capo's Open Salon Blog

On the Street with nowhere to go

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:04:43 -0400

I was almost fourteen when I ran away from Mississippi to Austin, TX. I was lucky to fall in with a group of street kids and not some porn or prostitution ring. I had two really god friends who were twins and went to Austin High. Sasha was my best friend and Paul my boyfriend ( we held hands) . I spent my first year on the street spare changing, sleeping in doorways-rain, snow, heat or hail. I was the mailperson of doorways. I met Paul and Sasha after I had been batheing in a gas station bathroom, spending my days at the librarys, taking a nap in the perk in the afternoon so I could stay up all night because it was illegal to sleep outside at night and although I did it, I tried to keep it to a minimum. The twins, like I said went to Austin High. They got an art teacher to vouch for breakfast and lunch programs for me and afer lunch I took her art class. This is probaly why I am an artist today. The weather has been great here so I have ben able to paint on my screened in back porch.

I feel unhappy though. Yes, I try as hard s I can to stay busy and have that good attitude. Lately it has not been working for me. I want to go home to Memphis/ Mississippi. I plan on living in Memphis though. The whole reason I moved to a small town in Appalachia was to rehabilitate from brain surgeries...and I did. Lately I have found myself longing for a city where I have more access to music, art and literature. Am I being selfish? Should I be content wherever I am because wherever I am there I am.

The place I live now is a zinc mining town and tobacco production. There is a lot of illness due to varios industries and it is fucking depressing. I feel isolatied and it makes every muscle ache. My significant other is tied down to one of tese second shift factory jobs and around a lot of danger. He is unhappy and because he has taken care of me through illness, has insurance at work and lives near his parents (he is 34) he is hesitant to leave.

Media is feding us a lot of fer every day and night. Our unemployment rate is a lot higher than the rest of the country at 20%. I feel like I am losing it so to speak.

When I lived in Austin there was a guy who went by the nickname of, Troll. At the time I did not know what he meant but he told me I was a butterfly with gypsy blood. Hmmn.

The only place hiring around here is Wal- Mart. My Mother -in Law has actually suggested that because I am disabled it looks like the perfect job for me is a Wal-Mart greeter. That has got to be he worst job in the store besides the fact that the store is a piece of junk anyway.

I don't know if I am having sime sort of early mid life crisis or if I am really making a good decision by getting the hell out of here.

Oh yeah, I just had an operation for ovarian cancer so that could have A LOT to do with it. But c'mon, even if I didn't have a radical surgery don;t you think I need a raducal change or at least some spare change!

Sometimes I wish I was that runaway again. I think I romantacize it but it keeps me out of my head when I don't need o be there. Love, capo

Insomniac erxposes herself to meaness

Wed, 8 Apr 2009 03:04:30 -0400

My brain has been willingly fried today as I sit at home recovering from a surgery. I have subjected myself to television I wasn't aware existed and I am still not sure why it does. I am of the belief that most of these are Viacom channels. I watch some channels that I believe are Viacom every once in awhile: Sundance (which was just sold), " Independant" Film Channel..yes, yes I know that is how I found out about Open. Salon and I love the channel, but there are so many that really have baffled me today.

VH1 has a show or a series of shows where comedians and a few names in the entertainment business along with some washed up on the tube people give us their opinions on otherws. One show might be called: Worst Celebrity Plastic Surgery Ever, the next Worst Celebrity quotes or Worst One Hit Wonders. These shows are just mean. It is outakes of papparazi moments and pseudo celebs telling us why someone or somethin is lame. That is not always the four letter word used but you, the smart reader gets the point. What I don't get is why if these moments are so bad a channel wants to revisit them and have random comments on why these moments are so bad.

Man, if somebody filmed many of the things I do I wouldn't know where to stand or run for that matter. It would be at that point I would become like Brian Wilson , or an agoraphbe. If you, as a person being belittled try in any way to stand up for yourself you become even more ridiculous in somebody's eyes. The people commenting are just mean. I guess nobody cares enough to make a rude, sarcastic, and narcissitic comment about them. I understand the theory of no press is bad press. Maybe that is true. It is the producers, directors and the pseudo celebs making the comments who secretly wish they were being talked about that way.

What is lame to me is that there are people out there who do not know the difference and take heir opinions from a VH1, "Let's dog on somebody show." They use this type of sarcasm, and high school type behavior and bring it into their social grou[s, schools , etc. I know it is an old argument and parents and young peole should be smart enough to see through the pitiful,"wit," and make a decision for themselves as to how, when and if they copy that behavior in the world. It is just so bizarre to me that these people talking about other adults and their faults are faults themselves. Sarcasm is to be used in a minimal setting. It is so easy to make fun of others faults. Especially when it is obvious what they are going to say before it is said and it is edited and out of context to some extent.

Aren't we trying to build our nation up to a standard where everyone is respected for their individuality. One thing in particuler that bothered me is the constant making fun of Gary Busey. He had a motorcycle accident, suffered a severe head/brain injury and they were really making fun of his teeth. Who cares? Really, who?

We are all individuals and have our opinions but as we learn we grow and hopefully learn to become understanding, grateful, and intellegent human beings. From what I saw today I felt sad for the so called comedy blaring over the satellite systems of America. I realize too that this has been a problem or annoyance for most of us for many years. I am late for the boat or at leat I am recatching it and riding it to the pages of Open Salon. Just a thought. We have the unified theory of evrything, why do we need this type of cable TV? Haven't we learned to br smarter, funnier, kinder, more tolerant and a lot more interesting? I believe most of you have. Thank you for being here. Love, capo

I have really been ," In It."

Mon, 6 Apr 2009 20:04:42 -0400

My home has been empty therse last two weeks as I had to go back for another surgery. Sometimes I wonder just what my purpose here on the planet is. I am smart and intellegent ( they do not always go together), I have goals. dreams, I am one who does the tasks I set out to do whether it be recording an album, putting myself through college, making friends in a place where I know nobody but God and me or just going through the daily mail. I have been ill since I was a child. It is nobody's fault; I am not looking for somebody to blame. I take full responsibility for my life and actions. Sometimes I just don't get it though. You know I do not have material wealth but I have love to give and sometimes that can end up in the wrong hands. I am feeling sad today. It may be the anesthesia, it may be the pain meds wearing off...there are a hundred things I could come up with as physiological reasons. The truh is all of my friends are getting or have been laid off. We live in a society of fear and consumption. I can choose not to let these things ( war, famine, genocide, economic downfall) bother me but I am human and they do. I wish I could cry to relieve the stress. Get the cortisol out. I had a lot of comments in my page here and I appreciate each and every one more than you know. I feel like someone give a shit. I feel like somebody is listening and I thank you all for that. I don't know what to do about all of the problems that plgue us as a world, country, state, city, or town. All I can do is the best I can do EVERY day. The tears are srarting to flow. Thank God. Stay strong and do not met the fear and consumption get you down. I Love you ALL, capo

Cheer Up ," Emo, " Boy, It's Just a Jilt.

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:03:37 -0400

Once upon a time and then, the end. That's what it felt like. Where did all the love go? I listened to his bad, Melvins meets AC/DC band. I cleaned up his dog's poop; because it was in our bedroom. Nineteen and in love with the stinkiest, crustiest, gutter punk in town.

Paul was in the audience at one of my band's shows and I announced over the mic that I needed a place to live or a roomate, because I had just been jilted by, " the sensitive artist," type. I fell in love forever a lot when I was young and a lot more hormonal. So, as my story goes, I fell in love ( my 19 year old version) again with Paul at first site, in an all ages punk bar on a Wednesday, "Alcoholics night," or beer bust. I drank Schaeffer out of a tap in a plastic cup with some of the greats at that dive: Alex Chilton, Steve Buschemi, Joe Strummer, Jon Doe, Mojo Nixon, and ( who let him in...) Dennis Quaid. I think Dennis was just trying hard to fit in with the, "Bad eggs," when he was in town filming Great Balls of Fire and heard that the cast of Mystery Train had a few drunken, debaucherous nights at the Antenna Club and he felt it was his duty to go out there IN CHARACTER! What a ------------------------- ( you fill in the blank).

I loaded my amp and guitar into my Dodge Dart, Swinger, that contained all of my earthly possessions, and headed for my new home in a loft above the Dent Dry Cleaner. It was all a crusty like me could've wanted: we did not have to pay for a phone because after five and on the weekends we plugged our phone into Dent Cleaner's line, a big practice space where we could have shows to pay the rent and my own bedroom that I sublet for $100 to somebody else because I lived in Paul's room. That summer was hot, fast, and teenage but felt like a riverboat moving very slowly upstream. I swore to love him forever and he swore back. The poor boy was a living, " Paradise by the Dashboard Lights." He was in the phase where sex is just sex and I was in the phase sex equals love. There were a lot of times when I asked myself, self, "why?" Why did I do his laundry with mine? Why did I make him falafel at 3 a.m. if he even mentioned maybe being hungry for it? Why did I get a woman's leg tattooed on my shoulder to complete the home done tattoo on his shoulder of a winged warrior woman missing a leg? She wasn't supposed to be disabled it's just that the artist was temporarily disabled when he drew the woman. I did it for the possibility that somebody as popular in,"The Scene," and possessed so much talent with every pick slide and dropped D tuning might love me. I just wanted somebody to love me for me. I realize these are very shallow, but funny in the rearview mirror traits to look for in somebody you think you want to spend the rest of your life with but my coping skills were as poor as my judgement .

When his band, Adios Gringos went on tour I spent that time writing songs about him and recording them. I would surprise him with the ever so important mix tape with some originals about him, my love, for him. Bad idea again. Oops.

When, " Adios," returned home I showed him my new,"Lady's Leg," tattoo I had gotten while they were gone and gave him the tape wrapped with a duct tape ribbon. Bad idea. Oops. He seemed cold and distant when they got home. I gave him a few days to settle in and see if he returned to me and his infatuation.

Three days pass.

Scene: I am riding my bike home through the park next to my art school when I see Paul hanging out with a big group of other crusties and their crustie dogs. As I get closer on my bike I see that he is holding hands; he never held my hand because he said he was against P.D.A. I stop my bike and get off of it and take a seat on the ground next to her, Glenys. I stared at their hands and said nothing. Paul asked me if I wanted to go for a walk and,"talk." I got up and we went down to moving upstream with that river boat.

" It's not you it's me." he says

" Really?" I asked kurtly. " Is that really the worst you could come up with for this?"

" Well, I didn't expect to see you in the park. I was going to tell you later."

" That is so comforting, she is 15, you know that right?"

" Um, yeah, but she does her own 'zine and skates and she's just really cool."

The awkward silence mixed with the weird electrical energy we were putting out and it heightened all of my senses. I looked down and my watch stopped at 4:27. To this day I think of Paul if it's 4:27. I left with some dignity and moved into the rehearsal/ practice space room that my band rented. There was not enough geographical distance between us when I moved but I made the best of life. It wasn't comfortable but like I said, it was in the neighborhood. That meant I could feel extra humiliated when I had to carry all of my belongings three blocks away because my Swinger had thrown a rod shortly after I moved in above," Dent," and I never fixed the car.

I only went to his house drunk two times. I drank a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 both times. Nobody should be allowed to make a decision while under the influence of puppy love and Mad Dog. But, I did. Bad decision. Oops.

They moved in together within a month. She was a legally emancipated adult so the fact that she was 15 was not statutory rape. It took me a lot of Townes Van Zant, Nick Drake and Gram Parsons to get him out of me but I did. He got her name tattooed professionally in big black block letters across his abdomen. A friend of mine runs a tattoo shop called, Underground Art in Memphis. They did the, " Glenys," tattoo for him...that's how I knew. What I also know is that less than a year later she jilted him for a 22 year old happy, charming and successful indie record label owner. She was exposed to a very happy life after Paul and so was I. I heard he went back to Underground Art and got another tattoo over her name. I guess his new girlfriend didn't enjoy reading another girl's name every time they were naked. I still have the lady's leg on my shoulder to always remind me of my summer of left and twice a day it passes by another 4:27.

...and I've Never Worked in a Morgue

Mon, 9 Mar 2009 19:03:31 -0400

When I heard this week's,"Open Call," I knew the heavens had finally opened a place for me to tell the world a little more about my adventures as a punk rock truck stop waitress.

In an earlier call I wrote a little about love and the brain surgery I went through to discover love. While it seemed the perfect story at the time I am now realizing it was only the intro to a world to come. In my,"Live fast die young," 30 something years I have had as many brushes with death as I have had sexual partners. I don't know what that says about me, my ability to be in the right place at the wrong time or my love life but that is okay. I will stick with the facts here because that is what I know.

Deathbrush #1: Upon my arrival into this world I was ready to go. My arm came out first and then my head. Like a graphic of a Rob Roskopp deck I was trying to get out of Mom. I began to breathe air and decided I did not like it here. I tried to go back inside of Mom and the doctor had a knee jerk reaction and grabbed my arm to pull me out. He broke my shoulder, neck and several ribs. I was paralyzed for 5 or 6 months. One day when Dad was in Vietnam the prostitute he hired to take care of me heard a noise like somebody was breaking into the house. She was packin and carried the pistol upstairs and shot towards the bed(good idea,Sala). It was the noise of the metal back and leg braces I was wearing. I could move everything and was ready for my next brush with death...

Death brush #2: It was a rainy Saturday night in Lake Cormorant,MS. My Grandparents had just returned home from Memphis where they spent their night dancing to the sounds of the Sun Rythym Section. The phone rang. It was Uncle Raymond calling to tell my grandpa that a cow had been hit on Highway 61 and they needed to get the cow out of the highway because it was blocking the whole road. My Granpa said I could go but we had to leave now. I was wearing my underwear and a t-shirt ; no shoes; (it is MS). We pulled up to the scene of the accident and Grandpa got busy with the situation and was not paying attention to me. I had to go to the bathroom and since it is still MS that means it was completely normal for me to walk over to the side of the road and squat. I went to the edge of the ditch and tried to stick my feet in tall grass so I would not unrinate on them. The high beams from the truck were shining a perfect silouette of the poor cow laying there. That was her closest brush. Uncle Raymond started talking to me.

" Sugar pie we are going to play a game. You stay real still and I'll give you a $5 dollar bill if you do not move at all."

"Okay."

It was the first time I remember being body concious because my panties were still down. I was told to stare strait ahead and act like a sculpture. As I squatted and stared at the cow I could see my uncle out of the corner of my eye coming upon me in an awkward sideways walk. In one quick, fluid movement he swooped me up into his arms and jumped across the cow and onto the other side of the highway. Just then I heard a pistol go off and Grandpa walked over and picked up a now dead and very large male rattler. He threw it in the back of the truck, threw me in the front of the truck(I had pulled my panties back up by this time), my uncle handed me a $5, and we were out of there.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I nodded yes. "Don't tell your grandmother how we got this snake." I nodded yes.

We got back to the house and I went to bed. The next day I woke up and proudly put my money in the pocket of my Toughskins. We had rattlesnake stew for lunch and I could not keep the story to myself. I never got to go out without boots again but I did get to keep the five.

Death brush#3: In 1976 my father and stepmom had just put me to bed and I remember going to sleep while looking at the light from the television turn my room different shades of blue. I had not been asleep long when I awoke to the sound of my father screaming at me to get up. I could smell the smoke and see the flames. They had passed out on the couch and a lit cigarette had fallen into the chair my dad was sitting in just before he got up from it to get on the couch with my step mom. The chair caught fire and the flames were fueled by a box fan in the window behind the chair. They must have been pretty far gone when they passed out because by the time my dad woke me up smoke was filling my room and the house looked like a bonfire. I was crying because my cat was trapped in the back of the house where there were flames moving in and the door was locked. My dad wrapped a wet blanket around me (I don't know why because we did not have to run through flames) and we ran out the front door. As I stood in the front yard, wet, scared and sad I watched the rest of my house burn to the ground. But, even as doorknobs were flying into the air as they popped from the old wooden frames I could see that the television was still on. George Jones was the guest on Hee-Haw that night. The next day we went to the store so I could get some clothes. I talked my dad into getting me a pair of Hee-Haw overalls. They had the donkey, ears of corn and Hee-Haw in a pattern that repeated over and over so that there was not an area of the overalls that didn't promote the show. I got another cat when we moved into our new, old house.

Death brush #4: My grandparents were from Arkansas so every once in awhile we would travel to Blythesville,Ak and several other small towns in between to visit relatives. My favorite place to go in the Summer was Marked Tree, AK. I had cousins there who were my age and there was always something fun to do. This day we decided to go swimming at one of the local mud holes and we had one chapparone, my dad. There was a rope swing and a wooden dock to jump off of. It was a very," Norman Rockwell esque," place. Cousin Gregg says,"Watch this," as he runs from the land end of the dock to the lake end and jumps off. He did not come up for what seemed like five minutes and I jumped in to look for him. Something grabbed my leg and wasn't letting go and I couldn't reach the surface. As fight or flight took over my adrenaline surged and was able to free myself and took in all the air my little lungs could pull in as I surfaced. We later learned that Gregg had gotten caught in some rope that was for some reason buried at the bottom of the lake attached to some tires. It was his hand that had grabbed my leg and I couldn't pull hard enough to free him. I was devastated and felt like it was my fault for a long time. This would become a recurring theme as my brushes with death get more and more personal.

Death brush #5: I ran away from home to live on the streets of Austin,TX when I was almost fifteen. Originally I was heading for L.A. but on a bus layover in Dallas I called my friend Maggie who was in Memphis. She said that the Police had just figured out where I was and if they did not get me before L.A. they would be waiting in the bus terminal. This was some excellent Police work because I was the only underage kid with blue and white hair that had bought a bus ticket that day in Memphis so they really had to work to put together a map of where I was. I really could not believe thay hadn't gotten to me before Dallas because, if you have ever ridden a bus you know, the bus stops A LOT. I got my bags and hitched a ride to Austin. When I got there I fell in with a big group of street kids who were runaways too. We spent our days ,"Spare changing," drinking cheap beer and trying to figure out what punk show we would go to that night, (Fang, MDC, JFA,Black Flag and/or Butthole Surfers seemed to come up a lot) and where we would stay after the show. One night we decided to go to Liberty Lunch to see a show we thought would be a punk, "oi," band show but turned out to be packed with skinheads. I was drunk and angry and for some stupid reason I jumped into the middle of the pit and started punching skinheads in the balls. I do not reccomend this type of behavior even to the biggest of attention seekers. The next thing I knew I was looking at a fist wrapped with a chain and it was heading for my face. I looked down and he got me right at my hairline. He broke the skin and blood was running down my face into my mouth. I remember that metallic tast and the pain I felt as I was now curled into a ball on the floor and was being kicked with 18 hole,oxblood, steel toe Doc Martins. I was rescued by my punk friends and ended up with a mild concussion, broken nose, ribs and wrist. After this I racked up so much money spare changing in the UT area that after a week I could afford to pay for a deposit and rent on an apartment on 24th street near Guadalupe. We din't have to worry about where we were going to stay for many months. Somehow we were able to keep the apartment going for over a year. Thanks random skin who I now know is serving a life sentence!

Death brush#6: When I was 17 I decided to hitchike to Portland,ME. It was as far away as I could get and still be in the United States. I met some girls who worked at the Green Mountain Coffee shop in downtown Portland who let me stay in their closet. It was a walk in and really bigger than some bedrooms of the lower east side of Manhattan. I became close to both girls and we bought a car together. A 1977 orange Nova for $300. We spray painted all of the generic punk slogans and band names that would fit on the car, got some ju-ju beads to hang from the mirror and some animal rights bumper stckers...have road will travel. Our first destination was Virginia Beach,VA. Michelle,the only one with a valid license had family there and we were going to visit them. We got a weekly rent motel room when we arrived and ended up living there for three months. I was biding my time until I was 18 and could return to Memphis and get grants to go to art school. This place wasn't so bad. If we wanted to see a show we could drive to Richmond, D.C., or Norfolk. I got a job as a waitress at a Pizza Hut down the street from our motel under an assumed name,Christian Blender. It was not meant to make a statement. It was the combination of two of my favorite skaters, Christian Hosoi and Neil Blender. I skated home from work one night and just as I was entering the hallway from the street to the stairs I was jumped for money by a guy with a habit and a butterfly knife. He cut my throat on the left side from my ear to the center. He knicked several vessels but missed my j. vein. Still there was blood coming out fast and squirting in rythym with my heart. This frieked him out and he ran. I walked to the front of the motel and passed out in front of the glass front resataurant on the ground floor so people saw me and were able to get help. I lost conciousness and woke up in the hospital with two detectives who kept insisting I must have an abusive boyfriend and were trying hard to,"Break me." I did not have aboyfriend and they never caught the guy. I only had to get four pints of blood and 37 stitches inside and 24 stiches that I could see. As soon as I could travel I was back on my way to Memphis. I was not yet seventeen and was a little afraid of being put in juvenile detention for running away but it seemed better than some of the things I had gone through at that point. I returned home three months before my 18th birthday to find out there was no warrant for me being a runaway. I contacted my family but nobody seemed to care I had ever left or that I was back so I could live life freely. That fall I began Art achool at The Memphis Academy of Art, now the Memhis College of Art and started my own band. I had enough money from grants to get a place to live, groceries a used Datsun and all the art supplies I needed. Life is so sweet.

Death brush #7: I decided to visit my friend Alisa in NYC. She was working at the Film Forum and had one of those closet size bedroom apartments I was talking about earlier. We had been to Central Park that day and were on our way back to her apartment on Avenue B just south of Houston for a nap before we went out that night. It was dusk and we could hear a lot of yelling that was getting closer and louder. We turned the corner near Tompkins Square Park in time for me to get knocked out by a Police officer on a horse. I woke up in a bar across the street from the park. Alisa and some of her friends had carried me in there. When I got up and looked out the window it was like a bad dream. There were cops, protesters, homeles people, media, and random people like me who were just at the right place at the wrong time. People did die that day. There was blood in the streets, on the people and on the hands of the city. The frustration and anger I felt were overwhelming. There was nothing I could do excepet keep myself safe. We slept in that bar that night and watched as new teams of Police officers were called in to stop the homeless from sleeping in the park. All of this was over gentrification. The money meets the deficit. I felt so bad for everyone involved. There were officers there who did not want to be doing what they were told. But they did it anyway. There were people with money there who had lived there their whole lives and weren't part of the gentrification, there were drug dealers who preyed on people who used that park and used in that park, there were the addicts and the mentally ill who were being abused in so many ways it all fed itself. The area is," Cleaned up," now. I did not recognize it last time I was there. Noboby won and nobody lost. There are a lot of nobody's in this world I learned. I am one of them. I am just thankful to be an alive nobody like the rest of us. That makes us all somebody.

Death brush #7: When I returned home from NYC I decided to buy a motorcycle. We all know where this is headed but I feel obligated to tell it anyway. After all that is what this compilation of stories is about.

Although I rode with a crowd of local hipsters (Panther Burns Motorcycle Club) who all had vintage Nortons, Triumphs and Harleys, I got a 1976 Kawasaki 750. It was cheap and easy to maintain as far as part availabilty and price. I had just tuned the bike with my friend and now business partner,Randy Tremaine. Randy and I went to school together. He grew up working on cars with his dad so he paid his way through school by working on cars and bikes. I learned that I could paint cars and bikes and make a lot more money that truck stop waitressing. He got me a job at the shop where he worked and I had my own bay and it was housed by itself so no paint would get on cars that were having mechanical work done. The business was owned by Doug Goodge. He was a short, round British man and his busines was called, British Motors. We mainly worked on MG's, Triumphs, Jaguars and Austin Healy's with the occasional Morris, Minor or Mini and Saab's too because Randy had been to Saab,"School," and worked at a Saab dealership for awhile. Mr. Goodge was not a citizen and was operating illegally under his girlfriend's name. They broke up and he left the country and we inherited a business. We put the lease in our names, got a license, tax number and began our business on the cars that were still unpaid for when he left. What an awesome deal for us. Anyway I pulled out of the shop and got on a side street with few stop signs where I could test and tune. I was going about 35 mph when a windowless cargo van backed out of a driveway in front of me. I had a couple of bad options. One; I could hit the side of the van. Two; I could turn the wheel, brake and try to land in someone's yard. Three; ( and this is what I did) I could lay the bike down after braking as hard and fast as I could and hope I went under the van and through to the other side. I am little but the bike was not. In moments like this you really do not have time to think everything through. I was caught under the bike which hit the side of the van at a time when me and the bike were laying down and skidding. I remember a lady coming over to me with a phone in her hand a telling me she had cakked 911. I told her to call the shop and tell Randy where I was and what had happened. He pulled up in what seemed like seconds in a 1968 International Harvester pick-up truck with a friend. He got the bike off of me and our friend pulled out a ramp and loaded it onto the truck. He grabbed me put me in the truck and drove me to a hospital. I did not have a motorcycle license or insurance and he was concerned I would get in trouble so that's why the criminal like behavior. I spent the next three hours really doped up on Morphine while I went to x-ray and CT and they picked bits of gravel and glass out of my legs and shoulder. I dislocated the shoulder that had been dislocated upon my re-entry into this world, broke my wrist and a tooth and had some serious road rash. I was bike shy for awhile but still rode until I was out riding one day with the friend who had loaded up the bike. He pulled out of a red light and I saw him hit the brake just as he was struck by a woman pulling out of a drive-thru and eating a burger. He went strait into the air and came down on his head and was dead instantly. I have not ridden a bike since. I stick to off road riding on a bicycle. Much safer and better for me. Chad,"This song is for you my brother." You knew a Jim Carroll reference had to make it in here somwhere.

Death brush #8: I went to my first Mardi Gras the next spring. I was walking around the outskirts of the Quarter in the afternoon when I noticed a man coming towards me. I noticed him because we were the only two people on the sidewalk. I am very observant. As the man approaches me he pulls out a gun and tell me to take off my locket. The gun was shaking as much as he was and I was afraid it was going to discharge on its own. I thought about it for a second and realized I wasn't going to give him the locket my grandmother gave me. Who was I Joe Cole? I ran between two cars and onto the street where I ducked behind the cars until I got to a cross street where I ran into the nearest bar (not hard to find in that area). I told the bartender what had happened and he asked me if I was okay to which I replied,"Yes," and he says,"Welcome to New Orleans what would you like to drink?"

"I'll have a draft."

Death brush#9: Back in Memphis I was out late with some friends at a Waffle House pouring coffee into my body so I could stay up later and get a painting finshed. We walked out to the parking lot. I was driving a 1976 Oldmobile convertable that summer and a man was waiting ducked down in my front seat with guess what...yes, a gun. He too was shaking and the gun was too. It was even older than the last guy's gun and I thought the same thing. If he doesn't pull the trigger this thing will discharge on its own. He says," Get in the passenger's seat."

My friends were all warching from a distance and I knew that they had probably called the cops. Great the cops are going to scare the guy and the gun will go off. I traded places with him and he tried desperately to start the car. "You stupid bitch your car won't even start. Give me your bag." I actually fought with him for a few seconds over the bag and then just handed it to him. He got out of the car and ran across the street where he stole a newspaper truck.

I got out of the car and ran to meet my friends. I cried while adrenaline once again surged through me. My tears turned to laughter as I was telling the story to the cops. I realized that the reason the car wasn't starting was because I had installed a ,"kill switch," under the dash that had to be turned on before I could start the car. What a funny name for a part that probably saved my life.

Death brush#91/2: In 1994 I had to have a laproscope done. This is a routine surgery the doctor says. First of all no surgery should ever be called, routine. It is not part of my routine. It may be a common or habitual for the doctor but for the rest of us being cut into is never common or a regular part of our daily business.

The doctor had to go in and remove some endometriosos from my uterus. I was scheduled for a one day surgery but when I was in recovery she told me that she had to remove my tubes while she was in there because they were, " Filled with endometrial tissue and I was afraid of you having a tubal pregnancy. We are going to have to keep you for a couple of days." My friends were with me in shifts 24 hours a day while I was there. I started getting really paranoid after the first day and believed the hospital was doing experiments on me. The helicopter landing pad was outside of my window and I told my friend Katherine that they were taking pictures of me. I actually hid in the bathroom a couple of times when I heard the helicopter. The doctor said it was the medication and reduced the mg. I continued to have strange behavior and began falling when I got up. Then I was not able to hold myself up at all. For 10 1/2 hours Katherine watched me lay there and mumble. She would tell the nurses and the nurses would tell the doctor, the doctor would tell the nurses to tell me to rest. Well I couldn't do anything except rest! Finally a nurse came in and Katherine tells me, because I don't remember, that she was freaking out saying that somehow no nurses had ever been assigned to me. She said it had something to do with me coming from one day surgery. Nobody had taken my blood pressure,heart rate any vital signs or anything else. My blood pressure was 52/27. I had been bleeding internally for 2 &1/2 days! I do remember the doctor coming in and saying," I believe I knicked a blood vessel somewhere. We are going to have to give you blood and I am going to have to do an exploratory surgery to find the bleed. What was supposed to be three 1" incisions and a little cleaning up has sure turned into a non-routine procedure.

She ended up having to give me 9 pints of blood and make a hip to hip incision requiring 27 staples. So many people told me to sue her. What does that solve though really? She ended up losing her job with the ob/gyn firm. I retuned to health with a clear conscience and that zest for life like I had never had. Except for after the other near death experiences in the past and those to follow.

Deathbrush #10: So, I finally got that abusive boyfriend in the late 90's. We were at a small (16' x 20') cabin with no windows and one door that we had built on some land his family owned off of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. We began fighting which was standard operating procedure when he had been drinking and it escalated to the point where I decided it would be a good idea to walk to Asheville at midnite from the middle of the country. I grabbed my backpack and stated walking down the dirt path we used for a driveway. He got in the car and began to chase me. I started running through the woods but the front wheel drive, tiny, 1979 Toyata, Corolla we had was moving with some agility around the trees. I know it seems like a person on foot could easily get away from a person and a car in the woods but it was so dark I couldn't see where I was going and the headlights moving around did not help the situation. I was finally struck and he had jammed me between a tree and the bumper. As he backed up to, I'm going to assume, hit me again I ran back to the cabin. He got out of the car and ran towards the cabin. I had turned off the lantern and was waiting with a tree limb to defend myself if neccessary. I heard a noise and realized he had put the two by four we kept outside, to lock the cabin from the outside when we were gone, across the door and padlocked it. I could see through a small break between two pieces of plywood and I watched him pick up something near the campfire. It was a 5 gallon can of kerosene for the laterns and fire starting. He came back towards the cabin and was crazily cursing me, his father, God and the world. I could hear the burps that the can made as he began to douse the door and side of the cabin with kerosene. He poured kerosene in a line and stopped at about five feet before the fire. He poured some on himeself and kept yelling,"Here it comes, here it comes!" The sky lit up and I heard a thunderous roar. It was thunder. All of a sudden rain and hail were coming down fast and hard. He was angry and he poured kerosene to the fire hoping it would still ignite the line to the cabin which it did. The flames went up the kerosene trail about three to five feet before they went out. He was soaked and getting hit with hail so he got in the driver's seat of the car where he passed out with his head on the steering wheel. A passing vehicle heard the car horn and called the sheriff's department. Two officers and an ambulance showed up. They got him out of the car and got me out of the cabin. He was bleeding from a head wound he had sustained during the drama. I was begging them to take me to Knoxville where I had friends to stay with but they actually laughed at me and refused. Thay had apparantly dealt with him and his family for generations. His family was known for moonshine, spousal abuse and alcoholism. They told me everything would be fine and we should sleep it off. I wasn't drunk. They made him promise to leave me alone for the night, cleaned his wound, took a look at my bruised shins and left!

The next day we went fishing with his dad and uncle as if everything was normal and to them it was. We drove to Knoxville that night where we stayed with friends until I got a house. He lived there for a short while until a few weeks later he did kill himself with an electrical cord and a rafter in the garage. In his note he claimed he was turning into his dad and becoming the abusive drunk and drug addict his father was so he had to do this to rid the world of the evil in him. This is where I took what I had started earlier in my life-the guilt..it's my fault thing- and reapplied it to this situation for too long. My eyes are open now and I see I had nothing to do with it. Once again I was in the right place at the wrong time. Or was I actually in the wrong place at the wrong time? Lessons we learn and the way we learn them are not always up to us. We must just make sure we are always learning and growing.

Deathbrush#10: The Grand Finale: I was back in Memphis working on a degree in English. I was coming home from school where I had attended a poetry reading and some other events when I had a seizure at the wheel. Two women, in separate cars saw this happen and they guided my car with their bars safely to the side of the road. I was takento the hospital where they discovered a brain tumor. After two brain surgeries and years of rehabilitation I would like to think that my next brush with death will happen when I am 111 years old and very peacefully at home. In an interview I once saw with Jim Carroll he twisted the Nietzche quote,"What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger," to,"What doen't kill you will only make you sleep til; three o'clock the next day." I've slept in a lot in my life. I like getting up early, breathing on the air and knowing that the worst is behind me. To all of you other survivors out there...this story is for you my brothers and sisters. You all inspire me to continue on even in the face of life.