Videos of my life, North Carolina edition
I’m filled with North Carolina pride today. I started looking up videos from local bands that helped me start my first little tiny seeds of pride in my home state, which is full of shitty things, like…
Do you miss your mom and dad today?
I have the perfect solution- just press play here.
Ahhhhh…..instant warm hug and breakfast being made for you.
Two examples of 80s childhood destruction
Exhibit A: The JC Penny commercial I saw last night at the movies that remakes the entire Breakfast Club movie. That is a bad pop-punk version of Simple Minds’ Don’t You Forget About Me, and yes, that is a hot pink Nirvana shirt that the “basketcase” is wearing. You can get that shirt at JC Penny.
Exhibit B: The British IT commercial that uses actual fucking Gremlins, and started rumors that they were making another Gremlins movie when the puppets were spotted in a studio. Sheesh.
Ode to the AttackTrak
When you grow up in the country, it’s not unusual to learn how to drive on back roads at the age of 10, sweaty hands on the wheel, barely able to reach the pedals of the rusted-out truck you are helming. When I was 7 I spent the night at a slightly older cousin’s house, and came home crowing about how she got to drive around, tearing up the dirt in the field behind their sprawling farm, and why couldn’t I learn to drive already?! My innovative parents answered my whining by presenting my sister and me with our very own child-sized vehicle.
“But Dad, that’s the lawnmower.”
“No it’s not, I took the blades off of it!”
And thus began our tenure on the orange and black metal hunk of a riding lawn mower that we named the AttackTrak. It made us the hit of the neighborhood kids with its opposite-of-purring engine and lack of turning radius, and the bane of flower gardens everywhere. At first my sister Molly, three years my senior and a fellow wild child of the road, was the only one allowed to drive, leaving me to scrunch myself into the seat behind her and hold on for dear life. I mean this literally. Often I would have to eschew the seat entirely, hop on the three inches of metal that made up the back of the AttackTrak, and dig my fingers into the peeling fake leather seat and exposed stuffing while Molly peeled off, all screeching tires and coughing engine. “Come on!” she would scream. “The blood hasn’t dried yet, we have to get to the crime scene immediately!” I would adjust my imaginary trench coat, run, and jump onto the back, screaming “GO GO GO”, and off we would go, solving crimes and destroying all plants in our way. Time was of the essence when we were playing detective. Occasionally Molly would take off before I was even close to being securely on board, and I would fall off gracelessly, landing headfirst on the pavement.
My inability to brace my own falling became somewhat legendary. The first time it happened, I felt the thud and heard the AttackTrak’s screeching brakes at once, and Molly immediately rushed over, terrified, and carried me inside to mom while I shrieked endlessly. Hitting your head is not the kind of pain that anything but time can help, so I would just cry weakly until I felt better, while Molly solemnly promised to always make sure I was in the seat before taking off. But she didn’t, and I never got any smarter about it. After three more landings directly on my skull, I could tell my head was wearing out its welcome. I would see my mom, through my tears, throwing down a magazine exasperatedly, her soothing sounding more and more robotic. To this day, the back of my head can withstand a pretty heavy impact, though who knows how much brain damage has been done.
The fun ended, as most fun ends, with pain and suffering. After a few months of tooling around our neighborhood, I was granted permission…to…drive! I put the pedal to the medal and kicked Molly to the curb, preferring instead to drive by myself, wind streaming through my long blonde pigtails, awful seat sticking to the backs of my legs, making sharp turns and appreciating the physics of it all. I started a taxi service for small woodland creatures, although I only ever managed to get a turtle to come along with me. My sister beckoned me over to the swingset one day, where she was hanging on the monkey bars, and encouraged me to drive under the bars while she held on, suspended above my head. I thought this was a fantastic idea and carefully aimed the AttackTrak between the metal confines of the swingset, laughing hysterically. About 5 feet before I reached her, my sister dropped off the monkey bars, as she was also very excited, and because I’ve never been good with quick reactions, I ran over her with the AttackTrak. I came to my senses, screeched to a halt, and knelt beside Molly, who was lying dazed, having just watched the underside of a riding lawn mower mow her lower body. When she started crying, I took off running for our parents. She was bruised up pretty badly and I swore off the AttackTrak, realizing that it kinda led up to its name a little too much. I never lost my passion for the road, just my passion for riding lawnmowers.
“Get me off of this thing!”
I never doubt my commitment to Sparkle Motion
So, I dance. I’ve been dancing since I was a child, and I started with this horrid product:
Get in Shape, Girl!, the item that launched a thousand eating disorders. I would put on the requisite pastel leotard and shake those damn streamers around while listening to Prince in my garage, but dancing alone felt disorganized, and lonely. I then proceeded on to classes at the local dance studio, where I took jazz, tap, and ballet. I was already too old to be a proper ballerina, but enjoyed careening around the wooden floor in shiny patent tap shoes. I loved being in class every week, loved how my heart would race, loved watching myself move in unison with 12 other girls, loved the stretchy fun clothes I got to wear. I lived for recitals, where my dance class and I would hover backstage, nervous and screeching, before donning neon green unitards and too-heavy makeup. I was hopelessly cool when I danced, at least to myself, and in my dance pictures, my chin is held at a haughty angle, my eyebrows cocked arrogantly, even at age 9. I took dance for four years until I discovered boys and the idea of not giving a shit. My body, which liked to jump and point and run and vamp, was put away in storage, and replaced with eyeliner and a scowl. I didn’t dance, I expressly refused to dance, for the next ten years or so. My eyebrows returned to their regular position.
After growing up, getting an education, moving to Chicago, and turning my own life upside down, I caught a glimpse of my childhood happiness, my naive ego, and decided it was time to get that back into my life. I took a dance class with this unstoppable force of a woman, Michelle “Toots” L’Amour, and thus I learned burlesque, the art of the tease.
I remembered, REMEMBERED the childhood glee of realizing all the crazy ways my body can move and push itself, the ridiculous joy of making eye contact with another girl in the mirror while dancing and smiling like an idiot. I remember it as a feeling of power, and of freedom, and it still is. I dance in grocery stores, throwing myself over the selection of oranges. I dance in bars when no one else is dancing. I dance at dance parties and in my living room with equal intensity. I am a highly concentrated version of myself when I am dancing, an unstoppable force, zany and flush-cheeked and powerful. My chin is as haughty as ever. I loved burlesque classes for how they helped me remember that girly hurricane of a tyrant that I was as a child, and for helping me to name her. She is Gynomite.
But over time I realized that as much as I adore burlesque, I am not going to get naked on a stage. No disrespect to the ladies that do, it’s just not my style. So I take as many fun classes as I can now and lie in wait for Gynomite to make her debut.
That’s me on the left, with one of my idols, Angie Pontani. My ultimate goal is a dance troupe of women who like to rock costumes and dance hard and sweat hard and create funny routines about clowns, and do it all in heels while smiling. I know we’re out there somewhere, waiting to be assembled, each of us looking up whenever we hear Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” as if someone has just called our name from far away. When we form Sparkle Motion, finally, Gynomite can come out to play.
