Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Wonderin' If We're Really Ever Gonna Get That Far

Here's me with my roommate and her friends and lots of Old Style, when I first moved to Iowa City and before I started wearing WAY too much black eyeliner.

So, thanks again for all of your kind comments the last two posts. I knocked all that shit loose from my craw and my cold is much better. I'm afraid I've been sounding a little too Lisa Bright and Dark on here lately, so I thought I'd do one of those "songs that took me back to a specific day and time" posts tonight.

Sometimes I have to go ask a co-worker for information on specific cases I'm working. When I go to her desk, she's always listening to one of those lite oldies internet stations. The other day, that Julian Lennon song came on. You know that one song? The one hit he had in 1985? It took me right back to the very first time I heard it. This is where I went:

"You wanna do it now?" My friend Marty asked me and my other friend Schmud, and of course we did, so he pulled the tabs out of his pocket and we each put one on our tongue. We were all sitting at the bar after our shifts drinking free beer. The plan was to go back to Marty's place, because he lived in a rooming house with some other guys we knew and their room was all set-up specifically for taking acid. They had all this weird shit in it to mess with and stuff to draw and paint. Marty used to steal street signs and make really cool drawings with permanent marker on the backs.

"You guys didn't take it already did you?" Pete came out of the dish room and was all pissed-off at us because he still had to work. "Then give me mine and wait here until I'm done."Since he found us out, and the owner of the Mill had gone to a party, we thought it would be okay to hang-out at the restaurant for a bit until Pete was off work.

Of course, the owner came back early and we were really taking off, right as he and his girlfriend walked in the door. The guys were smart and hid in the back room, but I wasn't paying attention and the owner came over and started talking to me about pate and how it was made of duck and chicken livers in his loud and whiny voice. My eyes were very wide, as I tried to pretend to pay attention and not freak-out. The guys had all come behind the bar to make faces at me behind the owner's back. It got to the point where I didn't think I could stand it anymore, and I told the owner that I had to go to the bathroom. I hid in a stall and giggled until I could go out and face people again.

"I gotta go. I can't take it here with Keith back from the party. It's starting to really freak me out," I said. Pete was getting off work anyway and so we all went over to Marty's house.

At first, the guys with the trippy acid pad weren't home, so we went to the communal refrigerator and put Tabasco sauce in all the food. There was a band called, 149 Dead Marines that also lived in the house and I knew some of them, because they were from Ottumwa and they were really tough. I got even more freaked-out, thinking what they'd do to us if they found out we even put hot sauce in their milk. The guys thought it was hilarious. My friend Marty who used to tease me for being from Southeast Iowa, kept talking like a hillbilly, and draining the hot sauce into anything he could find in the fridge. "It's okay, Churlita. They won't even know. Don't y'all put Tabasco in everything you eat down in Ottumwa, anyway?"

Our other friends came home and we went into their apartment to smoke some pot. This one guy named Steve, wouldn't smoke any, because he said he didn't want it to mess with the purity of his acid.

"Isn't there rat poison in acid, or does it just feel that way?" I asked, but no one seemed to hear me. Instead they got these plastic, collapsible cups and we were all entertained for at least an hour, smashing them down and setting them back up again. In what was supposed to be the walk-in closet, they had set-up a TV in a weird cage thing. I don't remember it ever being turned off. It must have been earlier than I thought, because Friday Night Videos was still on. When we were tripping, watching videos was even more fun than playing with collapsible cups.

At first, when Julian Lennon's video came on, I thought it was a joke. I loved John Lennon, and the guy on TV looked a lot like him and sounded similar too. "Hey, what is this?" I asked.

"It's John Lennon's son, " Schmud said.

"Nuh-uh. This guy sucks. Listen to the lyrics. It's like bad high school boy poetry. 'It fits so tight, closer than a glove'? That's so dumb. He can't be related to John Lennon." I was all indignant.

"Yes, he can. He looks and sounds just like him. He's just cashing in, " Marty said. And we all quietly watched the rest of the video, before we started getting hungry and regretting we had put hot sauce in all the food.

16 comments:

Poptart said...

OMG now it's in my head:

"ever since you've been leaving me...i've been wanting to CRY! but it's much too late...yes it's much too late... for goodbyes"

I was 14. oh, those were the days.
FRIDAY NIGHT VIDEOS!! Awesome.

Q said...

Wow, I know I have said this before but your memory is flat out amazing. I can't remember what I had to eat for lunch on Monday, and you can remember this stuff. Incredible..

Anonymous said...

werent we all just sooooo daggy!!

Princess Banter said...

Oh the memories! Whatever happened to good music after that decade???

dmarks said...

'It fits so tight, closer than a glove'?

I think OJ wrote that lyric for him.

Margaret said...

i'm always sorry when i spoil the food supply

booda baby said...

I'm hugely impressed by the regret. Half my adventures in food can be traced directly to an altered state. Just saying, I don't think tabasco would've stopped me.

Unknown said...

Either I have seen this picture here before or it is one from the Madness presskit shortly before there One Step Beyond tour.

fringes said...

Churlita, this post was amazing. Yes, Q already used that word. Sorry. I have no other words. I was mesmerized while reading and I couldn't wait to get to each new paragraph. The best thing I've read all day. Thinking of cutting and pasting it onto my blog, but everyone already knows I'm not from Iowa.

mist1 said...

That reminds me of a story...thanks for jogging my memory. I've gotta call a few people so we can laugh at ourselves now.

Churlita said...

Sarah,

Sorry. Oh, wait. No I'm not. you got the theme song for The Greatest American Hero stuck in my head once for almost a week.

Q,

Thanks. I remember most, and then fill in a few gaps. Sometimes my acid trips kind of ran together.

Les,

I'm not sure. If by "daggy", you mean, stupid, annoying and messed-up, then, yes.

Princess Banter,

There's plenty of good music now, we're just not nostalgic about it yet.

Dmarks,

He was still doing Avis car rental commercials back, then but plotting for the "too small glove defense" in his spare time.

margaret,

Don't I know it.

Booda Baby,

I don't think it stopped everyone. As I recall, I just went home and ate and then melted into my couch.

Dexter,

I know. You've seen it before on the old blog. I just don't have enough photos from that time, and I think people need to actually see the sweater vests and pork pie/fedora hats to get the true feeling of the mid-eighties.

Fringes,

Thanks so much. You could just take all the Iowa's out and put in Texas or CAlifornia or wherever it was you lived in the eighties.

Mist1,

Make your calls. I don't talk to any of those people very much anymore, so I have to laugh at myself on the blog here.

Anonymous said...

Quite a story there. I always wondered what kids from places like South Dakota and Iowa did....now I know.

rel said...

Churlita,
Jeez louise, you even remember shit about life when your head was totlally fucked up. ;-)
You're a trip....pun intended.

I really do believe that that's a girl thing.
rel

Churlita said...

Evil-E,

Why do you thing the Midwest is the meth capitol of the free world?

Rel,

I think it could be too. Although, I'm often surprised by how much some of my guy friends remember from their pasts.

David in DC said...

Great Post. Brings back memories of my days in the dorms.

And the thank you notes I used to get from small latin american countries for keeping their economies afloat with my agricultural purchases.

I miss the 80's.

Churlita said...

David in DC,

How funny. I don't think I could do it again, but I'm glad I did it when I was younger.