My Peeples,

Below is one of the chapters of a memoir i've been working on (more off then on) for like four years. Let me know what you think. Remember, feel no way about being painfully honest. I needs the true feedback. Hopefully, I'll have a lil sumpthin' sumpthin', how you say, FRESH for you come this weekend.

Peace,

lil tommy tee

                           LOST IN MUSIC

"NOBODY LOVES ME BUT MY MOTHER (and she could be lying too)" … B.B. King:

They say that you only remember the good times of childhood; that all the bad shit -- childhood traumas, humiliations, rejections, loneliness, yada-yada -- is either hazy or buried waay deep. My problem has always been that I remember just as much good as bad shit. I remember my father's love, his tickling  bear hugs, handshakes and humor, but I remember his distance, disappointment, sadness and anger towards me as well. I remember my Moms' love, encouragement, comfort and unshakeable faith in my specialness.

I remember the indescribable joy of spending summers at Popski's mother's house in Elizabeth. The wonderful way she spoiled me; giving me enuff money to buy all the comic books I wanted, drinking breakfast coffee with the grownups, wrestling with my cousin Douglas who nicknamed me "Brush"; sitting at the pinochle table every Saturday night with Gramma Rose, her live-in boyfriend Uncle George, his son Robert and Aunt Margie. To Gramma Rose, I was "Jerry" not Tom or Scooter.

And I remember the taunting old man next door who called me "Rabbit 'cause your ears are as big as Bugs Bunny's", that night when the KKK burned a cross on the front lawn and the time Gramma Rose told me with a startling meanness that Aunt Ethel who lived upstairs from us in Vauxhall was not my 'real' aunt but simply a family friend named Miz Cotton and the way that forever fucked up the way I related to her, her husband and her daughter Norma who was my Aunt and Godmother.

Most of all, I remember when my Moms said I could no longer spend the summer at Gramma Rose's 'cause she was trying to make me into her child; that Rose always resented my mother 'cause she took Popski away from her control and that by spoiling me so much she was going to make me as dependent on her as Aunt Margie and Douglas were. Moms won that war, but I paid dearly.

I remember the love my sisters had for me, the way they looked up to me and tried to emulate me; how special they made me feel. But I also remember how the other kids made the name "Scooter" a running joke, the taunts of 'four eyes", "cornball", "retarded". How Bevie and Michelle got invited to parties that I was never invited to and how I had to lie to them that I knew, but didn't 'feel' like going 'cause if they knew the real reasons they wouldn't go and I didn't want them to be outcasts like I was. I remember how I was teased throughout junior high about crying out 'Save my comic books!" when our apartment was on fire. I remember that I had an ulcer at the age of 15 and homely Dr. Smith telling me she went through the same thing when she was my age and that I was better than all of them as she was in her day.

I remember how the kids told my first girlfriend Rashida that going out with me was so uncool that she would lose all her friends. I remember the hurt and betrayal I felt when Rashida started going out with my best friend Russell who was deemed 'cool' enuff 'cause he played guitar in a local band And I remember when I had my first high school house party and the euphoric self-satisfaction and empowerment I got when I turned away all the Vauxhall kids who'd made my brief life a living hell.

I remember how music somehow always made things better. When I was lost in the music, I found hope, freedom, joy, magic; I found me. WNJR, WABC, WWRL were my flashlights that chased away the darkness, Sonny Taylor, Dan Ingram, Frankie Crocker, Murray The K were my Obi Wan Kanobies, James Brown, the Temptations, the Miracles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Joe Bataan were my Guardian Angels. From the second grade until my senior year, Russell Johnson was the only one who felt the same way and was as lost in music as I was. When he committed suicide, the music and my life stopped.

"WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSE, ANOTHER IS OPEN"… Bob Marley