Family therapy, while therapissed off.

Nancy Feldman-Sharp. The professional who felt at one time or another that I deserved to be committed was our family therapist throughout most of the nineties. We started seeing her about the same time that my parents seperated. My mother thought that therapy was the best way to deal with the impending trauma.

And thus began my love-hate relationship with shrinks.

After my mother made some phone calls, we inevitably wound up at the small, nondescript house off of beach road that allegedly housed our mental salvation. It looked no differently than your common doctor's office with the burgundy, industrial rug and the AC on full-blast to an arctic chill. The only thing that made this one different was the addition of little white-noise machines in front of each closed door which despite their purpose, I could still hear what was going on behind them. Sometimes it was whining, sometimes it was crying, sometimes it was shouting.

It was the four of us; my mother, my sister, my brother and I. Dan, Tori and my mother would always sit next to each other in a neat little row.Whereas I preferred to sit on the other side. I was sort of embarrased I guess to have been there in the first place. I didn't want anybody to see me, god forbid. It didn't occur to me then that if anyone else had seen me they would have just as much to fear as I would. My brother and I would always share this gray Memorex tape player of my grandfathers as we were waiting for our session. I thought it was the coolest thing. We were eleven and thirteen respectively, nobody else our age really had one that was uniquely theirs. We always used to make mix tapes too that we would copy off of the radio. (How's that for dated?) We never really had a preference, we would just record for hours and hours, listen to them and re-record over anything we didn't like. Truth be told, the tapes were a lot like Frankenstein; a little of this, a little of that. Some Enya, college rock stations I've never heard of, the Divinyls, easy listening, Roxette, hard rock, Aerosmith, No Doubt, unnammed eighties bands etc.

Nancy, as set by precedent,was running over with her previous appointment. (She popped her head out to tell us so) Which to me was just dandy as I disliked her from the moment I met her. When I had gotten the radio back from Danny, I put the earphones on andthe first thing I heard was the part of 1979 just after Corgan sings the first line of "Shakedown nineteen-seven-nine"There was something about it that called to me, I guessso I continued to listen to it before we went in. Dannydidn't know who the song was initially so I just listened on. I kept it for the rest of the session, blocking out Nancy Feldman-Not-So-Sharp with it. Isuppose it was the start of something as today, there are still friends of mine whom I've known for years who have never seen me without headphones on.I just kept rewinding it and rewinding it for that entire hour. I also refused to give it back toDan lateron that day althoughbythenI had moved onto other songs on the tape, not just the Pumpkins, exclusively.

Lo and behold, the Pumpkins became my favorite band later that year and consistently since then, "1979" became my favorite song. I recall heading down to Coconuts Music and Movies over on Black Rock Turnpike, next to CVSwith mom to go and buy it. She was a little apprehensive at first, not really knowing much about the band, their music orwhether or not it was appropriate for a kid my age then. She invariably paid the$24.95 (owed to me by way of chores)and I listened to every track.

This particular memory is an interesting one for me, because I can recall every moment of it like it's a scene out of a movie, my movie. Its how I view my life, really. Cinematically.I document a lot of it everyday, a huge part of it, evenbut I tell the story through music and through visuals, in little, successive vignettes.

There will be others.