Getting close to 500....

Hi Stephen,

How are you today?  I woke up to a massive thunderstorm going on, and a power outage. Woo hoo.  But everything's fine now, it's over, and yet it's still horribly muggy and uncomfortable outside.  So here I am.  My arms ache though, lately I've been waking up every damned day with elbows and shoulders that are sore and achey, I don't know why.  Maybe I am doing cartwheels in my sleep or something.  Very annoying though.

It seems that I have written you 490 posts on this blog so far...getting close to 500...and yet, I have no idea if you've ever read any of them.  I guess it really doesn't matter, but it's a guilty pleasure to daydream about it every once and awhile.  I really have no future plans for it or anything, I just never expected to have written nearly 500 posts to you like this.  I would have thought I'd lose interest long ago, because it's really a one-sided thing. But, maybe I'm just one of those annoying chicks who likes to hear herself talk...or in this case, write...I don't know.  (I really actually don't talk much).  But writing, that's another can of worms.  If you open it, for me at least, you'd better stand back cause I am a write-aholic, and I'll just keep going.

Accidentally, I stumbled on this weird thing about you recently.  When I first saw it, I thought, "Okay, that's new, seems cool..." and so I joined this page on Facebook, "Steve Perry's Faithful Ones."  But wow, the people there seem to like to make pictures of stuff with your old photos in it, draw comic book cartoons, and write poems and stuff....I mean, wow....I don't think I am THAT obsessed about you, really, but it's interesting to see how many people love you so much.  It's a strange feeling, going there to read it, though, like you're being covered in some kind of dysfunctional soap scum from it or something...I don't know how to explain it.  It's kinda creepy.

I mean, I have this knack for being able to imagine myself in somebody else's shoes...I wish more people had this ability too...but, if it were ME, and somebody out there made a web site, or a blog, or a Facebook page about me, discussing every little thing I did, or said, or didn't do, or didn't say, with old photos of myself, at various stages in my life-----well, that would totally creep me right the fugg out.  I like to see RECENT photos of you, sure, but I won't stalk you to take your picture or anything.

Now....you really SHOULD expect this from me, as a bias, so I'm gonna toss this sentence out....a BLOG (like mine) really isn't so bad, really, because it's just a conversation...a one-sided conversation....that doesn't go too overboard....or, okay, shaddap---hellfire and damnation, maybe it DOES every now and then, I don't know, I just write whatever is in my head at the time.  That's what a conversation is, you know, just shootin' the shit with somebody you like being around. I just write to ya like you're a plain old regular normal guy, too, not some "god" to be worshipped or deified in some way.  That just makes me feel all creepy when I see that on other internet sites.  I wouldn't blame you one bit if THAT is why you avoid the internet.

I've posted one photo of you that I really like on that Facebook page so far, but I never got a welcome message for joining like someone else did, and nobody actually commented on the photo or anything, so maybe it's not exactly the right kind of thing for me to be a part of.  Maybe my photo of Pete and I standing with the boys of Journey (which is on my name on Facebook), isn't exactly appealing to them. I don't really know, but my guess is most likely, I am just too OLD and they want young people there.

Ah well.  This blog is kinda all over the place, really, some days I write about you.  Some days I write TO you, some days, I write to everybody ELSE who reads it, some days I just "vent" my troubles and/or frustrations about life, some days I go off on a political rant, some days I just write about BDSM and smut, and camp.  It just depends on whatever mood I'm in at that moment.  It has no real rhyme or reason, there is no 'outline' for it, no set plan, I just write.

It's not always GREAT writing, it's not always entertaining, it's not always fun.  But, I don't have a job, so I have lots of time to think about stuff, and sometimes writing just helps me to "get it all out" so I can focus on other things.  It is also the perfect avenue for me to waste time and procrastinate, or avoid housework!!  I really am NOT a domestic goddess you know.  I have always had a diary, you see, so it comes very naturally to me to write whatever I am thinking about.  I used to practice typing faster by listening to songs on the radio that I knew the lyrics to, and I would try to BEAT the song by typing the lyrics faster than they would be singing them.  So, I can sit here for 10 minutes and type a 40 paged BOOK about something...a first draft, not the perfect final result...but like that long-assed article I tried to write the other day, I will edit it, I will work on it, think about it, and focus on it awhile until it DOES seem to be more perfect as a final result.

Can't really do that with a blog though.  I mean, sure, I can go BACK and EDIT something I've written, (which I have done before), or remove last names from Facebook conversations (out of courtesy for those people involved whom I don't know very well), and sometimes I add things that I forgot while writing about it.  Nobody ELSE knows that, and it doesn't get RE-posted or anything, so mostly, what you see is what you get.  It's raw, it's real, it's just me...in all my imperfect, human glory.

I think that everybody needs some kind of hero to admire, though, and maybe that's why so many of those web sites out there about you are kind of...over the top.  To a lot of people, you have somehow "morphed" into this super hero who can do no wrong, this perfect being, this all-mighty, high-classed hero who sings about love and hope and beautiful things in the world...things we all need more of. And yet, you're one of the most UN-attainable people, a very PRIVATE person, which only makes people want you MORE.  Someone like George Takei, for instance, is OUT THERE, he's Facebooking, he's Tweeting, he's doing things in the limelight, he's more attainable and people tend to just chill about him.

Maybe you LIKE being that "mysterious morphed megalomaniac" type of guy, I don't know.  I'd like to THINK you might try to rise above all that crap though.  You are a rare guy, though, I can definitely agree with everybody who REALLY knows you, about that.  A very rare person, a special person, someone who isn't at all in the same realm as most of us.  I don't know why that is, but you have this ability to transform ordinary things into beauty just by opening that gorgeous pie hole of yours and singing about it.

Don't believe me?  Then go try this, jot down a silly, stupid 2 minute song about nasty smelly TOE JAM, and then sing it.  I'll bet you 50 million women would buy the damned song, because you've somehow just made toe jam into a beautiful thing!!!  I'll bet you have had that urge to do stuff like that in the past, many times, I'm sure.  (The Beatles did it, a lot, and laughed themselves sick all the way to the bank). But your integrity prevents you from going there.  And THAT is another rare thing in men: integrity.

But, at the same time, your appeal is also that you're REAL.  You're imperfect.  You have made mistakes.  You put your pants on one leg at a time like everybody else.  You missed out on doing fun things for a long time while touring with Journey, and now you're out and about doing those things that we all take for granted.  Seeing recent photos of you at a baseball game or a football game or out at the zoo, is very comforting to many people---including myself---because the reassurance that you're still with us, you're still living your life, you've earned it, you're doing what you want to do----makes us all feel at ease about the world, like things are as they are supposed to be, and leave him alone to enjoy it.

You're not still up on a stage, like Neal will be for the next 20 years, trying to pay off alimony to 8 or 12 other women he was once married to.  Ya know?  You can CHOOSE to be on a stage, or NOT, and you know that people will love you either way.  The same cannot be said for Neal.  The minute he puts that guitar down, and steps off the stage, the minute his "adoring fans" will fade away.  He doesn't have that same integrity that you do, that's why.  He's too shallow.  You, are a very DEEP kind of person. There are many layers to Steve Perry, many more than Neal could ever dream of having.

Ah well, anyway, you're a good man Stephen.  That's all I am trying to say.  And good men are rare.

So it doesn't matter to me if you read this blog or not.  Part of me feels relief to think, "he doesn't read it, and that's a GOOD thing because I'm a weirdo!"  So, while I like the daydream of the thought of you sitting down with a cup of tea to read it every day and get a chuckle or two out of it, at the same time I kinda hope you DON'T, because wow, I have gone back to re-read some of it here and there, and what a wild and weird trip it is!!  Some people might have come here at first to read something YOU have written BACK as a real "conversation," and been disappointed to find it's just plain old ME, sitting here typing stupid shit to YOU, like a boneheaded fan.

Well, no matter, it's just something I do to pass the time, because you're somebody I enjoy talking to.

I guess I'll go for now.  Tonight I'm going to see the concert performance of YES, with Pete.  We have previously seen Jon Anderson, I think, but this is the rest of the band I guess.  I'm not exactly thrilled, but it'll be interesting.  I am happy that I'll get to sit with and BE with Pete, since I haven't really been able to spend much time with him lately, he's been going to work and then straight to his play rehearsals afterwards, until late.  Feelin' a little bit lonely, missing that big lug.

I love ya Stevie baby!  I'll keep writing.  So, you just keep being you, keep doing whatever you love doing, and be happy. That's all I want for ya, is to be happy, no matter what you do, where yo go, or whom you're with.  You'll always be my favorite human.

Love, Rebecca