Answer me this...

I'm going on vacation, so while I'm gone I'd like all of you out there to help me out with something. On Friday I wrote to Squeaky in jail. (Yes, she's still alive and well in Fort Worth.) If she writes back and agrees to correspond with me, what questions do you think I should ask her? PEACE OUT! =)

The Fight Within

As I’ve said before, I cannot imagine wanting to kill someone, to love the idea like Squeaky did. The idea of taking a life is horrifying to me. Even if I was protecting myself or a loved one, I’d want to deter my attacker, not kill him/her.

That being said…

I totally understand the urge to be violent from time to time. There are a lot of assholes on this earth. I understand wanting to smack someone or kick them. To borrow The Bard’s words, at times, “my fingers itch.” But again, there’s that pesky desire of mine to stay out of trouble.

Many of my friends have heard of the altercation I almost had with “Candy” back in college. She was this fake as silicon girl who loved to smile and be saccharin to your face and then trash talk you the minute you turned your back. She’d always kiss up to me because I was quite close to several “popular” people in whose good graces she craved to get. However, being the dim bulb that she was, she’d often talk badly about me without checking to make sure I was out of earshot. And one night she’d done it one too many times. “Hi Shannon!” She gushed, grinning from ear to ear at a party. “Can I have a beer?”

“Why would I give you a beer when you were calling me names not 2 hours ago?”

“What are you talking about?!?!”

“As soon as I left Richy’s room I heard you starting in on me to Megan.”

“Oh my GOD! We’ve been through so much together, I would NEVER do that!!!”

“Candy you may think I’m as stupid as you are but I’m not; I know what I heard.”

The confrontation continued to escalate in true “Melrose Place” fashion until Candy started threatening to “kick my ass.” I told her to go ahead, explaining she'd have to throw the first punch, lest her rich lawyer daddy have grounds to sue me. (I wanted to be able to claim self-defense while messing up her neat little nose job; I certainly couldn't afford a lawsuit.) But as excited as I got, as much as I teased her to hit me, she didn’t. Finally, when a crowd of people had crowded around us, cheering me on to punch her pretty little lights out, she turned bright red, muttered, “Screw this!” and stormed out. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was.


Like I said, I understand the lure of violence, the DESIRE…

But the execution: the following through… that’s trickier.

More thoughts of Squeaky

The boi and I just watched “Capote.” In it, Truman Capote becomes very involved with the main character of his book IN COLD BLOOD: murderer Perry Smith. When his dear friend Harper Lee questions his growing emotional attachment to Smith, Capote talks of the similarities in their upbringings (both had neglectful mothers who abandoned them), saying, “It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. And one day he went out the back door and I went out the front.” I guess that’s the way I’m feeling about Squeaky. I feel like we had such similar backgrounds, but somehow she took the wrong road, while I somehow found my way to the light. I called my mother as soon as I finished watching the film because she had been admonishing me for months for not yet seeing such an “astonishing” work, and I immediately started chattering to her, a mile a minute, about the nature of insanity and what makes someone walk away from madness as opposed to diving into it, head on.

“I think it all comes down to having people who love you,” she said.

I argued that many of Manson’s girls came from very good homes and loving families.

“But maybe they seemed loving on the outside, but really their love was conditional, like they were only loved if they were a certain way or did certain things.”

She’s probably right.
I know I’ve done a lot of stupid things.
I was afraid in college of my parents finding out about foolish mistakes I made.
But eventually I told them, because deep down, I’ve always known: no matter what I’d done, my parents would still love me; they would know that I was a good person with good intentions and would never disown me or disapprove of me because I took a misstep here or there… I guess that’s why I didn’t become like Squeaky… And now that I’m an adult (now that I’m REALLY an adult, not just one by the government’s standards), what stops me from doing foolish things, giving in to impulses to punch someone in the face—even when they desperately deserve it—or much worse, it’s because I don’t want to let down, disappoint, or bring grief to those who truly love me…

Maybe to avoid crime, madness, and all sorts of horrors, maybe it really comes down to that famous Beatles’ line:

“All you need is love.”

Maybe...

Squeaky 5

I've been watching Hendrickson's (EXCELLENT) documentary "Manson." Squeaky first appears with short red hair and a purple vest and then shortly after with longer red hair and a shotgun and finally with a red crew cut. It’s amazing how lucid she seems, how passionate… WOW! With her short red hair, her legs crossed, her clear ruddy complexion, her innocent eyes she proclaims, "You have to be ready right here right now right here!" She reminds me of Sandy Duncan for crying out loud! I expect her to follow that with "Grey skies are gonna clear up: put on a happy face!" It’s scarily exhilarating for me to watch her… the way towards the end she cradles the snake like it’s a puppy and yet talks about how people should be like snakes, always ready to strike and kill. The way she talks about love I want to hug her: she giggles and smiles innocently, but then she’s holding a knife or a gun and fondling it with complete adoration and admiration, as if she’d like to make it part of her own body. I feel like I know her, and then she scares the crap out of me. I just don’t get the violence thing, maybe just because I know so little about it.
I’ve never held a gun.
I’ve heard it’s a thrill.
It’s a thrill I’m scared to have.
I remember my mom telling me once that she’d been an absolute ace at riflery at summer camp. It shocked me: the idea of my sweet, brilliant, skittish, unathletic, graceful, shy, meek, delicate, beautiful mother… holding a gun and shooting with excellent accuracy…

Squeaky 4

It’s crazy the sort of seductive quality that Manson had over his family… but on a basic level, it’s totally understandable; I can’t say I can’t see the lure to a young lost teenager of a beautiful ranch filled with hot young people who all live together, work together to take care of each other and all they do all day is play music, take drugs and have sex. Squeaky is 3rd from the right- look how happy she and all of them look? It's almost like the caption could be "The Brady Bunch and cousins go hiking."

Squeaky Part 3

There is so much sweetness and light and hope and happiness in her, both in old photos and videos and even in recent clips from interview with her, after years in jail. She talks so much about loving nature and saving the environment. Her crafts are beautiful and her smile bright. There is joy in her voice: that height and her famous squeaking. Where does the violence come in? I can’t believe it was just the abuse of her father. Many abused young people actually hate violence because of the bad memories it brings up. How did Charlie make a beautiful flower child into a fierce, gun-toting woman?

Squeaky

I have been given the task of playing Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme in an upcoming production of “Assassins.” I am thrilled and strangely fascinated by this woman… this REAL human being, who is still alive… who, as frightening as it may sound, I see a lot of myself in.
Don’t get me wrong- I HATE GUNS AND WOULD NEVER ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE ANYONE!!! I can’t imagine even carrying a gun, let alone wave it or shoot it at anyone. Seriously.

But a dear friend of mine, upon hearing of my audition said, “HELLO! ROLE YOU WERE BORN TO PLAY!!!” And another woman, who I never met before, after seeing my audition said, “You ARE her- you were PERFECT.” And I’ve been called a hippie chick and a flower child and gotten tears in my eyes just talking about my love for and connection to nature… just like Squeaky.
It just makes me think… if certain things had been just a little different in my life, if certain people had been a little sicker or certain others not so strong, if I had been born 20 years before or if my brain had heard a different song…

Where is that line that people cross? How did I avoid it? What is it that pulls some in? What is that dark secret?


“i'm scared as hell

Squeaky's out of jail

i can feel her close behind me

like the devil on my heels

well they say she's heading to California

or maybe for DC

well i'm sitting here down in Georgia

i'm talking with my family. . .

i can feel her closing in

and i hope she understands

that society and me

now we aren't necessarily hand in hand

she's broken all her bonds

got no superficial cause

she gave up all her chances

to live inside the law

so Squeaky

peace on earth

will you tell me what it's worth

from the inside out i'd let you in

you might understand 

now Squeaky

in your mixed-up mind

you may not be so blind 

you might understand

god is in my heart

but the devil is in our bones

and Squeaky

oh Squeaky

you are not alone

yeah you are not alone

give me peace on earth

Squeaky give me peace on earth

and then you tell me what it's worth

from the inside out

i would, i would let you in

i think that you might understand

that god, god is in my heart

but the devil

i said the devil

the devil's in our bones

and Squeaky

oh Squeaky 

we are not alone…”

from “the Ballad of Squeaky Fromme“ by Amy Ray of The Indigo Girls

Aaaaaah, corporate America...

“I’m so used to being disappointed.” This is what I heard from a woman I’m temping with… more than once. If I get used to being disappointed and don’t do anything about it, shoot me.