a three-part florida story
- Hold an Old Friend’s Hand
OCTOBER 8, 1987
DEAR DEBBIE GIBSON,
HI DEBBIE, MY NAME IS MELINDA CARLISLE AND I AM IN THE FIFTH GRADE AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL NUMBER 5 IN CEDARHURST WHICH IS IN HEMPSTEAD NEW YORK AND I READ THAT YOU ARE FROM MERRICK AND THAT’S KIND OF WHERE I LIVE BUT A COUPLE OR FIVE MILES AWAY. OUR SCHOOL GOT COMPUTERS THIS YEAR SO OUR TEACHER IS HAVING US WRITE LETTERS ON THEM, DO YOU THINK MY TYPING IS GOOD???
WHAT DID YOU LIKE ABOUT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, ACTUALLY INSTED OF THAT I AM ABOUT TO BE IN THE SIXTH GRADE AND I WAS WONDERING IF YOU HAD ANY ADVICE FOR SOMEONE LIKE ME BECAUSE I AM TOLD JUNIOR HIGH IS A LOT DIFFERENT THAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND I REALLY JUST DON’T WANT TO ACT LIKE A BABY WHENI AM THERE, AND YOU ARE A VERY MATURE PERSON WHO IS ALSO STILL YOUNG SO I KNOW THAT YOU WILL REMEMBER MIDDLE SCHOOL BETTER THAN MY COUSINS WHO ARE ALL LIKE TWENTY OR EVEN THIRTY.
TO HELP YOU WITH MY QUERSTION I AM GOING TO TELL YOU A BIT ABOUT MYSELF SO I AM NOT A COMPLETE STRANGER. LIKE I SAID MY NAME IS MELINDA CARLISLE AND AGAIN I AM IN HEMPSTEAD ON LONG ISLAND I WENT TO NEW YORK CITY TWICE(!!!) AND I LOVED IT BOTH TIMES BECAUSE WE GOT PIZZA AND ALSO GOT TO STAY UP LATE EVEN THOUGH IT WAS ACTUALLY THE REGULAR SCHOOL DAYS, BUT I GUESS IT WASN’T BECAUSE I WASN’T IN CLASS. I HAVE BROWN HAIR AND BLUE EYES AND I WANT TO BE A MARINE BIOLOGIST SO I CAN LIVE AT THE OCEAN. DID YOU LIKE SCIENCE. ANYWAY I HAVE TO GO!!! THANK YOU FOR READING THIS ANY ADVICE WOULD BE AMAZING THANK YOU.
TALK TO YOU SOON,
MELINDA
December 2, 1987
DEAR Melinda,
Thank you for reaching out to the Debbie Gibson Fan club, the only true and official source for Debbie news and happenings. As appreciation of your devotion, please accept this signed photo of Debbie at the premiere of Full Metal Jacket.
Best,
Regina Berk
Management and Communications Head
Debbie Gibson Fans Worldwide, LLC
New York City
JANUARY 4, 1988
DEAR DEBBIE,
HAPPY NEW YEAR! MY MOM SAYS THAT NOBODY SHOULD SAY HAPPY NEW YEAR AFTER THE SECOND AND I THINK THAT IS A LITTLE CRABBY OF HER, AFTER ALL I HAVEN’T TALKED TO YOU SINCE THE BEGINNING OF LAST YEAR AND I WANTED TO SAY HI TO YOU, SO HI! HAHA. HAPPY NEW YEAR HA HA HA! AND ALSO THANK YOU FOR THE PHOTO. MY TEACHER HAD NOTHING PLANNED FOR TODAY BECAUSE SHE THOUGHT SCHOOL STARTED UP ON THE NINTH SO I ASKED IF I COULD USE THE COMPUTER AND SHE SAID YES WHILE THE REST OF THE CLASS WATCHED THE PEOPLE’S COURT IN CLASS.
ANYWAY I WANTED TO ASK YOU ABOUT YOUR SONGS. I LOVE ONLY IN MY DREAMS SO MUCH, IT REMINDS ME OF BEING AT A CAROUSEL WHICH IS FUNNY BECAUSE YOU ARE ALSO IN A CAROUSEL DURING PARTS OF ONLY IN MY DREAMS THE MUSIC VIDEO. I WATCHED THAT A FEW TIMES ON MTV WHEN MY MOM AND DAD WERE STILL AT WORK AND MY SISTER WAS DRIVING AROUND WITH HER BOYFRIEND STEVE. STEVE HAS A MUSTASH AND IS KIND OF UGLY THE WAY ALL BOYS IN HIGH SCHOOL ARE UGLY. MY FATHER SAYS STEVE IS THE REASON THAT ITALIAN IMIGRATION WAS A MISTAKE, SORRY IF THAT SPELLING IS WRONG. ANYWAY I THINK MY SISTER (ALSO NAMED DEBBIE! HOLY COW!) IS IN LOVE WITH STEVE AND I WANTED TO KNOW IF ONLY IN MY DREAMS IS ABOUT LOVE BECAUSE IF IT IS I BET IT IS ABOUT SOMEONE MORE INTERESTING THAN STEVE. HIS MUSTASHE ISNT EVEN THAT NICE.
I LOVE YOUR MUSIC! BUT NOT LIKE MY SISTER LOVES STEVE. OR MAYBE I DO???
ANYWAY TALK TO YOU SOON,
MELINDA
FEBURARY 18, 1988
Dear MELINDA,
Thank you for reaching out to the Debbie Gibson Fan club, the only true and official source for Debbie news and happenings. YES Debbie wrote “Only In My Dreams” about love, but maybe love is something that will happen when you are older. As appreciation of your continued devotion, please accept this signed photo of Debbie alongside former Italian prime minister BETTINO CRAXI.
Best,
Regina Berk, Acting President
Debbie Gibson Fans Worldwide, LLC
MARCH 18, 1988,
DEAR DEBBIE,
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE LETTER AND THE PHOTO. MY TEACHER IS LETTING ME TYPE DURING LUNCH WHILE SHE IS TAKING A NAP AT HER DESK SO I HAVE TO TYPE QUIET HAHA. I HEARD THAT MAYBE YOU WERE WORKING ON A NEW ALBUM. MY DAD ALSO HAS TO WORK ON NEW STUFF. HE SAID THAT HE GOT SHITCANNED AND I TOLD HIM THAT IS A BAD WORD AND HE SENT ME TO MY ROOM WITHOUT DINNER. I KNOW IT’S A BAD WORD BUT HE SHOULDNT HAVE TO SAY IT LIKE THAT. ANYWAY HAVE YOU EVER BEEN FIRED OR IS MUSICIAN THE ONLY JOB YOU’VE HAD? DO YOU HAVE A BOSS, OR DO YOU HAVE TO LIKE SHOW YOUR MOM YOUR WORK OR A TEACHER? DO YOU HAVE A TEACHER? DID YOU GO TO SCHOOL UNTIL THE END OR DID YOU SAY IT’S DUMB? MY SISTER SAYS SHE DOESN’T WANT TO DO ALL OF HIGH SCHOOL AND MY MOTHER SAID THAT SHE WAS ABOUT TO HAVE A CORONARY. DOES YOUR MOM HAVE GOOD HEALTH
UNTIL LATER, MELINDA
MAY 13, 1988
DEAR DEBBIE,
LOOKS LIKE YOU DIDN’T GET MY LAST MESSAGE. I GUESS YOU ARE BUSY WITH YOUR ALBUM AND WITH PERFORMING SO I GET IT. I HAVE ALSO BEEN BUSY WITH MATH OLYMPICS AND SCIENCE CLUB SO THAT MAKES TWO OF US, HAHA. I WAS WONDERING IF YOU HAD ANY PLANS FOR SUMMER? DO YOU EVEN GET SUMMER OFF? WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU HAD SUMMER BREAK LIKE THEY HAVE IN SCHOOL? MY FAMILY IS GOING TO NEW HAVEN WHERE MY AUNT AND UNCLE LIVES. MY DAD SAYS WE HAVE TO GET RID OF THE CITY’S INFLUENCE BEFORE IT INFECTS US TO THE BONE AND MY MOM KEPT NODDING. I DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY MEAN ALL OF THE TIME. IN ANY CASE MY AUNT AND UNCLE HAVE AN ACTUAL COMPUTER AT HOME AND SO I BET I CAN STILL WRITE LETTERS OUT THERE, LUCKY YOU HA HA. MY DAD SAYS HE COULD HAVE GOTTEN US A COMPUTER IF HE SOLD HIS SOUL TO THE GODS OF WALL STREET WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD AND MY MOM NODDED ALONG TO THAT TOO. DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE MEANS? YOU SEEM VERY SMART.
DID YOU GET YOUR HATS AT BLOOMINGDALE’S. THAT’S WHERE ALL THE FANCY WOMEN I KNOW GET THERES, THEY GO INTO THE CITY AND TAKE THE SUBWAY TO GET TO 59TH, AND THEY DON’T HAVE TO EVEN WALK OUTSIDE, THEY JUST GO INTO BLOOMINGDALES FROM THE SUBWAY. I THINK YOU ARE A FANCY WOMAN. I WOULD LIKE TO BE A FANCY WOMAN. HAVE YOU EVER TAKEN THE SUBWAY???
LOVE, MELINDA
AUGUST 18, 1988
GOSH DEBBIE, LONG TIME NO TALK! HELLO FROM NEW HAVEN. RIGHT BEFORE I’M ABOUT TO GO BACK TO LONG ISLAND, HA HA. ALSO IT LOOKS LIKE YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED AN ALBUM EITHER. ARE YOU BUSY OR ARE YOU JUST NOT INTERESTED IN TALKING OR WHAT? DID THAT REGINA WOMAN NOT TELL YOU I WROTE YOU? IS SHE YOUR FRIEND OR JUST A REGULAR LADY?
ANYWAY YESTERDAY THE LAST OF MY BABY TEETH FELL OUT AND I REALIZED IT WAS AT THAT MOMENT THAT I’M BEGINNING MY JOURNEY TO WOMANHOOD. WHEN DID YOU LOOSE ALL OF YOUR TEETH?
HOPING TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON, MELINDA
October 20, 1988
Dear Debbie fan,
Due to an unforeseen volume of correspondence, the Debbie Gibson Fanclub America Friends Branch, LLC (formerly Debbie Gibson Fans Worldwide, LLC) cannot respond to individual letters from hereon out. As a sign of our retreat and apologies, please accept this mimeographed signed copy of Debbie with the cast of Mama’s Family.
Best,
Polly Smith Lozenge
President
Debbie Gibson Fanclub America Friends BRanch
NOVEMBER 29, 1988
DEAR TIFFANY,
HI HOW ARE YOU? MY NAME IS MELINDA AND I AM IN SIXTH GRADE. I SAW THAT YOU HAVE A NEW ALBUM THAT JUST CAME OUT AND I AM THINKING ABOUT GIVING IT A TRY. DO YOU LIKE WRITING SONGS? I APPRECIATE THAT YOU MADE ANOTHER ALBUM IN A REASONABLE TIME BECAUSE THAT SHOWS ME YOU ARE AN ARTIST OF HIGHEST PROPORTIONS.
IS DEBBIE GIBSON A BITCH? I SHOULDN’T WRITE THAT AND MY MOM WOULD KILL ME BECAUSE SHE JUST GOT ME THIS COMPUTER FOR MY BIRTHDAY BUT I JUST DON’T THINK THAT YOU SHOULD KEEP TRUE FANS WAITING SO LONG. ANYWAY, HOW ARE YOU AND I HOPE YOU’RE WELL. ARE YOU LEBANESE, I THOUGHT I READ THAT BECAUSE MY NEIGHBOR IS ALSO LEBANESE AND SHE CANNOT SING, BUT YOU CAN AND I THINK THAT IS VERY BEAUTIFUL JUST LIKE YOU, I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE RED HAIR LIKE YOURS BUT MINE IS JUST BROWN.
BEST (I AM TRYING OUT BEST BECAUSE SINCERELY SOUNDS LIKE BABY STUFF),
MELINDA CARLISLE
JANUARY 4, 1989
DEAR MELINDA!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! THANK YOU SO MUCH. I HOPE YOU LOVE “HOLD AN OLD FRIEND’S HAND” AS MUCH AS I LOVED MAKING IT.
BEST,
TIFFANY
P.S. YES; NO; YES. —T
- NEWS OF THE WORLD!
By Melinda Carlisle
December 1, 1991
Dear friends and family,
Greetings and salutations this holiday season! Let me be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas and / or Happy Hanukkah and / or a Happy New Year
Mom and Dad said I could be in charge of the family holiday newsletter as long as I bought the stamps myself. My dad said the holiday spirit never seemed to arrive for the United States Post Office, and that the least they could do is give hardworking Americans some relief from endless taxation considering our Founding Fathers were angry about stamps and taxes in the first place. Fortunately, I saved up just enough to mail our updates out TO YOU! (Thank you to everyone who let me babysit for spare cash!)
WE HAVE MOVED!
If you didn’t notice from the address on the address WE HAVE MOVED TO FLORIDA! I know that a lot of you have also moved to Florida over the years, and we have also joined you! We are now in Jupiter, but not in space of course. There’s also a Naples and a Melbourne in Florida, but both of them are about three hours away. (Florida is a lot bigger than any of us expected!) My parents were both able to get jobs at Florida Power and Light, but don’t worry, only my dad is working the power lines. Mom is doing call center work, since that’s what she was doing back in New York. My dad said that moving would keep me from falling into the same degeneracy that overtook my sister Debbie, but I also think it’s that he didn’t want to have me on the LIRR every day to go to high school. I know he would also get angry when all the kids in the city seemed to have the best high schools to choose from and us Hempstead kids would just have regular options, as if we were just common street trash and not the backbone of America, in his words. (I have been learning to quote my sources better ever since starting Intro to Journalism this year, which I hope will lead to an actual spot on the school paper or yearbook next fall!)
SPEAKING OF NEW PLACES………..
In any case, I’m now a freshman at Jupiter High School, and I have to say, it’s a pretty easy place! Really easy. Really, really, really easy. I have all A’s, even in chemistry, which I thought would be the death of me. Between you and me, there are some weeks that I barely study and I still get a perfect score on my tests. One time, I didn’t even read the book for my English class when I realized that our teacher had only watched the movie version of Romeo and Juliet. My mom said maybe I should go into a private school, but my father said this is the price we have to pay to avoid the tyranny of a state income tax, and besides I could, quote unquote, “probably give fifty percent and get a full ride into any of these state schools if you don’t mind rooming with some redneck whose mom isn’t even thirty-five.”
All of the kids kind of have accents, which kind of threw me off because a lot of the parents here that my parents knew still talk like we do. You would think that you’d sound like your parents if you heard them all the time, but what do I know. When my aunt and uncle came to visit from New Haven, they joked that they only wanted to go to restaurants where the toe to tooth ratio was above one, which we knew was a joke but we didn’t go to any barbecue places just in case. Then again, all the kids at school say that I have an accent and talk funny, which makes me laugh because I think I couldn’t have a more normal voice. Sometimes mom and dad will see who heard the dumbest thing that day they heard from somebody from Florida. They call it the “local color contest” and they try to sound exactly like dad’s coworkers or someone mom heard on the phone. Mom will always write down the names of the people who called and see if dad can guess how on earth the names are pronounced. One time they talked about one of dad’s coworkers who kept saying he brought “yes-day scrimps” for lunch and it turned out it was leftover shrimp from the day before and I have never seen my dad laugh that hard in his life. Maybe I will meet them but my mom is very selective about who comes over. She says, quote unquote, “how can I have all types coming here if we haven’t even met some of the neighbors yet.”
MIAMI CELEBRITIES…
As we are only 90 miles from Miami, the celebrity capital of the world, and because this newsletter is called “News of World” and not just “News about the Carlisle Family,” because it is important to show that you think about more than just yourself during the holiday season, I feel like it is important to remind you of who are our most famous neighbors:
● GLORIA ESTEFAN – she has recovered from her bus accident and we are all playing her latest song to show thanks to a merciful God
● MADONNA – whether or not you love her or hate her, she is one of the biggest stars, and we are now closer than ever to her. I could be at her mansion within three hours if I had a driver’s license and was allowed to borrow a car. I know her latest album caused a lot of controversy, but she is an artist of our times! I am not allowed to play her albums aymore but there are times I watch her latest albums on MTV when my parents are at work and it’s very clear that she is the most important human to have existed in the past fifty or even eighty years. Everyone else has come and gone: Paula Abdul who? Debbie Gibson who? Tiffany who? Exactly.
● DAVE BARRY – I don’t know what he looks like but he lives here!
● FRANK SINATRA – He lives here!
● JACKIE GLEASON – He is dead but I have been told he is important
● ANDY GARCIA – Say what you will about Godfather 3 which my father watched and then said it was too much of an embarrassment to allow me to see it, but I have read every interview Andy Garcia has done in the past year and I believe he is truly the future of American film and I have NEVER seen such a handsome man grace the pages of Entertainment Weekly. My mother says “He’s very good looking even if he is a Cuban.” He’s an international wonder!
LOVE IS IN THE AIR
I shouldn’t have buried the lede here (and I learned in my newspaper class that it is spelled “lede” and not “lead!”) but I might have a boyfriend. His name is Aristotle Williamson and he is a junior at Jupiter High. His eyes are green and he has freckles and he’s not too tall which is good because I don’t think I am getting any taller. His father runs a used car lot, which means that he has a car! I have to say, my parents weren’t entirely excited, and my dad got really angry. He started saying things I can’t write here but one thing I can write down is that he said is, “I didn’t move you all the way across the country for you to start getting jungle fever,” which is pretty unfair because Aristotle’s mom is Greek. I knew I shouldn’t push it but after a few days my dad finally calmed down when he learned that Mr. Williamson would cut us a really good deal on a car for mom! It might even have a CD player! Things got a lot easier for me after that and I was allowed to eat meals with my parents again and sleep on my bed instead of in the garage, plus in comparison I am having a level-headed life experience among by siblings because……
ONE OF MY SISTERS IS HAVING A BABY AND WE DO NOT KNOW WHO THE FATHER IS TECHNICALLY SPEAKING
First: I am sorry for the sensational headline because, as I learned in my newspaper class from my teacher Mr. Heragon, “Tabloids traffic toilet tyranny.” Technically, my sister is not a tramp. Her boyfriend Joey Zambruno died this Easter. As Cammie tells it, Joey was riding his motorbike to the store to sell some jewelry when a gang of Puerto Ricans came up out of the blue and killed him and took his stuff. (My mom told me later that I should maybe “put my honor roll brain to good use” and figure out what jewelry store would even be open on Sunday and why my sister suddenly seemed to have designer clothes and perfumes, but I still don’t see what Cammie having a new TV and stereo has to do with anything about murder.)
Either way, Cammie found solace in the company of Joey’s cousin Louis Galfolatto, who she met for the first time at Joey’s memorial service. They soon realized that they were truly meant for one another and Louis proposed to Cammie in front of the Red Hook ferry. Everyone clapped and cheered according to Cammie! Then, also according to Cammie, she started getting nauseous at an Independence Day barbecue, and when her vomiting didn’t stop the next couple of days, she figured it wasn’t food poisoning………..
The doctors said that she is pregnant with a baby! Unfortunately, as the doctor explained, the timing of this blessing makes it unclear whether this is the result of Cammie’s final days with Joey or her new romance with Louis. Cammie said that either way, Joey and Louis’s family are happy that the Sicilian bloodline is being continued to “keep New York, New York.” If you are interested in sending baby shower gifts, send them to our address and we will ship them up after the new year.
AND ALL THE REST
● Mom is considering cutting her hair because she says the humidity is “oppressive” and leaves her “embarrassed in new and surprising ways every day.”
● Grandma Horowitz is no longer speaking to any of her children. My mother says she has Alzheimer’s “and if she’s faking it she’s gonna wish she actually had it,” but that has yet to be confirmed.
● We MIGHT get Color Me Badd to perform at Jupiter High’s prom! I’ve been writing them every week since they first came out last year, and I think I just have to ask their manager clearly and nicely in order to make this happen.
● Dad is no longer allowed to watch the news during dinner, and I am no longer allowed to watch Entertainment Tonight outside of my room, and mom does not allow us to watch Cheers with her, so we try to eat dinner at 6:30 every night or else we just have cereal and cold cuts around 10.
Okay that’s all for now! I let Mom and Dad know I was doing the newsletter so I’m sure they’re fine with the length as long as I stay true to my promise to pay for postage! If I don’t hear from you soon, see you in 1992!
Yours, Melinda
- LastWordsMelindaWilliamson_FINAL-2.exe
www.melindaspeaks.substack.com
POST 924: FAREWELL GOODBYE AU REVOIR AND ALL THAT
SOME NEWS AND THEN SOME MORE NEWS
29 May 2037
Hey all y’all,
This is actually Melinda’s granddaughter Artemis posting this entry. FIRST THINGS FIRST I just need to say that MEEMAW IS OKAY. She just decided she doesn’t want to talk on the internet anymore, and I don’t think she wants to talk to my parents or my aunt and uncle anymore either or at least she doesn’t want to talk to anybody for a bit. She said that she needed to “reconnect with the core reasons that words mean anything to her anymore,” and I don’t entirely know what that means, but I figured that her readers might get that a bit more than I do.
SECOND, she did want me to pass a few things along to you. She said that you WILL NOT be billed for any subsequent months unless she returns to this website, which she said “is about as likely as a Cat 5 directly hitting Tampa Bay,” and again I am hoping you understand the math on this better than I do. IN ADDITION, she also said that if you paid for a yearly membership and paid upfront that “sometimes we support the chances that don’t manifest quite as we had imagined.” I think you know by now what I am going to say about this, ha ha.
THIRD she did not actually give me a final essay to share. I mean, she kind of did but she kind of didn’t. She said (again I am HOPING you know what this means!) that she had spilled enough ink in this lifetime for the next ten and that even an circus elephant grows weary of her best tricks. Like I said, do you know???
ANYWAY INSTEAD she gave me this series of questions and prompts to run on OpenDiscouseAI-3. I actually know this LLM one pretty well since it’s the one we use to pre-construct compositions and themes for our Business and Entrepreneurial English class at Vero Junior High. I think Meemaw knew that I knew how to use it, and that I had a school license so I could get better answers than what she could get on the free version, so she trusted me to run the questions and “let the decades of evidence about me in the corpses of the internet(????) build its case for or against me.”
I ran the prompts through OpenDiscouseAI-3 and have pasted the answers below. Again, I do not know where Meemaw is going but she told me that she will be sending postcards to me and that she will be back in time for my birthday (Leo season!!!!) so it’s probably a summer vacation in real life. I’m sure she will make up with my mom and Aunt Athena soon, maybe??? Maybe you won’t see her when it comes to words, but at least I’ll see her before school starts.
Yours truly,
Artemis Williamson
OpenDiscourseAI-3 EDUCATIONAL LICENSE
ENTER PROMPT:
“Please describe the life and times of the esteemed writer and thinker Melinda Carlisle Williamson. Please keep the answer to a couple paragraphs, as I have an audience of thousands who are all very busy. Please write it in the style of a Wikipedia entry.”
REPLY: Of course, and thank you for your polite request. The answer is below:
Melinda Carlisle Williamson – also known professionally as Melinda Carlisle, Melinda C Williamson, MC Williamson, Da Truth 5-3, Truth C-W, and Candyland Carlisle – is an award-winning writer, podcaster, poet, philanthropist, activist, and venture capitalist. She was born in Hempstead, Long Island, New York, a township in the United States of America, in 1977 or 78. She is the daughter of Alan Williamson (1949-1998) and Regina Horowitz Williamson (1950-2029). She has two sisters (Deborah and Camilla, dates and status unknown). Her late husband, Aristotle Williamson (1976-2030), was a used car salesman and a former politician for Indian River County who served two terms in the State House before his death in the 2033 Restoration Rebellion. One of Williamson’s two children is the spoken word artist and poet TODAYTOMORROWNOW (Athena Williamson, 2001-). Her other daughter, Aphrodite Williamson (2002-), is a nonprofit leader and community organizer, most notably of the Grapefruit State Collective. She has four grandchildren and currently lives in Vero Beach, Florida, which is also a city in the United States of America.
Williamson is the author of fourteen books, spanning a variety of genres. She is most well-known for her self-help book <<If Your Fridge Stinks, Get To Cleaning>> (2027), which ushered in the revival of tough love advice. Her book is most well-known for encouraging young women to throw out the metaphorical “rotting vegetables and meat masquerading as home-cooked meals.” Prior to that, Williamson wrote the poetry collections <<Awash Awake>> (1999), <<As the Empire’s Tanks Roll In>> (2005), <<Tomorrowings>> (2010), and <<Mary and Joseph in Hell>> (2025), in addition to several volumes of collected essays and short stories. Her success in self-help led her to invest in the app A-WAKE, designed to “guide young people out of systemic manipulation and multidimensional control.” It is widely believed that Williamson used the profits from A-WAKE’s initial success to fuel her husband’s State House campaigns.
ENTER PROMPT: Would you be able to relay how Melinda Carlisle Williamson, a middle-class girl from Long Island, grew up to have a net worth of $482 million dollars? Most of my subscribers are aware of my success, but provide 5-6 sentences for my newer followers. Thank you.
REPLY: Certainly.
Melinda C. Williamson reinvested the royalties she earned from her three-million-plus sales of <<If Your Fridge Stinks, Get to Cleaning>> into the Canadian company Kenzinger-Atkins, particularly their phone-based applications. Kenzinger-Atkins had already received support from the internationally-renown consulting firm McKinsey for launching applications that would appeal to youth and young adults under 25—and the company launched a full suite of “guru-driven goal-driven guidance model suites” meant to challenge class-driven obesity, gendered anxiety, racial stigma, premature ejaculation / impotence, and juvenile angst. Williamson signed an agreement to invest in and oversee the development of A-WAKE, which would parlay her book-based advice into “multidimensional awake-to-asleep learning integration.” Williamson’s notoriously shrewd terms of agreement–as detailed in a Fortune profile–offered 50% of revenues for 90% of startup investment. While nobody anticipated nearly a half billion in sales, both Canadian and American courts agreed the terms of the contract favored Williamson, regardless of Kenzinger-Atkins’s later regrets. Despite ruling for Williamson, the Canadian High Court did advise her to sponsor the continued existence of the Gemini Awards as a measure of international goodwill.
ENTER PROMPT: Please explain the incident between Melinda Carlisle Williamson and the Grapefruit State Collective, jointly led by Athena and Aphrodite Williamson. Again, my readers are very professional and so you may need to streamline this response as a series of bullet points, while also reminding them that they already know most of the details if they have been loyal readers of Williamson’s blog. Write it like Melinda Carlisle Williamson would in her latest self-help book <<You Can’t Sell a Smile with a Snot-Nosed Face>>.
REPLY: I can do this, and again, thank you for caring for the needs of your clients:
● Okay folks, nothing good comes grows from the dumpster. And I can only imagine the Grapefruit Collective spends most of their time in the dumpster, playing like little raccoons in the filth. But we all know what happens to raccoons: they become rabid little beasts, hissing and biting. And that’s what they did to me, dear old mom, even after I funded the first two years of their collective grassroots program—I was their main funder, their biggest public champion, and their fiscal sponsor through my nonprofit wing A-WAKE A-LIVE. (If you need a refresher, read Melinda Speaks posts 123, 126, 234, and 310-348.)
● Suddenly, after three years of being their literal biggest (and sometimes only!) supporter, they decide that nothing is enough. They read me the riot act and almost rioted: they said I was manipulating their efforts and undermining their work. They said fiscal sponsorship was a sham that only perpetuated the racial and class differentials that it purported to undo. They said that I was only in the fiscal sponsorship game to have a tax haven for my continued reinvestments and a backdoor for my continued political action. They said I was Anti-Florida by keeping Real Floridians doing Real Work in a position of subservience. (See Melinda Speaks posts 425, 427, 430-448, 501-523, and 545).
● Honey buns, I had to laugh. And I made sure to laugh in their face, directly. I know when I’m approaching a bear trap–and after years of being a mama bear, I’m certainly not going to fall for some third-rate hunters. I told them if they really thought they could hire their own financial staff, serve as a liaison to funders, find the time to explain their own grassroots work to the ultra-wealthy, produce their own television and radio spots, cover their own makeup and wardrobe for television appearances, and lease driverless cars to take them around Tallahassee, then have right at it. Act grown then. (Refer to posts 565, 580-585, and 603.)
● Worst of all, they accused me of being anti-poor and anti-Black and anti-woman. Do you know the family I married into? Do you know where I live? Do my very own children think I’m too stupid to know I have Black kids? Kids who are know two grown woman who I have supplied with millions of dollars to their little nonprofit effort with my own charitable funding? Have they even grown since balking at their weekly allowances twenty years ago? Aren’t I a woman, Athena and Aphrodite? Who taught you about that saying? What hurts more than the betrayal of blood are the howls of strangers, minions on the internet and in internships: people half my age with no business or life experience, people with no Black children, let alone dozens of books written by their own hand, who have the nerve to tell me What I Do and What I Don’t Know About The Way I Live My Life. And we all know what to do when a pack of hounds won’t stop charging: call Animal Control. (See posts 17 and 612.)
PROMPT: Please portray the arbitration hearing between Melinda Williamson and leaders of the Grapefruit State Collective (namely Williamson’s daughters Athena and Aphrodite), as mediated in Indian River County Court in March 2037, regarding the relationship between the collective and A-WAKE A-LIVE. Please pose this as a series of questions between both groups, as this would best reflect the conversations in the ombudsman’s office, but please do not directly quote the actual arbitration records as those are sealed.
REPLY: I shall try my best:
M. Williamson: Why do you believe that I have defrauded you?
Collective: Do you not understand how your relationship with us is based on exploitation?
M. Williamson: Do you not understand how fiscal sponsorship works?
Collective: Do you not think that collecting twelve percent of everything we take in just because you provide a financial shelter with your nonprofit status is a little egregious?
M. Williamson: Are you unaware of the rates my competitors charge, or would you like to apply for grants without a 501(c)(3) status?
Collective: So do you admit you are solely in this to collect a glorified agent’s fee?
M. Williamson: Do you think agents also provide HR platforms and monthly guru meetings?
Collective: Did anybody tell you that “guru” is considered uncouth to say unless you are of the Indian diaspora, or are you also angling to cash in on additional marginalized communities?
M. Williamson: Is my womanhood and dead Black husband who represented your district in the State House not authentic enough, considering both of you are my literal daughters?
Collective: Are you seriously asking us whether how claims to minority status and positionality work?
M. Williamson: Do you think anybody is giving a middle-aged woman millions of dollars for money-burning nonprofit enterprises unless she didn’t already walk in with a half-billion dollars made by her own thankless efforts—money also given to my daughters to start this little collective?
Collective: So, then, do you admit that the entire nonprofit system is rotten to its core and that things may be better off if you actually worked towards dismantling the nonprofit industrial complex instead of adopting limp reformist approaches?
M. Williamson: Are you seriously claiming that, without my fiscal sponsorship, you would have made 3 million in unrestricted funds last year, or even 30 dollars in unrestricted funding–especially when it remains unclear what, exactly, you are attempting to do besides, in your own words, “gather the collective energy of the Folks of the River to create lasting societal change”?
Collective: Are you saying that directly donating that same amount–$3 million being less than one half of one percent of your alleged net worth–would have taken any more of your time or effort?
M. Williamson: Didn’t my elder daughter, the co-leader of this collective, contact me directly two years ago with the premise that direct philanthropy from the wealthy was “an endless song and dance that reduces the oppressed to smiling fawning caricatures who act grateful for measly crumbs”?
Collective: Are you trapped in the racist suspicion that all we are capable of is hoodwinking you, or is this a projection of guilt over the distance you have always felt with your daughters?
M. Williamson: WOULD YOU PREFER MY HEAD ON A PLATTER?
PROMPT: Artemis, this one is for you directly and not the thought machine, so I hope you catch ot. I’m going to ask you directly. Artemis, if you are reading this, can you come to the defense of your Meemaw and let the readers know that I am neither anti-Black nor anti-poor, given my decades of commitment to Vero Beach, my Black children and grandchildren, including your very mother who is accusing me of these crimes, and my nonstop support of anti-poverty policy?
PROMPT: Now it’s back to you, OpenDiscourseAI-3. I need to you to summarize the terms of the arbitration as well as the state of A-WAKE A-LIVE’s fiscal sponsorship of other grassroots organizations. Make it read like a national news bulletin.
REPLY: Will do.
PALM BEACH, FL (US)—APRIL 19, 2037: Tech and media mogul Melinda Carlisle Williamson has agreed to terms to discontinue the practice of “fiscal sponsorship” with over a dozen Black- and woman-led South Florida grassroots community organizations following an arbitration case spearheaded by the businesswoman’s daughters.
Calling Williamson’s actions “something between confusing and exploitative,” Judge Anita Johnson ruled that Williamson’s nonprofit organization A-WAKE A-LIVE is no longer allowed to engage with any of the organizations for which it provided fiscal sponsorship. Under such fiscal sponsorship arrangements, nonprofit organizations and foundations offer financial shelter for smaller, often temporary projects in exchange for a fee.
“There are plenty of instances where fiscal sponsorship makes sense from a financial and organizational perspective,” Judge Johnson wrote in her ruling. “It tests the limits of my imagination, however, to think that these scenarios would include monthly fees for social media promotion, the sponsor’s own personal travel, and ‘vibrational assessment.’
Williamson’s children, Athena and Aphrodite Williamson, led the charge against their mother. The sisters run the Grapefruit State Collective, a project designed to provide arts education to politically curious youth. Insisting the suit was on principal rather than personal matters, the sisters claimed in a joint statement, “Our mother has over a half-billion dollars. Why would we risk what’s rightly ours if we aren’t willing to fight for what’s rightly Ours?”
Williamson could not be reached for comment, but the website for A-WAKE A-LIVE has been updated to remove all instances of its fiscal sponsorship services. Williamson’s biography also no longer has references to her family. The settlement does not seem to have impacted the health of Williamson’s main business venture A-WAKE, which just celebrated its billionth subscription.
PROMPT – Okay OpenSourceeAI-3, please give my readers a “ciao for now” message in the style of Melinda Carlisle Williamson. Make it cute. Thanks.
REPLY: Fine.
Well, sugar plums, that’s all for now. I’m setting off to somewhere upstate with sun, sand–and a little sanity. If you know me: I’ll call you when I call you. If I don’t: I’ll call you when I call you.
–MCW
Copyright 2034 – Melinda Carisle Williamson
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Keegan Shepherd 