Thankful Thursday 2 May 2019

Happy first Thursday in May! I’m still over the moon about Sarah’s gifts and I’m planning everything I can send her. I’m thinking of sending her a scrapbook for her travel photos and the ceramic bowl artist I discovered in Baltimore. He was cool, and a bit different, but she might enjoy it. I think I might also send her some local jazz artists I discovered through the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

I’ve been chatting with Jack in the morning and I last saw him on Tuesday. I showed him my Baltimore Ravens photos and he was really amazed at the few he saw. Google placed my photos out of order and I was telling him about Family. He asked how I heard about it and I said, “well, I’m a fan of Insane Clown Posse and Twiztid, it was suggested based on my likes, and Violent J promoted the movie too.” He looked at me and said, “I didn’t picture you as an ICP fan. Have you ever heard of Tech N9ne?” I replied, “Yes! I listen to him all the time too.” He smiled, at that point the train came, and he said we would chat Tech N9ne some other time.

I’m going to get a little flash-backy on y’all. When I was watching Family, I became a bit emotional. I will admit that listening to ICP and Twiztid is a very emotional experience for me. I was bullied in middle and high schools, but the brunt of it was in middle school. Mom was working with Anna’s dad and they lived in Tower City. A few times she invited me over to spend the weekend with her to get away from the bullying. Tower City is an old steel town in Schuylkill County and their middle and high schools were combined. A few of Anna’s friends were in high school and two of them absolutely LOVED the Psychopathic Record family. Jackie, one of Anna’s friends, really recommended Dark Lotus, I gave it a listen and one thing led to another. Jackie gave me song suggestions to download and listening to ICP, Twiztid, and Dark Lotus made me feel like I belonged. Ironically, after I started listening, I made friends with other Juggalos at my school and I’m still friends with one of them. Anna was heavily into heavy metal and she used to send me CDs all the time, to get me started.

I am thankful for Anna and I’m thankful for my friends from Tower City in that time period. It was a refuge and I like to say, being around Anna and the other girls influenced my tastes in music. I loved Twiztid the most during in 8th grade and I had the hugest crush on Jamie Madrox. I found an old time capsule I made at the end of 8th grade (that we opened before we graduated from high school). Here you will also see that I won recognition for being the kindest person of the month of December 2003. My school used to reward people for their caring, kindness, and sense of community. I always seemed to win and I was once a peer mediator for the community of caring. I wonder if the school still does that. I also found my 8th grade yearbook, where Brynn drew the hatchet man logo for me. It should have been a hatchet girl, but I am thankful she agreed to it back then.

While The Riddle Box was the first ever ICP album I downloaded, I remember Fall 2004 vividly. I used to belong to a Motley Crue community on LiveJournal and I connected with a guy who not only loved Motley Crue, but loved ICP as well. He told me about The Wraith: Shangra-la and the song “Thy Unveiling.” I fell in love with both the song and album. I was going through a rough time at high school (I was a freshman in Fall 2004) and that was a light during a dark time. I felt a sense of belonging and now that I bought a copy of The Wraith: Shangra-la, I’m feeling something special in my core. I’m thankful for these groups; I know it sounds odd, but they helped me through some dark periods.

In the 16 years since I’ve started listening to all of these groups, I’ve met Twiztid twice. I’ve also hugged Jamie and Monoxide and the last time I saw them at the Warped Tour, they remembered me, they were so glad to see me again, and told me I should hang out more often. That made me feel over the moon and even though those under Psychopathic Records got a bad name because of gangs hijacking the image, I never met kinder people. I’ve met a lot of fans over the years too and besides one minor experience, most have been kind people that are welcoming.

From 2014’s This Way to Hell Tour. My first time seeing Twiztid live. A few of the people I met before the meet and greet too. 18 October 2014

From Vans Warped Tour, 13 July 2018.

Anyway, tomorrow night I’m seeing Aunt Peg perform with her orchestra at 8pm. She held a ticket for me, my uncle will save me a seat, and they will drop me off at home. I’m looking forward to seeing my aunt perform on the flute and I can’t wait to see my uncle. I’m grateful that Aunt Peg is doing that for me.

I was able to walk this morning, this afternoon, and I went swinging too. What are you thankful for today?