I never told anyone about my relationship with my Uncle Herman. Well except for my friend Dylan Farrow. We went to school together. Actually I was her teacher back in Connecticut long after I had moved away from California. We had more than a teacher/student relationship.
You see she was not really close with her mother Mia Farrow. Like many adopted children of people who adopt a bunch of foreign babies she hated her other siblings and resented her mother. She wanted to know why her mom had to go baby shopping. Wasn't it enough to shop American? Those cheap Oriental imports only caused trouble.
We talk about experiences we shared. How our father figures would sneak up to our rooms. Both of us loved to lay with them in the attic. How they would caress us. And ask us to smell their finger. She said it always smelled like kimchi.
Of course our situations were completely different in some respects. I was an adult. Well college age. Old enough to make my own decisions. Dylan was just a child. I helped her recover some of her memories. She told me how nobody believed her. How the judges and the lawyers and social workers all didn't pay attention because they loved her father.
I told her I understood. I know what it is to live with a monster and have no one believe you. I was lucky.
I loved my monster.
26 comments:
Is this too edgy?
Even for me?
You're so edgy you could fall in a Crack if you were pushed.
Now, changing the character's name in your story to something like Dillin Furrow -- that would be edgy.
The time to worry about good taste or edginess is long past. That ship has sailed. Train has left the station.
And we are perpetually offended with you.
Just so you know.
Signed,
Sandy
Sixty: I'm curious about how much you know about music. Same goes for Tim. Why don't you link more? Even Troop usually shuts up during such moments.
I know much about music. Tim, as I have written here before, has forgotten more than I know.
Mainly, these days I listen and enjoy. I learn currently drum with a group that plays West African polyrhythmic music, mainly from Guinea and Mali. I turned the djembe I play out of spalted curly maple. It's a beauty.
Funny story about the goat skin head on it - a couple of summers ago a guy from West Africa was touring around teaching and he also ran a drum heading session over in Durham. It was summer, hot and humid, and after soaking the skin and stretching it over the drum, tensioning it with the tuning ropes, it was time to scrape the fur off.
Now this big ol' guy, being a devout Muslim, had spent the night drinking all the hard liquor in his host's house and he was sweating profusely while scraping the hide. He was also shirtless, so his big ol' belly got covered with goat fur. And it stuck.
So, to show solidarity with my African compadre, I pulled up my shirt and showed him the fur that grows naturally on my big ol' belly.
"Twins" I said, pointing at my stomach.
He laughed.
So that was that - we shared a belly laugh and a bond was formed. We drummed and sang the day away, the sun set, I went home and I assume he went back to drinking.
Good times.
One great teacher who taught our group is Mamady Keita, a djembefola from Balandougou. I called him "Mon petit frère because he is a month younger than I am. That always made him laugh. He also hit on my girlfriend, as her son is half Kenyan.
But mainly we had some laughs and did some great drumming. Mamady's primary language is French, and I could catch most of what he was saying, and let me tell you, he has a great sense of humor.
I have plenty of other musical experiences - I accompanied a gospel choir on piano for most of the '90s. We toured all over NC.
I played in a rock and roll band in the '60s.
Our drum group has been paid to play, maybe paid to stop, but it was always fun. There are some YouTube videos of my fellow drummers, but I have avoided posting them.
Also, my cousin worked at Stax records during its heyday - now there's a guy with some stories. He is mentioned several times in the book "Soulsville, USA".
As I have mentioned, music runs deep in our family.
There are many other stories, but I really need to keep some of them to myself.
Also, for the record, rap music is an oxymoron. Music requires a melody.
I don't always comment on music over at Lem's because I don't trust deborah, don't like the scum that shows up over there, and sometimes because I can't stand the music. Or, perhaps, am not familiar with it. I am ten years older than you, Mr. Chicken, and that is enough to put us in different eras.
Also, I gave up on R&R in about '72. Sure, I still heard it, but other things became more important. I briefly had cable in the early '80s and watched MTV, so I am fond of some of the music from that time, mainly for nostalgia reasons.
Since then, it's been a vast wasteland.
I stick with classical music and I am good with that.
Just heard Dvorak's 2nd symphony for the first time the other day - there's a work that starts out with great promise, but somewhere in the middle, kind of loses the thread. He was a great composer, but I assume he was young when he wrote that, and he hadn't learned yet how to tie an entire symphony together.
I guess what I am saying is that even after over 50 years of listening to classical music there are still works I have not heard - so I keep trying to hear them all.
Kind of like that Ron White joke, only aural.
Exotic drums there, Sixty. The last drum set I had was a 1960's 4 piece Ludwig in blue sparkle. Zildjian cymbals. I stupidly sold it before I moved to Europe.
Somebody got a deal.
Wow!! Sixty has more depth than I ever realized. I'm not worthy.
My son lives w/ the niece of Clyde Stubblefield. He gave me a autographed pair of his sticks. He was given a lifetime achievement award by Yamaha in December. Leslyn and I went. John "Jabo" Starks also got an award. What a nice guy. Clyde has some great stories about being on the road w/ James Brown.
Our drum group has been paid to play, maybe paid to stop, but it was always fun. There are some YouTube videos of my fellow drummers, but I have avoided posting them.
The loud drums concealed the enthusiastic screams of groupies. Been there.
My high school 70's rock band had a couple paid gigs. Our first one was for an audience of the retarded. It was staged at a Catholic High School. After just a few songs, the nuns asked us to stop because some of the audience were going into convulsions.
@Nick: Stubblefield has been a longtime Madison fixture. I saw him play a couple times when I lived there but never met him.
I met the members of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, including their leader Joseph Shabalala when they played a gig in our town. We opened for them. Great show, very nice people who, unlike others, have not let things that have happened to them, personally, affect their humanity.
Yeah, that stupid sumbitch has annoyed me - the name calling is tedious, predictable and altogether fitting for someone as unaccomplished and untalented as he is, but to continue to dredge up history in order to fuel his hatred is pathetic. Mr. Shabalala's brother was murdered in township violence and he continues to exhibit grace and forgiveness.
Compare and contrast - on one hand we have a man, on the other, a wounded boy who refuses to learn or grow.
chick, He's a great guy. He's got bad "sugar" and is on dialysis. But, he keeps doing gigs. I will give you a call soon. We've had a lot of company but it will be quiet in awhile, for awhile. I look forward to meeting you.
chick, Convulsions! You must have been playing the devil's music for those retards!!
...some of the audience were going into convulsions.
Did you smile and tell her, "Good, it's supposed to"?
Sixty, being the new age, hippie, wiccan, douchebag capital of North America, there's a drum circle that plays in Asheville on a regular basis (I think Friday nights).
One of my former business partners used to own a couple of record stores. He has some pricey stuff that he keeps to sell in case of an emergency. He told me that he paid nothing for most of the rare shit that he's collected over the years.
Someone would come in with a collection and ask him what he'd give them for it. There might be one gem in the entire collection, if that. They'd ask him to come outside and look at it. He'd tell them to bring it in, since he couldn't leave the counter. He said that once they hauled in all their crates, he'd lowball them and they'd take it because they didn't want to haul it all back out.
Smart guy.
He also bought a top of the line CD wrapper/packager, so that he could repackage used CDs and sell them as new.
Greedy guy.
Drum circles are like Chick's audience on drums - convulsing low IQ spastics banging on anything that will make noise.
I avoid them and those who think that stuff is cool. It is worse than rap. Hippies - feh!
Given the connections between here and Hashville, I almost guarantee that I know some of the people who are in the drum circle there.
I would deny knowing them, of course, but the reality is, I know a lot of people from here who moved there.
In terms of degenerate commies, we are only about half way to nirvana here.
A good friend is a welder (the guy is an artist and a brilliant engineer), but a long-haired hippie-looking thing. He rides a scooter, smoking his pipe (just tobacco). Says it's great, because the wind keeps it lit and he doesn't have to play with it. Anyhow, he plays anything with strings, and is always looking to jam. He wants to go over to Asheville and sit in on the drum circle. Um...no...
A friend's kid lived in Asheville for a few years, and he definitely would have frequented the circle there. His picture won't surprise you. This is after his dreadlock days. His dad is a killer drummer. Human metronome.
Surprisingly, there are some top notch musicians here in our little town. One of our neighbors had a big band thing going here for awhile. Played VFW gigs and stuff. WWII vet, but he's gone now. He was a clarinet player. Total dick, but bandleaders usually are.
My old crew.
My fellow crafter Karen takes the first solo, then some guy, then Ronnie, the leader of the group, then Ronnie and Brian do a bit.
These guys are serious about their drumming, I decided to focus on making stuff. They all have jobs, I make stuff.
Sadly, that video cuts off just as garangedon starts - that is a great rhythm with an asymmetrical structure - it really rocks.
There are many links on that page to Mamady and other drummers.
Mamady, wearing the white hat, in action.
Sixty, are you one of the guys in that video? Are you "some guy?"
No, we had parted way at that time - I know all those guys, we drummed together for many years from the late '90s to around 2005.
There is a video of me playing - I have it around here somewhere. I'll look into uploading it, but I promise nothing.
Very cool. Makes me want to paint up and attack someone.
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