Joe's Garage

  Frank Zappa.

  Joe's garage.

  If you are unaware of this album.....consider it a blessing. Released in 1979, I didn't became aware of it until a few short years later. Mind you, I was born in 73.

  My mom had married a dufus named Joe. They were married from 83 to 85. So, it was during this stint that I was exposed to the music. I was 10 - 12 years old.

  I'm shaking a little right now. It upsets me and makes me sad that I listened to that album then. Not only did I listen to it, I really dug it. I listened dozens of times. I listened enough to memorize the album!

  The album is on YouTube. I listened to it again last night. I kept wanting to imagine that when I first heard it my young ears hadn't grasped what I was hearing. Alas, I knew what I was hearing. My young mind was filled with visions and thoughts of debauchery. I wanted to meet women who were like the ones I heard about on the album.

  Don't listen to the album! It's dark. It's a thing that I will be haunted by forever.

  Almost simultaneously we found some smutty magazines. My friends and I would laugh and giggle at the images. But Joe's Garage I don't think I shared. It was my private escape.

  I'm not sure if I was allowed to listen to it. It wouldn't have mattered, secrecy and shame had entrenched itself in my life years before.

  I'm not sure what the point of this particular blog is. Sometimes I like to wrap them up with some sort of take away truth. Sometimes I just want to vent. This time I just want to ponder.

  Innocence was taken away early from me. At the time I really enjoyed it. It was fun and exciting. It provided an Avenue to escape on. I wore the tires of my mind out driving that Avenue.

  It was so simple to do. Those nude women pictures captured my thinking and retarded my emotions. Gradually I was becoming an emotional cripple.

  It seemed so fun at the time!

  When I remembered Joe's Garage last night I could only think of how silly the album was. I could remember laughing out loud and knowing that I had discovered something that was forbidden.

  Last night, as the songs played by, I was stunned. Each song led further down a path of sexual idolatry. I knew each song by heart.......still!!!

  I'm not freaking out or anything right now. I found out years ago that I was an emotially broken man whose drugs of choice included objectifying women. I knew that I was exposed to sexual stuff at a super early stage. So, this latest memory only serves to reinforce those facts.

  I do grieve a little for the younger me. He wasn't given a chance to be young and innocent. Sure, he thought it was fun at the time, but it left him utterly bereft of the ability to function. He became an anxious guy who found relief in wholly innapropriate means.

  He grew up to horribly damage those he loved due to his dysfunctional thinking.

  So, screw you Frank Zappa! People thought you were a genius, so did I, but you were really a freak peddling smutty crap that would warp young men's minds. Then again, you provided an escape. Many painful days were escaped by listening to your music. Many more would come because of what I had heard.

    I'm gonna go be a little boy now. Maybe buy a lollipop. That sounds good. Any ideas on where they sell brain brushes? Mine is a little dirty.