Memoir Mondays: Ft. Lucy Arnell
Dear Reader,
This idea was born in El Compadres leather booths, sunglasses on, by the light of a flaming margarita at mid-day on a Monday in Echo Park. Two girlfriends and I with nothing better to do than saturate ourselves in our self, decided to bring our laptops, choose a memory and tappity-tap that thing out.
So, welcome to Memoir Mondays, a new feature where I invite a special guest to submit a memoir about whatever thoughts or memories call them; whatever compels them to put it in words. I will write an accompanying sister-memory touching on a similar theme or motif. Maybe even my take on the same memory if I was there. I’m fascinated and consumed by the unreliability of memories, how they shift and morph, how two people in the same room can experience and remember entirely different things. I read a pop-sci book claiming our memories constantly change with new context. I’ve found that to be true actually. Writing about a memory often changes what it means to you and how you remember it. Putting those blurry series of images and sounds into words also means I don’t have to strain to retain them in that pink fleshy mass we call a brain, because I caught them in concrete words, at whatever stage of decay or mutation they are in. I’m always struck by the universality of the human condition and experience and I hope you can find something in these that triggers your own memories and feelings, and maybe it will compel you to write a memoir on a Monday too. If you do -please send it in to me fanclub@holidaysidewinder.com! It will be an exercise in free writing for joy, perspective, nostalgia, self-indulgence -whatever.
Without further ado, here is a memoir from my great friend, musician and touring guitarist Lucy Arnell, followed by my own piece. God bless the child that’s got his own, and bottoms up!
REFLECTIONS -A reflection by Lucy Arnell
I’ve always been a nervous person, though it never affected my social life until I was in my late 20’s. I know why I am, but that’s for another story. For a majority of my life, I rode horses and participated in hunter-jumper competitions, and I always knew that of all the girls in the room, I was the most nervous. I knew it wasn’t normal, but I also didn’t know it wasn’t normal. On the way to a friend’s house for a low stakes playdate, waiting for someone to call, the anticipation of simple plans... these things always created a pit in my stomach that I knew wasn’t quite right, but I didn’t realize how out of the ordinary it was. BUT, here’s the catch - all the anxiety was always in the lead up - once the event began, it completely vanished into thin air. This in and of itself was dysfunctional because I was essentially living two lives, one being of extreme drama that would occur inside the privacy of my home and / or my head, and the other being the carefree, extreme freedom social butterfly who said yes to everything.
During the Ides of my late March 20’s, the anxiety stopped vanishing. It stayed. It affected the things I would say, the moods I was in, my perspective on things, the things I would do, the things I wouldn’t do…I became a socially nervous person. My only self perceived “strength” is that I like people. I love talking to people. I suddenly didn’t know what to say to them anymore. I was so wrapped up and caught inside my own mind and thoughts that I began to lose a personal sense of self. It felt abrupt and dark.
Before I rediscovered my fading character on the road, in the band, I was sure I was about to lose it forever. It was hard to do anything for tomorrow because I didn’t see a future for myself. I was a loather and a martyr, shooting down good ideas and refusing help. I had very small capabilities when it came to the whole “finding your own happiness within yourself” thing, and filled much of my time with external indulgences.
Touring saved my life. Playing guitar in a community, for a community, made me feel like I was a part of something bigger, like I was helping. Like a worker bee designed to operate the machine, churning out scoop after scoop of honey in line with all the millions of other worker bees, all doing our parts. The road and the band made me feel like I was in control of my own happiness…that I did have it within me to forge it wherever I went, with or without partners. I felt like myself again…nervous, but there.
I don’t know if anyone knew I was as nervous as I was on my first tour, because I hid it well ( I thought ) by acting in a tougher-than-my-usual-reality manner, and weed. I was such a ball of anxiety that I unintentionally put up a wall, which (in hindsight) isolated me from the personal depth I generally crave with my peers. The wall I pitched helped me keep my shape, my energetic mold, but I sometimes lament that I wasn’t stronger to just be me. Not in a pitiful way, just in a reflective way. Partially, the emotion was too much.
One soundcheck, it was beautiful, high sounds echoing through the empty room of words usually heard from Lesley Gore, this time from Holiday Sidewinder. The moment was so smooth that I stopped twirling around on my amp case to listen. It wasn’t just her singing, it was more…I could feel her character through the way she sung the words, I could feel all the events of her life that led her to that moment when she reached for the high notes. It was so meaningful, and I was on just the right amount of no sleep and poor diet for it to crash into my heart and crack me open.
I knew from that moment that she and I were going to become great buds. It was the song that surprisingly soothed my nerves. I could relate in a completely personal way without ever having said a word. It was the simple feeling of having a buddy that eased my agita, knowing I was in similar company. She’s the friend who is SO who she is that it inspires you to be exactly who you are, too. Her confidence lends courage to those around her. When I look back now, I can see that I wasn’t as nervous on the tour after that.
I am forever grateful for my buddy and her natural spirit.
I know a woman who’s life story is quietly (as she keeps it that way) very remarkable. You may hear anything from ‘tumours with pet names’, ‘working for a Pepsi factory in China’, ‘NYC drug squad’ to ‘personal helicopter chauffeur’ being casually peppered into recollections (which I’ve discovered, by the way, is not entirely unusual for people who grew up in New York). These are but a few tiny intriguing threads in the enormous patchwork blanket of soul and power belonging to this woman called Lucy who became such a treasured friend and musical companion of mine.
There’s a running repertoire of songs I use during a soundcheck. You Don’t Own Me (Lesley Gore), Tell it like it is (Aaron Neville), Slip Away (Clarence Carter), Another Man’s Woman, Another Woman’s Man (Candi Staton) and It’s Sure Gonna Hurt (Dolly Parton). I love the sound of those lyrics and melodies hitting the reverb of an empty room a Capella. I’ll admit what many singers won’t, in that I do love being able to hear my own voice loud and clear and I take great pleasure in it. It feels like swimming through a tub of honey. My heart feels good when I sing, like a huge yawning stretch. So often my voice is fighting to cut through a wall of sound; it often gets lost in the mix and I can only hope it’s still there at all. Much like life. Soundcheck is my time to bounce off every wall and curl some of my smoke into a passerby’s heart. Singing songs like these in soundcheck is an easy way to weed out people in the room who know their shit. A calling card. A Clarence Carter fan is a friend of mine.
Lucy was playing guitar for Jackie (the support act) and it made me respect Jackie in a whole different way seeing that she chose a guitarist that was a shining star; Lucy’s power spewing stardust burning so bright all over the room that the rest of the musicians on stage were almost cast into dull shadows, drawing everyone into her orbit of sound. She was beaming up, Scotty. I firmly believe in working with people who you think are more talented than you. People who have star quality. We all knew that Lucy was special the second we heard her play. Her style lent itself to Jackie’s alt-country folk music and she was able to roam freely around it. Some people are technical players and others have soul. Soul always trumps everything else. Sometimes when you record, there might be a take that was perfect in composition and execution but was missing the soul *that thing you can feel but can’t explain how or why*. The thing you can’t force or buy. Choosing the take with soul is the difference between a hit and a good song. Lucy was the take with soul.
I’d found a new companion on that tour, and then in life. I didn’t know her history then but I knew she was one of me, ‘one of us’, instinctually. I don’t know how to explain it but one of my people as they say- cut from the same cloth. All the people I’m drawn to and attract in this life are very much of this strange sub-species. Outsiders, unique, emotionally intelligent, damaged or misunderstood maybe, a fire burns brightly in them. You know- weirdos, freaks. Which I suspect all of us are, actually, but not everyone lets their flag fly in clear unobstructed view. I think of it like the back pocket bandana code that gay guys used in the 70’s - “Hello, this is me, I’m one of you!”. I look at a person and I can hear it through ESP, like there’s a little spirit inside them waving a handkerchief at me. My mind is picturing the tiny alien inside Frank the Pug’s head in Men In Black.
Lucy joined me on my tours from then on. We were some variation on Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Thelma & Louise, Bonnie and Clyde or Twins or something. We ran daily errands together in LA. I’d exchange my latest crop of stage clothes to the hilariously snarky girls at the thrift store, she would get what she could for her mother’s old designer suitcases and scarves. Then we’d hit the weed shop for Lucy’s weekly dose, Poquito Mas, Micelli’s, Santee Alley for thigh highs, a random knock on a friends door, Griffith park, someone’s studio, I-hop, my mother’s place for tea. I told Lucy my ugly honest thoughts and judgements I wouldn’t dare share with anyone else because I knew she understood and would laugh. I told her all the ridiculous romances I got up to and negotiated. She coached me through the nonsense and called it out- “you can’t make room for love if your bed is full!”. She always has a saying her mother told her for every scenario, like an African proverb. I’m sure I was a manic bore- though the men in my life were pretty entertaining gossip fodder.
In NYC her mother showed up backstage in an emerald green floor length faux-fur with expensive sushi in sleek black bags, spinning her glossy hair (seemingly in slow motion) like a Pantene ad. She was a dream out of Working Girl; powerful, edgy, cool and collected; everything I wanted to be had I not chosen to be a raging loose cannon. I was surrounded by a lot of bullshit at this particular moment in time, made glaringly more obvious to me by the sheer presence of Lucy and her mother. Lucy cut through that bullshit like a pro with a razor-sharp Japanese knife. She always tried to protect me, and never suffered fools gladly. On stage I just told her to shred and make it punk. Make people feel alive to balance out the karaoke feel of backing tracks. I’m a punk at heart.
Lucy flew to London for fun, to appear with me on a British reality tv show called Made In Chelsea. Earlier that month we had met an eccentric businessman we called “Coffee Jeff” who lived his life firmly according to “Serendipity” and worked in coffee research. What started with lunch ended up with us driving around the entirety of Los Angeles, dropping into every single coffee shop, where he would ‘serendipitously’ bump into someone and be chatting away excitedly while we waited in the car like we were his surly teenage kids. The day ended in ice creams. It was bizarre and wonderful. Coffee Jeff happened to have a flat in London that he generously offered to us for temporary accommodation during our stay. It was 100% haunted. The bathroom had been designed by some dude in the 70’s who made a David Bowie record cover, or something like that. It was horrifying; bits of ripped up Hindu gods and goddesses, pasted over, peering out through illusionary tears in the wall, like a portal to hell was exposing itself. Impossible to describe really, but it conjured up feelings reminiscent of Leo Di Caprio’s Bangkok hotel room in The Beach. The door would eerily open and shut itself. Slamming sometimes. There was a golden chandelier with penises and devils coming out of it. It sounds amazing, but it was repelling in a deeply visceral way.
We stumbled into an Italian Osteria in an alleyway nearby and ended up drinking and eating with the owner on the house until the early hours of the morning. He was a mysterious rich guy with a passion for authentic Italian cuisine, running restaurants on the side as a hobby. He told us lots of stories over rare wines and platters of meats and cheeses. The waiter left his phone number on a napkin for me.
The next time I saw Lucy, she drove up north with 24hours notice to meet me at the Blue Lake Casino for a show. Driving through San Fransisco, and the forests at the base of the Shasta mountains, listening to ‘Roll With The Changes’ on full volume with the windows down, then surviving a treacherous journey through the 101 highway to Big Sur during a storm where trees were falling on cars (and she was sure we were going to die, despite my laughing laissez-faire attitude) are some of my favourite memories.
We were on tour with my ex. We had been separated for one or two years and I thought I was well and truly recovered from it, so we agreed to share hotel rooms to help me save on costs. I know what it sounds like and I would not have minded if it went that way, I did try unsuccessfully (and tragically) to seduce him a couple times. The good ex though, he never gave in. We shared a bed every night like an old couple which was hilarious and odd to everyone watching on at the potential car crash, knowing what had happened between us, but it was actually very wholesome and -i have an aversion to this word -healing. He decided to ditch his band and roll with us in Lucy’s noisy lil box car. We became the three stooges.
All the underlying tensions hit a bubbling peak at the hotel in San Francisco. We were drinking White Russians, slamming them back, in the hotel lobby when we came upon two Australian business men (who told us they were cheating on their wives with each other). They saw right through our veneers of cool, casual and called it out- “so wait a minute, whats going on with you two - you’re telling me you broke up with HER!?”. Poor thing squirmed and scrambled “erm, well it wasn’t really like that… I know… look, it’s complicated”. He wasn’t lying. They kept going. I loved the sense of righteousness at first, but then it started to get very uncomfortable. They offered us coke in their hotel room (my ex was shaken up and keen to change the conversation, so I followed). The scene in the room was extremely weird, they kept talking about how crazy it was that he left me, while slightly leering at me and it was all confusing in the haze of milky poison we were drowning in. I texted Lucy to come get me out of there, I was reeling. She took me back to our room and I crumpled into a heap of tears. My ex returned and Lucy said firmly “this is crazy, you guys need to have a chat and sort out all the things you never said to each other”, closed the door and left the room. So there we were, told-off children. I finally got real and stopped pretending to be chill and let out all the hurt that I had refused to show before because I didn’t think he deserved it. Tears, shouting, hugs, laughs, all that MALARKEY. We finally made sense of it all and made peace with it. A very delayed break up conversation courtesy of Mother Lucy.
Lucy stepped in. Guardian angel on the right shoulder. Later that year I picked up a new friend who was admittedly relentless with talks of her sexual exploits that I politely and non judgementally engaged with. Lucy had clocked it as strange and sinister though; crossing a line of social etiquette or something. I thought she was being prudish, but yet again, queen of healthy boundaries, she was not wrong. This ‘friend’ ended up reeling me in to a dangerous situation and was potentially trying to traffick me. Lucy knows the line and knows when it’s been crossed, something I struggle with; continually giving people the benefit of the doubt until the bitter end. Or perhaps that’s just what I tell myself, and actually I’m drawn to the danger and the taboo and part of me likes being taken advantage of. I need a friend like Lucy to tell me when it’s not funny or wild anymore, just dark. The line between my life as a story or a reality is always blurred. I often live it like it’s just a story unfolding, metaphysical and detached, from above. Depersonalisation/Derealisation they call it. Anything goes in a story, especially if it makes a more thrilling read. Lucy had the rope, and could often reel it and me in, down from the clouds.
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