Good morning Stephen,
Happy Halloween to you! I thought I'd start out with a quote from John Lennon, because he's so cool. Before YOU came along in my life, I actually had walls in my bedroom plastered in ELVIS photos from magazines, and he was my ultimate favorite human being in the whole universe. I loved him. When he died, I was the same age as his daughter, Lisa Marie. It crushed me. I cried for months.
Then, awhile later, I discovered the Beatles, and John Lennon...and OH!! I just HAD to have John Lennon all over my walls, and quotes that he was known for, and posters, etc.....I loved HIM more than Elvis, I thought. But, then he died too. December 8, 1980. My grandpa had died that same year, in February, and I was only 12. That was a tough year for me. Not only did I lose my best friend in my grandpa, but the death of John Lennon completely crushed me because somebody else SHOT HIM. He would still be alive if that idiot (who is a piece of shit, and not even worth having his name mentioned), hadn't gotten close to him.
Now, I had started to like Journey at age 10, too, but not to the extent of Elvis and John Lennon. But then, a little while after that, suddenly, I had Journey posters all over my walls, and I fell head over heels in love/lust with you. Since then, I've been feeling horribly guilty, that maybe I am a JINKS, or something, because every time I loved someone, (a musician especially), that person would just up and die....or, as in your case, the band would break up. So, yeah, you're not the ONLY guy in music that I fell for as a kid, you know. In fact, I was a flute and piccolo player in band since 5th grade, so I fell for a few other musicians that I spent all those hours with at concerts and rehearsals and solo & ensemble competitions...etc. I guess I've just been a sucker for creative, musical men.
I got totally interrupted this morning, while writing this...and it's now nearly 10 p.m. when I finally get to sit down and finish it. Sorry for the delay.
What's this I hear, that you're singing a Beatles song on your new solo album? Freaky, dude, I just sat here first thing this morning, writing about John Lennon----I didn't even read the blurb about this until after dinner tonight----so that's kinda bizarre. But hey, I'm cool with that. One of my all-time favorites is "Yesterday." I hope you'll consider singing that one. If you do "Imagine," though, I'd love that one too. But yeah, that's not really "The Beatles" though. Those two, however, are probably my most favorite songs that they sang. I mean, I loved ALL of their songs, especially the one where they repeat over and over some crazy phrase that just makes no sense at all.....well....dammit, I can't think of it.....but they just keep repeating some phrase that is just plain silly. Pete says "They did that a lot, in many songs." But there's ONE like that and I can't think of it.
Aw hell, lemme go look it up on Google.....hold on....*(insert JEOPARDY music here)*......................
.............Aw hell, Pete's right. SIGH. Well, now THAT'S gonna bug the hell outta me all night.
Anyway, kudos on singing a Beatles song.
Please, Stephen, may I ask you a huge favor?? Will you PLEASE DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL TOO?!! I mean, you seem to like regurgitating old Journey stuff a lot, (re-living it, trying to "fix" it, doing some kind of personal therapy, slamming it in the other guys' faces because you CAN, etc., whatever the reason), but in your next solo album, will you PLEASE do something that YOU and ONLY YOU can sing??
Don't turn into just another outdated has-been-hack-singer who sells out and just does cover tunes of other bands---man, that would totally suck shit through a straw. I'd be very disappointed. You are better than that. You DESERVE better than that. I mean, all your LIFE you've never allowed Journey songs to be used in stupid t.v. commercials, which is AWESOME and I APPLAUD that, but be careful!! Doing one Beatles song is cool---nobody is gonna fault you for that----but just don't slide into that abyss of "hey, I sold a buttload of albums with that one, now let's do a Black Eyed Peas song..." because that would really blow massive chunks out the car window. That's just plain laziness, and lame-assed, half-assed loser-ville bullshit. (Sorry, just speaking the truth).
Ah well. I love you no matter if you ever sing another song again as long as you live. But I hope you will, and I hope it'll be original.
Okay, so here's Pete in his Batman costume...(yes, he wore it to work today, without the mask & gloves---he's 53 years old and still enjoys being a kid sometimes...which I find to be very endearing)...and then there's ME, as Robin.
I never wore my costume out in public though. I was quite peeved Saturday night, actually when Pete decided he wanted to stay home and watch a movie instead----the truth of the matter is, this decision was his revenge....you see, I didn't give him nooky that morning, like he had asked for.....(I was finishing the blog, and told him I would come back to bed after I was done....but when I did, Pete was absolutely zonked out, snoring loudly, totally sound asleep!! I respect a person's sleep very much---I had to, since I was a kid---my dad took a lot of naps (but he was actually drunk, I just didn't know it).....so like I always used to do with my dad, (because he would get very angry if I woke him up)....I just let Pete keep sleeping)...so he was apparently "punishing" me, by not taking me out to a Halloween party like I had wanted to.
Marriage isn't always my favorite thing. In fact, there are some days, I don't want to be here anymore. So, when Pete did this on Saturday night, I just silently decided to go out BY MYSELF and have fun, without him, the next time I have the opportunity. And I will.
Anyway, Halloween is my favorite holiday.
Except last year. That was probably the worst one EVER.
Last year, Pete took me to DC to attend a Halloween party at the Crucible, (which I was VERY much thrilled about, I miss going there so much).....and while we were there, I visited the Museum in DC where I used to work, for the first time since I had left in 2001...I took Pete through the entire exhibition, (he had never been there before), and as I rounded the very first corner of the place, I suddenly burst into tears---and I felt like I had been kicked right in the guts.....I just cried and cried and cried, like a hysterical freak the entire time. I literally felt so much pain in my guts the whole time, I thought I was going to die.
That was the most painful thing I have ever felt.....God I can't even describe it...but I went back, to see it again, and it was like, all those people in those photographs staring at me---they had been my FRIENDS for 6 years----ya know? I had seen them day after day, after day...I knew those faces. I knew those stories of what happened to each and every one of those people...and they were suddenly looking at me again, after a long time of my not being there, and I felt GUILTY. I felt like they had been depending on me to keep telling their stories, so their lives were not lived in vain, and I had let them all down by leaving so abruptly. I had stopped telling those stories. I still don't. I felt all of those people staring at me, again, and it hurt me to the core. I loved those people. I wanted to avenge those people. I wanted to spend my entire LIFE telling their stories and working to make sure they were never forgotten.
But my life ended on 9/11.
Imagine this......you decide one day, on a total fluke, just to go to a Journey concert. But you don't tell anybody you're going, and you just show up, in sunglasses and a baseball hat, jeans, etc., so that nobody would recognize you...and not even the boys of Journey know you're there....you're feeling a bit curious, but distant from it all---but, suddenly, the music begins, the fans go crazy, the lyrics are being sung by somebody other than you-----and out of nowhere, that amazing passion you once thought had died within you long ago, when you had left the band, suddenly bursts alive inside your gut, and permeates your entire being, all at once, and everything comes flooding back to you so fast, your head spins....and the next thing you know, you're up on that stage, taking the microphone out of Arnel's hands, and rocking out with the boys---much to their shock and surprise...and suddenly, while you're feeling all this overwhelming passion for what you have spent most of your life doing----you can't sing another word....all you can do is just burst out in tears....you fall to your knees and cry, while the stage and the audience goes silent.
I'll bet you've had dreams like that...am I right? Believe me, so have I. I still roam those halls of that Museum in my dreams, a lot. Well, that's kinda how it felt to me, when I went back to the Museum after so long. It hurts. Like a bitch. I feel your pain my friend. I sincerely do. I know EXACTLY what it's like to lose the one thing you loved most in this world, that you worked your ass off for, all your life. I know what it's like to have those people you once worked with closely and trusted, suddenly turn on you, and hurt you with that very thing you dedicated your entire life to.
I think that is why I feel so close to you sometimes. Maybe this blog, and YOU, are MY "personal therapy." I don't know. I just know that I love ya, no matter what.
I put a story on Facebook the other day, about Irena Sendler. If you don't know anything about her, just Google her name. She was an amazing woman. She smuggled 2,500 infants and children out of the Warsaw Ghetto. Those are the types of stories I know by heart, and that I told on a daily basis to groups of students and people of all ages...Sophie Scholl....the White Rose...Mordechai Anielewicz...Corrie Ten Boom....Anne Frank...
Ah yes.....Anne Frank.....she is my most favorite person of all time.....she is my inspiration in all things.
She's the reason I kept a diary all my life, she's the reason I studied the Holocaust all my life, she's the reason I got the job in DC. Everything in my life centered around Anne Frank. I read her diary in 6th grade, and wrote a book report on it. From that day on, I had to know WHY this young girl died like she did. I had to know WHY she was treated so horribly. In fact, Miep Gies was my personal friend for 15 years, (she was Mr. Frank's secretary, who helped them hide). I loved her like she was my very own grandmother, and we were very good friends. We wrote many letters to each other, and talked on the phone occasionally. I wrote about her life story in World War II magazine, in the January 1999 issue. That was my crowning glory of my entire life, actually, that article. I was a star, almost, when that article came out, while I worked at the Museum...everybody was impressed....I was one of the non-Jewish people who worked there, and had the most passion about the subject of the Holocaust. But, I was also resented for that a lot, by some people, too. How dare I, a non-Jew, know more about it, and care more about it, than many Jews do??
Oh yeah, I got that a lot. "Little Miss Shiksa," was a favorite nickname they called me.
You and I, Stephen.....we live completely different lives, we are on the opposite sides of the country, we are 20 years apart in age....but at the same time, I have lived a life that parallels yours in some ways. We're all connected in some way, aren't we. I guess I fell connected to you on many different levels, not just the superficial "I want to be a groupie" type of thing...sure, in my younger years, I was all for that. But, as I have grown older, I've seen your "fall from grace," when you fell and broke your hip...and I've seen my OWN tragic fall from grace as well....and those things that happened to you and to me, were very similar, even though the circumstances were very different. I feel a kinship with you, I guess, because we have both felt the same pain for similar reasons.
And I don't have to tell you that the pain never goes away, either. Do I. Ya just gotta figure out some way to deal with it, and that is NOT an easy thing to figure out.
I'm very sorry to learn that you are "living on anti-inflammatories," because of your arthiritis...that pain is awful in and of itself, I have it too, in my left leg. When it rains, or the weather changes, man...it sucks. My joints get all stiff and stuff, and I ache all through my leg. We share that physical pain, too. Life is not fair, life is unforgiving, and yet, you find a way to deal with it, to make it through the pain, to get on to something more healing, more gratifying, more challenging.
Your solo album is your dark cloud finally fading away...but it won't fade until you face it head-on, let yourself cry, feel the pain, let it soak in all the way through your entire being----and after that happens, you can stand up again and dust yourself off, and walk into the sun.
You're walking into a brand new sun, my friend. And you deserve it. You have EARNED it.
.......I wish I could walk there with you. I faced my pain, but it's still a dark cloud over me.
Bye for now.
Love, Rebecca
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