Crazy Enough

by Storm Large

  She went on to explain in therapist terms about how, kind of like an acid trip, RET was a shortcut through your brain’s natural defenses. The tricking your eyes back and forth allows you to go into an “awake” dream state so your rational mind is essentially asleep. No guard at the gate, so to speak, so you are far more open to suggestion. In the case of a combat soldier, who is so traumatized by what he or she has seen and done, RET is an ideal tool to get through that hardcore soldier mind. For a sad, sensitive girl with mommy issues? Well, it’s not unlike using a chainsaw to get a little bug out of your eye.

  “Storm, honey, your mother died. It’s a big deal. The only way to go through it is to just go through it. There aren’t any shortcuts. I’m sorry.”

  No shortcuts is right. I’m not really a joiner, but it seems like the seven stages of grief are a place everyone gets to be a part of at some point. And they sure do take their fucking time ticking by. Shock and denial, check. Pain and guilt, oh yeah. Anger? Anger was the stage I got to where the record started skipping. It took very little for me to go from zero to homicidal in the few months following Mom’s funeral. God help anyone who heckled me at one of my gigs at Dante’s. I got into a shouting match with a guy in the balcony who threw ice at me. I grabbed a cube, shoved it in my pants, wiped my sweaty rear with it and threw it back at him.

  “Suck on that, you fuckin’ dweeb!”

  A woman at the bar asked the bartender, my friend, Adam, “Um, is she always this crude?”

  “Yup.”

  “Could you ask her to tone it down a little?”

  Adam looked at the woman and smiled. “Well, you can go ahead and try to, darlin’.” To which she popped open her cell phone to call her client and recommend that he not come to Dante’s for his after-show party.

  Her client was Prince. Oops.

  Some huge, Paul Bunyan–looking dickhead grabbed my ass at a poker game and I sent his beer flying out of his hand when I spun him with an open-handed roundhouse to the head.

  Then I was asked to co-emcee an event with Dennis Rodman. It was all fun until I nearly got into a brawl with some guy in his entourage. He was a hanger-on, a nobody, a remora. You know those fish that hang around under a shark to snag the bits of meat the shark misses, or drops, but are too pussy to go get their own? Yeah, that was this guy. And he was harassing this sweet girl who just wanted me to give her a little birthday spanking. Long story short, I threatened to disfigure him and Rodman had to break it up.

  Anger hung around for a long time with his stupid drunk friends, depression and loneliness. Not on the list, but somehow at the party was insomnia. I had to take sleep aids most nights to get any rest at all. They helped a little bit, but one morning I woke up with nasty-looking bruises on my leg, a headache from Hell, and an odd pain in my asshole area. I looked at my boyfriend, who was staring at me from his side of the bed, with a funny smile on his face. “I’m not entirely sure you want me to tell you what happened last night,” he said.

  Apparently I had blackout rugby hooligan sex with him, jumped up and ran straight into a wall, fell over backward holding my knee, and laughed maniacally, “Owwwwww! My head!”

  I wonder if that would fall under “upward turn” in the list of seven stages. Because things actually did start to improve after that.

  In the early spring, following my mom’s funeral, I got a call from somewhere in 310.

  “Hi! We saw a video of you performing and would love for you to audition in person for a new TV show called Rock Star, The Tommy Lee Project.” He went on to describe the show, a contest for rock singers to vie for the lead position in a, as of yet untitled, supergroup. “Can you be in Seattle mid-March?”

  My band was still doing all right, but certainly needed a shot in the arm. The call got me excited, but cautiously so. So many of these things had passed in and out of my life. You know how, describing the month of March, it comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb? The same goes for most of those promising-sounding opportunities. Only they come in like the best thing ever! And go out like an oily fart.

  But I always treated every yeah, right like a possible yes, and whether it led to a cool gig or a sorry disappointment, it always led me forward. So, forward ho.

  The auditions were at the Crocodile Café, a decent-sized rock club in Belltown. There was a line around the block when I got there and I instantly wanted to just drive the three hours back to Portland and blow the whole thing off. It was embarrassing, all these people, up and out on a wet, cold morning, hoping to get discovered. I was one of them?

  I already had a decent career; I was living off music as my main source of income. I didn’t need this.

  This is reality TV, the lowest common denominator of exploitation of the stupid and fame-hungry. I should totally take my dignity and go home.

  I parked my car but kept it running. I stared at the line and began to feel incredibly lame as it became inevitable that I would be joining the other reality television hopefuls in their cold and soggy line. Not cool.

  I felt like I was on a collision course with this ridiculous idea. The trick was to get my head around all the pros and cons, then decide if it was worth the risk to my reputation and credibility. Both of which didn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things, since I was never cool to begin with.

  For some reason, there is something detestable about an artist who wants to do well, to actually live on the work that they do. Most artists who become popular are often considered sellouts or poseurs, and not real artists. Like we all have to be all van Gogh, cut ourselves to pieces, and suffer in an insane asylum until the voices tell us to shoot ourselves in the head. He was one of the greatest painters ever, in my uncool opinion, but does suffering in squalor validate you as an artist? Kurt Cobain died miserable, making it seem like he felt the songs he wrote, songs that struck a chord with damn near a whole generation, were somehow fraudulent because of their commercial success.

  Cool or not, it’s kind of important that you are liked by at least some people in order to make a living off your art, whatever form it takes. Nobody buys your art, you’re punching a clock, schlepping drinks, or digging ditches somewhere. That’s reality.

  Hard and thankless as it can be, sometimes, I so love what I do, I can’t pretend that I’m not having a blast. Again, not cool. But I’d rather burn than be cool, any day.

  After much deliberation, I probably said “Fuck it” a couple of times, out loud to myself. Let the hipsters hate. That’s what they do. They already thought I sucked for being popular in Portland.

  I walked into the front room of the club to get my number and sign in. “Oh, Storm Large, you made it! We were hoping you’d make it. Love your video,” said the beautiful blonde at the sign-in table. She was all golden warm California-riffic and a striking contrast to the soggy pale Northwest rockers milling around.

  “Which video did you see?”

  “The one where you’re singing and you get in a fight with some guy and steal his cell phone . . . awesome!” The other people waiting for their chance started looking at me as another girl came up.

  “Storm! Awesome . . . thank you for coming. Here, just fill this out and we’ll get you set up. Do you have a headshot?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “That’s cool. Just head over here, we’ll take a Polaroid, and you’ll be good to go.”

  It became quickly apparent to me and the people around me that I was the only one, in my immediate pack of hopefuls, who had been asked by the casting people to come. People started looking at me, whispering. I started to feel a bit resented, and a little feared.

  The dreaded line was, suddenly, awesome.

  Everyone there wanted it. There was a desperate vibe growing, as the line snaked inside and we got closer to the stage. I felt a prickle of nerves myself. I didn’t need this. I just wanted to see how far it would go. No way were they going to put me on television . . . this whole day is just future stage bant
er. But curiosity had me by the glands and I needed to see this goofy day to its absolute end. I was so convinced that I was going to get the “Thank you so much for coming, you rock. Buh-bye,” that I just decided to enjoy the spectacle, sing my songs, shake hands with the nice Hollywood people, then go get a killer breakfast at my favorite spot in the U district. When it was finally my turn, I was more excited about the eggs Florentine I was going to order than this potential TV gig.

  “Hi, there. Fuck me, that’s bright,” I said into the television lights.

  “Storm Large! Thank you for coming,” said a man’s voice behind the glare. “How’s it goin’?”

  “Fine. ’Cept my burning corneas, all is well.” Chuckles from behind the lights. I was hungry and tired, but brightly caffeinated. I felt my giant inner ham rise and begin to stretch its legs.

  I got this.

  Even though I won’t get on television, these fuckers will love me before I’m done.

  “What are you going to sing for us?” said a woman’s voice.

  “A couple of originals, if that’s cool.”

  “Very cool,” said the man. “Everyone turn off your cell phones, I don’t want Storm to kick my ass.”

  “That’s not what you said last night.” Cheap, but more laughter.

  I sang “Ladylike” and “I Want You to Die, a Love Song,” much to their delight and applause. They started asking me questions about music, my band, my life, drug use, my boyfriend, and family. I smart-assed and smack-talked half of the interview, but as I relaxed a bit more and genuinely talked with them, a strange thing happened. I started to think I was going to get this audition, get on this show, and holy shit, then what?

  The woman conducting most of the interview was a beautiful, slender brunette. She was pretty intense and focused when talking to me, friendly, but most likely with clear instructions to find specific personality and musical types for the show.

  When my camera/stage time was done, she stepped outside with me and we talked some more, alone.

  “So, you don’t do drugs anymore, at all?” she asked with some gravity. “There will be a drug test at the next level.”

  “I drink a bit and, on rare occasions, I smoke a little pot.”

  “Stop smoking pot right now, and you’ll pass the drug test in a couple months. What about pills, antidepressants, antianxiety?”

  “No psych drugs . . . my mom . . . I uh . . .” Shit.

  “Your mom?”

  Shit shit shit. Don’t lie.

  “My mom passed away last year, she was on all kinds of medicine my whole life. I hate that shit. No, I love life, I’m all good upstairs.”

  “What was she medicated for exactly?”

  Shit. “Everything and nothing. I think she was just unhappy, but she was diagnosed with every mental illness you’ve ever heard of and a few that don’t even exist. Long story. It was all bullshit to keep her on expensive dope. I don’t believe in that stuff. At all. Is that a problem? My mom?”

  “I don’t think so, but we have to know this stuff for obvious reasons. Listen, it was really great to meet you. You’re awesome. We’ll be in touch, okay?”

  Did I just get a television gig?

  Right before I got on Rock Star, I was staying in a hotel in Santa Monica with all the wannabe contestants; there were about fifty of us. While in the hotel, we got the promised drug test (passed . . . phew!), gave interviews, and were intermittently brought into a conference room to sing for producers and the supergroup, who consisted of Tommy Lee from Motley Cru, Gilby Clark from Guns N’ Roses, and Jason Newstead from Metallica. It was a weird week.

  Besides all the auditioning and showboating, we all had to be psychoanalyzed, and, like any job interview, had to give references for them to check. James was my reference number one, and he called me at the hotel to tell me that the TV people had called him and asked all sorts of questions about me. Did I have a drug problem? Was I under any psychiatric care? Was I a stable sort of person?

  James is my best friend and one of the kindest and smartest men on the planet. And he is a sneaky bastard. Sometimes when we’re on tour, he has a tendency to tell people I used to be a man. Especially if a guy asks him what I’m like and should he talk to me, does he have a shot, and whatnot. My good friend James then beams and says, “Oh yeah, she’s great. She’s healing up so well you can barely see the scars anymore, and she’s on a way better cocktail of hormones, so the crazy outbursts have stopped, for the most part.” If the poor pigeon believes him that far, James will usually go farther to explain, that my name was really Jake Large and that I used to be in a punk band called SHIM, but that I was so much nicer as a woman, and very nearly passable, save for my gigantic manhands.

  “Did you tell them I had a dick, James?”

  “Of course I did. But I had to lie about some other stuff.”

  “Ooh. What did you have to lie about?”

  “I told them you were a sweet and nonviolent person.”

  “I am a sweet nonviolent person,” I pouted.

  “Well, I didn’t tell them about the guy you choked offstage.”

  “What guy I choked offstage? I never, wait a minute, that guy? That guy totally had it coming. And I didn’t choke him, I threw him off the stage by a belt that happened to be around his neck.”

  “Ohhh.”

  “Remember? I was spanking him with a belt and he kept trying to grab my ass, so I finally looped the belt around his neck and threw him off the stage like a dog. “

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Dude, fuck that guy. I’d do it again, too. What’s so fucking funny?”

  “I meant the other guy you choked off stage.” James was openly laughing. My brain sizzled.

  “What other guy?” So many nights on the same stage with so many degenerate fans inviting themselves into my physical space, how can I remember everyone?

  “You mean the girl? That dumb drunk bitch who tried to grab the microphone out of my hand? I didn’t choke her either. I just kinda waterboarded her. I mean, she was choking on the water, and didn’t she get arrested for embezzling or something later? She was an ass.”

  Laughing harder, “No, no, no! The guy you straight up grabbed by the throat and choked.”

  “Bullshit, James!”

  “Yes, you did. He was the one who wanted you to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.”

  Oh, yeah.

  It was a tradition at Dante’s, that if someone had a birthday, and asked really nicely, I would haul him or her up on stage and spank them with a belt (for boys, girls got the hand) and then everyone would sing. It became so popular that, after Hurricane Katrina, we raised a few thousand dollars and several hundred welts by setting up a spanking booth at our shows and sending the money to Mercy Corps.

  It had been a few years of the spanking thing that I had to dig around in my brain for ones that went awry. “Ohhh, the birthday guy?” I remembered a smallish man sneaking on stage and hugging me from behind without warning. Totally inappropriate. Anybody who has been to my shows knows that you don’t. Fucking. Touch me. Or interrupt me. Or make sudden moves, loud noises, or be weird.

  “I remember him. He startled me. It was self-defense.”

  “Right.”

  I had to go to a hotel room to meet with the doctor to get my results, when I got the news.

  “So, doc, am I crazy?” Pleasesaynopleasesaynopleasesayno.

  He chuckled and tapped his pen on the clipboard with my personality profile and mental state detailed and illustrated, all laid out on a graph.

  “I wouldn’t say that, but, you are . . . interesting.”

  Shit. He can tell I have totally thought about killing people, that I hear voices and my pedigree is purebred bonkers. “Interesting?”

  “Well, you’re a fairly typical artist. Sensitive, highly sexual, a little narcissistic, but the weird thing is . . . um . . . how do I put this?”

  SHIT!

 
“You’re a man.”

  “I’m a . . . ?”

  “Your brain, the way you make decisions, deal with challenges, it is masculine. You have a manly brain.”

  I tucked my giant man hands under my thighs, so that he wouldn’t comment on those as well, “So, wait, am I gay?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, that’s not what this means; it’s just an interesting slant to your personality. It has nothing to do with sexual preference.”

  “So I could be a gay man?”

  “Sure,” he chuckled. “Do you have any other questions?”

  I didn’t. Even though he had called me a dude, I was actually relieved to have a doctor, even a Hollywood shrink, say I was not crazy. That alone was worth the price of admission. I didn’t need to go on the show. I was plenty happy.

  My next interview was in the vast penthouse suite with the CBS and television bigwigs.

  “We really want you on the show, but we just don’t want any . . . um . . . surprises. Do you know what I’m talking about?” asked one of the executives.

  “We understand you’ve done some . . . modeling,” said another.

  Oh. That. Yeah. “I’ve done fetish modeling. Some nudes, but I promise, nothing gynecological.” The female producer chuckled, the men did not.

  “What’s a gag ball?” one of the men asked abruptly.

  I explained what a gag ball was, what a gag ball did, and that there were no sex tapes out there of me. It was unlikely that anyone I had ever slept with would have been able to afford any decent equipment for such a thing, or have the brains to set anything like that up.

  Biting my lip, I didn’t shoot my mouth off about why they were giving me any crap at all about some pictures of my boobs. Wasn’t I auditioning to be on a TV show with Tommy Lee, a man as famous for his awesome drumming as he was for his awesome cock, displayed in all its majesty in his home-made porn?

  Acting the lady, I told them I had modeled for a dildo company, but my face and tattoos were obscured and again, only boobs, no baby box shots. I did not tell them that, though the dildo company loved me, I was a bit much for them as well. The photographer told me, “Storm, you are so beautiful, your skin, your body, your mouth; the thing is, you kinda make our dicks look small.”