Interview with Joe Mama: Part I
So I have fulfulled one of my dreams. If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain, as they say.
With a little trepidation, I asked JM for an interview and he graciously said yes. With no further ado, here's the first half.
Salome: There are some things I think I know about you from reading your posts. I'm going to tell you what they are and I'd like you to fill me in a little more about them.
You grew up in Toronto.
Joe Mama: Yup. Love it. Love the city. It is the NYC of Canada --everyone hates it but the people who live there, and they defend it vigorously.
Salome: What do you love about it?
Joe Mama: I love the big city feel. I love how fast and crass everything is. I love how people are so wrapped up in their own worlds they just step right over the homeless dude passed out on an air vent on Bay Street. I love the cars, the women, the houses, the clothes, the bars, and the music. If you’re a shallow, morally bankrupt, materialistic and superficial schmuck like me, this is a great city. Good food, good entertainment, hot chicks. Everything I want in a city except the weather. The only thing I don’t like is the weather.
Salome: Your parents are divorced.
Joe Mama: Yes, they separated when I was 5 or 6 and divorced shortly thereafter.
Salome: Did you live with your father after that or with your mother?
Joe Mama: It was a weird divorce – my dad got everything - the kids, the house and the money. My mom got screwed. My sisters and I lived with my dad. We had a house in the ‘burbs, but my dad moved in to Toronto proper when I was about 11 and shortly thereafter I started getting into shit my dad didn’t dig, so when I was maybe 12 I moved to my mom’s apartment. I split after less than a year.
Salome: What are your relationships like now with them? How often do you see them?
Joe Mama: My relationship with them at the time was strained to say the least. I was a “good kid” until about 11 – played sports, did very well in school, blah, blah, blah. Then I found girls and booze and music and all that shit. I moved in to my moms because I could get away with murder. My dad was a tough ass so it didn’t work well with my newfound sense of independence. My mom was a pushover so I took advantage of her for a year and finally just bailed.
My relationship with them now is excellent. I see them both often and things are good. It’s a normal, grown-up parent/child relationship. Even though I still find myself apologizing for everything that went down from roughly 1986-1991 we never really talk about it or anything, which suits me just fine. Jesus, I feel like I should be on a couch with you billing me $200 an hour.
Salome: Hmmm, there are a couple ways that could be interpreted. (We both laughed here.)
Salome: You were athletic as a kid. You played basketball and skateboarded.
Joe Mama: I played football, basketball and soccer growing up. I also dug skate boarding as more of a social thing -- hang out and skate. I dropped soccer and football but played basketball through school. I don't really do much anymore.
Salome: You first had sex when you were 14.
Joe Mama: Yes, maybe 13. Ages 13-16 are really, really hazy. Details get lost or confused. I do recall the couch. It went down on a couch with a skanky older chick who gave it up for reasons I'll never know. I think I was 13 and I recall she was a blonde prostitute who I'd met somewhere or other. The sex was free, FYI. Otherwise I'd have been panhandling --"Spare some change for the hooker I just lost my viginity to? Spare some change?"
Salome:You've traveled to Europe.
Joe Mama: Twice. Went to Italy around 1997 and to Germany and Amsterdam around 2000. Specific dates and I are not particularly good friends.
Salome: You've never been married.
Joe Mama: No.
Salome: You're 33.
Joe Mama: 32 damn it!
Salome: Sorry. I thought you might have had a birthday since the last time I heard your age.
Joe Mama: No worries.
Salome: You have one sister.
Joe Mama: I have two older sisters. One is 36 and lives in Munich; the other is 39 and lives in Toronto.
Salome:You were once in a band.
Joe Mama: I sang. I no longer bother unless I'm in the car. Then I fucking giver full on like nobody's business. Full on. I also sometimes turn my dashboard/steering wheel/floorboards into a drum kit that would make Neil Peart's head spin.
Salome: What kinds of stuff do you sing?
Joe Mama: Whatever I’m in the mood for and is in my CD changer – Bowie to TOOL to Portishead to the Smiths to the Beasties – a mixed bag . Even if I can’t hit the note, I’m alone in my car so fuck it – I’m gonna try.
Salome: You spent a significant amount of time on the streets of Toronto.
Joe Mama: I left home at 13. I spent about 3 years with no fixed address. It was good times for the most part if you like being wasted and carefree, but it severely retarded my development in almost every conceivable way. It wasn't a particularly bright move, but I've always been very shortsighted and driven by my immediate wants. I just didn't "get it". I chose to leave because it was more fun than having rules and limits and curfews and school and all of that shit which struck me as a hassle at the time.
Salome: Where were your parents during that time? Did they know where you were?
Joe Mama: They were in T.O. They did not know my whereabouts and, I’m ashamed to admit it, they spent time together searching shelters and other places looking for me. Like I’m so lacking in self-sufficiency I needed to sleep with 100 skids in a shelter. Puhlease! Shame on my folks for not realizing I could find better options! I had no interest in a “home life” but they weren’t about to just bail on a fucked up 13 year old. So ya, I put them through hell. Thanks for the reminder. (kidding) When I started getting in trouble, one of the first things that happened was getting busted (forget what for) and the court ordering a shrink to meet with my family and me. I vividly remember my dad and mom and sisters and me sitting in a waiting room to see some family counselor type. I was furious. My sister Rachel was even more furious. Anyhow, I didn’t like the direction it went, so about mid-way through I excused myself to use the can and just walked right out the front door. I left my family sitting with a shrink for about 15 minutes before they realized I’d split. I was a selfish, horrible little fuck.
Salome: How did you eat? Where did you get clothes? Did you have anyway of making money? Ever get picked up by the cops?
Joe Mama: I panhandled. I was 13 and cute and had no trouble getting strangers to give me money just for asking. I would make about $20-$40 an hour so getting some McDonalds for dinner took 15 minutes. Same with clothes – pan handle or steal them or borrow from ppl who were living at home. Whatever. The cops often picked me up. I used the name “Shawn Thompson” for years. No warrants for a Shawn Thompson, so they let me go. Easy as pie. I was occasionally approached by sick child molester types and offered money for sex, but that was never something I had to resort to. On more than one occasion, I arranged to meet up with said predator (always said to meet behind the public library at Yonge & Bloor) and the end result was a few older guys I hung with would beat his ass and take his money. I didn’t see a problem with this at the time.
Salome: What happened after the three years? How did you get back into a more stable living situation?
Joe Mama: I was in and out of kiddy jail, and ultimately fled to Vancouver after getting some warrants for me in Toronto. I ended up coming back to T.O. a few months later and was almost instantly popped for lifting CD’s The Bay. One thing lead to another and viola – I’m spending a few months in an open custody facility. My dad came to visit me – first time we’d spoken in a while, and he told me he was buying a house in Kingston, Ontario with his new woman – a professor at the University in Kingston (Queens University) . He was doing some work for Queens. Anyhow, he offered to take me there, away from Toronto, and get me back in school. In a moment of non-stupidity, I accepted and that was the end of my bad days. Well, the real bad days.
Salome: What about school? Did you ever go back?
Joe Mama: I’d dropped out in grade 8, and missed a few years, so when I got to Kingston they put me in grade 10, but I was a year or two older than everyone else in my grade. No biggie. After graduation, I went to Queens briefly, but wasn’t serious about school, so I bailed.
Salome: How do you think your life might have been different if you had not left home when you did?
Joe Mama: Well, I’d probably be making a lot more money, have a degree on my wall (if I was pretentious enough to actually do that), and a lot more brain cells. I guess I would have played by the rules, done what normal people do, got the education, got married, etc.
Salome: So there's a story out there that you slept in a girl's closet for a period of time when you were about 14. Tell me more about that. Why did that happen? How did you get away with it? How old was the girl? How long were you there?
Joe Mama: Her name was Samantha (Sam) Petti and she was maybe 17 or so. This was 1987-8-ish so I was about 14 or 15. Sam's mom was a Toronto "personality" named Dini Petti and she had some talk show on here -- I remember the theme was Elton John's "I'm still standing." Ugh. Dini was married to a super rich businessman and they had a huge, beautiful house in Rosedale -- one of Toronto's most exclusive hoods. I met Sam in my travels and man she was cute. Way too cute. We just kind of hooked up (details of meeting her are sketchy at best) and started hanging out. I'd love to see her again. I wonder if she mutated or if she's a stone cold 35-year-old fox? I'll never know.
Anyhow, Sam wasn't really down with sleeping in a stairwell when she had a multi-million dollar house, so she took me home with her one night. She hung out with homeless losers and thugs, but she wasn't one of them. I suspect she just liked pissing her parents off, ala every princess on the planet. Her walk-in closet was probably about 15x15, so it was easy enough to turn it in to a bedroom.
Her folks were loaded and clueless and busy and never came to like, check up on her or anything that normal folks might do so I went unnoticed. The maid saw me a few times, but I guess she just assumed I was one of Sam's buddies and kept her mouth shut. Dunno but I never got any grief from anyone.
I was there maybe a few weeks. By day, we'd go out and do shit like get wasted or whatever. That was all I did then. At night, we'd creep in undetected and pass out. Good times. Did I mention she was a fox and I was just thrilled to be there? I was pretty young, and kinda figuring shit out as I went along, but I knew enough to realize that this was gravy. Hot chick, lots of cash, hot chick, full fridge, hot chick, hot showers, hot chick.
Stupidly, I invited some of the cretins I was hanging out with over to Sam's house one day when we were there. A few of said cretins decided to steal her folk's shit. I found two of them in her parent's bedroom. I think they stole a bunch of stupid shit. Like every 14 year old I was very susceptible to peer pressure, even if my peers were the scum of the Earth.
That was pretty much the end of that. IIRC she freaked about shit and was on my case to get some of her folks shit back, which meant fucking with the dregs who kept me safe (I was 14 and skinny and easy prey so I hung with big uglies for my safety). I blew her off and basically never saw her again. I got a lot of skeletons like that in my closet - lots of amends to make. Haha. Fuck it. I'll just recant on my death bed.
Salome: What are you currently reading?
Joe Mama: "It's the Crude, Dude" by Toronto journalist Linda McQuaig.
Salome: Describe the most beautiful woman you have ever met.
Joe Mama: I can't. I'm not sure who that is but I'm pretty confident that it moved.
Salome: Do beautiful women intimidate you?
Joe Mama: I don't think so. I might drop a batch way sooner than I'd hoped, but that's about it. I don't get all Marty McFly or anything.
Salome: Tell me about your favorite sexual experience.
Joe Mama: I can't. I'm not sure what that is. I guess it'd be the two Eurohookers in Germany, but I've beaten that to death. Two very hot young buxom European chicks drinking Champagne off your naked body is a great start to an evening though. I remember weird shit more than anything. Partners like Becky Bondage stick out in my mind because they were just fucking mental patients and I was just so young and wide-eyed and down for whatever and these chicks were always older so I mostly did what I was told and it usually worked out well.
________________
I'll publish the second half of the interview... tomorrow, maybe? It's really too good to give it to you all at once.
With a little trepidation, I asked JM for an interview and he graciously said yes. With no further ado, here's the first half.
Salome: There are some things I think I know about you from reading your posts. I'm going to tell you what they are and I'd like you to fill me in a little more about them.
You grew up in Toronto.
Joe Mama: Yup. Love it. Love the city. It is the NYC of Canada --everyone hates it but the people who live there, and they defend it vigorously.
Salome: What do you love about it?
Joe Mama: I love the big city feel. I love how fast and crass everything is. I love how people are so wrapped up in their own worlds they just step right over the homeless dude passed out on an air vent on Bay Street. I love the cars, the women, the houses, the clothes, the bars, and the music. If you’re a shallow, morally bankrupt, materialistic and superficial schmuck like me, this is a great city. Good food, good entertainment, hot chicks. Everything I want in a city except the weather. The only thing I don’t like is the weather.
Salome: Your parents are divorced.
Joe Mama: Yes, they separated when I was 5 or 6 and divorced shortly thereafter.
Salome: Did you live with your father after that or with your mother?
Joe Mama: It was a weird divorce – my dad got everything - the kids, the house and the money. My mom got screwed. My sisters and I lived with my dad. We had a house in the ‘burbs, but my dad moved in to Toronto proper when I was about 11 and shortly thereafter I started getting into shit my dad didn’t dig, so when I was maybe 12 I moved to my mom’s apartment. I split after less than a year.
Salome: What are your relationships like now with them? How often do you see them?
Joe Mama: My relationship with them at the time was strained to say the least. I was a “good kid” until about 11 – played sports, did very well in school, blah, blah, blah. Then I found girls and booze and music and all that shit. I moved in to my moms because I could get away with murder. My dad was a tough ass so it didn’t work well with my newfound sense of independence. My mom was a pushover so I took advantage of her for a year and finally just bailed.
My relationship with them now is excellent. I see them both often and things are good. It’s a normal, grown-up parent/child relationship. Even though I still find myself apologizing for everything that went down from roughly 1986-1991 we never really talk about it or anything, which suits me just fine. Jesus, I feel like I should be on a couch with you billing me $200 an hour.
Salome: Hmmm, there are a couple ways that could be interpreted. (We both laughed here.)
Salome: You were athletic as a kid. You played basketball and skateboarded.
Joe Mama: I played football, basketball and soccer growing up. I also dug skate boarding as more of a social thing -- hang out and skate. I dropped soccer and football but played basketball through school. I don't really do much anymore.
Salome: You first had sex when you were 14.
Joe Mama: Yes, maybe 13. Ages 13-16 are really, really hazy. Details get lost or confused. I do recall the couch. It went down on a couch with a skanky older chick who gave it up for reasons I'll never know. I think I was 13 and I recall she was a blonde prostitute who I'd met somewhere or other. The sex was free, FYI. Otherwise I'd have been panhandling --"Spare some change for the hooker I just lost my viginity to? Spare some change?"
Salome:You've traveled to Europe.
Joe Mama: Twice. Went to Italy around 1997 and to Germany and Amsterdam around 2000. Specific dates and I are not particularly good friends.
Salome: You've never been married.
Joe Mama: No.
Salome: You're 33.
Joe Mama: 32 damn it!
Salome: Sorry. I thought you might have had a birthday since the last time I heard your age.
Joe Mama: No worries.
Salome: You have one sister.
Joe Mama: I have two older sisters. One is 36 and lives in Munich; the other is 39 and lives in Toronto.
Salome:You were once in a band.
Joe Mama: I sang. I no longer bother unless I'm in the car. Then I fucking giver full on like nobody's business. Full on. I also sometimes turn my dashboard/steering wheel/floorboards into a drum kit that would make Neil Peart's head spin.
Salome: What kinds of stuff do you sing?
Joe Mama: Whatever I’m in the mood for and is in my CD changer – Bowie to TOOL to Portishead to the Smiths to the Beasties – a mixed bag . Even if I can’t hit the note, I’m alone in my car so fuck it – I’m gonna try.
Salome: You spent a significant amount of time on the streets of Toronto.
Joe Mama: I left home at 13. I spent about 3 years with no fixed address. It was good times for the most part if you like being wasted and carefree, but it severely retarded my development in almost every conceivable way. It wasn't a particularly bright move, but I've always been very shortsighted and driven by my immediate wants. I just didn't "get it". I chose to leave because it was more fun than having rules and limits and curfews and school and all of that shit which struck me as a hassle at the time.
Salome: Where were your parents during that time? Did they know where you were?
Joe Mama: They were in T.O. They did not know my whereabouts and, I’m ashamed to admit it, they spent time together searching shelters and other places looking for me. Like I’m so lacking in self-sufficiency I needed to sleep with 100 skids in a shelter. Puhlease! Shame on my folks for not realizing I could find better options! I had no interest in a “home life” but they weren’t about to just bail on a fucked up 13 year old. So ya, I put them through hell. Thanks for the reminder. (kidding) When I started getting in trouble, one of the first things that happened was getting busted (forget what for) and the court ordering a shrink to meet with my family and me. I vividly remember my dad and mom and sisters and me sitting in a waiting room to see some family counselor type. I was furious. My sister Rachel was even more furious. Anyhow, I didn’t like the direction it went, so about mid-way through I excused myself to use the can and just walked right out the front door. I left my family sitting with a shrink for about 15 minutes before they realized I’d split. I was a selfish, horrible little fuck.
Salome: How did you eat? Where did you get clothes? Did you have anyway of making money? Ever get picked up by the cops?
Joe Mama: I panhandled. I was 13 and cute and had no trouble getting strangers to give me money just for asking. I would make about $20-$40 an hour so getting some McDonalds for dinner took 15 minutes. Same with clothes – pan handle or steal them or borrow from ppl who were living at home. Whatever. The cops often picked me up. I used the name “Shawn Thompson” for years. No warrants for a Shawn Thompson, so they let me go. Easy as pie. I was occasionally approached by sick child molester types and offered money for sex, but that was never something I had to resort to. On more than one occasion, I arranged to meet up with said predator (always said to meet behind the public library at Yonge & Bloor) and the end result was a few older guys I hung with would beat his ass and take his money. I didn’t see a problem with this at the time.
Salome: What happened after the three years? How did you get back into a more stable living situation?
Joe Mama: I was in and out of kiddy jail, and ultimately fled to Vancouver after getting some warrants for me in Toronto. I ended up coming back to T.O. a few months later and was almost instantly popped for lifting CD’s The Bay. One thing lead to another and viola – I’m spending a few months in an open custody facility. My dad came to visit me – first time we’d spoken in a while, and he told me he was buying a house in Kingston, Ontario with his new woman – a professor at the University in Kingston (Queens University) . He was doing some work for Queens. Anyhow, he offered to take me there, away from Toronto, and get me back in school. In a moment of non-stupidity, I accepted and that was the end of my bad days. Well, the real bad days.
Salome: What about school? Did you ever go back?
Joe Mama: I’d dropped out in grade 8, and missed a few years, so when I got to Kingston they put me in grade 10, but I was a year or two older than everyone else in my grade. No biggie. After graduation, I went to Queens briefly, but wasn’t serious about school, so I bailed.
Salome: How do you think your life might have been different if you had not left home when you did?
Joe Mama: Well, I’d probably be making a lot more money, have a degree on my wall (if I was pretentious enough to actually do that), and a lot more brain cells. I guess I would have played by the rules, done what normal people do, got the education, got married, etc.
Salome: So there's a story out there that you slept in a girl's closet for a period of time when you were about 14. Tell me more about that. Why did that happen? How did you get away with it? How old was the girl? How long were you there?
Joe Mama: Her name was Samantha (Sam) Petti and she was maybe 17 or so. This was 1987-8-ish so I was about 14 or 15. Sam's mom was a Toronto "personality" named Dini Petti and she had some talk show on here -- I remember the theme was Elton John's "I'm still standing." Ugh. Dini was married to a super rich businessman and they had a huge, beautiful house in Rosedale -- one of Toronto's most exclusive hoods. I met Sam in my travels and man she was cute. Way too cute. We just kind of hooked up (details of meeting her are sketchy at best) and started hanging out. I'd love to see her again. I wonder if she mutated or if she's a stone cold 35-year-old fox? I'll never know.
Anyhow, Sam wasn't really down with sleeping in a stairwell when she had a multi-million dollar house, so she took me home with her one night. She hung out with homeless losers and thugs, but she wasn't one of them. I suspect she just liked pissing her parents off, ala every princess on the planet. Her walk-in closet was probably about 15x15, so it was easy enough to turn it in to a bedroom.
Her folks were loaded and clueless and busy and never came to like, check up on her or anything that normal folks might do so I went unnoticed. The maid saw me a few times, but I guess she just assumed I was one of Sam's buddies and kept her mouth shut. Dunno but I never got any grief from anyone.
I was there maybe a few weeks. By day, we'd go out and do shit like get wasted or whatever. That was all I did then. At night, we'd creep in undetected and pass out. Good times. Did I mention she was a fox and I was just thrilled to be there? I was pretty young, and kinda figuring shit out as I went along, but I knew enough to realize that this was gravy. Hot chick, lots of cash, hot chick, full fridge, hot chick, hot showers, hot chick.
Stupidly, I invited some of the cretins I was hanging out with over to Sam's house one day when we were there. A few of said cretins decided to steal her folk's shit. I found two of them in her parent's bedroom. I think they stole a bunch of stupid shit. Like every 14 year old I was very susceptible to peer pressure, even if my peers were the scum of the Earth.
That was pretty much the end of that. IIRC she freaked about shit and was on my case to get some of her folks shit back, which meant fucking with the dregs who kept me safe (I was 14 and skinny and easy prey so I hung with big uglies for my safety). I blew her off and basically never saw her again. I got a lot of skeletons like that in my closet - lots of amends to make. Haha. Fuck it. I'll just recant on my death bed.
Salome: What are you currently reading?
Joe Mama: "It's the Crude, Dude" by Toronto journalist Linda McQuaig.
Salome: Describe the most beautiful woman you have ever met.
Joe Mama: I can't. I'm not sure who that is but I'm pretty confident that it moved.
Salome: Do beautiful women intimidate you?
Joe Mama: I don't think so. I might drop a batch way sooner than I'd hoped, but that's about it. I don't get all Marty McFly or anything.
Salome: Tell me about your favorite sexual experience.
Joe Mama: I can't. I'm not sure what that is. I guess it'd be the two Eurohookers in Germany, but I've beaten that to death. Two very hot young buxom European chicks drinking Champagne off your naked body is a great start to an evening though. I remember weird shit more than anything. Partners like Becky Bondage stick out in my mind because they were just fucking mental patients and I was just so young and wide-eyed and down for whatever and these chicks were always older so I mostly did what I was told and it usually worked out well.
________________
I'll publish the second half of the interview... tomorrow, maybe? It's really too good to give it to you all at once.
posted by Salomé at 3:08 PM
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