Party of One Read Online Free
Author: Dave Holmes
woman who watched soap operas. I mildly gave her the business at first—“
Really,
Mom? Love in the afternoon?” But by day two I was starting to recognize faces and names, and then I was starting to actively wonder why Erica and Brooke didn’t get along, or why Greg’s mom didn’t like Jenny, and Mom furnished the backstories. By the end of Christmas break I was teaching her how to program the VCR so that I could watch it after school. She quit cold turkey shortly thereafter; I stuck with it right up to the bitter end. *2
But I was drawn mostly to music, and my brothers’ peak record-buying years happened to produce the kind of music a younger brother would most want to borrow. Dan was into what at the time was called AOR—Kansas and Foghat and that “Iron Man” song by Black Sabbath that sent me screaming to my room to hide in the closet, because it was legitimately scary to a child, and also I was too young to recognize when I was actually living out a metaphor. Dan’s albums had gatefold sleeves and intricate artwork: Queen’s
News of the World
cover depicted a giant robot unwittingly wreaking havoc on a city, holding the dead, bloodied band in his cold, steel palm, thinking,
What have I done? Led Zeppelin IV
had mystical symbols and an old man carrying a massive bundle of sticks on his back, and only the teenagers seemed to know what it all meant. (St. Louis’s radio tastes froze at right around this time in history; when I go back to visit, everyone still seems to listen to KSHE-95, the classic rock station. It used to bother me, but coming home and hearing Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” within thirty minutes of my arrival brings order and stability to the world.)
Steve was into Magic 108, the soul music station. There are a few classic albums from this period in R&B—
Off the Wall, Songs in the Key of Life,
The Brothers Johnson’s
Blam!
—but it’s mostly about the singles: Ray, Goodman & Brown’s “Special Lady.” Cheryl Lynn’s “Got to Be Real.” Shalamar’s “Second Time Around.” Larry Graham’s “One in a Million You.” Dan and Steve’s stereos fought with each other every night until lights out at 10:00—dance beats and quiet storm ballads on one side, brainy lyrics and heavy guitars on the other. Right in the middle was the place to be.
The one thing they could agree on musically was Bruce Springsteen, who was revered by both as a god living among us. They each had their own copy of every one of his albums, from
Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ
right up to
The River.
They also pooled their money on a tape player for the Buick Wildcat convertible they shared so that they could each buy all of his albums on 8-track. I begged to tag along on their errands, where we’d sing along to “She’s the One,” and it would fade out in the middle, click, and fade back up. Errands are a major event for a kid with cool big brothers.
Each day, I became more aware that I was both different and
different,
and each day, I turned to music to ease the discomfort. I was insatiable. I took from my brothers, but I had to have more. Outside the family, my most reliable ally around these times was Casey Kasem. For Christmas 1980, I got roller skates—red Nike numbers that looked like sneakers with big red wheels on them. And each Sunday morning, I woke up early, pulled my clock radio out of the socket, attached it to an extension cord, and lugged it out to the driveway just in time to hear #40. I roller-skated in a circle, working on jumps and spins, as he counted them down. It didn’t matter whether I liked the songs, and frankly, there is a limit to the excitement a child can work up over Air Supply. But who cares; the star of the show was Casey. He pronounced each artist’s name, crisply and respectfully. He gave each band equal weight, even Franke and the Knockouts. Even Get Wet. He told us that this thing, pop music, was a thing to be taken seriously, no matter what the rest of the world told us.
Really,
Mom? Love in the afternoon?” But by day two I was starting to recognize faces and names, and then I was starting to actively wonder why Erica and Brooke didn’t get along, or why Greg’s mom didn’t like Jenny, and Mom furnished the backstories. By the end of Christmas break I was teaching her how to program the VCR so that I could watch it after school. She quit cold turkey shortly thereafter; I stuck with it right up to the bitter end. *2
But I was drawn mostly to music, and my brothers’ peak record-buying years happened to produce the kind of music a younger brother would most want to borrow. Dan was into what at the time was called AOR—Kansas and Foghat and that “Iron Man” song by Black Sabbath that sent me screaming to my room to hide in the closet, because it was legitimately scary to a child, and also I was too young to recognize when I was actually living out a metaphor. Dan’s albums had gatefold sleeves and intricate artwork: Queen’s
News of the World
cover depicted a giant robot unwittingly wreaking havoc on a city, holding the dead, bloodied band in his cold, steel palm, thinking,
What have I done? Led Zeppelin IV
had mystical symbols and an old man carrying a massive bundle of sticks on his back, and only the teenagers seemed to know what it all meant. (St. Louis’s radio tastes froze at right around this time in history; when I go back to visit, everyone still seems to listen to KSHE-95, the classic rock station. It used to bother me, but coming home and hearing Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” within thirty minutes of my arrival brings order and stability to the world.)
Steve was into Magic 108, the soul music station. There are a few classic albums from this period in R&B—
Off the Wall, Songs in the Key of Life,
The Brothers Johnson’s
Blam!
—but it’s mostly about the singles: Ray, Goodman & Brown’s “Special Lady.” Cheryl Lynn’s “Got to Be Real.” Shalamar’s “Second Time Around.” Larry Graham’s “One in a Million You.” Dan and Steve’s stereos fought with each other every night until lights out at 10:00—dance beats and quiet storm ballads on one side, brainy lyrics and heavy guitars on the other. Right in the middle was the place to be.
The one thing they could agree on musically was Bruce Springsteen, who was revered by both as a god living among us. They each had their own copy of every one of his albums, from
Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ
right up to
The River.
They also pooled their money on a tape player for the Buick Wildcat convertible they shared so that they could each buy all of his albums on 8-track. I begged to tag along on their errands, where we’d sing along to “She’s the One,” and it would fade out in the middle, click, and fade back up. Errands are a major event for a kid with cool big brothers.
Each day, I became more aware that I was both different and
different,
and each day, I turned to music to ease the discomfort. I was insatiable. I took from my brothers, but I had to have more. Outside the family, my most reliable ally around these times was Casey Kasem. For Christmas 1980, I got roller skates—red Nike numbers that looked like sneakers with big red wheels on them. And each Sunday morning, I woke up early, pulled my clock radio out of the socket, attached it to an extension cord, and lugged it out to the driveway just in time to hear #40. I roller-skated in a circle, working on jumps and spins, as he counted them down. It didn’t matter whether I liked the songs, and frankly, there is a limit to the excitement a child can work up over Air Supply. But who cares; the star of the show was Casey. He pronounced each artist’s name, crisply and respectfully. He gave each band equal weight, even Franke and the Knockouts. Even Get Wet. He told us that this thing, pop music, was a thing to be taken seriously, no matter what the rest of the world told us.
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