New Kids on the Block. Takes me back to the rec room in my mom’s house… it was a huge room over the garage that had sofas, beds, exercise equipment, and most importantly a TV and VCR. Leslee, Steph, Dawn Marie, and I spent a bajillion hours in that room watching NKOTB videos. That is where we made the posters we took to the front row of their concert at Carowinds. Yes, we actually did that. When hurricane Hugo hit, we were out of school longer than we were out of power, so we really put in some quality time with the boy band from Boston while the adults were clearing fallen trees.
“Who do you need? Who do you love? When you come undone?” 1993 riding in the back of a friend’s Amigo down Ocean Blvd. at Myrtle Beach, going to eat seafood. High school graduation trip. One of the few moments I spent with my boyfriend that week. Duran Duran had a comeback CD and it reminds me of that early summer. Love. Rejection. Anger. Sadness. I can smell the salt air when I hear that song.
James Taylor – You’ve Got A Friend. Riding around in “Scooby”, the name of my friend’s car. He was my best guy friend in high school and we would spend hours driving around the back roads and talking. We always listened to music and it was often James Taylor. He was there to listen when there was no one else. That friendship will always mean a great deal to me and this song will always make me think of those evenings riding around NC, with a friend.
Myrtle Beach the year after graduation, Candlebox played the entire week. I shared a rental with 5 other girls. Some of the girls partied the entire week, staying intoxicated around the clock. Some focused on finding cute boys. Some of us partied part of the time, spent time on the beach, and just hung out with friends. My best friend sliced her finger open at 3am while trying to make spaghettios, after she stole my bed and put me on the sofa, and I took her to the rental office in search of a first aid kit. I was not happy. She was too drunk to take care of herself. “Now maybe. I didn’t mean to treat you bad. But I did it anyway.”
Blind Melon – No Rain. Riding around with Kerri in my black 92 Celica, talking about our on-again-off-again boyfriends and looking for the next party. We were 18. “All I can say is that my life is pretty plain. ya don’t like my point of view. ya think I’m insane…”
Aerosmith – Get A Grip. Concert with 3 of my girl friends and my boyfriend. My friends were drinking beer from the concession stand, and they placed them under their chairs to dance and scream to the music. The next time my girl reached down to grab her plastic cup, it was gone. The next I know, all 110 lbs. of her is screaming at the group of very large Harley Davidson riders standing behind us. She was underage, purchased the beer at the arena illegally, and was now making a scene and loudly announcing that she wanted her MoFo beer replaced RIGHT NOW! My boyfriend was not a wussy guy. I had seen him get in fights with guys our own age, but he was not about to jump in the middle against 5 huge motorcycle dudes twice his age. We asked her to shut up and just get another beer. She was pissed that we were not verbally jumping the bearded dudes with her. Hearing that Aerosmith CD takes me back to the mighty beer confrontation of feisty K. It also reminds me that Steven Tyler plucked a ~15 year old girl from the audience to mack on , ewwwwwwww!
Prince – When Doves Cry. At a comedy club in Charlotte. I was 18 and I was out with my boyfriend, sister and her boyfriend. My sis and my boyfriend were too shy to get up on the stage, didn’t want to look like idiots. My sister’s boyfriend and I put our names on the list, didn’t so much care about looking like idiots. We waited and waited, as it seemed sis and bf were the only shy peeps in the crowd. This was a small place and every person there was having a great time and beginning to act like they had known the strangers around for years. We took our spot on the stage, and we began to sing… “Dig if u will the picture…” Well, a couple of other girls got impatient and jumped onstage to join in on our karaoke. As they began to sing, my sis’ bf got pissed! He wanted no part whatsoever in sharing our mics with these party girls we didn’t know. They hijacked his song and so he bailed, literally jumping from the stage in a hissy man fit. Hahaha!
Limp Bizkit – Break Stuff. This is the song I would play on the way home from work, when I worked at an animal intake shelter and dealt with dog fighters, seeing abused and neglected animals day in and day out, and tolerated people threatening me, which at times involved physical outbursts. No matter how crazy it got, I had to remain calm and work on behalf of the animals’ best interest, regardless of how much it pissed off the people associated with those animals. It was cathartic to blast this song on the way home and blow off some steam…
“It’s just one of those days
Feelin’ like a freight train
First one to complain
Leaves with a blood stain
Damn right I’m a maniac
You better watch your back
Cuz I’m fuckin’ up your program”
Leona Lewis. My current relationship. There are many songs that are connected to where I am now… but there is one in particular that represents the beginning. I hear Bleeding Love and it takes me back to driving to meet my boyfriend for a date. It may sound cheesy, but the lyrics describe what I was feeling… I had decided to just do without men because of icky past relationships, and then I fell in love by accident. Many warned me that our relationship was moving too fast and that I was falling for someone who would not stay with me for more than a minute.
All of the lyrics fit.
I was going to post the video, but I just watched it, and well… it’s really stupid.
Loved this one and I so remember making that poster! We worked hours and hours and it was PERFECT. Then didn’t we get to the concert too late to enter it in the contest? We got jipped!
Also, don’t know if you know that I worked at that comedy club for about a year. That was a fun job with a lot of perks, including singing karaoke!
Your memory is better than mine sometimes… we probably were late to the concert, especially if my mom drove us there ;o) I can’t remember if I have it or if it’s at Steph’s, but a video tape still exists of the poster making process. You are on there singing: “Glitta, glitta, glitta!” and then you walk up to the camera and ask: “Do I have tuna in my braces?” Haha, love it! I need to look for that thing.
I only went to that comedy club a couple of times and it was a lot of fun! I didn’t know that you worked there.
It would be so fun to watch those old videos!