This entry writes itself. Or, more accurately, I already wrote this entry a couple of years ago for the soon-to-be-resurrected (so sayeth Bryan Bliss) BoysDontRead.com. I'm going to paste the story here, but first, here's the song. It's not the exact recording that I listened to repeatedly as a young man--old King Pleasure recorded this thing like a hundred times--but it's close.
I’m a shy Boy. I always have been. Open-house
parties—the local parlance for “keggers” where and when I grew up—were an
intimidating prospect, but an appealing one just the same. Where else could I
expect to expand my social circle, pee in the woods, and kid myself into
thinking I might work up the bravery to smooch some girl?
Anyway,
aside from peeing the woods, those things never happened. But I did learn a
little about what I could expect from myself, anyway. And beer helped a lot.
Sorry,
Mom and moms. Yes, I had beers. Beers aplenty, all before I was even eighteen,
and that wasn’t even the drinking age anymore anyway. So you can imagine how
many beers I had before I was twenty-one! Oh my word.
Where
was I? Oh yes. Open-house parties and social lubricants.
I’d
better back up a moment and tell you this: The Gap ran a lot of TV ads back in
the early 1990s. I imagine they still do, but who the hell sits through
commercials on TV anymore? Not this guy. Back then, though—sure. We had five
channels. We watched whatever they hell they put in front of us. Anyway, one
such ad featured a montage of black-and-white photos of models in Gap clothes,
I think. The music, though, I’ll never forget, because it was tune that has
become so a part of me that to this day I know every word, every shift in
pitch, every breath. I even sang it at my brother’s first wedding in a duet
with my aunt.
The
commercial didn’t feature the whole song. It merely featured the first thirty
seconds—not enough to even reach Blossom Dearie’s vocal part. My father,
though, had quite a jazz vinyl collection, and it included no fewer than three
versions of this apparently hit jazz tune by King Pleasure and Blossom Dearie.
So I listened to the whole thing—constantly. I forced the song and all its
lyrics and its melody deep into my gut and my heart. I was one with the song.
So.
Open-house party. Kegger. I think I remember whose house it was at. I know this
was the night I first heard of “Special K,” aka cat tranquilizer, aka Ketamine.
And here, moms and Mom, you may rejoice, because I did not partake of that drug
that night, nor ever since. But many people did, as I recall, which meant my
social anxiety went absolutely through the freaking roof.
Keg
parties where I grew up were generally held in backyards, lest partygoers
jostle or break something important inside the house, where parents might
notice upon their return from Europe, for example. This time, though, a select
few kids were invited inside. After a few beers on the patio, I think I
probably grabbed a mutual friend’s coattails and hobbled in as well.
The
TV was on in a big, well encouched family room. Everyone in the room, including
myself, had by this time relaxed, either through pill or joint or beer, and the
faces in the room were nearly expressionless as what had to be Saturday Night
Live flashed before our eyes.
Then
it happened. The Gap commercial. It happened.
Now
listen. I was drunk. I was really about as drunk as I’d ever been in my (I’m
guessing) seventeen years. If I hadn’t been, I might hummed along under my
breath, or lip-synced even. But sing out loud? At the top of my lungs? Even after
the thirty-second commercial was over, and well into Blossom Dearie’s
section—in falsetto, mind you—until the very last line of the song?
I
never would have done that.
Not
without beer. (This probably sounds like a pro-beer story. It’s not. It’s an anti-fear
story. Which, to some degree, is the same thing. I am going to get in big
trouble. Don’t drink!)
With
beer, though, I sang out loud, and I sang out clear. Or as clear as you might
expect a drunk seventeen-year-old to be. And I sang every word, and probably
quite well. I’m not too shabby on the vocals, thankyouverymuch. By the time I
was done, all eyes were on me, slouched in a leather sectional with a warm cup
of beer in my hand. Saturday Night Live was back from commercial, but all eyes
stayed on me.
I
grinned and took a sip of that warm beer. I hated beer then. Who didn’t at
seventeen, especially that swill we always ended up sipping—Coors Light or MGD
or Bud?
Now,
no one clapped. No one even smiled at me. One girl said, “Woah.” Then we went
back to watching TV. But to me, things had changed. No one would forget I was
at that party—as they probably had with every party I’d ever bothered showing
up at. And that was something for a shy Boy.
A
couple of weeks later, I crashed my car into another kid’s car outside of a
kegger—I mean, just the tiniest bit—and then tried to flee the scene right down
a dead end. I didn’t get far and took a punch in the face for my trouble. So no
one would forget I was at that party either. Not as fun, oddly.
Don’t drink, kids.
