Why did we move right when it finally would’ve been so convenient? Long story. For fun, my parents didn’t go out partying - or just vegging out in front of the TV - or hanging out with friends - or got to all the millions upon millions of get-togethers that Mormons have to help try and isolate them from the rest of the world. And it wasn’t like work was my father’s main focus in life. Actually I’m still not quite sure what (if anything) he does all day at work. Their main focus is and has always been the arts. My mom would paint. My dad would bang out chords (painfully) on the piano. My mom would sing along. My dad would write a play (for the church). My mom would direct it. My dad would have a small part in it. Oftentimes it was cheaper to write something for us kids than to pay for a babysitter during rehearsals. So my siblings and I were on-stage from a very early age. I have never known stage-fright. Actually I may have the opposite condition. Off-stage-fright. I’m much more comfortable doing bearing my soul in front of a large group of random strangers than I am talking to almost anyone about almost anything one on one.

My mother and father were drawn together though not only by a love of the arts, but by a mutual need not to talk about anything intimate and personal. For my father, this was just a family tradition. And he really didn’t have anything to say. (Christmas shopping for him is a bitch. No one knows what he likes). Truth is my dad just puts up with what he’s handed. He likes it that way. He’s never once given any indication to me that he actually likes or cares about being a lawyer. He’d much rather be an actor. He stills goes out and auditions (and occasionally makes in into the chorus line) of pretty much every amateur production in Colorado. And still he’s been the 1st assistant attorney general for the health and human resources division of the state of Colorado (according to his answering machine at work) for over 20 years now. He doesn’t mind. Or not enough to say or do anything about it. I don’t even think he really wants to be a Mormon. That’s just how he was born and raised. Honestly I think he subconsciously wants to be Jewish. He speaks both Yiddish and Hebrew (betcha didn’t even know there was a difference) He knows all the prayers. We’ve always celebrated Hanukah (and occasionally Passover and others) with a little more devotion than kitsch. But that’s my dad. He just puts up and shuts up.

The reasons for my mother keeping everything hid were much deeper. For year we grew up in a fairly normal Norman Rockwell type of home. Only weird around the edges, ‘cause we were Mormon instead of a more average Protestant denomination. Not that I really noticed. I didn’t really have any friends. I remember occasionally going to sleep crying about that as a small kid. But mostly I don’t even remember noticing. I had other stuff to do. You know when my cousins came over to play we’d always have games like “Plays” (where we’d quickly improvise little skits to entertain each other) rather than just playing soccer or tag or whatever. I was never really into sports. Strike that. I was in a weird way. I had no interest in watching sports. Or playing sports. I just liked drawing the colors of the uniforms and keeping track of who was whose favorite team. How gay was that. Considering that all my parents ever listened to when I was growing were Broadway musicals, it’s a wonder I turned out as heterosexual as I did. However back in elementary school we did have this class project one week on humor. We broke off into groups and we were all supposed to come up with something funny. Most of the other groups (which were all 3s except for some reason I ended up with only 1 partner) just told jokes. And they worked on it. Me I just told my partner to pretend to be a teacher, and that I’d wing it. And I did. And everyone loved it. And that when I discovered the thing I would do to avoid getting close or personal or serious or intimate. I could be funny. I still didn’t have any friends. But now I had fans! Kids would fight over who got to hang out with me - and I didn’t even know their names. If I could go back and change one thing in my life that would’ve made the biggest difference in who I am today it would’ve been that stupid school project. And the sad thing is - I’m not really very funny. Some people are born funny - and me, I can occasionally be witty or clever, but I always have to work at it. It never comes easy. And still misfires most of the time.

Still, all my life I’ve tried to be funny. Or thought I was funny. Or wanted to be funny. And that led to me be just crazy. I don’t remember this, although other swear it’s true, by third grade I would just roll down muddy hills to encrust myself in dirt - just for no reason. Well, I never knew what to do during recess anyway. That was always my least favorite part of the day. I remember to punish the bad kids they would make them sit next to the wall during recess - and that what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to play soccer or tetherball or swing on the swings. I wanted to sit next to the wall and draw. I loved drawing as a kid. I got pretty good (for a kid) at being able to realistically duplicate stuff on paper. Never quite made the leap to expressing myself through art and eventually got bored and just gave up on it. But being an alternately shy, quiet and hyperactive kid in school by fourth grade I got transferred to an experimental program for gifted and talented students. Of course diagnosing who’s really creative and who’s just an ADD psycho at that age is impossible, so my class had a little of both. It was called CHIPS (for Challenging High Intellectual Potential Students).

And it was great. If you wanted to go to the bathroom, you didn’t have to raise your hand, you just went. If you got all your work done by Thursday, you could whatever you wanted all day on Friday (legally we still had to come to school - or at least arrange our own field trips). We could go as fast and as far we wanted. I had licked Algebra and Trig by the time I finished 6th grade. Teachers didn’t make the rules as much as they were agreed on in open committees. It was crazy. The only real drawback - it only lasted thru 6th grade. Suddenly I was in junior high. Having to pretend to be re-learning all this crap. Knowing none of this people who all grew up together. Bored. Scared. I pissed my pants a couple of times in seventh grade, simply because I was too embarrassed to ask for a hall pass. Didn’t exactly gain a great reputation.

And I had been making friends back in CHIPS. Ok, friend. Singular. Rob Christopher. Luckily he went to the same Junior High as me. So we hung out together all the time. We really didn’t have that much in common other than the fact that we didn’t have anything in common with anyone else either. And what would we do when together? Hangout at the mall? Petty vandalism? Typical hooliganism and pranks? Talk about girls? NO. It was all business. Show business. We’d write coffee table books and plays. Shoot photos. Make movies. We even had a band (despite the fact neither one of us could play an instrument). The Misfortune Cookies. We’d tape song off the radio and then make up our own words Weird Al-style to sing over ‘em. (Still trying to be funny). Or use our own records. Of course the only albums we owned were by Weird Al or others you would hear on Dr. Dememento. Which made making fun of them kinda pointless (except that we didn’t get half of the jokes). That was our thing. Well, the music-comedy was mostly my thing. Rob really wanted to be a filmmaker. So instead of growing up watching “ET” or “Goonies” or whatever else was popular at the time I saw stuff like “My Dinner With Andre” and “It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World” (I still blame my sophistication or snobbishness in cinema on Rob). But he was my only friend. And I kinda assumed that I was his only friend.

Of course the joke is that he actually had a couple of girlfriend back in high school that I didn’t even know about at the time. Even though I spent pretty much every waking moment with him. Even funnier – even though he had better luck with women than I did, he’s gay. Which is especially amusing when you realize how religious he was (and his family especially is). They were strict Bible-thumping southern-style Baptists. They kind who thought that Mormons were too weird and out there … in the left direction. They gave me anti-Mormon literature. Scary. Normally I wouldn’t like to hang out with such hard-core born-agains, but I always suspected there was something different about Rob. I mean, how many strict Christians consider “Blue Velvet” their favorite movie? Still, no one (at least I) didn’t suspect that. Why? I dunno. ‘Cause I’m stupid.

Of course, it was also around this time (not when Rob came out – he had to wait till he moved to college to do that – I mean jr. high/high school) that my whole perfect little world came crashing down. Ok, so maybe it wasn’t perfect, but it was predictable. I was the weird one in the family. My favorite letter was X. I loved looking it up in kids’ ABC books to see if they could come up with an animal that started with X or if they just threw in an inanimate xylophone or x-ray to complete their menagerie. I thought I was wacky and weird and crazy and wild, simply because my experience of the rest of the world was so limited. I didn’t think there were real people who were communist or gay or real artists or actually protested something. I thought those kinda people only existed on TV. I thought I was outré for even pretending to know who they were. Then by the time I was 13 that all started to change.

I was at a camp for quote-unquote gifted kids during the summer. (Why people kept thinking I was smart I’ll never know. If I was really smart I would’ve made people think I was dumb, then I could’ve gotten away with doing much less). Anyway I was at this camp and I was taking an acting class. (Theatre is one of those things that although I’ve never had much of an interest in, it is such an ingrained part of my family – and our avoidance of directly talking to each other – that I’ve done a lot more acting than most people who actually want to be actors.) Mostly though I wanted to learn how to be more funny. Whether I wanted to write for Mad magazine or be a stand-up comic or if I just wanted to be the next Weird Al, I don’t know. It was during that class that my teacher told us that no one has ever become a great actress or comedienne without great horrible personal tragedy helping spur them on. (Except Meryl Streep – she said that Meryl Streep was the one exception). After class walking through the DU parking lot I vaguely cursed myself for having such good luck. “Boy, if only my mom would commit suicide…”, I thought. Of course my next thought was, “You realize, that if she does kill herself you’re gonna be thinking about this moment forever.” I don’t know why of all the traumas I could’ve wished upon myself, that’s the one that popped into my mind. I wish I could say I was subconsciously sensitive to what was going on around me, but that would be a load of crock. I was a generally oblivious, clueless, unobservant kid. Still am.

Needless to say, 3 weeks later after camp I had to go on a 50 mile hike with the my father and the boy scouts (fuckin’ boy scouts! I hate ‘em.) And while we were out in the woods, my dad – who is not real good at talking about anything – sat me down and told me that just a month before, on Mother’s Day, while we were watching the movie “Dominic & Eugene” my mother tried to kill herself. (I don’t really remember the movie, but apparently it’s got Ray Liotta and it’s about this retarded trash-man who remembers the sexual abuse his father heaped on him…) No one of us even noticed that it happened. Luckily my dad’s parents stopped over. That was about all that he said. I don’t even know why he told me then. Clearly he didn’t like talking about stuff. Emotional stuff. But over the next few years he got a lot more practice. Like when he (and my mother) had to sit us 3 all down and tell us that Mom was moving out. For reasons that I still don’t fully understand.

My mom was going back to school. She was studying theatre (and then later poetry) up at CU in Boulder. She was going to get an apartment within walking distance of our house, so we could decide for ourselves on a moment-to-moment basis where we wanted to stay (and who we wanted to stay with). My dad was gonna pay for this apartment (as he was doing for tuition). She wasn’t going to go to church anymore. She didn’t know if she wanted to be with my Dad anymore. (Not that my father ever stopped hopelessly hoping for her to come back). She wasn’t sure if she can handle being close to men after all she was remembering. (Not that it stopped her from dating – or more specifically obsessing – over other guys up at college). She actually started meeting and hanging out with and talking about as if they were real people all these communists and homosexuals and atheists and African-Americans that I had heard about. It was crazy. It was not fun for my dad.

My mother on the other hand, wanted to talk about stuff. All the time. Feelings. Stuff. What was going on. My day. Her life. Ugh! I was not emotionally equipped for that. I didn’t know what to say to her. I really didn’t understand what she was going through. How could I? I was a stupid teenage boy. Jeesh! And I was mad at her. I was mad at her for leaving dad. I was mad at her for insisted that I was mad at her for leaving dad. Mostly though I was mad at her because she was getting to be the rebellious adolescent that I couldn’t (or didn’t know how or have the guts). She was the one experimenting with drinking and leaving the nest and dating sex and being on her own and independence and just experimenting. I know some people want a second childhood. I always felt that I was robbed of my pubescence. I want a second teenage-hood. How was I supposed to rebel against my parents when they were rebelling against each other? If I try to go against what my dad said, I’d just be copying mom. Which is what my sister did. She pretty much moved in full time with Mom. She was the first to drop out of the church (and really only one to do so openly and while they were still living at home). I always secretly admired her for that. She was brave. Risked my father’s wrath. Went out drinking, drugging, fucking, dating, partying, you know – usual teenage girl things. It was weird even though she was my little sister I looked up to her. She really helped give me the strength to break away from all of that. Which makes it so much more depressing that she’s now regular churchgoer married to a nice young Mormon boy with a two year old. But at the time she was having better luck with women than I probably ever will. But instead of following my mother’s (and sister’s) footsteps, I decided to stick with dad. So instead of rebelling, I became super-diligent. Particularly about church. I had 100% attendance at seminary (6a.m. every morning before school) except for the week that mother actually died.

Which was all pretty hypocritical considering that I didn’t believe the church was true. I don’t remember ever, even as a little kid, believing in Jesus and all that crap, but now, particularly, I knew it wasn’t true. Why? Because I was masturbating about 50 times a day. Ok, maybe not that much, but it certainly felt like it. Of course, it felt a lot longer during those frequent promises to myself that I would quit. But I couldn’t. I tried and I tried. But I couldn’t. (Oh you know how it is with that whole sex/church/guilt thing). Man, I could not stop. I would literally rub the skin right off my penis. And I’d get these horrible scabs. Which would never quite heal right. Because I kept on whacking it and whacking it. But that didn’t stop me from being a self-righteous pain in the ass. Particular snobby and distant to my mother when she really needed me most. I was a stupid stup14 year old kid. What did I know about sexual abuse? Didn’t everybody want to have sex? I wished that someone were sexually abusing me. And being Mormon didn’t help. Not only are all forms of sex outside of marriage (even when you’re by yourself) wrong, but even thinking about them is wrong. Even worse – talking about it was wrong. You couldn’t even say the words. Which meant teaching kids what was wrong (i.e. everything) was done from a series of confusing intimidations, missed (or misunderstood) hints, and winking.

How was I to know what my mother was going through? I couldn’t. And further more I didn’t want to. I refused. I wouldn’t watch any of the mushy, touchy-feely movies she would rent to try and get me to open up about my feelings. I was never very receptive to hearing her read her poetry (which people tell me is really good, but I don’t know shit about poetry). I only spent the night at her place once, the whole time she was living there (and that was my Mother’s Day gift to her). I was not very kind to her. I didn’t get her or understand what she was doing. She was my mom, you know. I didn’t understand how important all this was too her. Even after she tried to kill herself over and over again. I mean; she’d end up at Mt. Airy, and my sister would have to sneak razors in to her so she could shave her legs. And I still didn’t know what to say to her. Well, it was a lot for a stupid boy like me but still… I really didn’t get it until it was too late. Until she finally got it right. Until she killed herself. Isn’t that always the way it seems to go?

And how did my family deal with this? Jeesh – how could you even tell if a family like ours went into shock? I remember my father, trying to be a good parent, had us all go into family counseling after that. Every week for six months. We’d go to this psychiatrist, sitting in a room, and not saying anything for an hour. Eventually, the psychiatrist gave up psychology all together and we stopped trying. We still consider that something of a little victory in our family. We beat the psychologist. Ha-ha. It wasn’t like we pretended it didn’t happen. We never talked about anything. We didn’t have to pretend. We didn’t try to go on like nothing happened. We just went on like something had happened. Only I wasn’t doing anything to go on with.

I learned how to drive. I didn’t want to learn how to drive. I knew as soon as I learned how to drive I would have to chauffeur my social butterfly of a sister around everywhere (and I was right). I only learned because I was promised I could take more guitar lessons if I drove myself there. I only took guitar because I didn’t want to have to take piano lessons. For years I pretended to play the drums in the school orchestra, but since there were like ten of us and only one set of percussion I only ended up playing triangle on every third song. An easy A every year. It took my parents a while to realize that I really didn’t know how to play anything musically (which was a family rule). I already thought I knew how to play piano. Being forced to take piano lessons killed my siblings ability to play (today I’m the only in my family who knows how to tinkle the ivories). My parents offered to buy me accordion (fulfilling my fantasies of becoming the next Weird Al) if I took piano for a year, but by that time I had finally bought my first non-Weird Al record (“Sgt. Pepper”) and randomly blurted out guitar in an attempt to avoid those scary piano lessons. I didn’t really have any strong desire towards the guitar (and I now sorta regret having taken up such a typical, pedestrian, everyday instrument, but I’ve already spent 15 years learning it and I don’t want to start over from scratch – hence the ukulele I can transfer everything I learned over to that).

It was a weird time. My father was absolutely miserable trying to date. He’d come home so dejected and sad. I don’t think he’d been with (even in a platonic sense) a lot of women before he met my mother. And he really didn’t want to go back out there. So of course the first woman who was interested in him, he hooked up with right away. Maybe it was a Mormon thing (you gotta be married to go to heaven) or maybe he thought that we kids needed a female influence around the house. For whatever reason he ended up with a woman totally Mom. And totally unlike himself. Who really didn’t have anything in common with him but was willing to deal with him. She didn’t write or paint or draw or sing. She’d never been to the theatre. A very practical, analytical, serious person who does something with computers for Qwest. Another non-Mormon – but this one wasn’t going to convert. A very organized, exact, specific, neat-nik, anal retentive, clean-freak. Really, she’s not that bad if you don’t have to live with her. But if you do – watch out…

My mom died in November, they were engaged by February, married by August. Needless to say, the three of us did not get along. (She saw children like dogs, messy and unnecessary). But me and my brother just watched our backs, minded our Ps and Qs. We were gonna get out of there eventually. But not my sister. She had that rebel spirit in her. They did not get along at all. Fights. Arguments. It was weird. I sympathized, but I wasn’t about to risk my neck out there. I was gonna graduate from high school and go to college. I had to. I thought. I didn’t even realize that this (like church) was purely optional, and that real people with real lives of goodness did it every day. It wasn’t like I was an exceptional or even interested student. Or that I wanted to go to college. It was just something you did. I didn’t even care where. As long as it was out of Colorado. At that point in my life I felt that the backwater cowtown that was Denver (and even worse the gentrified suburb of said cowtown I lived in) were holding me back.

I decided to go to The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. Why? Because that was what my step-mother’s real estate agent recommended. I didn’t even know anything about it. I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to go to BYU (although I applied to make my father happy). I wasn’t ever going to go back to church again once I got out of the house (of course, I wasn’t going to get in fights and grounded and move out prematurely over it like my sister). I thought I wanted to be a writer. I had filled out this questionnaire back in 9th grade that everyone was supposed to do to get a list of computerized best matches for a career path. Of course they were only going to print off the first page for each person, because the lists could be kinda long. But not mine. It only had two options on it. Freelance writer and technical writer. Well, what other job can you have where you don’t have to lift more than 5 lbs, and don’t have to deal with or interact with other people? The only problem (that I didn’t realize at the time) was that I didn’t like books. I don’t like reading. I don’t like literature. I still don’t. I don’t mind it. But it’s not my passion. I read a lot at work (a lot more than I did in school, when I was supposed to), but that’s only to make the time pass. If it were up to me at the time I probably wouldn’t read anything else ever again. But I didn’t realize it. Or I didn’t care.

I thought I had to do something artsy and creative with my life to avoid ending up frustrated weekend artists like my parents. It’s a family thing. My sister wanted to be an actress for the longest time. But now she’s graduated from Metro with a degree in English and an eye (but not prospects) on becoming a writer – but she hasn’t written anything (at least that I know about) in the longest time. My brother has always wanted to be an artist. And he is an artist. A very good artist. (I’ll let you know when his next show). And his only other passion is basketball. I don’t know enough about sports to really tell who good he is, but I grew up next to him and I know how much time he spent working on it (not just dreaming about it) and I know he was really serious. I have no idea whether we all got into the arts because we’re so bad at inter-personal communication that we feel this is our way to express ourselves, or whether we were simply pressured into it, but there you go.

I wanted to be a writer. And the more I learned about Evergreen, the more it seemed like the perfect place for me. No rules. No boundaries. Great for self-motivated individuals. Which I thought I was. Only, the real thing that attracted me was that without the structure I could really slack off and do nothing. If I ever did have potential as a kid growing up, instead of using it to make the most of myself, I always used it to coast as far as I could on as little effort as possible. And Evergreen was certainly a great (if expensive) place to do that. Of course, I wasn’t worried about money – my grandfather was going to give me $10,000 a year for four years while I went to school. I could live off that. I didn’t even know what good getting a degree would do me. It wasn’t like that would help me get published. What did I know?

I did so little in school. I got really good at writing reports about books I haven’t read. Of course, since there were no grades I really didn’t care how good they were. But I did realize that books weren’t really my thing, and sorta gave up on being a writer (or anything). I did meet a couple of friends though, Brad and Frannie. We’d never leave the dorm room. We’d play cards for hours and hours and hours and hours. I didn’t drink. (Well, Frannie made tea, and I drank that. Which is against the Mormon religion and made me feel better). Or smoke or date or write or anything. I was amazingly slothful. As were Brad and Frannie. That’s why we got along. I never even got a crush on Frannie simply because it would’ve been too much effort. Everyone changes one aspect of their personality when they get to college – if only temporarily, just to prove they can.

Me, I did as little as possible. And part of me really loved wasting my life like this. It was the best. And part of me that isn’t driven by the love of the art but rather a fear of being no one, was upset that I wasn’t becoming a something… I had tried getting people to jam with me, but it never really went anywhere, because it would’ve required too much effort on my part. But I was keeping in touch with a friend of mine I had jammed with briefly back in Colorado, by the name of Ave. And the things he was doing and telling me about, pumped me up in a way that nothing in Olympia was ever going to do. Eventually I decided to transfer to cheaper school (Red Rocks Community College) out in Colorado so I could keep getting my grandpa money and be able to devote myself full-time to trying to become a rock star. Well – that didn’t work out. For more on that whole scenario go to http://earcandy_mag.tripod.com/rrcase-phlegmtones.htm that’s pretty much all I did during my twenties…

Of course, we were never making enough money to live on (or any money at all). So what did I do for a job – having dropped out of State College with not ambitions (career-wise) or even an idea of what I wanted or could do for money? When I was in high school my father insisted I get a job – despite not wanting either the experience or the cash. So I followed my friend Rob as a telemarketer for the local theatre season. He was surprisingly really good at it. I never made a sale the whole time I was there. But boy, there’s nothing like sitting on the phone getting rejected for four hours a day to really buoy your spirits. The only reason I didn’t get fired is because the manager had a thing for Rob (little did she know…). So of course, after two months, they fired the manager. A new guy came in and said – if you don’t make a sale by the end of the day – you’re fired. Unfortunately (through no fault of my own) one of the people I called did want to buy a subscription. So I had to come back the next day, where the new manager told me I now had to make two sales by the end of the day or else. So, I did my shift. Didn’t make any sales. And never came back.

My second job was for Blimpie’s making sandwiches. I hated that. I wasn’t very good at it either. Then I went to work for Target. On the “push” team. That meant I had to unload the truck – take the stuff out of the boxes and put them out on the floor. Grunt work. You didn’t need your G.E.D. or even a knowledge of English to do it. Very physical. Lost a lot of weight. I hated it too. For some reason I ended up working the toy section all by myself. It became my own little serfdom (without any serfs). It was also around the time they re-released all those Star Wars movies (which, despite my being in the key demographic to be all nostalgic for) I never really cared for. So every morning as soon as we opened there would be collectors trying to go through my boxes of action figures and find the one valuable one. I hated them. They were creepy. But not as much as the kids. Also whining begging pleading asking. Some subtly and deviously (for a kid), some just yelling. And I hated the parents. For giving in to them. For not buying them what they want. I saw (or overheard) every time of dysfunctional relationship and parent and child could have. So eventually I quit.

Of course this was also around the time that I got evicted. After I moved back from Olympia I lived with my band-mate Ave for a while. But eventually he stiffed me on the rent so I ended up living with my folks. Which is always sad and embarrassing, but we never fought or clashed or anything, so it was cool. But eventually Cynthia decided I had to move out. So I answered an ad for roommate wanted. Moved into this house with this gay guy named Scott (which was always confusing when I picked up the phone). Scott then just disappeared. He said he was going on vacation to Hawaii. I didn’t see him for two or three weeks.

Then one day the landlord stopped by saying that Scott owed $1000 in rent. I figured the check must’ve gotten lost in the mail – so I gave her a grand and signed the lease. Of course I never did see him again (although somehow he did manage to get some more roommates to move in – none of them dumb enough to sign the lease). And the next month I was the one whose name was on all the eviction papers (since I was the only one they could find). I ended up moving into the apartment that my other roommates got (without ruinging their chances of getting it by signing the lease or telling anyone I was there). They were a lot older than me and really different in temperment and really annoying, so eventually my sister decided to move out to California with some guy she just met (who ended up stealing all her money and abandoning her out there) and I moved into her old apartment without telling anyone. It was on Colfax. Right by the two-story McDonald’s and the lesbian. Bit of a crappy place but very cheap. And I hate moving so I stayed there for five and a half years or so.

While I was living there I quit my job at Target. Mostly because my grandfather decided to give us all $10,000 in stocks one year for Xmas. And since I hated working there I quit thinking I could live off of that for a while. A while lasted about four months. That’s when I got the job at the Las Vegas Video Palace. Where I was working at the time may not have been the best idea for an extremely virginal and shy guy in his mid-twenties. I was a cashier/clerk. Which was quite exciting for the first hour or two, but by the end of my first shift, it was already boring and numbing.

However, my one big break into the adult entertainment field came from that. One day, I came to work to see my manager smiling and saying to me, “Good! Good! You made it on-time. Now stand behind this register.” I was about to protest that the register he was indicating was broke, and had been broken since the store opened, but he’s the boss, so I just shut up and did what I was told. Lo behold a few minutes later, a man walks in, backwards, holding a video camera (and not even a particularly good video camera). He is then followed by a blonde woman wearing nothing but a thin gold chain around her waist. Her name was Barbie Blazer. The only reason I know that is, from that point on she got free lifetime rentals at the store. Usually she’d come in with her beefy, linebacker-looking boyfriend, and just let him abuse her membership. You kinda have to wonder if he was just dating her to get the free rentals. You also have to wonder why a guy who was dating a porn star (okay, porn character actress) would need five to seven different adult videos a week.

Anyway, there I was with my first live naked woman and I immediately snap into “method acting mode” by staring intently at my non-functioning register and pretending “oh, this kind of thing happens all the time”. (Yes I did peek a little.) Then, the man and woman go back into the store and started doing … whatever it is they were doing. Meanwhile customers are still coming in and out. Okay, they’re coming in, but they’re not coming out. Instead they just form a semi-circle around the twosome and watch. When she’s done, goes out and exchanges a few words with my manager (I didn’t get any lines) and then exits. So that was it, my one day as a porn extra. There I am in AMX’s “Flashing In Public” (either volume 4 or 5, I forget). I’m the one in the pink shirt with a beard. Actually I was planning on stealing the movie from the store, but someone else checked it out and never returned it. My entire adult film career gone.

Did I have a girlfriend during this time? No. Had I ever? No. So by the time I was 24 I was getting kinda desperate. That’s when I met this girl on-line from Virginia named Laurie Radatz. We talked for a while. Things seemed to be going well and then suddenly I didn’t hear from her anymore. Because they didn’t have any computers at the mental institution where she’d just been placed. Apparently she just tried to kill herself. Again. So she set me a letter. And we corresponded via snail mail. She kept telling me as soon as she got out she’d come move to Colorado and in with me. Only she met someone else. In the institution. Who, ironically enough, turned out to be nuts. She didn’t know that then though, and moved in with him. Soon however the two of them were living in his car. Which he occasionally tried to run her over with. When he got really drunk. Which was pretty often, since he was an alcoholic. And she would write me and tell me how miserable she was and how much she wanted to leave him and how if I’d only send her $100 for bus fare that she could leave him and move in with me. And I would wire her the money. And then she’d write me back saying she spent it all on her spray paint huffing habit, but if I’d send her some more then this time she’s serious. And since I didn’t think anyone else would ever want me eventually I would. Besides I thought we had so much in common. She also masturbated ten times a day (sometimes thinking about girls). We were obviously meant for each other. And this went on and on several times. Till I had already sent almost $1,000.

Then, much to everyone’s surprise she actually showed up. Where after seeing how passive I was decided she couldn’t ever be attracted to me (She never specifically stated that she’d be my girlfriend if she moved out here, but it was sort of implied. I certainly wouldn’t have sent all that money if I thought she wasn’t). But she still expected me to pay for her food and rent and cigarettes and therapy and such since she couldn’t get a job what with her OCD and her manic-depressive bi-polar disorder. Which I did. While she spent all day lounging around the house totally naked (which is kinda frustrating for a 24 year old virgin. I’m not that visual but I found her attractive despite all of the scars from her cutting up and down her arm. Plus she was completely shaved). Mostly she spent her time on LiveLinks finding other guys she would go out and have sex with. And I put up with it. I’d sneak porns home from my job so she could watch them until she got so excited that I had to leave the room while she finished herself off. Until one month later, she decided that she missed her alcoholic abusive ex-boyfriend, and left me to go back to him. At least I got a couple of good songs out.

Shortly after that I met a woman named Nubia off one of those telephone chatting lines. She seemed real nice. We talked. We agreed to go out to a bar for Halloween. She got really drunk. She spent the night at my place. Nothing happened. As I was driving her home the next morning, she said she had something to tell me … she liked girls. That was cool with me. I could be the male/lesbian equivalent of a fag-hag. No pressure to try and date her or win her over or anything. And we spent pretty much every waking hour together. Mostly because she was a security guard, and I had just gotten fired from the adult entertainment industry – so I was now a security guard too. So we would work all night these crazy hours – and no one else would be up when we were. We would talk to each other all night long for our various posts. I never had any feelings for her or anything, but when she started dating this guy named Todd, she told me that she was bi, and that she just told me she was gay because she knew we could be really good friends, but that she could never see us as more than that and she didn’t want to break my heart or get my hopes up. I was hurt. Not so much because she lied, as much as because she wasn’t interested in me (even though I wasn’t interested in her). And I never really talked to her since. Which was good time, because this is when I met Katie.

As for my first last and so far only girlfriend... Katie. Katrina. We met on-line. Where else would someone with my lack of social skills meet someone as agoraphobic as her? We were both 25 (she’s eight days older than I). We soon got to talking. And then we decided to meet. And that’s where I got my first kiss and ... and well lost my cherry and everything. She is overweight but very attractive but she’s still hung-up on it. Very smart (MENSA member). Hit it off immediately. But she’s very stubborn and very specific about how she wants things done constantly. Which is fine by me - since usually I don’t have much of an opinion one way or the other. She asks me to move in with her after 6 months. I defer - because... well – the eviction for one thing. If I moved out of my sister’s old place it’ll be seven years before I can move into my own place (under my own name) again. But finally after two years together she talks me into it. Mostly because every night she in tears telling me how much she hates the people at her job. I figure if I move in with her, she can afford to quit her job and find something better. So I do, and she does. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Katie always is in tears because she hates the people at her job - no matter what job she has.

Not long after I move in with her I lose my car. Which is really inconvenient, because she moved way out south (to be near her job which she just quit) and there are really no buses that go out that far. See what happened was this: I was pretty broke, so I wasn’t buying car insurance like I should have. Needless to say, you can guess what happened next. I got into an accident. Nothing major. No one was hurt. The car still worked fine. Only now the window on the driver’s side is gone. And I can’t replace it because the door is smashed and won’t open. And I can’t just replace that because the frame is bent now. So I put some plastic sheeting up over the window, and get in through the passenger’s side. The other result of this is I know have to have SR-22 insurance, or my license is suspended. Now in order to afford insurance, I stop changing my oil. So of course, the entire engine eventually cracks. I can’t afford to fix it. Heck, even if it was still working, I probably couldn’t afford the gas much longer. So I just let it sit at the Pep Boys I have it towed to and starting buying bus passes (which seems almost as expensive sometimes).

But things are going really well with Katie and I. She tells me what to do and I do it. If she’s sitting on the couch and wants a coke - I go get it. Whatever. She makes a lot more than I do. I have no idea what the rent is. I just sign my whole paycheck over to her. I figure what I’m costing her is more than what I’m giving because I never see a dime back. Eventually the people I bought my car from track me down. I let them reposess it, but I guess it wasn’t worth what I still owed. So I file for bankruptcy. Doing that, I have to show that I’m not making enough money to pay them anything. Hashing out the budget it turns out that I’m paying Katie $200 a month to be my girlfriend. But that’s ok. Soon, she’s decided that she wants to buy a condo. I only find out that she’s looking at places after she’s bought one. She tells me she’s off looking at places, and I assume it’s something for her work (she does work in land development at this point). We did go out together looking at apartments once, and I figured if she was serious about us moving, that she would take me again. But, I don’t even get to see it until after we’ve moved in. It’s incontinently located, for someone who has to take the bus, way out in Aurora. I guess she figures because I’m not interested in watching those home-decorating shows with her that I don’t care where I live. Of course, I don’t say anything. What is there to say? It’s already too late. But I’m ok. I’m just happy that someone wants to be with me. Much less some one as smart and cute and nice to me as her.

As for the music… Well it took me a couple of years to really realize that the Phlegmtones were over. And a few more after that to get over it. But not long after I starting seeing Katie, I started hitting the open-mic nights again. Just my solo acoustic guitar and me. Katie never came. She hated leaving the house. And although she never said anything, she hated my kind of music. She was more into either techno or really angry Rage Against The Machine type of stuff. Actually she probably didn’t hate it; it just wasn’t her cup of tea. Which in a weird way was even more annoying. I’d rather have someone actively despise my music than just be indifferent to it. Anyway, I would go to these open-stages, and sometimes it would be okay, but usually it was just depressing. Since I didn’t have any friends, no one would be there to listen to me. One night I went to an open-stage, and not only was no one there. There wasn’t even a host. Or a microphone. Just an empty coffee house. I figure I could’ve just stayed home to practice, but what the hey, I’m here anyway. So I start doing my thing, when finally two young female college students walk in. They walk straight up to me and say, “Could you stop that, we need to study.” At that point I decided to give up on being a solo acoustic folk-singing singer-songwriter troubadour. So I needed to find a band.

Luckily, around this time, JT (the last drummer for the Phlegmtones) moved back into town. He was jamming with this guy, Lyndon. Asked me to come over. Lyndon is a really great guy and pretty good guitarist. Almost exactly equal to me in terms of technical competence, although much more interested in the blues than I am. We start looking around for a bass player. Lyndon invites this guy from work named Andy. He’s really good, although he drinks a bit too much, which is a problem because he’s not even twenty-one. Which is another problem because we want to start playing the bars. But he’s really good (and bass players are hard to find) so we work around it. We call ourselves the Seven Deadly Five, until we realize there’s already a band called the Seven Mary Five. About this time, JT decides to move to Key West. So Lyndon and Andy move into his duplex, since we’ve been rehearsing there anyway. JT even hand-picks his replacement, Dave. At first we all thought that he picked Dave so that if he ever came back to town we’d dump Dave and take him back. But soon he gets the hang of it. We change our name to the Red Eye Revival, because everyone in the band in a big pot-head except me. We’re not a great band by any stretch. Certainly no Phlegmtones. While I like the guys personally a lot better and from a technical stand-point, they’re much better musicians, it just doesn’t have the same chemistry. I am enjoying myself however, because… I’m practically the lead singer. Not that that was my intention. I always felt that whoever wrote the song ought to sing it. And I had dozens if not hundreds left over from the Phlegmtones days that I never got to do. And Lyndon has three songs. I don’t think Andy ever even offered. So I’m singing 80% of our material, although I still stand stage left and Lyndon takes the center mic. We get out. We play a few bars (with Andy getting a work permit from the city and county to allow him in). Soon however, Lyndon is getting really sick of Andy’s flakiness now that he has to leave with him. One day, after we’ve been together for almost a year, I get a call from Lyndon. Apparently Andy stole a car sometime ago back in North Dakota. And he’s technically on parole. And he hasn’t been seeing his parole officer. So they threw him back in jail. Which was a drag, but he said he knew some other bass players, we’d still get together and rehearse as usual. Only when I get there, everyone (including this bass player I’ve never met) decides to sit down and talk about what to do in this period of transition. Dave and Lyndon tell me they’ve been talking, and they think it would be much more commercial if Lyndon sang all the songs. Because he was Native American. And they may have been right, what do I know about what’s commercial. It wasn’t the point. They were my songs. I didn’t say anything at the time. I just wanted to get my stuff out of there, but I knew I was going to quit the band. So next rehearsal, I brought Katie, who brought her car, so I could load everything up and take off. Didn’t talk to them again for years (which is too bad, because I did like them as people).

So once again, I’m looking for a band. I put up a post on-line. And not a very short one. If nothing else, Red Eye Revival taught me to be very specific about what I wanted out of a band. But no one’s answering. I spend nearly a year updating this ad. I also end up shaving off my beard and getting some trendy new glasses. Mostly because I wanted to prove to them I could look commercial. Finally some guy named Matt answered my ad. I agreed to meet with him. We talked. He seemed really nice. He gave me a CD of what he did. I took it home and didn’t listen to it. I figured I needed him in the band no matter what, and I didn’t want to find out that he wasn’t any good. Luckily after I said let’s do it, I did listen to the CD. Not only was it good, but it was something I could work with. Not beyond my somewhat limited technical abilities. Not stuck in only one genre. Not boring. Good. Now by this point I was already booking shows under the name of “Scot Livingston & The Inactivists” despite the fact that at this point it was only me and a drum machine. I played my first show like that at Herman’s Hideaway, and it was a blast. Definitely what I needed after the failed acoustic career. So I had another show booked. I took Matt’s CD and wrote lyrics to about half a dozen songs in about a week. Matt told me he knew of a drummer and saxophonist who would be interested. We had our first and only rehearsal on a Sunday, and the very next day we played our first show. Sloppy perhaps, but great. A dozen originals we had barely learned. And two days later, without another rehearsal we played our second show. To which Matt invited Victoria, a theremin player, to join us at. Despite never rehearsing with us or having heard our music or even knowing what we looked like. And it went over just as well. She was a really good theremin player, and that is hard to find. So I dropped my name from the title and we became “The Inactivists”.

These guys were not only really good, but they got what I was trying to do, and had their own ideas of what to add to it. Well – everyone except the sax player. I had never even thought about sax before, but once he was in, it became an integral part of our sound. Only the rest of us were working on polishing the material and getting better and more complicated songs. And Jay (the saxophonist) was staying at the same level. Clearly he wanted to just rehearse one and then jam on-stage, while the rest of us were trying to craft more intricate arrangements. We stopped showing up to half of the rehearsals, and not getting any better when he was there. After finishing our first CD – we mutually decided to go our separate ways. Which left us looking for a new saxophonist. Or something else to fill that gap. And if you think bass players are hard to find… Not only that, but they’re very flaky. We’d schedule times to meet and maybe audition, and they just wouldn’t show up. Finally out of frustration, I booked three sax guys to show up on the same night. I figured at least one would make it. So of course all three did. One guy was competent, but clearly not into what we were doing. One guy was really god (and could also play the clarinet) but was really quiet and didn’t seem all that interested. And the third guy was just thoroughly enamored of us. So of course, he was the worst player. After that night, we decided to go with guy #3, just because of his enthusiasm. But within a few days that enthusiasm started to look more like creepy stalking. He sent us lyrics about having a boner in math class, which is disturbing since he was a junior high school teacher. Soon we decided to stop talking to him and see if Todd, the guy with the clarinet was interested. And he was. And boy were we lucky. Unbeknownst to us, Todd was a phenomenal player. He really brought us to a new level. On the second CD he just played the parts I had written out for Jay, which were not very complicated, and he nailed them. On the third CD he came up with his own parts and just blew us away. Of course after recording that CD, Todd told us that he missed his family (he moved out to Denver from Portland to be with his brother, who immediately moved out to NYC), and since he didn’t really know anyone in Colorado, and couldn’t find a steady job or girlfriend or anything, he was going to move back to Portland.

So now we’re trying to find not only a sax and clarinet player, but a really good one. Although it didn’t have to be those instruments specifically, but something to fill in that gap. So we were all surprised when we found one. Not only did she play sax and clarinet, but she also played the vibraphone, which is a sound we’ve wanted to incorporate into ours for a while. The only downside? She’s 19. Once again, I’m worrying about getting work permits to get someone into the bar. But she’s very nice and mature and okay with hanging out with a band whose median age is 35 (I was the baby of the group). Only odd thing is, we cover “Hello” by Lionel Ritchie, and she’s never heard of it before. Weird. Of course around this time we start having drummer issues. Which every band does, and we had been very fortunate to avoid so far. The problem is, Chris is the best possible drummer for us in every way. But Chris wants to make a living as a drummer. And even though the band is doing a lot better than I ever expected or hoped for; we are a long way from making more than we spend, much less being able to feed yourself. So Chris has to take gigs with other bands that pay better. Even if we already have something else scheduled that night. And no matter how great a drummer is, if he’s not there, it doesn’t matter. So that’s where we are right now. Looking for a really good but free and interested drummer. We’ll see…

As for JT and the other Phlegmtones… I still kept in touch with Avery, occasionally. He was doing this new project called, Mr. Pacman. And it’s going really well. I’ve seen him a couple of times. Not my cup of tea really. Too synthesizer-y and silly. But hey, it’s a fun show, and he’s my friend. I invite him to all of my Red Eye Revival and Inactivists shows, but he never comes. Mostly he only calls me when he needs something. Like the Denver Post is giving him some award, and he’s too busy to give them an interview and could I do it for him. It is a little annoying. And sometimes I stop calling him for months or even years, but he doesn’t seem to notice. JT finally does move back to Colorado. With his girlfriend. They’re a wonderfully sweet couple. They decide to get married out in Colorado. JT wants to have a big Phlegmtones reunion at his reception. I’m down with that. Ave is all scared because he can’t remember any of the songs. I (as usual) promise to re-teach him everything. But not just yet. The Wedding is months away, he’ll forget everything if I teach him now. Still he’s freaking out. I tell him this will be a small casual get-together with friends. It’s not a show. No pressure. He doesn’t even have to play guitar, or even key-tar which is all he’s been playing since he started Mr. Pacman. He can just sing. The important thing is that we’re there together for JT’s special day. So it finally runs around. As usual Katie’s gotten herself into such a lather about some stupid work thing, that she’s forgotten the wedding completely (despite being friends with both the bride and groom). Although, she does finally make it in time, I have to take the bus. The wedding is nice (as weddings go). The reception is jam packed with bands. Because most of JT’s friends are in bands. I see Red Eye Revival again for the first time since I left. And am I little smugly pleased to note, that they haven’t gotten out of the basement or learned any new songs since I left them. The Inactivists are supposed to play – but both Chris and Matt are busy that day – so the bride and groom filled in as our rhythm section. JT flew Seth, our old bass player down from Montana to be here at some expense.

Finally the time for the reunion has arrived. But Ave still isn’t there. Seth, JT and I have a good time pounding our way through a handful of half-remembered songs. Then the next act gets up to play. The wedding’s been over for about five hours. Ave still has not shown up, although he promised he would, because he was going to host the karaoke portion of the show (something else that he does in his Mr. Pacman guise). Also, I had promised to write an entire musical for Ave and Mr. Pacman, in a week. He apparently agreed to do this, without actually writing a script or anything. And now the venue wanted to see what he was going to do. So he turned to me. I had written for his failed TV show, and even though he had a lot of specific ideas that he wanted done really quickly I agreed. Of course, I was getting really sick of Ave’s demands by this point and wasn’t really going to do it. But I did bring along a copy of some other musical I wrote that I figured he would hate, because it didn’t have Mr. Pacman actually in it. I figured he could hand that to the venue to placate him and then I (or better he) could take the time to write what he wants. So when Ave does finally show up – after the wedding, after my band, after his band was supposed to play – but in plenty of time for him to do his thing, I decide not to give him that script. He asks if I wrote it, and I tell him, “yeah” and start to leave. But he doesn’t let me leave. He asks for it. I tell him I’m not going to give it to him. And I tell him why. At which point Ave just starts saying the most horribly things to me. Not loudly. Just telling me that I’m shit, and that my band is shit (which is funny because he never heard us), and the Phlegmtones were shit, and that he’d never “work” with me again. I’m just smiling and nodding and trying to leave. This is about what expected him to do. But Katie, who is clearly not used to Ave’s mood, and a bit drunk, asks him if he means it. Ave says yes. Katie punches him in the face. Ave throws his drink on her. Katie kicks him in the balls (which breaks her toenail, but doesn’t seem to hurt him). Ave pushes her over. The elevator arrives. And we leave.

And that’s how cool Katie was. Where else could I find someone who had no interest in marriage or children (which I never wanted, but figured if I ever got a girlfriend, would be inevitable)? She always stated “no husband, no kids, no pets, no plants”. No Pets?? I was in heaven. Not only that, but she was willing to make the first move, which a guy as shy and scared and uncertain as I needed. She likes that I’m weird. She’s weird too. Through her inadvertently, I lose a lot of weight. After I move in and she quits her job, she’s home watching TV all day. And of course she always gets to pick the channel. And one of her favorite shows is “Trading Spaces”, which I can’t stand. So I need something else to do for an hour a day. Since I have no car and we’re in the middle of nowehere, there’s really nothing for me to do. But the apartment complex does have a gym. So I end up spending an hour a day on the treadmill. Soon, everyone’s telling me how great I look, which just makes me think “you all thought I was fat for so many years and never told me. I had no idea”. So it wasn’t that great. But with Katie I start brushing my teeth regularly. She gets me to wear boxers instead of briefs. Take more pride in my appearance. Oddly enough, before I met her, I didn’t think I could ever have anyone else. But after the self-confidence (and grooming tips) she’s given me I could probably find someone else. But of course she’s ruined me for anyone else either. Where else am I going to find someone like her? For one thing, she swallows. She also likes to read. But only romance novels. Which is kind of weird, but she’s not very romantic. We never did anything special – or anything at all – on Valentine’s Day. She could never remember our exact anniversary, and when I’d remind her, she’d just comment on how weird it is that so much time has passed, but still we never did anything. Of course, I didn’t realize it right away, those Romance novels aren’t really “romantic”. They’re more like Playboy for females. But, hey, if that’s what she’s into. Of course it was rather insulting when she would even bring a book to read when the two of us would go out alone for dinner. I’d just sit there looking at her while she read her book in my face. Granted, we didn’t share a lot of similar tastes, but I’d like to think we’d have more to talk about than that.

And then there was the one time - about a year after we were dating that I looked in her e-mail account. Turns out she had been writing and talking on the phone with this guy. Some real explicit stuff (she’s a good writer). Apparently she really likes being tied up and spanked and stuff. Me - I’m really passive guy. I try, but my heart’s not into it. I just don’t know what to do with her when she’s tied up. She says whatever I want. What I want is to untie her. No - what I want is to make her happy. I just don’t know how. Besides - I wasn’t really worried about this other guy. She always used some other model’s pictures so I knew she could never actually meet this guy in person and leave me for him. Besides I think things are fine now. Except she never wants to leave the house. She literally takes her week off and stays on the couch watching TV for nine straight days. And she always gets to pick what we watch because she pays for the cable. I like spending time with her so I do it. For the longest time I just sit there and watch. But I really don’t like TV all that much. So I try and find other things to do. Eventually I tell her that I’m not gonna watch it any more hoping this will inspire her to get off the couch do something. Anything. Instead she just sits there and even though we live in the same condo - I hardly ever see her or speak to her. Which makes me sad. I miss her. Instead I’m upstairs on-line. Not that there’s much more to do on-line there this to watch on TV, but at least it’s slightly interactive. And I can try and pimp my band - look for fans - look for gigs, etc. Plus it is annoying because she’s got a car and I don’t. And I’m way out in the middle of nowhere and there’s nothing to do within walking distance. So I just start going out on walks. Something to do.

So, one day as usual, Katie abruptly decides she can’t stand he co-worker and more and just quits. This is about two months ago. So now she’s on-line all the time. I really got nothing to do. I can’t play my guitar while she’s home because she doesn’t like my music. And now that she’s unemployed again she’s home all the time. I assume she’s looking for a new job. But she’s also talking to people. About her new favorite TV show “One Piece” (it some Japanese animation). Soon she’s talking to this one guy on the phone. Till like 2 or 3 in the morning. One night, my band calls and says hey, we’re going out for burgers and beer, wanna come? As usual I invite Katie along. As usual she declines. So I’m kinda surprised when I get home that night to find a note from her that’s she’s driven all the way down the Colorado Springs (she hates driving) to meet some guy she just met off the internet less than a week ago, to go drinking with him and spend the night on his couch so she doesn’t have to drive home drunk. Needless to say - I don’t get much sleep that night. She’s home when I get off of work the next. Big smile on her face. Acts like nothing odd has happened. I don’t think she slept with him or anything - just had no idea how rude that was to me. I don’t say anything either... but she keeps staying up all night talking to him or hanging out with him. She even brings him to one of my shows. Finally I wait up one night till 2 and when she gets off the phone I tell her that I’m worried about us and that we’re drifting apart. (And that should tell you how much I was hurting because I normally avoid any and all confrontation). She tells me not worry. She still loves me and only me. I never accuse her of anything so she never says anything. She just says that I need to give her some more space. I say I’m trying, but its hard because I live here too. I try to be placated. I go to sleep. I go to work the next morning. Come home to find yet another note that she’s spending the day with this guy (Gaetan or G for short). She has no idea why I’m so upset when she comes home. But I try not to be to possessive or paranoid or clingy. Nothing changes. She finally gets offered the job that she think will be the ones of her dreams. But she doesn’t start for another month. There’s not much I can do. I can’t move out - I have no money. So I try and be patient. I know there are now a couple other guys she’s talking to. Then one night (May 1st - actually since it was after midnight May 2nd), she comes home from spending the night at the bar with G and tells me that we don’t have enough in common and that have to move out as soon as possible (Of course she did take the paycheck that I left for her that night though). So I do. And that’s how I ended up where I am today.