Bye-Bye American Pie

[dales]

ELLSWORTH, Maine (AP) — A Maine court has given the ex-wife of "American Pie" singer Don McLean an order of protection against him.

McLean pleaded guilty in July to domestic violence assault. His lawyer said at the time that his punishment would be a $3,000 fine if he stayed out of trouble for a year.

Court officials say the court granted a final order of protection on Wednesday that will last for two years. It was preceded by a temporary order.

Patrisha McLean says she is glad the order was granted. Don McLean's attorney did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

McLean is a Camden resident who was arrested in January 2016. He is best known for the song "American Pie," which topped the Billboard chart 45 years ago.

[Lord Jim]

I guess his hands were clenched in fists of rage...

[rubato]

At his age I would wonder if dementia or some progressive neurological disease was involved.

And geez he's a little guy. 5ft 7in

Not that it matters.


yrs,
rubato

[RayThom]

What... again? He was arrested for spousal abuse about a year ago. I bet he's broke, too.

Could it be...

[BoSoxGal]

‘American Pie’ Singer Don McLean Is A ‘Cruel’ Racist & Abuser, Ex-Wife Claims
Court documents reveal horrifying claims about his 'house of horrors.'

Rock legend Don McLean is a brutal tyrant who terrorized his kids, starved the family pets — and battered his ex-wife so badly she still suffers post-traumatic stress disorder!

Those are the shocking charges Patrisha McLean leveled against the 70-year-old in explosive divorce documents exclusively obtained by RadarOnline.com.

“Don manhandled me so much that I cannot tell you specifically the first time it happened,” Patrisha claimed under oath, saying it happened, “when he got mad … angry enough to manhandle me at least once a month I would say.”

She filed for divorce March 10, 2016, after 30 years of marriage, citing “adultery, cruel and abusive treatment and irreconcilable differences.” The split was made official in June.

She described raising the couple’s two children, now adults, in a “house of horrors” where Don, who was arrested in January for domestic violence, routinely beat and belittled her.

She claimed he called her the “C-word” and “anti-Semitic slurs like ‘Hebe’ and ‘K–e,’ ” along with “constant use of the terms ‘stupid, idiot, moron.'”

In a 2016 incident, she claimed, he crushed her temples with his hands, giving her “severe headaches for three weeks.”

Patrisha claimed he said, “I want to strangle you so bad.”

In a memo to the court, Patrisha’s therapist claimed, “The more chronic types of physical abuse by Don happened on a monthly basis … and included pinching, squeezing and twisting arms and legs, punching, shoving, jabbing, hair-pulling and kicking.”

“Don was careful that these bruises were on Pat’s legs and arms, which she could cover up, but not on her face.”

McLean also starved and punched the family’s horses, and chained their dogs to a “two-foot leash on the post of the front stairway,” according to the papers.

“Pat and her children were forced to listen helplessly while the dogs cried,” the file stated.

Even worse, Patrisha claimed Don hurled racial insults when their daughter dated an African-American man, and played a sick game with their kids — actually “branding them with a ring in their flesh.”

Don has not commented.

If she won a two year protection order in Maine, either he didn't object or she has substantial evidence of abuse to present to the court to establish a need for the order.


I used to absolutely adore his music, it was the soundtrack of my late teens/early 20s.

It really sucks how every day of my life these days it seems like something I once believed in turns out to be a fraud.

[Lord Jim]

After reading that...

It seems to me that it's so detailed, (and some of the details are so strange and specific; like the part about him crushing her temples, the specific racial slurs, the starving the pets) that either she's a complete fantasizing mental case, or she must be telling the truth...

It would be useful to hear what their kids have to say about all of this....

[dales]

It really sucks how every day of my life these days it seems like something I once believed in turns out to be a fraud.

Kinda like those poor deluded fools who voted for Trump.

[Big RR]

I agree Jim; I'd like to hear what the kids say as well. I've seen enough of divorce action to know that unfounded claims of physical and mental and even sexual abuse are not uncommon, and often used to get better settlements. Ditto to one spouse not opposing a protective order--no sense to open that can of worms before the divorce settlement is worked out privately (if it can be), (s)he doesn't want to see his/her spouse anyway so what's the big deal? Often one spouse will leave the marital residence for the same reason.

He may be an abusive tyrant, or she may just be a lying opportunist, but we may never know. FWIW, a 70 year old man punching the horses (whether they were starved or not, seems a bit specious--perhaps she watch Blazing Saddles to many times.

[BoSoxGal]

I prosecuted a guy who punched his horses - and beat them over the head with a pitchfork when they came running for hay on the rare occasions that he fed them.

FWIW, she's a well-respected artist & author, and the article I quoted from is old - I believe the divorce was finalized before the court granted her a 2 year protection order.

I'll never understand the impulse to question DV victims, especially as those of us who have done advocacy, prosecution & defense know that false claims are relatively rare - if anything, most victims don't report. Having worked with several 'upper class' DV victims, I have a greater empathy for them as they are so much more often not believed.

Didn't one of Trump's cabinet nominees withdraw in large part because of his ex-wife's prior allegations of DV? And then there's Bannon's history of domestic abuse - and Trump's marital rape history, too.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the
Darkness in my soul.

[Big RR]

BSG--I regularly work with domestic violence victims in my work with DYFS, and DV does indeed occur. But I have also worked with the family courts in divorce actions and have seen how unfounded DV charges and others (including sexual abuse of children) are routinely raised by some to obtain an advantage in negotiating divorce settlements. FWIW, it is often more the attorneys than the litigants prompting these specious allegations, but when people are pissed off they are much more open to doing anything to get even or to win. These are not criminal proceedings, and they rarely even get to the court, they are just used to get a leg up in negotiations. Indeed, I find many divorce practitioners so sleazy that I avoid that area of law except for occasional motions to adjust support or change/maintain custodial arrangements.

As for protective orders, two years is a long time, but I have often advised clients not to contest the orders and to just stay away from their spouse/ex-spouse without any admission of guilt because further contact will just lead to more confrontations, etc.

Again, I don't know what happened here, but the idea of a 70 yr old man punching horses to me seems ludicrous; if your article was older, I didn't appreciate it. And as for her being a respected author/artist, he has similar credentials. I have no dog in this fight--I honestly don't know what happened and who is telling the truth or lying.

[Lord Jim]

Big RR, my reading of that article is that except for the temple crushing incident, (which is alleged to have happened in 2016) most of the rest of the domestic abuse and animal cruelty (like the horse punching) was supposed to have happened earlier over the course of their marriage, a lot of it while they were raising their kids. (Both of whom are now adults.)

Here's a picture of the four of them from 2004:



(I'll admit the daughter looks a little sullen...But I can tell you from personal experience that teenage girls frequently look sullen, especially when they're with their parents... )

I also have no dog in this fight, and of course I'm aware that DV is a very serious and real problem...

But I've also known a few fantasizing headcases as well...(and the ones I've known were very intelligent and well educated)

I think one thing that helps to support her story is the therapists testimony; presumably the notes she's provided are contemporaneous from earlier events long before any public allegations were made...(That would argue against there all being cooked up after the fact)

I do find it interesting that apparently the kids have chosen to stay completely out of this; neither coming forward to corroborate their mother's claims, nor to defend their father against them...

I guess they prefer to remain private, and also to try to stay on good terms with both parents, regardless of what the facts may be. (Many of which they would have been in a very credible position to either verify or dispute.)

[RayThom]

Who knows what evil lurks... behind closed doors.

My father was a pathetic, manipulating, sadistic psychopath in the confines of HIS castle. In the world outside the moat he was seen as a charming Englishman, a raconteur who was as warm and cuddly as a little puppy.

It appears that he and Don shared a similar mask -- both ugly and scary.

[BoSoxGal]

Mine was just the same, everyone thought he was a great guy who was very friendly and told great jokes - behind closed doors he was a monster to my mother and his children. The only people who knew were my mother's best friend (who witnessed my father beating my mother at 9 months pregnant with my brother, and saw the bruises she bore on a regular basis) and some of my mother's family. In order to keep his control over her, he moved us 2500 miles away from her friends and family so we had nobody.

One of the hardest things living in a house of such horror is that you are conditioned not to speak of it and everything you see around you - the way other people outside the family react to your abusive spouse/parent who they think is such a 'great guy' - tells you that even if you found the courage to speak the truth, you would likely not be believed.

It's so sad that after almost 50 years of an active domestic violence advocacy movement in this country, not a whole lot has changed in that regard and we have known spousal abusers in the White House.

[BoSoxGal]

From his daughter:

The older I get, the more I understand just how unusual my childhood was. I lived in a house on a hill, far away from the small town below, with my parents, my brother and a vivid, Technicolor cast of virtual friends. My father was afraid to let us leave the house. He always told us that it was dangerous outside. Friends were not allowed to come over. My hair was long and flowing, I had a whole hilltop to myself, and, late at night, I would lean out of my bedroom window, close my eyes and listen to the sounds of a lone dog in the distance, the wind in the trees, the music of the peepers’ chorus.

There were long stretches of time when I’d lie still, alone with silence and my own nebulous thoughts, romantic visions in my head, and play elaborate imagined interactions in my mind where I was part of something bigger, one member of an interconnected network of peers: an orphan in an orphanage, a Jane Austen adolescent, a visitor to Oz.

In large groups of people, such as at school, I wandered in my own reverie. I observed all the minutiae of social behavior, but I was always adrift on the edge of it. I was desperate to play a part, but I hadn’t learned to perform. The language they spoke was as if from another country.

My father could never forgive us for growing up. He wanted to keep us, his lost children, in a Peter Pan fantasy.
My best friend was my brother, Wyatt. We were each other’s only witnesses. We set up sleeping bags on the floor of his immaculate room and put our heads together next to the Sony boom box. “Annie, are you OK?” Over and over and over again. We used printer paper to dress up as our favorite characters. I was Oliver Hardy, Wyatt was Tom Mix. When the house felt too empty, we stood on the driveway and sang. I wove elaborate harmonies over my brother’s pure tenor. The Kingston Trio, Glenn Miller, Judy Garland.

My father could never forgive us for growing up. He wanted to keep us, his lost children, in a Peter Pan fantasy. Every sign of growth caused an outburst, a strain on the bubble that contained us. As I got older, I took to hiding in my room more and more. My very appearance was evidence of my failure to stay the way he wanted me to. Every day he talked wistfully about the good times when we were immobile, mute, helpless against any influence. “I remember when you were first born,” he’d say, “you were the first thing that was ever completely mine.”

http://www.talkhouse.com/jackie-mclean- ... -daughter/

[BoSoxGal]

Normal men don't isolate their children or resent them growing up.

[Lord Jim]

Well, that article written by his daughter tips the scale for me...

The guy was a sadistic control freak who richly deserves to spend the rest of his life alone, and to have a funeral attended only by the mortician and the guys digging the hole...

[Burning Petard]

Normal men lead normal lives and exceptional men do things that are exceptional.

Exceptional accomplishments rarely mean that they should be role models for any and all activities of life. I attended the same little Iowa college where Bruce Jenner began his training to eventually become the Decathlon champion. (I was at that college for two years and dropped out) I was so proud of that connection when his face showed up on the box of Wheaties. But I am glad I never had any other experiences similar to his. Human beings, particularly exceptional ones, are risky as role models or personal idols. Never heard yet of any individual described as a 'teen idol' who was worth emulating for their off stage actions.

snailgate

[Big RR]

The guy does sound like a real control freak and jerk, and pretty crummy father to boot. I think a parent's biggest responsibility is to prepare one's children for adulthood, and it appears he failed miserably in that regard.

[RayThom]

From his daughter:

... “I remember when you were first born,” he’d say, “you were the first thing that was ever completely mine.”

Ergo the problem, and quite cringe worthy. Don was raising chattel in his own self-loathing image. Fortunately, it appears that his offspring was strong enough to break the ties that bind. However, it's really sad to think about how many of the mental scars and bruises remain. I wish her well.