative to prevent these situations.

The groundhog, though known livestock nuisance, are also vicious assholes, known to chase children down in attempts to maul them to death.Dastardly creatures; cute, but evil. Luckily for my siblings and I, our beloved companion, Beauregard J PuppyDog, was our defender and ground hog assassin, who saved us from numerous groundhog attacks. Beau was a badass killer who left a fair share of slain groundhog carcasses on our front porch to admire. Unfortunately, we had a couple of other dogs and cats that perished at the fangs of the dreaded groundhog. One puppy, our beloved Bouncer, suffered his jaw being ripped off by one of these nefarious creatures during a scuffle, and had to be put down.

Every spring, the farmhands would drive the fence around our pasture with long-range rifles and cases of beer. They would sit there for hours looking through the scopes on their rifles, waiting for a groundhog to pop up and then shoot it. It was a fantastically exciting event on our farm, and I LOVED hanging around them during this time. The beer, the cussing! It was magical. I also successfully executed my first revenge on another living being during that time. I shot a groundhog, and did it feel so good! Roy, the farm hand, gently placed his rifle on my shoulder, instructing me where to look and guiding my little fingers to the trigger. I gazed through the finder and saw the tiny, fuzzy image of a groundhog. I steadied, and then pulled the trigger, watching the once erect figure, slump to the ground. I was eight and it was glorious.

The day I shot that damn ground hog, I did it for Bouncer, man.

One day, my sister and I were walking through the pastures, looking for some cows to bully and we found a rotting ground hog carcass. After inspecting it thoroughly, WITH OUR BARE HANDS, we yanked its jaw out, then started unhinging its teeth to fashion a necklace in honor of Bouncer. I don’t recall ever seeing anything similar to this done in a movie, so I believe it's proof that savagery and revenge are inherent human emotions.

We collected our treasure and headed inside to have dinner. My mother was aghast when she noticed why my sister and I were requesting a needle and thread; subsequently making us throw away our bounty of revenge.

We had fried chicken for dinner that night. I can’t remember if I washed my hands.

IF you liked what you read, please vote for this blog entry @ http://www.thegirlwho.net/

Thanks!

TRIBE CRYSTAL HUFF

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” John Quincy Adams.


The 1980's were a decade that defied reason. The culture, the music, fueled by the contradicting excess/abstinence perpetrated by the Reagan Administration; was a place in time where it was perfectly acceptable to snort a few lines before delivering inspirational speeches at "Just Say No" rallies under the approving eyes of a clueless Nancy Reagan.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

The children of the eighties are coming of age and the crows feet are beginning to cackle. As the invitations to the 20 year reunions start to dry up in the wake of the blossoming 25 year reunions, their offspring bust out the old high school year books to see what mom and dad looked like in the "olden days"..... The first thing to catch the eye? The hair, oh sweet Mother of Mercy, the fucking ginormosity of the hair.This was an era funded by Aqua Net, where the romanticism of the hunky Man's Man was replaced by men in drag, wearing Italian suits colored like Easter Eggs. The hair of the eighties overshadowed any kind of foreign policy gaffe, political scandal, celebrity death, etc. Who the fuck cares who shot JR, did you see how high Sue Ellen's bangs were? Iran-Contra wha? Is that Ricki Rocket in a boys name? Or Ricki Rockett in a girl's name?

As the eighties wound up and the nineties began, Seattle started to brew the thunderstorm of grunge that would wash away the broken spirits of bankrupted drug addicts that were searching to find the tranquility that would replace the emptiness that their repossessed yellow Lamborghini and foreclosed beachfront condo left in their souls. The party was over and it was time to read poetry in the coffeehouse.

Only a select few of the ever-faithful followers of hair metal remained, as those more fickle minded shampooed out their teased tresses in favor of a more "now" appearance. Once the many, were now the few and they stuck out like a sore thumb. In any given town, especially in New Jersey, Kentucky and Southern Ohio, you would be able to find those steadfast in the their love for Kip Winger and Dingo boots, traveling in caravans of Monte Carlos and Camaros, to roadside bars to catch a Ratt tribute band.

In my Junior High School, we had our own tribe of Hair Metal Disciples roaming the halls. Our school was fairly divided as the majority of students either lived in a cluster of brand new, middle to upper middle class subdivisions; or they lived in a smaller, older, middle to lower-middle class, to downright impoverished, town that consisted of persons of Appalachian descent. The school district had separate elementary schools for the suburban kids and small town kids, yet made the genius decision to combine the schools into one junior high in the sixth grade.... Because pre-teens are known to function with high levels of tolerance and understanding for one another. Needless to say, junior high was a little tense.

The Tribe of Disciples seemed to all hail from the little Appalachian town, which combined with their fashion choices, kind of made life a tad hellish for them. My gang of stuck up, white bitches with weekly allowances to the Gap were unrelentingly bitchy towards the Disciples and the Disciples in turn, took great joy in beating the shit out of us. Those girls were fierce, there was no denying that.

As time traveled on for me, I replaced my Guess jeans with camo-pants, and my permed hair for shaved hair dyed with Manic Panic. My fashion choices exiled me to a status lower than that of the Disciples, but I really didn't seem to care. I found camaraderie with many of these young women and new found respect for someone willing to sit all day in a non-air conditioned classroom wearing Lycra, zebra-stripped pants and a ten pound hair-do.

As it usually does, time slipped away and the once awkward fashion rejects of Kings Junior High, grew up and moved on. The 90's turned into the new millennium, the Towers went down, and the Gulf War warped into Operation Iraqi Freedom. As the beat marched on, the notion that much money could be made from nostalgia started to surface. Metal Heads were soccer moms and Bret Michaels needed a nest egg to fund his European hair extensions. What once was a decade of songs, stories and life, has now made the strange transmutation from time to commodity, not unlike the decades that preceded it.

Now teenagers and twenty-somethings rock those Lycra, zebra print pants without even a hint of irony while they jam out to Cameo, much like how I rocked bell bottoms and kicked my heels out to Kung-Fu Fighting in 1995. Bands are reuniting and labeling their tours as the "Second Chance Concert Series" and marketing to the parents of today who were either grounded, or broke, the first time that tour came to town. Acts from Pat Benatar and Debbie Harry to Poison and Def Leopard are strapping on their youthful spandex, applying spray tans, and bleaching their teeth before hitting the road to relive the glory days with their graying, adoring fans. Steven Tyler was even hospitalized last week for taking a tumble off the stage, which would not be too out of the ordinary if weren't for the fact he was stone cold sober and the reason for the fall was because his hip went out.

People who had experienced the eighties firsthand now bask in the joy of what they loved being socially relevant again. In 2002, mother's were dragged onto talk shows, ostracized, and made over into Jenn Anniston look-a-likes for dressing like this:



This picture was taken a week ago.

Now these women have the social acceptance to break out their Limited Express fold over, frosted, denim, mini-skirts and banana hair clips! I envision The Disciples breaking out the old year books with pride replacing dread, and bragging about how cool they used to dress. The Eighties are fucking back man.

Which leads me to the inspiration for this post, my muse.

A few weeks ago, my town embraced the come back of the ever mighty, Hepatitis-ridden rockers, Motley Crue, hosting "Crue-Fest" at the local, outdoor arena. The energy in the air was palpable by 12:00 pm as mini-vans invaded the parking lots of nearby sports bars, their passengers donning denim mini skirts and half shirts, as they stood up straight trying to camouflauge the tell tale tummy of a recent, or not so recent, pregnancy. Lips that had denied themselves the sweet sensations of Southern Comfort for the past decade, in favor of something more socially acceptable for mothers, like Chardonay or Crystal Light, were reunited with the sweet elixir of their youths, and did it feel so good. So good. So good, that the alcoholic beverage became a catalyst for time travel. No longer were Breighdon, Kaileigh and Teegan waiting at home with a sitter for Mom in 2009; Tommy, Vince, and Nikki were primed for a lap dance at the after hours shin dig in 1985! The women had gone wild and chaos ensued.

In tabloid fashion, the buzz of chaos perked the media's ears and the headlines of the morning papers declared:

THREE WILD WOMEN ARRESTED AT RIVERBEND

Hamilton County Sheriff's deputies arrested three woman Friday night during the Crue Fest 2 concert at Riverbend in three separate instances for crimes ranging from obstructing official business to assault.

The first arrest happened at 6 p.m. when a woman from Hamilton allegedly refused to leave. According to court records, it took several officers to remove 31-year-old Jessica Bryant from the concert. She told police she only consumed one pint of Captain Morgan. She is charged with disorderly conduct while intoxicated.

Deputies arrested a second woman around 11:30 p.m. after she allegedly wouldn’t leave. Police say the woman was arrested but then got out of her handcuffs and tried to run from police. Deputies say she refused to give police her name, address, or date of birth. After arriving at the justice center, she claimed her name was Crystal Huff, guessed her date of birth, and she said she lived at the Drop Inn Center.

The third woman was arrested for assault just before Midnight. 40-year-old Barbara Evans from Centerville was allegedly thrown out of Riverbend because of her behavior, then punched a female employee in the right side of her face.

With headlines like this, who needs the weather?

Crystal Huff, here's to you bitch. Let's fucking party like it is 1985.

Don't You Forget About Me.

Today is a very sad day for me. Almost every memory I have of my childhood/adolescence contains a John Hughes movie.

When my parents began their separation on the first day my dad began treatment for addiction, my mom bought us the ever coveted, yet never consumed (UNTIL THAT DAY), Swanson's TV dinners and rented 16 Candles for us that evening to cheer us up.

After my dad had moved out of the family home and into an apartment, the first time we spent the night, he ordered pizza delivery and we watched Weird Science, to cheer us up.

When I was in the fourth grade and all of the popular girls were ostracizing me, and picking on me for being different, I watched Pretty in Pink. Then, I didn't feel so alone, odd, or desperate.

When I was in the seventh grade, my brother was getting picked on by bigger, richer, guys in high school. One night, we watched Some Kind of Wonderful and felt inspired to stand up to our bullies.


I have seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off over 300 times and I can quote it, verbatim.... I would be lying if i said it didn't teach me the fine art of faking sick to play hookey, techniques I still use to this day.

The Breakfast Club never taught me about me looking past the roles people play in high school society, but it did teach me that Judd Nelson was a fucking hottie. It also taught me that Ally Sheedy looks better as the "freaky girl" than she did as a "preppy girl".

I know that many critics of Mr. Hughes thought movies about over privileged white kids in Shermer Illinois, were vapid, but they're wrong. These movies, though on the surface, seemed shallow, really shaped an entire generation of people, and that is nothing to shake a stick at.

Also, this gal is my hero.

Self Importance..........i.e..................... Suck it, David Crosby

If I have to suffer through another "flower child's" self important diatribe one more time, I may become Amish just to avoid popular media. Seriously, there is no generation more stuck on themselves than the Baby Boomers. We get, you had sex before marriage and smoked a ton of weed, good for you, now SHUT IT.

I understand that the sixties were groundbreaking in knocking down rigid social structures, facing the evils of inequality head on, and realizing that there are choices in life. As a woman and a daughter of that generation, I DIG IT. However, in looking back at history long past and recent, there is no other generation so stuck on pontificating about their extreme awesomeness more than the children of the sixties.

God bless Tom Brokaw for taking the zeal out of their swagger and focusing for a time on our grandparents. There is a lot to be said about the children of the Great Depression and WWII. Then was a time that all the United States possessed was a dream and the follow through to obtain that dream. We were not a super power, but by inspiration, collaboration, and a common philosophy, our grandparents worked together to dig this country out of the worst rut it had ever faced. All the while still nursing those wounds, we banded together with the rest of the world to fight and defeat one of the greatest evils this world had ever seen.

Not only did they accomplish this, they steered clear of Time Life specials reminiscing about how AWESOME they were. They just wanted to dance during those informercials, and I can totally get behind that.

I do have to admit, I can kind of see where this need to express to the world how your generations part in history, was by far, the most profound time to exist. I know that I look at people who are younger than I am, and I shake my head while muttering "back in my day"while completely discounting their experiences for five minutes, until I finally get a grip back. I grew up in the eighties and the nineties, too young for Gen X, but too old for Gen Y. I remember Adam Walsh, and the hysteria that ensued from that awful tragedy.... Getting finger-printed, making an ID card in kindergarten, and working with my parents to come up with a "fool proof", safe word.

I remember when my parent's good friend died suddenly from a very severe and unmanageable pneumonia, later finding out that this was a disease that was going to and continue to kill many of the world's population. Because of AIDS, I knew what a condom was by second grade, which may or may not be appropriate. We chanted "Just Say No!" while marching behind Nancy Reagan and a stoned Drew Barrymore. We challenged authority after being inspired by Henry Rollins and "fought the power" while being directed by Chuck D .

It was a groundbreaking time, in a long line of groundbreaking times throughout human history. That's the crux of this post; humans are amazing... amazingly inventive, destructive, strong, cruel and kind... Human history is ever-changing and to single out one generation as being more important than another is purely self serving..... So, all of you people who burned out on the Haight-Ashbury, just SHUT IT.

That means you too, Peter Fonda.

For Jay

A gift in light of the fact the band is NOT getting back together.

The 1990's.

I grew up in the 90's . Yeah, I remember the 1980's, I was born in 1976. However, the 1990's were my coming of age, and I honestly thought they would never end. In fact, going into the new millennium, I never thought about what year it "was", but that 2000 was one year after 1999 and 1995 was only five years beforehand.

Needless to say the fact that 1995 was 14 years ago is not only shocking, but unsettling.

*sits down, pulls on Mr. Rogers-esque V-neck cardigan*

The 90's changed everything. It was the beginning of reality TV, blatant drug use was poeticized in pop songs, gay people were allowed to be GAY, and we were all tattooing and piercing ourselves like voodoo dolls...... So, not much has changed.

I am having a hard time getting older, because I still feel the same. Whenever I hear Tribe Called Quest or Archers of Loaf, it feels like brand new.

So to sit here and watch VH1 do a "Best of the 90's" show, I not only feel in my element, I feel incredibly out of place......

What a drag it is getting old.

Bikini Clad and Blowing Up.

1987 was a year of transition for me. I was only eleven years old, entering junior high school in a new town, a hundred miles away from my hometown. My home town was a tiny, corn-producing, fly speck on the map of mid-western, central Ohio.With a meager population of seven thousand people, my ancestors had helped to settle this town and I was born there.

It was all I had ever known.

That summer, my mother packed us into her brand new, "professional" sedan, ("bye bye station wagon"), drove us two hours to our new, three bedroom, ranch style home in a planned neighborhood subdivision, 20 miles outside of the city of Cincinnati. Our rolling 52 acre farm, complete with woods, barns, and a creek, was replaced with Legoland-like blocks of chem-lawn greenery, aluminum sided, brick fronted kit built homes, bike trails, swimming pools and major assholes.

My siblings and I were in complete culture shock. Our friends were replaced with children of our age who were sent to us on arranged, tense, missions that our parents had set up to help the "new kids" adjust to the jungles of suburbia. They didn't like us, but they liked being grounded less, so they were nice to us out of fear of their parents hearing that they were mean to the new kids.

It really fucking sucked. Suburbia breeds wankers. Hence, you will never find the adult me living anywhere near areas with established neighborhood associations whose main mission in life are to squelch any sense of style, or person that would naturally object the inherent nature of a neighborhood association. Seriously, fuck a bunch of people who are going to piss their pants over what color I choose for the plastic shingles that adorn my plastic house.

After a summer of adjusting to our new surroundings, one in which I spent mostly bed ridden, due to a fall in a shower and the impending broken tail bone. Good times. We started school. Boy.....Wankers in your subdivision are bad enough, but when you take all of those wankers and join them with the hundreds of other wankers from the other subdivisions, an astronomical amount of wankerness happens.

It's true.

In 1987, Landen,(TM) Ohio taught me about materialism, racism, false superiority complexes, smoke and mirrors, close mindedness, fear, and three-way calling saboteurs. It was a pretty educational year and I could not wait to get out of that cesspool of minivans and chemically treated grass.

Luckily, 1988 had a surprise in store for me.

My siblings and I started to balance the motion of the ocean and adjust to the mores of the suburban tribe that we were now a part of. Or, at least we tried. I have to say I had an easier time than they did bending myself into aberrant shapes, changing my personality and ideas, so I could swim instead of sink into the muck with the rest of the social rejects. Good lord, you didn't want to find yourself in the cast-away, run off of suburban, junior high school, social barbarism...... You might as well just move.

As I tried my best to "fit in", by way of ill advised cheerleading stints, home perms, perfume and excessive makeup; my brother had started trying his best to "not fit in". He started smoking ciggarettes with a new brand of miscreants, some of which the sacred Landen of milk and honey, had never seen before. A group of kids who had sideways hair, rode skateboards, and wore t-shirts with names I had never seen before. What is a Sex Pistol and can it kill a person? What does Fugazi mean? Are all of the Kennedys Dead? I think I like those Bikini Girls With Machine Guns..... I think I want to be one..........

These people purposefully flung themselves into the "muck of loserdom and outcasts" and relished in their status as "social reject"..... They celebrated it.

They were amazing.

Needless to say, I was inspired. I was done trying to fit in with a group of people, whom I knew at the ripe age of 11, I had nothing in common with, and I really didn't even like. I began to feel a thrill that I had not felt since the last time I ran through a cow pasture after a thunderstorm.

Freedom.

And so it began. And I never looked back.

Lux Interior died yesterday.



The first time I ever laid eyes on Lux and Poison Ivy was during a sixth grade babysitting shift. We didn't have cable at home, and being farm transplants, we had never had cable, so we really didn't know what we were missing. When I would babysit, it was like living in this separate world, one where 10 pm bedtimes, were replaced with HBO and USA late night. It was wonderful.

I don't recall what channel I was watching when I witnessed for the very first time, a man in leopard bikini panties, but I remember the bruise I had after my jaw hit the floor.

That incident would be about 15 months before I would purchase my first Cramps record, or try to duplicate Poison Ivy's makeup on my own face, (I think it took that long for my 11 year old brain to process what I had just witnessed). I remember going in my room, tearing the plastic covering off of Psychedelic Jungle, and falling onto my bed in a cloud of bliss as the sound of Goo Goo Muck started bouncing off of my powder pink walls.

I began to feel that familiar tingle of inspiration deep down and I could almost smell the saturated grass of the summer thunderstorm....It was the tingle and excitement of freedom, and Lux Interior was totally giving it to me.......... and it was awesome. It was sexy, it was dirty, it was scary and it was a fucking thrill.

This would mark the beginning of a life long love affair with The Cramps.

I would see them perform a handful of times, each time different, yet they definitely had a formula. The substance of their art was coarse sexuality and nitty gritty Rock and Roll. Though they were labeled as "Psychobilly", I would argue that there wasn't a damn thing "billy" about them...... They were Rock and Roll incarnate and they made predecessors like the Stones and the Beatles look like little "Nancy Boys" who needed to go back and hide under their mother's skirts.

They were great.

Watching them live was amazing. It's always invigorating to watch a sinewy sex machine, nakedly hump the stage as he crooned to his disciples, whilst his dominatrix wife wailed on the geetar.

Needless to say, I am sad today.


But I am so happy to have lived in a world that once held the creative force and genius that was Lux Interior.... and I am ever so thankful that Lux Interior (and others like him) happened to me, ear fucking me with musical inspiration, freedom, possibility, and raunch.... My life would have been a hell of lot more boring without him.



RIP Lux..... I will miss you.

Sha Na Na Na Nostalgia

All of the "self examining", "facing my own mortality", shenanigans I have been putting myself through lately, have been bringing a lot of memories back to the surface of my brain. As I age, my internal RAM becomes so vast and complex, memories that I haven't thought of since the day they happened can pop up out of nowhere and catch me off guard. One smell, a tiny sound bite, a certain angle of light hitting leaves, can cause a rush of memories to flood back and overwhelm me.

I was driving up Clifton Ave on the way to University of Cincinnati the other day, when I heard three guitar chords (I am no musician, so I have no idea if they were "G" or "E", or what have you), from a Social Distortion song, that propelled me back into the fall of 1987. This, in turn, brought back that awful, awkward feeling I used to have, ALL OF THE TIME. (Who am I kidding? I still wear that awkward feeling today, like a Scarlett Letter.)

My friend John is famous for stating that he is so thankful that Al Gore had not invented the internet yet when he was young, and I cannot agree more. Had I access to a digital camera and the world wide web in the seventh grade, society would have been inundated with images of really bad Siouxsie Sioux eye makeup, egg white hair-dos, and a dosage of bershon so lethal, it could kill small animals.

I won't even let my mind wander to the unbearable embarassment a public record like that would lead to in my adult life.... I know of a few people who possess certain photos of me and I still fantasize about breaking into their homes and destroying any evidence linking me to white powder make-up, Robert Smith hair-don'ts and teenage depression.

Although the cringe factor is pretty incredible when I think of the hijinks my two best friends C and K, and I would get into; I still get this warm feeling (not in my pants) around my cold, cold heart, when I think about those days.... Man, we were tragic melvins, and we had no IDEA. In our minds, we were the coolest. One day, we're at cheer leading practice, talking about Tretorns and Colors by Benneton; the next thing you know, we rented Dogs In Space,we're smoking cigarettes, we hate our parents, and all of our clothes have been ravaged by scissors and markers with "NO FUTURE" scribbled all over them.

Voila! PUNK ROCK!

But then again, isn't that what being a teenager is all about?

You are supposed to be misunderstood, moody, hungry and ugly. You are supposed to know everything despite the fact that your brain is not even fully formed yet. You are supposed to have no fear, strong principles and morals that are in total contrast to what your parents believe..... You are supposed to be forming the foundation for the person you are going to become...

And that is what we were doing.

Though, we were pretty bad sometimes and experimented with a lot of drugs.... We had our fair share of violent interactions with people, and, ashamedly, with our parents... It was not without purpose... We didn't like the people around us who marched to beat of the Suburban values drummer. We felt a strong need to express ourselves through art, music, clothing, and politics. We needed to stand up for what we thought was right.... We needed to stand up for ourselves and our rights to be who we wanted to be without being hassled by people who found that determination to be too scary and uncomfortable. We needed, and would stop at nothing, to become strong adults.

I'm not saying that kids who didn't do what we did are weak, or less or anything to that ilk. I am just recognizing that it was necessary for me and the people I hung out with to take the paths we chose. I think about that 12 year old girl spray painting "ANTI-RACIST ACTION" on the wall behind Krogers, and I just want to hug her.... She was a good kid and I need to remember her and her strength to stand up for what she believed in and the strength she had to stand up to those who tried to put her down........

That girl was pretty awesome.....I miss her.

Will They Reminisce Over You?

Being employed by a company who excels at micro managing, every day is rigorously scheduled. You may unchain yourself from your desk at 10:15 to piss and smoke and by 10:12, my co-workers and I get quite antsy, anticipating the fifteen minutes of freedom so close on the horizon. I imagine myself as Andy Dufrane, queerly giddy, watching my comrades drink beer in the warm, spring sun, as we make our way to the corporate patio, feeling, if just for a few minutes, free.

This morning during our break, oddly, there were a group of young boys, (around 8 or 9 years of age) crowded on the shores of the office park pond, hurling rocks onto the weak, thin, cover of ice. We struck up a conversation about why those boys were doing that? Is that fun? I thought about the kids in my life and how Young Son will sit out in the woods in our back yard and slap a tree stump with a stick for hours on end, so yes, I can see how tossing rocks onto thin ice for hours at a time can be amusing.

This got me reminiscing my own childhood, growing up in the country and the weird shit we used to do. We lived on about 50 acres of farmland which consisted of pastures, woods and about a dozen dilapidated barns. My parents were not farmers, but we did lease the land out to a cattle rancher in town who had exceeded his own land, so there was plenty of livestock to chase and harass. Mr. Murray (the rancher) was really nice. Thanks to himself and his farm hands, I learned how to cuss like a pro, as well as dip by age seven.

My brother and sister and I are very lucky people. Not only because growing up on the farm kind of rules the school for little kids, not to mention the added bonus that we were NOT farmers, so there were no ass busting chores we had to embark on at day break, but, because we are alive today. There were so many “games” we played that could have killed us. The only casualties to ever happen were some broken arms and a few stitches here and there.

We had a hay stack (can I get a HELL YEAH!?), where we would pile the bales on top of each other until we could get to the rafters. We then would un-string a hay bale and use the STRING to tie to the rafters to swing across the barn. SAFETY FIRST! Amazingly enough, only one time did I bust the string while in mid-swing. It wasn’t too damaging to me, as there was a big pile of hay to break my fall, though I did find the needle in the haystack that day. It was sticking out of my butt crack.

Way back in the cow pasture, near our property line, there were a bunch of stone foundations from, what we referred to as “old pioneer homes” and barns. Out of all of the structures, only one was still in tact; a small shed that had a spigot from a natural spring that flowed into a rusty old tub, so there was always “fresh water”. We played “house” back there all of the time and DRANK from the rusty old tub. God made rust, too.

One game we liked to play was “Make the cows mad!” This consisted of us grabbing some sticks and rocks, the casing the pasture until we found where the herd was hanging out. Then we, along with the dogs would run up screaming, throwing rocks and slapping them with sticks to get them to “stampede”. We were obsessed with cowboys, so we did this to try to lasso them and play “rodeo”. None of us were ever really close to being trampled, though if it had happened, we would have totally deserved it. We also liked to run through the feed troughs when they were eating. We were dicks.

One game that was always a pleasure was finding petrified cow patties to throw at one another. Good times.

We had quite the groundhog problem on this farm. Every spring, the farmhands would drive up to the fence around our pasture with long-range rifles and cases of beer. They would sit there for hours looking through the scopes on the rifles, waiting for a groundhog to pop up, then they would shoot it. I LOVED hanging with them when they did this,(hence the cussing and dipping) and I shot my first animal, (a vile groundhog) with help from Roy (the main hand) at age 8. After they would shoot a few, they would drive into the pasture to pickup the carcasses and fill in the holes.

Ground hog holes are dangerous for livestock. Livestock animals are stupid. They don’t watch where they are going and fall into the holes, breaking their legs and dying. Livestock animals are also incredibly expensive, so one dying in the night due to a fall, was a huge net loss, therefore there needed to be as much damage control as possible to prevent these situations.

I also fucking hated the damn things. They were vicious assholes that would chase you and if they got a hold of you, very likely might maul you to death. Luckily we had Beauregard J Puppy dog, defender of small children and ground hog assassinator, who saved me from numerous ground hog maulings. Beau was a bad ass and quite the killer. Unfortunately, we had a couple of other dogs and cats that perished at the fangs of the dreaded groundhog. One puppy, Bouncer, got his jaw ripped off by one of these nefarious creatures. He limped up to the porch and the jaw bone was dangling from his face by a thread of flesh. My mom had to hold his torn jaw to his face, tie a bandage around his head, and drive him to the large animal vet down the road to have him put down.

The day I shot that damn ground hog, I did it for Bouncer, man.

One day, my sister and I were walking through the pastures, looking for some cows to bully and we found a rotting ground hog carcass. After inspecting it thoroughly, WITH OUR BARE HANDS, we yanked its jaw out, then started unhinging its teeth to fashion a tooth necklace for Bouncers Revenge. I don’t recall ever seeing a movie where someone did this, so I think this is proof that savagery and revenge are inherent human emotions. We then headed inside to have dinner and I doubt we washed our hands, though Mom did not let us keep the groundhog teeth to make our necklaces. Le Sigh.

My friend J grew up on a farm, too. We like to swap stories on whose upbringing was grosser and who had the least supervision. I think I beat her on the supervision part, as my parents NEVER knew what we were up to, but, she beat me on gross with this doozy. Her daddy was a pig farmer and in the spring they had to slaughter. After the pigs were slaughtered, gutted and parted, they would toss the remains behind the barn before the disposed correctly of them. Well, the remains became bouncy and J and her siblings liked to jump on them, for they were quite springy and soft. Her parents hated this and finally bargained with the kids that if they bought them a trampoline, the kids would stop jumping on the pig remains. J, to this day swears it was more fun to jump on the dead pigs, but never did again out of respect for her parents.

So, there you have it. Kids do really dumb and gross things to entertain themselves. I wish I was back there on that farm, sitting on the fence, contemplating my next move, rather than tied to this desk, at this soul sucking job. My only pleasure was remembering all of this for you all.
Happy Holidays.

Testing My Faith.

I am a person of faith. That is about as far as I will go with that piece of information about me. I think faith, spirituality, religion, what ever you ascribe to or call it, is private. To talk about it is in extremely bad taste.

Did I also mention that one of my multiple personalities is a 65 year old, southern woman who is head of her junior league, and never crosses her legs at knees, only at the ankles because she is not some cheap floozy? Did you know that?

My faith is being tested right now. In the midst of all of my financial, professional, (it has been a year, can things please look up for me? I can hardly afford to drive to work, sign the deal dammit!), and emotional drama, I received some really bad news from an old friend I had lost touch with, but found on MySpace. Her former boyfriend, with whom she moved out to the Bay Area with, whom I was good friends with, passed away last week.

It doesn't make any sense.

A young, healthy man, a father and a husband, just up and dying. No accident, no violence, no nothing. Just blown out like a match in a wind tunnel. To say this is not fair is like saying that Hitler was not very nice. It is times like these that anger me and question my faith. Why is it that a beautiful life, one with purpose and peroguative, can be snuffed out? How does this make sense?

How can I believe that everything is part of a plan when something as ludicrous and ridiculous as that, is part of another person's plan? How can I believe in kindness in creation only to have a friend taken so his wife and his children have to spend the rest of their lives without him?

I understand why I have lost so many people I love. It is cause and effect, whether it be drug related, disease related, or even suicide/mentally related..... There was always a sign, you always knew why.

I have not seen this friend of mine in at least 14 years, I can only base this off of what I understand from others, in that he was healthy and happy. Who knows, had this never happened, I may have never ever seen him again in my entire life. But knowing that people who love him are suffering and that, not only I, nor they will ever see him again, really makes me angry.

RIP, Chip... I hope whatever it is that makes this world tick had one hell of an explanation as to why they chose you... But I know you will always be looking and watching over the ones who miss you the most right now.

To his loved ones, please know you are in Cincy's hearts and prayers and our deepest sympathies go out to you.

Kate

The Quit

Quit
Day One: (Actually, Day Three, but who's counting? I am.)

Today is February 17, 2006. I turned 30 years old last January 26. I started smoking in December of 1988, which means I have been a smoker more than half of my life. This week I was stricken with a respiratory virus and have declared my ship a "non-smoking vessel."

I am complying with this, my own declaration.... Reluctantly complying.

While focusing on my compliance to abstain from smoking cigarettes, I had the most fantastic revelation! I should probably quit. Luckily, due to this virus and ensuing cough, my throat is so sore; having a drag right now would be akin to drinking a can of hydrochloric acid. Thank goodness for God's little gifts, I suppose. So, as I try to get myself on "the mend", why not take advantage and begin to change my life for the better? It's easy! Right?

Cigarettes.....

I know I need to quit them, I know they are extremely unhealthy....Though I fool myself into thinking I smoke "healthy" cigarettes; no additives. Hey , I like my cancer, pure and clean; just like God intended! The problem with "clean cigarettes", they are 30% higher in price than the dirty,and though in my mind they are healthier, "there are no safe cigarettes". Well, we can put a man on the moon, we can map the genome, but we can't make a healthy cigarette? I call bullshit.

Surely there must be a way to inhale smoke safely into your lungs?

Being thirty puts me smack into the middle of adulthood, I have no "I can save it until I am 30" procrastination shenanigans to fall back on. I should be mature and "lady like" enough to turn my nose up at this dirty, filthy, disgusting habit. I should be using my money and health on more important matters, like adopting shoes. I could adopt all kinds of shoes, from all over the world! I could be the Angelina Jolie of shoes! (I bet she does not smoke).

So, here I sit, A raw throated, pajama clad, nicotine gum chewing, last season's shoe wearing, thirty something, embarking on "THE QUIT".

God help us all.

I know people who have quit successfully, and all were heavier smokers than I. I know all of the different methods, support groups and pills that are available. Also, if you even mutter under your breath that you are thinking about quitting, many people will start flying out of the woodwork to give you unsolicited advice.

A girlfriend of mine researched all of the negative affects that smoking and nicotine have on your body about two months before she quit. She also researched all of the side effects that happen to your body as it begins detoxing from your nicotine addiction. This way, as she started to experience the feelings and reactions, she was aware that they were normal and part of the process.

I commend my friend on her dedication and admire her wherewithal to see her quit through....... But, I decided to fore go graduate school, so therefore, research and homework, just isn't really happening for me..... Unless there are Cliff's Notes available, then maybe..... Plus, if I were to embark on "homework-like" activities and revert back to my college days, I would feel the urge to smoke. I used to kill half a pack during one research paper, so any new research efforts, may tug on my smoking triggers like Republicans at firing range.

Another friend swears by the patch. This stirs up a lot of negative emotions for me. Number One: Aren't patches for quilts, torn jeans, and Girl Scout sashes? Number Two: I think of pirates.. I just can't see myslef wearing a puffy shirt with a parrot on my shoulder, screaming "ARGGH!" Number 3: What if it clashes with my outfit?

One fellow I talked to gave me this advice from when he quit "the habit": "I decided if I do not do five things, I will not smoke." The five things in question are as follows:
I will not buy a pack.
I will not open a pack.
I will not hold a cigarette.
I will not put a cigarette in my mouth.
I will not light and inhale a cigarette.

God bless his heart, but he's a fucking asshole, pardon my French.

My mother, who is also a fellow smoker, (whaddya know?) and I always toy with the idea of going to a hypnotist to help us break the addiction, without getting really heavy as a result of the quit. My rear end is big enough; a few more inches on this bad boy could cause cataclysmic results on my already stretched wardrobe.

The problem I am having with the thought of a Hypnotist is that, I fancy myself far too mentally superior to succumb to such non-sense. (Eye rolls all around.) Plus, I am a cheapskate. The last time I checked, Hypnotists were pretty pricey and I have not seen any coupons for hypno-therapy in the Penny Saver, lately.

I initially thought that I would learn how to knit, not only to keep my hands occupied, but to also launch my line of custom made penis warmers. (Fine, puppy sweaters, but that is not as funny.) Well, so far it has taken me three weeks to learn how to cast on, and when I finally did, I knitted myself to the afghan on my lap. So, needless, or shall I say, "needleless" to say, knitting is not an option.

I have decided that my method to kick this nasty habbit will result in brilliance. Nicotine gum, exercise and a journal to detail my habit, my companion, and the relationship I have been carrying on for the past seventeen years. Think about it; If my addiction were a teenager, it would be driving by now.

INTRO TO SMOKING, 101.
When I was eight years old, I lived on farm about three miles outside of the very small town I was born in, London, Ohio. (We are talking a population of 7,000 small.) Most would say living out in the boonies would be a pretty boring existence, but I loved it. We lived on a 32 acre farm, complete with woods, hay stack barns, livestock and a creek, (pronounced "crick"). This environment presented plenty of positive and healthy things for a third grader to do...

Being from a small town, that incidentally my ancestors help settle, you tend to know everyone, or at least they tend to know you. Also, in farm country, the locals have a tendency to celebrate the seemingly smallest occasions with a festival and a parade. Some little towns have the "Bean Festival", the "Apple Festival" or even a "Pumpkin Festival." In my town, we celebrated the "Steam Thresher Festival", complete with a parade, of course.

You may be wondering, "What in the world is a steam thresher?" A steam thresher is the ancestor to the combine, used to harvest crops, or something of the ilk. It was also powered by STEAM, instead of oil and gasoline..
!t all makes sense now, doesn't it?
To mark this momentous occasion held for our bread and butter, the Steam Thresher; these magnificent machines were paraded down main street, along with marching bands, beauty queens, and budding politicians. They would chug, hiss and toot their way to the fairgrounds to be displayed for all to see. The parade was also the pre-cursor to our county fair, which in this town, was as exciting as fashion week in Paris, France.
...................................