THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM, THERAPY & SCARYPOOLPARTY

Ever since I first heard the Beatles on Ed Sullivan that Sunday night on February 9, 1964, I was hooked. Music had always become a private hiding place for me. I wrote my first song on a toy piano when I was 4. My father bought an organ when I was 7 for my older sister. He was desperate to help her find another hobby besides boys. She took a couple of lessons and then blew it off. The organ was left for me to explore. I taught myself to play the organ with all the stops and pedals by the time I was 10. I had to play it only when my father was away, since he forbid anyone to play it. I think it became an enigma in the battle between him and my sister. But then he did something very weird. He sold the Wurlitzer and purchased one of those hideously huge organs with all the lights, whistles and rhythm tracks. At last I could play Edelweiss with a bossa nova beat. But no. He forbid me to play the organ at all. It sat like a huge elephant in the living room from 1969 until the day we sold the house when both my parents had passed. That was in 2004. Oh, my albatross had probably only been played no more than 100 times during that time. I never really understood why my father bought that dadgum organ. I paid a man $100 to haul it off after many years of trying to sell it or even give it away. No church, no school, no community center, no one wanted that organ. A sad ending to a personally bewildering story.

Photo: Me with the organ in my parent's living room, 1971.

One thing that I did accomplish during my secret sessions on the organ while my father was away – I wrote over 10 songs which I thought might be pretty good melodies. None of them had words except for the one I wrote for my Chihuahua when it was run over by the animal shelter truck. “Chico is Dead, Chico is dead. My poor little puppy has no legs or head.” Morbid, but I was experiencing the beauty of turning pain into music.

Since then I learned the guitar while studying art in Madrid. I had been writing poetry since my first sensational date with Carol Gilstrap when I was a senior in high school. I even won a poetry competition while in college with a poem called "To Strive for Anti." But in 1972 while studying art in Spain, I put my poetry to music for the first time. I used a borrowed 12-string guitar when I wrote “6000 Miles,” a song about being so far away from home. By the time I was 60 I had written over 2000 songs. I even had a complete stranger ask me after hearing me perform, if I was interested in collaborating with her husband. “He was great with music, but he struggles with the words. You would have to be willing to let him use your lyrics but change the music.” I was indignant. “Of course not,” I said, “the music inspired the words.” Later I would find out that the stranger was the wife of Michael W. Smith who would become one of the greatest stars of Christian music as well as have a #5 song on the Hot 100 with “Place in the World.” I could have been the Lennon to McCartney. My arrogance and ignorance have gotten me in trouble more times I care to tell.

Photo: SMU-in-Spain, Madrid, 1972. I'm the one in the front with the head band.

Music has been a substitute for drugs, sex and alcohol. No joke. It’s rather sad, actually, but it keeps me out of trouble. I like all kinds of drugs as well as all kinds of music. Being bipolar I want Erik Satie one moment, then U2 the next. Side by side genres I make my mixtapes. I never really noticed how I could go from playing jazz trombone, to playing Vivaldi on my secret organ sessions, then cry while listening to Hank Williams, go to my church rehearsals, perform in children’s musicals then rock like a crazy wildcat in a gay club. I always seem to prefer some obscure song over any #1 popular song. I seemed to always like the least familiar song on an album more than what would be released as a single.

I had been living as a gay closeted man my entire life. Mostly, because in the 50's and 60's I never knew anything about being gay. I had never even heard the word "gay." So I carried out my duty of getting married and having a family. I knew it would please my father. After only a few months of marriage I knew something was terribly wrong. I wasn't able to make my wife enjoy sex with me no matter what I did. I had to get help. I met with my very first counselor in 1975, Frank Wickern at the Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas. I went to him to get help with my marriage. He gave me an MMPI test on the first day. The test is about 2 hours long and asks a series of questions which would determine my personality strengths and weakness. Having a master's degree in education gave me insight into many of the questions. With each question asked I knew most of the time what personality trait they were digging at, but I tried to answer honestly since I was paying for all this. I had paid in tears and pain for a lifetime of being in my own personal closeted hell.

The next session when I once again begged him for help with being gay and married, he immediately shook his head and said, “No, no, no, you just have some insecurities and nonconformities.” I protested, but he insisted. "Your test results show that your number one problem is procrastination. You also test as someone who is counter-culture, someone who has the same opinion with only 2% of the rest of the world."

Dr. Wickern and his MMPI at least explained why I didn't like most of the music I heard on the radio. He never explained how a gay man could satisfy a wife, nor would he ever let me accept the fact that I was gay. He believed that being gay was a choice, not something I was born to be. I decided it would be easier to be diagnosed as anti-social and non-conformist with procrastination issues than gender issues. It was the continuation of my closeted hell. Unfortunately even a professional therapist with boo-coos of qualifications refused to allow me to be free. It was my goal to keep everyone happy, so I continued my game of hide and seek. I was miserable although I tried my best to focus all my emotional pain into my music. The pressure to please everyone else around me erupted into self-medication.

My continued downward spiral with alcohol and drugs allowed me to commit a long suicidal procession. Music kept me alive during the long and winding road of self-destruction until 1991, when I finally decided I couldn't do "it" any longer. I decided to finally kill myself rahter than "come out" which I knew would destroy my marriage, my family and my job. Since I was teaching at a very conservative Christian school, I knew it would possibly even cost me my career. Fortunately, the rest of the story is a story of healing.

Photo: My ex-wife, Deni and me, Dallas, 1975.

I know first-hand how music can heal.

I felt it, too, the first time I heard Alejandro Aranda audition for American Idol. I suddenly felt lighter, happier, less pain, more enthusiasm for life. I noticed it immediately just as sure as I have felt that surge of meth through my veins or crack in my lungs. It was just that thrilling, but unlike a drug it had “long legs,” a term druggies use to describe how long the intensity of any drug had. It was a measure of time. Alejandro’s music had very long legs. And just like a drug I was addicted. I wanted more. So I sought out everything I could find online.

I learned before American Idol he performed and recorded as Scarypoolparty. And that’s how I found out about SoundCloud. He was hiding his most precious music inside a website where it would be safe. It’s where I found the most incredible music I had ever heard. His music was literally so foreign, so strange, but so beautiful. Every sound was a twin shadow of the sounds inside my own head. How had he heard the exact words inside my head when he wrote “I Wish I Was Something”? Someone out there shares my emotional DNA. That was such a spiritual healing for me.

I experienced physical healing through “Cheater (aka “Heartstorm”), “Vampire Shade” and “Sun Stop Shining.” I was working in my garden for the first time in two years and had moved out of my house for fun for the first time in too many years. It was a miracle. Even my doctor’s confirmed some mysterious cure for my kidneys and my blood pressure had occurred. It was just after back surgery when I first heard Alejandro’s American Idol audition. I was still in my taco shell plastic back brace. Not only was the surgery a success, but many of my previous health issues became non-existent.

Still, with every new day I seem to exhibit a new symptom of fibromyalgia. It’s okay. I can’t take the medicine typically prescribed for such illnesses because they all pass through my kidneys and my liver. I practically destroyed my liver from my journey with alcohol and drugs. I had been diagnosed with both Hepatitis B and C. I’m in remission for B and cured of C, but the damage has been done, and they are sensitive to toxic drugs. I use alternative medications such as essential oils, herbal teas and marijuana when I can afford it. Medical marijuana became legal here in Missouri two years ago, but they haven’t finalized the grow shops nor the distribution shops. Herbs are amazing, especially along with yoga, stretching and meditation. That "new age crap" really does work.

...and so does music.

Music has scientifically been proven to be successful in healing bones and other therapies. Alejandro’s music has been proven to heal even more, and I don’t really know how. But it does. My doctors don't understand the miraculous healing which I attribute to Alejandro. I do.

It's obvious from reading messages posted on YouTube when EXIT FORM was released that a lot of people expected an entire album of acoustic guitar and piano music. I know a lot of Alejandro’s American Idol fans never discovered his Scarypoolparty treasures hidden within new websites. I guess they aren’t addicts. I guess they just haven’t hurt as much as many of us have desperate for emotional rescue. They didn't search deeper for more of Alejandro's magic music like we did. That’s why our friends and family members just don’t get it. Many just think we have lost our minds. They are different creatures with different qualities in their DNA.

I get it, and I know you get it. We haven't lost our minds, we have found our essence for a happy life. Thank you, Alejandro, for everything you have given us. May we all continue to share love and be free from living in pain.