of three favorite bands/musicians. That was the recurring them in my childhood. I could have three things for my birthday, three things for Christmas, three things at the store, if I was exceptionally good.
If you want to skip to the sunburn part only, the TLDR version, scroll down.
So, when I kept wanting to buy the whole album instead of only singles when it came to music, my mother said she could not afford that. I had to pick only three musicians/bands for that. I could still get some singles by others, but I could only buy the albums if it was one of the three I picked. Her original reason for that rule was that she would be buying those albums. So, to save money, she limited me to three.
As it turns out, I was going to be earning the money on my own to buy those albums,not her. She wasn't going to pay for them AND I was STILL limited to the three only.
My first pick was Blondie. That was a given already. It was the only decision I was allowed to alter, because Blondie later broke up and Deborah Harry released her solo albums. That shift to buying her solo material meant I still only had three.
I wasn't going to be allowed to change any more. My mother said no trying to get more albums by constantly changing who I liked. I had better stick with my three. The Deborah Harry solo album change was the only one I would be allowed to make.
That left me with two to go.
I can still remember the first time I ever heard The Ramones. A family member from Washington state, who was deaf, oddly enough, bought me a K-tel collection called Rock 80 for Christmas one year. It had a couple of Blondie songs on it. So, she thought I might like it.
I played the first side, then flipped it over. My world was about to change. I heard "Do You Remember Rock And Roll Radio?" by The Ramones. I fell out. I wanted everything that band ever had recorded and anything they would record in the future.
I had my second pick.
So, I called my local music shop owner friend. He had babysat me when my aunt would drop me off with him after school when she had errands to run. He said he could not get the album, but he had a list of contacts I could call. He read out the names, phone numbers, and locations all over the states of NC and SC. Apparently, he knew I was in for a hard time finding their albums. I really was. My aunt used to joke that she had to drive me all over Hell and half of Georgia for my music taste.
John, the music shop owner, gave me the phone numbers, names of people to ask for, and locations of each shop. None were in Georgia, but I was in for an expensive foray into record buying.
My mother said I was paying for the long distance, the gas money, food for her, my aunt, and I for the day, and I had to arrange the trip to go get the albums on Saturdays only, buy a map of that city and look up the address and make directions to get there.
I remember a record store in Charlotte 75 miles away had it. It ended up costing me way more than the price of the album. Back then, they didn't exactly ship albums to you in the mail or anything. You had to go get it. At least, not that I was aware of. It would have saved me a ton of money if they had.
Almost all of their albums were gotten using that same list of phone numbers. If one of the record stores didn't have it, another one might. I had to pay for every phone call, all long distance.
The worst sunburn I ever had came later along with the most expensive Ramones album I ever bought, when you included all the fees my mother tacked on. When I heard about Subterranean Jungle being released, I started saving up for it. I called everywhere I could think of. Finally, a place near Myrtle Beach, almost 200 miles away, had it. Oh, wow, that gas money was going to be something else, I thought. Oh, how little I knew.
So, I did all the arranging and map reading and calling and paying for the long distance and the day finally came. I finally got the record.
I will never forget the orange sticker on the album cover that said $7.99. That day ended up costing me my entire savings. I remember the number, because back then, it was ridiculously high. Including all the long distance calls, the gas money, the food money, my mother wanting to use the trip as an excuse to go to the beach further away than the record store and make me pay for the extra gas, AFTER we got there, that day ended up costing me $100 and I didn't even get to go down to the ocean.
I didn't want to leave the record in the car to melt or be stolen. So, I took it out of the car. My mother never gets out in the sun and hates it. Why she decided to pull that crap, I will never know. I could not go down to the water with my album I never even got to hear yet, because I didn't want salt water on it and I didn't want it to get wet.
So, I sat on a bench nearby, trying to stay in the shade as much as possible while my mother frolicked on the beach for as long as SHE wanted.
We finally left and came home and I played about three songs, then she made me go to bed early, on a Saturday. My household was always a night owl's paradise, because we were always up late at night and slept in the daytime, like a family of vampires or something. That night, she decided I could only hear three songs, then listen to the rest of the album tomorrow. I started to ask why, then she said one more word and I would go a week with NO music.
That meant she was going to use her sensory deprivation punishment on me again.
The "no music" punishment she brags on herself for giving me, to this day, meant I had to sit in my room for a long amount of time, usually anywhere from a week to a month, with no music, no books, no pencils, no paper, no nothing. I just had to sit in that room she had sickeningly painted a pastel yellow. There were pastel yellow curtains, pastel yellow bedspread, a slightly darker yellow bedroom suit, just sickening pastel yellow everywhere. I have heard it referred to as "baby shit yellow."
Well, when she said that, I said, "Ok." and she punished me. She said not one more word. That's how she was with me, over stupid, silly things.
Here is the part about the sunburn
I got the worst sunburn behind my ears and on my shoulders and arms that day, sitting on that bench, waiting for her to have her fun at the beach, then only let me hear three songs, before punishing me for acknowledging what she said and making me wait a week to hear the rest of that album. I thought I was going to lose my ears. They turned black on the edges at one point. I pulled one ear back and the skin on the back was black. They would peel, burn like fire, then peel some more. I spent the next week or so loading my ears and shoulders up with aloe, before they finally started to heal up some and quit hurting so bad.
This part is just me ranting about how much of my childhood was spent getting sensory deprivation as punishment.
I will never forget that trip. I will never forget having to pay for everything single little thing to get each of those albums through the years either. I started sneaking in cassettes later, because I was sick of the special rules due to not being able to afford things, when in reality, I was going to be paying for every last scrap of what I got on my own.
Good thing I hated the psych dope, my first antidepressant that didn't work, and other kids liked it, because I ended up being backwards from everyone else in music. I sold dope to buy music. Most people hock their music or musical instruments to buy dope, lol. Leave it to me to be backwards. I was pissed off because of how harsh she was on me. Even the damn CIA would admit that sensory deprivation is torture. I would rather have the beatings like the principal in the school she sent me to gave me. Those were over with in a few minutes. The sensory deprivation lasted anywhere from a week to a month. My first psychologist told my mother to quit using that as a punishment or she was going to create a basket case. She didn't like that one and got another one who agreed with her, until he also saw the effects of her punishments on me. Then, she just switched to another one any time they didn't agree with her. She is still proud of that punishment, as if she is the greatest parent ever, to this day, but the first psychologist and the consensus of the other psychologists were all right. I'm a fucking basket case.
I will never forget having to pay and be limited and have a bunch of special rules placed on me. I think my mother just didn't want to deal with the daughter she never wanted, but she underestimated how stubborn and determined I can be on something if I decide I like it and want it bad enough. What hoops would I jump through, through the years, to get their albums? Well, one included sitting on a park bench turning into Jamastiene flambe, then taking sensory deprivation for a week. I will never forget that sunburn or the sensory deprivation or being tricked into paying extra for extra gas and extra food, for my mother to all of a sudden decide she liked the beach, the outdoors AT ALL, sunlight, which was a joke. Yeah, I knew what she was doing. It was always a power struggle and she didn't like that I took her up on her impossible demands and fulfilled every special rule she threw in there just to beat me down some more.
Wow, I will never forget that sunburn.
= new reply since forum marked as read
