Music to Remember You By

by Kristina Wright

I'm writing this on the first official day of summer and it has been a crap day for me. By the time you read this (sometime after midnight on Friday), I will hopefully have bounced back and feel like the cheerful, glass is half-full-with-a-dragon-in-it girl that I normally am. Don't know that reference? Here you go:

But this post is supposed to be about music, specifically my summer soundtrack. It's hard to think about summer music when I'm feeling like I haven't done a damned thing right today, but this was my topic and I'm going to try to shift gears and find that groove.

I got the idea for this week's theme from my friend (and brilliant author) Alana Noel Voth. She recently sent me a mix CD. I can't tell you how long it's been since anyone made me a mix CD, but it was probably back when they were still mix tapes. The CD is a compilation of songs that inspired her while she was writing her novel. It was a sweet surprise, all the more so because she didn't include a playlist. I couldn't stop smiling as I listened from beginning to end, never knowing what the next song was going to be. The best part was I didn't know all of the songs. There were a few-- like "Ladylike" by Storm Large-- that I had never heard before and that I loved as soon as I hear the lyrics. Old music, new music, it was just so much fun to hear how she customized the playlist.

Alana started the CD with "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (one of my favorites) and closed with "Cherry Bomb" by the Runaways (Joan Jett's first band). In between were songs by a lot of very talented women. And I've found myself listening to that CD over and over again in my car, replaying songs that took me back to my 80's youth ("Buffalo Stance" by Neneh Cherry) and songs that were just plain catchy and fun to sing ("Shake That Thing" by none other than Gwynneth Paltrow). And I just keep thinking-- what a freakin' awesome thing to do, to create a playlist that represents a span of time, whether it's writing a novel or a relationship or, in this case, a season of the year, and then share it with people.

So it's been a lot of fun reading about other people's musical tastes. (I have a particular fondness for "Boys of Summer," Lisabet.) While I don't deliberately choose the music I write to (it's the Starbucks soundtrack-of-the-month and serves only as white nosie most of time), I do find inspiration in songs. Most often, a particular song can pull me out of a bad mood or put me in a different mood entirely. Alana's CD makes me feel strong, competent, sexy, powerful. No wonder I've been listening to it a lot, right?

This is a roundabout way of saying I don't really know what my summer playlist will be yet. I know I'll be listening to Alana's CD about a hundred more times before the summer is over. And I'll probably be bringing out my Springsteen collection and running through those one right after another, since I'm going to see him in concert in September. Starbucks is playing a lot of Johnny Cash right now, so "Ring of Fire" is ringing my bells, and Motown is always a summer favorite there, too. But like the mix CD that came in the mail a few weeks ago, I'm quite sure I'll have a few musical surprises this summer. Songs that will take me back, songs that will carry me forward. Maybe I'll make a CD to remember the summer by. Maybe I'll even make copies and share it.

Happy Summer.

What River Is This?

by Alana Noël Voth

To xTx

My mother ran away from her father when she was seventeen. He did terrible things to her body, which had everything to do with her inability to love herself; which had everything to do with her inability to love me.

My mother escaped her father by marrying the man who’d become mine. Her past had everything to do with her inability to love him.

When my father was a boy, his father did terrible things to his body, which had everything to do with what he did to mine.

My mother was eighteen when I was born.

My face didn’t conjure any maternal instincts.

I was three when my mother ran away from us. No idea how it felt because I don’t remember her leaving. Mainly, I filled holes. I fell in love with my father. I trusted a babysitter’s husband too much. Later, I wrote dirty, violent stories in notebooks. Terrible shit that happened to bodies: car wrecks and knife fights and burnings. In my room, I listened to music.

No one knows what it’s like to be the bad man, to be the sad man behind blue eyes.

That was a song by the Who. I also remembered “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin and “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues because my father played those records after my mother left us. He had long hair and blond sideburns then. Nights in white satin, never reaching an end. Letters I’ve written, never meaning to send.

I don’t know if my father wrote a suicide note. He came in my room one night and knelt by my bed then held my hand and cried into it. He wanted to run away that night. I stopped him.

What it was, my father worried I’d wake to the sound of a gunshot then have to see his brains all over the wall. That’s how I saved my father. But I wasn’t enough. I was a daughter. He needed a wife. Soon as my father married my stepmother, I felt dumped.

The father I had after he remarried was all oppression and control and anger.

I went from a child to puberty.

There was my father’s anger and its effect upon my body. He always focused on the negative.

“You look fat.”

“You look ridiculous.”

“I hate your hair.”

One day I told him, “I hate you,” and he beat me black-and-blue. Face down on my bed, my father held me by the back of my neck. Blow after blow after blow. I tried to breathe between them. Ever tried it? I was a desperate little bitch. Soon as I caught my breath I said, “I wish you were dead.” My father let go of me, and I clamored off the bed then crawled under it pulling up carpet with my nails like skin. I could see his feet, the belt hanging limp.

Neither of us cried; neither of us said anything. I went to gym the next day and had to undress in the locker room. I worried. Would the other girls say anything? Would anyone feel sorry for me? What would my gym teacher say? Nobody said anything. I didn’t want to tell on my father. Men beat their daughters. My friend Cheryl could tell you stories worse than mine. I undressed then got into my shorts and tee shirt. I walked through the locker room with my scarlet letter; my walk of shame. I loved my father. My father had beaten me. I’d asked for it.

Next day, I asked for it again. I got home from school nine minutes late.

My stepmother said, “Wait until your father finds out.”

When he did, he took my car keys. That was it; that was everything.

The most precious thing men take from us is freedom.

I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, went to my desk in a corner, took out a piece of paper then wrote, “Dear Daddy, I’m leaving and taking Boy George with me.”

That’s what I wrote. My father still has the letter. He loathed Boy George. I loved him.

One afternoon, my father rigged the cable box so I couldn’t watch the faggots on MTV anymore, but he didn’t rig out the Playboy Channel, so I got all the soft core heterosexual porn I could ask for: all those tits and ass. Maybe you wonder about the effect on me.

I packed a bag with clothes and all my Culture Club tapes. Then I took the Culture Club poster off my wall and rolled it up and tucked it under my arm.

I tiptoed down the stairs and out the front door, Boy George my spirit faggot.

When I got to my friend Kristine’s house her mother didn’t say a word. I showed Kristine the bruises, red welts, all up-and-down my legs. She said my father was bad. She said I’d done the right thing, but I was also eighteen. I wouldn’t have to go home ever; he couldn’t make me.

Here’s the thing: I was in love with Kristine. We used to ride in the back of her mother’s 1982 Ford Thunderbird holding hands. We slept in the same bed, watched all the faggots on MTV. Sometimes we went to school. I had five months of twelfth grade left.

One time Kristine said, “I wish you were a man so I could marry you.”

The first time I fucked a boy, he said I was too good at sex to have been a virgin.

I’d seen the Playboy Channel, read Harold Robbins, masturbated, fantasized, been molested. Was that what he’d meant?

I told Kristine I wanted to get out of town.

We drove her mother’s 1982 Ford Thunderbird eighty miles east to Glenwood Springs, and at the pool, met two boys, Dominick and Bryan. Dominick was dark. Bryan wore eye makeup. That’s why I liked him. Also, Kristine and I pretended we were French, no English, so I figured not having to talk to a boy put enough distance between us.

Eventually the four of us left the pool and went for pizza.

Kristine spoke to Dominick in fractured English, keeping up the French accent.

Bryan and I watched each other across the table.

Later we walked down to a river bank. Kristine stripped and got in the water with Dominick. Bryan’s eyeliner started to melt. Dominick and Kristine splashed each other, wrestled.

Bryan was girly enough I told him. “I’m not French.”

“I know.” He smiled.

We watched the water, watched them.

“What river is this?” I asked.

I have a photograph of my mother and me in a river somewhere. I was six months old and wearing a diaper. She’d dipped my feet in the water, and I’d clasped my hands together and opened my mouth in an “o,” either happiness or shock. Hard to tell.

“Let’s get in the water,” Bryan said.

“I don’t know.”

When my father called Kristine’s house, her mother handed me the phone.

I didn’t want to. Finally, “Hello?”

“Come home,” my father said.

“I don’t know.” My moment of power. And I wasn’t prepared for it.

My father sobbed in the phone.

“Daddy?”

“Please come home,” he said.

Bryan grabbed me by my arm and pulled me toward the water. We had this tug-of-war with my body. Into the water I went.

Nothing More Than a Bully

By Kristina Wright

I have been knocked unconscious once in my life. It was a one-punch knockout, too. I guess I have a glass jaw. Of course, I was in the fourth grade at the time, so maybe I could take a punch now. I'm not keen on finding out.

My tale begins with an older, bigger boy. He was in fifth grade, but he had failed at least one grade, maybe two, so he towered over me and outweighed me by a lot. Our altercation actually had nothing to do with me. I was a pretty quiet kid-- kept my head down, nose in a book, did well in school, had a few close friends-- no one really noticed me. Not even the playground bully.

So what provoked my knockout? Ahh... well, you see, I'm very loyal to my friends. Like, mama bear loyal. On that particular day, the mild-mannered fourth grader in me turned into a defender of the helpless, which happened to be my best friend. The bully crossed paths with my friend and knocked her lunch money out of her hand. She began to cry and I came charging. Of course, I failed to acknowledge I wasn't any better equipped to deal with the situation than she was, but that didn't stop me. With Denise crying, I went toe-to-toe and nose-to-chest with her bully. The conversation went something like this:

Me: That was mean! Pick up her money.

Bully: No! It's mine.

Me, picking up Denise's lunch money: Oh no, it's not!

Bully: Give it to me or you'll be sorry!

Me: You're nothing but a bully. I'm not afraid of you.

The next thing I remember, I was opening my eyes and staring at the blue sky. My first (and last) boxing match lasted one round and I never even got in one punch.

I wish I could tell you that was the last time I put myself at risk to help a friend. But regardless of how ill-advised it may be to fight (or attempt to fight) someone else's battles, I have returned again and again to the metaphorical ring, usually unrequested and often unneeded. Why? Because I despise bullies. I hate their tactics, I hate the way they get their way by brute force. I hate that they win only because they're bigger and meaner. The bullies of my youth gave way to the verbal bullies of adulthood. The ones who attack with words. The ones who don't fight fair because they only know how to fight dirty.

Earlier this week, I ran into another bully. One who had his sights set on a friend and didn't even know I existed until I provoked him. I won't mention his name here because I don't want him Googling himself just to sling his garbage at the OGG blog, but he responded to a column written by Alana Noel Voth at PANK. (You can read her thoughtful essay and follow the comment thread here: Dear Tracy Morgan.) I had intended only to comment in order to praise Alana's writing, but the previous commenter had me seeing red. He had written a personal attack on Alana, someone I like and admire, and rather than ignore it (as I probably should have), I responded.

In the end, I didn't do anything to deter this bully from further attacking my friend, I only served to draw attention to myself. Within hours, the bully had visited my blog, spent a total of 3 minutes and 22 seconds there and then sent me the following email:

you called me a misogynist, so I checked out your blog and thought I'd give you my impressions:

You can't construct three sentences that don't kill a reader's attention. Everything you write is intensely boring. Also, you write articles about sex toys and you call your writing erotica/romance/whatever. It's hack material, is what it is. Whenever someone has to struggle just to meet the merits of a genre, it means they're working without the necessary tool: talent.

It's time someone told you, you are a talentless hack.

This is not me being nasty, this is truth. You are incapable of capture a reader's attention and you'll never acquire that ability, because it's an innate one.

Warmest regards,

[REDACTED]

My first reaction was to respond with a correction: I hadn't called him a misogynist, I had referred to his attack as "misogynistic vitriol." I hate inaccuracies, don't you? But after reading his email again, complete with the header Subject: fan mail, I just laughed. How could I not? He spent less than four minutes on my blog and said "everything" I write is intensely boring. It's a ridiculous insult, not worthy of a response. He said I write sex toy reviews-- I did for awhile, years ago, but how is that relevant? He said I was a talentless hack. Possibly true, but certainly subjective since I have credits and editors to suggest otherwise.

So I ignored the bully's email. It seems I should expect another round of anger to be directed my way, as that is his MO, but it doesn't bother me. Not at all. I was offended he insulted my friend, a woman I admire and respect. I was horrified at the things he said to her in a public forum as if he has the right to publicly judge her life just because she published a column. I am still utterly indignant about the attack he inflicted on her. But me? Eh. Nothing he said about me (thus far) is more than a mild annoyance. A yapping puppy nipping at my ankles. Nothing more.

The theme for this week is "sympathy for the devil" and this experience, along with my lovely piece of "fan mail" made me flash back to that event in fourth grade and the reaction I had after the swelling had gone down in my face. I felt sorry for the boy who knocked me out. I still do. Face-to-face, he seemed like an intimidating creature, someone to be feared. In retrospect, even at that age, I saw him for what he was: an unhappy child no one really liked, not even the teachers. The child who stalked through the halls at school scowling at everyone and making other kids cower, but being laughed at behind his back for failing a grade, for being a foot taller than every other kid, for not fitting in, for not having the social skills to make friends. As an adult, I have even more sympathy for the boy who knocked me out with one punch-- he was a little boy, even if he was the biggest little boy in school, and the only way he could get anything from anyone was to take it. So sad.

And now I try to find sympathy for this bully who attacked my friend publicly and me in email. I could use this forum to rant and rail against a man who decided to offer his unsolicited opinion about me after maligning my friend. But I find I simply don't have enough anger or energy to go down that path and respond to such hostility with more of the same. I assume this man is an adult, though I don't know if he's 19 or 59. Regardless of his age, there is a childlike quality to his unprovoked anger; a lack of sophistication to his venomous attacks. He is lashing out at the world, fighting whatever his own personal demons might be and taking it out on others. He goes after those he perceives as intellectually inferior and physically weaker-- women writers. At the end of the day, the person he is most angry with (and likely hates the most) is himself.

Whether it's the talent he resents or the attention or the idea of women claiming their sexuality, or all three, he is enraged and can only be soothed by hurting someone else. He punches at the sensitive spots, attacking with broad generalities and shocking crudities, much like an adolescent boy swinging out to hit a smaller girl. Whatever he might be in real life, in this landscape he is a playground bully, nothing more. Nothing more. Could there be a sadder phrase?

Whatever anger I had at my initial introduction to his malevolent tirade has faded to little more than pity and embarrassment for him. I find myself hoping he's using a pseudonym, as surely his hateful antagonistic words will come back to haunt him if and when he ever buries his demons and comes to terms with his own issues. He is a little boy crying out for attention, for understanding, for... something. Love, maybe? A mother figure? Or maybe he's just a mean-spirited fellow in an unhappy job with a lonely life and he needs to make others feel as bad as he does. Whatever his issues, he's not to be taken any more seriously than the three year old who screams, "You are the meanest Mommy in the whole world!" because he didn't get a cookie before bedtime. He is ineffectual because he hides behind his words and maintains his anonymity while attacking those who are brave enough to put their name, their face and their credentials alongside their opinions and beliefs.

It's heart-wrenching, really. What makes a person like that? What makes one human being turn on another in such a senseless way, especially a stranger in a public forum? I've been pondering these questions all week and have no answers. So my sympathy goes out to one who is not a devil at all, but a damaged soul in need of more than he's ever likely to find on the internet.