Full Circle

The year was 1987 and I was in the seventh grade. Now by this time I had begun to really develop a taste for music. In my house when I was a kid there was never really any music playing. My father did purchase a really nice stereo back in about 1979 or 1980 and at first he actually cranked up a few tunes once in a while.  However, that was short lived and the stereo was almost never turned on after the novelty had worn off.  So basically there was no music in the house. My mother became deeply religious back in the mid seventies so there was definitely no rock music in the house, so it’s rather amazing that I became so drawn to music without any influence from my folks.

 When I began to show some interest in music my father was baffled! He said, “Why do you listen to the same songs over and over again? Songs are like sitcom episodes…when you’ve heard it once there’s no reason the listen to it again. It’s a repeat”.  So you can only imagine how it was when I started watching MTV every night hoping to catch some of my favorite videos.

So one day I’m sitting there watching the MTV top ten countdown. I waited every night for this just to see if my favorite band was at number one. For those of you who are curious my favorite band at the time was Bon Jovi. Anyways, my father was on the couch grouching and complaining about work and dinner and whatnot…the good old days.  As the MTV countdown proceeded I would ask dear old dad if he liked this song or that song hoping that he would dig at least a couple of them. I just couldn’t understand how you could listen to these tunes and not totally dig it. “Is this the same song Chris? They all sound the same to me”. Hopeless! I now realized he couldn’t be reached no matter what.

Song number three that night was Poisons “Talk Dirty To Me”. My mother did not approve of the subject matter at all but I loved the guitar part and found the tune to be kind of catchy. So as the video played my father suddenly bursts out, “Ha ha ha ! These guys look like girls!!” my father laughed. “Dad, they do not look like girls, they are rock stars and that’s how rock stars look” I explained. He looked right at me and said, “Chris, they look just like a bunch of girls! They’ve got make up on and they look like chicks! Ha ha ha ha…”  Our conversation continued in my vain attempt to educate my father who was obviously way behind the times. “Dad, if you think the only difference between guys and girls is the make up…come on, they don’t look like a bunch of girls. You are just stuck back in the day when everyone had a crew cut.”   My fathers last words on the subject were, “Chris, one day you’ll look back on this and say ‘Gee, Dad was right!’ “ 

 Fast forward to 2008. I’m giving a guitar lesson and this kid comes in and asks me if I’ve ever heard of Poison. I told him that yes, I was actually quite familiar with them and that I used to like them a lot. “I have the music here, can you teach me some songs of theirs?’”  “Sure”  I said to the kid, “let me see the book”.  The kid handed me the book, a Poison book with all their songs in it, and the first thing I noticed was the picture on the cover. It was a shot of the whole band….in drag!!! Well it looks like they are in drag. Immediately,  I was time warped back to 1987 (this happens a lot to me) and I could hear my fathers words echo through my head…”One day Chris you’ll look back and say, “Gee, I guess my father did know what he was talking about!’ .   Of course the kid made it worse when he laughed as he handed me the book. He said, “Hey, they look like a bunch of chicks but the tunes are good even though they all sound the same.”  So I guess dad was right after all, buy I still listen to my favorite songs over and over again.