On November 4th I listened to Depeche Mode Black
Celebration and AFI Burials.
I can tell you exactly how I became a Depeche Mode fan.
Early in 1987, sixteen-year-old me was up late one night watching HBO, probably
looking for a passing titty, and some shitball movie called Modern Girls comes
on. I watch the whole dumb thing. “But Not Tonight” was used a couple times in this titless romp and I fell in love with the song. (I tried to rewrite “fell in
love with the song” a few times, but I couldn't come up with anything romantic
and masculine about a crybaby song, so I'm settling with “fell in love with the song.")
I was definitely late to officially jump on the Depeche Mode
wagon. Almost a full year after their fifth album dropped, I was secretly
discovering their charm by listening to one song over and over on a VHS tape.
Sadly, the only time I heard it regularly after that was when HBO replayed the
movie. So, I recorded Modern Girls… on a VCR. Whenever I wanted to hear “But
Not Tonight” I had to watch the credits of the movie. I guess I could have
bought Black Celebration, but I was broke and I had a bit of a hang up on
Depeche Mode. I liked “People Are People” when it became a big hit in ‘84, but
when it got overplayed I tuned them out. I also tuned them out because the only
people that seemed to listen to them were weird girls. And, in the spirit of
honesty, teen me thought Depeche Mode were a little “faggy.” Sorry, but I can’t
apologize for teen me.
Weird girls weren't Goths or Punks, but they certainly didn't fit in with the Preps, Freaks, Dorks, or Jocks either. (I was a Jock, if
you were wondering. Jock is probably the hardest to believe by looking at me
today.) Weird girls kinda wore a frumpy prep style mixed with a lot of black
skirts and a ton of bracelets. They usually had that stupid 80’s bob haircut, they
read a lot, you never really saw them playing in the sun, they always talked
about traveling when they grew up, and they had an appreciation for things that
most people didn't even know existed. Kinda like this chick talking to Jeanie
in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
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| He's giving his eyes to who? |
Weird girls also had an impeccable taste in gloomy British
music. The Smiths, The Cure, Siouxsie And The Banshees… on and on. More
importantly, I had recently discovered that weird girls also
gave up more doubles and triples than any other team in my league. And I’m gonna
brag a little here, I was in a pretty big league in high school. Feast your
eyes!
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| I wear pink on the outside, cause pink is how I feel on the inside. |
Right?
The late 80's were a fun, yet transitional period for music. The word
Alternative wasn't umbrellaing all non-Mainstream genres of music. Dipshits were still throwing around the term New Wave to describe anything
they didn't hear on the radio or see on MTV during normal business hours. College
radio sucked, but was just starting to give birth to some future super stars!
The only example I can think of right now is R.E.M. Metal and Hip Hop were taking hold in the
mainstream. Metallica and Slayer sounded just fine in between Public Enemy and
2 Live Crew. Those two styles of music blended together nicely, for awhile, and then fucked everything all up, but that doesn't happen until the turn of the century. Then you had Punk in all its forms, Indie Rock, British shit,
Industrial, Gangsta Rap and whatever else anybody thought was cool because
Normal people didn't know about it. Norms always had the same reaction when confronted with something new and different and that was to instantly dismiss it, then years later when it was en vogue, they were its No. 1 fan!
I definitely spread myself around in the 80's but it took work and money to get a chance to sample everything. When I dismissed something, it wasn't because I was an ignorant Norm, but because it didn't sound good to my palette. And on a shallower level, I associated certain kinds of music with certain kinds of people. Freaks listened to Metal. Stoners liked The Grateful Dead, Jocks loved their classic rock, and most girls were content to listen to Top 40 radio. Weird girls only listened to weird stuff for the sake of being weird... I thought.
Back in the late 80’s we had something called the Welfare
Movie. Rundown old single theaters would show movies that been out for a couple
months for $1.50. I used go to the Towne Theater with a buddy or two to meet
girls. Our routine was to plop down in the middle of a good cluster of chicks
and act like obnoxious douches during the movie to garner some attention… a
tried and true move. Afterwards, we’d
take our time leaving the theater and whoever was still milling around outside…
was interested. Then it was usually some (soda) pops at McDonald’s and if you
were lucky some girl’s dad was chasing you out of their semi-furnished basement
a few hours later.
Good girls let you kiss them and not much else. Bad girls
took you to the aforementioned basement and always let you practice your bra
unhooking skills. Sometimes they’d let you stink up a couple digits and more
times than not those girls were weird girls. Freaker chicks also had looser
moral values, but I wasn't attracting many of them in my Ocean Pacific
t-shirts, and Bugle Boy cargo pants.
There was always a common thread among the handful or so weird
girls I fooled around with during this period… Depeche Mode. They were always
listening to Some Great Reward or Black Celebration. Before I had fallen in
love with “But Not Tonight,” Depeche was just the voice of doughy white weird
girls and I kinda had it in my mind that they were predominately a chick band. “Throw
on Zamfir, for all I care,” I’d think. “Now, get your teen boobs over here!”
After I gained an appreciation for The Mode, I finally
understood their value. They were greasing the wheels for me! They were
doing all the heavy lifting. Up until this point in my life all I needed was
the proverbial wind to get in the mood. Gimme some privacy with a girl whose
bra was undone under her shirt with the chance of maybe unzipping her pants
and I was a pig in poop!
My good looks and tongue where setting the “mood!”
What else did you need? Well, girls need to stimulate a whole lot more senses than a dude. Weird girls liked to get wrapped up in a
blanket of songs about longing, being different, lust and passion in order to loosen up enough to allow me to savagely paw at them for an hour. I finally
started to appreciate the value of that. Whatever was going in their ears, was doing a shitload more for them than my tongue and fingers, and sometimes wiener. “Do you have Black Celebration?” I’d
ask in those dark basements after I knew how to set the table for heavy petting. “Well, throw it on, girl!”
My favorite weird girl was Jen. She was tall, thick, and had
what she called “waitress legs.” She had a pretty face with that bobbed
haircut, she watched Monty Python and The Young Ones, her cat was named Cat, she rode a very
cool bike, and she loved Depeche Mode.
I don’t remember exactly how we met. She definitely wasn't a
Welfare Movie pickup and I really can’t come up with the specifics of our arc
in time. She either worked at Kayak for a hot minute and this story takes place
before all the losing my first job/losing my virginity hijinx or we met at a house
party a full year later. Let’s go with… we met at Kayak Pools sometime in May
of 1987. The details don’t really matter for this story, but it just makes me
wish I had chronicled my life a little better.
The extent of my relationship with Jen at this point is just
talking on the phone. I still remember her phone number too! It’s 716.***.1801.
That’s amazing right? I’m tempted to call and see if it’s still her family’s
house.
One night while we were yammering on the horn I asked if I
could tape her copy of Black Celebration. She said yes and we set up an after
school hang. The next day, I picked up a blank tape and rode my bike over to
her house, while carrying my duel cassette jambox. I used to kick out the jams,
motherfucker!
The whole process at Jen’s was rather odd and very awkward.
I wasn't allowed in the house, so I had to dub the album out on the front
porch. Her parents were home and she either didn't want to go through the
process of introducing me to them, or they were a couple of assholes. Her dad
did come out once while I was there. He smoked a cigarette and didn't say a word. “Hey dad,” Jen offered as he lit up. He responded with nothing.
Whatever dopey teen conversation we were having had come to a screeching halt
and the three of us sat there like idiots while “Flys On The Windscreen” played
at twice the speed. My jambox had a special feature so you could dub stuff in
half the time. Yeah, that’s right! I was making copies of albums, for free, in
about 20 or 30 minutes! Take that RIAA!
Dad finishes his smoke, goes inside and never even looked at
me once! I quickly deduced here parents were a couple of assholes. Who does
that? At the very least, if I have a 16-year-old daughter and some little dick
is over the house to see her, I’m gonna make him shake my hand and tell me his
stupid fucking name! “Great. Nice to meet you, Grayson,” I’ll say as I squeeze
his hand into oblivion.
After the old man went back inside, Jen and I continued our
dumb conversation. We probably just
goofed on people we worked with at Kayak and then I asked her if she was going
to Grad Night. Every spring the local amusement park had a night where the park
was open from midnight to six in the morning for graduating seniors. But, it
was a giant shit-show of freshmen on up. She was going with a group of her
friends and as my dub was ending we planned to meet up while there. Ferris
wheel at 2 AM. I loved the simplicity of those days.
Friday night rolled around and this was my crew!
That’s the picture they took of us as we walked into the
park. I had to pry open the little plastic view thingy to get the picture out.
If this shitty scan from Walgreen’s was at all viewable, you’d notice my
California Raisins boxer shorts… and the fury within. From the left, that’s Bickerstaff, Judas
(There’s a big story as to why I only refer to him as that.), Brian and me.
Apparently, we all wore baseball caps and thought we were in the Beastie Boys.
I have no idea what all of this has to do with Depeche Mode anymore,
but stick with me, because the events that followed hollowed me out and somehow
made me a more tolerant person.
The next two hours are a faded memory of laughs, roller coasters
and the anticipation of seeing a girl. Two O’clock rolled
around, I told the boys I was off to see my weird girl and we set a place to
meet back up in an hour.
I bounded for that fucking Ferris wheel. I liked Jen and in
my young eyes, I was on an adventure. It was a big deal for me to be out all
night at sixteen and having a 2 AM date, no less. This is the kind of shit that
still pleasantly haunts me. A whiff of nighttime spring air can take me back to
that night in a second.
We met with a hug and got in line for the Ferris wheel. Our
fading three-beers-in-the-parking-lot buzzes fueled a pleasant conversation
about our nights so far. We started to get touchier and feelier. Laughter and
our first kiss washed out the world around us. This was what it all should have
been about! Young lust! Pulling tongue in the middle of the night in line for a
Ferris wheel! Cherished memory created!
Grad Night brought together a few thousand kids from about
twenty or so high schools, and you usually ran into someone you knew around
every turn. I hadn't paid too much attention to who was in line and didn't notice any familiar faces.
We were attached at the mouth the whole ride. We even got an
unexpected second ride, because there was some confusion with the oncoming
party and we never exited our gondola. We were attached at the mouth for the second
ride too.
We exited the Ferris wheel and both wanted to get back to
our friends. A couple more kisses were followed by a "see ya, later," and we were both off into the night. I
felt good. I liked this weird girl. She liked the same dumb shit I did, we both
had asshole parents, she was a great kisser, she smelled good, she was funny and
I could ride my bike to her house. I wondered what kind of underwear she wore
and if I’d get a chance to put my penis in her for the required thirty seconds
it would take for me to have an orgasm. I had a crush and these were the
carefree thoughts running through my head. How cute was I?
I met back up with my friends and we killed it all night. We rode all the rollercoasters, acted like assholes at the dance tent, stole
a bottle of vodka from the confiscated bin at the gates, went on the water
slides fully clothed and then sloshed around the park soaking wet hugging random girls until dawn. It
was a perfect night of good old fashioned high school douche baggery.
I went home and slept until it was time to go to school on
Monday.
Mr. Rich was the cool teacher. He had a smoking hot wife,
coached the soccer team, had a Magnum P.I. mustache and was best friends with
the "hip" Spanish teacher, Mr. Bonilla. He
was also cool and those in the know referred to him as Bones… a nickname Mr.
Rich gave him.
I was in one of Mr. Rich’s morning Social Studies classes
and Mondays usually started with a few minutes of bullshitting about everybody’s
weekend. I was enjoying a story about a female classmate puking on The Viper,
when Bob Noah blurted out, “sounds like Brad’s ride on the Ferris wheel.”
Which was met with a large gasp from the other side of the room and a few
scattered, “Oh, I heard about that.” A blank dumbfounded puss greeted every eye
in the classroom as they turned to me.
“What?” I was just as curious as everyone else that hadn't heard about my ride on the Ferris wheel.
Bob had little more to offer than I had picked up some fat
chick and we made out in line for the Ferris wheel. It was a rather obtuse
observation that got a good laugh from the class and a couple “Ewwws” from some
of the more stuck up girls in the room.
I was suddenly on the hot seat and quickly offered, “She
goes to Mercy,” as a means to smooth over any more scrutiny. Mount Mercy was a
nearby all girls Catholic school that was located in a very Irish neighborhood
of South Buffalo and populated by girls who were known to “put out.” It was a widely
accepted fact that Mercy girls always had whiskey, condoms and fresh panties in
their purse at any given time. It was customary to keep the panties of a Mount Mercy girl if you were able to get them off of her, so that's why they always needed a fresh pair. If you went to St. Francis and your glove-box wasn't filled with Mercy panties, you were doing it wrong. At any rate...
The initial gasp that echoed through the room after my name
was brought up came from a girl I barely had any dealings with in high school.
I’ll call her Scoop. Scoop, had apparently been on the Ferris wheel the same
time I was and after I said Jen was a Mercy girl she answered with a
resounding, “that figures.”
Scoop now had the floor and everyone was curious to know if
her “that figures,” meant what they thought it meant. That Scoop had more
information than Bob.
This is 1980’s high school. We did a lot and we got away
with a lot, but what Scoop is about to describe couldn't just be blurted out in an open classroom. Even Mr. Rich's. So, she spends the next few minutes describing how her and
three of her loser friends were in the Gondola in front of us and noticed that
Jen and I were messing around. Scoop claimed that while we were stuck towards
the top of the ride, she could see us and spent what felt like forever trying
to euphemize and pantomime the acts of what was going on inside our Gondola. It
was a lot of “he was… you know” and she’d look at her boobs, and “she was…
well,” and then she’d wink. Through a torturous round of Charades the class
deduced that I was sucking on Jen’s tits, while she jerked me off.
How or why Scoop concocted this cockamamie story is a
fucking mystery for the ages! I was definitely running my hands over Jen’s
boobs above the shirt, but I wasn't nursing on them and my cock certainly didn't breach my California Raisins boxer shorts.
Scoop’s scoop turned into a pile-on of fat girl jokes, the
most popular one being “what do fat chicks and Ferris wheels have in common?” They’re fun to ride, but you
don’t want your friends to see you on one.
Backed into a corner, I wasn't going to refute the titty
milking/hand job accusation, but I felt I needed to clarify Jen was not fat. I threw the word thick out there, but that didn't help my cause.
Jen was looking particularly Goth the evening in question and Bob suggested she
looked like the resident chunky Goth in our school and that comparison sealed my
fate. I had lost this one.
A few more “jokes” made it around the room and
thankfully Mr. Rich, who enjoyed the fuck out of the whole exchange, got the
class in order to start some learning. I lobbed one last shot into the room,
“didn't Pretty In Pink teach us anything?” Which got a solid laugh, and I would
have been content to leave it on that note, but somebody added, “yeah, that
you’re Ducky.” It didn't even make any sense, but it buried my line.
Even though I was publicly shamed, I loved that the story got elevated to near legend status. By the end of the day, some people had heard I fucked a fat chick in the ass as she sat on my lap on the log flume ride. Log flume, indeed!
The part that really sucks is that I didn't call Jen after that and I genuinely liked her. I
let other people’s judgments affect my life and that bothered me. I didn't come
to any instant epiphanies, but I chewed on that whole experience a lot.
A few
months later I ran into Jen, and she was pleasant enough, but I could just tell
she was disappointed that I blew her off. I never made any definitive statement
to myself or adopted a new creed on life, but slowly I became less concerned
about what people presented themselves as and more about who they were. Don't get me wrong, I didn't become a role model for peace and love, because I certainly have had my differences with many many people. After Jen, though, I
gradually stopped caring about what others thought of me and who I chose
to associate with, because when you boil it down, people are people.
(I’m sorry. I tried to think of
a better way to wrap this long story up, but that practically wrote itself.)
That is literally all I got.
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