Let's Get to the Truth about Scott Weiland

When Rolling Stone mag published an open letter by Mary Forsberg just days after the death of Scott, I was disgusted. She painted him as a narcissistic junkie who never got clean for long and who was a deadbeat father who ignored his children. Their children that were desperate for a relationship with their father but had realised what a fuck up he was. True or not, it left a very bad taste in my mouth to be saying these type of things about a man she shared a life with only 4 days after he had passed. I also bawked at the rather overt suggestions she made that the fans somehow played a role in his continued descent into drugs and ultimately, his death. Essentially ignoring his behaviour and continuing to support him made it our fault. Paraphasing of course but that was the point.

Reading the comments on not just the Rolling Stone site but all of the online articles on his death, there was obviously a strong voice in favour of Scott. Many believed in the months leading up to his overdose that he was stressed and deeply unhappy. But of course there were a lot of people trashing Scott and defending Mary, who they believed to be a more reputable source of truth since she was clean and Scott wasn't. These commenters put forth that the fans didn't know Scott, but Mary did.

I have been a huge fan of Scott and STP since the 90's and have read pretty much every interview he ever did and read every article and major event that happened in his life. True, I didn't know Scott but when I stood 2 metres from him in concert with STP in 2011 he looked amazing. Healthy. Happy. Months and even days before his death I noticed how awful he looked. He had aged 10 years in the last 12 months and his performances had reportedly gone downhill. Of course Mary insinuated that it was drugs that caused him to forget the lyrics to his own songs and late night calls of paranoia and tears.

Scott in 2015 on tour looking aged and unwell

And now Jamie Weiland has finally spoken about Scott's final year and the hell he went through. Unlike his ex wife, she has chosen to let things settle before telling the truth.

Scott and Jamie

Scott lost his closest friend and band member, Jeremy Brown to an overdose last year a day before the release of Blaster. Jamie also reports that his Bipolar had resurfaced, making him paranoid and behaviourally unstable. This would explain the late night calls to Mary. She also states that a change to his meds were the reasons for his odd performances, abuse to fans and forgetting his songs. Having a professional background in mental illness and meds, this is most certainly a credible explanation.

In the 12 months before his death, both his biological father and his mother, who he adored, were diagnosed with cancer. This obviously had Scott reeling. He was also broke. Between the divorce settlements to Mary and his first wife, Janina Castenada, his addictions and his child support, Scott had no money left. His claims of touring just to pay Mary and keep himself in the Howard Stern interview appear to be true all along. Finally Jamie and Scott's family state that Mary was in fact keeping the kids from him and he was devastated. 

As a mother myself, I do get that decision. But some honesty would have gone a long way while she trashed her ex-husband. Had she admitted she had refused Scott contact based on his recent drug use and irrational behaviour as opposed to saying he just couldn't be bothered with his kids would have actually won points with me. But instead she chose to paint herself the martyred ex who didn't tell the kids to 'protect' them and who was some kind of perfect mother because she got clean and Scott didn't. Let's leave out it took her until the kids were almost school age to fully get clean.

No one, not even I will insult Scott's memory by painting him as a saint, perfect father or husband. He had on ongoing battle with addiction that he ultimately lost. But his behaviour and drug use leading up to his overdose were far more complex than Mary made out. In the space of less than a year, his best friend dies, both parents have cancer, his Bipolar hits top gear again and meds send his behaviour out of control. He's still broke and now chasing each gig to pay the bills and Mary has moved Noah and Lucy interstate. And people can't understand why he was using again?

Now of course we have the inevitable battle by Mary to control his estate, once again under the guise of looking out for their children. According to Jamie there is nothing left bar the trust he has for the kids. While her supporters brand her as a loving mother angry at Scott for his abandonment of his children, many see her as money hungry and partly the reason for the rapid decline of his mental and physical health.

I just want the world to know that Scott was more than simply a junkie who took too much one day and died. He was dealing with some huge issues in a very short space of time which pushed his addictive personality into a dark place. It would be easy to just chalk up his passing as another drug addict that has lost their life. But I see a fallible man whose life and family around him were were in a perfect storm for alcohol and drugs to ruin everything.

Physicality after Kids - the Double Standards

Before I had kids I was pretty attractive. I never claimed to be model material; my brains were, and still are my defining quality. But by Western standards I was attractive. I was a size 8, flat tummy, long blonde hair. I was certainly conscious of my weight - because women that were hot weren't fat. Well to be fair, I will backtrack and say I never thought that a woman with weight was unattractive, but I knew that *society* deemed her unattractive. I didn't want to be that girl.

The fact was, that I really didn't need to do much to stay thin. If I put on a few kilos I would just cut out junk for a few weeks and viola, 3 kg had magically gone. I didn't even need to exercise!

Then I had children.

With each child the weight crept up just a bit, after the birth I would lost most of it but not all. So the next child I was heavier to begin with. After my 3rd child I was the heaviest I had ever been, and quite depressed. I had a very difficult pregnancy where I couldn't exercise and despite genuinely trying to not put the weight on, I did. Thankfully I have a wonderful GP who put me on meds for my depression and anxiety and for my weight, and I've dropped 14 kg.

As an intelligent woman, I know how I've allowed society to define my self worth and as a feminist I'm disappointed in myself for buying into it. But what bothers me in this discussion is the double standards we have for men and women, particularly after children.

My husband and I were chatting read: debating one day over society's expectations of males and females in relation to physicality. To his utmost credit, he was chiding me for criticising my size telling me how beautiful I was. And I was trying to convey how much pressure is placed on women to continue to look youthful, attractive and most importantly - thin, particularly after children. He stated that men were the same, that in the last 30 years there had been much more emphasis placed on men's looks. The hair dye for greying men. The baldness gadgets and creams, the 6 packed bodies in magazines. I acknowledged there was pressure.... but no where near to the extent we experience.

With the advent of social media, an oldie like me who has lived before it's inception has seen many changes to our landscape. One is the ability to see inside people's lives more readily. Granted, it can be a false, contrived view but nevertheless an eyeopener. One thing I have noticed, among many is the way people view changes in men and women in pictures. I can't count the amount of times I have seen men who have gained several kilos, a tummy and some grey hair since having a family. People commenting on FaceBook and Instagram make comments like "she's feeding you well!". and "You look so happy". People seem to associate these changes in men with happiness, being comfortable and well looked after in their relationship.

But when a woman gains weight, has regrowth and isn't always wearing a face full of make up? There are snide comments, accusations that she has 'let herself go'. People are asking when she is going to join the gym and her husband is complaining she hasn't lost the baby weight.

Then we have the likes of Karla Itsines, Michelle Bridges and Ashy Bines and their fitness juggernauts. They teach a no excuses approach and they charge you to tell you that. They make a business out of telling women that eating right and exercising is not only non-negotiable but anything less means you are lazy, excuse-ridden and kind of pathetic.

So why the disparity? We are the ones that actually carry the child. It is our metabolism that changes (the main reason I have fought with weight loss, not laziness), it is us that can't run on the treadmill anymore or have to wait 6+weeks to exercise due to surgery. Statistically it is us that gets up all night to the baby then marches on the rest of the day working, or cooking and cleaning at home with our eyes held open with match sticks. No wonder we don't have time to get to the salon to have our out of control regrowth tended to, or to jump on the cross trainer after 2 hours broken sleep with a teething baby.

I really have to flex my feminist muscles here and bring out good old patriarchy as the cause. Despite a family having  far less impact on men physically, they still get a Get Out of Jail Pass..... because.... they're men, durr! Women's purpose is to look pretty, turn their partner on and generally make them look good. 

Men have a nice catalogue of excuses to draw on for their weight gain. He's well looked after (because a good woman feeds her man, people!). He's comfortable in his marriage and life. It's Middle Age Spread. He works hard at work and doesn't have time for a healthy lunch (oh the irony).

  

 

I don't know the answer except to say we need to continue to openly challenge the double standard. When our husband's best friend comments our butt is still big we need to rebuke him and point out his inappropriateness. When our daughters see a ragged mum dragging along 3 small children with her hair in a jumble and probably 10 kgs too heavy. She hasn't 'let herself go'. "She's a normal human being in survival mode, kids." If we saw a Dad dragging along a tribe of kids looking a tad frumpy and worn out people would say "wow, look at that Dad! how dedicated is he!?

Because challenging the status quo is the only way to change the double standards.

The Gender Stereotyping of Toys - Art imitating life or life imitating art?

The topic of gender stereotyping of toys is a hotly contested one in Mum circles. As a parent who is a Gen X, I believe we were really the birth of what I term the Aware Parent. The one that refuses to take everything at face value and succumb to patterns of behaviour just because "Mum and Dad did it this way and I survived" and that is a wonderful thing. So the discussion of gender stereotyping in children's toys and merchandise is a valuable one to have.

I know that my opinion, particularly in feminist circles isn't a popular one. But to be fair to both sides of the debate I must explore the popular one. There is no denying that in every facet of our lives we see gender based marketing. Dolls are always directed at girls (because any 'good' female, even a child should be maternal right?), cars at boys. Toy companies have even brought out gender specific lego. We have girls and boys toothbrushes, clearly defined clothing sections in department stores with the gendered colours and styles. Even as adults we are exposed. Female razors, deodorant with pretty flowers in pink on the can and even girls pencils and pens. Because we all need a pink lead pencil that is thinner for our little Lady hands! 

Many argue this is inherently damaging to gender equality on both sides. We are instilling expectations and social mores that will ultimately not only shape them, but change them. Like the sensitive maternal boy who wants a dolly at 3 and is told only girls have dolls and "there is no way my son will turn out gay!" On a broader level beyond toys, the girl at 5 that wants to play football and is gently albeit condescendingly told that she can't play because she might get hurt. "Boys are rough honey, how about netball"? On a macro level these covert and overt messages shape our lives. The father that desperately wanted to be a stay at home father but didn't for fear that others would think he was a sissy that liked being a kept man. The woman that gave up dreams of being a mechanic because that made her butch and a lesbian and no man wants to marry that. At it's foundations this train of thought is an extremely valid one, and one which I agree with.

But what if some of these stereotypes have been born out of truth? Could it be that much as art imitates life so do stereotypes? Do some people have certain gendered behaviours and preferences hardwired and toys and in fact life are simply reflecting those?

My occupational field is very much feminist in demographic and it was hammered into us in university that gender was socially constructed. Then we studied the brain in detail and a very interesting aspect came to light. Male and female brains are different, and more than just in size. Different regions of the brain are bigger and smaller in the sexes. Not surprisingly, women's communication and memory centres were larger and more receptor-rich than men's, while men had larger and more developed regions for spatial ability and motor skills. So why then is it so offensive to suggest that some girls are drawn to a tea set where she has a picnic with her bears while they chat to each other for possible biological or neurological reasons?

http://solarey.net/science-fun-fact-male-vs-female-brains/

Now let me be very clear. I am not for a moment saying that the social construction of gender doesn't exist, or every child fits the mold for their sex. Not every little girl wants a tea set and not every boy wants a truck. There are of course exceptions to the rule, which one could argue is also influenced by parental construction of gender. That argument is reciprocal. Like the woman I know that bragged her daughter isn't into baby dolls, but rather prefers cars and the sand pit. That is her 'proof' that the neurological aspect doesn't exist. But what she failed to mention until asked, was that the child didn't actually own a baby doll..... nor anything 'girly'. She had been so adamant about not forcing her daughter into one gender bias in toys that she in fact forced her into boys toys.

So when I had my first son after my daughter I conducted a little experiment on multiple days when he was around 9 months old. He had always had exposure to what are considered boy and girls toys since birth. So I placed him on a blanket with a baby doll, a Tonka truck, you get the point and just observed. He went straight for the truck and motion related toys. I even actively attempted to engage him with the baby doll, kissing him with her, modelling cuddling. He smiled..... and went back to the truck. And he is still obsessed with them. Since starting this blog and considering this topic to blog about, I did this with my now 10 month old second son on several occasions in the last few days. He has an abundance of both gender neutral, girl and boy toys. Each and every time he went for the 'boys' toys. The noisy, bright moving ones. The flashing robot, the Fisher Price talking dump truck that shoots balls. Yes I know, this is a cohort of 2 and not real research. But anecdotally it was quite telling. Surely the initial ideas for children's toys started somewhere? I argue they started from natural preferences the sexes showed.

Here is an interesting study that really confirms my thoughts that some of the preferences children show are actually biological and neurological, and seem to be usually visually based.

So we come full circle to the question - do children favour gender specific toys because of socialisation or biology? 

I say it's unequivocally both! It is both art imitating life AND life imitating art.

The death of Scott Weiland

I'm not normally the type to get emotional over celebrity deaths. In fact I find it somewhat insulting to those that do truly know these people that we, as those that only saw their persona, are grieving like we knew them too.

But a month on my heart still aches for Scott Weiland. That he will never make more music, that he will never reunite with STP. That he couldn't overcome his lifelong battle with drugs. We saw Stone Temple Pilots in 2011 after they reunited and it was a dream for me. I could literally see the sweat on the head of this Rock God, who seemed to have that old spunk (and that sexy dancing he did OMG) back again. But since then I've seen such an undeniable slide in him that the overdose could never have been a surprise.

I found Stone Temple Pilots and grunge in 1994 when I met my husband. I was 16 and had just moved out from an abusive home. So grunge was kind of a physical manifestation of my freedom and mindset at that time. It was wild and unconventional but still had depth and substance. My girlfriends and I would go and party regularly with my now husband and his friends and STP, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Sound Garden would always be playing in the background as we drank, smoked and had a ball. Over the next few years I gravitated more to AIC and Pearl Jam; but I remember the day I first heard Sour Girl on the radio driving to work - it would have been late 2000.... and I was immediately hooked. I reconnected with the old albums and wow.... the Sour Girl vid *fans face*

             

Over the years it has been difficult to see Scott be so profoundly controlled by drugs. His artistic and performing talent were amazing yet he just couldn't stay sober. When they reunited and he proclaimed with earnest that he was clean I was so excited. They toured Australia and he didn't look off his face, he had weight on him and his presence on stage was insane.

 But over the next 4-5 years I witnessed the rapid decline of Scott Weiland. He aged terribly in just a few short years, he clearly was using again and more importantly, he didn't seem to be enjoying music anymore. I watched the Howard Stern interview he gave and it was the most insightful look at Scott's life to date. He admitted he was perennially touring to maintain child support payments and hinted he was exhausted with the music life but had no other option to continue. I remember going to the Scott Weiland Facebook page the day before he died and thinking "fuck Scott, you look awful".

 What hurt equally to the loss of musical talent was the sledging of Scott after his death. In particularly Mary's open letter to the Rolling Stone mag. It came off as a thinly veiled attempt to sully his name posthumous, outlining what a shit father he was under the guise of 'don't glorify his death'. She also used the kids which I felt at it's core was not appropriate and laced with agenda.

After his death I see things differently to others. The public, even some of fans see Scott as this intensely gifted guy who was too selfish to get his shit together for his kids and his fans. People are proclaiming him as a 'talented junkie' who despite the huge opportunities afforded to him, both financially, emotionally and musically, refused to get well. What I see is a guy with an addictive personality who joined the scene wanting to make amazing music but instead succumbed to it's evils. Once hooked, the love of music kept him in the scene and the scene kept him hooked. He had unlimited money and connections for drugs. Once divorced, the want of making music became the need - the need to make vast amounts of cash to pay his huge alimony.

The sad irony is that in her letter Mary Forsberg complained Scott never saw the kids. But from his point of view he couldn't see the kids because of the need to constantly tour to pay her. Even more ironic is her comment that:

      "it was the last day he could be propped up in front of a microphone for the financial benefit or enjoyment of others."

 She was one of those 'others'.

So we have an addict who is forced to stay in an environment that fed and maintained his addiction. And we question why he didn't/couldn't get clean? That is like having a woman who shares a meth addiction with her partner and wants to get clean but someone locks her in the house with him 24/7 and no one around her can fathom why she's still a tweeker?

I will continue to see Scott Weiland as a legendary artist who was a troubled soul that was often taken advantage of. A guy that didn't know what else he had to offer the world beyond his music and therefore saw no way out of the industry, and more importantly, his drug use. I will continue to sing his songs with gusto in my car when I think no one is watching and learn to play Creep on my guitar. I will remember the highs and lows and love the music.

 Rest in peace Scooter.

About Me

Well I suppose every good blog should include an introduction. Who I am, the crap I'm passionate about, so here I am.

I'm a stay at home mum of 3 beautiful but exhausting children and one loving but exhausting husband. I'm a grunge loving femo, fiercely politically left and my dream is to write a novel.... sometime .... when I get more than 5 minutes to pee. I have a lot of opinions and thoughts running through my head (as my poor husband will lament) and no where to put them.

This blog has no real one topic or theme. Just random musings about parenting and the world. This is my outlet and if a few people read then that's good for me.