The Lynnster Zone

babbling since february 1997

Archive for the ‘addiction & recovery’ Category

River Deep, Mountain High

Posted by Lynnster on December 16, 2006

While catching up on all the commentary and tons of great photos following the Nashville blogging community’s Holiday Blogger Meat-Up at the Mothership last weekend, it quickly became obvious to this reader that one young man had definitely made a big impression on the ladies. So much so, in fact, that his mom was later seen apologizing him getting, shall we say, a little handy in the boob department with some of those smitten females, heh. He really is one of the most adorable little round headed babies ever.

Anyhow, all that hangin’ out with precious little babies stirred up a little motherly instinct and baby lust in some who attended, discussed earlier this week (I’ll not repeat where since she was having second thoughts about posting such stuff as it was :) – which I should probably be having second thoughts about right about now myself). But I can’t really say that I didn’t get a little of that myself just looking at pictures of all the cuteness. Babies and children are adorable, no doubt.

And in recent weeks elsewhere at another spot I hang out a lot, there had been some questions posed about one’s reasons to have kids or not, which I didn’t really get involved in at the time. But I’d been thinking about that stuff anyway – and listening to the biological clock I used to be pretty sure was broken ticking – for a while now.

ne important thing about all this is that originally, kids were never NOT supposed to be in the picture. I grew up fully expecting I’d have kids someday and never thinking anything different. Arguing with my mom on dozens of occasions when there was resistance to whatever teenage scheme I was trying to push and get permission for, I got told time and time again that I’d understand when I had kids of my own.

But that day never came, even though at one time, it was most definitely supposed to.

Though I have not lived in a small town in over 20 years, somewhere deep down in this jaded city dweller’s heart, I am still a small town girl. There was a small number of us that left for college elsewhere after high school, though several of those that left did eventually return. Most of my friends and acquaintances, however, are still there and never left.

Consequently, when I find myself back home, two things always happen: one, I’m reminded that they all think I’m crazy to have stayed in Memphis. I think this is just me, rather than others who left town years ago – if I’d remained in Murfreesboro/Nashville instead or gone permanently to Knoxville/Maryville, I don’t think the issue would be quite the same. Memphis, however, is like the big bad awful city of crime and other negative things to most of them, and I just won’t even go further into that right now or this post would be 50 miles longer and go off on a whole other secondary subject. Let’s just say Memphis is bad and scary to them, OK to visit but they wouldn’t wanna live here, and leave it at that. So therefore, I’m crazy for staying here, especially for 20 years.

The other thing that inevitably happens – and I don’t even have to be there in town, if there’s someone here in Memphis or anywhere else that I went to high school with, it always comes up – is that my high school sweetheart’s name comes up in conversation. Sometimes it’s directly asking where he is and what he’s doing these days (I do know, although there’s no logical reason anyone should expect that I would know that). Sometimes it’s just brought up as an offhand comment or remembrance that has nothing to do with me; sometimes it’s a little more involved with me, like, “Remember when y’all went to (wherever) with us?” That kind of thing.

It’s like this parallel universe there, where my name and his will always be inextricably linked. They see me, they think of him too. I wonder if they do the same thing when they see him (which is much less than they see me, in general – he’s been several states away for many years now). I am guessing that most of them do, if not all. I think they probably don’t ask him about me nor mention me at all though. Probably mainly because so many of them wanted to string him up and tar and feather him when we split up, and after all these years, they’ll be pleasant to him, no doubt, but they’re still holding a grudge. They’ve got my back, even though I never asked for it nor expected it, nor have felt it even necessary for a couple of decades.

It’s a little bit odd that this word/name-association continues after all these years if you look at those still in my hometown, mainly because many of them are on their second and third, and even a few on their fourth, marriages. And some of them have married folks that I never in a million years would have guessed they’d have wound up together. Those people have become mentally disassociated with their past lives and past relationships, in the minds of others around them. This type thing doesn’t generally happen with them. At least I think so. But all of them see each other all the time; I think that’s the difference.

The difference with me is they don’t see me but maybe once, twice a year if even that much. And actually, admittedly, I’m kind of guilty of the same thing – even if I don’t say anything about that person from the past, I see so-and-so and I immediately think of whoever it was they were with way back when.

I don’t know, maybe we ALL do it, and I just don’t know this. Maybe everyone, in the back of everyone else’s mind, is inextricably linked with whoever from their past, in some weird small town way. I just know I’m the one, and seemingly about the only one, who always gets asked about him, or he’s mentioned when I’m around. At least I never hear anyone else get asked some of the things I do, or hear their high school sweetheart’s name dropped every single time like always happens to me.

But that might be, I’m going to guess again, because I am just about the only one left who has never gotten married or had kids. There might be one or two others left, but I’m probably the only one who actually is seen at some hometown functions from time to time.

And that’s the other thing about this whole dynamic. Besides thinking I’m crazy (maybe the better word here is “eccentric”, heh) for never leaving Memphis in all these years, it’s that it really, really kinda bugs them that I’ve never gotten married and/or had kids. In fact, I’d go so far to say that it has often been thought, and also probably verbalized, that I “ain’t been right” since aforementioned HS sweetheart and I split up – solely because I have never gotten married and had kids, and exacerbated by the fact that I have chosen to remain in, god forbid, Memphis for so very long.

Has this ever actually been verbalized to me? Nope. But I know it’s true, and furthermore, the bottom line here really is the fact that they blame HIM for me having never gotten married, not having children, and not living happily ever after.

I suppose there is some logic there because, at one time, that was exactly what was SUPPOSED to happen. It was not only all practically planned down to some of the smallest details, but we came dangerously close to blowing off all the traditional and formal plans and running off to elope, get married a few years before planned. Somewhat fortunately in retrospect, we were both too drunk to drive – the discussion taking place at a college football game between his school and my school – and upon sobering up the next morning, the immediate urgency of the nuptials from the night before was all but forgotten. And can I just add – whew.

Because while I appreciate the friends I have who would not only fight to the death for me but hold that grudge for me for all these many years, I know that marriage would have been a mistake. Granted, it took me a few years to come to terms with that conclusion, but I know that relationship would not have survived intact to today. We’d have been divorced before either of us turned 30, no doubt. In fact, the person he did end up marrying, he divorced, though they later remarried (and are married still, far as I know).

Like I said, though, when we were still planning to get married eventually, we had everything planned out right down to various wedding details, the cars we would drive (he was a car nut, so that was muy important to him), and had picked out names of at least firstborn male and female children. (I know, it’s sickeningly sweet, ugh.)

He has a son. It just so happened that his wife’s maiden name is the same as the name we had picked out for the firstborn male child. It threw me for a moment when I’d first heard, yeah, but I had to get over it pretty quick. Under the circumstances, it’s not like I could be really angry about THAT.

For many years after, I kind of took some pride in the fact that I had gone on to have a life that had a few adventures and such, and certainly doing and seeing things and going places that someone in his position couldn’t really do. He was one of those people so bright he could have gone to college anywhere, and ended up giving up the college education he was in the middle of, and a doubtless promising career after graduation, in order to work full-time to support the family he had within barely a year of our split. I can’t say I fared much better with college seeing as how I kept dropping out, but for a long time I was still in and out of school, and certainly doing things and going places that I couldn’t have if I’d been a working mom with a baby to raise and a husband at home in my twenties.

For a long time, I thought, well, I wound up having a life, and he didn’t have one. That was, of course, coming from a still pretty bitter and resentful, and still fairly young girl in her twenties who maybe needed to feel that way for a while to be able to move on to something else where things like that didn’t matter. I’m not particularly proud of all that residual bitterness and resentment, but things between us ended on a pretty ugly note, and that’s probably really kind of an understatement. All of my friends wanted to kill him at the time; some of our mutual friends were pretty angry with him at the time, though maybe not quite as homicidal. The last time we were both in the same room 20 years ago, he himself admitted to one of my friends he was scared to death to try and talk to me – which, if you know me, that’s pretty laughable, I’m the easiest person in the world to talk to.

In any case, yes, it was ugly when it ended, and may be the only ended relationship of my life that I ever truly walked away with this huge upper hand, even though my failure to marry and have children later has rendered me “irreparably damaged” by well-meaning friends who I love very dearly. So for a long time I was happy I’d had this “big life” while he’d had “no life”. And then I got over myself after a while, and grew up, and none of that mattered anymore and was all but forgotten.

Well, obviously – my allegedly grown up self can now recognize – he probably had the life he wanted. And he certainly has something I’ve never had, like a family of his own. A child of his own.

In that regard, I’ve got to wonder – sometimes – who really missed out.

When pondering such issues (which I really don’t do often – nay, I mostly try to avoid this direction of philosophy!)… well, it probably doesn’t help matters, in my mind anyway, to have to remember that I pretty much wasted my twenties, and most of my thirties. It was sort of an accident, almost as if one day I was 21 or 22 with alllllllllllll this time ahead of me to do whatever, and then all of a sudden, I’m pushing 40. And where did all that time go?

Well, a good nearly seven years of it was spent with the Freeloader Ex, who I moved down here to Memphis with in the first place. Well, seven years if you count the four years we were actually a real couple, plus the next three years we spent as roommates with occasional delusions that everything might be all right and we’d be okay as a couple again. His extreme drug and alcohol problems kind of kept taking care of those delusions time and time again, which was certainly all for best, all things considered.

But the first couple of years we were together, it wasn’t like that yet. His problems had not evolved to what they eventually became. I don’t know that at the time I was really active thinking marriage and children at that point, with him anyway, but I still always figured that eventually I would, indeed, one day have kids.

Before I ever even got to the point where I was thinking in that direction, though, something came up that forced the issue. We had been together probably less than six months at that point, when we learned that he might indeed already be a father. The child was already born and the mother was requesting a paternity test. Stress, stress, stress.

In the course of a conversation about it all one afternoon, that’s when I learned that it was his intention to never bring any children into this world – or at least not any more children, if this child turned out to be his. He didn’t want to be a father, didn’t want to have children. Not with me; not with anyone.

Well, okay. I spent the next several days being bothered about that, as well as being kind of puzzled that it was bugging me so much since it hadn’t really been an issue or even a thought at that point. And it wasn’t so much that I desperately wanted to have children and soon. And at that point in time in my early twenties, I didn’t really feel like I was ready to make that jump yet anyway. But it had never ever occurred to me that I wouldn’t ever have children of my own, someday. And at the time, having just started a new life in a new city with someone I was really in love with at the time, I certainly hadn’t been looking to leave that relationship anytime soon.

I struggled with it for a while until it got to the point where I knew the decision was going to have to be made. Should I stay or should I go? If I stayed, then I was settling for never having children. Should I stay, or should I walk and possibly have children and a family of my own someday?

You know how that turned out – I stayed. And eventually, I actually convinced myself that I really didn’t want kids anyway.

And I love kids, I enjoy them. I spent years being “favorite aunt” and godmother type to dozens of my friends’ kids, some of whom are almost grownups themselves now, and that’s always been really cool.

And yes, at that point of my life it probably would have been a bad idea. We had a few really good years, and then a few years that were a complete and utter nightmare as his substance abuse problems escalated. When we finally made the mutual decision that he was moving out (albeit before I was going to have to just kick him out) – once he was gone, I felt like I’d been run over by a few dozen trains. Putting my life back together again wasn’t easy, but god, it was such a relief to be rid of all that craziness and negativity.

But you just don’t expect that what starts out as a fairly normal relationship and a pretty good thing is going to turn into something as horrific as that did. I get angry with myself sometimes for not having been able to predict what would happen. But in reality, I couldn’t have.

I dated a while, even ended up in another long-term relationship that wasn’t bad at all; we just never really belonged together in the first place. Some more shorter relationships after that, none of which ever really stuck, save for one; and in that one, had things gone in that direction, I would have ended up being a stepmom, which I would have been pretty cool with had that worked out.

In any case, for that entire time I was still pretty certain I really didn’t want to have kids of my own anyway. And as a family member or two or three made a point of pointing out, I was getting a little bit old for that kind of thing anyway (oh, yes, thanks for reminding me).

Then around my mid-thirties – 34, 35, 36 – three things happened. First, I had a routine test turn up bad, and spent the next eight months under a cancer scare and dealing with the possibility that I might well be having a hysterectomy before it was all over with. Fortunately, at the end of those eight months, all was well and I got a clean bill of health.

But it’s one thing to think you probably don’t want to or are not going to have kids. It’s a whole other thing to deal with when that choice is potentially about to get taken away from you without you having any say in the matter.

Second, I fell in love with my best friend, someone who had been pretty much right under my nose for well over a decade anyway. In the old days, I had been with Freeloader Ex, and his significant other at the time was one of my best, longtime girlfriends – and, in turn, he and the Ex had been close pals. NOW, it’s as obvious as the nose on my face that the wrong two couples were together at the time, and it’s obvious that there were already some pretty deep feelings there on both sides. But the timing would have been bad; and chances are, had a relationship evolved at the time, it never would have lasted. When the time was right, the time was just right. Four years later, we’ve had ups and downs like everyone else – some of them maybe a little more extreme than a lot of people – but we’re solid.

So there was that, and I guess anybody out there who did find the right and perfect person for them knows that when that happens, strange things happen. Like, even though you may have just felt absolutely certain for the last 15 years that you just really didn’t want to have kids, have a family – that hmm, maybe it would kind of be nice to have those things after all, maybe.

Though in our case, it really is starting to get kind of late. His mom had his youngest brother when she was in her forties, and older than I am now. And he loves kids, is great with them, would be a terrific dad. It’s still a possibility, certainly, and not only that but there’s the adoption and foster options too, especially older kids that they have such a hard time finding adoptive or foster homes for. But we’ll be okay, too, if it winds up just being us.

The third thing that happened around the same time as the other two, though, was undeniably the most bittersweet and the hardest to swallow.

I wrote (joked) about the detox effort with my ex a few weeks ago, in a short post That was close to seven years ago, and the next chapter of that little story is that we came very close, once he started getting clean and sober again, to getting back together again. Prior to his going into rehab, we talked about it some, and basically mutually agreed to talk about it again later on down the line, once he had gotten through rehab and gotten his shit together again. It was not the time to be discussing such things when he needed to focus on getting straight. I had made the arrangements for him to get into residential treatment, with some financial help from a family member, and drove him down there, a few hundred miles away, and let go, for the time being.

That future planned talk never happened. In the end, when it came down to it – when the answer was going to have to be either yes or no – I’m 99% certain my final answer would have had to have been no. The water that was under that bridge seemed way too deep, and I guess the feeling was mutual. It just wasn’t supposed to happen.

I wasn’t prepared at all for what did, though. He went back to college while still in rehab. Eventually, he graduated, and even went on to get his master’s. Which was great, fabulous, of course.

He also got married, and had a child.

Yeah, well, it took Mr. Edge (Not of U2) about a month to talk me down from the cloud of anger and venom and bitterness and resentment and all manner of rather violent wanting to go kick his ass to Timbuktu and back, or worse, over that little bit of news. I was so mad for weeks I was practically spitting not only proverbial nails but proverbial poison darts, dammit. My outrage got crazy and twisted enough that Edge – who dislikes him intensely and for reasons that mostly have little to do with me and are more about leftover garbage from what was their friendship of the past – was almost taking up for the ex, in the face of all my venom-spewing. I was picking apart every little incident and occurrence from that past relationship and tossing all kinds of evil theories out there, and poor Edge would be saying things like, “Look, I know you’re angry, and you have a good reason to be, but I was there, remember, and I really don’t think it was that way,” or “I really don’t think he meant it like that.”

And eventually he said, “You’ve just got to let this go.” And he was right. No matter how angry I was at this person who’d insisted he was never having children, we were never having children – and no matter how much a part of me really wanted to just pick up the phone and scream that he’d “robbed” me of my twenties and any dream I’d ever had of a family and children, and how dare he have a child of his own after that – no matter all that.

He might have been the catalyst, but it was ultimately MY decision. I made the choice to stay, knowing what I knew, and I stayed for years. It was on me, totally.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have the potential to still sting a little. If my mind goes wandering in that direction, which it doesn’t often, I very quickly remind myself it was my choice. End of story, fini.

I regret some things I didn’t used to, I guess. One thing I DON’T regret is having helped him get clean and get his life back together and back on track when I did. He hit bottom a bunch of times in many years, some of which I witnessed and some of which I wasn’t around to, but that last time – which was the first I had heard from him in over five years – I knew if I didn’t do something, he probably wasn’t going to make it. So I did what I felt I had to do. Presumably, he’s still alive, safe, well, and these days pretty successful. No regrets.

And me, the whole kid thing’s not much in the forefront of my mind, if at all. Something, like some of the discussions and questions posed in recent weeks, I’ll get to thinking things like, “Well, you know, I don’t know.” Deeper than that I suppose, in truth, but that’s the Cliffs Notes version.

Or I’ll be talking to or hanging out with my mom, who is, like, the coolest. With the exception of the teenage years, which were kinda tough on both of us, we’ve had this really great relationship, and especially so since I’ve been an adult. We don’t see each other in person as often as we once did, but whenever we do get to hang out, we have a great time. And we’re really, really close.

And I guess that’s when it occurs to me most, to think – well, maybe I HAVE missed out on something here after all. What my mom has with me is something I’m quite probably not going to have the opportunity to have.

Not going to lose a whole lot of sleep over it, no. But yeah, it’s there. At least a little.

So, obviously the latter part of this week has been kind of uncharacteristically deep in thought and serious, ugh. But like I said, sometimes I write just to get it out of my head and be somewhere else. And now it is. At least, until and unless writer’s remorse gets the best of me. Then again, I’ve always been pretty much an open book and could care less.

So I’m done with the deep and serious this week, everyone will doubtless be glad of that. Blondes shouldn’t ever, ever think this much, it makes our head hurt, heh heh.

Deep thought moratorium officially begins. Now, pardon me while I go see what Britney Spears has been up to for the last 24 hours.

Posted in addiction & recovery, ancient history, blogfolks, in my head, memphis, my so-called life, the edge (not of U2), the ex files, the freeloader ex files, wasted | 1 Comment »

Memory in the Making

Posted by Lynnster on December 15, 2006

Warning – rocky road ahead, so to speak. You don’t have to stick around and read for this one. It’s probably really just for me, and someone else who might never read it. But it’s okay if you do. Doesn’t matter to me.

Sometimes I write because if I don’t, it’ll nag and nag and nag at me until I finally just do it and get it all out and be finished with it. I would say I make a habit of that, but there’s boxes of notebooks and typewriter-typed pages and all kinds of other such stuff tucked away in a box in the back of my bedroom closet that would prove that to be the contrary; that I always finish it, that I always get it out and over and done with. Which, actually, probably explains a lot about, oh, everything. I think I’ve come to terms with the fact, lately, that after 20 and 15 and 10 years, none of that stuff in those boxes is ever getting finished.

And sometimes it’s just the stuff that has no potential entertainment or literary value whatsoever – it just needs to get out of my head and be somewhere else.

So, here.

Having written about Nashville, non-country, music past this week and reading a bit about the same genre in the present – and having been involved in a couple of long conversations that included a lot discussion about Nashville past and present this week – I find myself over here at the sorry, flat, ugly southwest end of the state a little preoccupied, both with past memories and a few present troubles. And also a little homesick, I suppose.

It’s never been any secret among my friends and family that I never really wanted to leave Middle Tennessee. I basically moved to Memphis because I was young, stupid, and in love, and thus I convinced myself that moving here was the right decision to make.

Actually, if I’d HAD to move somewhere and had no choice at all about staying in Middle Tennessee at the time, I would have rather gone to East Tennessee. That was where the object of my affection was at the time and had been for a while, and where I was quite a bit of the time anyway at that point. But he decided he wanted to go westward for school. I came with him, and here we ended up in Memphis.

Sort of eerie and what may have been a portent of things to come – fortunately he was driving – I became violently ill, sick to my stomach, before we even left Rutherford County on the day we moved, and stayed sick for a couple of days after. I couldn’t even drink a couple of sips of water without it coming back up.

In retrospect, it was yet another really bad decision to go right along with all the other thousands of bad decisions I have made in life. Still and all, I was a pretty big fan of Memphis for a while, and there were some good years here with him, and still some more good years here after him and without him. It wasn’t all bad. Sometimes I think I just outgrew this city. I don’t think there was any one thing or one event that soured me so, such as I am. I think I just stayed too long.

And again, the longer I’m here and not that happy about it, the more I regret ever leaving Middle Tennessee in the first place. The last year I was there was the best ever. I had finally moved into an apartment that I absolutely loved, after years of bouncing from place to place every six months or less, on a quiet street a few blocks from the MTSU campus. I was taking classes again, at night. My job at the time, I worked with people I genuinely liked a great deal. Three very distinctly different groups of friends to hang out that were all great fun – friends from school, some of which were also from my hometown; friends from a former job to party with in Murfreesboro; friends I hung out with, most of the time, in the clubs and indie music scene in Nashville, a couple of whom I had actually known since childhood via church camp and other Episcopal youth statewide stuff throughout childhood and teen years.

It was that last group I was closest to, always have been, all these years still. What’s left of us anyway. Kind of like everything else I had, all those great things I was so happy with at the time in Middle Tennessee that I left behind. They’re just gone, mostly.

Many of my friends from that time are gone, not only from Nashville and that old scene, but gone from this world altogether. Accidents, drugs, a murder, illness – you name it, most of the usual culprits have whittled down what was a very close-knit group of twelve or thirteen-odd or so people down to a meager group of six. The oldest one is only 42 years old.

I know, “only” 42. Maybe that sounds old to some people. 40 sounds old to me lots of days. But it’s really not, not in the grand scheme of things. No, it’s not.

Anyway, that – coupled with many more friends I have lost from my hometown crowd, and some other friends – it’s just stunning. You’re not supposed to be 40 years old and have lost count of how many people are irretrievably missing from your life. You’re not supposed to be 40 years old and have outlived so many of your peers.

I’m kind of afraid though, lately, I’m losing another one. I’ve been down this road before – and with the same person, no less, as well as others – to know you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. Or find someone who doesn’t want to be found.

Way back in those old days, technically I lived in Murfreesboro at the time, but most of my friends and my boyfriend for a good bit of that period were in Nashville. Throughout much of the last half of 1986 and almost all of 1987, I was really pretty much living in Nashville, even though my mail was still being delivered to Rutherford County and I was still paying rent there.

One of our gang had this little apartment that’s no longer there, almost within spitting distance of the good old Exit/In. Even though there was, like, NO room – it was a tiny place, really small – the core group of a dozen of us were living there almost ’round the clock. Between all of us, plus all the people that were always coming home with us from the clubs as well as some of the bands from out of town, there was hardly room for that many bodies. Somehow we managed, as long as you didn’t mind getting stepped on in the dark in the middle of the night sometimes.

I wrote about that time earlier this year here in the blog (at the time, my intentions being to poke fun at my good and old friend Josie Walker’s gigantic boat feet, which really are huge, you wouldn’t believe):

“…way back in the old days when everybody used to flop at Scott’s old apartment in West End, which was small to begin with, sometimes it was even harder to find sleeping space because not only the twelve or thirteen of us in our little group, as well as any assortment of dates and girlfriends and boyfriends, would be crashing there as well as, sometimes, most of whomever had been at whichever club that night. As well as, sometimes, whatever band from out of town had been playing at whichever club that night. Sometimes it would just be wall to wall people crashed in every available chair (not many) and the couch (only one) and the floor and you’d have to watch where you stepped if you had to make one of those middle of the night sneaks to the bathroom. This was always especially fun if you’d had too much to drink that night and were, indeed, trying to get to the bathroom to throw up or something.”

Some of the best and funnest (sic) times of my life were spent in that little hole of an apartment. As long as you had no immediate need for the restroom facilities – since there was ALWAYS someone else in there – it was actually a pretty cool little place to be, at that age anyway.

Also in that apartment, so were some of the worst times. One of the worst days of my life was the morning I had to drive down there after working the graveyard shift at the ER at Southern Hills, having had the misfortune of being the one on the front desk that night when the ambulance brought one of our group in following a wreck on Harding Place. The only explanation for why he was down that far south in the first place, and at that time of night, was that he must have been coming to visit and hang out with me at work. And instead, I had to be the one to go tell everyone the next morning, everyone crashed and hungover in that little apartment, what had happened and that he was gone.

But there were probably many more good times than bad back then, and if not good memories, extraordinary ones. It was a pretty wild time, crazy time. When the party ended at whichever club, the party relocated to that teeny apartment most nights. You never knew who you might find worshiping the porcelain god in the bathroom, since that door would never lock. There’s a few secrets I can never tell.

All of the great bands that came through town at the time, I had the privilege of getting to meet almost everyone I could have ever possibly wanted to back then – with the exception of Paul Westerberg and the rest of The Replacements, which is a humongous thorn in my side to this day. Every single time The Replacements ever came to Nashville then, I had to be somewhere else, one time back home for a funeral. I never got to see them play live until the last tour before they broke up, seeing them here in Memphis.

The only person whose name was actually ON the lease of the apartment – well, if it was three in the morning and we weren’t bailing him out of jail or picking him up from night court, he was frequently found hanging upside down off the balcony half-naked (or sometimes all naked) singing at the top of his lungs, sometimes with guitar in hand, sometimes not. Several in that core group of people living/slash/squatting there had serious drug and alcohol problems, but that one – he was completely out of control. So much so that people all over town were taking bets on how long he’d last, when he was gonna pull the ultimate Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix and, you know – ::poof:: – be gone, just like that.

And then he shocked the hell out of everyone by cleaning up, getting straight. Going back to and finishing college. Went out west for a while. Made a shitload of money, enough that he could pretty much retire before he was 40 years old, though he still kept working when he felt like it.

Fifteen or so really good years, and then in a flash, it was like all that good stuff never happened. He was using again. Things got ugly. There was a horrific argument between four of us – three against one. He told us all to go to hell, especially me. All of the addicts and alcoholics I have known except for a couple, it’s either my “fault” or I’m the first and foremost target when they’re lashing out. I’m used to it, I know how to stand my ground with them, they hate me for it, big deal. I’m only 5′2″, but I somehow become like the biggest threat to them being able to poison themselves with whatever they’re on at the time, like I’m someone who will take their drugs or their booze away from them. Not that it ever stopped any of them.

But then he got clean again, shocking what few of us are left to be shocked once again. And was doing so, so great.

And then he split town to go work on a big project, presumably for a few weeks. That was late August, or maybe early September. Supposed to be back long before Thanksgiving.

The cell phone’s still on, though goes to voice mail every time. Credit cards are still being used, and with the proper signature (very helpful when the best friend is also one’s accountant). MySpace profile has been logged into a couple of times. Shrug.

Back in the old days when we were all living/squatting/crashing in that little place in West End, young Greg, who was like my baby brother and was the only one of the whole group younger than me – he was 17, 18 at the time – had these delusions that we would just all be together forever. That we’d like all just go off and set up some bohemian commune somewhere. Since everyone there was either a musician or artist or writer, or a wannabe of any of the three (except Stevie Kane, who rather inexplicably went into accounting and will, by god, tell you himself that accounting is an art in itself – yeah, OK, Steve)… well, Greg just had these stars in his eyes about all this hippie dippie shit. Let’s all just go off and start our own little artists’ colony or whatever and just live there forever, happily ever after. I think it broke his heart when everyone started graduating, moving away and moving on, scattering as people do. Growing up, supposedly.

I won’t go so far to say everyone in the bunch was hugely talented in their respective art, but we did have a few that were simply amazing. Watching and listening to Joey or Greg or Scott play guitar; Joey crafting a new song from start to finish; watching Scot the Happy Italian draw or paint and his keen eye for capturing everything perfectly; reading anything Ev wrote – all experiences I was fortunate to be able to witness, day after day.

But the most prolific and constantly evolving piece of art in the house (and I use the term “art” here loosely) was one big giant long poem (also using the term “poetry” loosely) that was scribbled in black Sharpie, in the handwriting of a dozen or so different people, on this beat up old bulletin board that was hanging down almost the entire side of the refrigerator. That bulletin board was Communication Central for the house for about two years, and the rule was everything written there had to keep the poem going, no matter what it was about. Grocery lists, reminders, arguments and calling someone out on their shit, whatever – it had to be part of the poem.

A few I remember -

Paper towels, milk, and please some Cap’n Crunch?
Pork chops and applesauce – The Brady Bunch!

Can someone pick me up after work today?
That all depends, Miss Jo, how much you willing to pay?

Looks like someone forgot to pay the electric bill.
Oh, you’ll learn to love the dark, quit bitching and take another happy pill.

You fucking asshole, Scott! Where the hell is my money??
Ummmmmm probably in his dealer’s pocket, honey.

Nope, no stellar poetic talent there, but at least it was kind of entertaining most days. Two, two and a half years’ worth of it. Probably mostly arguing about money, since nobody ever had any, something always needed to be paid or someone needed to be paid back, and whenever the boys had any money anyway, it almost all went to colossal amounts of booze, weed, other party favors. If not for Jo and me, we’d have never had electricity.

I’ve no idea what happened to it after everyone finally moved out and left for good, it’s probably a shame no one kept it. I called Josie Thursday morning to ask about it. She remembered how it was about to fall apart to begin with when the boys slapped it up there on the fridge, so she figures it probably fell apart when anyone tried to remove it.

This below lives elsewhere on the ‘Net, posted late this past summer:

Photos scattered all around my floor
Twelve souls plus a couple or three more
But only a handful of souls outside 900 Broadway
Bitter gray cold February day
Walking along Church Street, pausing at a stop sign
“When there are two or three of us, it’s fine”
“When we’re all together, it’s toxic and sick”
And with that the wise little one stopped traffic
Don’t tell me you’ve never been able to see
The common denominator was always me?

I didn’t write that, you see.
But you who did, I think you’re reading here still – please, just call me.
Or Stevie Kane or Jo or Jay.
We just want to know that you’re okay.

Posted in addiction & recovery, ancient history, friends are good, in my head, memphis, middle tennessee, my so-called life, nashville, nashville '80s music, the ex files, west end boys & girls | Leave a Comment »

I Wanna Grow Old With You

Posted by Lynnster on December 13, 2006

On my reading rounds this morning, I saw this link to Deathforecast.com on another blog and checked it out, just to see. I’ve done this at another similar site before, with basically the same general questions, and got a much better result somewhere in the 70s, but, whatever.

According to this one, if The Edge (Not of U2) and I get married, he dies at 73 years old and I die at 68.

If we don’t get married, he kicks it at 71. Moi, 66.

Actually, the results ballpark-wise might not be all that far off for real, as we both have heart disease galore in our families, and many of those in my family died around the 70-ish mark and a couple earlier than that. Of course, one can do plenty of things preventative measure-wise to better those chances.

But I’m a little bit miffed about those results, seeing as how one of us is a former drug addict in recovery and has literally baked in the sun every day for a lifetime pretty much, and here’s a hint – it’s not me.

Apparently if I had been eating more balanced meals and regularly instead of being pseudoanorexic and skipping meals for a day or two at a time, and working out a little more often, I could have been getting a tan all the time and shooting up heroin* all along!

And, obviously, this marriage is going to have to happen sometime within the next 25 years, though the way we’ve both been about finalizing plans and making concrete and definite decisions like that, it might well take us that long anyway…

* (Yes, just kidding, Mom… it’s a joke!)

Posted in addiction & recovery, giggles, random 'net stuff, random stuff, the edge (not of U2) | Leave a Comment »

The Fires of Hell Will Take You

Posted by Lynnster on December 2, 2006

Reason #1,274 that I am probably going to Hell for my smart mouth…

Year: 1999

On my couch: Freeloader Ex, for the first time in five years since we split up and he split town

On the table: Bottled water, ibuprofen, various bottles of herbal remedies like St. John’s Wort and others, vitamin supplements, wet and dry washcloths, and a bucket to throw up in

Why: In-home detox attempt (don’t try this at home, kids)

Him: “Okay, so now you know what to do and no matter what I say, don’t give me a drink. Do you have any questions?”

Me: “Yeah. This isn’t going to turn out like Leaving Las Vegas, is it?”

Posted in addiction & recovery, terminal smartass, the ex files, the freeloader ex files | Leave a Comment »

From the Bottom of a Bottle

Posted by Lynnster on November 26, 2006

I could use one more day off with this long holiday weekend. I wonder if my boss would agree. Sigh.

As I mentioned the other day, anyone who might get offended about jokes about drug and alcohol addiction is going to get offended here on occasion. My ex and my current are both addicts/alcoholics in recovery and, thus being that I’ve paid my dues putting up with their active addiction BS many a time, I can and I will joke about it sometimes. Because crap they do or say is funny sometimes, in its own sick and twisted way. I can find the humor in most anything, even something as pitiful as that issue is. So this is the last time I’ll make any disclaimers about it and I’ll never make any apologies for it. Those that find it offensive are better off moving along. I find it funny so, well, whatever.

That all said, I have hereby basically spoiled my intended post for the day, but never fear. I got addiction-related anecdotes for days, years even, and I feel a bit of a vent coming on, so I’ll get back to you on all that. So, um, yeah… have a nice day and cheerio!

Posted in addiction & recovery, lynnster logic, updates to the zone | Leave a Comment »

17, 18, 19, 21! (Part 2)…

Posted by Lynnster on November 23, 2006

OK, so I didn’t have another post planned for today, but it would seem the one day I decide to toss up a YouTube video is the one day I need to take a new screenshot of the blog, and now I need to get Adam Sandler’s big head down further on the page so here – another post about not much of nothin’.

Since I did the Six Weird Things earlier, here’s Eight – No, Nine! – Totally Random Things About Whatever, Mostly But Not All Slightly Musical.

1. I can tell you exactly what I was doing every Friday night from October 1970 to March 1974. Sitting in front of the TV (usually the black & white TV in the living room at my grandmother’s house) from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. CST watching The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family. Which is a nice segue into…

2. Further embracing my inner bubblegum, I shall now list the top ten 45 RPM records my mother would have surely liked to have burned into a melted puddle of vinyl:

“Dizzy” – Tommy Roe
“Sugar, Sugar” – The Archies
“I Think I Love You” – The Partridge Family
“A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” – The Monkees
“Julie, Do Ya Love Me” – Bobby Sherman
“Jam Up and Jelly Tight” – Tommy Roe
“One Bad Apple” – The Osmonds
“I Woke Up in Love This Morning” – The Partridge Family
“Shambala” – Three Dog Night
“ABC” – The Jackson 5

Only because they got PLAYED SO MUCH. But “Dizzy”, especially. She’d have probably loved to have broken that record into five million pieces.

So, another nice little segue onto…

3. Yes, indeed, I had an imaginary friend named Davy who for years was with me wherever I went. Yes, it was Davy Jones. And yes, indeed, I know where I was every Saturday morning throughout most of 1969-1970. The Pink Panther, the first rebroadcast of (naturally) The Monkees, then American Bandstand. Usually at my grandmother’s house too, except on Saturday mornings I got the color TV in the den all to myself. Which leads to…

4. (Here’s where I shake off the bubblegum and get some of my indie cred back.) To this day I’ve never met the man, but the first cousin of two boys who were like big brothers to me when I was a little kid is none other than Alex Chilton. It’s even odder that we haven’t crossed paths – there have been a bunch of occasions since I’ve been an adult where we have missed crossing paths with each other within a matter of hours. The younger of his cousins used to read to me when I was little and was one of my favorite people in the whole wide world… RIP Peter. Anyway, speaking of my indie cred…

5. My two seconds of fame, I reckon, was being acknowledged in Michael Azerrad’s terrific book, This Band Could Be Your Life (I contributed some very minor Replacements swag to the project). So there’s my little piece of rock solid indie cred, and that and 50 cents might buy me a cup of coffee (or four bucks at Starbucks). I was invited to participate in the documentary that’ll be out soon about Replacements fans, but thanks to my awful lazy habits of procrastination and the fact I don’t have a working camcorder of my own right now, I never got around to making a tape. Big bummer, but I’m still looking forward to seeing the finished project.

6. One of my former neighbors & babysitters when I was a kid, the younger sister of one of my best friends since high school, and the daughter of my high school tennis coach all have one thing in common: each is a former Miss Tennessee.

7. If jokes about drug addiction and alcoholism offend you, then you’re probably going to get offended here sometimes. The ex, the current, another ex, and many many of my friends all being in long-term recovery or otherwise – I’ve paid my dues and I can joke about it all I want, and I will and I do. Stuff they do, or did, is pathetic but it’s also often funny, in some laugh-to-keep-from-crying kind of way, yeah. And sometimes it’s just funny. There’s really very little in life I can’t find the humor in somewhere, and even in its pitifulness, that stuff sometimes amuses me, so you’re forewarned. I’m just sayin’.

8. Many have probably figured this out already, but 99% of post titles on the Zone are, yep, song lyrics. Maybe one of these days I’ll run out, maybe not, guess we’ll see!

9. The puppies you see on the blog sometimes – well, for one thing, The Edge (Not of U2) keeps asking me when I’m going to stop calling them puppies, seeing as how they’re going on three years old now. And I reply I will stop calling them puppies when I have puppies younger than them. Anyway, you might be interested to know their mama was a solid black Lab mix with just a tiny little bit of white on her. Yeah, I don’t know how that happened either.

I should probably incorporate some of this stuff in an about me/bio/FAQ/whatever someday, but that’s another project for another day. Right now I just need to get Adam Sandler’s big head moved down the page a little bit. So, ’til later and Happy Thanksgiving again. I haven’t even eaten today and I still need a nap.

UPDATED: Edited to add #9 and to wonder why the hell it’s after 8:00 p.m. now and I STILL haven’t had a nap…

Posted in addiction & recovery, ancient history, dogs, memes go here, music, music junkie stuff, random stuff | Leave a Comment »

And Now I Know

Posted by Lynnster on February 23, 2006

I don’t usually go sharing highly personal correspondence with others, but I just had to post this revelation the boyfriend, who is a recovering addict/alcoholic, recently shared with me:

“Two things I’ve learned over the years during my periods of sobriety: (1) drunk people are extremely irritating, and (2) stoned people are dumb.”

I had to laugh. And so proud, even tho it’s taken almost two long, painful decades to come to this conclusion. Better late than never…

More soon – I got a ton to talk about but got tied up today… ciao ’til then…

Posted in addiction & recovery, the edge (not of U2) | Leave a Comment »

Me & You & a Dog Named Boo

Posted by Lynnster on August 12, 1999

And welcome back to my world, many weeks later. I have had enough “Are you dead?” and “What’s your deal?” e-mails to last me a lifetime, I think, and I’ll get to some of that in a bit.

But first I must go off on a general Lynnster rant due to the horrifying news that my current big musical fetish, Dig, was recently dropped from their record label, which I suspect is run by retards who flunked out of all their PR classes in college, and the further horrifying news that the new band guys have jumped ship, as has oldtimer Jon Morris. Since you won’t hear it anywhere else much, due to aforementioned PR flunkies’ failure to know how to promote anything except maybe their own inflated salaries, you heard it here first. No idea what’s to happen in the future, my snailmail is getting returned, and save for a ranting and raving phone call that really made little sense anyway at 4 a.m. a few weeks ago from the West Coast, I know nothing. (shrug) Anyway, so much for that for now I guess, I’m still into Dig at the moment but feel a Pixies kick coming on, for no real reason.

So… it occurred to me the other day that, no matter how often I think about just picking up, packing up, finding a house to buy or rent down at Eva and going home, I really don’t want to leave Memphis anytime soon. I mean, the other day I saw a guy standing on a street corner, just standing there, with his thumb up in the air for no apparent reason – not hitching, it was like the “A-OK” sign or something – and just kept standing there. I mean, you won’t see that in Camden, no sirree.

And I wouldn’t be attending a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony this coming weekend if I were in Camden, either (and, that said, many congrats to Li Ping and Tim, who already had a civil ceremony but now it’s really going to be official).

So (again)… this past weekend was pretty quiet, mainly due to my being so sick I couldn’t get out of bed or off the couch thru most of it, always a joyous way to spend a weekend. I managed to recover enough Sunday afternoon to go hang out with Greg and Beck for a while as they breezed thru town, we just goofed off walking around and having a little lunch and checking out the vintage guitar shops… as always, I try to mostly steer clear of record stores, music and guitar shops, and bookstores, and to our credit, we usually don’t go near such places except on Sundays when they’re not open. But Greg has a little money in his pockets right now, and thus he was magnetically attracted to the windows, and I have my eye on something down there that is just so totally me, but no free $$ right now, so this is a major and totally unabashed public hint that someone can probably buy that for me for Christmas if they so desire. (giggle)

So… while Greg and Beck and I were hanging out sitting on the concrete blocks on Beale and trying to avoid the rain, and Greg and I rather juvenilely threw ice at each other and counted with evil glee how many people that passed by looked like Elvis – it is that time of year yet again, you know – I was remembering how during Elvis week a few years ago we all decided we just had to get out of town and get away from all the Elvisness, so to make matters worse we – me, Greg, KC, Jay S., Josie, Duncan D., Scot with one T and Scott with two T’s – loaded up and went to Nashville, and it turned out that anyone who wasn’t in Memphis being Elvisized that weekend was in Nashville doing the whole country thing downtown, and we just turned around and came back, and Duncan and Scot tortured me the whole way back to Memphis by insisting on singing “Me and You and A Dog Named Boo” at the top of their collective lungs over and over again the entire way home.

Ugh… in other news, here’s something neat – my young cousin-by-marriage, Walker, has won the lead in an independent film about to be made in Memphis! Because of circumstances surrounding the film, I’m kind of expecting it to maybe open on a Sundance-level or something when it’s finished and distributed – cool, huh?!! He’s a very cute kid, wouldn’t that be a trip if I have the next Brad Pitt in my family tree or something.

Anyway, shall update more on that in the future as I hear it… well, anyway, there’s not really that much newsworthy for the Wall at the moment, I just thought I’d update a little for a change. My apologies for having let the website lapse a bit, it’s been kind of a wild and, well, different, summer, and apparently I’ve let a lot of other things lapse as well, and I’m sorry about that too. Please know if you haven’t heard from me in a while and were expecting to that there’s been a real reason behind it… I haven’t had a lot of spare time, and when I have had it I’ve barely had the energy to lift a finger and just plain haven’t been spending a whole lot of time online these days, which in a way I guess is good…. in another way I’d trade it all to not have had a reason to be away from the computer desk so much lately. I’m – believe it or not, heh heh- not real fond of splashing certain things about my life up here for all the world to see, tho I’m not one to be particularly concerned about hiding such things either, but I’m killing several birds with one stone here since there are an awful lot of folks with mail sitting in my mailbox growing cobwebs and various and sundry tasks that need to be done, and others who are simply wondering just what the crap the disappearing act has been all about, so I just want to kind of take a moment here to assure everyone that it’s nothing personal towards anyone and I’m simply overwhelmed, totally disorganized, and way way way behind. As some know, or sort of knew because I just hadn’t had much online time lately, things kind of reached a crisis point with someone I care about a great deal who has had a long struggle with alcohol and drug addiction, and the most horrifying part of it all was discovering just how bad and much worse it had become in just a few years’ time. Call it a big twist of irony, fate, or what have you, and of all people to be there when rock bottom hit the least likely would probably have been me at one time, but I’m grateful I was, now, in the position to be there. It’s finally beginning to be a quiet period now, with a long road ahead for him and some much-needed quiet time for me for a while, for this last couple of months has sort of mentally and physically worn me out and I’m dealing with a lot of stuff on many levels, I’m having to work extra hard to sniff out a little extra $$ as treatment ain’t cheap (and isn’t that ironic, don’t get me started on that pathetic social issue…) – but it’s a worthy investment in my book so I have no complaint, just gotta sell more Barbie swag. (grin) And, truth be known, I’m just plain tuckered out. Put it this way, I’ve tried to work on this here Wall entry three nights in a row now and about fallen asleep at the keyboard every time before finishing. So, in any case, do not feel snubbed, all ye faithful – it’s just taking me a little while to get back into normal Lynnster mode (whatever that is).

Of course, on the subject of my inability to stay awake lately, it’s been a little suspect around the office and elsewhere that, without going into totally gross detail, I might have become a little anemic or something, so that could have something to do with it, in any case I’m just plain tired to the point of near-narcolepsy, but happy. I think I dropped 10 or 12 lbs. out of sheer stress last month, plus my recent affinity for banana nut rice cakes, which brings me to another subject – since I’ve been, as Greg pointedly lectured me last week, wasting away anyway – probably due to my recently acquired affinity for banana-nut rice cakes as much as stress and worry, and you can get them (the rice cakes, not stress and worry… well, probably that too) at Kroger and they’re totally yummy – anyway, since I’d been dropping poundage anyhow I thought why not go the extra mile and try to stop drinking Coke and try that new Pepsi One stuff. I know you’ve seen the commercials too, people ooh-ing and ahh-ing that it can’t possibly have just one calorie because it tastes soooo good and not like a diet drink at all? So OK, I pick one up just to see. Uh uh. I’m here to tell you – and I hate and have always hated the taste of diet soda so much I’d just about rather swallow dirty dishwater any day – it is just as nasty and has probably an even worse aftertaste than any diet soda. Blech. So don’t listen to the commercials, they lie!! What I don’t get is, tho I loathe Diet Coke with a passion, I’ve never minded Diet Pepsi all that much, so how come this Pepsi One stuff that’s supposed to be sooo wonderful tastes even worse than Diet Pepsi? Such a paradox, and really important stuff. Anyhow… well, I need to shoo, so, again, don’t feel snubbed… I am muddling my way thru catching up very slowly but surely. And a special sarcastic thanks to my old pal KC, we can’t seem to find time lately to have a real conversation, yet he remains unfailing in sending me URLs daily that make me want to stick my finger down my throat and barf… you are so thoughtful, my dear. Gotta go folks, take care & peace & see ya again soon probably…

Posted in a family thing, addiction & recovery, memphis, music, music junkie stuff, thumbs down, weird wild & whoa!, west end boys & girls, west tennessee | Leave a Comment »

What Do I Get?

Posted by Lynnster on July 17, 1999

Been a very busy and chaotic week, sorry for the lack of updating, thought I’d drop a quick line or two while I had a moment now that this crazy week has run its course.

First of all, Memphis is very proud of its own Cindy Parlow, the former Germantown High soccer star who is a part of the World Cup-winning USA women’s team! Cindy is best friends with my longtime co-worker’s niece so I’ve been able to keep up with her career the last several years at North Carolina and with the USA team, very exciting to have seen the USA team go to number one!

Next… well, I jotted down a bunch of stuff on a piece of paper the other day I wanted to be sure and mention and not forget, and now I can’t read one of them, so I guess I’ll comment on that whenever I can figure out what it was supposed to say again. I am trying to organize some accounting stuff around here and in the process of searching for receipts and junk, I wound up making the mistake of cleaning out my computer desk drawer starting at like 2 in the morning one day last week… boy, was that interesting. Found tons of stuff I forgot I had, lots of photos that had been missing in action, letters from old boyfriends (EEK!) and I must have more ink pens than anyone human being on earth right now.

And, lately I have been very disturbed by things like the fact that Entertainment Weekly is calling this year’s R.E.M. tour a “nostalgia” tour, and that obviously old punk rockers now must hold high places at some national advertising agencies as, of all things, the Buzzcocks’ “What Do I Get?” is on some commercial on TV??!! I find that mildly disturbing, the next thing you know they’re going to be using obscure Ramones songs for Gap ads or something.

Well, I must go, don’t have much time right now as I’ve suddenly added “detox expert” to my ever-growing list of abilities – apparently I can do just about anything, amazing huh? – though I can’t say I ever want to make a habit out of this no matter how good I am at it and I’m not sure it works on anyone but ex-boyfriends, but nice to know I can apparently do some things right.

And I have something supercool to watch this weekend, as my buddy Carlos in Brazil sent me a video of one of the Gurus’ last concerts from their very last tour ever, and I’ve been saving that since like last Monday to savor at my leisure this weekend – rah!!! So, ’til later, have a most excellent weekend yourselves!

Posted in addiction & recovery, aussie music, hoodoo gurus, indie goes commercial, memphis, music, music junkie stuff, the freeloader ex files | Leave a Comment »

Thunderstruck

Posted by Lynnster on May 4, 1999

Snicker… what was that I was saying about plumbing repair the other day? It’ll come to no surprise to most anyone that, no, I haven’t done what I was supposed to do yet, which is a matter of replacing some pieces of pipe under the kitchen sink (and then, of course, I’ll have to get around to doing the multitude of dishes that have stacked up in the plumbingless interim). As usual, housework and chores and I just do not mix. I can find a billion things to do when I get home from work every day and, tho some are certainly unavoidable, not one of them will be housework or other such drudgery. I am the ultimate example of procrastination as a fine art, giggle.

So, I woke up Monday morning and had some sort of odd little Lynnster epiphany – for the first time in, oh, definitely over a year or more I guess, things suddenly seem, oh, I dunno – normal? – again. I sorta feel like my old usual self or something… probably doesn’t bode well for some people. (snicker) May be fleeting, yep, but I’ve also come to another conclusion that Greg Breit may well have been right – I may well be a twelve-step-program snob and twelve-step-allergic. For those who have been awaiting the outcome of all this recent psychological upheaval around here, all I can say is – I dunno! (shrug, smile)

Gotta go (and sorry this didn’t get posted on the day it was written – we had mega thunderstorms here Tuesday night)…

Posted in about the weather, addiction & recovery, friends are good, my luck sucks, my so-called life, the freeloader ex files, west end boys & girls | Leave a Comment »

Maybe I Will Never Be All the Things That I Wanna Be

Posted by Lynnster on April 30, 1999

Greetings & salutations… well, it’s the last day of April, what’s there to say. I believe I forgot to mention that The Commercial Appeal is currently not on my good list, having published my letter to the editor last weekend but having edited it to the point of practically misquoting me, and I am not all too happy about that.

Seems to be Gripers all over the local media of late… seems like I hear John Cosper on the radio on Rock103 any mornings I’m not listening to Howard Stern.

Anyhow… I’ve been bopping all over the Web this week when I’ve had time and getting really bored with everything but my eBay auctions (gotta love folks who’ll pay $20+ for a teeny tiny little Barbie hat!), and Nathan, if you don’t update your website pretty soon I’m going to get severely more bored and we don’t want that. Me complaining about unupdated websites might be verging on the pot calling the kettle black but at least I have updated a little in recent weeks.

The rain has finally stopped, which is good because I was getting a little tired of 70 lb. neurotic half-Dobermans on my head every night, plus now maybe that we’re not totally saturated anymore I can finally mow the yard and the neighbors will stop hating me. (Well, I guess not all of them do, seeing as how none of the neighbors on either side have mowed theirs either.)

Anyway, I’m keeping busy and stuff… to try and clear some cobwebs outta my head, among other things, I have, believe it or not, fairly recently joined a certain 12-step program (and no, I’m not on drugs or drunk…) Greg Breit said he thought he’d never see the day I, supremely jaded cynic that I now am, would deign to set foot in any 12-step-type meeting, plus he said I was too snobby, but yup, I’ve done it and I’m happy with it. I say anything that improves one’s mind is a good thing.

So I’ve been busy with that, and stuff, and I’ve got about a million chores to be done, and I probably should go to bed now, come to think of it… still can’t share my possible Westerberg news with you yet, but believe me I’m on top of it and will be as soon as I’m given the go ahead to do so, if it happens – it’s pretty kinda neat and I’m certainly about to bust to shout it out loud, but patience must prevail a bit longer. And hey, if you wanna see what I did one day during my vacation in February, click here (sorry, link is now gone). That was pretty cool. Gotta go, ’til later & May…

Posted in about the weather, addiction & recovery, blah, blogfolks, dobie is a dog, dogs, friends are good, i never sleep, lynnster's zoo, memphis, memphis gripers, music, music junkie stuff, paul westerberg, pissed off, updates to the zone, west end boys & girls | Leave a Comment »

I’m Yours, Will You Be Mine Too?

Posted by Lynnster on April 25, 1999

Mmm, I guess I’ve been a bit remiss again. Well, suffice it to say, for those who are chirping about me not answering my e-mail in a very timely manner or returning phone calls, that the only time I’m on here updating the Wall lately is in the middle of the night when I can grab a minute or two when the rest of you are in bed or, like today, still up because I’ve had no sleep (a matter which I’m going to remedy in just a few minutes). When I’ve got more than a few minutes that’s not being taken up by something else, I’ll get to the rest!

Anyway, I’m not intending to be flip or taking it lightly that I’m so mega behind in my usual online stuff that I may never quite get caught up and don’t want anyone feeling slighted – the bottom line is at present I’m trying to take care of some personal stuff that’s long overdue in taking care of – like five or more years overdue – so right now that’s kinda got to take priority over everything else. If I could discuss it I would, but I can’t so I won’t. I’ve also accidentally, and totally unintentionally, slighted some good folks on the Gurus’ Poison Pen mailing list by not having yet done something I was supposed to do literally months ago and the good news about that is I’m in the process of finishing up the long-promised “Prehistoric Gurus” tapes this very weekend, for those who are still reading!

Anyhow, I really haven’t had much time for online stuff the last couple of weeks, except for eBay which as I said is pretty much where I live online now and is becoming a gargantuan business in itself, I’m still not complaining tho – I’d rather be knee-deep in eBay orders and correspondence than working at my neighborhood Starbuck’s every evening or something, no doubt! Plus if I keep buying up Gurus swag like I have been lately I’m going to have to sell many more vintage Barbie items. (giggle)

Speaking of my Gurus loot, oh my – the lauded GuruShrine is going to be bigger and better than ever! I decided several years ago maybe I better act a little like a grown-up for a change and relegate most of my musicstuffs to my bedroom, so maybe the rest of the house would actually look like a grown-up lives here or something. Now I’ve added two new Gurus posters and some more cool Gurustuffs to the shrine, I’m pleased as punch… special thanks to Mark C. from the Pen, who gallantly allowed me to outbid him on one said poster (his reasoning being better it be on my wall than stuck in his closet). And speaking of that I have really got to get around to updating the Gurus pages seeing as how there’s new info, like Brad’s new band’s name’s already changed and all. And I may even have a really neat Paul Westerberg announcement soon, except I’m not sure whether I’m allowed to tell yet or not – will check on that today and get back on that soon.

Anyway… what else, not too much. I learned a new guitar chord (yay!), now you may not think that’s such a big deal but, as Greg Breit has expressed in amazement time and time again, it’s a wonder I can even play at all seeing as how some eight year olds have bigger hands than I do. I must admit that sheer semi-stage-fright probably has me playing a little better than I ever have before lately… it’s a wonder what stress and pressure can do for one’s playing skills. (giggle) Plus I guess it helps when I’ve been given “assignments”, as Chuck says, “there are some songs that are just chick songs and no getting around it”. (snicker)

Anyway, we’ve been eking out a number of tunes lately, some Tanya Donnelly, some Liz Phair, some Janis, as well as some non-chick stuff (Lemonheads, Fruvous, Semisonic, I don’t know what else – a bunch of ‘em). I’m really excited about actually doing different stuff for a change, now if we can all just find one day where we can all be in the same city at the same time again… so anyway, speaking of music, by the way, the next time you buy a used CD you may be depriving some chintzy cheapskate musician of buying it up themselves to resell at their shows! (snicker)

As a favor for a friend (and I expect to be repaid in spades), KC and I are both buying up used CDs on both sides of the Atlantic, good obedient friends that we are. I’m teasing and making fun, of course (and it’s probably really bad karma to be putting used CD money back into one’s own pocket, even tho it’s not illegal, giggle), but there actually is a dearth lately of promotional CDs and such being resold for profit, probably mostly by media and record label folks or former such folks (see a fairly recent issue of Rolling Stone if you don’t believe me), so be careful what you buy out there and don’t put $$ into folks’ hands that don’t deserve it – the only people who rightfully deserve any profit are the artists and their people. Asking someone to pay shipping & packaging for something is one thing – charging incredible (or even not so incredible) amounts of money for something is just not cool… I haven’t looked in a long time, but there were at one time lotsa folks on certain auction sites making megabucks off some things that were just not all too kosher. I own a certain item of ‘Mats history that I should have bought 100 copies of at the time years ago – if I’d only known! – and could probably make a hefty sum off of now, but I’ll not do it – in my opinion that $$ belongs only to Paul and the boys and Twin/Tone. I have been lucky to be remotely associated with some artists whose basic deal has always been, as long as no one’s making a profit off it, share the love and heck, give us a copy too – that’s nice. And I’ve made a point of buying promotional items and in turn handed over the cash to needy musicians (giggle) ‘cos I know them personally and like to donate to the cause. (hah!) Anyway, I’m not trying to be the Music Police here (and really didn’t intend to go off on a rant, but I guess I did), I’m just saying think before you buy sometimes ‘cos there’s lots of unscrupulous people out there – if you’re spending your hard-earned cash on something by some artist then I would guess you really appreciate that artist, so show them your appreciation by either not buying something from someone just out to make a whole lotta bucks, or at least make up for it in some other way – buy an extra CD at the store for a friend, or something. And I’m not talking about such things that require the cost of a mailer or cassette tape or videotape and such, or gifts – that’s cool.

What’s not cool is someone making $100+ on an item that your favored artist probably never meant for you to hear in the first place, so just think before you buy is all. (And of course that doesn’t include used CDs – they’ve been purchased once so that’s cool. Now, whether or not you want to expend energy and time and money buying up used CDs for some cheapskate musicians to resell at their shows is up to you and means you’re basically, like me, a sucker for whiners who know all the right buttons to push.) (giggle) Anyway, sorry for the bit of rant there – I have been lucky to know, and sometimes hang out with, some truly talented people and I saw something online recently that just irritated the crap out of me, and when you personally know how hard someone’s worked for their craft and for the enjoyment of others, it hits a little closer to home. Sometimes a rant is just a rant, sometimes I like to make the little wheels turn in your heads and give you something to think about. (snicker)

Anyhow… I guess since I haven’t written much in April I might as well make this one a long one… one more thing! If you buy bleach (yes, plain old ordinary household bleach), better take a test smell first before you take it out of the store!! Our plumbing here at the homestead has gone a little bit berserk of late and I have been going thru an incredible amount of bleach to offset the results, little did I know! I don’t want to get, like, sued or anything so I can’t say much, but there’s a certain department store brand (it’s not Wal-Mart, and not K-Mart, and that’s about all I have to say about it) that is the nastiest stuff on earth. I mean, yeah, the smell of Clorox is not one of my favorites (actually it reminds me of my elementary school’s cafeteria, which is a longer story than I ever want to get into), but this particular generic store brand of bleach – awful. I bought the lemon-scented, since as a general rule I figure the lemon- or floral-scented stuff is going to be at least a little bit better – NO. This stuff is purely evil and I’ll never buy it again. So just do yourself a favor, open up the cap and take a smell test – or better yet, just spend the big bucks and buy good ol’ Clorox instead – and save yourself the horror of what I’ve been going thru. (giggle)

So that’s about it for now, I think I’ve about covered most bases and pressing issues and helpful household hints for today – ’til I get a few minutes again, take care…

Posted in addiction & recovery, aussie music, friends are good, hoodoo gurus, music, music junkie stuff, paul westerberg, thumbs down, updates to the zone, west end boys & girls | Leave a Comment »