Poetry Train Monday - 166 - You Reached Out

Les McKeown Week wraps up here at A Piece of My Mind with this poem written a week ago for the 3:15 Experiment.


How to participate in the 3:15 Experiment

Starting on the night of July 31/Aug. 1, set your alarm for 3:15 am, wake up, write a poem in the midst of your sleepiness and go back to sleep. Repeat each night for the month of August.

Visit the originators of the project for more information:

Danika Dinsmore

Gwendolyn Alley

For more poetry, Ride the Poetry Train!



















You Reached Out


When I first read about
Your ordeal
I felt as though
My girlhood joy
Had contributed to your
Thirty years of torment

At first
When I gazed once again
Upon your face
From those old photos
When I realized
What had happened
I looked down
I saw blood on my hands

I wish all of those
Girlish hearts
Had been enough to shield you
But I'm grateful
That one woman's heart
Was your haven
That your son
Helped you to see
That boys should be cherished

You spoke against your attacker
But no one would listen
How could a boy
Ward off a predator
Who'd built such a web of terror
Who carved misery
Into so many psyches

You grabbed your own life back
From the chasm's edge
I know that's why
My girlish heart
Thrilled to you
When you gazed into the camera
And reached out

Reached out

Somewhere inside me
I knew that pain lurked
Somewhere inside you
But I also recognized
The courage
You have shown
Have always shown
In the face of it all

© Julia Smith, Aug. 15, 2010

Danika Dinsmore says This is a 3:15 poem? It's far too cohesive! lol.

Akelamalu says Wonderful poem Julia, I like it very much.

Toni says I didn't know. :( And I too was a huge fan.

Summer Stock Sunday - 28

My vintage look at summer for Summer Stock Sunday, hosted by Robin at Around the Island.

Just got off the phone with my nearly-all-my-life friend, Mary, seen below with me eating drippy watermelon forty years ago. We're making plans to meet when my husband and I head for Toronto over Christmas.














This is an old Polaroid shot, so what looks like a burning ember on Mary's shirt is just the chemical fixatives deteriorating somewhat on the photograph.

Have you had your drippy watermelon yet this summer? If not, there's still time.

Weekend Writer's Retreat - 21

Here's the latest installment of Scorpius' boyhood back story.

Scorpius is a character from my dark fantasy work in progress. For the first twelve scenes I've posted for the Weekend Writer's Retreat, we've followed him as a seven-year-old, when he outgrew the nursery where he'd been brought up with the other children of the blood.

But when no one from his family came to claim him, Scorpius was released to serve a falcon master as an apprentice.

We rejoin him at age ten.

An incident that took place at the falconer's cottage three years ago has political repercussions that now haunt Scorpius and his master, Richolf.

You can follow the progress of this story arc by clicking on the Works in Progress link just under the blog header.



Scene 21

The babies’ crying filled his head, pushing him out from under the covers faster than he’d normally arise. Scorpius walked sleepily over to where Nurse and her maids dressed the little ones for their visit with their families, set to collect them today.

Once upon a time, he’d supposed, he’d had a little suit to receive visitors. But the years came and went, and no one ever came for Scorpius. Instead he helped Nurse to occupy the babies while they waited, making sure their lace collars and shiny buttons were not messed with spit-up.

A pair of elegant parents swept in and scooped up their darling, and Scorpius watched the little family leave with a horrible longing twisting in his chest. The feeling grew and grew until suddenly he was awake and lying on the pallet he’d dragged onto the kitchen floor so his master could heal upon it.

Richolf jerked and twitched on the bed, coated in sweat. Scorpius barely had time to scoot out of the way before his master bolted awake, Richolf’s disturbing scream raising the hairs all over Scorpius’ body.

He knew enough by now that it only made things worse if he tried to touch his master after one of these nightmares. Hanging back, he waited until Richolf’s wide-eyed gaze found him as he swept the room for his torturers.

“Good morning, sir,” Scorpius said in as normal a tone as he could manage.

Richolf cleared his throat. “Morning,” he said gruffly.

Scorpius rose and set about feeding the dog and preparing their breakfast. His master had not been too interested in eating since returning from being questioned. But how would he ever heal if he had no strength?

Kneeling beside his master, Scorpius held the plate with a plain biscuit and gave Richolf as stern a look as he dared. “You must eat, sir.”

Nodding, the falconer reached for the bread and brought it to his lips. But his hand shook. It may as well have been made of stone, the way his teeth barely ripped a mouthful of it. Scorpius got an idea and gently took the bread back.

Tearing it into little bite-sized pieces, he fed it to his master as though he slipped cookies to the fussing, teething babies back at the nursery where he’d grown up. Or the way they rewarded the falcons with bits of meat when they trained them in the field.

It took a while, but eventually the falconer managed the entire biscuit. It was the most food he’d eaten in a week. Probably longer, if Scorpius included the time his master had spent in the dungeon. His heart eased as he stood and brought the empty plate to the sideboard.

He had to leave him then to attend to the hawks out back. As he cleaned the mews and fed the birds, his mind fixated on the men who’d come here to fetch his master away to hurt him. Whenever he’d waited for the mother and father who’d never showed up for him at the nursery, he’d always assumed they would be good people, his parents. But who was to say his very father wasn’t one of the men who made his master bleed?

As Scorpius rounded the corner of the falconer’s cottage and made his way through the door, he was unprepared for the elation that filled him at the sight of his master sitting up on the pallet and stroking the dog around the ears. There was a time when he’d been certain that only the discovery of his parents’ identities would ever give him such a feeling.

But as he entered the cottage and Richolf’s gaze softened at the sight of him, Scorpius realized he might never want to know who those two people were.

© Julia Smith, 2010

Naquillity says Glad to see Richolf is doing some better now.

Apprentice Writer says Having just returned from a visit to the National Gallery in Ottawa, I'll say I love the use of light and shadow, and color red, in the pieces displayed in your art sidebar. Very beautiful and evocative.

5 on Friday - Set 28

Travis at Trav's Thoughts invites everyone to lay down a short set of music that takes their fancies for his 5 on Friday meme.

Since this is Les McKeown Week here at A Piece of My Mind, here are five tunes from the Bay City Rollers. In the summer of 1976 I fell hard for the lead singer of this Scottish band. 30 years later I still love his voice and still get swoony when his gaze reaches through the lens to find me.

1 - Saturday Night

Gonna dance with my baby
Till the night is through
On Saturday night, Saturday night
Tell her all the little things
I'm gonna do
On Saturday night, Saturday night

I love her so
I'm gonna let her know

At the good old rock and roll road show
I gotta go
Saturday night, Saturday night
Gonna rock it up
Roll it up
Do it all
Have a ball
Saturday night, Saturday night

- Coulter / Martin



2 - Sweet Virginia

Oh Sweet Virginia
No, you never knew her name
She tried to win ya
But you never played the game

Her name was Jackie Brown
She cried when they told her
Old sweet Virginia town
You know it's not over

- Faulkner / Longmuir / McGlynn / McKeown / Wood

CLICK HERE to watch the video clip














3 - Rock 'n Roll Love Letter

Hey sister poet
Dear brother poet, too
These tears and words I'm makin'
Wanna be with you

'Cause I need to spend my body
I'm a music makin' man
And no peace can release me
Like this amplifier can

This is my rock 'n roll love letter
To you
This is my rock 'n roll love letter
To you
Gonna sign it, gonna seal it,
Gonna mail it away
Gonna mail it today

- Moore



4 - My Lisa

Lisa
You're the dancer to the song
Without your music
All the words just seem so wrong

And like a picture you keep fading
Your colors running dry
Save the pieces of this life
We put together

Oh can't you see it in my eyes?
Oh won't you save a place for me tonight
Find a space for me
And light this corner of my lonely life

- Egorin / Scutio



5 - Wouldn't You Like It

I've included two versions of this song because the first clip is only a fragment - but I love Leslie's performance in it! The second one is the whole song.

We'd be alone and we could turn the
Lights down low
Just you and me and we could take it
Nice and slow
Come on, I won't let go

Wouldn't you like it?
Wouldn't you like it?
Let's spend the night together

So come up and see me
Please let me please you
Yes how I wanna love you
So come on now
Wouldn't you like it?

- Faulkner / Wood





Akelamalu says I just knew your 5 would be Bay City Rollers! LOL

Jamie says Oooh I would get all swoony over that as well. :-)

Anna Campbell says Julia, I had to smile when I saw your post! I was swept back to the glories of the mid-70s.

Thursday Thirteen - 172 - 13 Things About My Teeny Bopper Crush - Les McKeown

1 - Teen crushes seemed to have become a female right of passage by the early 20th century. With my coming-of-age enfolding in the late 1970's, my new awareness of myself as a hormonal being with nowhere to channel that energy found its outlet in a larger-than-life singer from Edinburgh, Scotland - Leslie McKeown.


















2 - My entire world revolved around the next issues of 16 Magazine and Tiger Beat. Every month when the new magazines were due to arrive at the pharmacy, I obsessively dropped in over and over until my heart swelled at the sight of the fresh stack of glossy covers piled on the shelf.













3 - There I could read all about Les' group, the Bay City Rollers.

All of the band hailed from Edinburgh -

L to R: Bassist Alan Longmuir, rhythm guitarist and co-songwriter Woody (Stuart Wood), drummer Derek Longmuir, lead singer Leslie McKeown, and lead guitarist and co-songwriter Eric Faulkner.















4 - Key point of attraction from the get-go:

His Scottish homeland. Ooo, yeah - the accent I can't get enough of, and the highly irreverent attitude common to his countrymen. Perfect sort of guy for me.


















5 - This is an album cover I spent hours mooning over. Among the draws for me, seriously, was the lovely red tartan border. It was a photograph of real tartan, and I used to stare at the weave of the fabric as if it were a cherished old friend.

I became enamoured of their Converse hightop sneakers and ended up getting a black pair myself. I also had a few plaid scarves, and I made my own Roller gear, as it was called, by sewing plaid patches over a white shirt which I then proudly wore in public.











6 - I won't even hazard a guess as to how many hours I spent gazing at this picture of him on the back of one of the earlier albums.

I was always partial to this white jacket with the blue trim.






























7 - His voice was a big draw for me - there's a specific quality to male Scottish singing voices that really gets to me. It's as if there's a built-in tone of longing in there somewhere.

In the clip below, he gives the teeny boppers something to ponder in Give it to Me Now, which appeared on an early UK album.


















8 - Les released a memoir about his time in the whirlwind of Rollermania - Shang-a-lang: Life as an International Pop Idol.

Not surprisingly, it's full of the heightened energy of being a handsome young thing who in no way fought off the attentions of his willing young fans. It also doesn't shy away from his bitter rivalry with lead guitarist Eric Faulkner, or his constant rebellion against manager Tam Paton.
















9 - Some recent comments by 40-something fans on You Tube:

OMG Les does not stop driving me crazy........GOOSEBUMPS!!

Les, is well, my Les...sigh...woo hoo...dayum!!

Those bedroom eyes kill me.....go Leslie!!!

Les holds me in the palm of his hand and he has me wrapped around his lil finger

Could watch Les all day

YUMMY HONEY!!! Rock on Les!!!!

Les was one hot piece of........

Les gets better and better, goosebumps ladies, goosebumps on goosebumps here

I can't believe I'm still infatuated with Les all these years later

Paralized & hypnotized by Les' eyes!

I want to slow dance with Leslie. Love the way he moves his body to the music.

OMG I think my heart just stopped.




















10 - Leslie's Nov. 12th birthday instantly bonded me to my birthday buddy (mine being the day before.) Thus began my lifelong trend of finding myself attracted to Scorpio males, including uber hottie Gerard Butler (Nov. 13th) and ultimately ending up with my Scorpio husband, Brad.















11 - In the mysterious ways of the heart, my teenage crush on Leslie was a blueprint for my lifelong attraction to the tortured hero.

While I (and millions of others) dreamed of what it would be like if he gave me my first kiss, Leslie was living under the psychological manipulation and physical coercion of their manager, Tam Paton.

"Les McKeown claimed in April of last year that Paton raped him and threatened to kill him if he spoke out about it. He described Paton as a tyrant.

He said: 'I almost feel guilty for being so happy but I can't imagine a man nor beast who will be mourning the passing of Tam Paton.

'I hate him. I'm glad he's dead. I was just a young boy. I was only 18, 19 when he raped me.' " - Catherine Salmond, scotsman.com

To deal with the emotional fall-out of the rape, Leslie developed drug and alcohol problems which he addressed at a rehab clinic. While in treatment, he was finally able to face up to what had happened, which includes the wholesale theft of the band's millions in earnings. A 30-year legal battle against Paton and Arista Records have yet to see any money return to the five musicians who made the music and performed around the world.

Leslie was not the only Roller to be sexually assaulted by Paton. During his reign of terror, two suicides were attempted by other band members.













12 - Leslie today with his family:

Wife Peko, Les and their son Jubei

"My doctor said I wouldn't live to see Christmas [several years ago.] I didn't care. I walked out of her surgery and I went straight to the nearest pub for a drink.

"When I went home, I sat down with my wife and son and saw a little opening for the human being to come out in me again."

Les was thrown a lifeline from a most unlikely source. He was invited to appear on Rehab, a Living TV reality show where a group of celebrities received treatment at a clinic in California.

"I still don't know how I had the strength to reach out and grasp that last opportunity to get fixed.

"I thought, 'the show's producers want some clown for a bit of car crash TV'. In between moments of total clarity and being absolutely pissed I agreed to take part.

"I said to myself, 'I don't care what they film - if this place can fix me that's what I should focus on'. It was live or die." - Billy Sloan, Sunday Mail




To say I admire Leslie McKeown today is putting it mildly.

It's very, very difficult to name one's sexual attacker when the predator used threats of physical harm - yet, eventually Leslie did so. Go, Les!

In an era of revolving-door rehab stays before troubled celebrities manage to settle in for any real help, Leslie took one stay and put himself through the wringer so that it would remain one stay. He took the offer of getting his seriously-derailed life back on track, and treated it with the respect it deserved.


Bye Bye Malibu

Les McKeown | MySpace Video





















13 - Thanks for taking this stroll down memory lane with me. You know, the more things change, the more they stay the same:

Apparently I can't resist lead singers who like to wear striped pants.

Les McKeown 1970's - Eugene Hutz, Present day


Join me tomorrow for 5 on Friday, where I'll be featuring five rockin' tunes by the Fab Lads in Plaid.










Travis Cody says I remember these guys. Most of the girls I knew had crushes on one or several. At any school dance, we could count on hearing the song Dedication at least twice.

Joanna D'Angelo says OMG! I loved the Bay City Rollers! I remember being at a party at my cousin's house and Saturday Night came on - the first time I heard it (I was a wee lass) and we just danced and danced!

Julianne MacLean says Hey cuz - great post about Les. Oh, how I remember every detail of those album covers, and I knew every word of Give it to Me Now, which is something else, considerining it's been about 30 years since we listened to it!

Wordless Wednesday - 162

Julianne MacLean says Looking forward to Leslie McKeown Week, cuz!

Angela Guillaume says Love this picture! It's the most amazing thing to look back at these moments.

Janet says OMG - I love Bay City Rollers! Looking forward to the week, Julia :)

Through the Opera Glasses - 67 - Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

While most of my fellow romance writers are preparing to see Eat Pray Love, I have already seen the film for which I couldn't wait - Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World!

Directed by Edgar Wright - whose previous films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are two of my favorites - Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World combines the zany logic of geek gamers with a classic quest tale. In order to win the girl of his dreams, Scott must first battle her Seven Evil Exes.














Starring Michael Cera - he of the exquisite deadpan delivery - as Scott Pilgrim















Mary Elizabeth Winstead as his dream girl, Ramona Flowers


















Ellen Wong as his fake high school girlfriend, a rebound relationship that turns into a stalking thing












Brandon Routh as one of the Evil Exes - here dueling Scott for bass supremacy











Jason Schwartzman as The G Man, the indie record label executive Scott's band tries to impress

Major appeal for my husband and me: the story is set in Toronto, Brad's hometown and the city I love and miss every day. Loads of west end locations are featured, including the steps leading up to Casa Loma, Honest Ed's, Lee's Palace, Pizza Pizza and TTC buses.



Linda says Amanda talked me into taking her to see this one the other night. Honestly? It was a lot of fun to watch and I'm glad she talked me into it!