My second Big Bang

Not counting the one in 1959 - If anyone is reading this blog it's probably Camille Davis Russo and her sidekick Ellen Atkin (who still has a bad case of verbal rabies). I can sense this because of little clues that pop up on MkUltragirl's X account, which I check during lunch breaks to see what she's posting about me lately. It's usually boring repetitivw drivel and mindless repetitive slander - the repetitiveness tells you she's running on empty or maybe the psych drugs are having the usual affect of narrowing cognition. Dry mouth? Weight gain? Memory loss? I'm sorry but it's probably a better outcome than prison. Which reminds me of a Stones' song that came up recently: Claudine's back in jail again. Poor, poor Claudine. But today I'm responding to Camille who's back on X again still questioning my story about flying to London in 1963 and spending a night at Edith Grove on the eve of the Stones' first big break: the release of their not very memorable Chuck Berry cover tune, Come On. I know Camille has expressed a lot of personal pain since I first shared this vignette on line. Off the bat she said I stole it from her, for all sorts of flimsy reasons, as if Camille was the only 12-year-old who flew to England that year, or met the Rolling Stones. After all I'm not claiming she and I share a dad, or attended the same school, or lived at the same address in 1963. I mean, come on- I'm just stating that in 2021 after taking a course with Andrew Loog Oldham at my old college in Kamloops BC, I had a vivid flashback that raised questions and mysteries that lay buried in my childhood. Camille's weird insistence that this never happened -- there's no written proof (it didnt get into the tabloids at the time) -- is like me trying to prove she is not a musician just because I've never come across her music. It's not just arrogant, it's idiotic to assert you know the facts of someone else's life that you didnt live or even witness. It's nonsensical, bordering on retarded, to argue that because I didnt tell Camille in 2019 about visiting London in 1963, I must have stolen the idea from her when I wrote about it 2 years later. Even at 12, in Sixth Grade, I would have laughed at the idea that I stole someone's memory. Unless you grew up in a Skinner box, or were raised by porpoises in a sensory isolation tank, how could you not understand this at age 70?? I now have read that Camille's father Bill Russo was a brilliant American composer and jazzman but I guess Camille takes after her hillbilly mom's side, which might explain their d-i-v-o-r-c-e -- and her sensitivity to imagined offenses. However I didnt come here today to insult Camille or her intelligence -- I see she's still listening to Ellen Atkin which is sufficient evidence of a mental problem that she is refusing to face. I think this is really about her father and whatever happened in London later that year that may or may not involve the Rolling Stones but also probably didnt take her to Edith Grove or Mick Jagger's bed. That's just a wild guess but that's where I would begin digging. Let her keep thinking that I never flew to London or met Mick Jagger before he was famous - why should I care what she thinks? I know different and I'm here because I've been having some insights into that unplanned, un-forgotten or re-remembered trip and what it really meant for my family and me at a very critical time in our lives. In fact, my parents could have divorced from the pressure they were under but instead they opted to drive across Canada on a "camping trip" with my 12 year old brother and me in the back seat of our station wagon. "A thousand miles of forest A thousand miles of plain A thousand miles of mountains And then the sea again" I remember that monotonous landscape, my dad driving and the hours of silence linking my parents in the front seat. It was boring but also exciting and I was mind wiped with no memory of my recent London adventure. Otherwise I would have had lots on my mind. I had never heard of the Rolling Stones and I loved the Beach Boys and Surf Music. Later that summmer at the cottage I slept on hot nights wearing the pink baby dolls from Mary Quant which my mother pretended to have sewn for me although they were obviously factory-made. I didn't question her. I was a blank. It was clear she was worried about me for some reason, especially when I refused to get out of bed one morning because my heart had "turned to stone." My dad never spoke but behind the scenes he was working on a report about Dr Cameron and his evil experiments on unwitting patients and families like ours. Meanwhile back in London the Stones were scrambling to make it in their awkward new houndstooth suits and equally awkward hair. My visit had fallen on June 7, anniversary of D-Day, the Normandy Invasion. My mom was Norman and was that the whole point of my recent invasion? Unfortunately, other than my extreme height, I was turning out nothing like her and more like my paternal Scots ancestors with my reddish blonde hair and green eyes - and a hint of Mohawk in the cheekbones. I had just landed, after being kidnapped from a school outing and loaded onto a plane, arriving in early morning - so where to sleep but Mick's bed at Edith Grove? I mean, where else could I go? Do you think I checked into a hotel in my grubby tracksuit, like any 12 year old from Canada? So I woke up in a strange bed in a gloomy flat just as young men in the next room were exiting the front door. Mick, Keith, Brian - who else? Maybe they were used to girls sleeping over in Mick's bed. Next thing I know I've lost my grey sweats and am dressed in "pajamas" and I'm with Andrew on the Kings Road and we run into Mick who plants wet kisses on my cheeks and forehead. Then Mick and I are walking to LSE - quite a long walk - we must be saving on tram fare after buying me summer clothes because London is sweltering in a heat wave. I have since been told I was "not invited." Meaning I was a surprise that just showed up, courtesy of who.or what? Some Air Force plane? I didn't fly myself there! Andrew (an RAF brat) must have picked me up since he seemed to be in charge of me. Maybe my mother knew, they would have told her, and if so she likely imagined it would be a fun adventure and also an honor for me to attend the Stones's first hit parade release. From Montreal where she was watching and hoping, with the RAF psychiatrist Roper pulling her strings, she probably imagined me feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, like my cousin Nancy in the postcard sent from London in 1959 to Toronto where at age 8 I was attending the mysterious summer school where I got raped on the last day... But from Mick's point of view it could only be annoying to have this skinny stringy-haired schoolgirl barge in on his big day, uninvited, and land in his bed. Even if he knew her family, and still felt some guilty obligation to her mother-- as I believe he probably because of something she or my family symbolized, as his benefactors when he was a kid from England, dreaming of making it to America. And Quebec was America but also it was Norman France and my statuesque mother possessed a streak of nobility, due to her bloodline, accessible through her daughter who he had met as a child but who was now as tall as her mom and could pass for 16 which would get her into the pub if you bought her a dress and she didnt open her mouth. But who had told me to crash the party when he had a real girlfriend? Who sent me here and what was this about? Once we arrive at LSE, he hands me over to Andrew Loog Oldham- who handles me for the rest of the day, and I have a sense that some lines get crossed so that by the time they put me back on the plane to Canada, I have been branded "jailbait" and a skinny whore and later I am referenced in songs like Go Home, Girl and Poison Ivy. Later when Mick and Keith start writing their own songs, my mother will show up as the "heiress" from St John's Wood (cf St John's, Quebec) while her spoiled daughter who "plays with fire" gets a stern warning - "You'd better watch your step, girl/ or start living with your mother." The mother shows up later as an invalid standing in the shadows, while the girl is dark fuel for several other songs- Heart of Stone, The Last Time, even Satisfaction as she continues her "losing streak." The signature lyrics expressing undercurrents of betrayal, anger, miscommunication, coercion and blackmail. No surfing, but lots of rock and roll. "Because I used to love her But it's all over now" Mick feels trapped because years ago he got engaged at a ritual in a castle in a foreign city, Montreal, which happened to house a notorious mental hospital where kids were abused and drugged with LSD. The girl chosen as his wife was also to be a future Mother of Darkness, but instead of accepting the role laid out for her, she always just cried all night. Now he's 20 and about to be famous, and his appalling long-distance fiancee doesn't even remember him while impinging on his generosity. But a deal is a deal and Mothers know best. His mother still thinks he should marry her. He does his best to please the people who control his career. But her father doesnt like him and doesn't think his daughter should marry her abuser. This is her last chance to succeed. Her family is in trouble with the psychiatrists for fighting back. One day he'll write songs about leaving her behind as he boards the psychedelic train. He wont find out until he's 80 that she was a child when he knew her. He'll always think he dodged a bullet, and avoided the Poison Ivy. But looking back, I now think the Rolling Stones saved my family and me from the program where "success" meant going to hell. They went to hell so we wouldn't have to.