Tag Archives: Florida

Why “Fear of Our Father” was originally titled “Sink or Swim”

Posted on June 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

Fear of Our Father, the book I co-authored with Stacey M. Kananen, is doing extremely well in sales! We’re way up there on the Amazon Best Seller lists (at this moment we’re #10 on the Hot New Releases page) and we’re getting lots of great feedback and reviews from readers.

In fact, we even received this impressive blurb from Marti Rulli, author of Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour: “A gut-wrenching story…Brace yourself…Fear of Our Father reveals one complication after another. If ever a story existed to change your conviction that there’s no such thing as justifiable murder, Fear of Our Father is it.”

All of that is very exciting, but I want to take a moment today to talk about the book’s original title. When we first pitched it to Berkley Publishing, the book was entitled Sink or Swim. We were basing the theme around an incident that happened when Stacey was a child. She was in second grade when her abusive father took her by boat to a floating deck at a local lake and left her there—for his own amusement—to swim ashore or drown. He really would have let her die. Of that, there was no doubt.

More than survival instinct was at play here. There was deliberate choice: sink or swim. Six-year-old Stacey defiantly chose to take a chance and swim for shore. She decided, then and there, that he couldn’t kill her, no matter what. This survivor’s spirit is what helped Stacey to carry on through the most amazing true story you’ll read this year.

While Fear of Our Father is an incredible “True Crime” story—really, it’s a stunning page-turner that you won’t be able to put down—our purpose for writing it was to be an inspiration for pretty much everyone who is living through hard times. But, specifically, it’s a story of survival of the most difficult kind—unrelenting domestic violence and abuse, which eventually results in murder and betrayal. It’s because of the story’s readability in the “True Crime” genre that the publisher retitled it.

While doing research for the book, Stacey and I took a trip to a “spiritualist camp” in Cassadaga, Florida, where her father used to drag her so he could get psychic readings regarding hallucinations he was experiencing. He had been burning a charcoal grill in the house, for heat, and the noxious fumes caused him to feel that he was getting messages about a phoenix bird, rising from the ashes. The psychic told him that he needed to go to Arizona, “to find his people.” That advice, unfortunately, was the cause of one of the most horrific weeks of Stacey’s entire life.

I wanted to see what Cassadaga looks like, so she and her partner Susan and I went for a visit. It’s a quaint little town with a lovely hotel and a cute gift shop or two. Stacey bought me a souvenir in the form of a little tile that says, on one side, “You can change the world,” and on the other, “Your imagination is limitless.” I have it on my desk to this day because that really is the spirit in which we wrote this book. We want to change the world. We want to help people who are still swimming for shore. We have big plans, and our imagination is limitless. Check out the Spectrum of Light Transformation Center’s website to see what I mean.

So please, by all means, pick up a copy of Fear of Our Father. It’s an incredible story. If you want, post a picture of yourself with your copy on our Facebook page, where we’re gathering photos of readers. And be sure to leave a great review on Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, Goodreads, or any other place you prefer. Help us get the word out, because “You can change the world.”

Fear of Our Father: http://www.fearofourfather.com
Stacey Kananen’s father violently and sexually abused his entire family. He vanished in 1988 and 15 years later his wife went missing. Stacey’s brother had killed both parents. Stacey cooperated as a witness until he told police that she helped him with the crimes. She was arrested and her trial, which aired on CNN’s In Session, ended with a not guilty verdict after her attorney proved that she had been railroaded. And this paragraph doesn’t even scratch the surface of the whole story.

Spectrum of Light Transformation Center: http://spectrumoflightcenter.com

Emmy nominated BBC Documentary
(featuring an interview with Stacey M. Kananen):
America’s Child Death Shame

Investigation Discovery series Catch My Killer
(an exploration of the Kananen family’s story)
Episode title “The Dearly Departed”

Tampa Bay Times article:
Hudson woman finds new life after years of abuse, allegations of murder

Westward, ho!

Posted on November 24, 2011 | 4 comments

The fact that I’m posting these words as a blog makes it irreversible. No backing out now. Jeff and I are moving to Arizona. And if you enjoyed my blogs about our “Here’s yew a dawg” trip, you’re gonna want to keep your eyes on this space because it promises to be fraught with typical Jeff and Lisa brand “good times and clusterfucks.”

There’s some sad stuff up front. My dad just died. What a horrible thing. I’ve had nightmares about this moment for years. I’d wake up from vivid dreams that my dad was DEAD and it was so real that I’d sit up in bed, wretching from crying so hard, and wracked with sobs for long minutes after I woke up because it was such an intense and horrific sense of loss. But when it actually happened, it didn’t hit me that hard. I was so relieved to stop seeing his body in that condition that I was blissfully relieved when we finally got that 2:20 AM phone call. That doesn’t mean I don’t fall apart in the grocery store or other inconvenient places, especially when they play Christmas music (which is starting insanely early this year). It does mean, however, that I’m able to be a lot more philosophical and Zen about his death than I thought I would be.

I have some pretty comforting spiritual views on this, which help. I’m sort of a “New Ager/Lightworker” type, but I don’t take myself as seriously as some of them do. Believe me, there are whacked out fundamentalist New Agers, just like there are in any other belief system. Some of us actually have our shit together and cringe when the fringe shows up in the news to make us all look crazy. Those spiritual views include the concept that death isn’t the end of life overall, just the end of life in the physical form. Life, free from the body, seems like a pretty groovy thing so death is only bad for those of us who are still alive and missing our dead folks.

Anyway, I have developed a pretty strong connection with my Dad, now that he’s on the other side. I didn’t expect that because I’ve never been very “lucky” communicating with the other side, even though I’ve tried for decades. Dad, on the other hand, thought psychic stuff was all “horseshit” so it’s surprising to see him so strongly reaching out from over there. But I know I’m getting messages from Dad, because less than a month after his death, I’m moving across the country to live near my mom because I think he’d really like it if I did. (I’d like it, too, or I wouldn’t be doing it, I’m just sayin’ … Dad is the one who nudged me into action).

I’ll maybe share a little about those messages in future blogs, but for now I don’t want to make this too long. It’s Thanksgiving Day and Jeff and I are relishing our last Thanksgiving in our Florida “Monkees’ Beach House.” (Jeff has, since he was a boy, wanted to live like the Monkees, in their groovy beach house. We have spent the last nine years living like that, in our own fashion, and it’s VERY hard to say goodbye to because it’s been delicious.)

But now that it’s been said aloud, let it be done. Here we go on another amazing journey! I hope you enjoy the trip as much as we will!

4 Comments

Posted in Life is Fun!, Lisa and Jeff, Westward ho!

Tagged Arizona, Family, Florida, Holidays, Monkee, Thanksgiving

Just another tricky day

Posted on October 24, 2010 | 3 comments

My friend Elizabeth Anne Hill and I were talking the other day (she’s a writer, too) about how people accuse us of complaining when we tell what’s going on in our crazy lives, but we don’t see it that way. We both see it as noticing our circumstances and commenting on it. How else can you describe something, if you don’t point out the contrast you see? So when I talk here about being bored, I’m not complaining, I’m just sayin’.

I mean, I live in Florida, five miles from the Gulf of Mexico. I have no right to bitch. A boring day here is at least filled with amazing sights. Just last week Jeff and I went to the library because I’m doing research for a project I can’t talk about yet, and we saw this row of election signs littering the landscape. Among them was the most delightful thing I’ve seen in a long time: a candidate for Mosquito Commissioner named “Skeeter” Abbott. Only in Florida, man, only in Florida.

We decided, since we had the entire day to kill, to take a ride to Hudson Beach (which isn’t really much of a beach, per se, it’s more of a housing subdivision that ends with a small strip of sand bordering the Gulf where no swimming is allowed). The houses all have a river inlet and dock for a back yard.

On the way to the Gulf, we stopped for a hot dog at the Hudson Beach Ice Cream Parlor, a place we’ve driven past a thousand times but never visited. I was unimpressed with the “food” but hey, this is the kind of place you go for kitschy atmosphere, not fine dining.

Even if you can’t swim at Hudson Beach, it’s still a cute place to spend a little time. You can have some more crappy food and a beer at a cute beachside restaurant called Sam’s Beach Bar, which is where I usually like to spend each birthday, watching the sunset before we move on to a place to get a real meal.

Yes, someone lives there. Lucky bastards.

Other than that, I just love sitting there at the water’s edge and listen to the waves and the seagulls, and drool over the gorgeous houses that sit on the shore and somehow survive the occasional hurricane.

And to top off this “boring” day, check out what we saw on the way home, in someone’s front yard. We weren’t at a zoo or wildlife sanctuary, these gigantic birds were in someone’s front yard. Seriously, if you’re going to live a boring life, it might as well be under a palm tree with birds as large as a second grader running amok.

Here's you a man eating a dog.

3 Comments

Posted in Humor, Life is Fun!, Lisa and Jeff

Tagged Florida, Gulf Coast of the United States, gulf of mexico

The “Evil Eye”

Posted on October 6, 2010 | 2 comments

My daughter Kristina spent almost two years in Turkey at Incirlik Air Force Base and I lived vicariously through her the whole time, learning everything I could about their culture through her eyes. I drooled with envy the whole time and one of my most treasured possessions is a trinket she sent to me from Turkey: an “evil eye” charm.

I’ve had the charm hanging in my car from the rearview mirror since then, along with my sparkly faceted cut crystal and my bouncing Buddha (enlightenment on a spring, don’t ya know) on the dashboard. I’ve never seen anything like it until I went to Tarpon Springs, a cute and kitschy Greek fishing village here in the Tampa Bay (I drag all of my out of town visitors to the Tarpon Springs sponge docks). I saw evil eye charms for sale in all the stores there, in all shapes and sizes, because the Greeks share the belief in them.

Today, I dragged another friend from out of town to Tarpon Springs with me to eat some amazing Greek food at Costas, my favorite restaurant there, to tour the sponge docks and to pick up another evil eye for our second car (the Volaré that kept breaking down on our road trip … sure coulda used one back then, eh?).

There really is no way to do justice in the telling to Tarpon Springs. It’s a splendid mixture of beautiful scenery, legitimate history (see the historical marker pic), excellent food and goofy fun with a “roadside attraction” feel. If the Tampa Bay had a Greektown, Tarpon Springs would be it. The restaurants are plentiful (many feature belly dancing) and most of the shops sells handmade olive oil soap and hand lotion, sponges of every shape and size, and, of course, evil eye charms. And then there is the Spongeorama, my favorite place in Tarpon Springs just because of its name. It’s the reason I drag my friends here.

My friend Clark, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, is someone I’ve known for almost 20 years. I haven’t seen him in about eight years, but we’re the kind of friends who just pick up where we left off, as if we saw each other yesterday. He’s one of those people who lights up a room with his fun and laughter, and I couldn’t think of anyone who would enjoy the kitsch of the Spongeorama Sponge Museum more than Clark.

After an excellent lunch, we walked around town and enjoyed the exquisite Florida fall afternoon. The temperature was a rare perfect (many people think Florida is paradise year-round, but we actually only have about four weeks out of the entire year of really gorgeous weather—summer is too hot, winter is very rainy, spring and fall are both only about two weeks long) and we were both in a really good mood. It would only get gooder when we found our way to Spongeorama.

If you’re ever in Tarpon Springs, you really have to take the time to visit the Sponge Museum and see the movie about how sponges are gathered in the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, it’s educational, but the sheer entertainment factor is what I go for. The movie was made in the middle of the last century and it shows. Clark said it felt like watching a movie in fifth grade that was even old back then. It’s true. It’s so tacky that you can’t tear your eyes away, especially when they begin extolling the virtues of sponges at the end of the film and chanting, “Need it. Need it. Need it!” But that’s second only to the sample of olive oil hand lotion that one of the employees squirts into your hands as you go into the theater.

Here are a few pictures of the various exhibits in the museum that I will allow to speak for themselves:

I don’t think I really need to say much more, do I? Oh, here’s a picture I took of the door of the ladies room in the little mall in the center of town. I think it sort of blends with the feel of the rest of the day, don’t you?