Cold War Kids: They Don't Write 'Em Like That Any More

If you're not a child of the cold war, you wouldn't understand the real significance. It was more than just a game. It symbolized a fear that many of us lived with all the time.

Cold War Kids: They Don't Write 'Em Like That Any More

OR

Rambling Incoherent Bullshit Self-Absorbed Navel Gazing Self Reflection Interspersed With Cool Music and Cultural References From A Bygone Era That I Never Really Reconciled With The Events Of So It Continues To Haunt Me

by

The Cheesemeister

AKA

The Real Cie

AKA 

Creator and Head Buttmunch In Charge (and I use the term loosely) of Team Netherworld

The Breakup Song is the inspiration tune for the Midweek Blues Buster prompt. It also happens to be the song I was listening to as I approached home base last night and it inspired me to do some navel gazing—er—self-reflecting.
This post will only be very lightly edited, and will probably become rambling and go off the rails, because that’s how I tend to roll. See this post about “bipolar disorder” and “brain like the web of spiders on drugs” for more detail about why this happens if you care to learn more about the way my brain works, and why I’ll never be able to be one of your cute little published authors who “made the grade.”
 I will include the tunes as I listen to them, for your listening pleasure as well as mine, because, hey, I’m a generous soul. You can just listen to the music if you want, or you can read my rambling thoughts too.
 Once again, I don’t get to share my work with the Midweek Blues Buster people because, like is so often the case with me, I’m not following the rules. The prompt is for the creation of flash fiction. This isn’t fiction, no matter how improbable it may seem to others, or no matter how much I might wish it was at times. This is my real life and my real, actual, messed-up thoughts.

The mix that I’m sharing here includes the poppier side of the music of my seemingly self-absorbed g-g-g-generation. I was a metalhead, albeit a nerdy one. I’m still a metalhead, albeit an aging one. However, my musical tastes have always been eclectic. I enjoy pop as well as the hard stuff. I also listen to a lot of mellow, ambient tunes. 

As I’ve said before, I like everything from African folk music to Zydeco. Backtracking to The Breakup Song. I’ve never really been able to break up with the demons from the past, even though I changed the locks and took away their keys. I don’t press charges when they stalk me. They generally don’t rip huge wounds in my psyche the way they used to. They just nibble at my already iffy mind day in and day out, and I fear that one day they may consume it, and I’ll wind up a blithering mess not recognizing the fact that I’m sitting in my own piss and shit. 

 I’ve taken care of people in this sort of condition since 1988. True, it’s prions (myself, I think that Alzheimer’s disease is a prion disease) and dementia caused by strokes, and being medicated into a twilight state to offset the horrific agony caused by certain cancers, and other forms of dementia that cause people to become deteriorated to such a degree that they don’t realize they’ve soiled themselves; not having a troubled past or a major but somewhat manageable mental illness or three. 

Still, sometimes I want to run out of this setting screaming. I (and everyone else who works with this population) hopes we die, not before we get old but before we become like this. Seriously, sometimes death is better. I’m not trying to be morbid, although I’m certainly capable of that. I’m being truthful. Name me one person who wants to live unaware of their own bodily functions and unable to care for themselves in any way. Yeah, I thought so. 

This is the Twilight Zone for reals, Bitches

This leads me back to thoughts about getting older. All of my relatives from my grandparents’ generation are dead. My own father died three and a half years ago after a long period of physical and finally cognitive decline. My mother turned 74 on Sunday. I am on my way to becoming the older generation. What the fuck wisdom do I have to impart when I’m still not a finished product by any means? This is my parting wish as I prepare to step into the Twilight Zone. 

Xenophobia does not mean fear of these critters. It means hatred and distrust of foreigners.

Could we please not have another cold war? Could we please stop with the damn xenophobia and desire to appear to be the coolest kid on campus whether we actually are or not? Can’t we all just fucking get along? I hope against hope.

~The Cheese~

Cross-Posted to:

The Cheese Whines

KHEL 666

Jersey Polka Richie: Happy Fellow Polka

Wait--first she shares Fiddy Cent and says she enjoys the stories he tells through his songs--now she's sharing polka. What???

It's a melting pot, Folks. I always liked that concept. We haven't entirely lived up to what it should mean. There's still a lot of inequality in the division of opportunities and resources. But I'm not going to go into that at length here.

My background is primarily East European. I'm a Heinz 57. I'm a mixture of most of the world's whitest countries. My complexion is so pale that when the lights go out in a room, I glow. 

In my youngest years, I lived in an area where there were a lot of East Europeans. Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Austrians, Lithuanians, Russians--people who liked cabbage and sausage! They believed in keeping traditions alive. There were festivals of all kinds--any excuse for a festival was a good one. There was always music, and hence, my love of polka!

My family moved away when I was ten years old for a better opportunity for my father, but we went back often, usually around Christmas. 

Those old traditions are dying. Almost all of my grandparents' generation is gone now. My father has been gone for five years. One memory stands strong in my mind. It was not long before we left. I remember his dark curly hair with the threads of gray, his big schnozz that he joked about, his smile, beer in hand. He always regretted leaving. He became kind of a different person after we did, but he was stubborn and would never admit defeat.

Dementia and strokes stole his mind. It happened fairly early on. He was dead by 75.

I was ten years old during that last festival before our move. I had no idea just how young forty was.

I suspect now that my father may have had a mood disorder like I do, and that may have been in part what prompted the sudden decision to move on for "better opportunities." He would sometimes fly into frightening rages. Other times he would be very withdrawn. He worked hard, never missing a day for illness. However, I learned after his death that his personality tended to get him called on the carpet. He was toeing the line most of the time.

I think that there were times when my father was genuinely happy. So for him, here's the Happy Fellow Polka. I like to remember him that way.

~DJ Helena~

A to Z Blogging Challenge: I is for Icehouse

 

A to Z Blogging Challenge:

I is for Icehouse

by

Adam Everhard

My cousin got me and my sister into Icehouse. They had a couple of hits here in the U.S. before their albums started ending up in the dollar bins. They're quite popular in Australia, their homeland, and deservedly so.
I was actually never as keen on their big hits such as "Crazy" and "Electric Blue" as I was on their deeper cuts. I love the above song, for instance.
On a personal note, it was one of those songs I cried in my beer to when I finally grew a pair and broke up with my emotionally abusive boyfriend of 8 years in 2005. Changed the lyric to "hey little boy" when I blubbered along. My family and friends were proud of me for kicking him to the curb, and I was proud of myself. I was okay during the day, but when the night fell, there I was sobbing my heart out to sad tunes.



This is one of my songs with my new guy, who my sister and brother in law introduced me to at a Halloween party in 2010. Kay, stop tearing up, you silly old queen. I've always been a bit of a wet blanket. I love my man. Never thought I'd be with anyone else, but now I've got someone to spend the rest of my life with.

Boys and girls, if you're Icehouse fans, I've got a treat for you!

On a side note, I saw my ex last summer when I was out with a couple of friends. He didn't see me and I didn't make any effort to alert him to my presence. He was still the same. Wavy highlighted hair, tight pants, obsessively toned body, real pretty.
Did I feel any nostalgia? No, I felt relief that he was out of my life. Being a party boy and picking up dick wherever you can find it is not a good look when you're in your mid forties. The pretty is all he has. I'm pretty sure he also still has a love for nose candy. It's actually kind of sad.

Icehouse is one of those bands that writes songs for life's soundtrack. Yeah, that sounds cheesy. But that's how I feel. They're a great, underrated band.

~Adam~

 



Theme Thursday: Wonder

If you were wondering what Spectra wonders...
Spectra wonders a lot of things. The older Spectra gets, the less she knows.
But here is something that is on Spectra's mind a lot of the time.

Spectra wonders why there is so much hatred for people of larger body types.
You should be dancing, no matter what your body type. Without "losing weight" as a reason. Just dance to be dancing.
If your legs don't work, make your wheels dance!
If you're bed-bound, let your mind dance.

No one body type is better than any other.
Some body types allow people to do more things.
But there is zero significant difference in the abilities of healthy thin people and healthy fat people.

Spectra hated her body for years because it's a fat body. She punished it, trying to make it lose weight. The weight would go away for a while, then it would return, plus several pounds more.
Spectra stopped exercising because it wasn't making her lose weight.
It became apparent that attempting to enforce weight loss wasn't working.
Unfortunately, it took 35 years to realize this.

Now, I move. Now I eat healthier food but don't restrict calories.
I don't love my body, but at least now I'm not always berating it.

Regarding the above video:
Wasn't John Travolta great in Saturday Night Fever?
He was lithe and lean, and he could dance.
Now John is heavier.
Why should this make him the butt of jokes?
He's still a great actor.
And I bet he can still dance!

I wonder if we could all be a little nicer to each other, regardless of race, nationality, gender, religion, sexual preference, or size.
It really isn't as hard as we make it.

Spectra

Cross-posted to:
Ghostseeker Readings Blog
KHEL 666
Undead in the Netherworld

How I Almost Quit With Just 500 Words to Go

I did it.

But I almost didn't do it.

And I only had 500 words to go.

Why would I fold with that few words left?

Let's just say that I had a bit of a nervous breakdown on the home stretch.

My novel did not start out smoothly. I really had no idea what I wanted to write about.

I decided to write about the lunar aspect of H.P. Lovecraft's dreamlands after being cued by Bon Scott to think about the title to one of my favorite AC/DC songs, "What's Next To the Moon."

Really, I did. I don't care if you believe me or not. I'm telling the tale as it happened. If you choose to believe that this is merely my own perception or delusion, fine. I refuse to debate it. I can't prove that it happened. Conversely, no-one else can prove that it didn't.

Let's move on.

The story seemed very "piecey" at first. It seemed more like a bunch of short stories than a cohesive novel. It didn't start to gel until about halfway through the month. 

It also started to get really personal towards the end. Particularly on the last day. There was a convergence of sorts, and it opened some old wounds.

I had been turned on to the series "The Vampire Diaries" by my writing sister Tempest LeTrope and Mister Sister Adam Everhard. It becomes obvious that uncontrolled vampirism (the "Ripper" mode) is a metaphor for drug abuse. There are parts of the third season that are really hard to watch. Not because of the violence or "horror" aspect, but because certain of the character Stefan's behaviors reminded me of what I went through with my husband.

In the last segment that I watched, Elena (Stefan's girlfriend) says to Damon (Stefan's brother) that they may have to let Stefan go.

That is what I had to do with my husband. 

It isn't just the aspect of watching someone you love destroy themselves. Not every addict is abusive, but with the inhibitions blurred by consciousness-altering substances, anyone has greater potential to become abusive, either verbally or physically.

My husband mostly became verbally abusive. 

In the seven years that we were married, he got physical with me a total of nine times. He never beat me, and I was never particularly afraid of him. His physical abuses tended to take the form of slaps or pushing.

The verbal abuse was another story.

When my husband was doing heroin (he did cocaine as well, but less often) he became a different person. He thought that he was invincible and thought that he had been blessed with special gifts. He was a talented artist, but his real motivation was his next high.

When I met him way back in junior high, he was one of the cool kids. I wasn't terribly popular, but I garnered at least fake acceptance from the "cool" crowd when he brought me into the circle. He was a good-looking guy with dark hair and dark eyes. He always had a mischievous smile. I thought he was cute, but I was already crushing on someone else.

Our friendship turned to romance in our sophomore year in high school. Everyone thought we'd be the couple to beat the odds.

At that point, he was only smoking pot and drinking at weekend parties. So was everyone else, me included. I didn't see any kind of problem.

He joined the Army right after high school. It was the mid 1980's, a peacetime setting, so I wasn't worried. He wanted to learn a skill, to get some money together for college. It made perfect sense. He did his four years and came home, and we got married. 

At first, everything was great. A little over a year after we married, I was pregnant with our daughter. There started to be signs of trouble. He stayed late after work a lot and came home smashed. Initially I suspected that he might be cheating. I guess I could say that he was, but not with a woman at this point. The women would come later.

When I found out about the heroin, I demanded that he give it up. He did for a time, after our daughter was born. She was eight months old when I got pregnant with our son. Once again he started shooting up. He claimed he was only smoking pot, but I knew better. There was yelling, throwing of dishes, lots of crying on my part. He started calling me names, telling me that I was holding him down, being the "bitchy wife."

We had been married three and a half years and had two kids when he started fooling around with other women.

I tried to hold things together, tried to believe that he could kick the drugs, tried to believe that if I just loved him enough, I'd be able to bring him back from the edge.

In the end, I made the decision to walk away.

I told him that he couldn't see the kids until he got clean and stayed clean. He got mad and called me an evil, fat bitch. He said he didn't know how he could ever have been so desperate as to have sex with me. He said it to hurt me, but it did cause me to lapse into bulimic behavior, which I struggled with on and off for the next six years.

He would stay clean for periods of time but always eventually relapse into his old habits. I never let him have the kids overnight. When he was clean, I trusted him to take them to or pick them up from school.

I dated for a little while after my marriage ended, but always managed to pick guys that were far from ideal to bring around my kids. One turned out to be scary enough that I almost considered getting a restraining order. Luckily, he moved out of state.

I stopped dating fifteen years ago and see no reason to resume, even though my kids are adults now. I hate it when people tell me "not to give up" because the "right guy" could be around the next corner.

He's not.

So, to wrap things up...

The little experiment that started as a frustrating hodge-podge turned into a massive emotional bleed-out at the end, and I almost cashed in my chips.

I've decided that I'm actually going to try and organize the story into something cohesive. It does have potential.

I listened to a lot of HIM while I was writing the story. I also listened to AC/DC, of course. I listened to Morcheeba, and Korn, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Loreena McKennitt, Enigma...

I want to share the HIM album Love Metal. Because yes, I do. It's gotten me through a lot of really tough times.

Thanks for letting me Bogart the Blog, Sisters and Misters. We will return you to your regularly scheduled insanity tomorrow!

Love,

Sister Helena

(Cross-posted to Undead in the Netherworld)

Hi, I'm Faycin

I'm just one tiny speck of dust in the Universe.

I'm trying to realize that every speck of dust deserves good things.

I don't like that some specks of dust think that it's okay to treat other specks of dust badly based on their physical appearance or mental problems.

I am mentally ill. I have bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. My OCD partially manifests as hoarding. I don't hoard animals, I hoard items. I have a private blog about my struggles with hoarding. I do not give the URL to just anybody. If I am ever able to get my place into passable shape, as I am struggling to do, I will publish the results as a book. My little camera takes great pictures but it's a battery hog. I need a backup battery and to see if there's some kind of charger for those little flat batteries.

I am fiftyish years old and most of my life has been a lot of pain and struggle. It shouldn't have to be this way. So if you are the kind of person who comes along and starts making it that way for me, fuck you, you are out. I don't have to put up with your shit. I've put up with way too much shit from way too many psychic vampires already.

I write stuff, both mental health and size acceptance related blog posts, and also fiction. I am a political and religious liberal. I don't like zealots of any kind, and that includes the type of atheist zealot who thinks it's okay to belittle others for having spiritual beliefs. I can accept where atheists are coming from, I just don't like the type who think they're superior for having no spiritual beliefs. Since none of us know for sure, then fuck you if you don't think I have the right to speculate. I don't go around forcing my esoteric agnosticism down your throat. Don't shove your fundamentalist Christianity, extremist Islam, or acerbic Atheism down mine. Or if you're one of those Satanists who is like "fuck you, I'm so cool because I'm a Satanist and you are so inferior," you can fuck off as well. You're nothing but a prat and I don't have the time to waste on you.

I'm also a KHEL 666 DJ. The pay is terrible but everything else about it is really cool.

KHEL 666 Blog

KHEL 666 Facebook Page

Hope to have a few saying hello, but even if you don't, I'll keep doing this anyway.

XOXO,

Faycin

An Inherited Love for Jazz

Check out Polar Bear – Beartown http://www.last.fm/music/Polar+Bear/_/Beartown via @lastfm

My late father gave me my love for jazz and swing. He wasn't quite so keen on the funk and dazz that I came to love as well, and he definitely wasn't into the death metal that is also on my list of favorite music, but we sometimes discussed song lyrics by bands that weren't really his cup of tea. He was an English professor and was always interested in all forms of writing. I miss him terribly.

DJ Fumble Fingers

Hello, KHEL 666 friends! I have a serious case of fumble fingers tonight. I only got about three hours of sleep, so I guess that may be to blame. Sure, why not?

Tonight I'm going to share some really oddball tracks with you. You'll never find this on the top 40 station, that's for sure!

Follow along on our KHEL 666 blogger blog, or our Facebook page.

This is me: sleepy, and all thumbs.

Looks kind of Lovecraftian, doesn't it?

I don't know where this is from. It's something I found on the Internet. It is not my creation. Really!

In a Nutshell

Today's Weather June 3 2012

Good morning everybody! Here is Robin Williams with the weather report for Spectraville!

Good Morning, Spectraville!

Today's weather promises to be hot and shitty with a good chance of a pissy front moving in.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled shitty sattelite TV service.

Spectra really needs to just get rid of this thing!