surprise attacks and first days

1. I was riding my bike to work and a guy who was walking on the sidewalk spat at me and tried to push me off of my bike, into traffic. He called me a "cock-sucking chink bitch". It was a completely weird and random incident. Kind of not surprising, it being West Philadelphia, and all.

2. My first day working in the ER, 2 cops dragged in a guy who was kicking and screaming and apparently he tried to hit one of them. They put him in my section and somehow managed to get him sedated enough to strap him down on a stretcher. I got sent to go in and keep an eye on him. As soon as I walk in, the guy starts bucking up off the stretcher and yells "suck my dick you chink bitch. suck it suck it suuuuuuuck it!" then starts jerking his head around and starts biting the air. Obviously, the guy is nuts so I don't really take a personal offense to the racial slurs, however I did get the opportunity to shove a tube into his penis (ie. insert a urinary foley catheter). When I went to unzip his pants and pull his "dick" out, his expression went from stark raving mad, to confused, to terrified. He stopped calling me names and I guess he kind of got his wish, just not exactly what he had in mind.

3. On my first day of my RN externship, a guy coming down off of crystal meth, was flipping out in the waiting area of the clinic, so I put him in an examining room so he'd chill out a little and so I could kind of keep an eye on him. I went to make sure he was OK and found him going through the cabinets. In an attempt to get him stop, but not have him flip out, I asked him if I could get him anything (like a glass of water). He turned around with a box cutter in his hand and fuck-you-you-fucking-bitch'd me. I said "OK, well..." and without really thinking about it, I grabbed the big, heavy, metal three-hole punch off of the desk and held it up like I was waving down a plane and walked backwards out of the room.

(Is there something I'm not aware of regarding 'chinks' and cock-sucking? The words are often paired.)

45 second recall: job list (starting at age 14)

Upon request. Not in order:
nursing home people-feeder, ice-cream scooper, pizzahut pizza maker, veterinarian assistant, 7-11 cashier, pizza delivery driver, telemarketer, tele-surveyor, tele-'fundraiser', "desert storm' yellow ribbon maker (absolute sweat shop labor),waitress x 4, bartender x 3, short-order cook x 2, dishwasher x 2, thing seller, sandwich maker x 3, video store clerk, jewelry maker, drug-front-posing-as-a- reggae-record-store decoy (shocking!), library page, shoe seller (downtown richmond in 1989 next to 'the cavalier" pimp suit store. hilarious!), florist, cafe barista x 6, door person @ shows, grocery store 're-setter' (ask me sometime, it was bizarre), amusement park ride operator (shockwave, motherfucker!),fabricator of large art things, artist assistant, NASA sleep-study guinea pig, food taster, photo printer, photo deliverer, pre-school teacher (private and head-start), massage therapist, currently a nurse (various circumstances in NYC)... I might be forgetting a job or 2.

cold wars, apocalypse, and the rapture

My usual morning routine starts off with a little Metafilter, which usually gives me all sorts of fun things to ponder on during the course of my lonely day as the only day nurse in my department. Today, I found out, was the 25th anniversary of the ABC airing of "The Day After".
Another movie that I would see commercials for and then run away all jittery and shaking (like Sylvester the Cat when he's with Porky the Pig in the haunted house), with some kind of horrific image that has stayed with me. I was already plenty freaked out about Reagan, nuclear bombs, Margaret Thatcher, and Russia. After all, I was 11yrs old at the time and 11 yr olds have a very powerful ability in developing theories on the world based on propaganda and fear-mongering entertainment. Around the same time, I had the strange experience of getting lured into "youth group movie night" at my dad's church, only to be scared of another thing that I hadn't really thought about: The Rapture.



Did anyone else get dragged to church as a kid, to watch this movie, only to come out completely freaked, pissed, and filled with a new found anti-christian sentiment? (I was trying to remember the name of this movie and in my search, found this site. ) I might try to watch these movies again once I finish torturing myself with the more awful, than good crime-movies-set-in-a-NYC-that-no-longer-exists phase that I started.

Also, I have to say that I can't get enough of watching that Iraqi reporter hurl his shoes at Bush. It's really brilliant. For some reason, seeing that footage and thinking about fear movies from the 80's makes me want to listen to the Dead Kennedys. I'll go so far as to offer that guy a sexual favor if he is in any way physically capable of taking such an offer after getting all of his internal organs kicked out of him.

Why I love USAISAMONSTER.

Let me count the ways... If you want to see me flip out, give myself whiplash, dance like a fool, and not give a shit then you should join me at a USAISAMONSTER show. At one show an older guy at Uncle Paulie's asked me with all sincerity, if I was head of their fanclub. They're great guys, amazing musicians and I hope I don't seem like a creepy fan, but I feel that I should share my many reasons for the admiration. I'll try to start at the beginning.
I saw them open up for Lightning Bolt in Richmond before I moved, sometime in 2004. Couldn't figure out what to expect from them, they looked like they were completely from outer space. Like a pagan,crust,punk Funkadelic but with only 2 dudes and I was totally into it. They were fuckin' amazing and I found the music to be more complex and engaging than Lightening Bolt.

A few months later I moved to Brooklyn and started to see them on a regular basis. At the ToddP outdoor show in LIC (summer 2006?) I fell in love. They were the highlight of the night and I've talked about that show with quite a few people who were also very deeply touched by the moment when they played "The Spirit of Revenge" (they played in the middle of the crowd without a stage) , and Tom was standing on his drum stool playing the kalimba and everything became still and quiet, then the overhead train went by and sirens went off in the distance and the moment and the sounds and everyone flipping the fuck out felt like an urban exorcism and a spiritual rite of passage. It was one of the most memorable show moments that I've experienced.
In the early Fall of 2006, I had a moment of career crisis and realized that I needed to gain more clinical skills, so I tried to work at St.Vincent's hospital. It was a miserable experience. I would come home and hug the dog and start crying from the stress of having too many patients, hateful co-workers, a preceptor that threw pens at me, and the feeling of alienation from this strange machine that I walked into. "Sunset of the Industrial Age" had finally come out and I would listen to "Okeepa Ceramony" over and over again to get the strength to deal with the verbal abuse and the 12 hour day, "rise rise rise a-political sun is your light now no longer worth all the money in the world you rise you rise". Finally one day I just called the manager and told her that the job wasn't for me, and quit.

Later that Fall, I started a new job with an inpatient Hospice unit. (Oddly enough, the Hospice unit was right next to the Labor and Delivery department and I thought that was the most hilarious thing in the world, "out with the old, in with the new".) Honestly, I took the job knowing that it was going to be more than difficult, in a myriad of ways. I've always had a tough time coping with death, most of my experience has been with sudden, violent death. I had just recently lost S., the closest person that I've ever had to a mother, to a long drawn out battle with brain cancer. For various reasons, I wasn't able to see her before she died. In a way, working in Hospice later gave me a courage that I didn't have for S. Most of the time I felt like I wasn't strong enough of a person to do what I was doing, yet something called me to the work. My co-workers were pretty solid in their religious faiths and concepts of an after-life. Not me. The concept of "faith" has always been something that I've been at odds with. As strange as it may sound, the only thing that I really have faith in is this strange feeling of a commitment to the human family, which is why I became a nurse in the first place (among many other reasons). In my search for truths, I re-read "Prison Writings: My Life is My Sundance" by Leonard Peltier and thought a lot about "The Great Mystery". For strength, I would listen to "the Greatest Mystery" on my lunch break so I wouldn't have an emotional meltdown because I just told someone that their daughter would most likely die before the end of the night (or something similar). Between these two messages, I found a great deal of peace that allowed me to share with my patients and their families who needed that.
Over the years, Tom and Colin have developed this completely intricate web of sounds and words that reach parts of the brain and spirit that a lot of bands these days, don't seem to be trying to speak to. It's funny how they will lure you into these completely Grateful Dead swirls and riffs and I don't even try to fight it. I might even be a little thankful. On the newest release, "Space Programs", Colin's guitar playing has evolved into sonic paint, pure liquids with Tom laying down solids. Together, rolling out patterns in the pigment and then folding it all back into itself in these wonderful sonic layers. Layers that can take you back to the exact origin and then turn you around again with a clearer perspective of the future and when you stretch to reach for what you see, it feels really fucking good.

the website seems to be down right now, but it was: usaisamonster.net
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K-2nd

When I started Kindergarten my family lived on the county/city line. According to my dad, he went to a meeting before enrolling me in school and decided that I would go to the city school in the effort to diversify and bring $ back to the predominantly black school after years of white-flight. For lack of a better term, I guess you could say that I was voluntarily "bussed". Oddly enough, my dad was the only parent (of a non-black child, keep in mind that I'm not 'white') to make this decision in my neighborhood. Leaving me to be the only non-black child on the school bus and of my Kindergarten class.

I was the last kid on the bus ride to and from school. It was the longest ride of my life. It was the start of getting honky'ed & ching-chong'ed for 45 minutes, 2 x a day for my first several months. I do remember that I went into it with a set of brass ones, because from the start, I felt my genetically programed blood-boiling-rage upon the first taunt and then would set out to destroy the source. The bus driver must have thought it was cute because I somehow never got in trouble. Really, I'd throw down hard if you so much a made a karate-chop yell or slant-eyed me. The honkey thing didn't really get to me, it's kind of weird. I think I signed off on any "model minority" image, with those kids. -20 points for me, at least.

After a few months, the older girls at the back of the bus took me in and everybody left me alone and I started to settle in to my school life. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until my mom started to reveal her deeply seeded racism. I wasn't allowed to go to my classmates' houses to play or for birthday parties and they weren't allowed to come to mine. After much pleading and begging, she finally blurted out "No. Black". This would eventually lead to "No. Parents divorce.", "No. Mother fat.", "No. Jewish.", "No. Dirty house", "No. Chinese.", and so on.

So, a little bit about the mom: If there was a Korean chapter of the Klan, she'd be in it. This woman refused to go to my undergrad. graduation ceremony because the speaker was Bill freakin' america's-favorite-dad-puddin'-pop Cosby (remember, "No. Black). This was the same woman who religiously perched in front of the t.v. and watched Soul Train while she applied layer after layer of make-up, before going to church. The same woman who had a pretty decent collection of soul compilations that she brought with her when she came to the U.S. This same woman swore that my cousin's marriage to a black man and having 2 kids with him, was the exact cause of my grandmother's death. It took me a while to figure what lurked behind the contradictions.

According to my dad, the day finally came when after calling my mom a "turkey", saying I was going to marry Martin Luther King, Jr. (didn't grasp the concept that he was dead at that time), preferring "The Wiz" over "The Wizard of Oz", and then coming home with corn-rows that I got on a bus-ride home (all of these things did not occur on the same day) that my mom lost it and demanded that we move to the county. I didn't get to finish 1st grade at A.V. Norrell elementary.

So we move to the county and I'm in a class with 2 black kids and one asian kid in my class, and every body's seeming to be all right with each other. This was nice, but a little odd because I moved in the middle of 1st grade and the social flow started without me. My teacher was shocked that my reading level was "advance" for the county(+5 points for me), but was "regular" for the city school from whence I came.

Now there was the issue with my speech. I had to attend speech classes because I "talked funny" due to picking up mispronunciations of certain words from my mom and having a city-southern accent (which still comes out here and there), and my teacher did not "want it to get worse". Make of that what you will, but this still blows my mind that I got sent to a speech therapist or whatever the hell she was. Hell, I still can't properly pronounce the word "horror", even after going to those fuckin' sessions. What was most important was that none of my classmates seemed to notice and kids that age make sure to let you know if you're sounding or looking peculiar. It was the first time in my budding school life that I didn't stand out amongst my classmates, but I started to get noticed by teachers.

Blowing off the dust.

I've been promising R. that I would update 'the blog', but never getting around to it. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I have been having a little bit of stage fright when it comes to writing. My spelling is shit and I'm a grammatical nightmare. I can spit out a story with great skill, or so I have been told. Writing things out is another story. After about 1998 or shortly after, when letter writing appeared to have come to a screeching halt, my spelling, handwriting, and proper use of commas went right out the window. One of the reasons that I started this blog was to learn how to write again and tell some of the stories that I find myself telling less frequently. Sometimes I feel like I tell the same stories over and over again and I feel a little self conscious about it. There are plenty of times when I will tell a story to someone that I've known for years and they will claim that they had no idea that whatever I was talking about ever happened to me. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging about experiences and I've also found myself to have gotten a little shy in the past few years. Maybe I'm a late bloomer and should have put out a 'zine or something, sooner like Lisa Suckdog or my friend Alyssa. (I do have a failed 'zine attempt story)

R. and I are sitting around listening to the Bad Brains, ROIR cassette and I told him that if he keeps playing early Bad Brains, I will share the following story:

When I was 17, I met a rasta (she later told me that she was more a "dread") who was working at a x-mas time "Hickory Farms" stand, in the mall that I used to cut through to get to and from school on the rare occasions that I decided to go. Somehow I befriended this woman who introduced me to a friend of hers that was in need of a place to stay because she was pregnant and her man was shacking up with the lady across the street.

At that time, my parents had just gotten divorced and pretty much left me alone in the house so I could "finish highschool". So I let this woman move in, who was crazy as shit and smoked so much fuckin' weed that you could smell it wafting out of my house and down the street even with the windows and doors shut. I was clam-baked most of the time. She was 22, had 2 or 3 kids that lived with her parents, and she grew up in Bed-Stuy. That was all I really knew about her at first. Then I find out that the father of the kid was the singer of the above group that I have just mentioned.

He was living in Richmond for a while with a reggae band that he was dedicating most of his time with. This was just before the time that my love for the Bad Brains died, when they came out with one of the most dissapointing records of my young life (include DRI, The Cro-Mags, and a couple of the weird hardcore-to-metal crossover incidents that were occuring in the late 80's).

One night, this woman invited the above mentioned singer over to the house while I was out. I walked in and saw him sitting in what was known as "my dad's chair" and I nearly shat myself. She introduces us and we chat and then she tells me that she showed him my bedroom where I happened to have every fuckin' Bad Brains related thing plastered all over my walls and I was completely horrified. Out of complete humiliation and anxiety, I start smoking large amounts of what they were smoking which launched me into the 2nd worst panic attack of my life. So I called my best friend, G. to come get me and take me to her house because I'm freaking out and of course she wants to know why I'm freaking out and I tell her. I hang up the phone and minutes later I have these kids calling me asking if certain-said-singer was really at my house and the woman is asking me why the phone keeps ringing and I'm trying to keep it cool and I'm praying to god that these kids don't come to my house, and then I vow to kill G. for calling and telling these kids that this dude is at my house, as soon as she brings me back to her house.

So I'm clawing at my face trying to keep a cool composure and deflect the attention aimed at my panic attack and face clawing, when G. finally comes to get me. After I finally calm down a little I call my house to apologize for being such a freak and MY DAD ANSWERS THE PHONE, and I this launches the 3rd worst panic attack of my life. Keep in mind that during this time, my dad moved in with his soon-to-be 2nd wife a day & 1/2 after my mom moves out of our house, and that he only came by once a week to drop off some grocery/cigarette money for me. This particular visit was not expected and although he knew the woman was living with me, he didnt know that this wooly dreaded dude was going to be in "his chair", smoking what they were smoking. So I ask him, very innocently, what he's doing and he tells me about how he's sitting around shootin' the shit with "Joseph" and the lady, watching "Predator" on HBO, and how they told him that I got a "little anxious" (but not what caused it) and then my dad goes on to to tell me that it's okay and that he told them "all about" my mental health issues (prompting the 4th worst panic attack of my life) and that my week's worth of grocery/cigarette $ is on the fridge. During this phone call, I'm wondering if my dad's getting high with them because that would just make the whole picture, complete. I can't get the nerve up to ask, as I am still trying to pretend that he hasn't noticed that there were cigar-sized joints laying around all over the house and the place was filled with smoke.

I finally come back home after I'm pretty certain that I've worn out my welcome at G.'s house and I'm relieved to see that the lights are out in my house and my dad is gone. So I go in and pass out in my room. In the morning "J." peeps into my room to wish me "good morning". I pulled my blankets up over my head and I stayed in bed for at least 6 hours, wishing I were dead. About a week or so later, the woman moves out of the house and I found out that the visit from "J." was really about him coming to talk her into moving back in with him, or at least moving closer to him in the city. I suppose I may have inadvertantly helped her make the decision to do so.

The Ex

Unfortunately, the Rhys Chatham: A Crimson Grail for 200 guitars, got rained out. However, I will still get another chance at sonic baptism this Wed. when The Ex play for free at Lincoln Center's Out Door series.

The Ex are one of my most favorite bands. I've loved them forever. I remember when they played with the Butthole Surfers in Richmond, when I was 17 or so. My intent was pretty much to see the Butthole Surfers and to unload a sheet of something that this hippy kid in my neighborhood, practically gave me for free. It was no surprise that the whole sheet disappeared in less than 1/2 hour. So not only did a make a ton of cash, but I got into the show for free without a problem because I hooked up the door guy.

It was one of the weirdest shows that I had ever been at, and not just because everyone was on acid to see the B.S. Apparently, what I unloaded was pretty good because I made a lot of friends that night and there weren't any complaints. This particular crowd was really different to me. Noticeably older, arty, and dirty.

Kind of seemed like no one was there to see The Ex, but I remember when they finally played, it cut through me. There was this frenzy and rage that really moved me. As if I was getting a second chance to experience Crass. It was the missing piece to all of the shit hardcore I was constantly getting bombarded with. Unfortunately, I think they were a little too much (too real) for people who had come there to see the Buttholes and the crowd became unpleasant. Although it was an 'off' night for them, they made quite an impression on me. I'm pretty sure that they never played Richmond again.

A few years later, I met Tom Cora when he was playing with The Ex in Pittsburgh, at CMU in 1992 (I think) for the "Scrabbling At The Lock" tour. We connected when we both came to learn we were fellow Richmonders. He introduced me to The Ex as a Richmonder and one of them recalled the weird show they played with the Buttholes and then asked if I knew Pippin from The Orthotonics. Tom and Pippin from an avant music scene that was a little distant to me, as they were much older. That scene was a small, yet vital spark that often gets overlooked in the history of the Richmond bands. I think some of it was just too fuckin' weird for the rapidly growing influx of younger kids moving there, being into 80's hardcore and shit. I remember really liking The Orthotonics back then and later got a chance to meet Pippin when I moved back to Richmond in 1999. It was a year after Tom died. We ended up discussing Tom's amazing talents and amazing life. Tom and I were penpals up until he died. Not a day goes by when I don't kick myself for accidentally trading the John Cage book that I kept his letters in, to the used bookstore. Didn't realize I had done it until it was far too late. Tom and I often touched on how strangely beautiful this small world is and how peculiar it was that he and I had met in Pittsburgh, but coming from the same high school. I thought it was pretty fantastic that he was playing with The Ex, and it's still some of my favorite stuff of theirs. And now, 10 years after his death, they are still blowing me away and bringing new surprises.