The Last 10 Years

Boy, could I write a book. What a novel idea for an author.

Ha.

In the last decade, I’ve experienced some of the weirdest, sometimes soul-crushing events than I’d not remotely come close to in my life up to that point.

Blame it on menopause? Sure, why not – the rest of the world does.

Maybe.

Since the spring of 2014, I’ve:

Told a multitude of fuckhead bosses to copulate with themselves and got a few of them canned after having exposed what completely incompetent imbeciles they wereHad anxiety attacks that I never knew could come as close to a heart attack that I hope to never be able to compare – so much so, that I’d stand out in my driveway so that someone could come pick me up if I happened to pass outWorked four jobs at one time and still couldn’t make ends meetWalked away from people I’d spent entirely too much time around because I believe they were my friends and had my best interests at heart. Too hard of a sad lesson to learn, but a valuable education, nonethelessExperienced a hurricane for the first (and hopefully last) time in my lifeBeen disowned by remaining family members who wrote me off with individual single strokes of their pens filled with their poisonous ink…simply because I embraced my passion for writing and published words that they didn’t want to hearMoved to a place that I thought I REALLY wanted to be, only to learn how unbelievably cursed the entire state is (keep an eye out for THAT entire story because it’s in the works)

All of that may seem really bad and dark and come off as though it’s all sour grapes and that nothing good has happened to me in the last decade. Trust me – it was all considerably worse that it may sound.

Because in the last five years of my life, I:

Managed to get myself moved across two states and travel to more states than previously in my life, and in the shortest amount of time – KY, TN, AR, WV, PA, IN…and countingAm truly able to embrace the stereotypes of American AppalachiaBecame one of the most well-known photographers in central Texas, taking tens of thousands of pictures of statewide musicians and even photographed a few of their weddings, photos and videos that have earned their rightful place on album sleeves and videos that have circled the globe.Got married again for a second time…knowing full well that I should have learned better from the first time and confirming that I am simply not a person wired for marriage. C’est la vie

Optimized by Avast CleanupBought my third Jeep Wrangler – “Creepie”Became hooman to two of the most loveable Corgis on the planet

Lived in four different housesHad multiple unnecessary bodily organs removed and still remain healthy enough to find myself head-scratching at consistently increasing conversations with people my own age and even younger, detailing each of their chronic illnesses and the medication that they are on to treat each one of their maladies. This is an expectation that I have come to accept as we all continue to age at the same rate – one day at a time.Seen more dirt track Sprint car races that I have in the last 30 years. Yee haw, pass the beerEnhanced my ever-expanding wardrobe exponentially spread across walls covered with rockabilly dress crinoline, polka dots, animal prints galore, and hundreds of more pairs of shoes. Is that even possible? Shouldn’t it be illegal? One can never have too many pairs of shoesStumbled across an international grocery store that has now become my MeccaDyed my hair platinum blonde and played Marilyn for a while

Sat back and watched in dumbfounded frustration at the increasing stupidity of a world that laments Mother Nature simply being her maternal power, dullards in the street supporting criminals over heroes, and defying a government and medical authority (give me a break) who threatens my livelihood unless I poison myself with their snake oil. No, thanks.Directly experienced more friends and acquaintances committing suicide that I’d ever had in my life…and never care to againSang regularly with a cover band – mostly, “Shut Up and Dance with Me” by Shoot the Moon

Gained and lost 30 pounds on multiple occasionsSeen more concerts than ever before in my life and thankfully so, right before some of their aging members died unexpectedly

And yet, as remarkable as those and so many other personal experiences have been – on both sides of the spectrum – I’ve come out relatively unscathed on the other side. I’ve sharpened to a deadly point my lifelong razor-sharp wit, logical rationalizing ability that increasingly pisses off everyone around me because I’m impossible to argue with, the spectacular “fuck you/it/life/that/them” defiance, and increased desire for the mothership to PLEASE come pick me up and return me to the parallel universe from which I’ve obviously been abandoned.

But my most memorable and exhilarating accomplishment across the last decade of my life has been my writing and publishing three books and multiple clever stories, the one in current and direct reference you will find right here. Trust me – it will be relevant as I continue to pontificate:

A FANTASTIC PORTRAIT: ALDO NOVA

Unfortunately, even that work has been tarnished by scumbag criminal publishers whom I had to fight in legal battles just to get back the rights to my own book.

And that, dear audience, is why you’ve not seen any of my books up for sale anywhere online or in stores for a few years.

I’ll be refreshing and remarketing them myself – when only I find and set aside the time to do so…

…and it makes me weep, but I still have my website here and I still have the constant burning passion to write.

My head is always full, and especially NOW.

For you see, during my book-writing flurry, I actually had social media sites and I had wildly creative outlets and time on my hands to explore the most distant universes in my mind.

If I were independently wealthy, those far-reaches would be made my permanent home. They were and still are some of my most favorite places to be.

Alas, writing comes now only when I’m bursting at the seams and I can no longer hold in these thoughts and experiences and perspectives.

Like right now.

There is something that compelled that recently.

I finally got to see Aldo Nova up close and personal, in the flesh and in concert. That is an event that I never imagined happening in my life time.

During my rampant writing period, I had written the above-listed story on the musical genius and reconstructed him as a character named Nobel in my novels. He tempered as a level-headed sidekick to the wild-child protagonist in each of my books.

Nearly 10 years ago when the artist was in the forefront of my book-writing, I reached out to him on social media to share my own mind’s narrative of his impact on a once wide-eyed pre-teen.

Aldo Nova May 2, 2024

He did respond, to my delight and surprise, but I caught him at a bad time after the loss of his beloved.

Appreciated. Getting caught up in the moment, I wanted to share with Aldo the talents of a musician I’d come to know and photograph, those whose talents mirrored Aldo’s from so long ago, and I got caught up in my own head.

Nonetheless, something that Aldo said to me at the time has stuck with me to this day: he accused me of being full of angst.

I found that interesting and somewhat hypocritical of him, considering the multitude of interviews he’s done and in which he stated, “No one knows who I am”.

Right there with you, pal.

But at the time, I couldn’t have been farther from that emotion. I was happy and content and active in my life then. Always misunderstood.

But we never do see ourselves as others do, do we? And we have no opportunity to watch ourselves through others’ eyes. We are at the mercy of perception.

But the angst that he referenced did eventually creep in and I recognize that. The fast-paced socialite, know-everyone party life that I had dove into head-first took an ugly turn. As a result, I completely ditched social media to withdraw and cleanse from the toxic cesspool that was poisoning me.

I’ve not looked back since and am forever grateful for returning to the real world.

Yet, since that crucial turning point, there was a surge in Aldo’s music writing that was potentially spurred on by the loss of a love and the impending existentialism that inevitably conquers us all.

It certainly slapped me in the face.

And then I noticed the tour dates. It can’t be possible, can it? Aldo is touring again, blessed be the heavens.

PLEASE come to a venue near me…or at least to one in the United States. I have ticket, I WILL travel!

The more dates that were added, the more my heart raced and the more time I spent surfing the web to keep updated on any new dates I awaited with baited breath.

Now living in the south central portion of Ohio in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, there’s not a great deal to do without traveling at least one hour to reach humanity = a relative term (we’ll get to that in another installment of the saga. Please hold…).

However, being one hour north of the Kentucky border, four hours west of Pennsylvania, two hours east of Indiana, and six hours from our nation’s capital has proven to be a very serendipitous location…believe it or not. Trust me when I say I never would have believed it had I not directly experienced it myself.

Hey, it’s a hellavua lot better than being trapped in the middle of a state that requires DAYS of driving just to reach another state’s border.

This very queer location has belched up a plethora of tiny unexpected gems that – thankfully – cater to music fanatics like me. For example, in Ashland, KY; a town with a population of just over 21,000 and just one hour’s drive, there is a Paramount theater where I’ve seen Clint Black, The Oak Ridge Boys, Tesla, and Sawyer Brown all in the last six months (as well as another Montreal Itai, Gino Vanelli, at a small intimate venue in Cincinnati. I’ve been waiting for THAT one for about 30 years, too.). In the coming months, I’ll be there to see Wayne Newton and Tracy Lawrence.

Whodda thunk?

Loo – a – ville, Kentucky is about three and one half hours away and where my stepdaughter lives…and it just so happens to be where Aldo will be joining other 1980s big hair bands for a festival in August and just DAYS before my birthday.

How could you pass that up?

After careful but rapid contemplation, I pulled the trigger on expensive VIP seats to get front and center. I could not for the life of me imagining passing up an opportunity of a lifetime like that.

The ticket even comes with a swag bag and an inflatable chair that I get to lounge in at the concert and then bring home with me.

Haute luxury at its finest!

As I hit “purchase tickets” and lain back in my bed that night to snug with my beloved Corgis, I tingled with anticipation of seeing an artist I’d only imagined in more than 40 years.

And then I started surfing tickets again.

Low and behold, there it was – another date had been added and this time in Pennsylvania at a small intimate venue north of Pittsburgh.

That’s a four hour drive. I can stand at the stage. Tickets, even the early entry privileged, are pennies in comparison to the big stadium concerts and festival.

That’s a no-brainer.

“CLICK” – purchase tickets.

Then came the next two agonizing weeks of packing, deciding what to wear, booking hotels to make a weekend of wandering in a city and state that I’ve never been in before, all the while thinking to myself: I can’t believe this. I’m dreaming. I actually get to see Aldo Nova live in concert. For the first time. After 42 years.

Those two weeks dragging on were excruciatingly painful. Once the initial shock of “this is REALLY happening” subsided, then came the: “I wonder if he’ll recognize me after having talked with me nearly one decade ago. Should I draw a sign to hold up at the concert, one that reads: “HI! I’m Kane Lesser”?”

I vacillated for a while, even fielding everyone around me urging me to do it! Tell him who you are!

I decided that really wasn’t important and he didn’t need to know that I was standing in front of him.

I only needed to see him standing in the flesh. That is all I needed to check off my bucket list the only artist that I wanted to see, had yet to see, and who was still living.

When finally Thursday May 2nd had arrived, I couldn’t hold one thought in my head. By the time we’d reached the Pennsylvania border, it had dawned on me that I had forgotten to bring with me the original Aldo Nova album that I’d purchased when I was 11 years old; the one that I’d desperately hoped to get the artist to sign for me.

There were a few other things that I’d forgotten that I can’t even remember right now because I’m still reveling in the glow of a concert that I’d attended a week ago.

I stood perched at the front of the stage, nearly incapable of holding a thought in my head or hearing a word of the chirping around me.

I purchased early entry tickets that permitted us entrance at 5 p.m. for a show scheduled to begin at 8 p.m.

Along with my grommeted black leather jacket, I donned my four inch gold fang heeled boots shimmering with sequined flames.

Cool, huh? Sure…but not if you’re standing in place for nearly five hours.

But I knew what would happen and I tucked in and braced myself for the possibility of being carried out on a stretcher, unable to feel my feet.

My dressing rule of thumb: if it doesn’t hurt or damaged some body part, it doesn’t look good. 🤷‍♀️

As a result, I did chew up my feet and spent the rest of the weekend applying bandaids to the blisters…

I watched every silhouette, every shadow of every head, every body that moved across the balcony – waiting and dying for that first glimpse.

I had to see his eyes.

And by the time the opening band had cleared away, I had figured out which was the door to the “green room”.

Like a coon treed by a bloodhound, I refused to move my eyes from it, waiting with a surprising lack of nervous anticipation I’ve nearly always experienced at concerts I’ve attended.

What I felt was more of a determination; not a tenacity, but a resolve to lay to rest more than 40 years of rampant curiosity.

The first sight I caught at the corner of the stage was the crown of his shaggy Sable locks highlighted by the light that shone above him.

He raced out onstage and winked at me the minute he caught my eye.

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ALDO NOVA WINKED AT ME.

The question then became: is it even remotely possible that he knew who he was looking at? After all these years?

Could it be just a consummate showman playing to the crowd as he’d become so accustomed to doing from the stage?

That answer will be lost to the ages, but a writer will always apply their imagination.

The emotion that came over me was one I’d never experienced before when watching live music.

It wasn’t excitement, exhilaration, adrenaline, or anticipation.

It was a peace, a relief – as though a loved one had just arrived home after hours of treacherous driving through a blizzard.

A resolution, perhaps, of that wonderment being released after so many decades.

It was a comfort in knowing simply that we’re both still here. By the grace of God, we’ve been put in the same place – for him to play and for me to watch.

I studied every line creasing his eyes, the blue of the beaded choker he wore around his neck and the silver crucifix that glistened and rested on his chest, ebedded in that rug of fur. The zippers at the sleeve of his leather jacket, his fingertips on the guitar strings, and the two hoop earrings in his left earlobe.

He had the pace of speaking and the eveness of a patient but stern grandfather entertaining his grandchild.

And the stunning blue ice of his eyes remains.

The fact of the matter is, now a week on from the concert, I am still reveling in the experience and absorbing the moment.

My previous story about Aldo, seemingly written a lifetime ago, has a considerably different ending:

I now have pictures taken at a concert where I’ve finally seen him in the flesh. I bought the concert t-shirt and I have one of his guitar picks that he placed directly in my palm.