An Open Letter To A Dead Beat

I clap with every word I say when I'm mad. Does anyone else do this or am I insane? I always say, if I'm clapping, I'm not slapping, so consider yourselves lucky, MMMMMMkay?

How do you just let someone that's a part of you just walk out of your life. Especially someone that's a part of you, like your child. Like, that person is LITERALLY a part of you that's walking, talking, breathing, and living and you can just go days without thinking about them, or even caring.



WHY? That's honestly the biggest question. Why was I never good enough? Why was I just this hanger on in your life until suddenly you decided to get rid of me for good? I don't know where to go from here because this just fucked me up so bad, like congratulations, you got me! I'm over here feeling like I just got run over by a tank truck and I have for the past few years, since you fucking disappeared and said I was to never come back. Bitch, that is my fucking home. I lived there, I grew up there, I played there, I cried there, I loved there, I hated there, that is my mother fucking home. You're barely there and yet you have the right to throw me out like I never mattered at all? Mother fucker YOUR home is the bar a few blocks away, let's be honest.

You say you weren't and aren't ready to be a father.

Bitch, did I ask to be conceived? NO, so that is a jank ass excuse. You have had twenty years to get your shit together, and you still can't?! That is not on me, that is all on you. It is not my fault your entire life has been one shitty failure after the other, I mean, the LEAST you could do is not fuck up your kids while you're at it. But no, you had to not learn from ANY of the MANY mistakes you've made over the course of your life and basically turn my life into an exact copy of your.

Flighty and verbally abusive parent who finally disappears one day without a warning? Check.

Single remaining parent works all hours and is gone so much you basically live alone from preteen years onward? Check.

 Violent older sibling who nearly kills you and then suddenly up and leaves to only contact you sporadically from then on? Check.

The only difference is, I'm doing shit with my life that will break this cycle of abuse. I'm great at what I do and I constantly strive to get better and to improve on what I've already learned. You never finished high school and so are content to stay in your dead end job, with your dead end girlfriend, with your dead end broken down house, with your dead end everything. You will stay miserable because you fear what you don't understand and would rather stay with the devil you know rather than take the chance to see what other options you've got.

Except now, you don't have any, do you? You're going to die miserable and alone, knowing you were a failure from beginning to end, not having taken any chances that would have potentially made you a better person and given you a better life. You're a pathetic excuse for a human being and I'm glad I no longer am your child.

Shadism

http://thinkingaboutoppa.tumblr.com/post/95197475555/punk-zitao-x

THIS. MAKES. ME. SO. MAD. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Okay, okay, first of all, Kai is so much more attractive in his REAL skin tone than he is in all the photos and videos where they bleached him. AND they do this to Tao as well. THEY EVEN LIGHTENED KAI'S FUCKING EYES. WHAT THE HELL?!




Homeboy is dark, don't give me any baloney about the lighting being brighter in one, I chose two well lit photos where neither is on stage, and one is a selfie so you can see how beautiful his skin is and how Tao doesn't lighten his own pictures.

Everyone should be mad about this, because if you approve of this then you're a terrible person, plain and simple. There's the door, I will hold it open for you. Pale skin does not equal beauty. You could be pale and be ugly as fuck to some people, ain't no amount of skin bleach or lightening makeup can change that. But there's also beauty in everyone, so what's ugly to me is beautiful to someone else (note I say IS beautiful, not MAY BE beautiful because someone will always be somebody else's idea of beautiful).

Grand Master is from an island off the more Southern coast of Korea, and so has dark skin. He is very handsome and distinguished and if you don't think so then you can join the shadist assfaces that left earlier because that door is still open, sucka. I cannot tell you how many times people have said, sometimes TO HIS FACE, "Oh! Your dad's so dark! I wasn't expecting that when you said he was Asian!" Really? Really? You think EVERY SINGLE Asian has pale skin? Not even every white person has pale skin AND WE'RE LITERALLY CALLED WHITE. Do you go up to light skinned black people and ask them why they aren't actually 'black' like straight up the color black?

And there's this too:
http://thinkingaboutoppa.tumblr.com/post/93843669135/fantasyhachi-members-who-have-the-best-skin-in
Their own freaking member straight up says they're wrong for being dark. Luhan, you broke my freaking heart when I saw this. So my Umma, Appa, brother, and cousin aren't beautiful because they have dark skin? You aren't just saying this to Asian people. You're saying this to your other fans who are dark skinned black, Latino, Italian, Armenian, Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander, Caribbean, and everyone else who basically is darker than you. Can I tell you your skin is too dark because I'm paler than you? YOU'RE WRONG. Suddenly, I miss you a little less. Look at Kris, trying to be the good leader and stave off an argument and also to not alienate their fanbase.

Shadism is just as bad. wrong, and prevalent as racism, only it's more accepted. Why? What makes someone so much better looking if they're paler? In America, it's the opposite. The paler you are, the less attractive you're considered. In America and Great Britain there's commercials for bronzer and tanning beds out the wazoo because here, you're prettier if you have darker skin.

EVERY RACE HAS SHADISM AND EVERY INSTANCE IS WRONG. YOUR SKIN IS WHO YOU ARE AND IT IS PERFECT THE WAY IT IS.

I'm falling all over myself. Trying to be someone else.

My sister, while she's spoiled, selfish, self-entered, and almost certainly a sociopath, is still my sister. She's the eldest daughter, and our shared birth father has doted on her since birth. His first son was taken away from him by the boy's mother. [Note; there's six total kids (that we know of) and there's four mothers.] Don't feel totally sorry for him, he had a choice; be arrested or disappear and never talk to the boy. He took the coward's way out and disappeared.

Since he lost his son, he's had a fierce love for my sister. A love I hated, was jealous of, and tried to sabotage many times over my life. How he loves her, he resents me. I don't know why, I only know he does, because he's told me.

Recently, this boy-man, now, really-has sought out his father. He found him, and they've reconnected. I've gotten texts telling me how wonderful J is, how I'd love him if I met him, how his kid is so cute and wonderful too. A (our birth father) keeps a running commentary about him to me, even though I haven't spoken to A in a year, since he told me he didn't want me.

I met the other brother that just showed up. His name is C, and he's in his mid-twenties, nice guy, actually. He's also an alcoholic and recklessly impulsive. His mother is A's girlfriend (yeah, that whole family is a fucking Jerry Springer week special). I told him over skype I wasn't ready to meet him in person, and this pabo showed up at my work a week later, because he couldn't "wait to be a big brother". It sounds sweet, but honestly, I didn't ask for a big brother. I barely get along with my oldest sister, and that's only because I've figured out how to be around her without wanting to kill her, ie, ignoring all of the racist, moronic garbage that comes out every four sentences.

I'm happy with my other family. Grand Master, Ahjumma, Master K, Master H, Captain N, my mom, that's my family. I've all but severed ties with anyone associated with A, and I'm better for it, really. I have a father. A father who actually wants me around. A father who listens when I'm speaking and doesn't tell me I'm stupid or that there's so much wrong with me that it's no wonder I have trouble talking to people. A father who makes me feel loved and wanted. A father who doesn't hit me.

My sister is having her birthday party tomorrow. She's invited me, and insisted on driving me there (which is, in itself a HUGE red flag). J will be there and knowing my sister, she'll make some big speech about how we siblings should connect as a family and how isn't she the most wonderful for bringing the youngest and oldest siblings together finally? Because I'm the holdout. C, J, and both my older sisters had Thanksgiving, Sunday dinnners, and Christmas all together. As a big family. I was told about these things.

But this man stole from my mother, verbally abused her, emotionally abused her, physically and verbally abused me, told me he wished I was never born, that I was the reason he was never happy, that I needed to leave his house and his life because I was so negative in that I wouldn't forget the past that he couldn't have me in either one. He came in and told my other with no warning that his girlfriend (C's mom) was moving in and me and her had ten days to move out. Why would I ever want to see or talk to that person again? And, yet, I am the bad guy. You see, because A's changed. He's a great father now. He's changed so much for the better.

I won't believe it. Because he hasn't. And he never will. He still refuses to admit he did any wrong to me. I have put years of abuse behind me and I'm not interested in having him dick me around so he can say he's in contact with all of his children. [For those of you keeping count, there's five of us around. The sixth is my sister, Victoria. She died. She still counts. She's the sixth one.] If he and the rest of them want to live a lie, then that's fine, but I'm not going to be a part of it. I'll see my sisters on holidays and birthdays. I don't have any bad feelings towards either of them. I love them, and I do wish they could see how conniving and manipulative A is, so they could leave him and find real happiness as well.

I don't want to meet J tomorrow. I'm sure he's really great, but I don't want to meet him. He knew about A so why did he let him just show up to the party almost thirty years late? He has a nice step dad and a nice half brother, why did he need A? Is he stupid or just naive? He's the only other one that A has completely abandoned. My mom says we'd probably get along. I don't know the exact reasons why I don't want to meet him, all I know is that I really really don't.

I'm scared. I'm scared A is going to pull me back in. He spies on me already. I haven't talked to him in a year, yet he knows exactly what goes on in my life. Part of it is my sister telling him (another reason I don't exactly always get along with her). He has me followed. I won't willingly go back to him, but it feels like he'll always know where I am, because he's a sick, sick man who threw me out but wants me on the edges of his life so he can have a scapegoat for his failures (there's a lot), for his addictions, for his anger, for his depression, for his unhappiness, and so he can smack someone around when it gets to be too overwhelming. I'm the only one he ever hit. Why? I'm the youngest, he should have protected me.

But that's neither here, nor there.

Why, Tokio Hotel? Just....why?

Tokio Hotel, oh my goodness, honestly, I was contemplating even writing this post because I knew one blog post could not hold in my love for them. Trust that it's a lot. It's more than a lot, actually, it's astronomical, it's.....it's just a huge amount.

For ten years, I have been a Tokio Hotel fan. Yes, I got bullied because I liked them and they looked 'girly' or 'weird' (TRY BEAUTIFUL AND AMAZING). Blah, blah, blah, most Americans just don't understand them, okay? Anyway, my point is is that at one point, if any of the boys had asked me to rip out my own heart and hand it to them, I would have, blindly, and happily, thanking them the entire time.

I'm a (mostly) reasonable adult now, and I do accept change. No, this isn't going to be one of those fangirl hissyfits because one of them cut his hair or anything. I love their look, I love that they completely change their look every few months. That's life, that's art, that's called being an artist and a creator. If you ask them not to change, you're asking them to stop being themselves. Hold up your copy of Schrei (or Scream if you got into them late and/or don't speak German). Okay, now hold it up to your copy of "Humanoid." Do those cds sound alike at all? BE HONEST. No, one is a natural progression of the other, showing growth, maturation and change.

Five years. Five years is how long I and many others have waited for a Tokio Hotel comeback. I understood that there was hardly any news from camp Tokio. I understood that the boys needed a break to live life and follow their paths. I understood that their sound would be radically different upon returning, since there was such a large gap between releases. So, tell me, just what the hell Kings of Suburbia is. Besides a disappointing mess that frankly just made my heart hurt. I can understand what direction they had in mind. I don't mind the electronic, I knew that they were going for a more electronic heavy sound. But why was there so much?

The vocals are all over the damn place, to the point where at times it's hard to see that this is in fact Bill Kaulitz singing. A few songs I looked to see who was featured because it didn't sound a thing even close to him, and was surprised to see that it was still fucking Bill! I can't hear Tom Kaulitz's signature guitar tone at all, it's been buried under synths. (I honestly almost typed 'Tomi' instead of 'Tom'. As in, the affectionate nickname I've called him for ten years, starting when I was nine and desperately in love with him. God, that's deeply programmed). And, Gorg Listing and Gustav Schafer's bass and drums have all but been replaced by machines that do not even begin to live up to their skills respectively. The only song that even barely smacks of real Tokio Hotel is "Run Run Run." Basically, this whole album is a letdown garnished with a giant scoop of 'What the fuck?'. I want my five years of breathless anticipation back.

Now, this is where I get totally despaired because it's, it's just so....so wrong. Tokio Hotel stood for being different, for being meaningful, for being yourself no matter what. Their video for "Girl Got a Gun is basically everything that is wrong with their new sound (I can't even bring myself to call it new Tokio Hotel, because simply, it's NOT). I liked the colorful people. They reminded me of My Chemical Romance (my absolute favorite people on this entire planet and universe and anywhere and everywhere else in the galaxy)'s video for "Na NaNaNa NaNaNaNa NaNaNaNaNa". I liked the outrageous outfits and the crazy hair and even the bare, most basic plotline. I did not like the eating of blurred out phallic items. I did not like the masturbating furry. I did not like the blurred out grotesque penis on the furry. I did not like the bouncing ping pong balls that represented ejaculation.

Their video for "Love Who Loves You Back,"? Terrible also. I'm all for the LGBTIQA support, I love it. I liked the fact that they had same sex couples in the video. I think they need more representation in modern music. I do not like the all out orgy that makes up the majority of the video. It's a common trapping artists from other countries make. It's a well known fact that sex sells. It's obvious. You do not need to out-sex and out-shock literally everyone else in the business WHEN YOU ALREADY HAVE A VERY SIZABLE FANBASE IN AMERICA! They already do! The only fanbase larger is their German one! You don't need to grab us, you've already got us! They gave in to the American popular society, completely forgetting that their fanbase is in the alternative and Goth inclined. Were we not good enough now that the boys are all grown up? Do they just want the nascent and shallow electronic and club crowds? Is that all they are now, a repetitive and hollow electronic and dubstep group?

Where is the band that held my hand and said it would be all right? Where is the group that took me away from all of the hurt and gave me a world all about happiness and freedom? Where is the band that championed against bullying and fought for kids to be accepted exactly as they are? Where is the band I learned German for? You think I'm kidding? Tokio Hotel ist alles für mich! Ich liebe sie, und sie brach mein herz!

I'm an angry punk........but the 5 year old in me won't let go of the Backstreet Boys

I'm not joking when I refer to myself as a punk historian. You want to hear the history of punk? Pull up and chair and pick an area of the US or a European country to start with because you're about to get learned, son. I did a research paper on just the New York and England scenes from 1970-1979 and was finished in three days. It was 35 pages long. Single spaced.

I know every subgenre from Oi! to Brazilian melodic to early-nineties-LA-bubblegum-glitter-glam. I got friends spanning from Al B Damned to Texas Drag Queen Massacre to Ionia to The Casualties down to the local punks around here in Bleach Drinker. I've read so many books on punk that I had to buy a separate bookshelf just for them and it ended up collapsing under it's own weight. When I was being interviewed for my first internship at 16 and was asked about my experience in the field, I had none so I talked for an hour about the impact of the Sex Pistols on modern music in general. That's how I got hired over college grads. Safe to say, I know my shit.

I also have an undying love for boy bands. Say what you will, I promise I give a shit. Not really. It started when I was 5. I had been listening happily to Marilyn Manson and Slipknot for around a year (my mother used to be an Aerosmith, White Snake, Def Leppard and Motley Crue groupie (unsuccessfully, thank god)). Then "It's Gotta Be You," was heard blaring from the TV where my eight year old half sister sat staring dreamily at these five baggy pants and tank tops wearing, hip thrusting young men. Their lack of makeup and masks did confuse me, as did the missing of screaming and curse words, but their voices were so melodic and, well frankly, pretty. I was hooked. Now my days consisted of badgering my mother to make me mix tapes of Millennium and Anti-Christ Superstar so I could listen to my favorite guys on the way to school.

Despite a brief obsession with *NSYNC, which faded away with the announcement of their "hiatus", the Backstreet Boys continued to be my guilty pleasure. Yup, I supported them through Kevin's departure, their unspeakably rapid decline in popularity, the lost sounding Unbreakable album , the dance hall heavy This Is Us, Kevin's blessed return, everything, okay? I even got beat up when I was ten because I refused to refer to them as the "Back Door Boys".

Oh, turning twelve. Emo was happening and I was on the boat to skulls and studs island. My Chemical Romance became my lords and saviors and everything I owned suddenly turned red and black. I pruned my closet of anything brighter than a dull grey (blood red not counting of course), and boxed up my precious boy band tapes in fear that someone would find them and declare me *gasp* a poseur. But late at night, when my panda eyes had been rubbed off and my fake piercings had been removed, you could find me curled up under my (black) comforter, listening to "Let me tell you about the call that changed my des-ti-nay-ay......"

Over half a decade later, and I still love My Chemical Romance and Slipknot are still the greatest band in the history of the universe in my opinion, and my nickname is still Joey after I wouldn't shut up about the Ramones for a solid year, and my bedclothes are still black (which makes finding my black phone in them at night fun), and I STILL LOVE BSB. These boys (men, really, they could be my dad if I'm being honest) still have a special place in my heart. I have every album (including the rare European version of their debut album). I have the singles, the magazines (with hearts around Brian, who was destined to be my husband in my mind, and who is still my favorite member), the hoodies, the posters, the key chains, every embarrassing merch item my preteen hands could grab. I made a fan art that had all of their singles wound into the picture for their twentieth anniversary. Judge me if you want, I'll be over here listening to "Bay-bay, it's the way ya make me, kinda get me go cra-zay, never wanna stop!"

I've Got a Lot of Red In My Ledger

Cliche title, I know.

If I could go back, I would. If I could go back and tell that little girl I used to be, that innocent and pure little girl, that none of it was worth it, I would. Drugs and gangs aren't fun, they aren't things to play with, and they will catch you. Once you are in, you don't come out. Ever.

They look like dangerous fun from the outside, a world to flirt with and go back to the normal world, smiling at your dangerous little secret, your little secret that makes you untouchable. That secret may protect you from most, but it's a grenade, and you don't even realize it until it goes off. That world has bear trap jaws and they snap on everyone that comes through them, whether they know it or not.

I know things. There's things I've seen, things I stood by and let happen, that I hate. While I haven't done any criminal activity myself, I am not innocent. I've covered for people. Lied for them. Protected them. Hid them. And I shouldn't have. I did it because I was told to. I did it because I chose to.

I thought that world would protect me. I thought I was smarter than it. If I didn't do anything myself, I was safe. If I didn't do the drugs, I was safe. If I was just an information passer, I was safe. I wasn't part of it. I wasn't a member. I was okay. I wasn't.

When I put on that bandanna, when I put on those colors, I became a bad person. When I started trusting those colors, I was part of it. I was furthering the cause. When I learned the secret code, the hand signals, the written ones, the unspoken ones, I was part of it.

I want to not be a part of it. I want to be able to walk through a city and not immediately know what deals are going on, just by looking around. I want to erase every fact, every thing I ever learned from them and be innocent. I want to be the very person I fought against. I want to be "empty-headed," a "waste of space." I want to be the kind of person they called, "targets," "pawns."

Especially now, that a family has taken me in, shown me the life I should have had, I want to be free from all of that knowledge. I feel like I am dirty compared to them. A slug on a white bed sheet. They are so innocent, so clean, so unknowing of certain dangers, that I envy them. I want to not be forever associated and lumped in with drug addicts and gang members. I got out of that world, so untie my connections to it!

I want to not immediately tense and form an alibi when I see police; I want to feel safe and relieved they are there. I want to not pull at my sleeves and have my mouth go dry when I see a needle; I want to feel slightly light headed, like everyone else. I want to be a part of society. A clean, normal person, the kind I never got to be, the kind that I could have been before I was dragged in, before I was brainwashed into thinking that was my only fate, that that was the only world that would protect me, love me, take care of me. Every word they told me was a lie and I became just another victim.

I have physical scars, yes, from that world. But the mental ones and emotional ones are so many in number, they run so deep, that I fear I will never find a place in normal society, in everyday life that doesn't include illicit activities. I've been out of that world for over a year now. What do I have to do to cleanse myself of that world, to shake off the shackles that bind me better and more effectively than prison ones ever could?

Group Gush: Deathstars

Uuhhhhh, this group. I love them so much! I've had an obsession with them for about six or seven years, much to the consternation of my mother. She cannot stand them, and it honestly just makes me like them more, because I fully subscribe to the cliche that if you forbid me to do something, I will do it twice and laugh in your face when you find out.

I've always said, my opinion on bands hinges on two things: if you can scare me or make me squeal in delight, you've got yourself a new fan. And Deathstars does both. They're vaguely Satanic (though not nearly as much as they used to be) and controversial and it just makes me love them even more.

Their first album, Synthetic Generation, was a thing of genius. It was so dark, so scary, that I had it taken away from me at school for "spreading the words of Satan," and I went to public school. It was a mixture of mostly gothic industrial metal with a little bit of glam, and a dash of the early 2000's millenium futuristic look that was so rampant then. Their video for the title track, "Synthetic Generation," still makes me a bit creeped out today. That creepy little baby thing that crawls over that woman's prone body is just bleehhhh! But it worked.

Second album, Termination Bliss, remains my favorite of theirs. It's definitely more metal than the previous, which is always a good thing in my book. The picture above is from this era, which means it's a bit out of date, but look at them! Aren't they just so....uuunnfff here? Okay, they're always sexy, but whatever. This era was all about militaristic looks paired with evil sounds. "Cyanide," is their best video to date, hands down. "Tongues," is basically a crash course in everything that is great about this band. It's blasphemous, and controversial because the lyric "Speak the little girl's name," sounds curiously like, "Speak evil in God's name," and it's sexy in a dark and creepy way.

And here is where Deathstars hit a wall. Their third album, "Night Electric Night," was the first of theirs to be widely available in North America (I found my copy in a freaking FYE in Indiana for crying out loud) and I think the success went to their heads a little. They had ramped up the electronic on this album, but not enough to capture the hardcore industrial fans and too much for their glam and goth fans. It was a bit of a lost sounding album, like they were trying to keep their familiar genius but also trying to sound more accessible. People feared that they had completely sold out and weren't the Goth devil darlings we all knew and loved. Follow up single "Metal," saw them trying desperately to find a sound to stick with by putting the dirty glam into overdrive and fighting to prove they were still the best at what they do. It failed. I haven't seen a Deathstars album in an American store anywhere in the country for about four years.

I'm one of those Deathstars fans that would follow them anywhere, but a lot of fans had abandoned them. When word was released that they had a new album called, "The Perfect Cult," coming out, it wasn't met with much enthusiasm. The public figured we'd have either another "Night Electric Night," or worst case scenario, a mess of electronic and dubstep. It was not. "The Perfect Cult," sounds like a continuation of "Termination Bliss," and should have been the sound they had on their third album. They are definitely back and firing on all cylinders. I'm more in love with them than ever, because they got their egos in check, humbled themselves, and wisely went back to their familiar sound, but modernized it so that it never feels stale or like they're retreading old stuff.

Something about Deathstars just draws you in and you never quite feel safe with them, but you definitely don't want to leave them. And the way lead singer Whiplasher Bernadotte speaks and sings, I call it the "Marilyn Manson," tone, where no matter what he's saying, it sounds like he's inviting you to bed with him, all the while with a sexy, secret smirk, like he knows something you don't. It's dangerous and devastatingly attractive, much like everything about Deathstars.