Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter and musician Pi Jacobs is amplifying the concert experience on Live From Memphis, an inventive new album and her first for the Blackbird Record Label that places eight original songs alongside the personal stories that shaped them.
Recorded with a full band, LIVE at the DittyTV studios in Memphis TN, the project offers a sincere and sometimes funny look at her formative years, her family relationships, and even a few lessons she’s learned along the way.
Includes unlimited streaming of Live From Memphis
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
I was one of those teenage girls who thought about things, a LOT.
My mom had raised me on her own, and I had seen men come and go from our lives. Some were sweet and fatherly to me, and some who betrayed us, like Scott, who lived with us the year I was in Third Grade, who I liked, and who had THE DOG.
THE DOG’s name was KESEY, for the merry pranksters, which should have been a warning to us all. KESEY was a beautiful, sweet Australian sheepdog, who immediately became my best pal.
That year we lived as a family – my mother SO happy, Scott always laughing and fooling around, and of course my best bud KESEY, it was a little girls dream.
One day I woke up, and Scott and KESEY were gone. My mother lay on the kitchen floor like a wet mop rag doll. Apparently, Scott had moved in with some other woman (Maybe one without a kid?). My poor mom had no idea there was someone else and was devastated. I remember lots of my mom’s friends, women in floor length hippie skirts, coming to console her. They acted like it was sad, but also normal, to be abruptly left in the middle of the night without warning. I missed Scott, and I missed my mom being happy. Most of all, I missed my best bud Kesey.
SO, when it came to boys/men, I was pretty circumspect. As I became a teen, there were messages EVERYWHERE, be fun, be sexy, be available, and oh god how I tried. I drank, I smoked weed, I took diet pills, I was stupid, I partied HARD. Throughout this debauchery, ¬I was smart about just ONE thing: sex. I wasn’t going be duped by romance, and I certainly wasn’t going to let anyone get close enough to hurt me in THAT way.
When I was 16, I fell in madly in love, with the “right” kind of guy. I considered this new boyfriend an artsy soulmate, for we were in band, choir, drama, creative writing, and all of our AP classes together. When we were cast as lovers in the school play, and had to kiss onstage, I would almost pass out before every performance. I wondered my heart could be seen pounding from the back of the auditorium. What was supposed to be small kiss, took on the epic proportions of Bella and Edwards first kiss in Twilight, at least in my mind. To top it off, he was the son of a couple of my mother’s friends, so in a way, he was already family, and everyone was happy to see us together.
The boyfriend lived 90 minutes from our high school by car, and with all of our after-school activities, he often would spend the night at our house. In my room. Being in
love, and 16, well, things happened…. but I always knew when to draw the line. As I say, I thought, A LOT.
One day, while doing all of this thinking, I made a decision. My boyfriend was THE ONE, I was ready, and it was time to go ask my mother to take me to get birth control. After all, she had raised me on the idea that I could talk to her about ANYTHING.
So, I asked. “Sure”, she said, “I’ll take you to the Dr.” When the day came, and she dropped me at the curb, I was surprised. “Aren’t you coming in with me?”, I asked. Suddenly, she adopted an authoritarian look, something kind of rare for her. “If you’re old enough to make this choice, you are old enough to do this on your own” she said.
I was shocked, but I got out of the car. I think I had imagined that my de-virginizing would be some kind of celebrated Mother -Daughter thing. After all, she wasn’t gross about it, but she had had boyfriends, and was open about that fact that she had a sex life, so I assumed she would welcome me into mine, especially if I did it the RIGHT way, with a capital ‘R’. In my mind, I had already decided that this was the RIGHT way lose my virginity, without consulting a soul.
The Clinic was scary. Full pelvic exam, and informative, clinical nurses. I left with condoms and a pack of pills that I was told needed to be taken for one month before I could safely do the deed.
The boyfriend had no idea I was doing all of this. He continued to spend school nights in my bed, both of us in states of serious frustration. That month, he became stranger and stranger, spending the night with me, then acting as if he hardly knew me at school. Then, just one week before I was “ready”, He slept with a girl who was one grade younger than us, and in my humble opinion, seriously not worthy of him. I was devastated, but also furious.
With just 3 days to go till I was “ready for business”, I confronted the boyfriend. I told him that I would be all his, but that I wouldn’t share. I’ll give him this, he was honest when he said, “I can’t give you what you want”. So, I threw away the last 3 pills, remained a virgin, and was sad for a few months.
Is this a success story? I don’t know. I know that my heart still hurts a little bit over it.
I didn’t lose my virginity for another year, so when it did happen, I was a whole year more ready, which means a lot at 17. People who knew me from that time, probably would say I was a TOTAL party girl, but people who REALLY knew me, will know that I was secretly just a girl who thought… a LOT.
Pi Jacobs is amplifying the concert experience on Live From Memphis, an inventive new album that places eight original
songs alongside the personal stories that shaped them. Recorded with a full band, live at DittyTV in Memphis, the project offers a sincere and sometimes funny look at her formative years, her family relationships, and even a few lessons she’s learned along the way....more
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