Parcbench Welcomes Bobby F-ing Steele!

Written by Bobby SteelecloseAuthor: Bobby Steele Name: Bobby Steele
Email: undead@juno.com
Site: http://www.theundead.com
About: Steele is one tough MF-overcame Spina Bifida, Polio, a spinal cord tumor in 1969, and a fall between the cars of a moving NYC Subway train... only to change the history of Rock'nRoll as guitarist in the legendary THE MISFITS,and then THE UNDEAD - whose debut ushered in the Renaissance of the East Village.See Authors Posts (3) on February 5, 2010

Hi… I’m Bobby Steele… or, as my critics like to call me “Bobby F***ING Steele”. I’ve been invited to write for Parcbench, and I intend to share with you my personal experiences, as well as opinions on many aspects of life – as seen through the eyes of a SURVIVOR.

Most people only know me as the oft-defamed former guitarist in THE MISFITS, or leader of THE UNDEAD, and founder of New York’s East Village, and still think I’m an easy target for ridicule.

I’ll start with a warning to anyone who plans on challenging me:

I was born with Spina Bifida – an extremely fatal and debilitating birth defect that involves an exposed spinal cord… which, in some cases, can protrude and appear as a small tail. I bet those Leftists are already laughing… “he was born with a tail…”, because that’s how the ‘compassionate’ are. They despise the ‘unpleasant.’ The fact is, despite the grave prognosis – I survived, walked, and became an all-too adventurous child who never even knew he was a cripple, but sure as hell managed to keep his poor parents on edge.

One common factor as I look at other Spina Bifida survivors is a certain ‘attitude problem.’ Think, Bobby Steele, Axl Rose, John Mellenkamp, Hank Williams – and you see what I’m getting at. Liberals like to call it ‘arrogance’, Conservatives call it ‘determination’. When you’ve been born taking the punches that nature hands out – and you beat that, why the hell would you let anything else get in your way?

It’s a concept that many can’t understand – so they curse Axl for standing up for his rights when they’re violated at a St Louis concert – just because THEY would’ve allowed their rights to be stomped on. And, they say Bobby Steele has a chip on his shoulder…

When I was 6, my parents decided to move to the new state of Hawaii. This was the summer of 1962, and Hawaii was still undeveloped. While living there, unbeknown to me – and not even suspected until years later, I contracted a form of Polio that had yet to be identified – a first in a line of unusual medical setbacks.

Apparently, ‘what doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger’, and having beat Spina Bifida – a little POLIO wasn’t gonna phase me.

And it didn’t, which is why it took years before anyone even suspected it, and decades to medically confirm. In fact, it was a tumor at the base of my spinal cord that actually caused doctors to first suspect it, and that led to ground-breaking surgery… the first Neurological micro-surgery, using an electron microscope – and a very difficult, life-or-death decision to risk it.

Well… it might’ve been difficult for the adults involved, so they came to me for the final decision. Being a fan of Sci-fi, I thought this was the coolest thing anyone could ever fathom.

The prior weeks of tests would be any Sci-fi-loving kids dream, I thought. I was hooked up to machines, had pints of radio-active fluids pumped into my renal system and my spinal cord, wires connected to needles – inserted in my legs, and hit with electrical jolts (and they whine about Abu Ghraib?!). I coulda done these tests with panties on my head – easily.

This turned out to be such a ground-breaking ‘experiment,’ that top doctors from around the world came to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center to observe the tests, as well as the surgery, which was filmed and later used in teaching what are today some of the top Neurosurgeons in the world.

After the surgery, Dr. Bennet Stein, the chief surgeon, came to tell me that it had been a success. All of the tumor was removed. Unfortunately, in the process my spinal cord had been partially severed, and I would never walk again. I asked him not to tell my parents – and less than a month after being admitted, I walked from the hospital door to my father’s waiting car.

Score:
BOBBY – 3
Nature – 0

As a crippled kid, I took constant abuse… and when I say “took”, I mean as in ‘withstood.’ When the town bully – who was feared by the other town bullies – threw me to the ground, I got right back up and in his face. After about the fifth time, he picked me up and said he admired my guts. No one in town really fucked with me after that. I had backup and RESPECT.

A few years later… after the tumor… I became a member of a local gang, and engaged in street fights. Always challenging purported dangers, at only 14 and in a leg brace, I hitchhiked across the George Washington Bridge, and then strolled down Broadway – right through Harlem in the summer of 1970. Looking back, it must’ve been a sight – seeing this 50lb white cripple calmly strolling through what was supposed to be a ‘white man’s hell.’

I’ve survived a fall between the cars of a moving NYC subway train, and was the target of a Mob hit. Another junkie – who’d been paid to kill me in 1980 – became one of my best friends, and I helped him kick his heroin habit.

In other words, I’ve had it all thrown at me already. There’s nothing new that you can say or do to intimidate me. Face it, if you want to stop me – you’ll have to do it by proving me right. I’ve been dealing with Alinsky tactics, ie: ‘Schoolyard bullying’ long enough to have mastered how to combat it.

END OF WARNING

I’m certain there’ll be the typical Leftist ‘he’s just bitter’ arguments. Understandable. Leftists, who seek total control, can’t accept that someone who has so much less than them, can do so much more, or be happy… without THEIR help… so they attack independent cripples.

To put that to rest, let me finish this introduction with a video of one of my songs, ‘Sometimes You Gotta Laugh At Yourself,’ based on a true story of how I was once run down by two separate drunk drivers in the same night. Left out of the video was that I actually managed to not break a single beer bottle in the six-pack I was carrying on my handlebars when the first drunk hit me.