My story is a long and complicated one. Lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.
My parents met in Woodstock NY. My Mom was naked and covered in mud, my father was trying to find someone to braid his ‘fro. It was the summer of 1971 and the 3-day music/love fest known as “Woodstock ” had been over for 2 years.
I was born into a hippy commune where we lived for my first years. We lived “off the grid” and away from the prying eyes of “the man.” I was born Sunshine Lollipop Rainbow Goldstein. My father insisted that I have his last name and my mother was a big Lesley Gore fan. My parents were not married; they believed that “marriage is an institution” and that I was the physical embodiment of their love.
When I was 3 a fortune cookie told my mom she was the reincarnation of a Native American warrior so we left the commune to live with “our people.” When we got there I was given the name Dances with Discomfort Goldstein. I had developed sever corns or as “my people” called them maize. I spent 2 years strapped to my mothers back as she made rugs to sell to the white man. Unfortunately the “white man” was only one man (Tom Whiteman an albino who was traveling the world in his beat up VW van) and he didn’t buy my mother’s rug since he had full head of hair.
Money was tight and there was no need for my fathers accounting skills on the reservation…so we went to live with my father’s cousin Sven in Ecuador. I don’t remember much of my Ecuadorian life except for the soda we drink from plastic bags on the back of a capybara and selling chewing gum and crappy silver jewelry to “the white man” (Tom). My father got a great accounting job in NYC so we swallowed our valuables (per the local custom) and caught the next plane. There were some language barriers in getting our papers and somehow my name was officially changed to whatever Dances with Discomfort is in Spanish Goldstein.
My mother worked as a tour guide at the Statue of Liberty for a while. Walking up and down the stairs all day gave her amazing legs so she quit her job to work as a Rockette. I went to the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts and Shoe Repair in Manhattan. (Not the school from Fame) I changed my name to Diana Morales when my performing arts teacher told me I would never make it in show business.
I went to college. After college I decided my true love *was* performing and found a home working as a Mermaid at the Weeki Wachee tourist attraction in sunny Florida. I loved the water and looked great in a sequined bikini top. One day, a particularly drunk gentleman decided that I would look better without my bikini top and proceeded to throw Sacagawea dollars into the water to try to convince me. One of the coins got sucked into my air supply. I was 20,000 leagues under the sea and gasping for air. As my lungs filled with water I began to see a bright light and Jesus calling my stage name… Jillian. Only it wasn’t Jesus and the bright light was not that of the pearly gates, but instead Roger a Good Samaritan who was giving me mouth to mouth.
I gave up my Mermaid life, changed my name to Jillian, and fell in love. It’s not easy finding a job in Florida when your only work experience is being a mermaid, so when I landed the interview at PayPerPost I told them I would hold my breath until they gave me the job. 22 minutes later I was hired.
P.S. Happy Birthday Roger.
Labels: jillian, payperpost
