I know
it's only February, but I can feel a change in the weather. Let
the groundhog say what he will about winter, I can tell that Spring is
already here. The sun seems a bit brighter. The grass is
greener. There's a warmth in the air that isn't just due to the
fact that I live in L.A. No, it's different from that. Even
if L.A. was swamped with snow tomorrow, there is no denying that Spring
is definitely here. It's visible in the eyes of everyone you meet.
There's that special something that you only see during Spring. It
shows in momentary flashes between strangers. Love is in the air.
This
romantic sentiment takes place each year. Animals all about begin
their elaborate mating rituals. Fish spawn. Birds nest.
Even people are not immune to romantic behavior. Valentine's Day
may be just around the corner, but it seems like now is the true height
of human romantic emotions. Why even as I write this, a repressed
New York attorney and a fay L.A. writer are searching their emotions to
see if bonded bliss is in the cards for them!
Do you
hear me, David? I know that Lance does! He is the one who
put this up on the site for me. He has to. It's part of our
agreement. No copyright lawsuit in exchange for no editing.
I would
have let Lance make an editing exception if he had asked me. I
would have let him edit anything out of the last two weeks of articles.
What tripe! It was a two-week long, uninformed, whiny, lying,
self-important, self-deluded, sack of crap! I had to come back to
restore sanity to this site. I haven't written anything on this
site in over three months, and haven't written any
Memories in over nine months. I didn't really feel I had to
contribute to the site back then. However, now that Laura and
Sharon have been arrested, someone has to keep Lance in check.
Kyle and Geoffrey are each suffering from their own delusions, so I
can't leave it to them.
I don't
mean to imply that neither David or Lance had any impact on Raychel's
life. Quite the contrary. I thought they both had a
tremendous impact on Raychel's life -- and who knows, maybe even her
death.
Although
he wasn't around for most (Hell, all) of Raychel's adult life, David
Vanderhoff had a tremendous impact on Raychel's career as an artist.
Think about this one: If David hadn't been born, would Raychel
have taken as many beatings from her father as she did? Without
that abuse, Raychel loses a great deal of her early material as a poet.
One could also make the argument that Raychel wouldn't have been a
prostitute without David's influence. (I guess we can all start
mentioning that Raychel was a pro since Laura regretfully decided to
bring it up.) That one works both ways. If David hadn't been
born, then Raychel gets beaten less, and has a better chance of not
suffering the emotional scarring that turns her to prostitution.
From another angle, you can argue that if David had actually done
something during his early life with Raychel (like help his sister fight
back against their father) then maybe Raychel would have gone to him at
college for help instead of fleeing for L.A. prostitution. While I
am thinking about it, how bad
was Raychel's relationship with David that she would rather turn to life
as a hooker instead of go to him for help?
|
"Think
about this one: If David hadn't been born, would Raychel have
taken as many beatings from her father as she did?" |
And let's
not forget the life lessons inflicted on Raychel by Lance Wagner.
If Lance had a quarter of the fight that Raychel had, would Raychel have
ever left him for -- well -- everyone? Instead, he is the human
chandelier who crumpled to the floor of Safehaven with the first punch
from Kyle. That was the only time I would have rather been someone
other than myself. Even though I wasn't there, I wish that I could
have been Kyle for just that brief period. We may not get along
well (or at all) but we did share a laugh when he told me that story
once. I guess I could continue detailing the horror of being
Lance, but he seems to do that pretty well by himself. So
without further defilement...
If you
take Lance's article
"The Broken Point" at
face value, you could wind up with a few assumptions about Raychel's
Halloween 1999 concert at The Bone Yard. Some of those assumptions
are grossly inaccurate, while others suffer from a case of poor
perspective. Therefore, I offer a few rebuttals of Lance's "facts"
and "conclusions" article.
1. The
Bleeders were banned from attending Raychel's concert at The Bone Yard.
None of The Bleeders were officially banned from attending the concert,
I just made sure they weren't told about it. Lance uses his
article to constantly intimate that this was a bad thing. His lack
of understanding about this fact says volumes about his inability to
actually think strategically. The reason I requested that Raychel,
Kyle, and Laura not to tell anyone is because I didn't want The Bone
Yard to turn into Safehaven South. If the crowd became packed with
Bleeders, the crowd would have been too ready to immediately accept
anything Raychel and Kyle offered them. The club needed to be
fresh, and that was best accomplished by ensuring that none of The
Bleeders infected The Bone Yard.
2.
All of Raychel's friends betrayed her on Halloween 1999.
Lance Wagner can speak for himself on that one. I never betrayed
her -- not on that night, not ever. Just because Lance didn't like
the fact that I booked a concert away from his precious poetry puffs is
no reason to conclude that I betrayed her. For that matter,
neither did Laura, just because she followed through on my request that
The Bleeders not be told. If you do believe that Laura betrayed
Raychel because of that, ask yourself if Raychel can be considered
guilty of betraying herself. After all, Raychel didn't tell The
Bleeders, either.
3. No one
prepared Raychel for the audience at The Bone Yard.
If Raychel wasn't prepared for The Bone Yard, you can lay the blame
squarely on Kyle McAllister. Kyle was the person who didn't want
to talk with me about the concert. I wasn't involved in preparing
Raychel or Kyle for the concert, because Kyle considered it meddling.
He told me that I wasn't part of the creative process, and therefore
shouldn't be involved in preparations for the concert. Had he let
me, I would have been able to prepare them both for a performance at The
Bone Yard. By the way, it didn't matter that it was Halloween.
At that club, Dias de los Muertos is always celebrated. The
regulars at The Bone Yard ALWAYS paint their faces like skulls. It
wouldn't have been intimidating to Raychel had she been allowed to talk
to me for even a few minutes. But Kyle didn't want me involved in
the process. He wanted to be in control, and he was.
Congrats to him! Now take your medicine, Kyle!
|
"Next
time you try popping off on me, Lance, try thinking about it first
you sniveling, self-serving, piss-poor excuse for a husband.
Enjoy your new-found family. I expect you'll get along
famously." |
4. That I
put a deliberate hit on Raychel's music career by booking the
concert at The Bone Yard.
This is so wrong I'd sue if I could stop laughing at Lance's ignorance.
One mistake does not add up to a deliberate attempt to kill a career.
I asked them to play The Bone Yard was because their act was getting
stale at Safehaven. That was also why I asked for no Bleeders.
If Raychel and Kyle were going to go into the studio energized, then
they needed to play somewhere other than Safehaven. I said it
before: They needed to kill a new crowd and The Bone Yard has been
a regular Terror Trax launching pad. Kyle wouldn't listen to me
and because of that they weren't ready for that crowd. The fact
that the whole show bombed was not my responsibility. Raychel and
Kyle never got a proper manager, and their act suffered because of it.
Besides, I wasn't the person who jumped off the stage and started a
riot.
Next time
you try popping off on me, Lance, try thinking about it first you
sniveling, self-serving, piss-poor excuse for a husband. Enjoy
your new-found family. I expect you'll get along famously.
After all, you and David played almost the exact same role at different
times in Raychel's life. You're both ineffective men who relied
too heavily on Raychel to provide strength where you each lacked it
personally. Now that you have that wonderful book deal to write
about Raychel, I expect you'll make a nice pile of money to lie on.
Then both you and David will prove to be more successful without Raychel
in your lives. Each of you wasted a person who was infinitely more
talented than you, and for what? Money? Personal safety?
I hope you know because I can't figure it out.
I lost a
great deal over the course of my time with Raychel. I lost Terror
Trax. I lost on personal investments. Finally, I lost
Raychel. And I still consider myself fortunate to have known her.
Do you know why? Because I didn't think of myself first.
Perhaps you both will learn that lesson in the future. In the
meantime, I hate you both.
