David Bowie

I am heartbroken, shocked, and not quite sure how to respond on hearing of the death of David Bowie, just moments ago.

So I'll write.

This blog was/is a way to post stories of my childhood, growing up with a mother who was a David Bowie impersonator. She hand fed my brother and I his music from the time we were born. Hearing his songs is like coming home for us. We knew every word like most kids knew nursery rhymes.

Mum (Donn Shy) as the "Thin White Duke."

Having no idea of Bowie's state, I texted my brother the following at 5:27 p.m. PST this afternoon:

"Cleaning house, listening to The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. Reminds me of being kids and doing the same. And then--HOLY SHIT--what an amazing album! My God! What lucky monkeys we were to be introduced to this music when we were. Beyond comprehension."

Mind you, I'd been listening to that album on a loop since yesterday. Driving to Ojai from Malibu, I cycled through Aladdin Sane, Hunky Dory, as well as TRAFoZS. When driving through Oxnard, the California town I grew up in, I sang Drive In Saturday loud--not a care in the world--reminiscing on the times we listened to the album on tape in Mum's Toyota Celica, then Suburu station wagon, driving that same road when we were all much younger.

Mum became Bowie night after night, performing at clubs and such. It was a bit annoying as kids because, hell, we were kids and just wanted our mum to be a mum. PTA meetings, award assemblies, sandwiches. But as adults, hell if we don't think she was a Badass with a capital "B".

The week mum died (January of 2012)--I couldn't believe it--David Bowie graced the cover of Rolling Stone. 

I bought it. 

I kept it.

 

After my best friend, Great Dane Audrey, passed away, not long after Mum left this earth, I decided I was getting a tattoo. In fact, I was going to design that mother. And I did. 

Mum's symbol in her illness became a butterfly. I had given her, just before she passed, a bracelet I had made with a butterfly on it and a print of a butterfly with the following quote:

"Just when the caterpiller thought the world was over,

it became a butterfly." - Anonymous

She cried. And that memory is forever burned in my mind and when I see a butterfly approach me or my windows, "It's her," I say.

And Bowie. And then there was Bowie. And I sketched. And a butterfly came about with Bowie as Ziggy Stardust as the pattern it the butterfly's wings. And Audrey on the other side, soaking up the sun in a henna-like pattern. And I found one of THE best tattoo artists, Louie Perez at Shamrock Social Club in Hollywood, to finish the design and ultimately create what is now on my left arm for life. I'm so grateful for that and that he was available and up to the task.

 

Yes, I'm rambling. I have no idea how to respond other than to say this one cuts deep, for so many reasons. And though I don't know what I believe anymore when it comes to the afterlife, I wonder if he is where she is and if she is finally able to ask him all the questions she wanted to ask.

I have a special keepsake of hers that I've been searching for for a week. It wasn't where I last put it, the special place where I have been keeping it. I pulled down every storage bin, looked through every file. No where. And was feeling quite devastated. How could I be so irresponsible to misplace it?

When the news broke tonight about Bowie's death, I decided to pull out my "Bowie is Inside" book to have a look, hoping to find a photo I could post to Instagram with my sentiments. 

Out fell the keepsake. 

I don't recall putting it in there, but must have. 



Or must I have?

Childlike Presence

Image courtesy of Sweet Crisis | FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The wind passing through the eucalyptus trees temporarily distracted my senses from today's harsh reality and took my mind back to a time where I found joy in closely observing minuscule insects go about their daily business of survival. They were steadfast and perseverant, my holy teachers. I sat upon decomposed granite, feeling tiny pebbles embed into the skin of my bare legs, leaving artistic indentations of which I'd later count and discover patterns. There was no hurry, nor any need to stand and present myself in any way that simply wasn't. I'd imagine the fallen acorn caps to be tiny hats for fairies, or castles for ants, or I'd organize them into miniature villages. 

These rare and most cherished childhood memories didn't consist of loud screams in bounce-houses, nor birthday parties with slightly creepy hired entertainment, but of quiet moments alone in the backyard of my grandmother's house in Santa Barbara, with the sun warmly caressing my face ever so gently and the wind moving through the trees making everything come alive, all at once. 

I wonder, are introverts born or made?

*The Quiet | Part II

Art (love it!) found here: 
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Little-Mute-Girl-133251540

I’d always hated dresses. One simply can not conduct explorations of insects nor properly study sand particles when wearing a dress and white stockings, unless one finds the occasional beating and screaming at from one’s very southern grandmother desirable. Stockings felt scratchy, like a thousand itching flea bites. Make that a million. They made me constantly aware of where my awkward, skinny legs were at any given time, made me constantly worry about whether or not my underpants were showing, and made me feel extra sensitive and irritated if the wind were blowing. And those warm, Southern California Santa Ana winds were the worst, as I’d simultaneously have to hold my dress down at my knees and pull my static electric hair down toward my face in an attempt to keep others from noticing me and laughing. I’d imagine creating contraptions to hold the dress down—a giant rubber band or possibly custom-made Bungee Cords that would connect the bottom of the dress to my shoes.

Oh, those horrid shoes. I dreaded the toe-pinching black patent leather shoes that were merely good for slipping and sliding along the blacktop and falling on one’s face to the grand amusement of those lucky enough to be donning more appropriate attire, such as sneakers or the slightly acceptable Buster Browns. Nana would shine them up, straighten my dress at the shoulders, and exclaim, “Isn’t that adorable?!” I had no idea as to what “that” she was referring to. I surely had no desire to be considered “adorable” nor a “that.” Perhaps gluing rubber erasers to the bottom of the shoes would solve the issue, making me taller in the process.

Looking back, I see I was a pretty intelligent kid with innovative ideas (at least for that age), but the concept of reading, writing, and arithmetic on these particular types of days was far from the reaches of my ability, as unbeknownst to me and surrounding adults, the sensory receptors in my brain were malfunctioning. I’d find out many years later my amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for the fight or flight response, was defectively over-active. Selective mutism turned out to be the more appropriate term for why I was never able to get out the words “I want a carrot” to the barking Doberman across the schoolyard when Mr. Hoyt, so well intentioned, heroically attempted to cure me of what he saw as an extreme case of the quiet.

Excerpt from chapter five | Dear Mr. Fantasy | Everything’s Hunky Dory: A Memoir

*Are You There "God"? It's Me, "Weirdo".

I had met the famed “God” once, in a roundabout sort of way, when I was about six years old. Behind our apartment complex on Juniper Street, and about fifty yards from the enclosure in which all the children in the neighborhood would study a colorful assortment of porno magazines, was a quiet medical building, which contained within it a circular courtyard with a tree in the center and wooden benches that circled the tree. It was a hidden sanctuary, one of the first to be called my secret place. Vibrant flowers surrounded the lonely, prosaic, brown and white building and I had picked the most beautiful one—its colors resembled a deep amber sunset. I set my gift on the bench and spoke to Him. 

“God, if you’we weally weal, this flowo is fo you. I pwomise I won’t tell anyone I saw you if you take this flowo fwom me. Wheweva you awe, just please appeaw. I just want to see what you look like because I need to see you in my head when I pway and wight now it’s weally hawd. I can’t see you and I don’t believe the dwawings of you; I think people awe just guessing what you look like but I weally need to know. Sometimes I see you as a big face with a white beawd and utho times you look like Jesus with long bwown haiw and it’s just too confusing. Please, please, please come and sit with me. Please.”

I waited and waited. Looked around, kicked leaves, broke up a couple of dirt clots with my hands, sat on the bench and swung my legs. 

Darn it. No God. 

Mum had a way of getting us kids in the house, and quick, with a construction worker’s type whistle, two fingers in her mouth and everyone in the neighborhood knew it was dinner time in Apartment 10. I heard the familiar call and was disappointed that despite my plea and generous gift, God never showed. 

“OK, I know you’we busy, God. I undostand. I’m gonna go eat dinno and I’ll come back and see if you’we hewe. If the flowo is gone, I’ll know you took it, but I’d weally watho see you. I pwomise I’ll nevo tell anyone, even my mum, unless, of couwse you want me to. I pwomise. I just weally need to see you. Please, please be hewe when I get back.” 

After the usual wholesome Hamburger Helper, iceberg lettuce salad, and slice of American cheese cut into four pieces and placed on the plate ever so artistically, I returned to the barren bench only to find that the beautiful flower was still there, only now limp, lifeless, and wilted. I was at first saddened by God’s apparent neglect, then was faced with the thought that I might have uncovered a paramount truth: God was, in fact, only a myth. But slightly hesitant to give up all hope entirely, I stared at it for several minutes, then suddenly recalled a conversation I had recently with Frank about what happens to people when they die. Then it came to me: God dutifully took the soul from the flower and left the body. 

Genius.

I gasped, and somewhat satisfied with God’s cryptic, brilliant response, I looked up into the sky, smiled at Him, then buried the limp remains under a bit of loose dirt in a nearby flowerbed, skipping home before dark.

Excerpt from chapter twenty-one | shambala | Everything's Hunky Dory: A Memoir

Throwback Thursday | Sesame Street Pinball Number 4

We, the kids of the ‘70s, were super funky cool. Sesame Street was droppin’ beats and possibly a bit of something else as well . . . but we didn’t complain.

*Mr. T & Other Non-traditions

Brother Tony & me, with a neighborhood photobomber.

“Miiiiista T!”

Tony and I, arms outstretched stiffly to our sides, jumped down the last few stairs into the living room, shouting the theme song of the early 1980s ‘Mister T’ animated series in unison. Mum was in the kitchen washing dishes. As we stood there with highest anticipation, frozen in perfect “T” position, she dropped the cup she’d been washing into the water filled sink and ran after us, with bubbles covering her arms and hands, laughing hysterically. We wiggled and giggled uncontrollably, and ran back up the stairs to avoid the impending tickle fest, only to return again, two minutes later, with the same routine. However unconventional, this had become our favorite game.

Traditional we were not, and I loved that about Mum. Other kids were sitting with their parents playing charades or even Monopoly, but we were creating make believe worlds under blankets, singing and dancing along to The Beatles’ Abbey Road and of course, playing the wonderful game we created called “Mister T.” I’d read all of the cards in the Trivial Pursuit and Ripley’s Believe It Or Not games, anyhow, which made me no fun to play with, apparently. 

Excerpt from chapter fourteen | name of the game | Everything’s Hunky Dory: A Memoir

*Drugs, from the perspective of a nine year old.

Mum’s drugs, to me, were comparable to that annoying relative everyone seems to have—the loud mouth that has no regard for what is going on around her. Let’s call her “Auntie High”. . .

Those friendly with “Auntie High” tend to become like her, careless and obnoxious. Those who avoid her tend to be the ones left to clean up the mess. Like a tornado, she vacuums everything and everyone up around her then drops them back down to the floor, shattering whatever propensity toward security and authenticity one might have had. Always creating a mess to clean up, physically or psychologically, the users sleep it off the next day in a darkened room, non-users expected to sort it all, whilst wondering “Where can I safely dispose of these razor blades?” and “How can I know for sure this is flour?”

I’d notice that the moment drugs entered the room, everything changed, everyone felt different. They were now what appeared to be programmed robots that looked like people you knew but were, in fact, not. When these hyper-cyborgs sat on our sofa, it was as if this warm place that just the night before was a source of comfort on which chocolate chip cookies and Charlie Brown’s Christmas were enjoyed, was transformed into a dark and lonely place where imposters laughed and didn’t listen to each other, though they talked an awful lot, rather loudly. Even if hidden in the quiet darkness of a bedroom closet, one could always tell when the drug was about.

Excerpt from chapter fifteen | changes. EVERYTHING'S HUNKY DORY: A MEMOIR

*Excerpt from Chapter Seventeen: The Sound of Silence

I wasn’t invited to her ceremony, I couldn’t say goodbye. From this day forward, no one discussed Nana’s passing other than announcing the culprit was a hideous ruptured brain aneurysm. Was it even true? How could I cry when I wasn’t sure? Where was the evidence?

I began to have episodes filled with rage, which I’d take out on hairbrushes, behind closed doors, alone in bathrooms. I’d smash the terribly unsuspecting, innocent objects against the counter until the handles shattered into tiny pieces, of which I’d then carefully pick up each and every speck so as not to be caught. I went through dozens of them, sneaking off almost daily to the local discount shop where I could find them for less than a dollar a piece. 

Shortly thereafter I began taking the anger out on myself, hitting myself as hard as I could, then regretting it, over and over. God forbid I should show emotion in front of the family, it was such an inconvenience after all.

Nana’s death was never spoken of again except for the few short outbursts of grief Mum would express when reaching for the phone to call her mother, a strange phenomenon I’d come to know intimately twenty-five years later.

Excerpt from chapter seventeen | the sound of silence | EVERYTHING'S HUNKY DORY: A MEMOIR

Everything's Hunky Dory

Oh dear. It’s been quite a while. "Why?" you ask. Well, let’s see. My mother passed away from cancer. I was her sole caretaker at the end. That, and, I decided to write a book about the experience, along with details of our dark, severely unbalanced, yet somewhat entertaining relationship.  And I mention throughout the journey what it was like to have Asperger’s in a world where one’s mother isn’t quite June Cleaver nor Clair Huxtable, but David Bowie (or rather an impersonator of) in all of his glorious eccentricities. 

Yes, this is my story. And there's much more to come, so please stay tuned. :0)

Hangover Mornings: Part II

While enrolled in kindergarten at Hollywood Beach School in Oxnard, California, I rode a bus that would pick me up on the corner of Island View and Glendale Avenue at 8:05 a.m. sharp. I woke up one morning with the sun shining a little brighter and hotter than it usually did at wake-up time, and realized I was late for school. 

In a panic, I ran to my mother's bedroom door, which happened to be locked. Though I knocked several times, there was no answer. I picked up a pair of khaki pants off the floor that seemed extremely large, but identified as pants nonetheless, put on a green and blue striped polo shirt from the day before, shouted a hurried good-bye to Steve Martin (my trusty invisible friend), then ran down the street barely making the bus and tripping over the pants I had to hold up with both hands.

I spent the morning in Mrs. Brooks’ class wondering if my mother was alive, feeling extremely embarrassed about the pants and the multiple, yet unavoidable, accidental exposures of my red and white Mighty Mouse underpants. Mrs. Brooks took me in to the principal’s office who made a call to Sleeping Beauty who, minutes later, whisked me away in her speedy 1970 cherry-red Toyota Celica sport coupe. "Here I come to save the day!" If only underwear could talk. 

I happily spent the rest of the day with her in silence. After exchanging the pants (which turned out to be my five-foot-five mother’s) for yellow terry cloth shorts, I played with Matchbox cars and a Tonka dump truck that matched my shorts in our sandy backyard, both knees conspicuously covered in cat shit. She sunbathed in her favorite black bikini, filling the backyard with her sweet coconut scented Hawaiian Tropics suntan lotion, and when it was time to go inside, she wincingly washed my knees off with the hose, as per what had become old family tradition. I giggled as usual, because poop was, and still is, very funny.

* * *

I learned that day how to carefully determine which clothes were mine and which were hers by holding them up to my body and looking into the mirror prior to putting them on my body. I learned to brush my hair before I went to school and, more importantly, to never tell a teacher, nor a principal, my mom had a thing she called a "hangover".

Side note: That night I dreamt the devil, a short and stubby cartoonish-looking red fellow with a beer belly, red cape, and matching red pitchfork, had jumped the fence with full intention on harming my mom. As she sunbathed in her black bikini, unaware of the imminent danger, I hit the devil in the head with my Tonka Dump truck, and he vanished in thin air. I killed the devil and, thankfully, my mom knew nothing of it. 

Hangover Mornings: Part I

My mother didn’t become an early riser until years after I had moved out of the house at eighteen. I recall as a youngin' her more than occasional late night drinking binges would knock her out until late mornings, early afternoons, which would open doors to a curious world of investigation for small children. It also created a sense of total self-reliance in me that I would never be able to shake, which would later annoy the hell out of friends and many a chivalrous fellow attempting to win my affection.

***

One morning, whilst living in beautiful, sunny San Diego, my mother and her sister, Chris (who was staying with us at the time while my father was away on active duty), had enjoyed a few too many Michelob beers the night before, causing them to snooze past the legal breakfast hour, Pacific Standard Time. I, in an effort to get started on a productive day, climbed out of my crib in a charming pink one-piece footsie pajama (of which was filled from the ankle up with unknowingly trapped, yet very hopeful absconding turd balls), then proceeded to take Aunt Chris’ favorite bottled fragrance, Charlie, out of the bathroom cabinet, out the front door, then on to brighten up the neighborhood by “making all da plants smell weal pweddy.”

A helpful, caring neighbor (who apparently wasn’t a fan of Revlon’s most popular scent) used the very tips of his right hand fingers to guide me back to the front door of our home, likely plugging his nose with his left hand in order to protect himself from ingesting the stench of a wandering, perfume-wielding fugitive.

***

My mother learned to keep valuable liquids out of the reach of children, to latch the door chain before going to bed at night, and to cut the feet off of all one-piece footsie pajamas in order to provide liberation for refugee turds and their accompanying odors.

Side Note: I wouldn't suggest ever plugging "pink footsie pajamas" into google's image search.

*Steve Moutain

“Let’s play a game! Awe you weddy? Who’s undo my bed?” I yelled out as I jumped up and down on my “big-girl bed”, flailing my blue Beatrix Potter themed bed sheets, causing tiny cyclones amongst the coloring books and assorted messiness sprawled on the floor.

“Nobody.” Julie answers. Such a Julie answer, always years ahead of herself.

“Awe, come on, just twy an’ guess.”

Julie slowly knelt down, hesitantly peeked under my bed and replied with an expressionless freckled face, “A shoe.”

I’m now aggravated beyond belief. She’s not my friend anymore.  I’ll never talk to her again, ever, if she doesn’t try to guess. “Guess a name. Anybody’s name.”

“Your mom?”

“Nooooooooo! It’s Steve Moutain! Steve Moutain is undo my bed!”

I, of course, was referring to my future husband, at least in my dream world of a brain, who’s poster hung over the head of my bed. In his dapper white suit, black tie and handkerchief, and unforgettable green and yellow rubber trout slightly poking its head out of the lapel, he was cupping his hands together, mouth open, as if genuinely exclaiming, “There you are! I’m so happy to see you!” In fact, that is exactly what I imagined him to be saying every time I entered my octagonal shaped bedroom and looked at him hanging there on the wall, so comforting, so loyal, so safe.

“Who’s Steve Mountain?”

It wasn’t until second grade when I insisted on properly pronouncing the word “fart” that I’d begin to pronounce my “r’s” like a real-live human being from planet earth. I couldn’t fault her for mistaking “Martin” for “Mountain” (although, I believed the choice should have been quite obvious).

“It’s not Steve Mountain. It’s Steve Moutain. He’s behind me on the posto! I’m a Wiiiiild and Cwayzay Guy!” My earliest celebrity impersonation, performed unrestrained to no avail.

Julie, apparently, had never seen Saturday Night Live, which was not an optional viewing choice in our home. It was a requirement. I don’t know what kind of standards they were operating on in her home, but I certainly was not impressed. Steve had hosted SNL an unprecedented seven times by the time I turned five, just enough times for an obsessive child to become, well, pretty obsessed with him. He’d also had a cameo in Jim Henson’s The Muppet Movie (another obsession of mine), playing an insolent waiter. I sometimes wonder if I attached to Steve as I would have my real father, who disappeared when I was three.

This was my first time allowing anyone into my little “Steve Moutain” secret world, although thankfully, Julie was such a logical thinker, even at three, it seemed my strange choice in sleeping partner passed right over her sophisticated little head, never to be mentioned again. I blushed uncontrollably - a characteristic I, to this very day, have never gained control of. 

Being five years old, and having the idea that a thirty-seven year old man with white hair and a dashing sense of style and humor was under my bed is probably something I should discuss with my therapist, as most would find it a tad on the creepy side. (I can’t say I would have minded it in my older single days, although I can’t imagine him feeling all that comfortable hiding under there day after day at his age – he has things to do, after all. The man’s a genius.) What was he doing under my bed? Well, hiding, I suppose, until it was time to go to sleep. Then he would crawl up onto the bed, give me a warm squeeze, then fall asleep next to me, making “the dark” not such a scary locale after all. Steve Martin was my comforting, invisible friend.

Either we’re all born with a “type” or my pal Mr. Martin set a precedent for me that I’d take with me in to my adulthood. He had those eyes, the ones that hold a great intensity, as if they are so interested in what is before them that if not for the physiological build of the eyelids, they might jump out and explore, maybe even gobble you up. Jerry Lewis had those eyes, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, Jim Carrey, Peter Sellers, and the boy I had a seven-year crush on through junior high and high school (although unlike the others his seemed to dim with age, possibly due to being deemed “Most Likely To Succeed” in the sixth grade yearbook – that’s a rough one to uphold). You can almost read their brains. Creators. It’s as if an entire library lies right beneath the surface of them and I want to dive in through the pupil, make myself comfortable and meditate on each and every word.  The sorrow, the joys, the crushing embarrassments, I want it all, and I can remember I was drawn to those eyes even as a little girl.

Julie had a yellow gingham blanket she affectionately named “Meemers”. Julie refused to sleep without Meemers. Meemers couldn’t play the banjo, tell jokes, nor juggle kittens (at least not with any prowess). Meemers was an acceptable security item for a three-year-old girl. My choice, an accomplished actor/musician/comedian . . . not so much. Though in secret, I was convinced I was the coolest kid on the block and I didn’t need that stupid nightlight anyway, thank you very much. 

  

Excerpt from chapter five | dear mr. fantasy | Everything's Hunky Dory: A Memoir

Hit the Road, Toad

There are tiny black and grey pebbles embedded in the palm of my right hand and I hope a car doesn’t come soon.  

"Why am I doing this? There must be some scientific reason behind this—it must be something all ‘grown-ups’ have done at some point in their lives."   

She told me to 'hit the road', so I did.  I was four. 

This is literal thinking.