OMG WTF, I’m Old

As I’ve mentioned before, since I have now been without cable a few years, instead of watching TV I usually watch original comedy stuff on YouTube – guys like this one and this one and this one, gals like this one, this piece of citrusy goodness, and, of course – these guys, as they’re the home team.

A month or so ago, I was voting in a Survivor-type contest among YouTubers, and I kept seeing this one three-letter acronym used over and over again in comments on people’s videos. It was confusing me terribly as to why people were repeatedly writing this acronym in regards to YouTubers they apparently liked.

Because when I was in college and thereabouts in the Eighties – and into the Nineties, for that matter – all those bad boys with their Black Flag and Minor Threat and Bad Brains records (i.e., the ones I always wound up with – go figure) used to stencil this three-letter acronym on guitar cases and skateboards and stuff. Or my ex’s slightly nerdy, acid-dropping, D&D-playing friends would fake tattoo it on themselves. It was spray painted on the walls (always either in black or red) of at least three apartments I remember in Murfreesboro and two in Nashville, and on the outside of one garage.

You’d have been hard pressed to walk into Cantrell’s, the Exit/In, or Elliston Square in the Eighties and not seen this acronym scrawled on a t-shirt, an Army jacket, or a pair of torn jeans in black magic marker. After all, it was all, everybody’s an anarchist, yada yada and all that… way back then in the ol’ Dark Ages. After all. (I just wanted to fit “all” into this paragraph somehow, just one more time.)

And it – said three-letter acronym – it wasn’t very, well… nice. (And understandably so, since everybody was an anarchist and all that.)

So a month or so ago, I was really having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around why in the world people kept leaving in comments things like:

“(insert YouTube comedian’s name here)… FTW!”

I guess it’s one of the disadvantages to not having kids/teenagers to set me straight – and next time, maybe I’ll have enough sense to just go straight to Urban Dictionary instead of straining my brain over something like “For The Win!” for days. Or a week and a half exactly.

But I guess at least not having teenagers meant I got to spare myself the inevitable ridicule when Mom asked why all these people on YouTube were telling all these other people to f*ck the world, right?

A Long Overdue Thank You

I am here today because there’s a post I need to write that’s going to make me sick if I don’t get it out of my head today, it’s been nagging at me so much since yesterday afternoon. If you happen to have arrived here before the next post is posted, then I’ve probably already spoiled it because you probably already have an idea what it’s about. Sorry for that. They probably both belong on the music blog instead, but I really need to post them here instead (don’t ask me why, like a lot of things it really makes no sense, but there ya go).

First, though, before I get to that post, I would probably be really remiss if I didn’t go back to about a month ago and admit to you all that the day the news came out that Doug Fieger, leader of The Knack, had passed away, I cried my fool head off that entire day and night.

This really didn’t make any sense on the surface. As a 13-year-old, I bought Get the Knack in 1979 just like most everyone else did and played it to death, “My Sharona” was a great tune, it was cool. All peachy.

But The Knack were never, like, one of my VERY favorites, you know. That’s a record that’s somewhat surprisingly stood the test of time, but it would have been far, far down the list of my stranded-on-a-desert-island picks. And goodness knows the music world has lost a bunch of my big heroes in the last several years – Joe Strummer, three of the four original Ramones, many many more. All of which made me sad, of course, but none of which left me incapacitated in tears and unable to do anything but drown my sorrows in YouTube for an entire day.

It finally dawned on me at some point during the course of all that misery why it was affecting me so. The more and more frequent occurrence of the heroes and idols of my youth passing away over the last several years had indeed been more and more disturbing and upsetting, and each one another reminder of how much older I myself was getting and that – since most of my musical heroes were far older than me when I was a preteen, teenager, college kid – I knew these depressing moments were going to happen more and more as time went on and as we all got older, sure.

This one hit HARD, though. Almost like losing a family member, because of the sheer importance of it all.

Importance? The Knack????

Scoff if you will. The Knack changed EVERYTHING – for some of us, anyway.

Oh sure, there was great, and greater, music around. The Ramones had been around for years by that time, The Clash, and dozens of other legendary bands springing up in New York City, on the West Coast, in the UK, lots of places, yes.

There was great music around somewhere. But you’ve likely no idea how hard it was to GET to that music in 1979, if you lived in small towns in West Tennessee. Probably would have been a little different had I grown up in Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis – but it still took a long time for a lot of that stuff to filter down to even those places. I’ve written numerous times over the years about how hard I had to scratch and scramble to get my hands on anything I read or found out about that wasn’t “mainstream”, and how I’d have been oblivious to most of it were it not for the fact that I was (A) a night owl and (B) rarely missed an airing of things like Saturday Night Live, Fridays, and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.

And you must remember as well – people still listened to radio back then. In the car, at home – wherever – radio was still pretty much king of the hill when it came to getting music to the masses. Yeah, I had a lot of records as a kid – but there were lots of times the choice was either radio, or no music at all.

Were it not for the fact that I was a major Cheap Trick fan from nearly the start, and a KISS fan, and the fact that The Cars put out their first two albums (which still didn’t get played on the radio down here all that much back in the day), I’d have been mostly 100% S.O.L. throughout the late 1970s because there was just so very much horrible crap on the radio. For years up to 1979, the radio airwaves were dominated by disco and so much easy-listening-type junk that even though I listened to it anyway – and even though I bought a lot of it at the time – it was really like a vast musical wasteland out there filled with stuff that might have been better than no music at all, but was thoroughly unexciting and barely tolerable.

There was one FM station in the area that wasn’t on around the clock and did play mostly progressive rock – a lot of which I didn’t like and still don’t, but some of which I did – but it was better than what was on the rest of the stations on the dial, so I’d listen to it when I could. But then we moved too far away in the beginning of the summer of 1979 for me to get the signal anymore, so there went that.

And to make matters even worse, bands I did like whose music made it to mainstream radio were releasing stuff I couldn’t stand, to fit in with the times. God knows I love The Rolling Stones and always have, but with the exception of “Shattered”, you can keep the Some Girls album. Then KISS goes all disco and releases the “I Was Made For Loving You” single and adds even more insult to injury. It just kept getting worse and worse.

That summer of 1979, The Knack saved mainstream radio. For those of us stuck out in the sticks (or almost), those of us who didn’t have easy access to all the cool stuff out of the norm that they didn’t play on our local radio stations and had to scramble to get anything like that – The Knack were a godsend. When “My Sharona” hit the top of the charts and stayed there and stayed there – ultimately becoming the top selling rock single of the entire decade of the Seventies – Doug Fieger and The Knack changed everything, for those of us who didn’t live in the cool cities like NYC and L.A., or even Memphis and Nashville and Knoxville.

The Knack opened the door for all those other bands that came after to get played on Small Town USA radio – some great or good, some not so good, some just plain bad – but they weren’t disco, and they weren’t all that soft rock-easy listening stuff that kind of put the entire nation to sleep, I think, for most of 1974 or 1975 to 1979. Finally there was something new and fresh and different to listen to on the radio – ‘cos listen, if you weren’t old enough to drive yet, you were still pretty dependent on whatever was on the radio for the most part back then.

And all those bands The Knack’s big hit opened up the door for made their way to MTV, when it began – but most of us outside of the cities didn’t have MTV, not for years. You’re reading the blog of someone who, for years, one of the big highlights and treats of going to visit friends and family in Memphis was getting to watch MTV while there, after all.

Radio became tolerable again – kind of funny NOW to think of being THAT dependent on what was being played on the radio – but you just didn’t have that much of a choice back then and, again, a lot of the time, it was radio or no music at all. And I started out growing up in one small town, but spent my teenage years in ones even smaller. My little hometown’s FM radio station would have probably still been playing disco and all-Eagles-all-the-time (nothing against the Eagles, but you get what I mean) by the time I was in high school. Instead, thanks to what happened the summer of 1979 and The Knack, that little radio station was the first place I heard things like Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio”, Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”, and any number of other tunes that might have never have had a shot on mainstream radio had they come out a few years before that.

John Cougar-before-he-was-Mellencamp, Bryan Adams, Loverboy, .38 Special – all those probably would have made it out there anyway, but I have doubts that things like Donnie Iris’ “Ah! Leah!” (still to this day one of my fave all time tunes) would have ever made it to Small Town USA airwaves without the overwhelming initial success of The Knack. Maybe so, who knows – but The Knack still started it all, and at the best possible time when it was desperately needed by those of us far from places like NYC and L.A.

So when I found out that Doug had passed away, I mourned, probably for many reasons. Here was another senseless cancer death, for someone who was really far too young to leave the world this early (he was 57). And the fact that, though The Knack were never a “top favorite” of mine, they were a band that was so instrumental and so important in such a very big change in the world of easily available music that was my youth. And then there was having to face the fact that it’d been now over 30 years since “My Sharona” was released, so that was kind of like the final nail in the coffin of my gloriously misspent youth (not that I don’ t know my youth has been gone a LONG time, but something like that just makes it oh-so-final and irreversible).

It’s hard to believe that was so long ago. If I close my eyes, I can remember a certain day that song was playing and see the radio it was playing on, the dresser the radio was sitting on, see the mountain view outside the window the dresser was next to, and almost – almost – hear the voices of the several people that were lounging around the room that day, most of whom were tapping a foot or fingers or bobbing their head along with the music. It’s that clear. It’s just one of those songs that can immediately whip me right back there to that very spot in time… if only for four minutes and 54 seconds.

Anyway, it was that long ago indeed. And it was just all so depressing and I felt so blah that I just cried my fool head off all day because it was really the only thing I felt like doing.

Which, again, was kind of odd, as Doug was someone I hadn’t really even thought about in a long time. I remember way back during the Kevorkian trials, noticing that the doctor’s attorney’s name was Geoffrey Fieger and thinking he sure did look an awful lot like the only other person named Fieger I’d ever heard of (and of course he does, he’s Doug’s older brother, as it turned out). That was probably the last time Doug Fieger’s name had crossed my mind, really, consciously anyway.

And in the course of that day of mourning, I also discovered that he was once married to actress Marin Kanter, who starred in one of my favorite music films of all time that nobody ever saw called Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains with Diane Lane, Laura Dern and Ray Winstone (along with Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols, Paul Simonon of The Clash, and Fee Waybill of The Tubes) – a film that finally won a DVD release in 2008 after years of clamoring for it by its cult following of fans, most of whom had only seen it back in the early 1980s when it ran on The Movie Channel and the like. Anyway, that was kind of a neat Easter egg to come across, something I didn’t know.

In any case, The Knack just changed everything for kids like me that were stuck out far away from the cities back in 1979, it was really as simple as that. If not for them, some other band might have come along and done it, sure  – but as it were, it was Doug Fieger and The Knack that saved radio for us. I’ll be ever grateful for that.

This was a neat video from 2008 I found that day on YouTube where Doug and a friend gave an impromptu performance of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” at a party (yet another one of those cool things I find from time to time that make me wish I’d had a video camera in the ’80s to capture some similar moments around Nashville back in the day).

On a final note, here’s a hint – the Get The Knack album is still really, really good. It’s a little dated, but it’s stood the test of time pretty well – you’ve got to get past “My Sharona” and listen to the whole thing to really get it (no pun intended), but I think it’s held up a lot better over time than many of the other big albums from that early New Wave era of rock & roll.

I kinda knew this a long time ago back in the mid-’80s when Greg and Joey and I started messing around musically and (in that honeymoon-like period when you are first getting to know people you’re playing music with really well and everything you discover you have in common is such a treat) we frequently found that the songs we all liked best and had spent time learning were usually the songs on various albums that were the “filler” tunes and ones other people often didn’t know or care about (and because of that, we’d often have to correct people who’d think it was one of Greg’s or Joey’s originals, but that’s another story).

Of the probably thousands of albums we pulled out (whether actually by hand or just talking about them) that summer of 1986, one of the tunes Greg started picking out softly on his guitar in my stupid little apartment north of the MTSU campus was this thing I immediately recognized and started singing the first line before he even opened his mouth, and it eventually became a staple and something people often thought Greg wrote, especially since we kinda indie’d and punked it up a little like we did most everything. This happened all the time – name an album, and whatever obscure “filler” track on that album one of us liked best almost always turned out to be the one the others liked best too. This one, too, was just another one of those “back of the album” tunes we all liked best on the album that most people never heard – along with other ones that weren’t “My Sharona” or “Good Girls Don’t”. It was The Knack’s “Your Number or Your Name”, and we just made it our own for a little while.

“My Sharona” was deservedly the hit for The Knack though – and that guitar solo is actually pretty awesome, and lord knows it sold bazillions of copies – but really when you listen to the album, the other single to me was really always the standout, brilliant one and the gem among it all. It was a favorite of KC’s, and when we were about 14 & 16 he once told me that all I really ever needed to know about teenage boys was in this song  (that was, of course, before The Replacements and before Paul W. wrote “Sixteen Blue”) – but this was always (no surprise) his favorite Knack song and really it was pretty brilliant in its straightforwardness and its simplicity. I was going to post the original video and then I found this semi- (or all?) live version of “Good Girls Don’t” from some appearance on VH-1 in the early ’80s. KC’d be happy with this one and he’d say this is the correct version (because it’s the dirty version, which obviously didn’t make the original video). ;)

In any case – even though I’m a month overdue in posting this – RIP Doug. Thanks for the music, the memories, and thanks especially for saving radio and making it tolerable again for us kids stuck out in the sticks and almost-sticks in the summer of 1979. For that, I will be always grateful.

I Hope I Have Electricity Too

With a nod to ‘Coma for recently citing two of my favorite movies of all time, if I am stuck on a deserted island with nothing but a TV and a DVD player and only ten DVDs, I believe I can get by with these. In no particular order:

1. River’s Edge – In the Nineties and pre-DVD days, I practically killed myself to get a VHS copy of this off eBay. Crispin Glover is a madman (in real life and on camera) – and was wonderful in the Back to the Future films – but he truly shines here in seriously disturbing and unnerving glory. Say what you will about Keanu Reeves, and yes, he’s played the same role a million times, but it suits him no better than in this film. The film is SUPPOSED to be disturbing and so are the characters. And to boot, it’s based on a true story. Side Trivia: Ione Skye Leitch, daughter of ’60s music icon Donovan, appears as Keanu’s love interest in the film, one of her first (Gas Food Lodging is another good one featuring her). She is also the ex-wife of Adam Horowitz of the Beastie Boys, and had a long-term live-in relationship with Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
2. Heathers – Quite possibly my fave film of all time ever. Yeah, it’s starting to look a little dated now but that only adds to its charm nowadays. And the setting is Westerburg (sic) High School – need I say more? There are so many fabulous tongue-in-cheek in-jokes in this movie – the Heathers, Betty & Veronica, millions more – it’s just beautiful. Back in the days when I actually used to go OUT to the movies, I saw this one about five times in the theater in the same month. Side Trivia: Kim Walker, who played Heather Duke (the first dead Heather) was dating Christian Slater at the time, but they broke up during filming of the movie. Walker later developed a brain tumor and died in 2001 at the age of 32.
3. Say Anything… – There have been few John Cusack movies I haven’t adored, but director Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything… is THE one. I have referenced Lloyd Dobler on this blog so many times over the years (as well as other Cusack films), I have a separate John Cusack category on the blog. I would have a super hard time picking a favorite scene, but my favorite is probably when Lloyd confronts the guys sitting outside the Gas ‘N Sip. Lili Taylor does a marvelous turn as well in this flick, and her songs about Joe (especially the one – you know the one) always have me in fits of giggles on the floor while watching. Side Trivia: Ione Skye also appears in this one, as Lloyd’s love interest Diane. The Replacement’s “Within Your Reach” is also notably featured in this film, which of course is another of the million reasons I fell in love with it so hard.
4. Gremlins – I can’t even talk about how much I have always loved this movie without crying. I haven’t watched it in many, many years for the same reason. I first saw it while on summer vacation in a theater in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware in 1984. Side Trivia: Judge Reinhold & Phoebe Cates also appeared together in another fondly remembered for me film of the ’80s, Cameron Crowe’s (again) Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It’s not one of my very favorites and it’s certainly gotten dated, but it is still funny, especially if you grew up in the ’80s.
5. Less Than Zero – Another, to borrow a phrase, ’80s “the kids are NOT all right” film, and another I practically paid an arm and a leg for to get a VHS copy of back in the ’90s. This one is akin to a John Hughes movie gone all wrong. It’s got its problems and on the surface would appear to be really out there as far as the whole wealthy and disaffected youth thing, but it’s really not as implausible as one would think. The details of the scenes themselves may have been different, but mainly due to geographics – the base story existed all over the country at the time, including Nashville. Side Trivia: Oh, James Spader, how despicable you are in this film, but how I adore you anyway and have in every film you’ve ever been in.
6. Sid & Nancy – And thus begun the rest of my lifelong adoration of Gary Oldman as well. There are much better films he’s been in (and I love each and every one of them), but Alex Cox’s Sid & Nancy was his first big role, and there was just no one else who could have been a more perfect Sid Vicious. It’s the most disturbing and disgusting and sickening love story and everything punk was, a beautiful film in all its ugliness and has one of the best soundtracks ever. My friend Jen used to do the best Chloe Webb doing Nancy (“SIIIIIIIIID!”) that would have me rolling in the floor. Side Trivia: Look for an extremely young Courtney Love in a few scenes as one of Nancy Spungen’s pals.
7. Drugstore Cowboy – I used to not think very highly of Matt Dillon as an actor until this one came out, and I became a fan of Gus Van Sant’s films on this one. Like many of my favorites, it’s disturbing and difficult to watch, but one of the greatest things about this film is that even though the story is pitiful and pathetic, Matt Dillon is SO funny in it. Under the surface of all the dirty drug addiction tale, this movie is hilarious. Also has an excellent soundtrack of gems from the time of the film’s setting, including The Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction”, Desmond Dekker’s “The Israelites”, Gary Lewis & the Playboys’ “Judy in Disguise”, and Hazel, KY/slash/Puryear, TN (my home county) native Jackie DeShannon’s “Put a Little Love in Your Heart”. Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho is also pretty good though a little faulty; this one is better. Side Trivia: Matt Dillon’s first big film role as a young teen was in another big all-time favorite of mine that has become a cult classic of sorts, Over the Edge – another one that has gotten very ’70s dated over time but still well worth watching, plus then-not-so-known Cheap Trick is largely featured on the soundtrack. As a commenter on iMDB noted, Over the Edge was “a teen movie that gets it right”.
8. Dogs in Space – An Australian film you’ve probably never heard of and another disaffected youth mostly on drugs flick, but this time based in Melbourne’s post-punk scene of the late ’70s – and also based on more true stories, and starring – yes – the late Michael Hutchence of INXS. This film is such a favorite of mine I paid an extremely huge amount of money to get the VHS tape in the ’90s, and the last time I checked on DVD prices (which admittedly has been a few years now) it could be had for $200-350 – that price has probably gone down by now. Very much a “slice of life” flick and disturbing in places to watch, but it’s excellent and also has a soundtrack far beyond excellent – Iggy Pop, Nick Cave/Boys Next Door, Brian Eno, Gang of Four, and some more legends of the time as well as the fab tracks done by Hutchence and crew.  An iMDB commenter said, “This is for when you’re feeling like you need some company, but you don’t feel like venturing past your doorstep” – I agree.  Side Trivia: The real Sam Sejavka, who fronted Melbourne band The Ears in the late ’70s and is played by Hutchence in the film, appears in the movie twice and is addressed by Hutchence in the party scene as “Michael”.
9. Quandary: Real Genius or The Doors – I can’t help it, I do love me some Val Kilmer, and if I could take another dozen or so films I’d be taking all the Val Kilmer films as well as the entire John Hughes oeuvre with me. Real Genius is so freakin’ hilarious through and through and I defy anyone to disagree with me. Oliver Stone’s epic The Doors has got its problems but it mostly gets it right and dang, Kilmer did such a dead-on Jim Morrison it’s almost creepy, I can’t help it, I think his performance in this film was brilliant. This was another I saw probably eight times or more while it was still first-run in the theater. Probably in the end, The Doors would win out, but jeez, it’d be a tough call. Side Trivia: Kilmer did most of the singing in the film himself and even the surviving Doors (Manzarek, Krieger, and Densmore) admitted they had a hard time telling the difference. So did I the first time I saw the film; I had no idea it wasn’t Jim Morrison’s vocals. On that basis alone, par excellence. Also look for a fairly large number of Doors associates and other scenesters of the time, including producer Paul Rothchild, Patricia Kennealy, singer Bonnie Bramlett, Eric Burdon of The Animals, and a Door himself – drummer John Densmore – in cameo appearances.
10. Another tough call – Birdy or Platoon? – My decades-long adoration of and obsession with Matthew Modine is only barely outweighed by John Cusack and only slightly precedes James Spader, and having to decide between these two films is awful, though Birdy would probably win out in the end. This also meant I had to toss out another huge Modine favorite and an underappreciated and hugely funny one that probably doesn’t appear on many favorites lists, Married to the Mob. All three are fabulous films for their own reasons. Side Trivia: Having now mentioned Birdy, I also have to mention two more that didn’t make the cut – Valley Girl and Raising Arizona, all featuring Modine’s Birdy co-star Nicolas Cage, also good. Valley Girl, which was really Cage’s big film break, is worth it for The Plimsouls on stage alone. Wow, I first saw that one at the drive-in in 1983.

God, that was awful to try to choose ten and I still didn’t really succeed. Here are a few more – runners-up, I suppose – that didn’t make the final cut:

1. Edward Scissorhands – I love this movie in all its goofy glory so much it makes me cry and it killed me to leave it off the list. In retrospect, I might have to swap one of the above for it. Side Trivia: Speaking of Tim Burton, there’s also Beetlejuice, of course.
2. Pretty much all of the John Hughes Brat Pack-era movies (which you likely knew was coming) and Joel Schumacher’s St. Elmo’s Fire – It’d be a hard call, but St. Elmo’s Fire would be the first cut ‘cos it’s almost too cheesy. Some Kind of Wonderful and Pretty in Pink, I love but could live without. The Breakfast Club is, well, The Breakfast Club, but it’s not my very favorite. It’d come down to a tremendously agonizing tug of war between Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and I honestly don’t know which would win. Ferris would probably win, though. Even though – Side Trivia: John Cusack makes his second film appearance in a small part as one of the geeks in Sixteen Candles.
3. Ciao! Manhattan – As much as I adore this, which is not so much a real film per se but more of a collection of some of the few remaining pieces of film footage of Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick, as well as many other Factory scenesters, I just can’t justify it being one of the ten. Still, it’d be hard. Side Trivia: I hear the DVD, which I still don’t own, has loads of extra footage and modern commentary by some of the actors from what was supposed to have been the original film, and I’m dying to see it.
4. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains – Unless you had The Movie Channel or HBO in the early ’80s, you probably don’t know this film; it’s been out of print and unavailable for decades. I had a taped copy for years and the tape finally broke seven or eight years ago. This was one of Diane Lane’s earliest films and also features a very young Laura Dern. It’s an excellent film and, along with the aforementioned Over the Edge, is as responsible for my musical obsessions/addictions as any piece of recorded music is. I was pleasantly shocked and surprised to see co-star Ray Winstone’s name for the first time in years when he turned up in the multi-award winning Nil By Mouth in 1997. The good news is that after years of fans pleading, I got word the other day via MySpace that the film is finally going to be released on DVD and, in fact, the very next day got a notification from Amazon that the DVD was now available for pre-ordering. Side Trivia: Former Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook, and former Clash bassist Paul Simonon, appear as the other members of the band in the movie led by Winstone.
5. Pretty much every Kevin Smith and David Lynch film ever made – I can’t decide. I can’t, I can’t. Though I guess Dogma and Blue Velvet. Or maybe Chasing Amy and Eraserhead. Or… I can’t decide. Don’t make me.

God, that was painful. And it would really suck if there was no electricity on that island.

That Place Must’ve Frozen Over

Some that have known me a really long time might have raised an eyebrow to hear that some of the more recent additions to my MP3 player have been, like, Pink, and Rihanna (just one song tho… really!).

I know the world’s coming to an end now, though.

In the last two weeks, I have added (whispers) Justin Timberlake (just one song!!). And Poison.

(I shouldn’t say anything bad about Poison. Drummer Rikki Rockett is really cool and actually is a scooter-enthusiast acquaintance of my friend Mike in Chicago.)

But please kill me if I start hitting the Warrant and Winger libraries. Eek.

More Cheese, Please

Lookie what I found… new old Government Cheese videos. I guess I should monitor YouTube a little more closely sometimes since some of these have actually been posted for a few months now. All kinds of chewy extremely Eighties goodness here to be had.

I remember when less than ten bucks (sometimes a lot less) could buy you a pretty good night out in Nashville or Murfreesboro with a Cheese show and a guaranteed hangover the next morning. And if you were lucky, still have enough left over to buy a much-needed 2 liter bottle of Sun-Drop for the hangover cure, too.

“Oh Yeah” (live):

“Mammaw Drives the Bus”:

“Face to Face”:

Big ’80s Hair & Camouflage Miniskirts

Somehow unintentionally I moved into a very ’80s portion of Radio Lynnster since I last posted, probably thanks to Jeffraham (who wants me to be the chick drummer for the Bangles) and Josie (who really is a chick drummer), who is following along at home and requested Adam Ant, though what I am currently playing is Adam & the Ants instead.

A while back, Newscoma mentioned something about having seen Adam Ant in Nashville and I think I failed to comment at the time. If it was Adam Ant with The Romantics opening at the new Opry in 1984, my friends and I were standing on the front row for most of the show, the girls all dressed in camouflage miniskirts with matching skinny ties that, for some unknown reason, we all had had made just for that occasion because we thought it would look cool. Dorks.

It was cold but clear when we walked into the show. When we walked out, snow and ice were everywhere and it took us four or five hours to get home because we had to drive so slow all the way back to West Tennessee.

OK, too much New Wave and neon flashback there – back to cooler stuff again.

I Should Have Done Better Than I Did

’80s Lyrics Quiz: People Are What?

I scored a 99.5. I should have done much better, but I blanked a few places I shouldn’t have and could have kicked myself for later.

HT: Evilamy.com Annex

Ain’t No Haints Gonna Scare Me Off

… just maybe the police.

Even tho it’s a day late, a Halloween story is in order today, I reckon. Though this actually occurred in the summer, not at Halloween, but it’s a haunted house story (in a manner of speaking) so it counts. (It’s also YET ANOTHER drinking story, but all I can say to that – again – it was the ’80s, that’s what we did, blah blah blah. Heh.)

Anyway, onto the story. I might have told this one before but it’s always worth telling again since it’s the only time in my life I truly almost was arrested.

Normally I was one of those people who could have several drinks or beers and conduct myself just fine, or at least well enough not to embarrass myself to death. Back in my partying days, I could hold my liquor usually. Or at least had the sense not to get plastered somewhere where it mattered if I made an idiot out of myself.

There were a handful of such occasions during high school and college days, however, when I had no business being out in public. Most unfortunately, those rare occasions were always the ones when friends would decide they were going to (wherever) and taking me along, which was always a big mistake – and usually I protested beforehand, because there was always still enough sense left to know that I didn’t need to be going somewhere, so it wasn’t like they weren’t warned – but sometimes they took me anyway.

On one of those occasions, I got dragged 20 miles away to the next town and the walk-in theater. (Yes, I specify walk-in because we didn’t have one in my town – we had an old and decomposing drive-in, and another drive-in just across the river on the other side of the neighboring town which was way cooler, better sound, and a topnotch snack bar.)

First bad sign, which should have been obvious to anyone who knew me – it was a peppermint schnapps night and there was an empty half pint bottle as evidence. And it was only, like, 6:30 in the evening.

I was being so completely obnoxious on the drive over that Andy and Jana, the two friends who had the misguided notion that it was this great idea to put me in the car and take me to the movie with them, were likely regretting it halfway over to the next town, but by then it was too late. They couldn’t put me out of the car out there on the highway – well, I guess they could have, but they didn’t – I guess the thought of me winding up passed out on my face in the middle of the wildlife refuge gave pause. And if they turned around and dumped me back off uptown with other friends, they’d have missed the movie.

I don’t recall what movie it was, but it was some fall blockbuster of 1982 and was opening night, and the theater, naturally, was packed and had almost sold out. Half of my town was there, and among the sea of faces and in my drunken haze I recognized many more I had grown up with in earlier days in the town where the theater was. Grand.

There’s hardly any seats and we can’t find three together, it’s so packed, but we finally found two together (Jana demanding to Andy, “YOU sit with her!”) and one behind those two. And the movie’s starting and the lights are going down, but not so much that you can’t still (unfortunately) see people.

Which means that when we made our way to our seats – in the middle and towards the front of the theater, no less – and I (A) tripped and stumbled all the way there, and (B) when attempting to take my seat, my ass landed smack on the floor instead of in the seat because I didn’t have the good sense to hold the seat down – five million people I knew saw the whole thing. And cracked up. (I laughed too, but that’s beside the point, plus, I was trashed anyhow.)

It gets better. We get thru the movie, mercifully with no further events. And then – instead of taking my drunk ass back across the county line to uptown hometown where I can be wasted in peace and only to the amusement of those who I didn’t really care if they saw me that wasted – instead of that, where do they take me next?

The McDonald’s up the street where EVERYONE congregates after a movie. Why did anyone think this was a good idea?

And it’s there that I made one of the grandest faux pas in high school history due to the horrific judgment of my severely inebriated state. There was a guy there who I was friends with, who just happened to be there with his longtime girlfriend (who I was not really good friends with at the time, but would be later on down the line). They showed up at our table to say hi.

Funny thing about this guy is one of my female relatives had been in town visiting a week or two before that. There’d been a pool party at my house and said guy ended up liplocked with this female relative of mine for the duration of the evening. Longtime girlfriend was – of course – NOT there.

Yeah, so guess what drunk opened her big mouth and sort of wound up causing one of the biggest breakups in Northwest Tennessee history in 1982. I wouldn’t say inadvertently. I would almost say directly, except I was just vague enough to make the information not all that easily understood (apparently I had SOME sense) – but trashed enough for it to be obvious I knew something certain other persons (i.e., longtime girlfriend) at the table were not supposed to know – and it was a few more weeks before the actual crash and burn of the breakup. But yeah, it eventually came around, and it was pretty much my drunkass, big mouth fault.

(On the other hand, if he hadn’t been cheating on her in the first place…? Right? No? Whatever.)

Anyway, that was one of the rare you-shouldn’t-take-her-out-in-public events.

But this was supposed to be a haunted house story, correct?

So now it’s 1985, and my ass has chosen this particular Friday evening after working all day at the answering service (another horror story in itself) to stay home and out of everyone’s way, not bothering a soul and minding my own business. Just me, the stereo, one very nice lime, a shaker of salt, and a full bottle of tequila.

Wherever Kelli and Andy were supposed to be that evening, I have no idea. But the next thing I know they’re there in the apartment Andy and I were sharing at the time in Jackson, disturbing my private party, and with this fabulous idea that they’re going to go check out a haunted house.

And the completely idiotic idea that they’re going to take me with them.

I said no a dozen times. I just wanted to stay there at home, shoot (more) tequila and get drunk(er). Veg at the apartment, out of sight, doing my thing and not bothering anyone. “I’m fine right where I am,” I kept protesting.

“Oh, come on, come on,” Kelli cajoled. “It’ll be fun!”

Which was probably time #724 of the 1,016 times she’s talked me into doing something that no one in their right mind should ever do. They, of course, soon dragged me off and out into the car, and off we went.

But the first thing we had to do, ten miles or so down the road, was yours truly – of course – suddenly had to go to the bathroom. In a VERY bad part of town.

There’s no place around except the Krystal, where two cops (a portent of things to come?) just happened to be sitting inside munching on a bag full of Krystals. “Go on, it’ll be OK,” Kelli said. “The police are in there. You won’t get robbed or raped or murdered with the police in there eating Krystals.”

What I am wearing is probably the icing on the cake of this particular tale. It is, again, 1985 – and I am wearing what is really a Minnie Mouse nightshirt in dayglo 1980′s neon colors, but is functioning this evening as a t-shirt minidress with a somewhat matching dayglo neon Esprit belt to boot (I think it was chartreuse); period-appropriate dayglo neon ’80s jewelry, including some godawful ugly jangly necklace and long dangle earrings that don’t match but are indeed part of a set (one spelled out B-O-Y, I don’t remember what the other earring had on it); the prerequsite armload of neon-colored bangles and black plastic bracelets; and fuschia plastic thong sandals. I am also (of course) wearing makeup in colors not seen in nature, thick black liquid eyeliner, and this atrocious neon-y fuschia lace scarfy thing tied in my hair.

(Look, it was 1985, okay?)

So there I go, weaving my way through Krystal en route to the bathroom, totally blitzed on tequila. Pretty much looking like Madonna Jr., and being the only white face in there. Probably the only one for miles, save for my so-called friends waiting outside in the car.

Next it was off to said haunted house, where we proceeded to break in via a back kitchen door. Unable to get the door open, we climbed through an already open window in the door, which was no easy feat for me due to (A) aforementioned copious amounts of tequila and (B) aforementioned plastic thong sandals, which dropped off my feet an untold number of times before successful entrance into said abandoned kitchen, flashlights in tow.

Did I mention why it was okay for us to be breaking into this “haunted” house? The house was an old, long-abandoned Victorian among many other old and long abandoned huge houses in downtown Jackson. The owner was long gone, but the house was still owned by the family – the family of Kelli’s sometimes, then-on-again-off-again, boyfriend. Who, a few years later would become her permanent husband – but at the time, they weren’t exactly on speaking terms.

The house was creepy enough tho the whole experience was kind of anticlimactic. The downstairs was still fully furnished, and the really creepy part (other than the fact that we were in a very old and very dark and very long-empty house) was that there was stuff everywhere. Not as if someone was still living there; more like there had been an intended estate sale that never happened. A humongous buffet in the dining room and the dining room table – both just covered with all kinds of oddities, tons of junk. Hardly any floor space to walk through any of the downstairs rooms, because there was so just much stuff everywhere.

The one single really “eek! haunted house!” moment came when we made our way to the foyer. There was this sole wooden chair semi-facing the front door of the house, as if someone had just set it there on purpose. On the chair was a very old, creepy-looking and worn, hardcover book, also seemingly set there on purpose.

The title of the book was Knock on Any Door.

Okay, that kind of creeped us out a little but again, it was kind of anticlimactic. Just creepy enough to give us a bit of the shivers, but it wasn’t like a screaming moment of terror.

Next, we headed up what was really a very grand wooden staircase in the front hall, towards the upstairs. Okay, upstairs was a little bit scarier. For one thing, all the rooms upstairs were completely empty. And the streetlights outside that were shining through the windows gave it a different, eerier feel than downstairs.

We didn’t see much of interest upstairs and, after briefly losing Andy for a moment, ended up congregating in one of the front bedrooms. It was oddly and inexplicably chilly in that room.

“I feel like someone died in here,” someone said. Which one of us, I don’t know.

Suddenly, there was this jarring sound from the back part of the house. Kelli and I both shrieked.

But from where Andy stood, he could see out the front windows. “Get down!” he shushed us. “The cops are outside.” Great.

So there the three of us are, Kelli and I hunkered down on one side of the room, Andy on the other, hoping we won’t get caught and hoping they’ll go away. Actually, I’m not hoping anything, I’m too toasted to care, but at least I was having the good sense at the time to stay still and keep quiet.

And I have to admit that even tho the whole “haunted house” experience this run had been pretty much a bust as far as terror and fright – and even tho I knew it was the cops – hiding there and waiting in that desperately cold room, listening to the footsteps slowly coming up those heavy wooden stairs – yep, that was kind of creepy. Tho probably more creepy in an “OK, we’re getting arrested” kind of way.

When the lone police officer got to the top, he almost immediately found us (of course). As another officer came lumbering up the stairs behind him and into the room, he shined his flashlight around the room in our faces. “Okay, stand up and put your hands in the air.”

Which the three of us did, of course.

And then I proceeded to take one hand and point at Kelli, telling the cops: “Talk to HER! She’s the one! It was HER idea!”

So, after ratting out my best friend, and the cops obviously deciding we were unarmed and harmless idiots (especially the drunk and wobbling Madonna clone in the Minnie Mouse nightshirt), they walked us downstairs and gathered us on the front porch to decide what to do with us. Andy, in his best radio announcer’s voice, was being Mr. Public Relations trying to smooth talk his way (and, I guess, our way) out of trouble. Kelli was silent and afraid to open her mouth, tho what she really wanted to do was cuss me out for ratting on her, of course.

I wasn’t saying a word either, mainly because I was so trashed and basically just thinking, “I really hope we don’t get arrested, and I wonder how much tequila is left in that bottle at the apartment.”

Out on the porch, the officer that had initially found us is patiently explaining to us, as if we’re all three-year-olds, the definition of breaking and entering, and obviously trying to decide whether we are intelligent enough to comprehend the fact that we might just be going to jail momentarily.

But Kelli was going to explain our way out of this. I don’t recall exactly what she said, but here’s the paraphrased version:

“Look, I know this looks bad, but it’s not like we were REALLY breaking and entering. This is my boyfriend’s grandmother’s house. And the window in the back door was open anyway. We didn’t have to BREAK anything. We just ENTERED.”

About that same time, one of the other cops on the porch is getting on his radio. “Yeah, I’m at (whatever the address was),” he says into the radio. “We’ve got some kids that broke into my grandmother’s house.”

Kelli, meet your future husband’s cousin, the cop. Cop, meet your cousin’s future wife and mother of his child. All right, an anecdote for family Thanksgivings and Christmases for years to come!

Anyway, yep, a few more offhand threats of jail and stern warnings later, they let us go. Yep, Kelli’s then-sometimes-boyfriend-later-husband was somewhere between Pissed with a capital P that his name even got brought into it in the first place, and mildly amused at how dumb we were. And yep, I got back to the apartment, shot more tequila, and passed out oblivious to the world until daylight. Thankfully in my own bed, and not a bunk in the Madison County Jail.

I drink very, very infrequently these days – an occasional beer here and there, mimosas on Christmas Day (always), and I can’t turn down a Wallaby Darned at the Outback – and I can’t shoot tequila anymore, after a particularly gruesome bout with that in 1987. Still to this day, I can’t smell it without my stomach twisting in knots. But I do have the good sense to know that the Goldschlager is best kept in the fridge at home – and so is Lynnster – and not out in public.

Thing is, I ALWAYS knew that kinda thing – and often said so in huge protest – it’s just that no one listened to me and dragged me out with them anyhow. Often much to their regret later, but that was their own damn fault.

And oh yeah – the “haunted house”? Years later, Kelli’s hubby said he thought someone in the family DID die long ago in that bedroom that was so cold. Eek.

Mystery Achievement

A million years ago when I was 16 years old, this boy in school embarrassed one of my friends. I don’t remember exactly how it went down, but it had something to do with pulling a wrapped and unopened tampon out of her purse in the cafeteria in front of the whole world, or some such like that.

We lived in a very small town and there were only about 600 kids in the high school, so that small-townness just tends to exacerbate such things. Plus, I was 16 and she was 17 so, you know, everything’s OH so VERY DRAMATIC. Instead of being something stupid and worthless and forgotten about an hour later, instead it was OH, HORRORS! Well, maybe she more than me – I don’t recall being that bugged about it – but she was always a little bit of a drama queen anyway, and she basically talked me into getting all hopped up about it right along with her.

So we – of course – were gonna get him back somehow.

I was always a staunchly loyal friend – if you were plotting something (and I wasn’t already plotting something myself), you wanted me on your side. I was usually all for whatever – sure, let’s do it. So when she came to me with the big plan, I’m like – yeah, OK, I’m in, man, let’s go!

There was a basketball game that night, and we knew he’d be there. The plotting began.

I would say we broke into his car. But this is small town West Tennessee in 1982 – nobody EVER locked their homes, much less their cars.

So while everyone was inside in the gym, we got into his (unlocked) car, and we… decorated it very nicely. I’ll spare you the exact details, let’s just say it had something to do with sanitary napkins and other sanitary products, and a whole, whole, WHOLE lot of ketchup.

(Let me just add here that this was HER idea, not mine. I’m just the staunchly loyal friend going along with it. Yeah, whatever, let’s do it. Yes, it was juvenile, silly, and ridiculous.)

It was an okay project, not one of those I was particularly proud of ‘cos it was just kind of dumb anyway. I mean, I was party to LOTS of awesome and fabulous (some HUGELY successful and talked about still to this day!) strategic plots and plans way back when, whether I was the orchestrator or an assistant. Whether it was in pure simple (often borne out of boredom) mischief, or for what constituted plain and simple teenage chick serious revenge.

Look, take a group or a couple of teenage girls in a small town where there’s not all that much to do but sun yourself at the beach by day and, by night, see who you can snag to go across the river and buy you a pint of Southern Comfort (or sweet talk into going into the country club and bringing out 7&7s for the entire carload) – you have LOTS of opportunity and time to master the art of plotting and executing an event of epic proportions. (And get drunk a lot.)

Again, that one – the sanitary ketchup fiasco – wasn’t one of my better or favorite successes, tho it was a success all the same, I suppose. He laughed it off but we knew he was pissed – that car was his BABY. But again, it wasn’t my idea, I was just the assistant on that one.

Well, as it would turn out, about… oh… five or six months later – the guy whose car we trashed? He was my new boyfriend.

And a while after that, we were planning to get married. And about two years – nearly to the day – of the Great Feminist Ketchup Attack, we almost DID go ahead and elope and get married. That was a pretty close call.

Alas, we were both pretty wasted (surprise, surprise) at a college football game and could barely find our way out of the stadium that night, much less to the nearest marrying place (thank god). By morning we were sober, albeit massively hungover, and had some sense again. And were still planning to get married after college, yes – and everyone in our hometown thought we would be, yep. Obviously, that didn’t work out.

Anyway, I had forgotten about the ketchup plan until tonight – as I said, it wasn’t one of my better or favorite ones, so it was worth forgetting. Absolutely.

Did I ever tell HIM who was the assisting party involved in defacing his precious baby of an automobile that night? I don’t think so. I think I just forgot.

Do I care NOW? Not really.

…

…

…

But still… (snicker) ;)