track 40: make it home

One of my favorite things about working at Toys R Us was that it meant I wasn't always able to go out of town with my family. My stepfather's family had a place on Marco Island that they'd go to pretty often. Once in a while, it was fun, but frankly, staying at home for a weekend by myself was AWESOME. I would usually close on Friday nights, I think, and then not have to go back in till Sunday. So on Saturday, I would order a pizza for myself, put together jigsaw puzzles and listen to CDs. Ok, probably not your average 20 year old's ideal weekend, but for me it was bliss. I remember playing Belly a lot. Also, I was into a few bands from K Records at the time, specifically Lois (Butterfly Kiss and Strumpet are gorgeous lo-fi masterpieces) and Tiger Trap (whose self titled and only album is one of my ultimate favorites). I also remember listening to the 4 Non-Blondes album Bigger! Better! Faster! More! , but I think I only liked the single. However, the one I remember listening to and singing along with the most was Juliana Hatfield's solo debut, Hey Babe.



I used to listen to the UM radio station, WVUM, with my finger on the record button of my tape player. I'd tape the songs that stood out for me. I taped "Do you love me now?" by the Breeders, followed immediately by "Turning Japanese" by the Vapors. To this day everytime I hear "DYLMN?" I expect to hear the opening notes of "Turning Japanese" at the end of the song. One of the songs that I taped was "Everybody loves me but you." Juliana had that combination of melancholy and pop that I loved. "Everybody loves me but you" is what hooked me, "Forever baby" got me even more addicted and "Ugly" is one of my personal anthems. Sometime between Hey Babe and her album Become What You Are, Juliana toured with The B-52's. When they played Miami, she did an in-store appearance at Yesterday and Today Records on Bird Road. I was excited about it and took the bus to see her. I remember it being a sad day because I had heard the day before that my high school friend Kristi's mom had lost her battle with cancer. It was the first time that someone I was somewhat close to had died. They were having a funeral up in Alabama and I wouldn't be going. My mom encouraged me to go see Juliana anyway. I stood at the back of the crowd, happy to see her playing. She was signing after the show and I had brought the insert from her "Forever Baby" single with me. I had it in my jacket pocket so when I approached her and pulled it out she gave me this odd look kind of like, "Okay... where did that come from?" She signed it "Juliana Hatfield -XO"



In August of 1994, a TV show that I had heard a lot about premiered: "My So-Called Life." It had all of this buzz, really positive reviews, so I taped the first episode. It made me cry. I totally got that show and the character of Angela Chase. Even today I can relate. So much so that last week, when I happened to find some of my old journals and writing, one of the quotes I had at the beginning was from the show:

"But that's the part that's so unfair. I have NOTHING else on my mind.
How come I have to be the one sitting around analyzing him in like,
microscopic detail and he gets to be the one with
OTHER things on his mind?" -Angela Chase, "My So-Called Life"

I thought it was funny that the quote is still insanely relevant. I know that she was a 15-year old female TV character and I was a 20-year old gay lad, but I got being the self conscious, insecure person crushing on someone beautiful and unattainable. I'm 35 now and I still feel that way. Even the story of the first episode, feeling misunderstood by her family and her old friends, making friends with a couple of wilder outsiders... I had done that pretty much. I even dyed my hair red first. I remember the next day, I watched it at my dad's house. He didn't like it. He was just like "what's her problem?" But I didn't care, I was addicted. I taped every episode that aired and was heartbroken when it ended.




On the show's Christmas episode, "So-Called Angels," Juliana Hatfield appeared as a mysterious girl Angela meets. She sings a song, leads Angela's mom to find her and her runaway friend Rickie, and then disappears. At the end of the episode there is a moment that suggests that Juliana was actually a spirit, an angel. The song she sang was called "Make it home" and I recognized it right away. She had played it at the record store. It was beautiful and heartbreaking. When I remembered why it was familiar, it reminded me of Kristi's mom and it probably always will.

next time: kiss me, please kiss me - but kiss me out of desire, baby, not consolation

track 22: half a world away

In the spring of 1991, R.E.M. had a monumental hit with the song "Losing my religion" from their album Out of Time. I had known them only because of their great song "Stand," which had been popular a couple of years ago. But "Losing my religion" (with it's accompanying video directed by Tarsem Singh) was one of the first big songs to cross over from college stations to popular ones, really one of the first songs that brought "alternative music" out into the daylight (which would continue when Nirvana showed up a year later).



I remember hearing the song on the radio during the last spring break of my high school years. Kristi and I drove up to her family's home in Troy, Alabama, where she was going to college at Troy State University. I was visiting the school and had an interview in the hopes of getting some kind of scholarship there. I don't really know what I was thinking, I guess it was about just wanting to go away with my friend and even though I was admitted, I didn't go to Troy State. My mom gave me like $200 for the whole trip, which was more than enough. The first night we were in Alabama, we went to some midnight sale at this mall with her family. Before midnight, we walked the mall and I dropped half of my vacation money in the music store. I think I bought like five CDs, but mostly remember getting Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation, Siouxsie & the Banshees' Peepshow and an album by a country singer I really liked, Lorrie Morgan, called Something in Red. My tastes had gone from teenage pop to hair bands to full on eclectic. That night, I also bought a book called The Diary of Laura Palmer, this Twin Peaks based novel that was supposed to be Laura's real diary. In fact, it was written by David Lynch's daughter, Jennifer Lynch, who went on to write and direct the terrible movie Boxing Helena and more recently, Surveillance. I remember on the way back to their house, Kristi's brother was giving me a hard time about it & told his mom that there are two whole pages where it's just a list of guys that Laura Palmer had sex with. I denied it. He was right.



Aside from the college visit, the week was pretty low-key. We hung out with Kristi's relatives, rented movies (Child's Play) and I dyed my hair red. When we got back, I think it was the day before Easter. My mom was still putting out our Easter baskets, filled with candy & some random gifts back then, so on Easter Sunday, I had a copy of Out of Time in my basket. It was another eye-opening album, followed by my discovery of the band's earlier collection, Eponymous. I listened to these albums all the time, wrote a short story called "Can't Get There From Here" inspired by the title of one of the band's songs, and even set it in a city called Rockville after my favorite R.E.M. song, "Don't go back to Rockville." And I had this poster on my wall:


The next year when their gorgeous Automatic For The People album was released, I was there on the first day to get my copy. It was even better than Out of Time, beautiful and sad... In fact, it might have been one of those albums that is so perfect that whatever comes next just never had a chance. At least, it was for me. Monster never caught my ear, nor has most of the stuff they've recorded since, so I've sort of... stayed out of time, if you will, and stuck with that particular phase of R.E.M.

track 21: Joey

I had seen the video for Concrete Blonde's single, "Joey," on MTV and really liked it. I had the cassette single, which also featured a b-side called "I want you" (that was later played in the film Point Break as Keanu Reeves watched Lori Petty from a distance. Lucky girl...) I loved both songs and really wanted their album, Bloodletting.



Around this time, Sting was on tour and Concrete Blonde was opening for him in Miami. Kristi and I were thinking about going, because she liked Sting & I liked "Joey." Then a Slaughter/Poison or some such pairing was announced and we decided to go to that one instead. At the end of the year, my family went up to Ocala to visit my Granny for New Year's Eve. She always gave us cash on our birthdays & sometimes for Christmas, so on the way home from Ocala, I think I pestered my mom so much that we stopped at Sound Warehouse before even going to our house! I bought Bloodletting and... I didn't like it that much.

...to be continued about 8 songs from here. For now, check out the video for "Joey" on YouTube!
Also, listen to "I want you" while gazing at Keanu's beauty:

track 16: falling

In the Spring of 1990, a television show called Twin Peaks started to air. There was a short half-season that spring, and then one more season the next fall, when I was beginning my senior year of high school. I was incredibly into the show, which is probably where the obsession I have with the Pacific Northwest (that continues to this very day) began. I had never heard of David Lynch before that and probably wouldn't see any of his other work until after my high school days were done. However, the show was so intriguing and I was dying to know Who Killed Laura Palmer.



The music for the show was composed by Angelo Badalamenti, who is a frequent collaborator of Lynch's. I didn't know who he was either, but the dreamy, mesmerizing score absolutely got to me, nothing more than the show's theme song, "Falling." Sung by Julee Cruise, the song first appeared on an album called Floating Into the Night, a collaboration between Cruise, Badalamenti & Lynch, who wrote lyrics. I didn't actually get the album until more than a decade later, but it's full of beautiful music, including the gorgeous song "The world spins."



Anyway, this post isn't solely about Twin Peaks or Julee Cruise. In fact, I'm not familiar with anything Cruise did aside from Floating.... However, it was the cassette single for "Falling" that is the star of this entry. Because it played during the car accident I was in one rainy day in 1990. November 3, 1990 to be precise. I know this because it was the Saturday after the movie Jacob's Ladder opened. I was going to see it that night with a few friends [who star in track 17: nothing compares 2 u] that night.

But earlier Saturday, I was going with my friend Kristi Perazzini to Bayside, a shopping center in downtown Miami. This is the same mall I saw Tiffany in, by the way. My big purchase that day was the cassette single for "Falling" and it was playing in her car's stereo while we were driving back home in the rain. We had gotten somewhat turned around, but had finally found our way to Sunset Drive, a main road, and were heading west towards Kendall when the car lost control and began to spin. And spin and spin. I remember seeing a telephone pole right ahead, but the car turned again and we ended up coming to a loud crashing halt on the concrete median. When the car stopped and it was apparent that we were both okay, I remember pushing the door open and... suppressing laughter. My defense mechanism? Happiness to be alive? I don't know, but I immediately checked myself and felt guilty.

There we were two teenagers on Sunset Drive with a car stuck on the median that was going nowhere. It's 1990, before either of us would have had a cell phone- and I'm sure she would have had one, even if I probably wouldn't have- so we have to walk to the intersection of Sunset & 87th to get to a pay phone. Kristi doesn't want to go alone and even though I'm pretty sure it's not the smart thing to do, I go with her. We find a phone and call... her mom. Who must have freaked out. We go back to the car to find a cop waiting by it. He can't believe we left the scene of the accident, but I think in the end blames the fact that we're, you know, dumb teenagers. The tow truck arrives and the driver remarks with astonishment that he can't believe we walked away from this scratch-free. Until that point, I don't think that either of us had realized how serious it was. The axle was completely broken and Kristi's car was finished forever. (She then inherited her mom's great big silver Cadillac, which was a lot of fun to ride in and in retrospect, probably a hysterical sight to see two teenagers going around town in.)



The "Falling" cassette had flown out of the tape player and into the back seat. Kristi banned it from ever being played near her again. That night I did still go see Jacob's Ladder with my friends. They were all stoned and I was still in mild shock, so I don't think anyone could have told you what that movie was about, just that it was "so. fucked. UP!!"

I had taken driver's ed during my junior year and been pretty unexceptional. I think that seeing how easy it is to lose control of a moving automobile and having such a close call might be why I never really enjoyed driving and stuck to public transportation.

Another favorite story about Kristi is how we tried to go see the movie Pet Sematary three times but could never get in because we weren't 17 yet. This was actually something that happened during our junior year. The first time we tried, it was the day the movie opened. A friend of ours bought tickets for us. Sadly, there was actually an usher at the door to the theater, who wouldn't let us in. We ended up seeing Speed Zone, a Cannonball Run sequel, instead. Another time, we decided to buy tickets for Beaches and then sneak into the other movie. Again, we were foiled by a movie usher collecting tickets at the theater entrance. I can't remember the other time, but I don't think I have ever seen Pet Sematary to this day. If I did, I'd probably just be disappointed.