About Me
Layout by CoolChaserFirst things first - about your FRIEND REQUEST: I WILL NOT APPROVE YOU IF YOU ARE SET TO PRIVATE!! I read every single profile of every single request that is made. I don't randomly approve or request people just to run my numbers up, so it takes me a long time. The longer it takes, the more interested I am in you. Sometimes I will leave you in the approval que until I have had time to thoroughly go through your profile, so don't take offense! It just means I'm interested!
Now, what should I say about myself if I wanted to tell someone about Me? How and where would I start? I'm going to start and see as an exercise because I am going through some life altering changes and maybe it will be interesting for ME to say who I think I am (interesting for ME anyway) I'm a Southern woman through and through. Scarlet to the bone. I take care of myself and the people I love and it is everything to me - to a fault and to exhaustion. I love everything about the South - the weather especially. The hotter it gets, the more sweltering it is, the more I come to life. Summer is my favorite time of year and I detest anything cold. Snow skiing? Not bloody likely - that's a double whammy - cold AND wet. You'll find me drinking a hot toddy by the fire chatting up the locals, digging for ghosts and good stories. I have a past that I don’t talk about very much. Why? I have lived many lives in this lifetime and me, pre-who-I-am-now is not that awesome. I should be behind bars for some of the things I've done - but you'd have to have been there. I don’t - and have never - done drugs on any scale that would give me bragging rights. I basically have never had to go further than my own head to get a buzz, get lost, freak out or lay back and watch the clouds go by. My weakness is tawny port and I can drink you and your buddies under the table and still turn a cartwheel in 8' platforms. I was born late. That is to say that I picture myself as a Southern Lady in a Gothic plantation house, strolling with a parasol in the run-down gardens of my unkempt home. The kooky garden woman nipping out of a flask when no one is looking. I was raised a good portion of my life on a plantation called Anchor Plantation in Louisiana and it stuck. This is the house of my Great-Grandmother Maxi White. Real live ghosts walked the floors, fireballs ran through the corridors, alligators were in the swamp outside the fenced areas and it all backed up to the Tensas River - all 1900 acres of it. I rode horses through fields of cotton and soybeans, watched cows and dogs be born and die, explored slave quarters that were still standing and was run out of barns by black snakes and skunks, ate crawdads and watermelons on the back porch and was schooled in the art of life by my Great-Grandmother, Grandmother Rosemary and the rest of my fabulously insane family. Part of my 1/3 is from South Carolina. I proudly claim Stuart Swanlund as my cousin - if you don’t know, he is the guitar player in Marshall Tucker and I think he's the coolest. My granddad played guitar and I have his early 1900s Gibson that I still play. Its a little whack, but I love the sound and the smell of it. My daddy is a scientist, which greatly influenced my religious beliefs and interest in all things scientific. He is also a guitar player and taught me many, many songs as a child. We would sit around his living room and listen to him play and sing and it was magic. He quit playing a very long time ago and I don’t know why. His folk edge and my grandfather's mountain ballad edge combined with my mother's crazy bar songs and love of rock and roll made me who I am musically. When I started playing and writing songs, I had not heard my granddad or my daddy play in a very long time, so I made up a lot of it. The way I play so slow and awkward makes my dad nuts and he hates to hear me bang on the guitar, but he's certainly not alone in that opinion. On the other hand, my mother Susan LOVES to hear me play and is my biggest fan (along with Buddy!) She's a fabulous artist and the best painter I know of, though she does not use her talents. She is funny and frustrating and the person I can say will always be there for me whether I'm in the right or wrong, she will fight for me. I was also raised in Fort Sanders for the other 1/3 of my upbringing. Back then there were loads of families still living there. Everything important that ever happened to me happened within a two mile radius of UT Campus. My parents bought a house on Laurel Avenue in the early 70s. My mom campaigned for McGovern and I learned about 'us' and 'them' from that campaign. I stood outside my elementary school and handed out fliers for McGovern and was made fun of by the other students for being one of 'us'. My parents divorced and told me about it in the kitchen of the Laurel Ave house. I smoked pot for the first time, felt jealousy for the first time, was harassed and got in fights for my unorthodox ways and looks. Heard the Sex Pistols, Ramones and B52s at the Last Record Store on 17th. I attended Tyson Junior High before its demise and met people that shaped my life like Shannon and MaryT. Through Shannon, I met others like Terry Hill and Carl Snow who definitely shaped who I thought I was and who I actually became. Saw the Gun Club, Iggy Pop and REM at clubs on the strip. Sang in my first band at Bundulees/Pickle U. Pub - even the building doesn’t exist anymore - just like the original Longbranch, The Place, Hobos, Foxy Lady and Yosimite Sam's - a great place to get killed btw. I fell in love, lost my virginity, got drunk, skipped school in Fort Sanders. I met my longtime best friends Bruce Fiene and Beth Gorham in Fort Sanders. We're still close to this day and I know that if I called either one of them, they would drop everything for me. I would do the same for them. Beth's dad died in Fort Sanders and changed us forever. We lost pals like Rusty - one of the good guys - along with many others including my first boyfriend who committed suicide when I was 15. I got my heart broken many times, picked on by the cops, beaten by the football team for being a punk bitch, ran over a man with my car, got stabbed in a bar fight (long and actually funny story), was betrayed by friends and betrayed myself, met Jeff Woods, got married in the UT Faculty Club, had two babies - the highlight of my life - at Baptist Hospital. Worked at the first clubs in the Old City - Annies and Manhattans. Met Nathan at Urban and the saga continues. I am intrinsically tied to this area though I crave to go south. More south. As far south as I can run - and stay. I'm a mom first and foremost. I do not get paid for my chosen profession. When my boys go out into this big ol world and people call them Gentlemen...that is my pay. I insist on good manners from them and that they treat all living things with respect. I make them tuck their shirttails - in a figurative manner - and though they have me wrapped around their fingers , they mind me. I am the mom. I am not their pal. What I hope is that some day they will look back and say 'our childhood was a BLAST - Mom was FUN' The second thing I hope is that when they are raising their own children, they think 'what would Mom do?' and mean it. I'm a lover, a fighter, an artist, an obsessive - a human. I'm a Pantheist, a Wiccan, a Pagan, a Witch...call it what you will. God is everything and everything is God. My heart betrays my exterior. Listen to my songs and you will find the real me. Did I murder? Do you have to actually stop a person's heart, or can you just make it shatter to be considered a murderer? What if you didn’t mean to do it? Sweltering heat, run down mansions, peeling paint, dark nights with bright stars, erotica (if you crave the dirty bits but need literate writing, check out Mark Pritchard...oooh he's so SICK) daylilies, magnolias, camellias, gardenias and hurricanes (both kinds!).....this is Me. This is not the MySpace me. This is the real Me - a sweet and together person. A mysterious, moody, gardener - a Taurus who will kick your fucking ass - make note of it - I WILL fuck your world up if you push me too far or lie to me. I have instant Karma, so I so not to lie. II am loyal if you are with me. I will not lie to you, betray you or do evil to you if you are with me on this wild ride. Here's the CRITIC'S CHOICE ME: ...Belting out dark blues and melancholy country ballads, Woods really defies description. Her music, which has been called "Appalachian gothic" by other music scribes, melds disparate influences into a beguiling yet menacing sound. Woods' music recalls likeminded artists like Gillian Welch, Tom Waits and nick Cave -- perhaps more in terms of emotional impact and lyrical content than the actual music. Woods combines the classic country vocal style of Patsy Cline or Loretta Lynn with lyrics that could rival those of The Louvin Brothers, The Velvet Underground or author Erskine Caldwell. ....Ms. Woods has surely been through enough true-life experience to add grit and reality to her siren songs of the wrong side of the tracks. As a teenager, the singer was a prominent figure in Knoxville's first wave punk scene. Later, she became locally famous (or is it infamous?) as a gothic scene maker and fashion plate. Woods was a pioneer of the post-punk, neo rockabilly look that is the current vogue. In fact, one could say that she was a prototype Suicide Girl. Now happily married with kids, Woods has calmed down quite a lot. But this newfound maturity certainly hasn't diluted her vitriol. If Lydia Lunch sang country songs with the voice of Billie Holiday, well, that might just be an apt description of what Woods delivers. (John Sewell 2005) Listeners are often at a loss to categorize her haunting and erotic music, more often finding comparisons in film and literature. Leslie's songs draw on the rich tradition of southern gothic writing. The moniker, "Appalachian Gothic" is more a reference to Flannery O'Connor than music. The songs that make up The Luxury of Sin are glimpses into a soul so adeptly rendered that they work on the level of film noir. The tales are painted vividly but never in clear view. Though Leslie's strong and breathy vocals are center stage throughout the record, it is her band Dark Mountain Orchid that seals the deal. Pulling from nearly every American musical tradition, they seamlessly weave rock, country, bluegrass, folk and jazz in a way that works effortlessly
