Ms. Mix & Bitch’s Confession #11: My Dad, the Vietnam Vet.

   

I have to admit that on most Veterans/Memorial Days, I let them come and go without much thought.  Even though my dad served during the Vietnam War and my mother’s father in World War II, I don’t feel like I come from a military family per se.  Probably because my dad never talked about his time in the service and my grandpa was dead and gone before I had a chance to ask him anything.

As I was growing up and learned more about Vietnam, I thought (perhaps) the war was the reason why my dad was such a taciturn, quick-to-anger character.  I had a whole explanation in my head that he must have had to drop bombs on little Asian babies (he was in the Air Force) or witnessed the torching of entire villages.  That would explain why he was so distant, so gruff towards me while I was little. 

By the time I was twelve, I had the nerve to ask him about his military service, and he just laughed it off, saying to me, “No, I never actually went over to Vietnam.  I was stationed in northern California and Greenland – hardly anything to cry over.”  There went my theory.  He wasn’t suffering from PTSD.  He was just an asshole.

 Years went by, and my father and I grew further apart before we eventually called a truce and found something as close to common ground as we’re ever going to come.  One of the moments that brought us there came in a South Florida movie theater.  We went together to see the film, “Saving Private Ryan.”  The first few minutes of the film are pretty gruesome, showing the soliders storming the beaches of Normandy, sea water foaming red from the blood spilled.  But that’s not what got to him.  It was the scene where the soldiers come to Private Ryan’s home, and his mother collapses on the front porch. I look over to see my own dad, sitting next to me in a wheelchair (crippled by multiple sclerosis), silently crying with his shoulders shaking.  I was stunned, not even being able to remember a time I saw my father so upset.  I asked him what was wrong and he told me, “That was my job during the war, to alert the next of kin when their son or father or brother had been killed. It was…absolutely horrible.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about that?” I asked him.

He wiped his eyes and sighed. “I don’t know.  I guess I just didn’t want to remember.”

Then I put my arm around him and squeezed his hand, and the best part about it was that he let me.  He allowed me to see him at his most vulnerable, and he let me comfort him. 

So that’s what I will remember today on Veteran’s Day…not just the soliders who fought and lost their lives, but the ones who had the luck and burden of being left behind.

Ms.Mix & Bitch’s Confession #17: Leaving My Heart in San Francisco

  

I always seem to miss San Francisco a little more during Halloween.  We lived there for seven plus years, and once we had kids who were old enough to waddle, we got involved in the city’s fall festivities with a vengeance. 

Now, most think of San Francisco and Halloween as another excuse for the bear cubs and leather daddies of the Castro District to don their wares and strut their stuff in yet another Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are Gay Pride Parade. 

That’s true, btw, but that’s not the Halloween I remember.  Mine had a lot less fairies and pixie dust, but a hell of a lot more magic.

 We moved around a bit within the city, but spent the majority of our years in the Richmond District, and the best thing I could say about that neighborhood is the rents were ‘reasonable’  and the flats were huge – two characteristics which usually don’t happen in San Francisco.  Other than that,  it was fairly blasé…but everything in the city is so close, it never mattered much to us.  What was pretty cool was that my relatively nondescript neighborhood bordered Seacliff – a neighborhood perched right on the edge of the Pacific Ocean directly overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.  Views worth killing over. With a price tag to match…Danny Glover and Robin Williams live there, to give you an idea of the kind of money it would take to get into that small enclave of cosmic heaven.

Anyway, the Seacliff kids used to have Halloween all to themselves until word got out that their lil’ slice of heaven gave out the BIG candy bars and glow-in-the-dark thingys.  Just an FYI: Robin Williams always gave out the best stuff. Not him directly, of course, but two huge body guards named Thor or something like that.

So we would wander from house to house, all decorated to the hilt, with these twinkly lights hanging everywhere.  And you’d look out onto the ocean and see the Golden Gate Bridge all lit up.  It would take my breath away, it was so gorgeous.  I wish I had a picture to show you what I saw, but nothing I found on the internet does it justice. 

I felt completely at home in San Francisco and it were moments like that I would thank the Universe quietly to myself for giving me the opportunity to live there.  I miss it, I do.  But I also know that so much of what I loved about San Fran was an illusion, or at least out of reach for us…it was just too expensive, too cumbersome for daily family life with two kids.  I used to say you couldn’t leave your house without some how, some way spending at least $100.  Whether it was for food or another goddamn parking ticket or something or another.  It wore you down after a while. 

But Halloween in San Francisco, at least, was always free.  And that I’ll always remember fondly.

Closed for Repairs

Hello MixTapers

Over the next few weeks, I will be revamping my lil’ corner of cyberspace here, in order to bring you a more fabulous, user-friendly music-mixing, advice blog.  For those of you who have sent me questions, be patient. I promise to get to you shortly after the renovations.

Thanks,

Ms. Mix & Bitch

Shameless Plug Moment #5

 

It’s heeerrreee! My first piece on Pajiba Music.  Click here. Click often. Tell me what you think.

On a Vaca…

Currently vegging on the family property in North Carolina…be back soon.

A Humble Thanks

         

Once in a while, a boomerang swings around and hits ya right back between the eyes.

Meaning, something you’ve written has provoked something in someone else. Which is a major reason why us bloggers do what we do. So, thanks

Oh, and here’s the link to the post she’s referencing.

Sing It with Me…”I’m Just a Sweet Transvestite, from Transsexual, Transylvaniaaaahhhh!!!”

                    

                                     

  

“I am a married man, father of 2 girls and a business owner.  My life is pretty boring, my business controlled by my parents and my wife constantly bothers me about the house. I smoke a lot of pot and started doing cocaine lately to take the edge off, or maybe give me some edge. About 9 months ago I went to see a trans-sexual, it was an experience I wanted to have for a long time. We did it all and it felt great. At the urging of a friend I went to another one a few months later, same thing. Since then I have been back several times and given head several times. There is something exhilirating about it.  I am by no means gay just so bored with life I need a shock to the system every now and then. I also call phone sex and ask for chicks with dicks. Does this make me gay?”

Signed,  Andrew

Ah Andrew….

Where the hell do I start?? Well, first of all, thanks for planting a live one on me.  You can’t make up stuff like this folks. It’s much too freaky to be fiction. I’m from San Francisco, I should know.

Listen cowboy, I’m all about being sex positive and letting your freak flag fly up whatever skirt cranks your chain.  As far as ”chicks with dicks” are concerned (which I hope you realize are just guys on truckloads of E – not the drug, but the hormone, genius), you wouldn’t be the first married, “straight” male going after them. They make a buttload (pardon the cheap-shot pun, I couldn’t help it) of cash – certainly more than I do. But I digress.  That’s not the issue here really. It’s good shock factor – part of the appeal of chasing after your own townie versions of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, I suppose.

Let’s put aside for the moment about you cheating on your wife. And I am going to hope and pray a million nam-myoho-renge-kyos (it’s a Buddhist chant babydoll) that you’re with a professional sex worker who is keeping you both safe by using condoms EVERY time.  I’ll just address the one question you asked me, “am I gay?” Andrew, if ONLY that were your biggest issue.  I don’t know if you’re gay. Frankly, I think it’s a goddamm boring question. Sexuality is not a black or white issue. It’s on a continuum, which can slide from one side to the other, settle in the middle….whatever.  And right now, you dig chicks with dicks enough to risk everything you have in your life. I would imagine that’s also part of what the cocaine use is about as well. You’re willing to go to some radical, life-threatening extremes in order to feel something. Anything.  

I hope you soaked that one in….life-threatening. I suspect that’s the point now, isn’t it? One way or the other, you want to kill this life you’ve created. You said it yourself. You are bored out of your mind by your mainstream life, nagging wife, and emasculating parents.  Perhaps being with these s/he-males is about regaining a sense of power in a life lost to you by others. Perhaps they are less threatening, transitional figures in your life – and you’re just working up the spiritual courage to admit to yourself that, yes, you’re gay.  I can tell you this – none of those labels really matter. What does matter is that you’re in serious trouble. I strongly urge you to go into therapy – someone whom specialized in sexual identity issues and addiction. If you are too embarassed to ask anyone you know, then go to: http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/prof_search.php  or to http://www.find-a-therapist.com/ .

 That’s one of the many things I loved and still miss about San Francisco. No one cared what you were into. Really. What they did insist upon was being real…and being brave enough to be honest with yourself and others about who you were or weren’t. You know Andrew, you wouldn’t be the first guy to wake up and realize that the whole American, suburban, wife-with-kids-and-minivan existence wasn’t really you. Maybe you are a guy meant for a different kind of life.  As long as you take care of your kids and treat their mother with kindness and respect (which  is grossly lacking at present), you’ll be able to sleep at nights. I suspect right now that sleeping soundly eludes you.  The worst thing that you’re doing is not gay sex. It’s everything else you have to do to cover up who you are and what you are doing that sucks. Get help. Now.

1. “Super Freak,” Rick James. [Bustin' Out: The Very Best of Rick James]

2. “Sweet Transvestite,” Dr. Frank N Furter (Tim Curry) and Cast. [Rocky Horror Picture Show Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

3. “Freak on a Leash,” Korn. [Follow the Leader]

4. “Sunspots,” Nine Inch Nails. [With Teeth]

5. “Dirty,” Pillow Theory. [9 1/2]

6. “The Sound of Settling,” Death Cab for Cutie. [Transatlanticism]

7. “Somewhere a Clock is Ticking,” Snow Patrol. [Final Straw]

8. “A Distorted Reality is Now a Necessity to be Free,” Elliott Smith. [From a Basement on a Hill]

 9. “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” Bob Dylan. [Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits]

10. “B.M.F.A,” Martha Wainwright. [Martha Wainwright]