I am kind of freaking out right now.  At the age 5, I was enrolled in 1st grade, at which time I was swiftly and truly schooled by my classmates.  I was not normal.  Period.  I wasn't allowed to dance to music like I'd always done before, without getting called names and being laughed at.  My teacher gave me a time out for not being able to recite the Lord's Prayer, and when we were supposed to play games that called for teams, there was team A and team "Shit, she's the only one left."  It was apparent, in no uncertan terms, that nothing about me was normal.  And since my family moved around a lot, I wasn't normal at any school, so it had to be me, not them.  I was given the advice to ignore it and they'd eventually go away, but they didn't. This ended, for the most part, while I was working at BMG, when I finally lost it on some asshole at J Records I was forced to work with.  I had one more incident of bullying behaviour just yesterday, and I reacted viciously. To be honest, I can't remember everything that happened there, but I think I just on that thin line that separates verbal confrontation from physical altercation.  Thirty-two (non-consecutive) years of bullying boiled up in my body, and I just fucking exploded.  But I'm not here to talk about bullying.  It seems I've done a lot of that since I've been on the Internet, and finding others like myself.  The Island of Misfit Toys is a real place on Teh Intarwebz, located a little further north-west of Dr. Moreau's Island, and separated from Fantasy Island by the Sea of Dreams (yes, we can see y'all from from our winders).  Enough of that, though.  Let's get down to bidness.

I'm here to talk about feeling paranormally different since waking up on the 14th.  The doctor said he removed 17 pounds of excess skin, fat, and other crap that wouldn't have ever otherwise gone away.  I'm talking about hearing the nurse softly say in my ear, "breathe deeply", and then I woke up with parts of my body that have always been part of me since I began to gain more weight than other kids my age, at four years.  The midsection of my stomach is mostly flat, but the lower part, the part that hangs down to your thighs when you stand, and makes you think that you have no lap whatsoever when you sit down - - well, it is gone.  Totally fucking gone.  Working on my computer has even changed, because my stomach was my prop, so I could work on my writing, promotions, and blogging while Smidgen curled up on my chest or upper abdomen.  Now, I'm having dificulty trying to find a decent computer spot, so I can write this.  I feel as though, if I were back east with the friends I have, I would hear them whisper about me not being me, reinacting one of the earlier scenes of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

On 14 September whilst waiting to be rolled back to the operating room, I was lying on my back with my elbow and hands touching the mattress, or I had my fingers interlocked on my midsection, and my elbows just dangled at each side.  If I wanted to put my arms at my side, then my elbows could touch the mattress, but my fingers wouldn't meet.  I couldn't do both and I never could.  It was just a fact of life for me, even after the gastric bypass surgery in 2004. Now, my elbows can rest on the bed and my fingers can interlock at the same time.  The Mother Unit was amused that my discovery of this amazed me so much.  I know that doesn't sound like much, but when you've never been able to do it before, it's kind of a thing.  The effect on my lower back was nearly instantaneous.  A lot of that pull is gone, which was the main purpose for asking to get the procedures in the first place.  Total success, right there.  Despite currently feeling as though I have been thrown into the Iron Maiden at an Iron Maiden concert, my back already doesn't hurt as much, and I'm hoping the pain will continue to wane as I heal.  I can feel the difference in my knees as well.

Psychologically, the immediate effect has not been as positive as I would have liked, but that's not the doctor's fault. Everything he did was exactly the procedures he signed on to do, and he did them expertise.  The thing for me, though, was that I went to sleep in the body I'd had for around 32 years, and I woke up a stranger to myself.  I'm not doing as well as perhaps I should in respect to mentally catching up to the physical tranformation.  There are differences you would never think of, such as, seeing my own "cho-cha" (thank you, Missy Elliott) for the very first time in my entire life.  Only a few hours after the surgery has over, I learned the women's cho-chas were supposed to look like this.  It is still quite a surprise, because most laypeople or medical personnel would never think that such a change would be shockingly phantasmagoric.  It's as though the doctor pulled everything up.  From now on, whenever I see some crazy person in the park talking down her/his pants, I'm going to wonder if they had a panniculectomy and abdominoplasty.  Such a shock to the visual senses is bizarre and unsettling.  On the other hand, I might be that homeless crazy person taking to her own privates sooner than later.

I was told that the surgery took hours because the doctor wanted to be as thorough as possible while he was working. Based on some of the surgery pictures he'd shown me during our consultation, I have no doubt he was thorough.  In fact, I think he did more than was authorised, probably because he knew I might need it down the road. I was already dead to the world, so why not? After a little bit of online research, what little time I've been online, I'm thinking that that extra something was some liposuction, considering I have two balls that catch the bloody water draining out of me, and bruises that just won't quit on my lower stomach, thighs, and cho-cha. Everything is relatively level now.  I had fatty bits on my back that are gone now, too. After all this heals I will appear to be, more or less, like someone carrying a few extra pounds, but nothing people would gawk or throw vomit fat jokes in her direction.

My entire dieting life, I was told to chant the mantra "there's a thin person inside me that yearns to get out!"  I was conditioned to dislike everything about me that anyone could see, while striving to look like the ones who are always at the front of the line to get their kick in before the day over. I was filled with a hell of a lot of animosity by the time I was approved for gastric bypass surgery, so much so that I had before and after pictures taken in the event someone told me I looked good.  My plan was to whip those pictures out and ask them what they thought now!  Over a time, especially when Aunt Tudi's health started to decline, I just grew weary of my verbal fight with society, and just gave up on avenging the evil so quantumly ingrained in us all by this mockery of our exsistence.

But, the other day, I was told it was good to see me, a "much thinner" me.  I didn't say anything then, because I've been feeling like every hell imagined in every dimension that could currently be calculated by any Physics Academic, and to be perfectly frank, I did not want to be in a tiff, or what have you.  Now, I'm a tad concerned that, in my heart, I know I may throat punch anyone who has ever known or seen me prior to the surgeries, but still comes out with that programmed bullshit, especially if they refer to having surgies to assist me lose the weight that was killing me as "taking the easy way out."  I am not above going all Jack Torrance with an ax on any motherfucker who crosses that line, and thanks to those oh so very easy surgeries and recoveries that were alllll done for cosmetic reasons and nothing else, I'm lighter, limberer, and enthusiastically motivated to shut you up by ripping your jaw bone off your stupid brainless head and feeding it to Toby. Strangers who do not know me will get you one free pass but, if a stranger proving how much of a douche nozzle they are by judging another within my earshot may very well end up in an intimate relationship with my shoes and elbows.  I haven't forgotten all the Kung Fu I was taught, and I'll probably be able to do them better now.  You can be my practice.

The flesh a person is in, is not that person, but it can affect them in unimaginable ways.  I feel like a stranger in a strange land now.  I can't quite grasp the extent of my aura.  Toby caught a glimpse of mm the other day, and barked at me as though I were a stranger.  I'm wondering how Smidge will handle seeing her new old bed, unimpressed that it no longer has the cushioning she requires.  I can get around things a bit easier, but still move like I need to squeeze, and that makes me look like I'm up to no good.  I had some of these issues with the first surgery, but the effects came much more slowly, so my adjustments were more easily accepted.  This time, not so much.  Not even after the gastric bypass did I have a figure.  Now that I do, I don't look right.

But just because I'm struggling doesn't mean I've lost one iota of my venom for humanity as a whole.  Once built, or stolen, I can just shoot my lethal laser gun at the global urban centers while wearing some dumbass latex cat suit.

FUCK THE WORLD

Love, Tin

PS: If you find any spelling or grammatical mistakes in this, chalk it up to unbridled anger combined with full body pain. Thank you.

James from Canada was kind enough to share his Shriekback concert experience from 1987. Read on, MacDuff!

A Big Night - Music, Youth and Naïveté

It was back in April of 1987 that I got to see Shriekback live for the first (and, it seems, last) time, during their Big Night Music tour.  It was just a few days after my 18th birthday, so I was having quite a nice week. The show was at the now-defunct Concert Hall in Toronto, a cozy little venue with a standing floor space and a large, wrap-around balcony above.

After making our way past the merchandise table, where one of my friends bought himself a Big Night Music T-shirt (still kicking myself for not doing the same), my friends and I found our place up in the balcony, with an almost "front and centre" view of the stage.

As we sat there, I remember the excitement at seeing all of Shriekback's instruments on the stage: an eclectic mixture of modern electronic synths and old, earthy bongos, gongs and bells.  We knew that this was going to be a great show!

I don't recall who the opening act was, although I think it might have been the Comsat Angels.  We didn't care, though…  we were here to see Shriekback!  After what seemed like an eternity, the house lights finally went down, and the crowd went wild.  As the dry ice fog slowly filled the stage, we could see movement in the dark… who was that?  If my memory serves me well, it was Steve Halliwell first out on the stage, wearing a little hat on his bald head (no doubt to avoid being mistaken for Barry!)  Steve got the dark synths going, and as the multi-coloured stage lights pierced and wound their way through the fog, the rest of the band slowly came out, one by one adding a new layer of instrumentation to the intro track.  As the intro built to a crescendo and the first track came crashing in, Barry himself slunk onto the stage to raucous applause.

It's been so long since I saw this show, that my memories of what got played are pretty vague. At the time, though, the Shrieks had already started working on their next album - the much maligned Go Bang - and some of the new material made its way into our Big Night Music setlist.  The opening song of the show was "New Man", followed by a wonderful mixture of Big Night tracks and earlier material, all energized to the highest degree for an exciting live experience.  We heard "Black Light Trap" and "Gunning for the Buddha."  Classics like "Nemesis", "Hammerheads", and "Lined Up." Go Bang's "Intoxication" got introduced to the crowd around the half-way mark, and the show wound down with an encore performance of "New Man."

What a show it was.  So exciting and fun.  One thing which really stood out to me and my friends as we sat there taking it all in, was just how much of a good time everyone was having - both the audience, and the band itself.  I've been to many concerts where it seemed like the band was just "phoning it in", but that wasn't the case with Shriekback.  These guys know how to work an audience!  There was lots of dancing and clapping, and Barry engaged and entertained the crowd with funny stories about how his pants kept sliding down, while encouraging us all to sing along: "let's hear it again… 'My Spine.. IS THE BASSLINE!' ", and "With the GREAT BIG FISHES!!".  It was truly a special night, and everyone left with a big smile on their face.

It was also during this show that I experienced a bit of a life-lesson, although I didn't know it at the time, of course.  As my friends and I were waiting for the show to start, we spent some time looking around at the gathering crowd.  Our attention was drawn to one individual in particular - an older man, probably in his 50's, with grey hair and glasses, standing at the back of the balcony.  Now, remember that we were just in our teens.  Young and naïve, you could say.  Alphaville's "Forever Young" was our anthem song, and music like Shriekback was only for us "cool, hip, alternative" types!  So what was this older-than-30 guy doing here?  He wasn't even wearing anything black, for heaven's sake!  "Hey, check out the old geezer back there," we laughed among ourselves.  As the show progressed, we occasionally looked back to see the "old geezer" clapping and dancing along to the music.  "Ha ha," we thought sarcastically, "go home and put on some Easy Listening, will ya!"

Well, fast-forward almost thirty years, and here I am in my 40's - the proverbial "old geezer", still listening to Shriekback.  While my hair isn't white yet, the grey has definitely started to creep in, and I really must see the optometrist about getting bifocals.  It is only now, later in one's life, that you realize just how silly and naïve some of your attitudes were when you were younger.  Usually, though, these moments of realization come when you find yourself doing something that you swore to your parents you would never do.  Like telling your kids to be extra-careful, or not to swear or watch that rude TV show.  I never expected, though, that it would be via the medium of a Shriekback concert that I would learn one of the truths about life's little pleasures.  Namely that good music is timeless, and crosses all boundaries of language, culture, and, yes, age.  Good music is there to be enjoyed by everyone.  I wonder if the guy I saw at the concert that night, who by now must be in his 60's or 70's, is listening to Without Real String or Fish?  I sure hope so!  I know that I will still be listening to the Shrieks in the coming decades, and that's something I'm definitely looking forward to!

©James from Canada
14 March, 2015