When i was 14 i got into a lot of trouble, as a result of my not having healthy coping skills for the feelings i had over my parents divorce, within a year i had run away, been to juvenile hall, gotten put on probation till i was 18 and numerous other dumb shit. The price i paid was huge, but there were also lessons that i learned, growth and amazing living experiences that cannot otherwise be had unless there were those hard ships. Someday, other than today, I will write on those experiences, today though I am going to talk about just one of those experiences. Like i said, there were hard lessons, and good experiences, one of those experiences was that I got kicked out of my step fathers house and had to go and spend a summer with my father who had recently relocated to beautiful and sometimes frozen Madison Wisnonsin. So there i was, in the middle of goddamn nowhere, basicaly alone, except for my father, step mom and 3 younger sisters, I was originaly only supposed to stay a summer, but i learned come september that i was screwed and that it would be some time before i got to see The Bay again, in fact it would be 3 years before i finally got back home to visit, and by that time i had finished (ok not finished in technical terms, I recieved my G.E.D.) high school, had a job and and apartment with a great bunch of outcasts simular to myself.
when i was still in high school I met my friend Mike Wallace (no, not the guy from 60 minutes) at a Motorhead show - it was the 10th anniversary tour at Turner Hall. We found out that we lived close to eachother, and started hanging out, and became instant best friends, and he is still my friend today. However, this write up is not about that relationship anyway. Through Mike I met George, Jason, Larry, and Greg, and many, many others, one of those 'others' was my dear friend Mary Herson. I met Mary at a Die Kreuzen show, back then she had the very dubious nickname of Mad Dog, which is a punk as fuck nick name if ever there was one, especialy for it to be attatched to a quiet and reserved girl such as Mary. A few years later we would become roomates, and she went on to marry my buddy Randy and have 2 amazing sons. However, life happens unexpectedly and we had drifted apart for 15 years do to many different reasons that someday i will post here on Rogue Libels, but thanks to the internet we have been in steady contact once again, and semed to have picked up right where we had left off, talking, laughing and sharing our apreciation of music. Back when we were teenagers we had gone to lots of punk shows, local punk ragers Die Kreuzen, Mi art punk The Crucifucks, had made heavy rotation in Madison in those days and those are stand out shows that i remeber dearly. But this post isnt about those bands either.
What this post IS about is the wonderful thing that happened between then and now, you see somehow, someway, incredibly, I grew up and so did Mary, I'm sure in some way we will always have a little bit of that teen angst that we had shared way back when, the drunken all night parties high on cough syrup and jim beam, or the hot summer nights when her and randy would come home and find me passed out on their fron porch. Neither one of us are in Madison anymore, we still have ties there and will forever be connected to that incredible city, but for now we share our moments talking about what its like today instead of what it was like then, its always better to stay in the here and now, and not stay stuck in the 'remember when'. Those were fun times, but we've let go and became the productive and responsible adults that were waiting to come out of those angry teen bodies. Recently we had been sharing some files over the interwebs and she sent me a link to what has to be some of the most heartfelt non metal music i have heard in a while. I know most of my family and friends know me as a straight up metal head, and yes it is my first love, and rocknroll in general is my love and passion, but when i need a break i can look beyond the inverted crosses and corpse paint and blood splattered death and throw on something different. This by no means is a music blog, it is though my way of getting stuff from inside my heart and head, out into the open.
Thank you Mary for so many years of friendship, this ones for you
but first I would like you all to read this
http://www.expectingrain.com/dok/cd/97/anthology.html
and DL it here
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2 comments:
This has me laughing and crying at the same time. It's wonderfully healthy that you're doing this and able to write about y(our) experiences with levity, while putting them in the proper perspective. We've both gone through some horrible things, but we came out the other end as stronger, more enlightened people and you're using your experience to help others which is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Thank you for being my friend all these long years and for being you!
Thank you Mary, for those kind words. It truely is a miracle that no one was ever seriously hurt back then. I think about that a lot, and am thankful that we had enough common sense to make up for our lack of good judgement. There will be more stories here about Mad Town later on.
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