Druggie With Your Hair Parted In The Middle!

[RTP2003]

What was the deal with Straight freaking out over parting one's hair in the middle? I remember going to get my hair cut for the first time after leaving Straight and getting ready to be confronted when the stylist asked me if I wanted it parted in the middle.  I felt like she was offering me drugs or something.

Another thing I thought was weird was how we weren't supposed to mention rock bands by name.  I got ripped one time when Steve Meade walked by me (I was on the last seat toward the center of the big room about three rows back)while the group was doing a Straight song and I was singing along, changing the line from "Sing halleluia to the Lord" to "Sing halleluia to Pink Floyd" and "to the Doors".

The only time we got to mention the names of bands was in one rap we had where Kevin Lowe and Co. told us about the Satanic origin of many a rock and roll musician, up to and including Elvis.  I think he talked about "Backward Masking" and a lot of other shit he saw on a low budget Christian TV infomercial.  I remember getting such a charge out of hearing  about the different music different people were into,just hearing the names of the bands gave me material to "rock out in my head" for weeks afterward

[thepatriot]

Yeah hair parted in the middle, don't look out the window from the car to and from the building , don't look at the opposite sex. No "Rocking Out" in your head talk about some weird shit..Straight was beyond fucked up, I mean who actully sat around and thought up all these rules? I still ant believe I was subjected tho that shit for over a year.

[RTP2003]

There was all kinds of weird shit like that--beyond strange.

[thepatriot]

remember open meetings how quickly parents fell into the straight lingo..."You better get with the program" and th ever popular "quit sittin in your shit" how stupid was that

[RTP2003]

yeah-- "talk about your feelings"  "I feel like he's not working his program" "That's not a feeling--how does that make you feel?"

[thepatriot]

LOL no shit...always your feelings god to this day when somebody asks me how I feel I cringe. yeah first seat front row....that was always a treat.
stand up and say your name and the drugs you did...I don't feel like it, "Thats not a Feelin" have a seat, love yourself....group..."love ya Todd" My kids have no idea how lucky they are that I am nothing like my mother and step father,

[Dr. Miller Newton]

I feel_______about______because_____.

[thepatriot]

I remember after splitting, coming back I was sitting by another misbehaver, we sat there for like an hour back and forth naming bands...acdc,ted nugent,molly hatchet. I men how twisted was that the lengths you would go through just to hang on to a piece of your normalcy and sanity. They had the nerve to say you were in sane when they were attempting to erase your mind of everything.

[Cayo Hueso]

I remember on the way to and from foster homes and in group singing Space Oddity over and over again.  It's just like you said, anything to hold onto even a PIECE of myself.  I felt like as long as I could remember all the words, I might have a chance.

as Bowie sees it:

And these children
that you spit on
as they try and
change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
they're quite aware
of what they're going through....

ch ch ch ch changes

The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.


--P.J. O'Rourke

[thepatriot]

Yes Bowie....I remember every time I saw Cris Castler come in for rap all I could think of was Ziggy Stardust....Hey Man..awww leave me alone
Gotta love Bowie, helped keep me sane at times or atleast my head out of the rap and in my own little world.

[thepatriot]

And every time a new Straight opened up did it not open in a warehouse.....yep thats what ya do with your druggie kid , warehouse them and let someone else deal with them.

[Dr Fucktard]

That's right...low overhead is the key.

[RTP2003]

It was weird, how something as trivial as a song lyric, or talking to another misbehaver about bands, could help preserve sanity in there.  I remember in the fall of 83 a few misbehavers gave each other support and encouragement.  It helped for a couple of reasons--it diluted the firepower of the confrontation sessions, it took more manpower than group could muster to deal with multiple misbehaver, and it gave you a psychological boost as well.  I remember they put me and a few other misbehavers in the bathrooms.  There were about five or six of us.  We just hung out and talked about what we were going to do when we got out.  We had succeeded in disrupting the group enough to where the staff took us out--which is what we wanted anyway.  I know this happened when the group was low on o/cs and later I found out it was around this time that Straight was being investigated, so I guess we just picked the right month to misbehave.

[Don Smith]

I think he talked about "Backward Masking" and a lot of other shit he saw on a low budget Christian TV infomercial.

Yes it was called Back Masking.  There is a two video tape series called Hell's Bells that covers that topic.
A part of me thinks its for real while another part of me thinks you hear what you want to hear.

Don

[RTP2003]

I saw the documentary before I went in and someone gave me a copy a few years ago as a gag gift.  What a ridiculous notion!  Even funnier is how a few bands actually did put stuff on after the accusations came out.  Even if something does say "kill yer mom" backwards, forward, or sideways it ain't gonna make someone actually do it.  There was the famous case involving metal-fruits Judas Priest a few years back where the parents of a suicide tried to sue the band over alleged back masking and lost.  I think that even if a pro-suicide message was in there it still wouldn't make a difference.