You Can Feed Your Melting Face at Any Old Place (But You Can Warm Your Heart at Shakey’s)

by BOB GOBLIN

“Now boy, you go tell you and all your friends that if you EVER raid the Leroy church again…I’m gonna comes after you and kill ya. Tell em…Tell em all.”

This was said to me just outside a bar by a patron at “The Square.” A bar just off the center square in downtown Crown Point, IN. This inebriated long haired heavily flannelled man had me lifted at least a foot off the ground, one hand on my neck, feet dangling and was painfully informing me of the aforementioned fate of the Leroy church.

Apparently the Leroy Living testimony church in Leroy, Indiana was raided and vandalized with satanic slogans and I was mistaken for the number one suspect in the case. Yes you guessed it…Donny Crepeau. I have been known to vandalize with satanic slogans (a 666 here, hail Satan spray painted on a white van there) but never at or in a church though…I only stole from churches. Candles, I stole candles.

Anyway, The Crepeuaus were a notoriously under parented and under supervised family of long hairs, metal heads, pot smokers, and acidheads. Picture 5 slightly tanned 6’2” Glen Danzigs running around getting drunk and high and causing mischief all over Crown point, Hebron, Cedar Lake and Leroy, IN…. and that is a pretty good start at visualizing this family. That was the Crepeaus…. with the exception of Donny. Donny was the blonde sheep of the family and on many occasions I would be mistaken for him.

I was just less than six ft. but had the long blond hair that created the Donny Doppelganger effect. Donny was at least 5 years older than I was and would get into more adult trouble that I would sometimes get the heat for…case in point. Now back to the throat handled 15-year-old me.

As my friends stood paralyzed gawking at what was happening to me, words cannot/could not describe what was going through my mind. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me and at the same time it didn’t feel like it was because you see…I was tripping my balls off. A kaleidoscope of colors whirled behind the handy man due to the acid and increasing lack of oxygen affecting my brain… As my heart rate raced I was finally dropped to the ground…Scrapping myself self up rapidly… we ran down main street away from the bar as I hoarsely screamed at my friends,

“why didn’t you fucking help me”

“Dude we are tripping….and that was AWESOME.”

I learned my lesson and never raided the Leroy Church again.

Out of all the drugs I have consumed: alcohol, pot, vicodin, norco, tramadol, Percocet, Percodan, propoxyphene, heroin, morphine, dilaudid, versed, valium, klonopin, Ativan, cocaine, mescaline, PCP (on accident), ecstasy, and ketamine to just name a few. The effect was typically pretty predictable. LSD, acid, blotter was always a very unique experience for me…and I will say flat out unpredictable.

Some of the coolest most intense things I have experienced on acid: Riding roller coasters at 6 flag Great America, attending the Clash of the Titans tour and moshing to Slayer at Alpine Valley, getting hand cuffed and arrested, twice, grinding planks of wood into belt sanders in 8th grade wood shop, strobe lights with smoke, bubbles and weed.

Some of the not so cool, awful things I experienced on acid: Riding roller coasters at 6 flag Great America, attending the Clash of the Titans tour and moshing to Slayer at Alpine Valley, getting hand cuffed and arrested, twice, grinding planks of wood into belt sanders in 8th grade wood shop, strobe lights with smoke, bubbles and weed, working the Taco bell drive through, and fingering my girlfriend.

My first trip had been on Halloween 1988-89. I was in eighth grade and my guitar player and friend Shannon was basically my spiritual guide through that evening. It was an awesome night and one of the best trips I ever had.

Another memorable trip was during the summer that Jennifer broke up with me. If you recall from the trilogy of trauma she and I lost our virginity together…so when we broke up I took it pretty hard. I was selling some acid for a friend of mine so I had a plentiful amount… 2 hits at midnight for a week was the cure for the ending of that relationship.

One of those nights I got in a friend’s car…it had T-tops, a full moon was out, super bright. We were going to a quarry to go swimming. The driver John was wasted drunk, gunning the car around corners, fish tailing, my other friend Matt stood up out of the T tops and hit hat flew off…. I sank further in the back seat… external stimulation overload. “Let me out”, I said. “What”, said Matt…”Yeah let me out.” “OK dude, but you’re on your own.”

Peeling out…as they drove out of site and the sound of the engine roaring diminished…I realized I was alone in the pitch-black night, the sound of cicadas was deafening…. It was immediately clear that I made a huge mistake and I had a 5-mile walk home ahead of me, which is a story for another trauma.

So anyway, I tripped for a week after my last dose during break up week revival and was still pretty upset when I came back to reality so I guess I didn’t really work…I can’t place a number on the many times I have dropped out but I would like to recall with you now the worst day I have ever had…ever. It was the worst, not so much due to what was actually happening but what my perception of what was happening.

Summer going into junior year I made the decision to try out for the football team. This was a big deal as it meant that I would have to cut off some of my hair and dress “differently”. Trade in my concert T’s for polos, acid washed Levis for Z Cavaricci’s.

Years earlier when we moved to Crown Point, IN I met with the 8th grade football coaches. With my hair half way down my back, I was wearing an Iron Maiden Killers T shirt, a chrome inverted cross necklace, a non-inverted gold cross left earing and acid washed jeans with Chuck’s. The coaches gave me a once over a said very directly, “If you want to play football in Crown Point, you need to cut your hair, and wear different clothes, can you do that son?” Uh…Nope.

So years later when my desire to want to play football increased as my super angry angst-y self wanted to hit people legally I decided to go for it. I was a very large kid and the coaches would attempt to recruit me yearly to play but I would hold my hair ground…so conforming and cutting 12 inches off my hair to now have shoulder length locks… yeah was a big fuckin deal.

Summer football conditioning was taking place and I would go to the gym daily to lift weights and run laps at the high school. Assistant Coach Brandt would stare at me in the gym and say things like, “You wanna play football huh… well Coach Smith ain’t gonna like your hair… You better get a buzz cut.” And things like, “You think you’re going to be any good… I don’t think so.” Real encouraging words. Fast forward…. by senior year Assistant Coach Brandt was battling prostate cancer…and I didn’t even give one fuck about it.

Anyway, one bike ride home from conditioning practice I ran into my two Friends Matt and Matt. It was 10am and they were just arriving back from the parking lot of a Grateful Dead show and had 4 sheets of acid. They had five but one turned out to be a rip. Needless to say, they were tripping hard.

I asked if they could come by my house in an hour and I would buy some, they agreed. When I arrived home shortly after, there was a note from my parents telling me that they would be gone for the day and possibly the night. In the early 90’s my parent purchased a houseboat and would frequently stay on it on the weekends. This was awesome on so many levels as I could run free and not have to answer to anyone except the occasional inquisition form my gay brother. Anyway, at the bottom of the note was a P.S. “Here’s some money for chow.” And there was a $20 bill…. BINGO. I’m going to eat…eat some ACID.

When Matt and Matt arrived we made the exchange and with the parents out of town, my brother at work, I decided to just drop 2 of the 4 hits at noon, by myself, on a summer Saturday, in our Victorian wood grained floor and interior wood stained trimmed house. 45 minutes later I was peaking hard and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I called my friend and drummer Keith and told him that I dropped. He told me to come over and hang out and it sounded like a good idea but I was convinced his mother knew that since I even called Keith on the phone she of course knew I was tripping. There could possibly be no explanation as to why I would call Keith…unless I was tripping. So that was out.

Tripping even harder and becoming increasingly paranoid that everyone was beginning to know that I was tripping…I made a decision…I decided that I actually wasn’t tripping enough… and that my brain was half in reality and half out so if I pushed it all the over into the complete drop zone it would even things out and I would become less paranoid and more functional. Yeah… that makes total sense! I took the other two hits, while I was peaking on the first two and well that was awful….

I started making Kraft Macaroni and cheese. I presumed that if I ate food it would also help even things out. As I put the third box in the boiling water… It became increasingly clear that I would not be eating any of this. I needed an out, I had to abandon and just then my brother’s friend, Jennifer who was staying with us that summer, came home.

She approached and said “Mmmm Can I have some when it’s done.” “Sure” I said. Holy fuck, I can’t even read the directions and this pot of boiling water looks like it’s filled with fuckin brains. Shit…shit…shit…she knows…Oh my god she knows. I’m so fucked. I vaguely remember putting the cheese packets in, didn’t stir it, put some in a bowl and ran upstairs with it to my room, locked the door and proceeded to not eat the macaroni and cheese but smash it in my fingers and chew and spit it out. My skin was crawling and I was bouncing of the walls.

Skinny Puppy’s Too Dark Park on cassette was given to me from my brother’s punker friend Shelly. She once told me in art class while painting a picture of an ogre that she was in love with Ogre of skinny Puppy and that she was painting this for him so he would stop doing heroin. Skinny Puppy Too Dark Park should come with a warning label that it should NEVER be listened to while on acid. Now not only did everyone know I was on acid but the underworld of pure evil was coming to get me.

It became increasingly apparent that I needed to get out of the house. But it was so obvious to EVERYONE that I was tripping that I needed to mask my behavior and or actions so the cops wouldn’t ALSO know and or be called. Because by now the cops were circling the block trying to make it look like they weren’t trying to actually look inside my bedroom windows.

I decided that if I was listening to a Walkman any erratic behavior or unwanted bodily movements could be explained. “Look at that not tripping youth getting into his music”, they would say, you know EVERYONE that was watching me walk down the street from the windows of their homes, behind the trees, the trees themselves, from their roof tops, in their cars driving by, and in the sewers that I was just “getting into the music.” Genius, I need to get outside and walk around… I’ll feel better then.

Walkman in hand I unlocked the door to my room, walked through the sea of parquet floors, down the stairs, out the front door, down the gravel drive way and toward the street. Pressing play on the Walkman… YOU Breed… Like RATS… Godflesh’s “Like rats” blasting through the headset immediately paralyzed me. I didn’t know what to do… the music was so intense to me that I yanked the headset off my head… Mustering up enough strength, I turned around away from the street, walked back up the gravel driveway and back through the front door. Up the stairs, back through the parquet floor sea, into my room and locked the door. “Fuck” what am I going to do? Time stood still…

Late afternoon, after the peak I was able to leave the house and go for a walk, everything less intense… the waves slowed down, I could feel the warm summer breeze on my crawling skin, and then I heard a car horn honking, beep beep beep… No!!!… It was Judy, another girl I can’t remember and my friend Jeff. I jumped in the back seat and instantly whispered to Jeff…”I’m tripping so hard”…His response was …”really”? They said they were going to Shakeys.

Sherwood “Shakey” Johnson opened the first Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in a remodeled grocery store on 57th and J Street in Sacramento, California in 1954. Originally established as “ye public house” for pizza & beer, Johnson indulged his passion for Dixieland jazz and added live ragtime music to mix, featuring banjos and player pianos throughout his rapidly expanding franchise. As the concept caught on, the Shakey’s name became synonymous with the World’s Greatest Pizza along with light-hearted slogans such as “You’ll have fun at Shakey’s, also pizza,” and “You can feed your face at any old place, but you can warm your heart at Shakey’s.” http://www.shakeys.com/History.aspx…

So warm my heart I did, thank God it was over.

Songs People Somebody ‘Caught’ Me Singing—as Well as Songs I ‘Caught’ Other People Singing

by MIKE MCPADDEN

*

SUMMER 1985

Between junior and senior years of high school, I worked as an elevator operator in a high-rise apartment building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Upon answering a call on the 37^th floor, I opened the elevator car’s doors just in time to blast waiting tenants with:

“ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH!

COLLL-UH-RAHHHHH-DOUGH!”

I offered no explanation, and they asked for none. If pressed, I’d have said: “John Denver rules,” and I would NOT have been lying.

*

DECEMBER 1986

As I wrapped up my first semester at college, unrequited affection dominated my every moment of existence.

I tried to play it cool, but I betrayed myself one morning as I—maybe semi-tearfully—sang along in my dorm room to one of the gloppiest pop hits of the moment.

“AND I’LL BE YOUR FRIEND
AND I’LL BE YOUR LOVER

WELL, I KNOW IN OUR HEARTS WE AGREE
WE DON’T HAVE TO BE ONE OR THE OTHER…”

Just then into my room bopped Dottie—the daffy ballerina nicknamed “The Girl From Mars.” She was EXACTLY who I was thinking about as I was bellowing and almost bawling.

Fortunately, Dottie was whistling along to the whistle part of “Walk Like an Egyptian” so maybe she wasn’t really paying attention.

Regardless I tried to cover by saying I was paying tribute to the song’s composer and co-singer—soap opera star Gloria Loring—based on the stupendous TV sitcom music she’d done in the past in collaboration with her ex-husband Allan Thicke. Together, that powerhouse duo wrote and performed the themes to both Diff’rent Strokes AND The Facts of Life.

Then I showed off to Dottie how I had memorized the words to the almost never heard CLOSING theme of The Facts of Life:

“You’ll avoid a lot of damage
and avoid the fun of managin’
The Facts of Life

They shed a lot of light

If you hear them from your brother
Better clear them with your mother
Better get ’em right

Call her late at night

You got the future in the palm of your hands
All you gotta do to get through
Is understand
You think you’d rather do without
You’ll never make it through without the truth
The Facts of Life is all about YOU!”

Dottie ultimately decided—perhaps at that very moments—that

[SING:]

We would STAAAAAAAY friends
And NOOOOOT be lov-uhs

And I can’t really blame her for choosing that one OH-ver the UHHHHH-ther

*

WINTER 1988

Make no mistake, fellow babies: I am repulsed by the notion of ANY kind of ethnic, national, or racial quote-unquote PRIDE.

In fact, I might be repulsed by the notion of “pride,” period.

That stated, “White Minority” by Black Flag is a song that plays in my head a lot.

And since most of the songs I suddenly sing out loud are the ones that just sort of run on my internal jukebox, “White Minority” is one I make a conscious effort to NOT unconsciously give voice to.

Now, I’m sure I don’t have to clarify that “White Minority,” particularly as sung by Puerto Rican vocalist Ron Reyes, is an ANTI-racist song, but the lyrics, heard at face value, could very well get a cracker violently incapacitated.

So one swell afternoon, I was tooling around the campus of Brooklyn’s decidedly minority-minority-heavy Kingsborough Community College with “White Minority” just blaring on a loop in my skull.

I spend a great deal of every day spontaneously bursting into song but, again, I concentrated on NOT doing that with “White Minority.”

My main strategy, when I felt “White Minority” slip out of my mouth, was to instantly switch it to “White Bird,” an obscure 1968 pop hit by the hilariously monikered hippie ensemble, It’s a Beautiful Day.

So it would sound like:

WE’RE GONNA BE A
… WHITE BIRRRRRD
IN A GOLDEN CAGE

ON A WINTER’S DAY
IN THE RAIN….

But for whatever reason, on that day, on the Kingsborough Campus, I sang:

“WE’RE GONNA BE A

WHITE POWER!

FOR ENGLAND

WHITE POWER!

TODAY!

WHITE POWER!

FOR BRITAIN!

BEFORE IT GETS TO LAAAAATE!”

Instead of turning “White Minority” by Black Flag into “White Bird” by It’s a Beautiful Day, I turned into “White Power” by overtly racist skinhead band Skrewdriver.

It was NOT a beautiful day for me then on the Kingsborough Campus, as I immediately walked backward to the parking lot, hopped in my car, and drove off—quickly checking the tape deck to make sure it was clear of any Skrewdriver cassettes.

*

FALL 1995

One that’s not me.

My beloved cousin and, yes, my actual officially baptized Catholic godson Johnnie was a eleven-year-old football star and general moose of a kid, in addition to being quite hilarious and a lifelong devotee of foul humor.

I snuck up on Johnny one afternoon and caught him absent-mindedly crooning:

“And it sounds like CHURCH bells
Or the whistle of a train…”

I recognized the line as coming from the pop love smash “As I Lay Me Down” by Sophie B. Hawkins.

Naturally, I kidded him a bit, but then—being the cool godfather I was, an am—I told him that the nonsensical backup vocals at the end that sort of sound like “TOO-TAH TAH-TAH” were actually saying “TOO-NAH TAH-CO” and that it was code for vagina because Sophie B. Hawkins was into chicks.

I even said that the B. in her name stood for “bisexual.”

Johnny laughed, incredulously, and then said. “Wait—really?”

I just responded: “Ask around at school.”

*

SPRING 1998

I hate rap music. All of it. One hundred percent of hip-hop could—and should—be removed from human history, and I’d be a happier citizen of the world.

Whatever example you want to spray at me as a possible exception that NOBODY could hate—I hate that, too. I promise you. Whitey. AND I’m also right about hating all rap music. But that’s a different tangent.

Now, in general, given my 70s Brooklyn upbringing and my general anarcho-fascist disposition and the first two supremely stupid letters of my last name, I like and tend to be automatically sympathetic to cops out working a beat.

One night, I went out to grab a slice of pizza in Bay Ridge and I passed a parked police car and, inexplicably, I blurted out, full gangsta styleee:

“FUCK DA POE-LEESE!”

And I don’t even miss Eazy-E, despite his Republican sympathies. Which is some achievement.

The cops whose car it was were IN the pizzeria I was headed to, so for fear being subject to a wholly justified nightsticking, I kept moseying up the block and got a roast beef hero.

FUCK DA PEETZ-UH!

*

SUMMER 2005

As I watched the soap drain off my upper appendages in a motel shower, I blurted out:

“YOU WASH YOU HAAHNDS CLEAN OF THIS!”

The line came from an adult contemporary hit that, at that precise juncture, was not even particularly contemporary.

Outside, I heard my waiting companions laugh and somebody yelled, “Hurry up in there, I gotta piss… ALANIS!”

The occasion was an overnight stop while on tour with Gays in the Military, a volcanically obnoxious—and, I might add, AWE-fucking-SOME—psychedelic noise ensemble for whom I abused a rhythm guitar.

And, yes, my fellow avant-garde acid-skronk musicians had busted me singing—while naked—a number titled “Hands Clean” by Alanis Morissette.

And yet I KNEW that the haranguing would never get TOO severe as Gays in the Military frontman Sir Lord Brian Puberty—a Roky-Erickson-type whose vocal technique rumbled somewhere between death metal and death by infectious throat disease—was so huge and so sincere an Alanis Morissette devotee that he took ANY razzing of Ms. Jagged Little Pill as a personal assault.

And so Gays in the Military WAHHSHED THEIR HAAHNDS CLEAN of the entire incident.

*

SOME TIME IN THE EARLY 90s

Another one that’s not me.

During one boozy wee-hour fumble session, I found myself leaning back in bed while a lady fair headed south to attend to the pointed business at gland there.

And to be sure, this lady was quite fair, but she was even more than that completely batso-bugso insane—as evidenced, foremost, by the fact that she happily shared a sleep chamber with me at the Neanderthal height/nadir of my drug and alcohol subhumanism.

Anyway, as she approached to do her spew diligence, I heard her unthinkingly intone:

“MY FAV-OR-ITE VEDGE-UH-TUH-BULLS!”

Now, it was amusing enough that, confronted with the genital reality of the moment, she gave voice to affection for produce. But more amazing is that she was singing the song “Vegetables” from the Beach Boys then-bootleg-only Smile album.

I shall end this vignette by quoting the title of a book on the creation of Brian Wilson’s famously abandoned teenage symphony to God:

LOOK! LISTEN! VIBRATE! SMILE!

INTERPLANETARY HOLIDAY

by ANDY SLATER

In third grade, right about the time I was becoming a “bad kid,” my school put together some holiday musical.

It was called “Interplanetary Holiday.”

It was a non-denominational play about space travelers who come to earth on December 25th. They were visiting to spread JOY.

My whole class knew this attempt at appeasing the parents was dumb, so some of us “bad kids” decided we were going to fuck up the opening night by signing the wrong lyrics at the wrong times.

“On 12-25 we come alive, and we spin away for a holiday. We are bound for fun, come on everyone. Come and join us in our planetary play.”

It’s still in my head after almost 30 years. I can’t for the life of me remember our alternative lyrics, but I imagine they had something to do with being a faggot.

I am still convinced that our music teacher, Mr. Mark Kasmin, wrote this Yule log of dung. He tried to play it off like it was something cool and cutting edge that all the other schools in our city were doing. No one liked him.

He sang parodies of the Beatles’ songs every week. “Yesterday” was now “Leprosy”. “Hello, Goodbye” was now “Goodbye, Hello.”

Like I said, no one liked him.

We joked that he had a plastic toupee because his hair was always perfect.
But then my friend’s older brother said that he was good looking because he is gay.

That made no sense to me. I didn’t really know what being gay really was but I know that being a fag was bad, or at least it was to everyone at the schoolyard.

The day before the play’s debut I had lost my voice. I sounded like a frog and after pointing that out, all the kids called me Croaker.

It was nothing new for me to be teased; I was the kid who couldn’t see. I was the kid who had to wear yellow tinted glasses, deeming me “piss glasses.”

The kids I went to school with were so pleasant.

In order to steer the unwelcome trash talk from my froggy self, I started ripping on Mr. Kasmin.

“He has perfect hair because he is gay.” I said with a croak.

“What’s that Croaker? Huh, Froggy?” said the kids pushing me around.
“I said, he always looks good because he is gay!” I shouted.

All the boys stopped spinning and shoving me. They all pointed and yelled at once,
“FAGGOT! Froggy is a FAG! Faggy frog, froggy fag! Ha Ha Ha!”

Well I certainly walked into that one didn’t I? Being called a fag was horrible, even though I’m sure half of the kids didn’t know what it meant.

I ran home and hid in my closet.
There’s nothing better to do after being called all kinds of homo-hating words than to go hide in a closet. Good lord.

I sat in the closet and practiced my song for the Interplanetary Holiday I was about to embark on.

“On 12-25 we come alive, and we spin away for a holiday. We are bound for fun, come on everyone. Come and join us in our planetary play.”
“Shout hooray this is our day. Shout hooray we’re on our way. Cuz we just can’t stay away for our inter plan, for our inter plan, for our interplanetary holiday.”
“HOORAY!”

It was that final “HOORAY” that would make me cringe for years to come.

And here’s why.

The next day I had no voice at all. My parents told me I didn’t have to be in the play if I didn’t want to. Losing your voice is common when you’re nervous.
I wasn’t nervous; I was hoarse from defending my nonexistent manhood on the playground the day before.

I decided I would be in the play and just mouth the words and hope I didn’t get caught. Lord knows I’d get blamed for every problem the play had if they could pin one little thing on me.

On opening night we sat in decorated folding chairs in the dark gym. It was full of parents and grandparents and bratty little brothers and creepy scoutmasters.

My class was singing the intro to the play. I was looking forward to getting it over with.
The song started and I was doing great lip-syncing to the bullshit.

I must have gotten into it and caught the HOLY GHOST because I started singing along. I sounded like Popeye the Sailor or Buster Poindexter. I sounded like an old man.

I was satisfied.
But then I missed a cue.
I yelled the final HOORAY in the wrong place. Everyone laughed.
I could feel the heat on my neck and my face turn red. I hung my head until my teacher pulled me into the hall.

“How dare you sing in a funny voice? This is Christmas!” she yelled. I’m sure everyone in the gym could hear her garlic and Virginia Slims breath shout in my face.

I had to sit in the hall until intermission. At that point I was dragged in by my collar and sat down in my chair. I was blushing.
The kids were whispering and laughing at me.
“Good job, Froggy!”

I couldn’t decide what was worse: fucking up the song because I have no timing, or having everyone think that I was being a clown and goofing off.

The curtains drew open and there was Brian DeBiasie. He stood there looking like Spanky from Our Gang holding a trumpet.

He was getting ready to play the fanfare introduction for the arrival of space alien queen.

He blew into the trumpet and there was a gurgle instead of a triumphant burst.

He had puked into his trumpet!

The vomit dripped down his face and out of the bell of his horn.
He began to cry and everyone laughed, even the parents.

He then opened the spit valve and released even more bile.
The curtains drew and the play was cancelled.

My ass was saved.

THE TRILOGY OF TRAUMA

by Bob Goblin

 

 

Trilogy One: Arrested

Mr. Miller was known for his droning monotone lectures during 8th period history class. I think he got off on his students falling asleep and purposely conducted his lectures in this manner. Actually I know he did. If you were caught sleeping in Mr. Miller’s class he would take his pre-class, pre-filled cup of water and pour it onto your crotch. Girls, boys, it didn’t matter. If you had a sleepy crotch…you were susceptible.

This happened to me once in his class and I recall waking up angered already overflowing with the typical teen angst and I threw my history book at him. It was that foggy time when being abruptly wakened and the fight or flight reflex lashed out. Surprisingly nothing came of my textbook assault to his back. I think he knew that the assault to my crotch squared things up and we were even. I guess his technique worked because I never fell asleep in his class again.

Mr. Miller was also rumored to have taken many of the star student and athlete jocks to his home to smoke pot and watch Jeopardy. This to be some type of reward. This rumor was never confirmed during my tenure a Taft Junior high but many believed it to be true.

Now this particular chapter in the trilogy actually occurred in the latter half of 1989. One afternoon during a Mr. Miller lecture, something or someone in the hallway interrupted him to his left. He paused the class lecture and exited the room. A few moments later he came in and exclaimed to the class, “Mr. Conlin, there is a gentlemen in the hallway who would like to speak to you.”

When I exited the hallway it was the principle and another man I had never seen. He asked me how I was doing and if everything was going well. He also pointed to my arms and asked what had happened to them…you see I was a cutter. I started cutting when I was 11 and it carried on into my late teens with an occasional reappearance into my 20’s. I explained that it was an accident with the belt sander in woodshop and that I was ok.

He then stated that the other man was a detective from the Crown Point police department and that we were going to go to a room at the end of the hall and have a talk. I could feel the adrenaline pumping and the anger churning, what did I do, what did I do? From day one in this school the administration was after me.

You see I was a 6ft, longhaired, very adult looking metal head in a mostly conservative god fearing town. I was an outcast, a bad boy, the kid your parents told you not to hang out with… and honestly I wasn’t a bad kid but my looks gave many of the fucks the impression that I was.

As we walked to the end of the hall I noticed two police officers near the room and they each grabbed an arm of mine and escorted me in. Robert, this is just a formality but we need to search and handcuff you. What the fuck is going on, I exclaimed!!!

The search began and I still had no idea why or what was happening. I had a pack of Marlboro reds crotched and a lighter in my front pocket. When the officer felt the lighter he told the other officer, “WE HAVE A KNIFE”. Hands clinched my arms tighter…” OH it’s just a lighter.” What is going on, I didn’t do anything!!! Robert your mom has asked us to escort you to the Southlake Center for the Mental Health. What??? For what??? What the fuck!!!

Handcuffed hands behind my back, outlining Vic Rattlehead looming above Megadeth’s Peace Sells concert schedule, with police escort we exited the room and moments later the end of 8th period bell rang and the entire hallway filled with students. I remember thinking,” AWESOME”!!! This is going to do wonderful things for my metal cred!

I was put in a squad car and could see my step dad’s car just behind. My mother was crying, I screamed at her, “What are you doing!” The confusion and thoughts of what I possibly did or what I was got caught before doing filled my mind.

When we arrived after about a 20-minute car ride I was escorted to the front door. I caught a glimpse of my mother behind me and I jerked free from the cops and ran up to her. What is going on!!! What are you doing!!! My mother crying exclaimed, I read your note!!! What note??? What are you talking about??? The cops quickly took control of me and we walked in the building. I stole a glance in the mirror and thought how awesome I looked cuffed and escorted.

A few weeks prior, my mother and I got into a fight (which was pretty typical). This time because she found my stash of porn and cigarettes. After the heated argument and her failed attempts to ground/punish me I sat down to write my girlfriend Michelle.

Michelle was my best friend Chad’s cousin, (if you recall from the first rock trauma, Chad and I would spit up Ketchup pretending to be Gene Simmons during God of Thunder’s live bass solo) Michelle was my first girlfriend, the first girl I opened mouth kissed, my first long distance relationship, and the person to introduce me to Erasure who I still pretend to not like… Oh L’amour…

I wrote in the letter, and I quote… that my mom, more like the fucking bitch I want to kill. Was driving me crazy and how I wished that you (Michelle) and I could just run away together… Blah blah blah. So apparently my mother found this letter and was alarmed for some reason and began to search my room.

She found my collection of knifes and black candles… and oh… my Anton LaVey Satanic Bible. She got kinda spooked so she had me arrested. I guess putting the pieces together could justify her behavior.

 

I was escorted into an emergency crisis therapy session for 6 hours and it was deemed that, “I didn’t look like a Satanist, I wasn’t going to kill my mother and that I should probably get back in therapy.” We left as a happy family in a long car ride home with an apologetic mother. Still to this day I don’t know how they didn’t find my stash of weed but it sure felt nice getting high when I got home.

Trilogy Two: Virginity-less

I had been carrying around this lambskin rubber in my pocket for at least 6 months.

One of my older friends John gave it to me one night when I was going to meet up with Jennifer. I wanted to be ready when Jennifer finally agreed to have sex so I always had it with me. This rubber had been washed at least a dozen times in the laundry and dried about a half dozen but I figured it would still be ok. I knew lambskin condoms were actually lamb intestine and figured it to prove durable. 

We were both virgins, freshmen in high school and had been together for over a year. We had been busted once by her little brother going down on each other so getting anytime alone with her was very difficult after that little fucker snitched to her parents.

There was always a lie, an ambushed sleep over, or parental night on the town that would allow us to be together. My parents were on vacation in Mexico when Jennifer came over this time. We went upstairs, we put our album on Pink Floyd the wall and began making out when things got heavy.

 I asked her what she wanted to do, and she said, “You”. What? I want to have sex she said. OMG it’s going to happen. As I went to my Levi’s to pull the plastic encased condom container out of my pocket, it started.

“Bobby? Bobby? What are you doing?” It was my older brother Patrick. “Nothing!” I yelled back.

My brother and I never got along growing up and things were even a little more awkward (if that’s the word for it) since he recently outed himself from the closet. I always had a suspicion my brother was different and the “Fight Queer bashing, Queers bash back now” sticker on his Ford escort did much to affirm my assumptions but I was still in denial.

I remember asking him once if he could just try it with a girl… He said sure if I just tried it with a guy. I also asked him how long he had been gay; he said, “I have always been gay.”

I have accepted him ever since and never asked him to just try it with a girl. Now it was my time to try it with a girl.

Anyway, when I opened the condom container, my assumptions were right and the sheep intestine had survived through the washings, dryings, and over the clothes many dry humpings. I was shaking as I unrolled the condom and was so nervous I lost my erection. All this time and this had to happen now.

“Bobby! Come down here now.”

“No! What do you want?”

“Bobby, come down here and get your laundry out of the dryer.”

 

 Mounting her, she gently stroked my flaccid penis to full erection.

 

“Bobby, come down her now and fold these towels.”

“No!” I said.

 

I slid the intestine over my penis and as I entered her I couldn’t believe it was finally happening! I couldn’t wait to tell my friends that it finally happened. There were 2 or 3 girls hounding me in my circle that had threatened on many occasions that they were going to take my virginity if I didn’t lose it. Wow does this feel…

“Bobby, come down here NOW!”

“NO, shut up!!!”

“Bobby I’m coming up there!!!”

“SHUT UP PATRICK, FUCK OFF”

 

OMG this is amazing, I’m a man! Oh… this is awesome… Wow….

 

“Bobby!!! Bobby!!! Bobby!!!”

 

Oh man I’m coming… 

 

Trilogy Three: Caught in the Act

The Merrillville roller rink would have metal shows on the weekend, and me and my group were so fuckin’ excited to see MACABRE this weekend. The anticipation during the week of the weekend was almost intolerable. I had been coughing a lot during the week and had felt that I was getting sick.

The night of the show I had a hard time keeping up in the mosh pit and my excitement for the event nearly diminished as I became increasingly short of breath. I tried to smoke through the shortness of breath but to no avail.

The next morning I was awoke in full audible stridor… with stabbing chest pains. I told my mother something was wrong and she yelled at me…”you probably broke one of your ribs slamming into to people at your concert last night.”

She rushed me to the ER and I was admitted with pneumonia and Pleurisy. Pleurisy is inflammation of the lining of the lungs and chest that leads to chest pain (usually sharp) when you take a breath or cough. It was awful and so painful. I was in the hospital for a week and pumped full of antibiotics. I was instructed to quit smoking…that sucked.

I hadn’t seen Jennifer in almost two weeks. As my mother was leaving to run errands (one of which to get me some gum) I informed her that Jennifer was coming over. She turned her head with a raised eyebrow and said…”oh really.” My mother left before Jennifer arrived.

Within minutes of Jennifer getting to my house we were upstairs having sex. I was panting away as it was still very difficult to breathe. I really liked this new pastime of ours and Jennifer would really get into it. She would moan loudly and call my name and all sorts of things like…”yeah, fuck me, it feels so good,” etc.

Minutes went by and when we were done fucking and Jennifer quieted down we heard from the hallway outside my room… “Yous two done yet in there?” It was my mom, back early from her errands with my chewing gum to help me stop smoking.

My heart sank, I pulled off the rubber and threw it at the wall…Jennifer’s hands went to her mouth… tapping her lips… oh my god oh my god.

 

“Huh, yous two done…” bellowed the hallway.

“Yeah, hang on.”

As we exited, Jennifer’s head hung low my mother yelled to her, “you sound like one of the bimbos in those porno movies.”

I snapped back…. “Don’t you talk to her like that!”

My Mom said,” fine,” looking at Jennifer,” I’m going to your house to tell your mother!”

 

Getting caught was a good thing because our parents now knew we were having sex and with sex comes responsibility. They knew we wouldn’t stop, and that I would now always need money for condoms. Even though I drank and smoked most of my condom money this trauma had been particularly awful because our parents even more now tried to keep us from one another.

About 3 years later, my new girlfriend Molly and I came home from a date. Molly ran in to show my Mom a present I had bought for her and stumbled into my parents fucking on the couch. As I walked in Molly ran into my arms and buried her head into my chest.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

I looked over to see my parents on the couch, and my mom exclaimed from across the living room, “I guess we’re even now!”

Eew.

PROG XMAS

PROG XMAS by Dan Gleason

Christmas music is pretty much the lowest form of expression any singer/songwriter can indulge in. That’s why so many country stars have made whole albums of the shit- they love easy, and they understand that there is no underestimating the public intelligence. Kip Winger loves Christmas, I guess- that must be why he sang about it- and Billy Squier made a full record of yule tunes, roping in such cats as Seger and Thorogood to assist him. These are the types of mistakes people make when they really want money. Luckily this pagan celebration had never touched my sacred prog rock, or so I believed. That is until the day my former co-worker LaMorris Richmond confronted me with the horror of a Christmas c.d. made by members of Kansas, along with John Wetton of King Crimson and Asia fame.

For scientific reasons I elected to borrow this recording. And amazingly, it was even worse than I expected- a sonic disturbance unmatched- never before had such an aural injustice been served up in compact disk form. Each song more painful than the last- inane riffing forming into a boring whole- I remember one of the tunes sounded a lot like the Little Drummer Boy, so I took brief solace in the misheard lyrics- ‘pa- rum- pa- pum- pum- mouth full of cum.’ But this joy in the music of the season would not last- the carols made me long for the wailing of a car alarm, for emergency sirens blaring. For the screech of chalk against board, for the metallic scraping of a scab off of an ear drum. (This is a sensation I’ve experienced- I assure you, it’s even worse than it sounds.) A full listen to the album proved more painful than an inflamed hemorrhoid- after that first run through I would have preferred to have a long Q-tip jammed up my urethra rather than to have to suffer through it again. In trying to find a comparison to it in the cinematic world I think perhaps a Look Who’s Talking marathon would do or maybe just My Girl 2. What about Yentl? In the realm of cuisine it might be, oh, I don’t know, anal leakage gruel. If the album had a scent it would be comparable to that which existed in the family bathroom after father cleared his colon of the mincemeat pie he had devoured at Christmas table. In truth I am quite surprised that the c.d. didn’t leave the hands that touched it gangrenous.

Now, I was hoping to listen to the album again to more thoroughly recount it here for you, but I couldn’t find the damned thing anywhere. I searched the bargain bins at all of the local Family Dollar stores and the never-dusted music sections at the Village Thrifts, but no go. In truth I think I would have rather been force-fed the disk, made to swallow it whole, than to have to listen to it again. But I did try to find it, if only for the sake of depthful journalism. And my attempts to gather more information on the album through use of the Internet were entirely fruitless too. I did learn that Marillion, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman and Hawkwind also made Christmas records though, along with Jethro Tull. No idea what the fuck these dickwads were thinking doing that. But as for the Kansas/Wetton collaboration- it’s almost as if the album never existed- like someone found a wormhole somewhere and flung the master tapes in there, along with all existing copies. I picture jewel cases landing in a field during a time long ago, pilgrims finding them, mistaking the items for outer space fertilizer medallions, and burying them in the soil. If this is even remotely like anything that actually happened, than this could be one of the greatest services anyone has ever done for humanity. 

 

I Love You, and Another Thing: Pure Fucking Armageddon!

by LC von Hessen

 

It was a full decade before I learned to stop associating extreme metal with a certain moon-faced McDonald’s employee from Missouri.

In the summer of 1999, I was a 14-year-old baby goth who listened to Marilyn Manson, wore blue lipstick, and read true crime paperbacks, the sort of kid who was destined to get harassed in the wake of Columbine—but that’s another story. I had moved to suburban Kansas the previous fall, an upper-middle-class town where the neighborhood landscape was as beige and lifeless as a disused movie set and my peers were constantly happy and upbeat for no particular reason. Unsurprisingly, they expressed a certain mixture of fear and tentative fascination toward me: a foreign creature who wore black shirts without brand names printed in faux-distressed ink across the front, who had a gleefully morbid sense of humor, and who didn’t attend church, much less identify as Christian.

In such an environment, I was desperately lonely: a romantic idealist of the sort that was “waiting for marriage” but wanted to lose her virginity in a cemetery. A peculiar little necromantic.

I met Tim in July at a week-long acting class on the theme of Edgar Allan Poe, which culminated in a playlet based on “The Masque of the Red Death.” He played the doomed prince; I played the Red Death. We both had last names reminiscent of certain Manson Family members, which was surely remarked on at the time. Prior to him, I hadn’t really known any “alternative culture” denizens beyond a metalhead in my 7^th-grade geography class who once claimed in sardonic ‘90s deadpan that he and his girlfriend would cut themselves together.

Tim boasted about reading Mein Kampf and owned a paperback Necronomicon that he probably bought at the mall. He was two and a half years my senior, which was rather scandalous at the time. His wardrobe consisted of baggy pants and black metal t-shirts that he ordered from the internet.

The night I met him, he attempted to woo me online by quoting the lyrics of some song about Jesus Christ being raped in prison.

Our first date was at a mall midway between our respective towns. We were there to watch that CGI-bloated remake of The Haunting. At the food court, he shared some of his terrible gothic poetry with me, including one with a title in the vein of “The Final Night of Sodom.” Because I was naïve and wanted the boy to keep liking me, I told him I enjoyed it, even though I was consciously aware of how shitty it was.

As it turned out, our relationship—my very first—was primarily carried out through words: namely, the confines of AOL Instant Messenger, where his handle was an unintentional misspelling of the word “exhumed.” This particular medium combined the distance and detachment of letter-writing with the immediacy and false intimacy of phone conversations, distilling emotion to boxes of text and code. Naturally, our infatuation grew very intense very quickly and flamed out just as rapidly. The official span of our relationship was barely over a month.

One of Tim’s most beloved things was, as he put it, “death fucking metal.” He was a big fan of black metal as well: at the time I tended to distinguish them as the one with the shrieking and the one with the growling, hyperbolic demon-screeching on the subject of romanticized blasphemy and mush-mouthed gutteral sludge of unintelligible lyrics allegedly about comically-extreme violence. His favorite bands were Cannibal Corpse and Cradle of Filth, claiming that the latter’s song “Black Goddess Rises” reminded him of me.

While I was fascinated by an extremity of aesthetics and subject matter which I had never encountered before, I found black and death metal both impenetrable and slightly silly. Most songs Tim played sounded the same to me. Extreme metal’s instrumentals seemed to consist of little more than the repetitive rapid-fire mechanical clatter of machine guns and factory contraptions—both of which, ironically, were things that I would end up sampling for my own project when I got heavily into noise music and power electronics as an adult.

Tim was also fond of a band called Rorschach Test, which contributed to the soundtrack of a little film called Black Circle Boys that comes off as a sort of sanitized Dennis Cooper death fantasy with its alt-culture murderous teenage homoeroticism. Tim was apparently friends with Rorschach Test’s frontman, who recommended that Tim take Xanax.

Tim’s little brother was a child model. Their living room was dominated by a blow-up photo of the kid’s face poking out from a pile of autumn leaves. The first time I went to Tim’s house, he took me to his bedroom—which, as I recall, had a smeary pentagram drawn on the door in his own blood—and showed me the body-sized crawlspace built into the wall. He gave me some photos of himself with his ex-girlfriend obviously cut out, her hair and limbs and furniture visible off to the side, a vaguely-puffy female hand resting on his shoulder as he gazed at the camera wearing black lipstick with an inverted cross crudely daubed onto his forehead. Later we’d walk to his neighborhood cemetery and photograph each other in melodramatic poses against the gravestones.

We’d spend most of our time in the basement, eating pizza and watching horror VHS rentals. One of these was a gore-spewing b-movie by local director Todd Sheets, and Tim would later go on to “act” in one of Sheets’s films, an entry in the Zombie Bloodbath franchise, presumably shuffling around in shoddy whiteface with surplus cow parts dangling from his mouth while credited on IMDB as a generic “zombie.”

Tim was my first kiss—I believe it was during Evil Dead—and he was unsurprisingly terrible in nearly every way: bad breath, just enough second-day stubble to scratch, too much tongue and saliva. I thought I just didn’t like kissing until I made out with somebody else a few months later. Nonetheless, I was pleased to have somebody to kiss at all, and we once made out on top of the wet bar in his parents’ basement, where I could feel both his hard-on and his wallet chain pressing against my leg through our wide-legged jeans.

Tim was . . . contradictory. He proudly sent me an image of Mayhem’s crime-scene snapshot album cover and an mp3 of something called “Fist-Fucking God’s Planet,” yet was disgusted by the idea of going down on a girl. He loved Faces of Death and corresponded with convicted French cannibal Nico Claux, yet prudishly referred to his dick over AIM as his “ahem.”

Naturally he’d been diagnosed as bipolar: in fact we once had a chance meeting in our respective psychologists’ waiting room. He claimed he had been involuntarily sent to a mental institution twice: once for threatening to kill himself, once for threatening to kill his mother—though he was also a pathological liar, making shit up for no particular reason because he was angry or just flat-out bored. It should come as no surprise that he was manipulative with me, dropping casual lies about his drug use and sexual past, claiming that he “loved” me before we’d even gone on one date and telling me literally the next day that he wanted to kill himself. While we both shared interests in true crime and BDSM, he would drop casual remarks about his alleged murderous fantasies, which I suspect were largely for shock value: how many 16-year-old boys tell their girlfriends they fantasize about raping someone with a knife? As if he were some drug-free Ricky Kasso, some Hot Topic knockoff of Ian Brady.

Eventually I was dumped by email, dotted with stock phrases like “we’re going too fast” and “I’m afraid of commitment,” after which he got a rebound girlfriend with an IM name taken from a Looney Tunes character. I learned about this the following day on his typo-riddled Angelfire page. Her parents made her break up with him a few weeks later because he wasn’t Christian enough.

Around the same time, he’d started taking an introductory psychology class at a local community college: by the end of his first week he’d “diagnosed” me with schizophrenia. In just a couple of months, Tim had gone from “you – me – us – SATAN!!” and “I wanna fuckin’ kill everyone” to “all that goth hate-everybody-for-no-reason crap is for little kiddies,” claiming I was only “confused” and “attention-thirsty.” When we argued about how condescending he was toward me, he told me he’d showed respect for me because he could’ve raped me back at his house and didn’t.

So why did I want to stay with this asshole? Well, when you’ve never known life outside of the suburbs, when everyone your age smiles emptily while compiling wardrobes from the exact same store like a swarm of overly-tanned cultists, and when the short years of your isolated life already seem very long indeed, you genuinely don’t think there will ever be anyone else. And in fact, for years, there wasn’t.

Extreme metal was tarnished for a decade as a result of Tim, though recently I’ve started giving it another chance, largely thanks to my present circle of friends—who also contradict teenage Tim’s assertion that nobody stays goth after high school. Meanwhile I went in a different direction: around the time we broke up I was discovering Wax Trax!-era industrial bands. A few months later I listened to Throbbing Gristle for the first time, which changed the way I thought about music: both engrossing and deeply unsettling, it touched me in a way that Tim’s corpsepainted heroes presumably did for him.

A Portal into My Teenage Dream

by Alicia Eler

I wake up in Candyland where I finally meet Katy Perry. Red-and-white striped candycanes float in the sticky sweet air that smells like stale sugar. Katy approaches me wearing a pink fluffy cotton candy dress. Her mouth is permanently stuck in an “O.” She says nothing, only hums at a pitch that gets higher and higher until it turns into a deafening scream. I cover my ears. There is a peppermint candy cane hanging from her right ear. A scoop of strawberry ice cream melts on top of her pink hair. She bends over, drips ice cream onto my left shoe, and then scurries away into the candycane forest. She climbs a Twizzler rope. I see her snow white ass pop out from underneath her effervescent dress. I guess the cotton candy isn’t sticky enough. At the top, she exits onto a blue cotton candy cloud; its texture is much thicker than her pink cotton candy dress. She lies down, removes her cotton candy getup, and poses nude like Manet’s 1862 painting of a whore, Olympia. Then she looks down at me, rainbow sprinkles in her eyes. I shoot whipped cream straight up into the blue sky.

I wake up all groggy and confused. It’s morning. The bright light is streaming in through the windows of a dingy corner convenience store. I am lying on a sticky, caramel-covered floor. My mouth is covered in chocolate syrup. I rub my eyes and look to the left. Endless copies of Seventeen magazine cover the wall. The tired Indian guy behind the desk looks at me. He sports a shirt covered in black licorice stripes.

“You gonna get up and buy some magazines? If not, you leave now,” he says.

I get up and walk toward the magazine rack. I see glossy images of Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, the bubblegum pink hearts with cut-outs of 17-year-old Scotty The Hottie’s face inside them and a blonde who calls herself Scotty’s “perfect girl.” She smooches his freshly shaven cheek. Scotty and Justin and Selena’s smiles are sweet and teasingly sexy—if you think teenagers are sexy.

My hand shakes as I pick up Seventeen magazine. I feel dirty, like I’m looking at grown-up porno magazines Hustler or Playboy. I rip out the teenage dream centerfolds of Justin and Selena and shove them into the back pocket of my sticky blue jeans. I slip out the door and back onto the gingerbread-covered street. I walk into an alley, and lean my sweaty back against a brick wall. Suddenly an ice cream truck speeds toward me. The robotic version of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” plays at a hyperfast pace. I see a flash of light, and then everything goes black.

I wake up all wet and sticky on the floor of a white room. It’s the middle of the night. I hear the sharp chirp of crickets outside. Someone must have brought me here after the alley. I look up and I think I see cane sugar dripping from the ceiling, but it might just be a leak I’ve been too lazy to fix. I get up to use the washroom. When I turn on the faucet, I see red Slurpee syrup instead of water. The walls of my white room are covered in posters of Justin, Selena, Katy, Kurt, Snoop Dogg and the gummy bear army. Did I hang those? I walk toward the saintly image of Justin and start peeling the baby blue tape off one of its corners. Behind the poster, I discover the two-foot by three-foot hole. I peer in and see red-and-white stripped candycane shadows everywhere.

[originally published in full as The Alter of Adolescence: A Teenage Dream in 12 Parts]

Spider Baby vs. St. Elmo’s Fire Circa Summer 1987

By MIKE McPADDEN

The first girl I ever called up and asked out on a date was named Ann Butler. Her nickname among my friends, for deceptively obvious reasons, was “Spider Baby.”

It was summertime 1987 and I was eighteen and terrified and I had just gone through freshman year at art school where I’d had nary a nibble of female interest.

Ann had long, dark hair and skin the color of Liquid Paper and she dressed in all black and she smoked a lot of cigarettes and she told me that her saddest childhood memory was the day she lost her favorite rubber spider in a movie theater. Hence: “Spider Baby.”

Plus, each one of her breasts should have been licensed with the FAA as a full-size replica of the Hindenburg.

So you can imagine the degree of psychopathic preoccupation I bore for Ann Butler aka Spider Baby.

She and I went to see my friend’s hardcore combo at a little Brooklyn bar, and it was kind of too loud to talk, which was fine, and I drove Ann home afterward and I asked her if I could ask her out again.

“Uh… yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

The Alpine was the local theater in our Bay Ridge neighborhood, and Sunday afternoon hardly made for prime “let’s go park and make out afterward” time.

I figured on a movie for round two. The splatter horror hit Street Trash was playing at midnight on Saturday or maybe she’d want to see some European flick in the Village or I could even try to blow her mind with a triple bill on 42^nd Street, but when I offered her those options, she said: “How about we go to the Alpine on Sunday afternoon?”

Okay. That was cool. Except for it being completely un- fuckin’-cool.

“Ah, sure…” I said. “How about Back to the Beach with Frankie and Annette? Pee-Wee Herman’s in it, too. He sings ‘Surfin’ Bird’!”

“I think Can’t Buy Me Love looks pretty good,” Ann said.

Can’t Buy Me Love was a PG-13 teen comedy about a nerdy dude who pays a hot chick to pretend to be his girlfriend. Now, I’m all for high school prostitution—both in and out of the movies—but Can’t Buy Me Love had and air of Fox Kids Club meets John Hughes about it, and I was neutral on Fox Kids Club, but I really fuckin’ hated John Hughes. And I still do.

I figured on a movie for round two. The splatter horror hit Street Trash was playing at midnight on Saturday or maybe she’d want to see some European flick in the Village or I could even try to blow her mind with a triple bill on 42^nd Street, but when I offered her those options, she said: “How about we go to the Alpine on Sunday afternoon?”

Okay. That was cool. Except for it being completely un- fuckin’-cool.

“Sounds great!” I chirped.

Walking up to the Alpine, we ran out of conversation kind of quick, until I said something disparaging about the film St. Elmo’s Fire.

“I LOVE St. Elmo’s Fire!” Ann gushed. “I even bought the soundtrack on both album AND cassette!”

Remember my earlier reference to the Hindenburg? That great airship’s fiery demise roughly equated what I suddenly felt in my heart, mind, and libido.

The movie St. Elmo’s Fire is ungodly abomination enough, but what, I wondered, could possibly be on that soundtrack that possessed her acquire it in every available format this voluptuous, clove-puffing vision in Wednesday Addams braids to?

Was it “Man in Motion” by John Paar?

Was it “Love Theme From St. Elmo’s Fire” by David Foster?

Was it “Love Theme From St. Elmo’s Fire (Reprise)” by David Foster?

What did it matter?

What the fuck kind of bait-and-switch shit had I just been subjected to?

Here’s this chick who looked, as my friend Fischel Bocephus put it, “like Russ Meyer had cast Lemora the Lady Dracula” and I’m all prepared to pretend I can tolerate Clan of Xymox or Love and Rockets or Gene Loves Jezebel or whatever, and instead she’s dropping John fuckin’ Paar on me?

And it not even the John Paar of “Naughty Naughty” (which is actually a great song)—it’s the John Paar of “I’ll be where the eagle’s flyin’/HIGHER AND HI-YUH!”

We went to see Can’t Buy Me Love and I hated it and I hated my life and eventually Ann went off to her college and I went back to mine and I wrote her a lot of annoying, unwanted, and unanswered letters as though she was the person I was hoping she was to begin with and she, of course, never was at all, and we all know there’s two ways for that to end:

A) in a restraining order, or

B) Mr. Creepo gets over his fear of beer and starts getting laid and eventually gets on with his life.

I mean, there was a suicide attempt and a mental hospital stay in there, too, but, anyway, my record’s clean.

And so is my record collection—it’s clean of any presence of St. Elmo’s Fuckin’ Fire.

(Please allow me to reiterate: “Naughty Naughty” really is a killer jam)

How Davy Jones Made Me a Woman

by Tressa Slater

1987 was a tough year for me. It was the year between 7th and 8th grade and I was stuck in that gentle place between fun and cool. My parents had only recently given me the ok to listen to secular music. I didn’t want to blow my chance so I only openly listened to pre-Led Zeppelin and anything you might find on the cover of Tiger Beat.

The Monkees had only in the past year presented themselves to me in the best way possible. My friends Dana Black and Katie Harrington knew I liked the Monkees, we auditioned for the 7th grade talent show lip-syncing to the Monkees theme song. I was Peter, I combed my crunchy bangs down and I played a flawless life-size, cardboard Monkees logo guitar. I was disappointed in the lack of enthusiasm the other girls brought to the table, and I’m sure that’s the reason we didn’t make the cut, but that’s another story for another day.

So, the summer of 1987. Davy Jones had published an autobiography and I devoured it. I loved that fucking book. I knew him like no one else knew him, once I had figured out that arse was English for ass. It was pretty obvious that I was meant to be his child bride, and since he was going to be in town for a book signing/Monkees concert I knew it was finally my chance to pounce.

The day of the book signing I waited. I waited for what seemed an eternity. the line wrapped around the Claire’s Boutique, Doctor pet center and the Leaning Tower of Pizza. It gave me plenty of time to make out my plan of attack. But I don’t work well under pressure and I noticed there were a lot of hussies in line, probably with the same idea as me. I had woken up that morning with the most horrific pattern of acne that I had ever experienced, and I was afraid it might work as a disadvantage.

This wasn’t a normal ‘my skin is irritated and a little red’ break out. This was an all out puss filled white volcano covering every inch of prime real estate of my adorable face, and I was starting to get concerned it would influence Davy’s decision.

The closer I got to the make shift stage the more nervous I got. I had noticed he had gotten old. But that was cool; I was still down. I was starting to get nervous he would want to make out with me or feel me up in front of everyone. That could be totally embarrassing. But since it was Davy Jones, everyone would probably just be jealous, so I wasn’t going to worry about it.

It was finally my turn to get my book signed. I walked up and he was surrounded by other old guys. I’m guessing managers and security; dudes you get to hang out with you when you’re awesome. I stood there speechless. I was starting to panic a little because I hadn’t come up with the perfect line in the hours I waited to see him and then I realized, he’ll just know. I need to look him in the eyes and then, he will know. I gazed into those deep brown eyes for what seemed like forever, but was probably about 10 seconds. I was seriously lookin. Into. His. Soul.

Now he knows. Now he will stand up, take my hand and we will walk to the food court and fall in love over cheese fries.

Then I realized he wasn’t gazing back into my soul. He was just looking past me. OH MY GOD, ZITS! I was pretty sure I could actually feel the grease about to drip off of my face. I was terrified he noticed my greasy preteen face, then terrified he didn’t notice it. No, it wasn’t my horrible acne; I probably seemed older with all of the pimples.

And then they shooed me off the stage. I don’t think they actually understood the gravity of their actions. And then I realized. It was over.  Fucking dicks. What the fuck is wrong with Davy Jones? How did he not see how fucking adorable I was. I fucking hate Davy Jones.

That night was the Monkees reunion tour -sans Mike Nesmith. I didn’t see the point. I wasn’t backstage or waiting in the wings of the Royals stadium. The whole idea of going to this big concert sans groupie status seemed futile. It was like a crappy flea circus. the action was too small to see the players and also, it was too loud to enjoy.

I hung my head low on the way home. I didn’t even want to be there. Whatever. Fuck Davy Jones.

The next afternoon I woke up to the horrific truth. I knew that my skin was a fucking mess the day before because I was on the verge of my first period. There was so much blood. I hated it. No one can know. I hate this I silently screamed in the bathroom, I wept; I cursed the name of Davy Jones and pleaded with God to make it stop. Why me? Why have I been cursed with this bullshit task?! I hate this. No one must know.

And that’s how the Monkees made me a woman.

C’mon Everybody, Get Down, Get With It: My Possibly Freudian Preschool Obsession Shaun Cassidy

by Rachel McPadden

From 1976-1978, I was 3, 4, and 5 years old and in pre-sexuality love with Shaun Cassidy. The first non-Sesame Street records I ever owned were Shaun Cassidy and I played them all by myself on a frighteningly psychedelic portable Raggedy Ann & Andy record player.

1970’s Raggedy Ann & Andy as a whole were a horrific acid trip. The 1977 cartoon musical depicted untrustworthy hippie ragdolls who the second you leave, come to life, gobble benzos and drink mushroom tea until everything’s a melted 30s cartoon and they meet a fucking camel. Don’t ever show it to any kids. Raggedy Andy’s like, “I’m freaking out because I’m a BOY doll, but I’m a GIRL’s toy…” Drink some milk, take a bath, and SHUT UP. No one has fun doing drugs around you.

So, anyway: Shaun Cassidy. He would be my first in a long line of obsessions with celebrity offspring. My ultimate at one point being Campbell Scott, a gene combo of Canadian-American off-Broadway queen Colleen Dewhurst and grandpa-sexual extraordinaire George C. Scott. But Campbell’s really a dud, right? Dying Young, Julia Roberts. Be a man. 

Which again brings me back to Shaun Cassidy. Mother, Shirley Jones, a Partridge, brother, David Cassidy, a Partridge, father Jack Cassidy, a bipolar alcoholic proto-Ted Baxter who passed out with a lit cigarette and died in the resulting apartment fire at the exact moment Shaun was becoming the Justin Bieber of 1976.

Of course, none of the father stuff I knew as a preschooler, but I do find it VERY attractive as an adult.

To look at old pictures of Shaun Cassidy now: he’s asymmetrical, has too gummy of a smile, has zero of the sexuality of David Cassidy (not that he was my taste, but I can see how got laid en masse and that near-nude 1972 Rolling Stone cover if you’ve ever seen it, it’s a little outrageous. You can see what the fuss was about). Shaun Cassidy best resembled a hypothetical childhood sketch combining my own young golden hippie dad and a droopy-eyed basset hound puppy. And most likely a plush version of that puppy and not even an actual dog.

That’s some Freud shit right there. Was my first romantic ideal a hybrid of my own hot dad and a vaguely dimwitted appearing stuffed dog? My imaginary friend around the time himself was a shape-shifting teenage boy/convertible sports car/homeless dog that seems now to have so transparently come from my pre-K merging of Shaun Cassidy/my father, Herbie the Love Bug and Benji. Though Herbie could only DREAM of being a convertible.

Christmas Eve, right before I turned 5, I unwrapped a Shaun Cassidy nightgown under my grandparents silver tinsel tree that became my first favorite piece of clothing. I wore to bed, in public, with overalls, tap shoes, cowboy and sailor hats, I slept with it ON TOP of my pillow, I slept with it UNDER my pillow, I snuggled it like Linus’ blanky. I’ve had a lifetime of favorite t-shirts, dresses, shoes, sweaters and jeans since, but none affected me like that little girls short-sleeve ruffle-hem nightgown with that poor half-orphan asymmetrical fuck’s face on it.

I should talk about the music.

‘Born Late’ is the only good record, and it’s mind-numbingly horrible and only slightly less un-revisit-able than the other two (I don’t count anything after ‘Under Wraps’, the album that had Shaun trying to push his way out from behind plastic wrap and legitimately terrified me as a kid because I had somewhat recently made the mistake of putting a dry cleaning bag over my head as a joke and the hippies freaked out on me so thoroughly I believed Shaun Cassidy was sure to suffocate under the packaging of his own record. Not that I was dumb, just acutely anxiety-ridden, the same tendency that would start my road to vegetarianism at age 8, not because I gave a shit about animals, but because a raw chicken had the same translucent skin and blue veins as me).

And You KNOW the only tolerable Shaun Cassidy songs because they were written by Bubblegum Pop supergenius Eric Carmen of The Raspberries. ‘That’s Rock & Roll’ and ‘Hey Deanie.’ A case could be made for ‘Do You Believe in Magic?’ originally by the Lovin’ Spoonful, but it’s had a never-ending career in commercials so I feel it’s always selling me something and not anything I actually want, like ice cream.  ‘That’s Rock & Roll’ with the chorus ‘c’mon everybody, get down, get with it’ I really associate with my grandma at that time. ‘Get down’ because she was a wacky, cut loose kind of lady and ‘get with it’ makes me think of her collection of go-go boots, like ‘heeeyy, I’m with it, look at my go-go boots!’ which I guess was what was going on while we listened to those Shaun Cassidy records on my creepy Raggedy Ann & Andy record player, just rolling around on the floor in go-go boots. THAT IS rock and roll.

In 1978, People Magazine had Shaun Cassidy on the cover and a multi-page feature inside with tons of concert photos. One image moved me then and has stayed with me all my life: he’s mid-song, kind of jump-squatting with his back mainly to the camera with his head turned over his shoulder making a fffffffffftttttt face. I mean, cutting a fart was my personal favorite go-to modeling pose, too, and I knew then we had a real soul-deep kinship.

The Hardy Boys TV show should be mentioned. Naturally I loved it and it kind of explains my attraction to prep school gay-for-pay porn. Of course, the big small screen moment for me was when Shaun Cassidy starred as Roger in Like Normal People, a TV movie about two differently-abled young adults determined to get married against everyone’s objections.

His whole characterization is based around the ‘I’m bringing home a baby bumblebee’ voice and it’s sound bite after sound bite of utter unbelievability.

Fall 1978 I started kindergarten and those kids were stupid babies that didn’t even seem to LIKE music. That was a let down. But then my dad went to see the Ramones and the Runaways at Ricco’s, a tiny dive bar that would soon become my town’s first cable TV office and within 6 months, my next pop crush was Blondie.

My records got better (and at times infinitely worse), but I’ll always be grateful for my first dum-dum farty face asymmetrical moderate-charisma mentally defective Hardy Boy.