Rockstar Betty was a weasel–a hardcore weasel– and she was not about to take any shit from any punk-ass bitches who got between her and stardom.  It was tough out there in a man’s world; a weasel had to work damned hard to make it to the top.  Voice lessons.  English lessons.  The endless hours of starving herself and getting her makeup done.  One particular evening when she found herself yet again spending another lonely night practicing her various poses (such as “Sexy Weasel” and “Tough Weasel” and “Thank-you-for-the-Grammy-dahling-Weasel”), her annoying younger brother poked his nose into her burrow.

“What the hell do you even do, Betty?” he asked.  ”Why would anyone make you famous?  All you do is pose and try to speak English.  That’s like … a groupie or something.”

He’d said it: the G-word.  A word that implied loose morals, talentless clinging, and limited lifespan. As he wandered off, she collapsed in the corner to cry.  He was right.  None of the weasel stars in Hollywood associated with poor, backwoods types like her; she’d never be famous unless she was a groupie.

Rockstar Betty straightened with resolve.  She refused to be a groupie!  She knew she had true talent to bestow on the world–she needed only to discover it. For the next several weeks, Betty experimented with avenues to fame.  She first tried acting, thinking her voice lessons could be put to good use.  However, weasel roles in Hollywood were few, and nonexistent in Wisconsin where she lived.  Perhaps she could become a star writer, she thought.  Failure:  her paws could not grip a pen.  This unfortunate fact also excluded careers in art, fashion design, and even “Star Sushi Chef.”

Lack of opposable thumbs, she lamented.  Everything artistic and worthy of fame required hands with thumbs, not paws with claws. Betty, never the type to let a dream go unrealized, immediately pawed through her treasured copy of “The Yellow Pages” (marvelous book!  A catalogue of anyone and everyone in the whole area, and who knew what sordid tales each name contained?) She paused at the “Cosmetic Surgery” section.  Appointments were made.  Consultations were had.  Ridicule was heaped, and requests flatly denied.

“Betty, is it?” said one kindly old surgeon.  “I can appreciate your ambition, but I’m afraid I wasn’t trained in veterinary cosmetic surgery.”  He frowned and scratched his head. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of anyone who is.  There’s just not a great need for it.”

“But surely I’m not the only weasel in town who wants a hand transplant?” she exclaimed.

The old doctor shook his head.  “No, no, I’m pretty sure you are, actually.”

Betty stomped out the door.  “Ok,” she muttered under her breath, “Plastic surgery and hand transplants are out.”

This would have been a great time for a wise fairy to appear and give Betty advice on how to achieve her dreams.  But this did not happen due to Betty’s perception of reality and her belief that wise fairies didn’t exist.  Unbeknownst to her was a long line of wise fairies pounding at the door between realities, desperate to rush into her awareness and give her the wisdom she needed, but Betty’s belief system simply wouldn’t let her see them, no matter how many cartwheels they turned nor how loudly they shouted, “HELLO, YOU ARE A TALKING WEASEL, DON’T YOU THINK THAT FACT MIGHT HELP YOU?”  This opportunity passed hardcore Betty by due to her rejection of all things girly and whimsical.

Despairing, Betty did what all despondent weasels do: she went to the Weasel Bar and ordered an acorn-cap of distilled fermented prairie grass, a loathsome beverage that suited her sour mood.

“What’s wrong, Betty?” asked the bartender as he poured her drink

“I will never be creative and famous,” she sniffled.  “I have no hands, so I can’t hold a paintbrush, a microphone, chopsticks, a guitar, chopping knives, oil crayons, sewing needles, pens, chisels, or purse dogs.”

“Ah,” said the bartender.

“And the plastic surgeons all laughed at me when I asked for a hand transplant.”

“I don’t blame them,” he said.  Then, pitying the poor young weasel whose dreams had been sacrificed to a thankless demon on the alter of reality, he turned to her.

“Betty,” he said, “I’ve seen a lot of forest animals come and go through this crazy weasel bar of mine.  And you—“

She turned her eyes up to him expectantly, a gleam of hope catching the dim light.

“—ain’t nothing special, I gotta say.”

She dropped her head on to the bar with a dismal bang.

“But I think you could make something of yourself if you consider finding fame with what God gave you.”

“Paws?” she mumbled, slurping her drink.

“Well … what do weasels do best?”

“Hunt and kill.”

“That’s right.  You’re trying to be something you’re not, using skills and appendages that God didn’t give to your kind.  But hunting and killing, well, that’s something you can show the world.”

She snorted and gestured for another glass of the fiendish brew.  “No one wants to see me hunting and killing.  I’m a vegetarian, remember?”

“Yes, you are.  Now ain’t that unusual?”

(“AND YOU ARE A TALKING WEASEL!” Screeched the helpful fairies behind their dimensional veil, now wilting under the strain of their frustrated effort at career counseling.)

He bartender motioned toward the door.   “I gotta close up, kiddo, but I’m gonna give you two words: National Geographic. Look ‘em up in that big yellow book of yours.”

Betty took his advice. National Geographic, she discovered, was very interested in hunting and killing.  The managing editor had been toying with the idea of a “vegetarian slaughter” documentary, and Betty was his ideal model, he said.

“Here, dahling, let’s try this—there you are, lounging on the prairie, when you spy the slowest, fattest, most tasty mouse.”

“Oh my god, gag me,” Betty said.

“Oh yes, say that again, say it with even more disgust and vigor, like you can barely contain your vomit at the thought of its little mousy skeleton.”

“EWWW!”

“Perfect, Betty, perfect!”

Thus started Betty’s rapid rise into stardom. She could, it seemed, be famous even without hands.  Models were not required to do anything but convey “a look.”  And if she got to stalk wild onions while looking pretty, then who could ask for more?

“Finally!” grumbled the helpful fairies as they flew away from the dimensional door, headed toward the Fairy Bar for an acorn-cap of distilled rosewater.  They’d had a hard day.  “Weasels!” griped one.  “They never have the decency to realize when they’re starring in a fairy tale.”

Photo by phoneymanflickr (this is the Weasel Groupie that Rockstar Betty did not wish to be–probably a ferret, actually.  Damn ferrets)

Tags: Bizarre Animal Stories, Self-Improvement by splarks
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Eunice the pigeon did not live a glamorous life, but unlike most of her peers, she was determined to rise above her dreary roost in the parking garage’s concrete rafters. She didn’t mind the exhaust-filled space, or even the laughable “pigeon barriers” around her nest. “What I crave,” she lamented to anyone who’d listen, which in this case was her sister Barbara, “is to create a legacy, a memoir of avian city life and one pigeon’s brave quest to rise above the grit and grime and bring beauty and song to the world.”

Unimpressed, Barbara continued pecking at the cement traffic barrier. “So you want to be a storyteller,” she yawned. “Big deal. Pigeons have a billion of ‘em. I mean, Mom and Dad never shut up about the huge cicada they caught in ’06. Everyone’s a storyteller.”

“I want to be something different! I want to be … a writer!”

Barbara squinted at her. “What’s a writer?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” admitted Eunice, fluffing her feathers. “But according to the vendors on the corner, these writers tell stories and then the stories are distributed all over the world. I think,” she frowned, “they tell a story through a particular kind of art called ‘typing.’” She gazed fiercely at her sister. “I will learn this art of typing, and I will be a writer and then all will know the hidden avian story of this city!”

Barbara, engrossed in the tiny pebble she’d dislodged from the cement, ignored her.

It was fortunate that Eunice was born in the Technological Age in which writers are not required to put pen to paper, because pigeon talons weren’t designed to grip a pen. That she could not spell nor read had not yet occurred to her. (Be kind. Pigeon brains are small, and Eunice’s was bigger than most). Stealthily observing human writers in coffee shops and libraries, she learned that “typing” involved illogically smacking the tops of “keys” on a “keyboard.” She watched the humans stare intently into space, apparently forming a complex and moving thought. Then they’d smack away at the keys, finally printing what appeared to be abstract art. Each key, she learned, created a small symbol designed to evoke some emotional response from the reader.

“It’s fascinating!” she told Barbara over a meal of rainwater and worms. “The writer creates an idea in his or her head, and through the creation of these abstract symbols, the meaning is conveyed to the reader!  It’s like alchemy, a mysterious process that perhaps not even God understands! Perhaps this is an energetic transmission? A merging of the minds? A melding of auras?”

Barbara stuffed a decapitated worm into her gullet. “What’s an aura?” she said thickly.
Eunice didn’t know, but rather than admit it, she continued. “When has art ever been logical?” she cooed aloud. “Is story telling not an art?”

And so that wintery evening, she squeezed through a half-open office window and waddled nervously to the computer, that godlike engine of creativity. Hopping from key to key, she coaxed magical symbols to emerge in whatever way pleased her. An “I” there, a Q followed by a YYF. An H here, three nines, and a P, no, a J! Then, moodily, she stared at the creation, only to erase it. It had not properly conveyed the concept she wished to express, which was:
My pigeon life is full of gray
The concrete, my feathers, the hats of heads I poop on
The clouds and smog of this cold city
I long for color and warmth
If I flew for 40 days and 40 nights, would I end up in Hawaii?
Would I wake up as a Bird of Paradise?

Finally, she arranged the letters in a way that seemed most appropriate. She gazed at her creation:

UHHeLVJ           QPG DKFKKKKKKK1198^

Was there too much white space? Did the repetition of that spiky letter fully express her sentiments? Was concluding with a ^ overkill? She would find a time to revise. In the meantime, she called the poem “Lament of a City Pigeon.”

In the harsh light of January, the truth about the world of writing emerged. Not a single publisher deigned to take her writing seriously. When a publishing house bothered to respond to her, the letters were harsh.* “We don’t have time for jokes in this office,” and “This is a serious literary magazine –please take your tasteless humor elsewhere,” or even “If you truly are a pigeon as you say, you need to get back to soiling car hoods.” Alone in her concrete rafters, she cried bitterly when the seventeenth rejection letter appeared, as it was now undeniable that her second-class status as a pigeon would keep her from ever getting respect as a writer.

Fed up with the stress of city living and the constant rejection of the literary world, she flew to visit her friend Pablo in Los Angeles. A vacation, she figured, might distract her from the pain.

“Hey Pab,” she said glumly, settling into his swanky roost above the law firm. “How goes the carrier pigeon business?”

“Oh hey Eunice,” he said, looking up from his citrus-laced martini, removing a mint sprig from his beak. “It’s going well. How’s the writing stint? Barbara said you were going to learn typing or something.” He paused as he looked at her droopy wings and dragging feet. “You look like you could use a drink.” He motioned toward the rooftop bar.

“I’m a failure,” she sighed. “I send in my deepest heartfelt writing and I know it’s good, but no one will publish the writings of a pigeon.  ”

Pablo stopped, his martini halfway to his beak. “Really?” he asked, suddenly very interested. “Is that what they said? Because you’re a pigeon?”

“Well, yes,” she said, and gave him the litany of angry anti-pigeon rejections, concluding with the dreadful “soiling car hoods” insult.

“And you saved the letters?”

“Of course,” she said. “Don’t all great writers save their rejection letters to laugh at once they’re famous?” She smiled wryly. “I should use them to line my nest. I’ll never be famous or even noteworthy.”

If Pablo had been born with lips, he would have been grinning.  “I think you’ll soon be both, dear. You see, publishers aren’t supposed to discriminate against writers due to race, age, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.”

“They’re not?”

“No, they aren’t. Oh, of course they do. But they are seldom foolish enough to say it so boldly, and in writing, as they did to you. And while discrimination against species isn’t expressly mentioned in most corporate bylaws, I think there’s a precedent. We have a very strong case, Eunice. Don’t you worry.  “Lament of a City Pigeon” will be published in the finest literary magazines imaginable.”

Pablo was right. It was. After the court case, Eunice became the first Avian Poet to grace the cover of The New Yorker, along with rave reviews of her touching, tragic poem.

And that is how pigeons learned to be litigious and crap wherever they please, how poetry magazines became incomprehensible, and why I have to write extremely carefully or risk the wrath of an interspecies advocacy group. Libel suits are real, and pigeons have eons worth of resentment over those spiky things in parking garages and high-rise windows, not to mention the fake owls in dormer windows everywhere. No matter how tempting, never ridicule Avian art.

Photo “lolduck” by Krysten_N

***

Do you suppose Eunice went on to join the crew at Splarks Hypothetical Press, pooping on the pages of  emo poetry submissions?

Tags: Bizarre Animal Stories, Self-Improvement by splarks
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I couldn’t resist.

Adria Richards at But You’re a Girl, a great technology blog, recently wrote about how animals don’t react to stress the way humans do.  When zebras are faced with a stressful situation, such as lions at their watering hole, they leave.  They don’t hang around to, as she said, “complain to other Zebras about the lion showing up, call up more Zebras on the phone as backup or whip out their Zebra pocket knives to shank the lion.”

I, of course, thought, “But what if they did?”  And so, intrepid visitors, read on to find out what happens when zebras and iPhones mix.

It was a peaceful morning on the savanna of Dodge, and the zebras meandered down to their favorite watering hole, the one with minimal pond scum and sweet green grass. The water sparkled in the sun and the fish splashed happily … until the delightful scene darkened under the shadow of a vicious lion pride!

Cleve the Zebra was a leader and seldom left things to chance. He had resources and he knew how and when to use them. At the first sight of the lions (“flea-ridden monstrosities,” as he thought of them) immediately reached for his iPhone and spoke, allowing the auto-dial to complete the number. He relaxed slightly at the sound of his adviser’s polite, professional voice. “Chrissy!” he shouted. “There are lions at this watering hole! They could totally snap our tender bones between their powerful jaws, sucking out our marrow and leaving our skeletons to bleach in the sun! What should we do?” He nodded. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Ok, thanks.” He looked up to the herd of cowering zebras, who fixated fearfully on the felines. A lioness glanced over and flipped her tail disinterestedly, sending the group into paroxysms.

Cleve knew he had to take charge lest hysteria rule the watering hole. He stood straight and snapped, “Ok, listen! I contacted Chrissy, who is a masters-level specialist in zebra-lion relations. She suggested that we call for backup. We prepared for this, remember? Who has the contact tree?”

But while their emergency plan had seemed adequate when the Preparedness Committee had created it, zebra hooves are not especially conducive to dialing numbers on fancy phones. Without the ease of voice-dialing pre-programmed numbers, the plan fizzled. Expensive phone screens shattered and incorrect numbers were dialed. Cleve groaned as he listened to the ensuing mayhem.

“Hello, Atticus? What? No … no I don’t want to order a pizza. I’m sorry. I dialed a wrong number. But wait, did you say that anchovy pesto gorgonzola pizzas were half price today? Ok, so what’s your delivery range? Your vehicles are insured against lions, right?”

“Marion? Oh, I do apologize, I was trying to reach … I’m sorry, what? A dating service, you say, for wild and frisky savanna mammals? Hmm … not that I’d be interested in such a thing, but if I were …”

“Hello?  Hello?  Hold on, I got a text–”

“Belinda, help! We have … oh, my apologies, I certainly didn’t mean to dial up the Mormon temple. Well, yes, of course I’ve heard of Jesus Christ, but— made lions lay down with lambs, you say? Really? How much does he charge for this service? If the lambs were to be replaced with zebras, would there be a substitution fee?”

Cleve tossed his phone into the pond. “Useless piece of unnecessarily expensive technology!” he grumbled. He glanced surreptitiously towards the flea-ridden monstrosities otherwise known as “lions.” They were momentarily satiated, if the piles of gazelle corpses nearby were any indicators. He sighed. Those corpses wouldn’t just walk off–they’d be littering the watering hole for ages, ruining the stylish Zen ambiance with an ill-advised gothic look. He supposed the jackals would start showing up at night soon, decorating the skeletons with black lights and bat wings. The thought made him determined to avert this crisis.

“New tactic!” he shouted.

Merv, who was Vice President of the Preparedness Committee, looked up excitedly. “Say, there’s this Jesus fellow who might be able to help. Sort of a hypnotist, I think, specializes in lions.” Excited discussion followed, but it was determined that this “Jesus” had been dead for years and that lions would probably not feel threatened by an insubstantial ghost.

“New tactic!” shouted Cleve again. But the zebras were huddled around the lone surviving iPhone, looking at personal ads on the “Savanna Hookup Love Meet” website and munching on pizza. Pizza? He noticed a young pizza delivery driver speeding away and looking nervously over his shoulder. The useless bastards! He thought. Give them some junk food and empty promises of getting laid, and look what happens.

The lions– their gluttonous food-coma wearing off– were growing increasingly interested in the noisy zebra herd. Cleve fretted. What to do? Was he the only zebra who gave a damn any more about the safety of the herd?

Suddenly, a scream rang throughout the grassland! Elwin, the reclusive zebra obsessed with survivalism and planetary doom (and the lone zebra who refused an iPhone), was charging the pride of lions. In his mouth was a sharpened stick. It was hard to make out what he was screaming, but it sounded a bit like “Gonna shank you, fascist punks!”

For a moment, the herd was distracted from their vices. They cheered— finally, a defender who would do something! But then the lions turned as one to face the charging zebra, and the scene turned horribly wrong. All members of the herd closed their eyes in horror, except for Merv, who held up the iPhone to capture the gory demise on video. “Oh of course I won’t post it online,” he muttered in response to the outraged protests of his companions. “This is for … um … science. The, uh … science of shanks.”

Defeated, the zebras simultaneously flopped down in the grass. “That’s it,” someone sighed. “They’ll pick us off one by one over the next few months and in the meantime, our watering hole will be infested by goth jackals and thrill-seekers.”

“We could come here only in the afternoons,” another zebra suggested. “You know, hang out part time and reduce our risk.” But no one thought that hanging around part time to get eaten was significantly different than their current situation.

“We could kill ourselves now,” suggested someone. Silence spread as the zebras considered this possibility. It would certainly cut short on the waiting time and pain. Rather proactive, really, Cleve mused. They could hold their heads underwater until they drowned–

Something tickled in his mind as he saw one of the lions lithely get up. What was it? Something about … being … pro … pro-something …actually doing something to effect change in the desired manner …

“I GOT IT!” he hollered. “We can run away! RUN!”

He ran a few steps before realizing that there was no thunder of hooves behind him. He turned and saw the herd sitting quietly and looking at him, puzzled, as the lions grew closer.

“Look,” he said, “we have control over this situation. We don’t have to just react helplessly to a fate we didn’t choose. We can deal with this threat right now! There are other watering holes out there, ones that don’t have lions! They might even be better than this hole!”

“Not possible,”Merv said staunchly. “Best grass here, no pond scum. And now we know it’s got pizza delivery service, too.” The rest of the zebras nodded in agreement.

“But you haven’t even seen what’s out there! NO LIONS, people! Isn’t that worth the chance? What’s the worse that can happen? We spend a few weeks at a watering hole with grass that isn’t as great?”

The zebras gazed skeptically at him, holding their pizza crusts protectively. “But we have pizza now! It would be stupid to leave.”

Cleve groaned. “No lions, people! No lions! Come on, now, run! Forget your fancy technology and your pizza and RUN!”

And as the lions finally reached the pride and descended with teeth and tawny fur upon the herd, a precious few understood what Cleve was trying to say and they got the hell out of Dodge.

The moral of the story, dear readers, as Adria informs us, is “Don’t hang around waiting to be eaten.” Think of your soul. Your nice, sweet soul. Who’s trying to eat it? And why aren’t you walking away?

Tags: Bizarre Animal Stories, Self-Improvement by splarks
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I admit to liking some old Jefferson Airplane songs, but I fail to find kind words for its later incarnation, Jefferson Starship. Recently I was tortured with the song “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” and an alternate interpretation came to mind.

Don’t you wonder what they’re really singing about? Let me tell you, friends, in another installation of Self-Help Thursday.
***

Hello there, Grace and Mickey.  Welcome to my Rock Star Therapy practice.  So you’d like to talk about your relationship.  I’m surprised, since I didn’t think you two were in a romantic relationship.  I guess things are complicated, huh?  I’m happy to help you using my vast array of psychotherapy credentials.  Mickey, why don’t you start? Tell me about your feelings for Grace.

Looking in your eyes I see a paradise
This world that I’ve found
Is too good to be true
Standing here beside you
Want so much to give you
This love in my heart that I’m feeling for you

Mickey, this is a classic case of self-fulfilling prophecy.  By assuming that the relationship is too good to be true, you set yourself up for failure.  People with low self-esteem often feel this way, but you don’t have to join them.  Recognize your own self-worth and infuse your relationship with it.  Grace, care to comment?

Let ‘em say were crazy
I don’t care about that

Well, Grace, you’ve made it clear that you don’t care about other people’s interpretation of your mental state.  I’ve seen your art exhibits and you’re in the other polarity:  very high self-esteem.  Mickey, you could learn a little from Grace’s approach.  But I’m sorry, Grace dear, I didn’t meant to interrupt.  What were you saying?

Put your hand in my hand baby
Don’t ever look back

That’s right!  Don’t look back at those people who very obviously think you’re crazy.  Are they trained mental health professionals?  No, they are not!  So what will you say to those nay-sayers and name-callers?

Let the world around us just fall apart
Baby we can make it if we’re heart to heart

Grace, this is where a high self-esteem person like you runs into trouble. This normally positive trait becomes overconfidence.  If the world fell apart, you would certainly not Make It.  Skyscrapers could fall on your head or a giant sidewalk hole could open, or the monkey cage in the zoo could collapse and let loose a pack of raging gorillas.  You won’t survive raging gorillas, Grace.  No matter how strong our confidence is, we humans have our limits.  Try again.

And we can build this dream together
Standing strong forever
Nothing’s gonna stop us now.

Please, let’s look at reality.  You won’t live forever, and things can definitely stop you.  In fact, taking the time to identify your obstacles is the first step to prevent them from ruining your lives.  I sense that this this unrealistic view of the future is holding back your relationship.  Let’s rephrase and try for a more sensible approach.

And if this world runs out of lovers
We’ll still have each other

Grace and Mickey, I’m a little suspicious of your motives.  Previously you referred to the world falling apart, and now you say the world also risks running out of lovers.  Given that the world is steeped in delusional romantics, a shortage  is impossible unless you know something the rest of us don’t know.  You … you don’t, do you?

Nothing’s gonna stop us
nothing’s gonna stop us now.

Ok, nothing is gonna stop you from WHAT?

I’m so glad I found you
I’m not gonna lose you
Whatever it takes I will stay here with you.

You’re making me nervous now.  Come on, I thought you wanted relationship counseling but you keep hinting at some dangerous event on the horizon.  So you have insider’s knowledge on what it will take to stay alive?  What is it?

Take it to the good times
See it through the bad times
Whatever it takes is what I’m gonna do.

The good times end and the bad times are coming?  I think you aren’t telling me something.  What are you two planning?  Unleashing the plague?  Poisoning the water supply?  Calling up the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse so you can laugh at us poor mortals screaming in the face of divine wrath?

Let ‘em say were crazy
what do they know?

Who are “They,” Grace?  When people in my practice talk about “They,” it’s never a good sign!

Put your arms around me baby
Don’t ever let go
Let the world around us just fall apart

Again with the world falling apart!

Baby we can make it if we’re heart to heart

What is this, some kind of twisted version of the Vulcan mind meld but using hearts instead?  I knew it!  You’re aliens, aren’t you, and this whole spiel is a smug foreshadowing of your impending invasion!  The name change from Jefferson Airplane to Jefferson Starship all makes sense now.  And to think I was lecturing you about the limitations of human beings.  You don’t have to worry about that, do you?

Ooh, all that I need is you
All that I ever need
And all that I want to do
Is hold you forever, ever and ever
Hey!

Oh my god.  You’re looking at me.  You want to hold ME forever and ever in your twisted world of alien invasions and vampiric everlasting life.  Dear God, help me.  They’re coming closer, closer …

(guitar solo;  sound of shrieking and slurping)

***

The bad part about writing this is that I have that song stuck in my head now, and I particularly dislike it.  I do think singer Grace Slick is a cool chick;  she’s an artist now.

Tags: Alien Oddities, Self-Improvement by splarks
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Welcome to Self-Improvement Thursday on Splarks.com! Although more critter tales are on their way, including an interview with El Chupacabra, this series is aimed at helping rock stars find inner peace. Today we’re visiting a problem from one of my (shush) favorite classic rock bands.

Good Morning, Robert! I’m pleased to meet you and I know we’re going to have a good session today. So what’s on your mind? Tell me why you’ve come to see me.

Wanna tell you about the girl I know
My she looks so fine
She’s the only one that I been dreamin’ of
Maybe someday she will be all mine

Love’s grand, isn’t it? You want to shout it to the world. But there’s something more on your mind, isn’t there?

I wanna tell her that I love her so
And thrill her with my every touch
I need to tell her she’s the only one I really love

Take a breath there, buddy! OK, so you need to work up the courage to express your true feelings, but you’re having a little trouble doing that. What’s been upsetting your plans?

I got a woman, wanna ball all day

I see. Passion is a wonderful thing, but it can cloud our intent and distract from the issue at hand.

I got a woman, she won’t be true, no

So we’re dealing with some trust issues, here, eh?

I got a woman, stay drunk all the time

Oh dear, there’s substance abuse on top of it? It must be very overwhelming, trying to deal with substance abuse, sexual addiction, and the inability to convey your deepest emotions.

I said I got a little woman and she won’t be true!

Er … yes, I heard you. But we need to get to the root of her infidelity and the reason that you’re allowing it – yes, I said allowing it, Robert, because despite how it seems, you are in control of your life. Can you think of situations in your life together that could be masking a deeper problem?

On Sunday morning when we go down to church
see the men-folk standin’ in line
They say they come to pray to the Lord
but when my little girl looks so fine

God can be your ally, Robert. What other people do or think isn’t so important – it’s when you close your eyes and listen to that quiet, still voice inside that -

In the evening when the sun is sinkin’ low
Everybody’s with the one they love
I walk the town, Keep a-searchin’ all around
Lookin’ for my street corner girl

Whoa! Robert, I think we’re dealing with something more serious than infidelity. On one hand, you two are going to church together. On the other hand, you’re acknowledging – and I’m just repeating what you said here – that you’re in love with a prostitute. Do you see what kind of a double life you’re leading? You’re pulling yourself in two different directions, one towards a clean-living life with your church, and the other towards a sordid street life of alcohol and illegal sex trade. I can see that you love this woman. Maybe you even feel responsible for her and don’t want her to get hurt. But ask yourself this: what are you getting out of this relationship? At the end of a long hard day of work, where are you?

In the bars, with the men who play guitars
Singin’, drinkin’ and rememberin’ the times

Right. And what’s the love of your life doing while you try to relax and get a little peace of mind?

My little lover does the midnight shift
She ball around all of the time

I’m gonna be straight with you, Robert, because I know you’re a strong person and that you can handle what I’m about to say. This girl is bad news. Relationships are all about giving and taking, and she’s giving and giving and giving in all the wrong ways. But what is she giving to you? You need someone you can trust, someone who cares about your needs and your feelings. You’ve tried hard to prove your love, but it hasn’t made an impression on her.

I guess there’s just one thing left for me to do
So I pack my bags and move on my way

That’s right! You deserve better. You’re making a statement right now: Hey Universe! I’m Robert Plant and I deserve the best that Love has to offer! I’m not settling for deception. I’m not accepting lies masquerading as love anymore!

Cause I got a worried mind
Sharin’what I thought was mine
Gonna leave her where the guitars play

You’ve got a plan, my friend.

Hey, hey, what can I do?

Walk right out the door and don’t look back. Walk towards your future, Robert.

Whoa, whoa, what can I say?

I have two words for you: Adios, chica. Keep me updated on your progress, Robert. We’re out of time for today, but I know you can take this important step towards a better life.

(“Hey Hey What Can I Do?” Lyrics by Led Zeppelin, 1970)

Tags: Self-Improvement by splarks
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