Thursday, May 24, 2018

Why - Blacktop Mojo - Lyrics

My latest Blacktop Mojo lyric video. After seeing them live last weekend and actually meeting and talking to the band, I've been in a "blown away" state of mind, finally got leveled out enough to focus on this.

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

How Joe Saved My Life

That was Christmas of 2004. My son had just committed suicide on June 1 of that same year, he (Rog) was 15 and a half - & I was running out of reasons to live. My husband & I had 5 kids - "his and hers", but no "ours". His oldest son was 3 months older than Rog, my daughter and his middle son were both 14 that December, they, also are 3 months apart - and his youngest son was 8. That life-changing summer of  '04, we were still on a rotation system with the boys mom in Florida, we got one of the oldest 2 every other year, for the year, and switched off during summer vacation. The youngest had been up during vacation for visits, but had not been added to the "full-year rotation" yet.

The summer I lost my son I never really got to mourn him. I had final exams to take at college, my first course to teach on campus, that trip to Florida to make, one kid or another (my daughter, his oldest son) needed rides here or there, basically, life, as it tends to do, went on & I had to do my part.
I did what needed to be done, even though I was only going through the motions. It still amazes me to this day that I was able to function as well as I did -while stepping on pieces of my shattered heart every time I took a step.

I still don't know how it all came to pass, but somehow, someone decided that THIS was the year the youngest boy would come for the whole year - and not just him but ALL THREE of my stepsons (and of course my daughter, who lived with us full time) would be spending that year in our home. Think about that for a moment, if you will - a woman loses her only son at the start of summer, and so someone says, "Hey, here's a fine idea --  put a total of 4 kids - 3 teens and one younger in her care - for a whole year, & to hell with her feelings!

I'm sorry but to me that will always be one of the most cruel and irresponsible acts I have ever seen or experienced. Not just to me, either, but to those kids. What kind of mother would just pack up the kids and send them to a woman dealing with the fresh, recent loss of her own child - not knowing if that woman would be capable of dealing with the responsibility of a whole houseful of children? (and I most definitely was NOT, I assure you.)

When I finally realized that my son was never coming back home again, that he was DEAD by his own HAND, I broke like nothing I have ever felt before, In essence, I shut down - physically and mentally. I quit going to work, because I worked in the tech dept for our local school district, and work meant going to the schools every day, where there were kids - kids who knew my son, kids who reminded me of my son, kids who were alive, while mine was dead. I couldn't go. Then I quit going to classes at college - because, you see, my bedroom was at the far end of the hall from the stairs, between me and the downstairs door there was my daughter's room, then the boy's room - which was where my son chose to end his life. After that door, bathroom and then stairs.. It took everything I had in me to go past his door to use the bathroom, even.

Now, my husband tried, truly he did. And I don't really blame him for allowing the 3 boys to be thrust upon us that year, she had a nasty habit of withholding the boys from him whenever she felt petty or spiteful (there was no "legal" agreement, just a notarized statement between two parents) and he knew if he had suggested this might not be the best year to do it, he may never get another chance again. And he tried his best to fill in where I was falling apart, but he worked 3rd shift, & he was hurting too...

So here we are, approaching Christmas, and I have lost my job (my career!), flunked a full semester (with a full course-load) and could care less. I just lay in the bed hoping that maybe next time the sun came up I would be dead and gone. If I had any thoughts at all about the living people in the house it was no more than this - 3 teenagers and one adult man, each of them capable of doing what they needed without any help from me, and all 4 of them to help the younger one, what the hell did anyone need me for, anyway? My son died in his room while I was 2 doors away - what kind of mother was I to let that happen? Surely, everyone would be much better of if wasn't around (I know that is not true now, but grief is good at casting shadow & doubt).

Then everything changed. Right before Christmas, my husband comes in and says "I have something for you" & before I could even react or speak, this little furball comes snuggling up to my face - he wasn't as big as my hand that day - & my husband said the magic words - "honey he's little, he needs you. And I need you, too- we can't make it without you" or something to that effect & I looked up and he was crying (my husband) and that tiny furball was licking my face with his puppy breath and I was crying, too - an ocean of tears for loss, for love, and for a reason to try and come back to the land of the living.

That was the Christmas of 2004, the year that Zeus and Joe saved me from drowning in my sorrow. Little bitty Zeus, one of only 2 pups that survived the litter, Zeus who, I later learned was born on my son's birthday. Zeus who, as an adult, stood taller than me on his hind legs, outweighed me - Zeus who greeted me every day on those hind legs with the hug of a human child, who was afraid of storms and every time he heard thunder would race across to wherever i was and leap into my lap. Zeus- who was my friend,  my protector, my "road dog" both literally and figuratively- his name was kind of a play on words - as you probably know, in mythology, Zeus was the King of all the Gods. In my world, Zeus was the King of all the Dogs (Gods-Dogs get it?) He is the love story behind Spoiled Rottenweilers, which will be my next story. maybe... It will be one of the stories for sure.
Somebody Should Have Told You 
(but I'm not from around here)

Back home, in Sumter County Florida (where we lived most of our lives)- I rarely had to deal with treacherous people after my late teens - early twenties
(I'm talking mostly about other women here, but not just them).

I earned my reputation through years of weightlifting with the football team in high school, fighting at the roll of an eye, and being able to take one HELL of an ass-whipping from the father of my children & keep on standing. 
Most folks found it easier to NOT cross me than deal with my psycho ass, and that worked fine for me. 

The few exceptions to the rule learned the hard way, and learned fast that I am "the one with whom you do not want to fuck" - phrased from a memory of a book or movie long ago, who's name I no longer remember...

Anyway, point being, I didn't have to talk shit to anybody, I didn't have to prove shit to anybody, and life was pretty damn good.

At least it was peaceful...

But then, we moved away - far away - not just once, but 3 different states since the new millennium and in each new location, sooner or later I have been forced to realize
"these people don't know who they are messing with, I am not FROM HERE"

So I have work to do...
And it is dirty, and it is rough, & it is inevitable...

The decades of being prominently stamped as 
"One BAD-ASS Bitch" 
allowed me to let my guard down a bit, & my mind never considered that being
"not from here"
meant that no on here knows that I am (still) 
One BAD-ASS Bitch
 & as a result, lines have been crossed, advantages have been taken, & consequences must be paid  - I am reckoning once should do the trick, one offending party must be made an example of to establish the future behavior - because the town is small, the news travels 
fast, and the gossip never sleeps. 

So, one good ass-kicking ought to do the trick.

The two most deserving of the "honor" are, sadly out of my reach at the current time - a crucial error on my part which I also attribute to the
"not from here"
dilemma

"Back home" it was no big deal to wait for the absolute best moment and location to beat a bitch down - everybody knew everybody, & sooner or later, everybody went to the same places, so waiting was never a problem.

Here is different, I don't know many people - that was a decision I made thinking the fewer people you know, the less drama you will have to deal with. But that is not the case- instead you get side-swiped with drama from somebody you barely know, or even sometimes a complete stranger

So, where do they go? how do I find that "best moment & location" - not a clue. Makes it much harder to handle things, to say the least. I really don't give too much of a damn about the specifics, except that I have zero intentions of being arrested for kicking an ass that needed it, or for anything else, & am as unfamiliar with the local law enforcement as I am the rest.

So caution must be exercised, something else I am not used to and have little experience with. After years & years, it is a learning process all over again.

But I am smart - and I am PISSED OFF - so I am learning

Don't make the mistake of thinking this will blow over, that ain't happening
And since we are (practically) strangers, you are likely not going to know who I am til it's over.

I always tell people that the lessons in life we remember are the ones we learn the hard way

You are about to find out for yourself






















'Coz Someday, Somebody Might Wonder...

This will likely be a series of posts, because there is a lot of stuff I want to write about - the history of Spoiled Rottenweilers, music, family, etc... mostly unrelated topics, but each a part of my life.
When my mom died, I never realized til it was too late how many stories about her life were left half-finished, stories about her running off to CA in her teens, what all she did there, her marriage to my Dad, her early childhood, I have all these fragments but no way to put any of them together - and it makes me sad that so much of her history was lost because I was too young, she was too busy, then I was too busy, then she was too sick, and then.... she was gone. I don't want that to be how it is with my daughter, or sister, or grandbaby, or anyone. So I have decided to use my little platform here to make sure they have more than fragments to cry over with regret if time runs out. After all, we all lead lives, have families, jobs, responsibilities, and all that normal-life stuff & our conversations usually focus mostly on the present. 

Of course, as I have proclaimed since the day I wrote my first blog post,
"(And) I Don't Care Who Knows It" means exactly that- this is not personal, or private, if you are bored or just curious, feel free to see what I have to say- hell some of it I know will be pretty interesting even to a stranger.
Just wanted to give anyone who cares a little heads-up - probably be seeing more notifications from me here than usual.
It took longer than I would have thought to actual get started but, here we go.

Mid-Late 70's (little kid yrs)

In my head tonight -- this long tale is a bit on the personal side, but I warned ya it would be that way sometimes. And I don't want to sound like a whiny brat, I am just remembering -to the best of my ability, almost half a century later- some of the insanity of my formative years in that crazy era.
When my parents divorced, it was around 1975. I was 8 that year, my little brothers were 4 & 2. I didn't know any other kids with divorced parents, not then- or for quite a few years after. What I did know was that we no longer lived in the beautiful 2-story house on a lake in Georgia, with our parents - nope, we now lived in a one-bedroom cabin in Florida at my Aunt & Uncle's fish camp. All four of us, one bedroom. My Aunt and Mom were sisters. Momma had returned home, but no prodigal daughter was she. She came with 3 spoiled kids (I admit it, but it was she who did it) who didn't quite know if we were in the middle of an adventure or a disaster. Both my mom's sisters still lived in the small rural county she was born and raised in, still married to their husbands - all our cousins were significantly older than us (high school (at the least) to my 4th grade) and established by the names of their fathers in ways my brothers and I would never get the chance to be. My grandmother also still lived there, but she was on hubby 3 or maybe 4, by the time we got there. That first year, all my teachers, from the moment they learned "who I was" (which meant, who I was related to, of course)  dubbed me "Little C***** M*****" after my poised, perfect, perky, & pretty majorette older cousin - who, in reality, I didn't resemble much at all, in looks, or personality, or really anything! But I did learn to twirl a baton pretty quick - she was GOOD and she was a good teacher, and I wanted so badly to be like her, to fit in so perfectly, like she did. See, back in Georgia, I had tap, ballet, music lessons, the works, but down in Florida, money was scarce and Cousin C let me join her classes and march in the parades wearing her mini-majorette uniform for free. So baton it was to be. And I loved it. I even grew to love being nicknamed Little C***** - for a while at least. It gave me a sense of place and belonging in a world I was thrust in to.
But it didn't take long to get hit with one of the first hard truths of my childhood - poor kids with no dad & small towns don't mix too well. Cousin C graduated high school & left for college (of course) so there were no more parades, baton lessons, fitting in by holding on to her coat-tails. I was suddenly...just...me. And my dad was... who? some invisible dude from Georgia who had already remarried & cut his only 3 kids out of his life like loose strings on a jacket. He quit paying child support before the ink had even dried on the court order, and back then out of state might as well have been out of this galaxy. Nobody cared. Mom struggled and did her best, but extras were just not available, unless they were free. (Like our lunches, and our hand-me-down clothes) And speaking of hand-me-down clothes, you are gonna LOVE this little side-story...
It would have been totally amazing - had there been fewer years between my cousins and I - at least in terms of those hand-me-downs. BUT, by the time it mattered in a sense of social only teens can understand - they were off living adult lives, those clothes were long-since handed to someone else, and so, MY wardrobe came from... My grandmothers closest friend & neighbor... An Oriental woman, old enough to be my grandmother - who was the same height as me, at least my 6th grade year. BUT height was the only place we were equal. Her waist was several inches bigger than mine, and yet her bra size (in terms of inches, that is) was several inches larger than mine, too - but her cup size was significantly smaller. So nothing ever fit right, no matter what. I looked like some kind of freak-show as I began middle school - the years when this kind of stuff really starts to matter. Doomed. Seriously.
Since I had not yet grasped the situation I was in, I foolishly tried out for cheerleading that first year of junior high, and somehow my lack of local pedigree had not yet caught on - because I made the squad. I deserved to. I was GOOD -but like I said, I was still naive, I thought good was all it took. Not my cousin's squad, so uniforms had price tags, and were mandatory. Camp was mandatory (only a week (or was it 2)?) didn't matter, what is was NOT was free. And no way was that kind of thing in the budget. But I had made the squad & I was terrified that, if I had to quit because of MONEY, I would forever be doomed to a status lower than anyone in history. (teen age angst and drama, Lord help us all, sadly funny - but still sad)
So, I begged my mom for the chance to earn the money, and she agreed. In summer months, she always worked the fields- picking bell peppers, cukes, whatever was available- and she got me a spot doing the same. I was almost 12, and only good for about half-a-day, but I picked my little heart out, and credit to those who made the decisions, I got paid for every single hour I worked that summer, the same amount everybody else on our "crew" got paid. Usually after lunch, this girl could be found under a tree somewhere snoring - but half a day was enough to not only pay for camp, and my uniforms, but even to buy some clothes that fit both physically and in terms of style. I just knew I was going to love this year, and all the years to follow! Silly, silly foolish girl. I came so close...
First of all, I never thought (and no one ever dropped a hint) about getting to and from the games. We were expected to have someone - a parent, whatever to get us there. That year, my mom was in West Palm Beach (don't ask please, let me just say "loony bin" and please just let it go). My grandma already thought that the whole thing was getting "way out of hand" (my cheerleading, center of attention, selfishness that was) and in fact, not one blood relative of mine ever came to a single game to see me cheer. My step-grandfather did, though, oh, yeah. and not just to watch me cheer, but so I could enjoy the privilege of getting to sit on his lap and learn to drive on the way to and from those games. Yeah, gross. And yet, no one ever once said
"Inappropriate" back then. NOBODY.
What that did, in effect, was cause me to dread every game, and hate being a cheerleader, and further isolate me from every single person - boy or girl - I might otherwise have developed any relationship with. I knew how screwed up it was, but that kind of stuff, well, you didn't talk about back then. Trust me, I know - and I got to learn why first-hand.
I already had made an error in judgement that was disastrous- I didn't budget for bras when I was buying my school clothes with the money I worked so hard for. Honestly, it never crossed my mind, I hadn't been wearing them that long at that point, and by the time I realized, the money had been spent. Imagine, too lose around and too tight in the cup, what an odd sight my pre-teen breasts were to my classmates in the bleachers, on the field, their families, my teachers, the world... No one ELSE'S breasts looked so odd and so off, so naturally, the only possible reason HAD to be that I STUFFED MY BRA! Of COURSE that HAD to be it! So, now I get to be molested to and from every game by the perverted pedophile my grandma married, cotton balls thrown at me in the bathrooms, on the bus to and from school, in class, it's a wonder I didn't just disappear. But survival was in my blood and the worse it got, the more outrageous I became. After that first year, I decided I was "done cheering" (knowing that they would never vote me on the squad again, saving myself that humiliation, at least). I got suspended from the bus for pulling shirt and odd-fit bra up and flashing everybody - yelling YEAH I DO STUFF MY BRA, BUT I STUFF IT WITH SKIN! That stunt got me a week off the bus (but yet all those flying cotton balls and catcalls of "STUFFER" never got anyone punished - not once)_- that was when I started ripping my clothes on purpose and learning all the words to every song by Heart, Pat Benatar, Stevie Nicks, Quarterflash, etc... and singing in to my hairbrush in front of the mirror preparing for a rock-n-roll lead singer life that would leave this small town full of small minds in the dust. That was when I told my grandmother, aunts, cousins, and mom about "grampa" and his "driving lessons" - my grandma actually called me a liar, said I "asked for it" basically, and continued to do so even after more than one of my older cousins said he also did the same to them when they were my age. Yeah, STOP right there. I had cousins and Aunts who KNEW what this sob was likely to do to me, and just turned away and LET IT HAPPEN TO ME. How screwed up is YOUR family? Bet not many of my age group can top this family o' mine.
And better yet, when I told my mother, she checked herself out of the loony bin, came and scooped me and brothers up and whisked us off to west palm, FREE AT LAST, PARADISE FOR REAL. Only to crack up again a couple of short months later, and thanks to me and my big mouth, going back to grandma's was not an option. so we got put in foster homes (separated from each other) - and believe it or not, my "foster parents" were all about education- educating young girls on how to properly perform blowjobs, especially. Wifey taught, her hubby was the "practice dummy" - and did I ever tell? FUCK NO. I'd already seen what doing THAT could get you. Funny end-note on that, can you believe that I recently saw wifey's picture on Facebook? Close to 40 years later, hell I am older now than she probably was then, and looking at some random friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend's page and her face pops out at me, and it's really HER! What would YOU do in this position? Guess what, I am not telling what I did. Think what you will.
Anyway, that is where I close this bit of ancient history. Told ya it was gonna be random, if I didn't tell ya it might be a bit odd, you either should have already known that, or you don't know me at all. :) Hopefully more cheerful stuff next time, but no guarantees. Gotta love the use of the word "cheer-ful" right?

8000 Lines - Lyric Video - Blacktop Mojo



Did this one as a special request for Shawn A Victory, Mojo Nation's "Mojo Mama" - I hope she likes it, and everyone else does as well.

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Shadows on the Wall



My lyric video for Blacktop Mojo's "Shadows on the Wall" (from Burn the Ships)

Thursday, May 3, 2018