It’s my life and I’ll do as I like #EricBurdon 2/10/16

Here I sit on the night before I am to see him sing again for the first time in almost 18 years unable to sleep at 2 am. Even though deep down  I know it will make me look and feel really rough at his show tomorrow . That’s okay, though  he wont be able to see me this time. For the first time, I will be just another face in the crowd but he will  as always, be in the spotlight  on the stage.

The last time  I  saw  him I  was almost forty and I had known him since  was barely more than a child  and adored him  from almost the moment we met. When it ended,  I swore I would never think of him, or watch him,  look for him, or even listen to him  on the radio ever again and for over  15 years that’s exactly what I did . But it takes a lot of  emotional energy to stay that mad  at  someone and hate anyone for that long and that much.

I didn’t realize until I let it go how much work it had been all those years.

But I had almost immediately  came to  the  realization  as I started to work  on my memoir “Even Rock and Roll has Fairy Tales” that all that  hate and anger were  ruining the earliest  drafts of my book and  the only way  I would be able to tell this Fairies tale was to find  way  to forgive him  and I discovered  even fall for him again (just a little bit)  in order to tell my story in the way it should be told.

Through the eyes of that sheltered and innocent teenage girl who worshiped him and had no idea until it actually  happened exactly how  it was all going to end . As I began to tell the story i realized the only way to was going to work  was if I  was able to write about the good times as if the bad ones had ever happened.  So i did what you do and what I was dreading  had successfully managed to avoid dong  this time . I googled him. When I saw him for he first time on You Tube  I could barely  recognize him. I think that helped me begin to  forgive him.

How could such a sweet lovely chubby jolly  little old man who looked like Santa now be the obnoxious  notorious Eric Burdon of the Animals? That  raucous,  rowdy and  randy  baddest of  all the boys in the band boy who had  stumbled  into my life at 17 and  practically raised me  along  the highways  byway of the rock ad roll road to ruin,  A man I  was now  so angry  at and  so despised i had blocked every trace of  his very existence on our planet and completely  out of my mind and life  for almost two decades ?

As I worked on my book I found I had to watch him and listen to him, think about him  non-stop day and night for almost  two years . Not only did I have  to try to re-live every moment of it,  in order to get  it right i must become  become consumed by thinking of every little detail to transport me back  through  the last thirty five years.  I was putting myself into  a hypnotic state,  to recall every detail. Concentrating as  hard as I  could on the trivial things

“What color were the curtains in the hotel room in Philly?  How did Eric have his eggs in the morning, and did he have them with coffee or tea? What dress was I wearing that day? What shoes? What did he have on?  How did I get to the show?  What happened on the way there or home?”

Spending  hours meditating on every tiny detail i could remember , trying to play my mind back to bring it all into focus o i could replay it a again in my mind then on paper like cleaning the tape as you were rewinding a dvr and i was amazed  by how many important  and specific memories this technique brought back  for me when I could finally  replay it all again in full detail from beginning to end .

But by  going back  by sinking so  deeply in o the moments where he…  did what he did…  and about what I did …. not knowing any better, especially now when I knew how it all was  to turn out and feeling it all just as i did them   was not fun or easy. Remembering in the most accurate and infinite detail  while immersed in this trance- like heightened state of sensitivity.  Meanwhile I still  had to try to figure out how one goes about  actually writing their very first book .

Foolish little me, having no concept back then  of what it took to self publish, promote  and market a book  when you don’t have the deep pockets of a big publishing house or any publisher at all, for that matter, to tel the word our book exist so they  might consider buying it (  however  Eric having a huge come- back at the exact same time i finished  mine and got it on the shelf  certainly didn’t hurt in that repect) I can  still  remember  saying to myself  right  after i wrote with  huge flourish  THE END

” There, now that is done I can go back to never letting you  cross my mind again.”

Little did i know then I would end up  starting  “Eric Burdon knows Even Rock and Roll  has Fairy Tales” an Eric Burdon/Sherry Carroll books fan page  on FB  followed by thousands over the last three years. That I would be constantly surrounded by his legions of fans from all around the globe and I would end up still hearing his records almost non stop all day long , seeing his videos posted a  dozen of times  day, constantly  promoting him and myself all over the internet and social media  and endless hours talking about his life, his  career, and  music and  interacting with his fans non stop ever since.  so actually  instead of being rid of him  once  story had been told HE’S ALWAYS EVERYWHERE I GO!

I never really mind  too much  though , after all, for most of my life i was one of the most fervent of fans myself!  I was a huge fan of his extraordinary talent  and that amazing  voice long before i meet the man himself and long before he was he living legend he is now. But what they sometimes ail to understand  I have  had  very long and interesting life,  most of which I was paying absolutely no attention  at all to his after all these years.

That i am not, nor ever have been an expert on his every move or  have memorized all the trivia of his life  or music year after year . I don’t  know their  Eric Burdon, their Hero and   The Living Legend they think they do. I just know a man , as imperfect as any other, that I cared about very much once upon a time but who hurt me badly and that it sometimes  gets really old, really fast, when people want to talk to me about nothing else  but him day after day.

Most  of of you have probably got a x or two in your past  you would prefer  unexpectedly  dropped of the face of the earth  then to hear  from hundred of people on a daily basis about their great talent and  what wonderful human beings  they are.  Bleck!

So one must learn to grow a sense of humor about it or go mad!

And keep on plugging your book.

So when i found out six months ago he was coming here for two nights in February  my first reaction was I would rather stick flaming knitting needles in my eyes than go anywhere near those shows and that man again, and after my book I’m quite sure he feels the exact same way  about me. Even though I’ve forgiven him, mostly because i had no choice, I  still suspected if I were to ever find myself alone in he same room with him there is a  very good possibility i would end up kicking his elderly and  smacking  that  smirk right off his face before the end of the evening…

But a time went on  i felt myself gravitating towards the idea, pulled almost as if  fighting all the cosmic forces mighty wind and  having to hold on  for dear life  to keep  from going against my will  until one day  I realized I actually  did really  want to see for myself just how he  is  doing these days now that he 74 years old.  We are both getting old enough now   that one never knows when your next chance to see someone  who is a starring cast member in  the  story of your life  might be your last.

I have seen him on stage so many times but  never from the audience  only from the wings but I got brave,  bought  some tickets and  rounded up some supportive friends to go along to pass the numerous box of tissues  i am  quite  likely  going to  need to get through the entire show.

It just seemed like the right thing to do and if i didn’t  the day I read  the news he was gone and  knew I would truly never see or hear him speak  or sing again i would surely regret it forever .

I’m sure this  will continue to be the emotional equivilaat of  a extremely thrilling  and terrifying, shake, ratting and rolling carnival ride  and yet somehow a very familiar and  comfortable one  I  still felt very safe in , as I had been lovingly tucked into my spot  on this particular ride  since I was just a child.

And even though he wont see me sitting out there in the crowd,  instead of inside in the dressing room  I am  certain  he will know I am there.

Even Rock and Roll has Fairy Tales by Sherry Carroll on Amazon.com