-Buddy Holly
I love so many people in this beautiful old city I from. It has been so good to be here. It really has. I really do wish I wouldn't have used before I came home, but I can't change that. In many way, my using made this trip mean so much more than it would have. Being here helped me stay clean. Using made me miserable and I knew I couldn't continue to do so, but sometimes, that doesn't stop me. After being here a while, it became what it was supposed to be - a beautifully amazing experience that I am completely grateful for.
I do look forward to getting back to San Francisco and turning my new high rise apartment into my home. The two weeks I spent in it, I was a tweaked out mess or I was so depressed and afraid I would lose my dream come true. Currently, it has a bed on the floor and a bunch of unpacked boxes in it. It looks just as it did the day the movers dropped everything off - except it was cleaner.
Now, I get to go home and unpack. I get home late Thursday night. Friday morning, my social worker comes over at 9:00 A.M. She really is an angel. After that, I have to go to General Hospital to pick up prescriptions and other much needed medical supplies to care for my damaged body. Then, at 1:00 P.M. I meet with my G.A .worker. G.A. is basically welfare. Thankfully, all of that is working out. It's a long story but things weren't working out for me before I came home. Half of my $422.00 G.A. cash payment pays my rent. I also get $200.00 in food stamps. Being Social Security pending, I'm not supposed to work. I'm not sure I even could. That's...another whole story. More than that, I need to move on. All of that would have been so complicated without my insane mind hearing harsh negative voices that show up when I am coming down from shooting meth. Basically, I made a mess messier. Move on!
Saturday, a few of my good friends from Wally World are coming over to my new place. My one friend said that he has some posters for me. Knowing him, they are probably of women's butts. Don't get me wrong, I love women's butts, but not on the walls of my home. That would just make me want to shoot up again. Later Saturday, me and my Wally World friends will go to band practice with The Alanos. I really look forward to playing with my band again. It's been six or seven weeks!
Sunday I'm going to church and then to my sponsors home. Monday I have physical therapy. Tuesday I meet with my psychiatrist. Wednesday, I go to the dentist. I have a lot to keep me busy back in San Francisco. I really look forward to unpacking and seeing all of my recovery friends!
I look forward to getting home to these things but I will miss everyone here. I have had a great time on my visit home. I love all of my family and friends. I got to go up and visit my brother in Indiana a few weeks ago. I also went down to the hills of Kentucky and visited all of my hillbilly family members down there. Every time I go there, I meet a new cousin. This time was no exception. I think my little brothers and my favorite part was meeting Buck. Buck is my hillbilly uncle's horse. I love that horse. Buck loves me. He loves giving kisses. He loves my camera too. He loved putting his head over my shoulder to allow me to take our photo together.
What is really frustrating is the fact that I am unable to attach photos to my blogs. It has been that way every since I shot crystal meth. I assume it has something to do with that because sometimes I like to watch internet porn and do other twisted sexual things on this computer when I shoot speed. I'm not sure that doing that is where the problem arose, but I wouldn't doubt it. I'm sorry if I give too much information, but it is simply The Truth. If I live a Truth that is not a big deal to share then things are much easier for me to write about. I'm not proud of the person I become when I shoot speed. And, trust me, I am not telling the detailed Truth. Just enough. Enough.
I love so many people here. And, somehow, they all seem to love twisted me. They do because they know who I really am. That Universe I love so much sure threw some bad weather my way for The Grateful Gathering. Not everything is about me! I know that. It's just what happens in Cincinnati sometimes. I will say one thing, the people who did show up really mean a lot to me - even before they showed up. It was pretty much the old crowd that one might have found on Klotter Avenue when I lived in Cincinnati 12 years ago. Many were not there, including some of Klotter's residents themselves, but the roads really were THAT BAD!
I had to be there. It wasn't too far for me. Some of my best friends came from the West Side! Two of my amazing cousins came from pretty far away too! I know one lives on the west side. I had not seen them in 20 years! Literally. However, it was as if we had not missed a beat.
That night at Bocca Live really was a good time. I think the coolest part was my getting to jam with The Barking Squirrels which is my little brothers band. We did two of my songs and one cover. The first one of my mine we did I wrote a few days before my dad died in 2006. I wrote it out at Ocean Beach where I had been spending so many nights shooting speed. The time I wrote it however, instead of taking drugs, I took my guitar and lyrically wondered, "Why we killing ourselves?" That song is called Live. My brothers band really jammed that one.
Next, we did the infamous, Tequila and Trains. It's a long story, but the lyrics are true. The lyrics are true in all of my songs. Basically, years ago, I drank all day and then did a bunch of mushrooms before an Allman Brothers concert at The Beacon Theater in Harlem. Afterwards, we went to New York's financial district. I did 13 shots of tequila. To get back to Hoboken, New Jersey, where our friend lived, we had to catch a subway train at The World Trade Center. In a drunken stupor, I fell into the subway tracks. I landed in a huge and nasty puddle of grease. Thankfully, my friends pulled me out before the subway train came.
A couple years later, I drank a fifth of Monte Alban and ate the worm while at my hillbilly uncles house in Burnside, Kentucky. There are some seriously busy railroad tracks nearby. I wish I could post the photos I took a couple of days ago, but once again, I can't. We went out on this huge railroad trestle that crosses Lake Cumberland. I stood up on the railing 300 feet above the lake, raised my arms into the air and yelled like a maniac. After walking across the top of the long bridge, we climbed down to the cat walk and walked back. Trains would then pass on the busy tracks just overhead, shaking that cat walk back and forth like crazy. We hoot and hollered and loved it. After that, we climbed up and were walking through a narrow railroad passage and something happened. I think I was too close to the train and it scalped me. All I knew was, "My heads bleeding." One of my friends ran back to my uncles and woke Susan. She rushed me to the hospital and I got 30 stiches in my head. Talk about a having a headache! I quit drinking tequila after that. Using has brought me close to death too many times. That was probably the first really close call. I think I was 28.
The third and last song I played with The Barking Squirrels was a cover. It was Not Fade Away by Buddy Holly. It was a originally preformed by Buddy Holly, but was made famous to me by The Grateful Dead. I remember the first time I heard it live. I was at The Richfield Coliseum outside of Cleveland. The Grateful Dead played it as there last song of the second set. They ended the song as its usual end, "You know our love will not fade away. You know our love will not fade away...." The crowd, as usual, joined in. Eventually, The Dead stopped singing, put down their instruments and left the stage. The crowd continued singing, "You know our love will not fade away. You know our love will not fade away...." After a while, the band came back and joined back in and then finised the song. They then played an encore song. I called it the Grateful Gathering for a couple reasons. One, I was grateful to so many for so much. Two, I love The Grateful Dead. That song was my little brothers idea. We were going to do more, but his band and I only had time to practice twice. Each time we practiced each song once or twice.
I am so grateful to be home. It had been 3 years since I have been here. So many of you mean so much to me. I knew that, but now I really know that. I really want to be someone that matters to my little brothers. I want to be that to all of my family and friends. So many of you mean so much to0 me. I mean that. You know our love will not fade away!
(I normally put a video on this page, but wasn't sure how to do that with the video my cousin made with her smartphone and shared on Facebook. The link below simply gets you to OUR version on Facebook. Once you get to the video, you must push play. If you weren't there, I hope you enjoy. I know we did!)
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