Tom Jones Reality Check – Part 2

Should I stay or should I go?  That was running through my head at warp speed sitting on the sofa with Tom Jones in the backstage mobile home at the Universal Amphitheatre in ’73.  I didn’t have much time to think it through.  Tom was wearing a leather jacket.  Was he going to stay or was he going to go?  Would it be right to separate from the fan I came with?  Was it selfish of me?  Was it safe for me to stay alone, and safe for the other fan to go alone?  Would that be breaking an unspoken fan code?  If you come backstage together do you have to leave together? 

Should I stay or should l go?  Cell phones weren’t even invented yet, so how on earth was I going to let my sister know that I would be staying?  She was waiting for me back at the parking lot.  How would I get back to her place in LA?  Would a ride be provided?  Would I get a taxi?  Was there a phone in that funky mobile home?  I was not yet wise to the ways of… well, what was it?  Changing from fan to groupie?  Oh, heck no, I thought, I am not a groupie.  Remember, groupies are gone in 60 seconds. 

Should I stay or should I go?  Within seconds, I realized my goal was unchanged.  I was going to get close to Tom Jones so that he could see all of the wonderful qualities I expressed that no one else could see.  (Distorted thinking.  Of course there were people in my life who saw good, positive qualities in me.  I just couldn’t accept it because I didn’t believe it.)  Then, Tom would somehow magically fall in love with me, just like when the handsome Prince falls in love with Snow White and they live happily ever after. 

Tom Jones – Universal Ampitheater 1973

Should I stay or should I go?  I did not stay.  I believed that jacket meant he was going to go, and I didn’t want to “party” with a bunch of musicians and hangers-on.  There was only one person I wanted to hang onto, and if he wasn’t there, there was no reason to be there.  Besides, if I had ditched my sister, my family would have called 911 and let the bloodhounds loose. 

Of course, after I left, I privately, anxiously ruminated over whether I made the right decision.  Did fear make the decision for me?  What if this was the time and place that Tom Jones fell in love with me and I blew it again?  And why, oh why, did I have to ask about Snow White?  I loved being called Snow White.  I must admit that it made me feel special, and I did feel like I was waiting for my prince to come kiss me and break the evil spell I was under.  The spell of self-consciousness, self-doubt, and sometimes, even self-loathing.  I loved being Tom Jones’ Snow White until I asked him the questions that I wished I’d never asked once I heard his answer:  

“You’ve called me Long Tall Sally, which I get.  But, you’ve called me Snow White a few times.  I’m kind of curious.  Where did Snow White come from?” 

I wished I had never, ever asked that stupid question.   When Tom told me he called me Snow White because I made him feel like a “dwarf,” he recognized, in that split second of my mortification, that his comment was more hurtful than cute or funny.  Given my limited ego strength, it was hard for my brain to compute his honesty, and that it really said more about him than me.  At the time, however, it was still too close to the teasing and bullying I experienced.  I was still too tender and still too sensitive. 

Jones always took me away from my issues.  I always felt like his extraordinary confidence trumped my extraordinary height.  But this time, my question about the nickname opened my personal can of worms that slithered all over my fears and anxieties to strangle any shred of self-confidence I had in that moment.  As I look back on those photos with Tom Jones, (see post Tom Jones’ Reality Check), I see a young girl who didn’t see or feel her own beauty.  I see a young girl who heard from a grandmother, “Number One Sister is pretty.  Number Two Sister is beautiful.  And you, Number Three Sister, you are (imagine a painstakingly long pause) different.”  I see a young girl who heard from adult strangers, “You’re different,” and from children, “You don’t belong.” 

Handing Over the Tie

Why did that girl allow others to be the barometer of her feelings and confidence? I felt so lacking in normal human connections that I sought after a superstar to find some kind of super connection.  That Jones was so accessible is still amazing to me.  (NOTE TO MUSICIANS AND SINGERS:  Lesson 101 – How to Build A Fan Base, by legendary singer and icon, Tom Jones.  Be accessible to your fans.  They will follow you into the future.)  I was not a stalker, errr… welll, I do have some funny stories about a limo chase or two, but that is still to come…  And is it really stalking when you kind of, sort of know the person and kind of, sort of know where they/you might be going???  But, I digress. 

One of the biggest flaws in my pursuit of Tom Jones, and that I’m sure everyone on the face of the earth would have told me except that I kept it a secret, was looking to him for validation.  As I look back I realize that I was always looking to someone, everyone – my mother, my father, my sisters, my church, Tom Jones, and later, friends – for validation.  I was looking for someone outside of myself to give me what I could not give myself – confidence.  In that small, private moment when Tom whispered something in my ear, he validated me from an external standpoint, and so the confidence was fleeting and dependent upon his feelings and words in that moment. 

On-stage Banter

In that moment, he took me from painful to pleasurable feelings in the blink of his eyes.  But the validation was external, fleeting, and short-lived, which explains why it fueled the fire to keep me in Tom Jonesville for years to come.  I was always trying to connect and then reconnect to my object – Tom Jones, The Voice of energy, comfort, and emotional expression, the worldly and famous superstar – who, by finding me attractive and loveable, would allow me to believe that I was worthy, significant, and that all six-foot-two-inches of me had a place in this world.  (Another distorted belief.  Even though my religion told me I had innate value as a child of God, I didn’t feel it.  Even though I believed that all human beings had innate value, I still didn’t feel it.  Let’s face it, I was still a sensitive, tortured soul.)   At twenty, I knew I still wasn’t the woman I needed to be for Jones to fall in love with, but I was much closer than the hypersensitive 17-year-old, the gawky 18-year-old, or the awkward 19-year-old.  I was getting a little more mature, a smidge more talkative, and able to reveal a tad more of my personality.  While outwardly I may have looked like a young woman who had her act together, inwardly I still had a lot of work to do. 

Not long before the Amphitheatre performances, which I attended on multiple nights, I had a class in which 50% of our final grade was based on oral presentations.  I spent weeks begging my professor to allow me to write a lengthy paper in order to avoid standing and speaking in front of the class.  Nonetheless, I had to do the oral report, and my face flushed, my voice quavered, and my whole body quivered from start to finish.  So, how did this same girl gather the courage to run up to the Universal Amphitheatre stage, ask Jones for his tie, and be kissed by him in front of over five thousand people?  It was the sheer magnetism… of the singer who saved me.