Whenever I get to thinking about this or that, all the stuff that went down or all the people I used to know I can come over to this place and write it all down. Tell another story - although I have to admit, sketches of the players is about as far as I've been able to do so far. I can't really tell these stories. I'm just not sure where to start with them. I might just pick one and say it. I'm so afraid to try, because the tendrils of connotation run so far, the roots run so deep. I don't know how to make you hear this. I mean assuming any one every finds this shrine I'm building to my own youth. Ha. Like youth is anything deserving of enshrinement. It's not even worth these words. I mean, youth forgets itself. I can't imagine my reckless self getting all nostalgic about who I had been - though I'm fairly sure I did plenty of just exactly that.
Fuck. Maybe I should tell the big story. The one that made the whole thing end for me. The Arcada.
I don't know how. "do it anyway . . ."
But to tell that I would imagine I have to tell you about two people at the same time, or as preface, I don't know. I would change names on these, too, but they're innocents. They didn't get into the whole thing. They never joined a band and screamed "look at me" three nights a week like I did so it's pretty unfair to drag them into it. They just dated me - which is dumb in it's own way, but hardly cause to have to see their names on a stupid website.
The first was a girl with a boy's name. We'll call her Billy. Good enough. First, it's not really important about her, most of that thing was in my head and trying to tell it all I have to come to the defense of Yoko Ono. Maybe John just fell for her and she didn't do a damn thing about breaking anyone up. Hell, she probably didn't. But loving some one is a sort of mirror and maybe John looked in Yoko and decided he didn't really need to be any of the things he had been before. And everyone got a little pissed at John for that but they couldn't really be pissed at John because they loved all the things he'd been before.the things he had made in the past and they all did the easy thing and blamed Yoko. And all she did was reflect him in a new way and made him see some other thing he could be.
That happens, you know. Because Billy didn't love me, even, though I loved her a little bit. I loved her for being funny but more because I liked the way she reflected me as a guy who didn't need to get drunk all the time and ask to be loved into a microphone. I guess it was the age and just feeling tired of being drunk and stupid and lonely. I think I knew she wasn't gonna make me brand new: but I liked that I saw that maybe I could be.
She ran through my life pretty quick, maybe a little ironically losing interest in my potential. She was young and maybe would have preferred me not so ready to become some kind of man. I don't know. She never really said and I think I've done enough putting words in little balloons above the cartoon I made out of her. That's not a fair thing to do, either.
Crap. This isn't gonna be a little story.
So Sherry and I started dating. It's a much longer story than that, of course. Billy was gone. I wanted something that would stave loneliness, but not really demand any risk or contain any chance of permanent damage on my part and that was a bigger sin than any part of trying with Billy. I was totally broken after Billy dumped me, but it was an honest and earned thing. I crapped all over Sherry. I damned her with feint affections and I kept her around for a long time because I just didn't want anything to hurt for a while. It was shitty. I regret it. I like the hell out of her, but I never invested all the way and that's a pretty terrible thing to do.
And what's all of this exposition have to do with the Arcada and that last CD release party?
A lot. Mainly it has to do with how badly I acted and what I expected and who I was planning on turning into and how I never really told any body about it.
I guess that's a Part II. It doesn't make a ton of sense to try and get it all out in one sitting. For either of us. Still, let's finish what we started with a recap and cliff hanger . . .
I was done. Sherry didn't much care that I played in a dumb ass band, and I guess I didn't either, anymore. She had noticed - rightfully - that being a part of 5YJ wasn't particularly good for me. I'm not saying that the band or the people involved made me a bad person, I'm saying maybe we're all kind of bad people in certain situations, and that situation was one where I was able to be a bad person. Worse? I dunno. How do you say it? I used the band as an excuse to feed all the crappy parts of me and let them run things. Not very cool of me.
And Sherry knew it. There's the movie version of life and there's life. The movie version typically assumes a pretty concise and informed agency on the part of the characters and life seems to assume the opposite. In a movie some antagonist or giant obstacle gets in the way of you becoming something great - the path you were obviously on - but in life sometimes you're grateful that something got in your way because you didn't want to be that thing anymore. Failure can come as a sort of relief, too.
So she didn't want me to do it anymore and I was in agreement, but saying that out loud would have been almost as crappy a thing. At least in my head.
So, you know what happens when a coward lets someone else do their thinking for them? Shit goes south.
This seems a good spot to stop. Part II soon-ish.
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