5-25-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #26

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my fears, too.  Here’s the part that I talk about my experience growing up, and some of the factors contributing to my early teen breakdown. . . This is the painful stuff for me, bad choices, stupid moves. . .)

My brother, Tom, wasn’t much for sunbathing, either -- which was good once they put him on thorazine, stellazine, whatever else.  Meds and exposure to sunlight aren’t exactly happy cohabitants.  I also don’t know anything about Tom’s dating life, and whether he had girlfriends when he was a teenager.  In his twenties, I once saw him with a young hippieish looking woman, with long, blonde, wavy locks and wild eyes. . . but that didn’t last.

Although for the most part uncoordinated, Tom tried his hand at tennis.  He’d go across the street, to the parking lot by the St. Anastasia’s rectory, and hit the ball against the wall over and over.  I remember the “thwock!” sound of the ball hitting the racket, and the “pong” sound of the ball hitting the wall.  Every now and then, when nobody else was there, I’d borrow a racket and some balls and try my hand at hitting the tennis ball against the wall. 

It seemed like half the time, a ball would bounce up high and get stuck, up on the roof in a crevice between roof sections of the old rectory building.  That was discouraging; it was hard to come across more tennis balls, us being kids who couldn’t easily get to a sports supply shop.  Dad or Tom would grab a ladder and climb up to retrieve balls from the roof once in a while. . . it seemed dangerous and comical, at once.  I even went up on the ladder, but was scared: I don’t like heights.

We lived in Douglaston, Queens.  About two miles away, in the Douglaston manor section of our town, a young tennis player named John McEnroe was burning up the court, so to speak.  I don’t think brother Tom ever got over there, though: the Douglaston Club was pretty exclusive, and we were solidly middle class, not upper middle.  We were on the wrong side of the boulevard. . . Northern Boulevard.

Actually, our house was within 100 feet of that busy, four-lane road (the only way to get to northern Long Island until the Long Island Expressway was built in the 1930s or so).  At night, we could hear the cars rumble by, almost like a lullabye.

5-24-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #25

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my fears, too.  Here’s the part that I talk about my experience growing up, and some of the factors contributing to my early teen breakdown. . . This is the painful stuff for me, bad choices, stupid moves. . .)

At any rate, once Jonathan and I met and became friends, he’d call me on the phone and we’d have these marathon talks, really silly ones, but great: he had a way with words and joked around, and a deep, sexy voice.  But at the same time, he had a silly giggle, and that was endearing, too.  I definitely fell for him, hard.  And, for a while, he was in to me, too.

We couldn’t see each other in person till I got over mono and school was out for the summer.  But once late June rolled around, he’d take the bus down from Bayside, walk a half mile down Douglaston Parkway, and visit me a few times. 

Eventually, I would go and visit him.  His parents divorced, his mom worked during the day and was away from the apartment (I think she was a social worker or therapist), so we could go there and fool around.  We’d play Beatles records (The White Album, Sergeant Pepper’s, Abbey Road) and, well, fool around.  Jon’s mom had muesli cereal in the kitchen cupboard, and once I tried that (stirred in a bowl with a little milk) there was no going back.  I loved it!

We became young lovers, an inseperable twosome.  Jon introduced me to some older friends of his -- like me, he was precocious in body and mind -- who also lived in Bayside.  One of them had a garden apartment and was a rabbinical student.  At any rate, we spent more and more time there, listening to the Beatles, Firesign Theater, and the Mothers of Invention, having bizarre discussions about anything and everything, eating delicious junk food. . .

We also went to the beach one time with one of Jon’s older friends, driving in his car.  We sat out on a beach blanket in the sand, from morning till late afternoon, in the bright early July sun -- no beach umbrella.

 My skin sunburned so lobster-red it blistered and peeled on my back.  When I got home, I cried and cried, in pain.  My grandma was there, and she put a poultice on it, tsk-tsking about kids these days.  For days, I couldn’t move without almost screaming.  Bad, bad sunburn.

THAT is why I shun the sun with a righteous fear.  My whole life, I’ve never sunbathed, and I seek the shade at all times.  You may smile and say, “Oh, how nice, the sun is out!” and I’ll just keep my words to myself with an inner smirk, “Yeah, nice, hot, hurtful, damaging sun.  Stay away from me!”

. . . Turns out a lifetime of sun-shunning was a really good move: I have few complaints about sun-damaged skin now, in my later years.  Very few wrinkles, too. . . . 

5-05-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #6

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- all about my psychotic brother and his legacy. If so inclined, please share, and tell me what you think. . . )

(below: Tom was 14 years old in this picture - I think he looks a bit like Lou Reed here) 

FRIENDSHIP

I knew of a few friends he’d had, starting with childhood.  Douglas (Doug) Schneyman was a kid from a few blocks away who also went to Saint Anastasia’s school.  Doug was also a smart kid, tall, skinny, bespectacled.  In the modern parlance, you’d call him “nerdy,” as was my brother Tommy, I suppose. 

Something about Doug was very likable; he seemed to understand that Tom was very different, but still liked him and tolerated a lot of little odd things about him.  I’d look at his face when they were together, and a patient, bemused look seemed to play on Doug’s face when he was around Tommy.  I know this because Doug’s sister, Judy, was my best friend at the time, and we spent time together playing in the same house (usually the Schneyman’s house, a large Tudor/mock castle on Alameda Avenue, a cold and formal place that invariably smelled like scrambled eggs and ketchup).

Let’s face it, except for my younger sister & brother, Carrie & Mark, our family was half made up of eccentrics: mom, Tom, & me -- you could definitely see there wasn’t a screw loose but we were “different.”  Mom and I were what I call functional eccentrics (“efficient eccentrics” -- we get the job at hand done, come what may).  On the other hand, Dad, Carrie, and Mark were smart, people-savvy, “popular” types.  They carried a mirthful side, a quiet confidence.  You could tell they liked being around others, and other people enjoyed their company.  They acted almost conspiratorial in those delicate situations, winking at the thief and smiling at the dame to quote William Blake. . . when young, I’d run for the hills and tune out when similarly exposed.  I guess I’m better with people now. . . I know how to be “lighter,” though the intensity hasn’t gone.

 So, there was Doug Schneyman, Tommy’s first good friend.  Then, as a teenager, Tom had a shy, cute friend with long, shaggy hair named David DuBrule, with whom I flirted shamelessly and had a fling.  I couldn’t help myself, being an excitable teenage girl. . .

I don’t know about friends in between, but the last good friend Tom had was named Frank, and he was a parishioner of Tom’s Church, Saint Thomas the Apostle, and the editor of the church newsletter.  A fellow poet and devout Catholic like Tom, Frank was a mysterious man, a name only to Carrie & me (Tom talked a bit about people in his life when we occasionally saw him, and I didn’t know what to think about this “Frank” character).

True to his nature, Tom would crave friendship and love, go out and seek it: at church, at his group home recreational functions, even in the Village.  Tom liked to hang out in Greenwich Village, between 6^th Avenue and LaGuardia Place, West 4^th Street and Houston.  Interesting that he never visited me (I lived a half block away, on Thompson Street between Houston and Prince), but that’s beside the point.  Perhaps he “haunted” these places more than would hang out. . . Carrie and I heard Tommy say he liked to go to Washington Square Park, and to the Back Fence and some other hangouts in the Village (the touristy, NYU village), and he’d make friends there.  I’d scoff to myself -- never to him, not to hurt his feelings -- “friends”!  I’ll bet they let him buy them drinks and talk a blue streak, not making sense necessarily, laughing privately to himself, not able to drink because of the massive doses of antipsychotic medications, Stelazine etc.  Being diabetic, too, made Tom only able to drink diet sodas and the like.

Anyway.  Tom would cultivate friendships for a few weeks or months -- then tear them apart.  He’d go in cycles.  Same with his relationship with his family: we’d be in, then we’d be out.  After a while, I didn’t want to take part in the paranoid “one week in, one week out” game he always played. 

So I stopped talking to him for months, years at a time.  When mom died, Carrie was named co-trustee to a small nestegg of a trust that mom left Tom.  Carrie became his friend, confidante, and bitter enemy when he was on the outs with the universe.  Carrie became my hero, doing something I never thought I could do: love him unconditionally and weather his raging storms.  She is still my hero.

At the funeral home, our sister, Carrie, cried the hardest and longest over him just before they moved the coffin out to go to the funeral service.

Knowing Limits: Inotherwords, So Long but not Goodbye to Bill & Em

Blog for 12/17/10

The kind of courage it takes to admit you’re overextended and that something has to go seems to be natural to some sagely humans, and a learned behavior for people like me (hardheads). You have to have gone through a few similar situations in life to know your limits – and then some (hoping to learn mine before my tipping point).

Musicians – as it’s commonly believed – are a breed apart from the norm, or whatever you consider “normal.” As if normal people are savvier at knowing their limits!

At any rate, I’m referring to the decision made by our friends and bandmates in the Small Town Concert Series Big House Band, Bill Calhoun and Emily Lisker. This week, Matthew and I got an email from them with a decision they (and we) have been dreading: they need to cut back and can’t participate in our shows in the foreseeable future. This is due, however, to a happy circumstance: Bill’s part time Science Teacher (in a private RI middle school) job changed to full time.

Now, as long as we’ve known Bill & Em, they’ve been fully committed to living their lives authentically and on their own terms. But that also meant a great deal of financial struggle. None of this seemed “fair” (as if life IS fair, right?) because, between the two of them, there are mind-boggling oodles of artistic talent.

Other than her compelling stage presence and tuneful tooting on the bari sax and accordion playing (plus a few good vocals), Emily Lisker’s paintings and drawings create a colorful mondo bizarre, taking viewers to a place somewhere between imagination and chimera. I think of her brave delvings into the unconscious that create these vivid canvases. I also think of Emily’s writing – blogging – as being expressive, heartfelt, and wonderful. And who could forget her irrepressible laugh, often and hearty when she’s feeling up and silly.

Able to play piano, organ, and banjo with proficiency and precision, Bill Calhoun’s love of pianos extends from his superb playing to his repairing, refurbishing, and piano tuning skills. He also designs graphics with Emily, notably (for us) our signature posters for Small Town Concert Series.

Let me say that again: Bill & Em designed our distinctive SMALL TOWN CONCERT SERIES posters that award-winning Peter Good considers “brilliant.” They must have designed 40+ posters, drawing more and more curious music fans to STCS shows.

Bill would also kick my butt (in a GOOD way) during STCS rehearsals, figuring out song arrangements. His sweet, patient, good-humored nature, so caring and honest, has been vital to our sanity and continued success. Bill’s laughter, too, is contagious – music to our ears.

Their songwriting has been coming along, as well; I especially love “I Live in a House,” a Calhoun blues song. Emily sometimes rewrites lyrics to polkas, as she’s a huge Brave Combo fan (like me).

Bill & Em have been stalwart Small Town Concert Series Big House band members since inception in Fall 2007, at our first Leonard Cohen tribute.

We met them at our July 2006 wedding, in fact: Brave Combo leader Carl Finch asked me if they could invite a few friends from the area to our wedding who are Combo fans and can dance up a storm. Being game for anything that sounds interesting, we agreed and two nice couples from RI and MA danced the whole time the Combo played.

Kind of hard to miss, Bill & Em look really “interesting” (and cool, I think): he has a large long white beard & mustache, twinkling blue eyes and wire rim glasses; she has a thick, long, wavy-curly head full of hair that can whip around wildly as she twirls in her full-skirted ‘50’s dress.

We arranged to meet them in August 2006 in Northampton, MA, to hear Brave Combo. We sat upstairs at a table, together, through the opening act, Young at Heart, then Emily, Bill & I took to the dance floor when Brave Combo hit the stage.

As I knew Bill & Em were regular open mic goers, I threw out the offer for them to play in our Leonard Cohen show. Happily all around, they agreed and ever since have taken up the challenge of learning new material and shining on the stage with us, brilliantly.

For every big show, Bill & Em would drive to an average of six weekly rehearsals from Woonsocket, RI. And then, they’d come to the dress rehearsal AND the shows (sometimes three nights in a row). They might have stayed with us overnight, but their dog needed them.

NOBODY was more dedicated or worked harder for Small Town Concert Series. We really loved the communal dinners we’d assemble with the musicians after rehearsals, and Bill & Em would always bring yummy home made bread & eat heartily, their laughter booming regularly like timpani thunder in a symphony.

At any rate, nothing is forever so maybe their ability to do music again too will change and they can join our shows again. Their contributions and their friendship will always remain. I look forward to seeing them again.

I need to sign off now – feeling happy for them that their fortunes have improved, but sad too ‘cause I’ve been missing them since the last (amazing) Leonard Cohen IV tribute in September. And then, they kindly designed an incredible poster of our STCS accomplishments for the INK Magazine article that just came out in December.

I know that changes are necessary, inevitable, and (due to my optimism) usually good, but the absence (? temporary) of Bill & Em will take a lot of getting used to. . .