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. 

 

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]

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.  

The Death of the Central Scrutinizer: Love and Loss (of Frank Zappa) to the age 14

by CPO Sinkhole

She looked me right in the eyes as she tore long spools of audio tape from its casing. She wanted me to know how furious she was with me, her little boy. In the eyes of most parents, my track record would be considered spotless. But in this household, this…this was unacceptable.

I need to give you a little background. I was raised strictly in the Lutheran faith, and attended Lutheran grade and middle school. For my high school years, I attended a Lutheran seminary in my hometown. The upside: I was able, for a time, to sight-translate Latin classics like “The Anaeid.” and the orations of Cicero. The downside: two years of school-sanctioned, round the clock hazing. “Zexing,” it was called, and all freshmen and sophomores lived under its boot at all times. It happened in public, too…an event called “Freshman Welcoming Party” was attended by our families, watching from the bleachers as seniors rubbed ketchup, mustard and syrup in my hair, and made other kids eat fake candy apples that were really peanut butter-covered onions. In hindsight, it was like a two-year version of the first 30 minutes of “Dazed & Confused,” minus the weed, booze, fistfights, bitchin’ haircuts, or excellent soundtrack.

One of the first things I remember declaring to my dad around age 10 was, “from now on, I only want to listen to the most powerful, heavy, crazy music there is.” I believed it, too. Of course, because of my Lutheran upbringing (and my fear of Real Hell), this couldn’t include Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, or any other “idolatrous” (and therefore actually heavy) music. Pure sonic self-negation was still a few years off. Because every incoming record was strictly monitored to make sure that it was blasphemy-free, I stuck to the canon. The canon of 25 years previous. The Who, Yes, Focus, and that one Beatles song where they guy yells about his fingers.

At age 9, fifth grade give or take, I discovered Frank Zappa through an unlikely channel — a video game magazine called Joystik. He and his daughter Moon Unit were talking about video games. Neither were fans, but Frank strongly opposed any control over them. I decided he was badass, and I must know more. My mom immediately nixed the idea. “That man is a pervert,” she would say, “a real low-life.” She wouldn’t elaborate. She may as well have said, “you’re dying of Leukemia, and this person has the only remaining bottle of elixir that will cure you. But stay away from him.” I couldn’t have beat a faster path to his door.

My days were spent on my bike, but my nights were spent poring over the Rolling Stone Record Guide the way teenage baseball fanatics probably pored over stats books, and the way well-adjusted kids interacted with the opposite sex and whatever. Because I got like 5 bucks every couple of weeks for an allowance, every tape purchase was planned as deliberately as the Battle of Agincourt. Of all the early records, Uncle Meat got the fivest of all five star ratings, so against the wishes of my family/community/god, I bought it. I bought it!

You wouldn’t think an album that starts with a xylophone-led instrumental would cut it for a kid who wanted all heavy, all the time. But you’d be wrong. The rat-a-tat snare drumming, the harpsichord riffs, Art Tripp’s wild malleting. It made NO SENSE. But it made perfect no-sense.

My obsession deepened from there, and soon, I was the proud possessor of four Zappa tapes — Uncle Meat, Freak Out!, Absolutely Free, and 200 Motels. For fuck’s sake, I even dressed as Frank Zappa for Halloween once, at a most embarrassing age — 14!! I should have been egging, not begging!

Other events at the time started making my mom suspicious. She found some dirty pictures ripped from the pages of Easyriders magazine in the pocket of my jeans. She let it go, giving me my first of one warnings. When another set emerged, months later, the results were more vibrant. “If I catch you with naked pictures again, there’s gonna be a HOLY WAR,” she bellowed. I knew what she meant, but maybe it’s worse than I thought! Was I really causing jihad across the middle east by tearing out lesbian spreads from Penthouse? Do I owe the Gaza Strip an apology?

My dad, who I visited every other weekend, also caught me, but he was more understanding, even though he had less reason to be. Since I didn’t have a safe place to stash them at his apartment, I took to flushing them down his toilet every Sunday. “I found your glossy photos,” my Dad began. I like that he couldn’t say “dirty pictures,” he called them “glossy photos.” Turns out he’d had to have his pipes roto-rooted at a considerable fee. He didn’t even tell me not to do it any more. “If you need to get rid of them, just throw them away.”

Actually, let’s back up. My dad knew about my proclivities long before a Jiffy Root had to get involved.

The day I started fifth grade, my cousin and I came up with this ingenious strategy for looking at my dad’s Playboys, Gallerys, Ouis, and Geneses. One of us would go into the front room and distract my dad…say, by asking him a question, telling him about a thing we saw the other day, or singing a song we made up.

There was a cartoon of The Little Rascals on TV at the time, and Eddie Murphy’s Buckwheat character was still popular, so I remember us coming up with this song, which one of us sang for him. At least twice. Each:

Here comes Buckwheat
He’s running down the street
Who’s he goin’ after?
Who’s he gonna meet?

Where is Darla?
She’s in bed
Alfalfa’s with her
and Spanky’s by the bed

Lookin’ like a sped tonight
to-ni-i-i-i-i-i-i-ight

Here comes Buckwheat
He’s runnin’ down the street
Who’s he goin’ after?
Who’s he gonna meet?

Where is Porky
He’s eating blueberry pies
Why is Darla crying?
Because Alfalfa lies
He Li-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ies!

Meanwhile, the other person would sneak in my dad’s room, grab three or four mags, and run back to my room and shut the door. The singer or skit performer would re-join, we’d thumb through them furiously, then lather, rinse, repeat for the entire afternoon. It was working perfectly, but like a squirrel, I got tagged because I went back one too many times. Long after my cousin tired of the ruse, I was still in squirrel-brain mode. Just one more, just a little closer to the tires. I can do this. Just one more issue. This next naked woman is SURE to come to life and hug me with her naked boobs!

Despite my love of dirty pictures, I didn’t gravitate to Zappa for the dirty words. I’d rather SEE the titties get wet than hear about ’em! Besides, I needed to hear Frank tell the whole truth about all the things that are TRULY important to a 12 year old in mid-Michigan. Topics like:

– The conformity of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society

– The Watts Riots

– Car culture from the perspective of the Pachuco

– The mindless decadence of swimming pool culture in California

THESE were the things I needed to know more about. I also ate my lunch in the bathroom until about two years into high school. Duh.

I listened to those tapes everywhere I went. I even cranked my walkman as loud as it would go and listened to impressions of the tape over the roar of a lawnmower.

I was able to keep the ruse going for a while — my mom would glance at the back covers of the tapes and see nothing offending. Who could worry for their son’s spiritual destiny in the era of Reign in Blood when the worst thing he’s listening to is something called “The Voice of Cheese”? She never stopped quipping about the way my beloved Frank was “a dirtbag,” and looked perturbed each time I came out of Tape World with a new title, but for now, the law was on my side.

Until: Joe’s Garage.

I decided that my next Zappa purchase was going to be <i>Joe’s Garage</i>, an epic rock opera (double tape!) set in a dystopian future. Blah blah blah, music is outlawed, blah blah blah sex robots/L. Ron Hubbard/thought crimes, blah blah blah, whatever. You get the idea.

My mom feigned interest upon purchase, knowing damn well who I bought. “What’d you get?” she said, pulling the tape out of my hand and looking at the titles. I breathed in, took a beat, as if that was enough time for her to read the track titles, and then pulled the tape back. “Just another tape, y’know. It’s about a science fiction future where rock music is outlawed.” “Mmm hmmm,” she said. Close call. Wish I’d learned from it.

Like the others, Joe’s Garage stayed in my walkman a long time. I selectively fast-forwarded as needed to get to the songs I wanted to hear, especially side four. By this point in the story, Joe has been imprisoned for *several* crimes, ranging from playing rock music to getting his dick caught in a sex robot. Or…something. It’s been a while. As he’s left to rot in his cell, sodomized endlessly by his bunkmates, he thinks about his girlfriend, his old band, his dream of music, and as Zappa’s narrator “The Central Scrutinizer” says, he “goes into his mind and imagines one last guitar solo.” It’s the soaring, beautiful track called “Watermelon in Easter Hay.” The song’s still pretty OK, but at the time, it was a flight through the gates of paradise. Tender, sad, defiant, majestic…exactly what my religiously conflicted, screamingly horny, impressively repressed ass had been petitioning the heavens for all this time.

But this was not what my mom noticed when she finally got a good long look at the track titles. She didn’t notice “Watermelon In Easter Hay.” Nope, she was more focused on “Crew Slut” and “Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt” and “Why Does It Hurt When I Pee.” I was in my room, playing some sort of crude RPG game on my Commodore 64.

“I don’t think I approve of some of the titles on this tape,” she said, somewhat lower than a scream but well above the volume where you’d speak to a dog that won’t stop eating its own poop.

My vital organs turned to lava. Game over.

I powered down the computer and sat on the bed with her. I worked up some tears — real ones — and told her that I had been caught in a double-bind. I loved the melodies, the weird aura of those early records, but in some cases, the songs had swears in them and dirty stories. “But that’s just a small minority!” I sad, somewhat unconvincingly. I told her about “Watermelon in Easter Hay,” and about Southern California swimming pools, the Watts riots, and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and begged her not to take my tapes away.

We came to an agreement. A weird one, to be sure. I could keep my Zappa, but I had to do some White House Tapes-style selective editing. I would have to, of my own volition, tape over the dirty songs, somehow. With what, I don’t know. Silence? Duplicates of non-dirty Zappa songs? Readings from Luther’s Catechism? This was not stipulated in the contract. Just get rid of the offending songs. Until then, the tapes would go in her room. I would then have to tell her when I was ready to put on my Jigsaw mask and Saw-movie-franchise the fuck out of my naughty children.

Weeks passed. I knew I wouldn’t get the tunes I liked back if I didn’t do some chopping, but I just couldn’t get myself to desecrate these classics. I was trapped, and time was running out.

Then….*she* entered the picture.

Mom picked me up on a rainy afternoon near the end of my Freshman year of seminary. Car conversation was at a minimum. I could tell something was up. I stuttered, under my breath, “I, uh, think after dinner tonight, I’ll tape over the songs….”

“I don’t think so,” she said, again in the same loud-but-not-screaming voice. “I had a chance to listen to those tapes today, and we need to have a talk.”

Stunned. Numb. That vague relief that a criminal feels when he’s been caught. At last, there’s no more running. Time to take the medicine.

But why today? Those tapes had sat on her dresser for weeks. What made her take action all of a sudden? What had she heard? Who ratted me out?

OOOOOOOPRAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Guess what? My mom, like *all* moms, watches Oprah and takes her advice with humorless acceptance. And guess what Oprah was warning about today? HEAVY METAL MUSIC. The lyrics, the lyrics, what are the lyrics going to make your child do? Look out, it’s the Judas Priest face-shooter! To my mom, evil was lurking everywhere, even in…oh hey, what about these tapes?

“You think you can fool me with all this shit about beautiful music? I didn’t hear any beautiful music! All I heart was that sleazeball with his low muttering…what’s he call himself [looks at tape] the Central Scrutinizer. Please! All I heard was lots of songs that young Christian men shouldn’t be listening to. Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt? Who do you think you’re fooling, beautiful music? And that ‘200 Motels’ tape…”

Oh shit. Here’s where I really started breathing heavy. Had she made it all the way to side two, where Eddie from Flo & Eddie starts ranting like a psychopath about taking a groupie home and “doing a wee-wee in your hair” before beating her with a pair of Jeff Beck’s tennis shoes? But no, it was so much more lame than that! “And that ‘200 Motels’ tape….it was sounds SO WEIRD.” Weird! Yeah, no shit it’s weird! You’ve got a weird kid! Seniors rubbed ketchup and syrup in my hair in front of 200 people! I had a 6’4″ stepdad whose bellow sounded like an air-raid drill. My mom told me if I kept masturbating, I’d break the fragile peace accords between Israel and Palestine! What the fuck am I supposed to find interesting……A Prairie Home Companion?

She grabbed hold of 200 Motels and ripped the tape out of the case in rough handfuls while staring me right in the eyes. Joe’s Garage, of course, got the same fate. She even snapped it in half. The others were spared. She had made her point. She left with the tapes in hand, and I was sent to my room. As to what happened to the other tapes, I have no idea. I checked the wastebaskets for days afterwards to try to salvage what was left, but there were no artifacts. For all I know, she ground them into powder and served them to me in my Sloppy Joe’s.

Fortunately, I did learn some lessons from this humiliating moment. Pretty sure they were the right lessons, too:

1. Do not trust your family, EVER. All they want to do is take away the Central Scrutinizer.

2. When you’re told that your interests are too freaky, look for something even freakier; that’s when it really gets good. The jump from “Crew Slut” to “Hamburger Lady” was only a few years away.

3. Drink beer, smoke pot, talk to girls, and stop listening to Frank Zappa and masturbating all the time

4. Get the living fuck out of your hometown

5. Don’t eat the yellow snow.

Welcome to Rock Trauma: A Place for Horrible Memories You Can Dance To

Come one, come all, and come hard to the first ROCK TRAUMA, a new reading series in which various characters of various colorful persuasions compose and recite personal essays on their own hilarious/horrific, endearing/apocalyptic life events and experiences connected to the realm of rock-n-roll music.  Inaugural Performers Include (So Far): • Mike McPadden (IF YOU LIKE METALLICA…, Mr. Skin, McBeardo) • Velcro Lewis (Velcro Lewis Band) • Sarah Terez Rosenblum (Herself When She’s Missing) • Wendy McClure (I’m Not the New Me, The Wilder Life) • Meg McCarville (Lil Princess) • Christopher Sienko (As Loud as Possible) • Bob Goblin (Outburst on the 66)   salon Tress 4101 n Kedzie, Chicago, Illinois 60618

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