October 07, 2005
shades of gray
back in the old days, back on oith, back in fourth grade, there was a kid, frankie cullens, who was the coolest kid in the class. luscious lips, curly hair, style coming out his ass -- he had beatle boots.. anyway, he lived on the same street as my friend dave tarnowski. dave's dad was in the union, and dave wanted to be a doctor, so grades were very, very important to him, all through grade school, he was worried that if he didn't get straight A's he wouldn't get into med school. anyway Frankie didn't associate with me, or dave, during school anyway. i lived at one end of the school district and they lived at the extreme other end of it. i used to ride my bike, swamp rot, over to see dave sometimes, it usually took about two and a half hours...so his mom would have to drive me home. this annoyed her, and one time she pulled out of their driveway so fast that i didn't have my door closed, and the turn onto the street pulled the door back open, with me hanging on to it. my feet were in the car and my ass was hanging out over the speeding blacktop, my right hand clinging to the door handle. she reached over with one hand and grabbed my shirt and pulled me back in, bringing the door with me. swamp rot was in the trunk (it was like a 56 chevy and you could have had a party in the trunk.) Dave's older brother had an orange 442 jacked up with big slicks, so you can figure the date.
well, if you can't figure the date, here's another way to figure it. it's the end of the year party in fourth grade, maybe fifth. i am a wallflower, i haven't yet had the epiphany on the school bus steps, and i am standing against the back wall (remember those pivoting closet doors?) drinking my kool-aid and eating my cupcake, white icing, yellow cake, baked in one of those foil cups? are you getting this down? i am minding my own business when..
first of all frankie cullens introduced us to Dave Deal's Deal's Wheels which were the coolest models ever concieved. don't argue with me. don't even think about it. I would gladly pay $75 for one new in a box tomorrow. He brought in the Zzzzzz-28 (almost as good as the 57 cHEVY) built with a fleck paint job, purple with black. That's how cool Frankie was.
.. so i am standing there with my kool-aid and my cupcake and it's the last day of school and then it happens. you never know when a defining moment is going to arrive in your life, you're never prepared for it, but when it comes, you know it. Frankie is talking to the girls around him and they are giggling and wiggling and he turns to me and he says, "so, matthew, what is your favorite band?"
now this isn't a simple question even today -- today because my favorite band at eight AM and my favorite band at six PM are totally different... usually. but back then, it was as though you had asked me, "so matthew, what's your favorite ribosome." i mean, I might have heard of ribosomes, i might even have known that there were different types, but picking my favorite would have been like reaching into a refrigerator with a burned out lightbulb that hasn't been plugged in or opened for ...oh say a month or two.
Did i say, "zappa, dude" or "the dead" or "country joe" or "zeppelin" or "the stones, or course" or even "the beatles"? I did not. did i say, "janis" or "the byrds" or "bob dylan"? I did not.
I said the truth, which was, "the Monkees".
Now at that moment time stopped, or at least it slowed down to a point of tangency with stopping.. i saw frankies eyes begin to bulge, and the girls necks all turn slowly in their sweaters to look at me, and my buddy dave take a slow step away from me.
I realized i might have just as well have said, "the Banana Bunch"
Frankie began to laugh so hard the snot flew out of his nose into his kool-aid, splashing purple on Candice Coon's developing sweater. the girls all covered their mouths to laugh, looking at each other with big round eyes like, "i can't believe he said that."
So I asked Frankie, "ok, who's YOUR favorite band?"
he looked at me with disdain. "Chicago, of course." and he turned away to laugh with the girls.
so who was your favorite Monkee? mine was Mickey.
posted by matthew at 09:23 PM
I thought Davey was the cutest, but personally, I never liked the Monkees. Just seemed like I didn't "get" their show.
(I found out, in college, that there was really nothing to "get." But it was way too late then.)
: )
Mike was my friend Case's favorite Monkee.
posted by: Di on October 8, 2005 12:43 AM
Davey was definitely the cutest, you got that right. My sisters and I had a 45 that we played over and over until it cracked in half. We took them way too seriously.
posted by: Birdie on October 8, 2005 07:06 AM
Al Hirt or the Ventures was my favorite Monkee in 4th grade. I may as well have said Monteverdi. I was in fourth grade in Portland, Oregon while my father was in Vietnam for the 1st time (he want back when I was a junior and senior in HS in Springfield, Va. My taste has always been away from cool. It still is but now I don't get as anxious about it. I remember coming back to the states in '69 from Germany loving Hendrix and Cream. The US HS was heavily into Chicago & Blood Sweat and Tears. Halucinogens didn't help. Being on the outside of the bosom of coolness looks better at 53 than 9 or 17. I missed the Monkees.
Leep
posted by: John Leeper on October 9, 2005 05:36 PM
I'm not sure about a favorite Monkee, but I have a friend who dated Mickey...go figure.
posted by: bean on October 11, 2005 08:50 AM
Peter. Definitely. He was the only one who could play an instrument before joining the group.
posted by: charleen on October 11, 2005 03:11 PM
Impressive. Very impressive! You have a whole following of readers who can actually discuss the Monkees. Way to go, Matt!
posted by: Carroll on October 12, 2005 02:49 PM