My American Fifties Family
“Her blacks cackled and dragged.” Sylvia Plath
For the first few years after her shock
treatments, mother kept busy walking
around the house, talking to herself and
crying, but usually made a great dinner.
The stress of growing up with an actively
crazy schizophrenic is constant and
unrelenting, like having a cellmate you
can’t stand. My life was “One Flew Over
The Cuckoo’s Nest.” from the time I was
a baby. My brother was two years older, and
kept taking me out of the crib and getting in
himself. Full blown schizophrenia when he
was 35. So…..good times with two crazy
roommates. Of course, I didn’t know
anything else, so the trauma got normalized.
My family was an Albee American Family.
I played myself, the son, in an Albee play:
“All Over” about a dysfunctional American
family, like most of his plays are. It was fun
to do, and having had the trauma helped me
play the role.
It’s always the music because
that’s how we communicate with the gods,
(if you must) or, quantum resonance, if you
will: the matrix which is the ground that
matter arises from, that feels and communicates
into the phenomenal world the products of
creation and destruction…Liszt’s les Preludes
to Hitler’s invasion of Poland…Wagner opening
“2001 A Space Odyssey” Charge! Retreat!
Pull up a chair! Have something to eat! I’ll
tell you about life in a couple of songs!
You don’t need no education! You don’t
need no thought control! Now that I brought
up Hitler, we can all go home!
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