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!