Tales Of A RATT (48 page)

I’d had several friends warn me that she was trying to set me up for something. Naturally, I didn’t want to believe it, but looking back….

When we would argue, it was always the same; regardless the issue. I’m the kind of guy who needs some space when I get upset. I just want a little time to myself to get my thoughts together and be rational. Ashley simply would never allow me to do that. She wouldn’t leave me alone. She would stay in my face, constantly. Yelling. Screaming. Saying the worst, most foul and inappropriate things to me or about me. Almost as if she was baiting me to hit her.

If I ever put my hands on her during these moments, whether it was to take her shoulders and lead her out of the room, or to take her hand to calm her down, it wouldn’t matter. She would immediately start yelling, “Don’t you touch me! That’s assault! Don’t you fucking touch me!”

Assault? Really? You mean, I’m going to have to call the cops to get you out of my fucking bedroom? Really?

Needless to say, the warning signals were there.

On the cruise, I hear through Robbie Crane’s wife that Ashley is at it again; talking about our private moments. It pisses me off, so the argument with Ashley begins. It’s three o’clock in the morning, and while I’m ready to end the fight, she won’t let it go. I’m ready for bed, and she keeps going on and on and on and on… …and I put my hand over her mouth.

In hindsight, I can see where this move might backfire on me, but it seemed harmless enough. I wasn’t being physical or abusive, I simply covered her mouth so I could have a little peace. She bit me. HARD. Hard enough that my finger was swollen and blood-blistered.

She immediately jumps out of the bed, crying out for me not to hit her. Keep in mind that we are on a cruise ship. Robbie and his wife are in the room on one side of us. Stephen is in the room on the other. It’s clear that her “act” is intended for the band to hear what was going on. Finally, she jumps up and runs across the hall to the security office, crying “domestic abuse.”

The security officer comes in and checks it all out in his security officer sort of way. Ashley had told him that I “punched her in the face.” It’s clear that she’s full of shit, and nothing happened, especially anything where SHE was hurt or abused, nevermind the wound on my finger where she went all “Hanibal Lecter” on me. So, the whole thing became a non-event.

It was a non-event to everyone except me. She had done all of this bullshit drama at my place of work. This is the place where I have a public image to maintain, and an expected code of conduct from my band mates, and she’s making out like I’m some sort of gorilla out to beat her down.

God, what a depressing time. It’s times like that when you can wind up doing some kooky things. Which, of course, I did.

We had an empty wine bottle in the cabin on ship, and you know how the old movies always had the marooned castaway throw a bottle with a note in it out to sea, in the vain hopes of being rescued? Yeah, I did that. I was marooned in a relationship that I desperately wanted to work out, yet if anyone ever needed rescuing, it was me!

I wrote a note, tucked it down in the bottle, and threw it into the ocean from the observation deck of the cruise liner. It was symbolic, of course, and I simply forgot about it.

Funny thing – about three weeks after the cruise, I get an email. Seems the bottle had found it’s way to the shores of Florida, and a little girl from Canada had picked it up and given it to her parents. They were all vacationing there from Quebec, and were blown away by this unexpected, random thing that their daughter had found.

They didn’t know who I was, but the note said I was Bobby Blotzer, drummer for Ratt, and I was playing a show on the cruise liner…blah, blah, blah.

When they got home, they looked me up online and checked out the band, then contacted me to say they had my wine bottle! It was fun. I responded, and we had a good laugh about it. Now, they have a story they can tell for years to come about how they got a message in a bottle from a bummed out, love struck rock star!

Yeah. Relationships make you do some strange shit. The worst part is not realizing it’s over until it’s way too late.

When we got home from the trip, I was done. She was staying in my guest bedroom at that point, and I just couldn’t deal with her anymore. It was time for her to go. It was Christmas ’09, and we had plans made from before the holidays; parties and what-not. So, I decided to fight through the drama until the New Year, but the decision had made itself. I didn’t need to help it along. Come January, we were done.

On December 17, I went out with some friends to have appetizers and cocktails at a local restaurant we all like. Ashley was at the house, and we had passed each other as I was leaving. Feeling a little guilty, I called her and asked if she wanted to join us, which she did.

The night goes on, and we get back to the house around 10:30. She heads straight to bed, but I’ve got house stuff to do. I was checking the patio heaters I’d bought for the Christmas party we were throwing for the coming weekend, drinking a little Merlot, and checking the household out in general.

I was listening to some music, low and slow, while I was doing all of this. She starts texting me about how loud it is, and that she can’t sleep. It was the Beatles. It was barely on. How she could even hear it, when I could barely make it out was beyond me. The texts continued, getting progressively meaner. Finally, she comes out in full banshee mode. It’s on.

Before it’s over, with the yelling, screaming, cursing and bullshit that she normally brings to the fight, she added a few new wrinkles to the mix. After slamming doors (which had just been remodeled from damaged she had previously caused), she comes back out of her room and continues the fight.

Over the next several minutes, it gets heated, verbally. I wind up calling her a cunt (which women absolutely hate!) It’s at that time that I realize why she stormed back into her room. In her hands, she is concealing a video camera and is recording our argument from the upstairs landing.

I took the camera away from her. Keep in mind, this is the only time I’ve gotten physical with her in any way, and it wasn’t a punch, slap, bite, gouge, or any other physical trauma that occurred. I accidentally caught her hair in my hand while going for the camera. Did I pull it? Not on purpose, but probably. Ashley’s hair goes down past her waist. She pulls it when she sits down. So, yeah, it’s a good chance that it got pulled in the scuffle for the camera.

Once I had the camera (which I desperately wanted to smash on the tile, but didn’t), she immediately goes to the phone and calls the police, crying “domestic violence.”

I was done. I left, and went to a hotel for the night. She was absolutely out of control.

The next day, I go down to the police station. I figure that if I’m getting accused of God-knows-what, I’m going to at least make my statement. I’m soon to discover, though, that the story she told the cops the night before is significantly different from the truth.

She tells the cops that I hit her and yanked her by the hair, going all Cro-Magnon on her!

The cop behind the desk looks over the computer files, and then excuses himself to check another computer. Keep in mind, that because of the OJ Simpson murders, California now has laws where the DA’s office can file charges whether a victim wishes them to, or not. It’s a felony charge. It’s prison time.

They arrest me for domestic assault. Ashley never presses charges. In fact, the cops who took her statement referred to her as a drama queen. There wasn’t a mark on her, and she didn’t look like anything had happened. She just wanted the attention, I guess. However, that didn’t matter. The DA was the person to decided how this proceeded, not Ashley, or me.

$50,000 bail, and I’m back on the street sweating this trumped up charge that my immature fiancé brought on me.

I get back to the house, and tell her to bounce. Get your shit and get out. This relationship simply isn’t going to happen. It was a hollow feeling for me, especially since she already had most of her shit packed up to go.

In the end, nothing was ever filed by the officers, the DA or the courts. In their eyes, it was a non-case. Ashley was actually kind of bummed out about that. I sent her a text about it, talking about her out-right lies to the police.

She sent back the following: “Lies, oh wow. You need help, or serious punishment. I won’t miss you anymore. Enjoy your pity party. You’re guilty and soulless.”

Ten minutes before that, she was sending me texts with Beatle lyrics in them about missing one another and shit like that. Crazy shit.

In the end, had I not tried to do the stand-up thing by going to the police, I probably wouldn’t have been arrested or anything. It would have just went away. But, it didn’t.

Not by a long shot.

I suppose it’s my own base nature that puts me into these situations. From a certain point of view, one may think that I’m too co-dependent, or that I have no direction in my love life. That isn’t true.

I am a man who looks for, and expects to find, the best in people. When I meet a woman, it’s an opportunity for me to find a completion to my life; my missing piece, if you will. While it may seem naïve on my part, I can assure you that it’s not. Life is too short to not take a chance on love.

And, I can tell you that I’ve loved all the women in my life, for better or worse.

Ashley became the worst of the worse.

I was talking about all of this with Misty. Ex-M-1. We’ve stayed in touch and remained friends, so it was a friend kind of thing to do.

She could tell that something was wrong with me, and pressed for the story. I told her that it was in confidence, and she swore it would never leave her mouth. Unfortunately, so personal issues got in the way, and she was pushed out of the Christmas party that Ashley and I (now just me) had planned. I had to ask her not to come. It pissed her off, and hell hath no fury, right?

She blabs the story to some of these motor-mouth musician types here in LA. They are big gossip hounds. Robbie Crane calls me and tells me about it. This guy had called him and asked “What’s up, I heard Blotzer punched his girl in the face?”

The next thing I know, it’s all over the internet. Metal Sludge even ran a Photoshopped picture of Ashley and I where her face had been made up to be all bruised and shit. It was obviously messed with, and those guys did it for comedic factor, but fuck me!

It’s worldwide. Blabbermouth. All over the radio. Everywhere. My friends and family all know that I didn’t do anything, and that there wasn’t even a report filed, but the fans don’t know that. They form their own opinion, and it’s usually fed by what’s in print or online.

What a fucking drag. I was spiraling down over this stuff, and Ashley seemed to take great glee in it.

I truly loved this woman, so it was hard for me to really admit that it was over. It took a lot to make me admit that, because I still wanted to see the good in her. I still wanted to see the love. But, even my closest friends were stepping up and pointing out the obvious.

When the police charges were dropped, Ashley was angry, and her gloves came off. I can’t believe the decisions she made in the days following the decision by the D.A. to not charge me.

She did everything she could to make me admit that I had abused her in some sort of way. She would leverage me against other people we knew, and she talked CONSTANTLY to anyone who showed even a vague interest. One thing about Ashley – she loved to hear herself talk. She would talk, talk, talk, talk, and almost everything was a defamation of me, and trash talk me to everyone; yet when it came time to gain attention as the fiancée of a famous rockstar, she would be right there on my arm, all smiles and profiles.

But, I simply would not admit to something I did not do. I NEVER harmed Ashley. The police knew it. The courts knew it. Our friends and family knew it. Everyone seemed to know it except Ashley. I don’t know if she had lied to herself so much she believed it, or if she was trying to manipulate the situation to her favor, setting up a lawsuit, or palimony suit, or some bullshit like that.

She filed a restraining order against me, doing it in as public and high profile a way as she could, again trying to make me out as a monster. I’d had enough. After going to jail over this woman, then having my name drug around in the mud by the tabloids, AND our friends being forced into it as well, it was time to put a stop to the whole charade.

Two days before she filed the thing, she was at my house trying to reconcile. Two days AFTER she filed the thing, she’s still texting my phone three or four dozen times a day, trying to reconcile. It was a total mind game for this kid. Finally, on the day before Valentine’s Day, she sends me a text saying, “I can’t be happy with you in my life.” And, that was it. Mind you, this was well AFTER she had already filed the restraining order. I was done with it. Completely burned.

On the 16th of February, her brother Rex drops by the house, unannounced. I’d tried earlier in the week to talk to him; to make sure he and the family wasn’t buying the bullshit his sister was selling about my smacking her around. That was important to me, because while her family is pretty kooky, they are good people.

So, here’s Rex. He telling me that he’s on my side and that he understands, because she used to pull this kind of shit with him all the time when they were kids, getting him in tons of trouble with their parents and playing it off with her melodramatic style.

Everything seems good with the two of us. He’s on my side in the thing, even offering to be a character witness against his sister when the court convenes for the restraining order hearing.

Then it happens.

As he’s leaving, he slips a piece of paper on my table, and walk away from it. I’m like, “Bro, you left this.” He looks at me a little sheepishly and goes, “No, man. That’s yours.”

It’s a court summons. He served me on behalf of Ashley.

Didn’t really know how to take that. He explained it away by saying he wanted it to come from him, instead of her sending the sheriff’s department to my house again. Maybe he’s being straight up with me, but it sure seemed convenient. Regardless, at that point, I only had four days to respond to the summons, so I was scrambling.