To any who know me, may have read this before when I shared it with a few close friends. But, I'm thinking it's Blogworthy - so here it goes:

The headphones my brother handed to me were so big
that they seemed to engulf my entire head when I put
them on. Big, black and cushy...they consumed my ears
and sucked me into a void where nothing else existed
except the music he was about to play. I remember
sitting on the edge of the bed anxiously, tugging at
my knee socks and waiting for the snap and crackle of
the needle to strike the edge of the vinyl record. It
would steal my breath away, never failing to kidnap me
into a journey that was better than Alice and
Wonderland. It was like sneaking a peek at the
splatter flick on late night television. It was
getting away with stealing a truck full of cookies.
It was rock and roll.

Introducing Led Zeppelin to an 8 year old's mind is a
pretty dicey thing. I can only imagine how owlish I
looked as John Bonham's meathanded drums began to
pound into my senses. Robert Plant screamed into my
ears about giving me every inch of his love, and I
would sit there with an oblivious gap-toothed grin, my
head bobbing beneath the weight of the headphones.
Stereo sound. Jimmy Page's guitar licks switching
from left to right and back again. How cool was
that?? It was alien and weird, and was so far removed
from playing tag on the playground that I was
convinced my brother had tapped into another universe
with these albums he had.

I didn't realize you could go buy records. I figured
these were the things given to you when you were born,
and that you played over and over to add sound to your
life like the people on TV had. And believe me, my
brother had it covered. I liked his soundtrack better
than mine. Mine consisted of The Sugarbears and, for
some odd reason, Tommy James and the Shondells. I
couldn't imagine why the rest of my life had to have
Mony Mony in it, so I traded that for what was in my
brother's collection.

He didn't explain to me how records were made. He
didn't tell me how bands would come out with new
albums, and that the radio would play their songs and
their sales would skyrocket if something caught the
public's attention. In my mind, these songs had
always existed. Bo Diddly, Fleetwood Mac, The
Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen. All these people and
more came from a world where musicians lived
eternally. They weren't born. They didn't have
childhoods and they didn't have to struggle for
airplay. They simply beamed their music from another
planet where everyone came to life all grown up and
ready to rock. They all knew eachother, I was certain
of this. Jim Morrison hung out with Robert Plant,
probably over at John Lennon's house. When they
decided to make music, that little man who lived up in
the Sattelite (there was only one you know) would tell
me who was going to be up next, and then the band
would gather around the microphone and sing to me
through the FM waves.

Albums were sacred. If they weren't, my brother
wouldn't have threatened to kick my ass if I messed
one up. So I'd sit as quiet as I could in his room,
pulling the records out of their covers, looking at
the sleeves...the lyrics...the weird pictures. Elton
John always had the best album covers. I distinctly
remember seeing lots of butts and breasts on one
cover...but they were on birds and animals. Did
monkeys really have asses like that?? I really wanted
to know!! Then I realized...these were creatures that
lived on Rock Star Planet. Birds with huge boobs and
Edgar Winter with lipstick on. That's what they had
at the Rock Star Zoo.

I always liked it when my brother would forget I was
there. He'd be slumped on his bed, checking out
lyrics to a song, and we'd just sit in the big bladder
of sound that threatened to break the windows if he
turned the stereo up much louder. Those were the
times I could feel the music in my body. It thumped
and hummed, and seemed to simmer the blood in my veins.
I'd laugh when Frampton would sing with the
voice-box. It sounded squawky, but my brother said it
rocked. So it was said, so forevermore it would be.
That's how it worked. What he said was gold...and
when it came to music, there wasn't anyone else in the
world who knew more than he did.

So when I'd head
back to my 4th grade class and tell them about Pink
Floyd, they'd scrunch their noses up at me and run
away across the playground with their Barbie dolls.

Alice Cooper scared me. The sound of him calling for
'Steven' would echo in my head as I ate my
Spaghettios, or when I'd be walking home from the bus
stop. It chased me down the dirt path that I'd run on
when I'd cut across the graveyard to get to my
grandma's house. It would tease me when I was in bed,
staring at the glow of my night light. My brother
tried to convince me that Alice was actually very
cool, but between him and Gene Simmons of Kiss...I had
realized that there was a haunted house on Rock Star
Planet, and that's where these two guys lived. Black
Sabbath and The Rolling Stones lived there too, along
with that big robot monster on the front of Queen's
album "News of the World". Seeing Freddy and crew all
crumpled and dead in that robotic hand was just too
much for me to handle. After all, I had a crush on
that big toothed Freddy Mercury. He had huge brown
eyes and he wore bright clothes that made him seem
somewhat like the Pied Piper. It would be a number of
blessed years before I understood exactly why Mr.
Mercury fancied satins, silks and drama. At any rate,
I had a fantasy that the guys of Cheap Trick would
save Queen from the robot monster. Sort of a
Godzilla-esque daydream, where Rick Nielsen would
shoot lazers from his double-necked guitar and save
the day while Mick Jagger sang a battle cry of "Paint
It Black". Why not? The hero sure wasn't going to be
Cheap Trick's drummer, Bun E. Carlos. He was fat and
dumpy, and reminded me of my math teacher...and so he
was sent to the cellar with Keith Richards, where
they'd chainsmoke cigarettes and wait for the threat
to pass. This same scenerio would be played out when
I heard "Live and Let Die" too. The crazy orchestra
playing in that song creeped me out, and I couldn't
listen to it while I was alone. I figured if a song
could sound that powerful, that a rift between my
world and the Rock Star Haunted House would open...and
I'd be left to fight off Gene Simmons and his bloody
tongue. Good god, that thought STILL scares me to
this day.

As for The Beatles; they really confused me. I'd
dance around the living room to "I Wanna Hold Your
Hand" one moment, and then in the next I'd be left
wondering what the hell 'monkey finger' was, and why
anyone would want to sing about someone who had a
toe-jam football. I knew what Coca-Cola was, but why
would you want to shoot it? My dad shot a lot of
things. Groundhogs primarily. We'd be on a family
picnic, and while mom and I were feasting on our
bologna and cheese, Dad would grab the shotgun from
the window rack in the truck and blast the furry
critters off the rocks nearby. I could freakishly
relate to that (didn't everyone's Dad do that??)...but
shooting Coca-Cola? Maybe Paul McCartney meant target
practice with the Coke cans.

Some music didn't fit in the land of my imagination
though. Closing my eyes and listening to Neil Young
for the first time, the music sounded frail and
thin...like old skin revealing too much of the guts
beneath it. It clanked along as if he were sitting
outside on the back porch, picking at my grandma's old
banjo. An 8 year old shouldn't feel nostalgic, but
looking back now... Neil had managed to pluck that
chord within me. Perhaps that's why I'd take the
monstrous headphones off...not wanting to hear him
sing 'old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like
you were'. It wasn't my time to realize how fleeting
life was.

So, when I'd get too close to discovering the awful
truths about life...I'd slip away from that secret
place in my brother's room and disappear back into the
world of an 8 year old kid. I'd skip past mom's radio
playing The Beach Boys 'Good Vibrations'. The screen
door would slam behind me as my bare feet hit the
sidewalk, and I'd be off into another endless summer
day. I knew it would all be waiting for me when I
returned...like a twisted Dorothy with her Oz. Just a
click of the heels, a tap of needle to vinyl, and
there was no place like home. No place like home.
Just like Aerosmith sang...
"Take me back to a south Tallahassee
Down cross the bridge to my sweet sassafrassy
Can't stand up on my feet in the city
Got to get back to the real nitty gritty.
Hoooome...sweeeeeeeeeeet...hooooooome."