America's First Female Serial Killer

So I’ve been taking a little time this week to recoup after a hectic week in LA @ the grammies. And after going to the J Dilla tribute/Kev Brown b-day party on Tuesday and Dre King’s farewell jam session on wed, I spent my first night in doing one of my favorite hobbies – watching documentaries. Tonight, I watched the story of Aileen Wuornors, known as America’s first female serial killer. You may have seen the movie " Monster" made about her life story, for which Charlize Theron won the Academy Award. In short, Aileen was a prostitute who began shooting and killing her clients. After 7 murders, she was eventually apprehended and sentenced to death.

Why on earth am I interested in this?? That’s what my husband said as he handed the videos to the cashier at Blockbuster, grinning awkwardly slightly embarrassed by my selection. Her story is so tragic and strange, I told him. How could a woman commit all these cold-blooded crimes? We’re supposed to be less prone to violence, slow to rage, nurturing in nature, etc etc. What could drive her to this? What happened to create that kind of madness, that kind of numbness, which is so contrary to every ideal we’re taught to live up to as girls.

In Aileen’s case, that series of events started with her mother’s abandonment when she was an infant, her father’s suicide after being convicted of raping an 8 year old boy, and years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her grandfather who is rumored to be her biological father. When she was 9, she started trading sexual favors for cigarettes and attention from boys in the neighborhood, some of whom later testified to teasing her mercilessly in public afterwards for fear of being associated with her. But the real ostracism happened when she got pregnant at 13 by the neighborhood pedophile. After giving the baby up for adoption, she was kicked out of her house and ended up living in the woods just miles from her home. All of this happened in Michigan, where the winters are anything but kind. That’s when she started prostituting. The rest was downhill.

In her early testimony, Aileen claimed that the killings were in self defense, rightful retaliation against clients who had raped, threatened to kill, and even tortured her. But after 12 years on death row, she recanted this defense, some believe because she was tired of waiting to die and believed she had no hope of acquittal or even a life sentence. She sabotaged her own trials for appeal and was eventually put to death.I am writing about this because I am sincerely conflicted by it. Here is a woman who took 7 lives, but I can’t help but feel equally saddened by her own victimization. It chills my spirit to wonder how many people, if put through the same circumstances, could become what she became? In her youth, she was beautiful – a knock out even, and from the looks of her interviews, quite smart. I wonder, could she have conquered some of those demons if she had even one person in her early life who truly loved her? Is it even fair for a person whose been groomed for nothing but madness to be put to death for becoming anything else? And would I be as empathetic if I was related to one of the men she killed, rightly or wrongly?

What is my point? How sad that a person can become so utterly lost that every sane instinct is drowned out by first a desperate and then a diabolical search for love. How true that even sugar and spice and everything nice can under the right pressure become poisonous. Could it happen to anyone?What are your thoughts? Do I sound like an Olberman liberal or do you, too, see humanity in Aileen’s story? I'm curious.

2009 Grammy nod

So its been a little over a month, and the reality of our grammy nod has finally settled in. The first couple of days, I was in a sort of trance. Like I was either dreaming or had finally snapped...the rigors of this business had driven me to delusion, and now I was imagining milestones :)

This feeling rose to the surface after I left South Africa -- where I was attending my friend Thabi's wedding -- and landed in Ethiopia. There, the people and press were so esctatic to learn that two Ethiopians had been nominated. "Where were you when you found out?" "Are you and Kenna friends?" "What did your mom say about your grammy nomination?"

My what?

A few days later, I was driving with a delegation of artists and non-profit professionals to Arba Minch, a beautiful rural area of southern Ethiopia, where 59 different indigenous tribes were gathering to perform at the Festival of a 1000 Stars. (A must see for any musician) Then suddenly, the driver of the other car in our group motions to us erradically, pull over, pull over!! Oh no, I'm thinking, the car is breaking down, and they are going to cram all 6 of us in this dusty SUV.

He runs to our truck and is talking so fast in Amharic I have no hope of understanding him. "They're talking about you on the radio." Tadesse translates. "They're talking about your grammy nomination." I looked over at the young driver -- staring at me, beaming with pride --and then at the 3 passengers of his car -- annoyed and wondering why we had stopped. And in that moment....I got it. It sunk in. What this was about, why this was such a blessing, and what I need to do now.

So it finally hit me:

this really IS happening...

to me.

and you know what????

I'm ready.

Wayna