Crazy Chick Magnet: From Nerd to Free Bird

By Xavior Zevon

Xavior Zevon's book Crazy Chick Magnet sees him getting a rough start at life as a nerdy kid with awkward tendencies and a bowl haircut to boot. At the time, all he wanted was the love and affection of the opposite sex. However, it looked like it would never happen, so for a while, he invested his time and money into music, which became a very defining moment in his life. In the process, he became a bit of an expert in his music knowledge (more specifically rock music). Eventually though, he came into his own and developed an arsenal of interesting stories with the opposite sex. Crazy Chick Magnet blends his stories of love and love lost with a plethora of sexual encounters and it is all threaded together in a tapestry of music that spans the decades. Xavior's book incorporates music as a character itself as the soundtrack changes throughout each chapter. Every word is authentic. His accounts will take you through a journey that you are likely not to forget. It is a book that will certainly evoke some laughs, some tears, maybe a little disbelief, and hopefully on occasion it will stimulate your fun parts. So, if you like books about music, sex, life, relationships, and dating you are sure to find a great read in Xavior Zevon's erotic nonfiction, Crazy Chick Magnet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532009891

Xavior Zevon

Xavior Zevon, currently working in a field that helps his fellow man, has multiple degrees, including a master’s in educational counseling. Xavior spent six years in the US Air Force and is an expert in the history of rock and roll. He is currently single and living the dream.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK

FROM THE BEGINNING

(the who, what, whys and where my beliefs of love and sex came from)

How I came to be so screwed up….uhh…I mean enlighted

I was born in a much simpler time than it is now and without a good imagination, it could be pretty damn boring. It was also a much more innocent time when we weren’t bombarded with sex and violence on TV day and night. In fact, if you got more than three channels at all, you were doing pretty freaking good! There were no movie channels, TVs in every room, video rental stores (or VCRs, DVD players, or even Blue Ray players), no internet, cell phones; etc… Also, if you acted up in school, the school had full authority to blister your ass and your parents would probably second the motion when you got home. As a result of all of this, we seemed to be able to stay naïve to the world at large until we got a little bit older. A lot of kids today may think that this sounds lame, but many of those days were magical and I often wish I could relive some of it. On top of that, we have the majority of our lives to be adults filled with stress and cynicism, so why rush it?

My parents were high school sweethearts, but it was a time of war and my dad had to join the military shortly after graduating to avoid being drafted for Vietnam. He wanted to do it on his own terms and decided to join the Air Force. This started a wee bit of a tradition for his father served in the Army Air Force in World War II and I eventually served in the Air Force as well when 9’11 happened. Anyway, he did have to go to Vietnam, but at least he wasn’t on the front line. Afterward, he was told that he could go anywhere he wanted after that great service to our country he provided. He then said that he wanted to go someplace that was sunny and that had beaches. They, in turn, reciprocated his request by sending him to Kansas; yes Kansas, the ultimate vacation spot for beaches, bikinis, and culture. He then gathered up my mom, who had just finished X-Ray school and they made the trek to the center of the country for fun in the sun and….aww, who am I kidding? It was largely a barren wasteland at the time and they were as bored as fuck out there and my mom hated it. Eventually though, I was born and a mere few months later my dad got an early exit from the military and then we moved to Florida. Unfortunately, I was then left having to write Kansas as the state of my birth on every job application I have ever filled out since.

Growing up, I was surrounded by love. Not the weird kind of love that certain distant uncles get in trouble for giving, but the real kind….the healthy kind. I was surrounded by family in strong marital relationships, which gave me a firm understanding early on as to what a healthy relationship looked like. Aside from that, I had a roof over my head, I was fed, I had my own room, and I had friends. Love was everywhere and I grew up knowing that I was loved. My parents were very close and were always kind to me; unless I was bad or didn’t eat my vegetables, then they kind of became assholes. For four years, I was also the only child and the only grandchild, so it was my job to entertain everybody on our weekly to bi-weekly family get-togethers. I would demand that my uncles wrestle with me (mind out of the gutter, let’s keep it clean (for now)) and they would beat the shit out of me with pillows. I loved every second of it, and would continuously come back for more.

When I was somewhere between one and two, we briefly lived in a second-floor apartment and there was a little girl that lived in an apartment in the adjacent building named Monica. I don’t recall much about her other than a photo that I have of the two of us. However, I am told that we were apparently inseparable, so I suppose you could even say she was sorta-kinda my first crush in a two-year-old sort of way. What can I say…I have always been a lover. Anyway, Monica always had candy and she was always sharing it with me, for I was quite often lacking candy. Judging by her willingness to share and the photo that I have, she was a sweet and adorable girl. However, these days she is probably a very large adult without any teeth assuming she didn’t change her eating habits.

Like I said, sex on TV was largely unheard of at the time, so I honestly had no idea what sex was until I was like eleven years old…maybe even twelve. As far as I knew, babies were delivered by a stork at the hospital or mom’s got pregnant from love in itself; who knows? My schedule consisted of too much playing to waste any time pondering this amazing biological development. Despite that insignificant fact, I knew that I liked naked women. In fact, I loved naked women. It was and still is a character flaw. I can remember being around three and getting infant chubbies every time I saw or thought about the little girl on the Coppertone billboard. The one where she was getting her bathing suit tugged on by her dog which in turn, exposed her little bottom. To me at the time, that was hot stuff!

A few years later, I discovered some of my dad’s nudie magazines and I would scan through them with a fine-tooth comb when the parental units weren’t around. At the time though the nudie magazines had a few pages scandalous comics in the back and I tended to gravitate to those back then, for I loved me some cartoons too. Of course, I wanted to look at them often, so to save time flipping through pages, I would tuck the magazines back in the magazine rack while they were still folded open to the pages that I liked best. Well, seeing that I often forgot to put them back to the way they were when I was done, my cover had been blown and they eventually either got put away or thrown away (the magazines, not the parents). Regardless, they were no longer available to me and I was sad.

I was also exposed to music very early in life and I remember listening to whatever radio station my dad liked to listen to. This was also a time, where the radio wasn’t so divided and you could hear quite the variety of music on any given station. However, I loved the top 40 hits of the day and my biggest favorites were Glen Campbell’s ‘Rhinestone Cowboy,’ Michael Murphy’s ‘Wildfire,’ Paul Simon’s ’50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,’ and the Bay City Rollers’ ‘Saturday Night.’ Those were all juggernauts in my universe and I was thrilled every time that came on the radio. However, I also got very sad when they ended because I had no way of knowing if and when I would hear them again. I only had a couple of records at that time and they were mostly Sesame Street records and I played them over and over again. Eventually, my dad insisted that I wear his headphones because I’m sure he couldn’t bear to listen to them one more time. It is kind of funny, because with those tastes, who would have ever thought that I would grow up to love metal music? But I did; however, we still have some more cheese to slice through first.

I suppose like most kids, I often wondered what I might look like when I grew up and I personally saw myself growing up to look like Charlie Rich. My parents had his album ‘Behind Closed Doors,’ which was listened to quite regularly in our house. It is still one of my all-time favorite albums and I thought he looked so cool on that album jacket. When my parents played it, I would sit there and would stare at the album jacket and try to envision the things that I might be doing as an adult, while looking like the dude that recorded this musical masterpiece. Well, I didn’t grow up to look like him at all really, but it was such a gradual process, it never really bothered me much, for these days, I am quite content to look like me.

As I got a little bit older, I was turned on to Elvis Presley, which was around the time of his passing and he became the ultimate for me. My family bought me a few of his records and I played them several times every day. I listened to them so much that if Elvis himself lived next door, he’d probably ask me to stop and find something else to listen to. Also through my dad, I was turned on to Kenny Rogers and Neil Diamond, who I also liked considerably. I was also quite guilty of watching the Donny & Marie Show and even had the action figures. I’ve seen clips of the show since then and it is just painful to watch. Why didn’t somebody warn me? I also recall seeing clips of Kiss perform on TV and eventually saw them in that classic gem of a TV movie that they made. However, at the time, I did not like them at all. The make-up thing was interesting, but I thought that their music was a bunch of noise. To me, it all seemed like a lot of yelling with loud guitars; as blasphemous as that sounds. Of course I now love them.

YOU’RE THE ONE THAT I WANT

In 1978, the movie Grease came out and I instantly fell in total love with Olivia Newton-John (my first non-cartoon crush). I thought she was so beautiful and sweet, and what a voice she had. Later in 1980, Xanadu came out and then I fell even harder for her. There were no home video stores at that time, so you got your fill of a movie while it lasted at the movie theater and then that was largely the last you would ever see or hear of it again. As a result, I saw it two or three times while it was still in the theater. Yes, by today’s standards, the movie was quite terrible, but I still love the soundtrack and I used to play it over and over again while staring at the pictures from the movie in the inner album jacket. While doing this, I would have such a deep longing to be Olivia’s boyfriend. Of course, she would have to stay young and beautiful until I matured into my Charlie Rich appearance, but I didn’t feel that wasn’t a lot to ask for.

Another childhood love of mine was Anne Lockhart (the daughter of June Lockhart) who guest starred on many popular TV shows in the mid to late seventies. However, she made a minor name for herself in the sci-fi world as Sheba on Battle Star Galactica. Not only was she beautiful and had this sweet desirable nature, but she also wore this tight uniform on the show that set my undeveloped hormones ablaze. Again, I longed for a life with this beautiful woman as well and pictured us getting married and beating the crap out of some Cylons together.

I actually met Anne many years later at a science fiction convention. Actually, I met her twice. The first time, I was a little broke and couldn’t afford an autograph, but she was actually sitting at her little convention table by herself, and I walked over to talk to her. Up until that moment, I had completely forgotten about my boyhood crush on her, but she was a very sweet lady that was very easy to talk to. All in all, it was a quite thrilling moment for me.

An even more thrilling moment came a couple of years later when I went to the same annual convention and she was there again. This time, I was doing a little better financially, and I decided that I was going to pay to get my picture with her and to get an autograph. As I approached her this time, she smiled at me and I told her that I’m sure she didn’t remember but I had met her a couple of years prior. She then told me that she had seen me walking around and knew that I looked familiar. Well, I knew this woman met fans regularly and there was no way she recognized little ol’ me, so she was surely just trying to be polite. I then looked her square in the eye and said, You surely do not. She then laughed and told me that she didn’t do many of these conventions and that she did most certainly recognize me. So to say that I was flattered that one of my biggest childhood fantasies remembered me, was an enormous understatement. After we talked for a bit, I bought what I was going to buy and then started to head off to see other things. However, before I moved along, she asked me to come say goodbye to her before I left. It wound up being a good hour or so later, but I did just that and I almost died when I did it because she even remembered my name when she said goodbye. It was quite awesome!

MY MICHELLE

Back to the real world, there was this girl named Michelle who was in my second-grade class that became my real first girlfriend. Of course, this was pretty much in title only, but she was this little freckled, strawberry blond cutie that I was rather taken with. One day on the playground she came up to me and my friends and was trying to kiss any of us she could get her hands on. I’m sure she was probably trying to get a rise out of us and for whatever reason all of my friends were running away because they thought girls were yucky. On the other hand, I was the little romantic that I was and longing for love, and I was like, Are you freaking kidding me??? This girl is a robo-babe! So when she came running up to me, I stood there and let her kiss me. It was just a little peck on the lips for we had no idea what our tongues were meant for just yet. However, it electrified every nerve ending in my body and she quickly became my girlfriend. Of course, we typically only saw each other at school but she was one of a handful of guests at my eighth birthday party. Unfortunately, I changed schools not too long after that and eventually moved to another state altogether and I never saw her again. At the time, I couldn’t understand why my parents didn’t think it was appropriate for she and I to have sleepovers, like the ones I had with other friends, so as a result, I had no other choice but to let her go.

VOICE OF THE SOUL

Music continued to be a large part of my life and we continued to listen to the radio a lot and every Sunday, we listened to America’s Top 40 with Casey Kasem. I also remember hearing Paul McCartney and Wings singing ‘Silly Love Songs’ and ‘Let ’Em In’ as well as Heart singing ‘Magic Man’ almost every morning on the way to school which took deep root into my soul. All of that music touched me in places that nothing else in life could, which ultimately was the foundation to the soundtrack to my life and it became deeply and completely intertwined in my thoughts, feelings, and memories. Also close to this time, everybody knew of the company K-Tel, for they were constantly advertising on TV for their many compilation albums of various artists that were popular at the time. Why buy the actual album by the artist when the one hit you were buying it for was probably the only song good on the album when K-Tel put that song on an album with various hits from other artists? Anyway, my dad got me this K-Tel double album called Harmony with hits from the Kinks, Styx, the Turtles and so many more. Wow, those songs are still like a time warp for me that take me back to a time where I had no cares and I had all the time in the world to take in everything around me. Everything I did and experienced held so much meaning because I had time to stop and smell the roses. Plus everything was new so even small things filled up larger spaces in my head than they do now.

IF YOU LEAVE ME NOW

In the last few years of the 70s, I came across many kids at school and other walks of life, whose parent were getting divorced. Because of this, I knew what it was to a degree, but at that age and at that time it seemed to me to be more like a trend than the result of a lack of communication or a loss of love. As a result, I began to wonder if and when this would happen to my parents. Then in the summer or fall of 1979, my mom pulled me and my sister aside to tell us that we were moving in with my grandparents for a while and I was instantly excited. I had the best grandparents one could ever ask for; plus, they had a pool and a huge tree house. However, this happiness was quickly obliterated when my mom then added that my father would not be joining us. I never once saw them fighting, but somehow I knew this was coming. The horse’s manure bag was overfilled and it was now crapping all over my parade.

The first couple of years after the divorce were hard for everybody, but we largely continued to be happy. In the meantime, I witnessed the toll that divorce took, not only through my own experiences, but I also saw the heartbreak it brought to my mother. It was definitely a lasting image in my developing thoughts about the devastation of an ending romance. It didn’t take much time though and my dad got remarried and then my mom went through a handful of long-term boyfriends. It was a new experience to have these strange guys come into our lives and become such a big part of everything that was going on around us and then a year or two later, they would be gone. Then after a little time had passed, they would eventually get replaced by somebody else and it would all start all over again. I think my mom did all of this pretty responsibly, but it always sucked to see most of these guys go. It was never an easy thing for any of us, but it also showed me firsthand about how a love lost could affect a woman and I didn’t like it. However, in the end, it was a life lesson and I was learning about the highs and the lows of this crazy little thing called love.

GOD GAVE ROCK ’N ROLL TO YOU

Over the next couple of years, some new music became very intertwined with my memories and got included to the soundtrack to my life. I had this one uncle who had an enormous record collection and he was primarily the one that was responsible for my developing thirst for music. At one point, he made a tape for my mom with Foreigner’s ‘Hot Blooded’ and Bob Segar’s "Against the Wind’ on it and we listened to that over and over again in the car for at least a year. I mean we knew every word to every song within a month and we loved it. Eventually, my mom purchased the Police’s ‘Zenyatta Mondatta,’ and most importantly John Cougar’s ‘Nothing Matters and What if it Did’ and we listened to those non-stop as well. I think the only people on the planet that have heard those albums more times than me, were probably the artists that actually recorded them.

This period was also a huge defining moment for me and my tastes in music. Before, I learned most of the music I liked through my dad, but now he was far away and it was up to me to decide what I liked. I continued my love for Elvis and the Grease soundtrack, but I was also soon to discover many other artists like the Bee Gees and Hall and Oats. Also, at this time, going to the mall was an event. As soon as we walked in the door, I made a B-line for the record store while my mom shopped for clothes. I would then spend hours thumbing through the albums. I always started with the first artists under the letter A and worked my way up. Half the time, I didn’t know who almost any of these artists were or what they sang, but I studied those album jackets and song titles until I was cross-eyed. In some ways, these records and the artists that recorded them almost seemed like friends and going to the record store was my big chance to hang with them and see what they were up to.

Around this time, I started working chores for my mom and grandparents that I would get paid for, and every single cent that I made went directly to records. The very first album I ever bought with my own money was the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ soundtrack and then it continued to flourish very quickly after that. However, as much as many of these albums meant to me, none were quite as meaningful as the album I got for my eleventh birthday. Like I said, the radio had always been on in my household since birth and I always knew what was on the radio, but I rarely knew who did the songs. Then one night I was watching TV and this show about popular rock music came on and they showed a music clip of Paul McCartney and Wings playing the song ‘My Love.’ I didn’t really know who this Paul McCartney cat was, but I knew that I loved that song and I begged my mom to buy me the album that song was on for my birthday. Instead of getting me the studio album it was on though, she got me ‘Wing’s Greatest Hits’. At first, I just listened to ‘My Love’ because that was surely going to be the only song that I was going to know or like on it. However, on a whim, I listened to the rest of it and I quickly realized that I already knew and loved almost every song on it and it was truly one of the greatest gifts ever given to me in my entire life.

Soon after, my uncle caught wind that I was now into McCartney, so he gave me a few of his Beatles records. He gave me Rubber Soul, Something New, and the White Album and then he also gave me the Rolling Stones ‘Flowers’ album for good measure. At the time, I could care less about the Stones, but I dove deep into the Beatles and they were played daily. I had known a few of their songs from my dad, but none of those songs were on these albums, so I eventually had to get the albums with those songs on them as well and this became a lifelong obsession with the band.

I originally discovered the Monkees in the seventies and I was instantly a fan. Unfortunately, now that I was out buying my own music, none of their records were currently in print. Luck finally came my way though, when I got a tape recorder the following Christmas. I would then sit in front of the TV every afternoon right after school to watch their show that was played twice a day in reruns and wait for one of their songs to be played. I would then hit the record button and after several months of doing this, I had two sixty minute tapes full of their songs. From that point on and for some time to come, as long as there were batteries in my tape recorder, those songs went with me almost everywhere I went and were played relentlessly.

STAND BACK

November 2, 1982, will forever be burned into my brain because that was the night I went to my very first concert. My mom’s first real boyfriend after the divorce took me to see Joe Walsh and Stevie Nicks; how cool was that for a first concert? At the time, there was nobody bigger or more gorgeous than Stevie Nicks and she was riding the highest wave of her career. Even though I knew a lot of songs the Eagles had done over the years, I still wasn’t familiar with the band itself just yet. As a result, I wasn’t exactly sure who this Joe Walsh guy was, but he was very good and I wound up knowing several of his songs and Stevie was the total bomb and it was an amazing night. After that, my concert cherry had been popped and it became a lifelong passion for me to see as many of my favorite musical artists as I possibly could.

My next two concerts were Billy Joel and Hall and Oats and it was my grandmother of all people to take me to go see them. I will never forget the day she picked me up to go see Hall and Oats. She picked me up from my middle school at the end of the school day and at first everything was totally normal and casual. However, she then pulled out a concealed zip lock bag full of yard trimmings out of the center console and told me that we were going to have a good time at the show because she had brought the grass. You go grandma!

LOSER

So I think I have pretty well established that I grew up surrounded by a lot of love from my family and I always had an abundance of friends; and because of that, I grew up with a certain degree of confidence. With that said, I am not normally one to toot my own horn, but I will say that I was a pretty cute kid. However, I will also fully admit that I was a horrendously ugly newborn; at least that is what my grandmother loved to tell me. She used to tell me things like I was so ugly when I was born; the doctor punched the nurse. Then there was one where I was so ugly they threw out the baby and kept the afterbirth. The anecdotes were never ending and usually quite amusing. Luckily, I quickly shaped up into a pretty cute kid which only aided in my self-confidence. Unfortunately, when I hit my awkward years around age seven and pretty much up to age fourteen, I thought I was the ugliest kid on the planet and the bowl haircuts my mom gave me didn’t help. To cover up this new insecurity, I developed and used my own brand of humor, which largely kept me free of ridicule until the eighth grade. When that happened, I was widely known as a geek and my humor no longer helped me; in fact, if anything, it only hindered me even more. I was bullied, I was made fun, and I was the least liked kid in my class. Around this time, I was coerced into being class president by a so-called friend in my class and then when the classroom votes were tallied, I got one vote; which of course was my own.

If things like this weren’t enough to shake my confidence, then let’s add to it. Despite my horrendously gawky features, I never understood what the big deal was about being rejected by a woman. I figured if you asked one out and she said no, then what the hell ever, and then ask out somebody else. Well, that was a very mature way of looking at it as an adult, but I was not an adult, nor was anybody else I knew. Instead, we were in junior high school and we might as well of been on another planet from the adults. The ability of children to be cruel is astounding, but somehow most of us survive the experience. Of course, not only can they be cruel, but when you throw in puberty on top of that, you then have the making of a full blown asshole.

The first girl I actually asked out in middle school (and technically ever) was a girl named Rachel; when we were both in seventh-grade. It was some dance the school was putting on and I had my eye on this girl for a while. She was tall, skinny, blond, had a nice little tushy, and I had my pubescent eyes on her for months. When I was finally ready to ask her out, I went in-between classes (before the bell rang) to the room I knew she would be in to pop the ultimate seventh-grade question. Despite not knowing this girl and never even having exchanged as much as a hello before, I boldly walked right up to her to ask her out. My friends thought I was crazy, but I thought I was being ballsy.

When I found her, Rachel was sitting in the front row and was busy reviewing something in one of her textbooks while waiting for the bell to ring. I then walked right up to her and point blank asked her if she would like to go to the upcoming dance with me. She then put her book down and looked up at me straight in the eye and nonchalantly (yet sternly) said, No and then went right back to what she was doing without missing a beat. Well, that quite obviously wasn’t the answer I was counting on and it did take the wind out of my sails a little for I had officially been rejected for the first time. Initially, I was taking it alright, but then my friends started razzing me a bit. I did my best not to let it bother me too bad, which wasn’t too hard to do because unlike me, they didn’t have the balls to ask anyone.

Obviously, that first attempt to actually ask somebody out didn’t go that well. I took it in stride though and in eighth grade, I decided to be bold and ask somebody else out to another dance. This girl’s name was Sheyenne and she was kind of a popular girl. This, of course, was probably not a good choice for somebody as low on the social totem pole as I was at that moment in time, but I was still in denial that I was a geek at that point. I don’t recall much about the actual asking, other than she was initially polite about it; which initially seemed less ego blowing than before. However, then she started telling all of her friends and then her friends started telling their friends and then I had half the school ridiculing me for my misguidance. Even Sheyenne got in on the act and came up to me numerous times (with her friends surrounding her) to ask me out in jest, just so she could turn me down again; but this time with more people watching. I may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but I at least was smart enough to say no when she did this. Now this level of ridicule that I was enduring was coming from about the entire eighth grade class of this good sized school and it most definitely put a huge kink in my armor. It also left some deep scars, which directly affected my self-confidence and my ability to ask women out for years to come.

VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR

The summer of 83, I discovered MTV (back when the M stood for music and not moron television), and my life was forever changed. The number of videos that they had to play at that time was still limited, but I watched every day for about six hours a day and by the end of the summer my family was ready to throw the TV out into the yard. Not only did I study the videos themselves, but it also made me aware of who was singing the songs I was listening to. This also made me aware of the actual albums these songs were being released on, so there was a lot more recognition when I went into the record stores from that point on. It was an amazing summer and by the time it was over, I was very much a music expert; at least on popular music of the time.

I was still very much wrapped up in pop music at that moment; however, metal was lurking around the corner and was a little over a year away from infiltrating its way into my life. It was around this moment though that I discovered Billy Squier who was the first musician to really rock my taste in music and I just could not get enough of it. He then very quickly became my all-time favorite for the next couple of years.

It was my dad that had MTV, so when the summer was over and I was back with my mom, it was all gone. My neighborhood was still in the stone ages and we still only got about two or three channels with the aid of a big ass antenna strapped to the side of the house. Despite this sad set of circumstances, one of the channels that we did get played music videos super late at night on the weekend. I would then stay up as late as I could to watch as much as I could, but I usually passed out before I got too far. Luckily though, my mom’s current boyfriend had this magnificent invention called a VCR and he spent so much time at our house, that he just left it there. This machine was magical because it would record things on TV and then you could watch them over and over again at your leisure; it was simply an amazing piece of technology. I would then record as many videos as I could and then once they were on tape, I always had them waiting for me when I was ready to watch them and I watched them almost as much as I played my Monkees tapes.

LIKE A VIRGIN

Another thing that certainly hurt my self-confidence at the time was that I was overly honest about pretty much everything. Even when it came to subjects that I should have avoided and/or have been extremely vague about; subjects such as virginity. This was a time where virginity was highly frowned upon and a high number of sexual conquests were the way to go. Madonna was just becoming all the rage on MTV and the radio, and sex was her tool. She was the boy toy and every girl wanted to be just like her and every boy wanted to have her. She wasn’t the reason for this sexual awakening that seemed to be going on, but she ever so boldly represented it. So, everywhere I turned in school, I was hearing about how somebody got laid the previous weekend and I was more than ready for it to be me. It seemed like such a wonderful experience to be experienced and the thought of having somebody touching you, and kissing, you and grinding on your fun parts seemed to be the most wonderful thought in the history of thoughts.

At this point, I hated being a virgin with every fiber of my being, but it seemed like there was nothing I could do about it. I guess I felt this way because it seemed that in order to be experienced, you had to look like David Lee Roth of Van Halen. Unfortunately, at that time I related to and felt more like Waldo in their ‘Hot For Teacher’ video, and that wasn’t going to get me anywhere with the ladies. In fact, I almost hated that video because I felt like that was me in that video. I suppose it just hit a little too close to home. Despite knowing that it wasn’t cool to not have bumped uglies with a lady yet, I didn’t see any reason to lie about it. As a result of that misguidance, I was then made fun for being a virgin. This was of course on top of the ridicule I got for my awkwardness, and whatever else they could dish up to make fun of me about. Of course, now that I am a mildly intelligent adult, I’m sure that most of these other kids were lying through their teeth with their stories of getting laid. I can almost guarantee that their privates had probably set sailed about as much as mine. However, unlike me, they made up their own stories to fit in and I did not.

HEAVY METAL MACHINE

Around this time, my grandparents got cable and with that came MTV and I was finally hooked back up. I was a music junkie and MTV was my fix. MTV had changed a little bit since I had last seen it though and now it was playing a larger rotation of videos by metal bands. I largely fought it for a while, but slowly but surely, I started to like more and more of these artists. Van Halen was now on my radar and I was also starting to like Kiss who were make-up free at this point. I also started getting into Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, Zebra, Ratt, Dokken, Night Ranger, Twisted Sister, and Def Leppard. I was finally starting to like things that my parents didn’t and I wanted more. Of course, I still liked everything that had led me up to that point as well, but to a degree, that all started taking a back seat to the roar of heavy metal thunder.

SUDDENLY

I finally caught a small break with the opposite sex at the annual King and Queen Dance that eighth-grade year. The middle school I went to was sixth through eighth grade and seeing that I was in the latter, I was one of the big dogs for the time being. At this dance, each eighth-grade class at my school nominated a guy and a girl from their class to represent them at the dance. Then during the dance, the entire school would then vote as to who would be the official king and queen of the dance for that school year. The rules to be nominated were somewhat stringent though, and the nominees had to have acceptable grades, reasonable attendance, and not have been sent to the office all year. Well, as luck would have it, my class was full of fuck-ups and I was the only boy in the entire class that was even qualified for the nomination. As a result, I represented our class by default and not by votes.

The night of the dance, all of the kings for each class had some fancy suit on, but not me. I had recently seen a Billy Joel concert on MTV and in that concert Billy wore a suit and a pair of white sneakers. I then decided to take a cue from the piano man himself and wore a navy blue jacket, a white shirt, a tie, white dress pants, and a white pair of sneakers. It was as rock n’ roll as a tie got and I thought I was going to be the coolest thing that ever hit that king and queen dance. Unfortunately, my contemporaries did not seem to agree and I got some snickers from the other kings. Then the queen from my class was telling me that I was the biggest moron that she ever knew and that she could not believe that I didn’t wear dress shoes. I recently found a picture of me right before that dance and I think I actually looked pretty cool; so obviously, I was just way ahead of my time.

Okay, so I said this was actually a break right? After the formalities of the dance were over (in which I obviously I didn’t win; shocker, I know), I was left to talk with various friends while everybody else danced. Then eventually somebody mentioned that this cute girl named Chloe, whom I had shared homeroom with the year before, would dance with me if I asked her. The thought almost sounded too good to be true and I was nervous that everyone was putting me on to see me get rejected again. Regardless, at the risk of it all being a hoax, I mustered up the courage to do it and I’ll be damned if she didn’t say yes. This was my first school dance ever and this was going to be the first time that I ever danced with a girl. As we approached the dance floor, the Billy Ocean song ‘Suddenly’ came on and my first dance was a slow dance. It seemed so incredibly magical to hold a pretty girl so close to me and all of the other BS in life just seemed to fade away. This was my first little taste that there might be hope for me yet in this lifetime and I was so thrilled that it was happening. Of course, I had to totally disregard the fact that I had an erection the size of a Buick and simply remained thankful for getting what I was getting.

CHAPTER 2

SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT

WALK THIS WAY

When high school finally started, I wanted to try changing how people perceived me, so I largely cut the awkward humor out of my routine and just became much more quiet and reserved. I also spent more time observing, instead of overly trying to interact with everyone. I still had my friends, but I also kept to myself a lot and just tried to relearn my social behaviors through observation.

It was around this time that my little sister started getting some cute friends, most of which wanted nothing to do with me except for one, but she never outwardly came out and said it. This girl was very cute, and developed very early in life and despite being a young teen, she probably had a good C or D cup bra at this point. Anyway, there were several times she would come over and the three of us would watch TV together. While watching it, she would give my sister a back massage and I would give her one at the same time. While massaging her, she would occasionally shift herself around to guide me to the places where she wanted attention and before too long, I would find myself massaging her ample assets and not much else. More often than not, it was also under the shirt, so I quite relished in this girl’s visits. We never discussed this verbally though and even when it was going on, we kept on chilling like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Of course, I would quickly revert back to the shoulders when the occasional adult came into the room, but as soon as they were gone, I was like lightning back on those massive mammaries.

Despite turning 16 in the tenth grade, I wasn’t immediately allowed to drive even though I already had a car. It was an old muscle car that had seen better days, but it ran. Plus, I was working as a dishwasher at a local restaurant, so I was in the process of fixing it up some. Anyway, some of my buddies at school had been giving me crap about not dating anyone and when I told them that I wasn’t allowed to drive yet, they said that I should get my mom to take me and a date somewhere. Now I always was and always will be somebody that likes to have their ducks in a certain row before doing big things and to me, dating was a big thing. I just didn’t see myself dating before I started driving, but my mom was also kind of pushing my hand at this because she wouldn’t let me drive.

I finally, relented on this philosophy and asked out Chloe from the King and Queen dance and she actually said yes. We hardly ever saw each other anymore, because after middle school we branched off to different high schools. Anyway, the night of our date, I rode in the backseat of my mom’s car with my mom driving and my sister in the passenger seat to Chloe’s house and we picked her up. Even then, I felt ridiculous doing this, but she said yes to the date, so I suppose she didn’t mind too much. My mom then dropped us off at a shopping plaza, where I took Chloe to an Italian restaurant for dinner and then we walked over to the movie theater to see the movie ‘Peggy Sue Got Married.’ I wouldn’t say that it was an overly exciting first date, but at the time, it was wonderful.

We eventually went out on one or two more dates like this and I’m pretty sure at some point, I got a little peck on the lips. However, I eventually found out that she was also dating somebody else that went to her high school. From what I heard, they seemed to be way more serious, so I eventually stopped calling and so did she. I didn’t see her again until a few years later when I was shopping at a grocery store that she was working at. I know we both saw each other, but there was no acknowledgment of that. It was just another lesson in life and love regarding how somebody can be such a big part of your life or play an important part of your development one minute and then the next, you are complete strangers.

THIS BOY NEEDS TO ROCK

In 1985, my mom and her current boyfriend took me to see Starship and Night Ranger in concert. Starship was good even though their newer music was lacking a great deal since their name change. Fortunately, they still had some great tunes from the past to pull from. Then, after they gave a good solid warm-up, Night Ranger came out and tore it up. Most people only knew their song ‘Sister Christian’ and never realized that they were actually a fairly heavy band. This, of course, wound up being the heaviest concert I had been to up to that point and I was blown away. After that, they were my favorite band and remained so for the next few years.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

I spent the rest of my freshman year as kind of a quiet guy. I then spent my tenth-grade year unsuccessfully trying to fit into the preppy/ popular crowd. However, I was still a little socially awkward and plus I kept my hair a wee bit longer than they did, so I never came close to making it into the inner circle. Then in my eleventh-grade year, I began to realize that my heart had always been into music so I started hanging out with like-minded people. This, in turn, was the metal crowd, or as we preferred to be called; the headbangers. I had been lost and now I was found for I now knew where I belonged and I started letting my hair get even longer. It felt so good to no longer be a geek and even though, I still wasn’t one of the popular kids, I no longer cared. Now all I had to do was learn to like heavier music.

I was already into the popular hard rock and metal acts like Aerosmith, Def Leppard, and Twisted Sister, but now I was constantly being subjected and soon learned to like Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer. Then a few years later, I was introduced to death metal. I remember me and a good friend three or four years later, were talking on the phone one night and we were reminiscing about the bands we used to consider heavy before Metallica. One of these bands we mentioned was Twisted Sister. My friend then randomly said that they were like angry Barbie dolls and we still laugh about that almost thirty years later.

It was funny because my closest friends at the time had been trying to get me into these bands for months and I just couldn’t do it. However, another friend pulled me aside one day and played me Metallica’s ‘Fade to Black’ and it blew my mind. Then he played me ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ and for somebody who was steadily taking an interest in the drums, that was a very important song in my musical development. Then once I got comfortable with those songs, I ventured into more of Metallica’s catalog and then over time I got into the slightly heavier bands as well. What made this story even funnier though, was this particular friend that got me started on all of this became a hard core born again Christian several months later and then burned all of his metal records and tapes.

Now that I had finally found where I felt like I socially belonged amongst my peers, I soon fell out of favor with my family. Not for anything that I did, but they all seemed to be getting deeper and deeper in religion and this long haired boy that was in their family no longer fit the mold of what they found to be socially acceptable. It seemed quite apparent to them that because my friends and I had long hair and lived for music, we obviously worshiped Satan and did drugs. This was obviously, a notion that couldn’t have been further from the truth on both fronts.

TOO YOUNG TO FALL IN LOVE

Life seemed to be pretty sweet when I was seventeen for I was driving; had some good friends; a pretty good self-image restored; and as a result, I started having a bit of a social life. One night, my friends and I we were visiting another friend at his apartment and then we eventually migrated over to a neighboring apartment to visit a female friend of his named Miranda. She was babysitting that night and we weren’t allowed to come in. However, she was practicing a loophole in the rules and sat in the doorway while holding a sleeping baby so she could talk to us while we hung out outside. I would say that most of the conversing was done between her and everyone else, but I had trouble taking my eyes off of her for she was quite beautiful. A few days later, my friend that we were originally visiting, told me that Miranda had been asking about me and offered to introduce us. Wow, a girl was actually into me! I never thought it was ever going to happen and I was beside myself with joy and anticipation. A day or two later after school, he escorted me over to her apartment and officially introduced us.

Miranda and I were hitting it off immediately and my friend soon took off to give us some alone time together. She and I then spent hours talking and I also met her family which all seemed too cool. Eventually, she went to the kitchen to get us a drink and asked me if I could come help her. I then naively followed her in there and as soon as we were out of sight from her mother, she wrapped her arms around me and started kissing me. These were real kisses too and not the kind you share with your mother. These were deep and passionate kisses that would have made the French blush and this shit was happening to me. I pretty much instantly fell in love and I was so excited about meeting this girl I just couldn’t see straight.

Well, Miranda was quick with the tongue but kissing was as far as I got with her, for she got bored easily. Then after two weeks of blissful making out, she was pretty much done with me and had already moved on to somebody else. We still stayed somewhat friends after that and about a year later, she started dating another friend of mine, but soon left him too. The girl just couldn’t decide what she wanted and it wasn’t long after that, she found herself pregnant. At this point though, I only heard about this through the grapevine for I never saw her anymore or again for that matter. I honestly don’t know what became of her after that, but it would be interesting to know.

BEST I CAN

My first long-term job was washing dishes at a restaurant. Then after my gainful employment there came to an end, I began working at fast food restaurant; which began my time of employment for a whole strand of fast food restaurants. Anyway, this opened up my world to new people and new girls and I eventually asked out this coworker named Darlene. She soon became another girl that helped me perfect the art of kissing. However, much like Miranda, it never went much further than that. It was actually kind of difficult to see her outside of work because of several reasons. One of the biggest was that she and I both lived out in the middle of nowhere; only it was polar opposites of nowhere. I basically had to drive from nowhere, through somewhere, to get to her end of nowhere. All of this was on top of me only being allowed to drive certain distances and at certain times by my mother; her not being able to drive at all; and the fact that I drove a 1973, 442 Oldsmobile that got about seven miles to the gallon.

Still, a good deal of what time I did get to see her was usually at her house. Most of the time her family was out, which was really a good thing for her father did not like me. Upon our first meeting, he told me that if I was going to continue to see his daughter that I was going to have to cut my hair; which was just not going to happen. Actually, he told me twice; the second time was on a later visit and I just couldn’t understand at my age why he thought that me having shorter hair would make me worthy of his daughter’s affections. The fact of the matter is that he never even wanted to know me, all he cared about how I looked.

Regardless, at the time none of these things mattered, for I was enjoying the fact that I had a girlfriend. I can remember being at her house one time after the sun went down and she was sitting in my lap in the front seat of my car in the dark. My car had swivel front seats, so I turned the seat facing the door, which allowed me to stretch my long legs outside of the car. We would then sit there and make out for hours, while I did my best to keep my foot on the button in my door jam to keep my car’s inner dome light from coming on. Despite the fun we were having, I don’t believe there were any serious feelings transpiring for either one of us, but it was nice making out with her. Plus, she was more than willing to help me build up my experience and initial techniques at putting my tongue in somebody else’s mouth and having somebody else’s tongue in mine.

One afternoon I was at her house and it was just me, her, and a friend of hers and we were casually hanging out and then she point blank asked me if I was a virgin. At this point, I had learned all too well that being honest with this question came with a high price. With that, I did what any other teenage boy my age would do in a similar situation and I lied my ass off. I can only guess she asked me about this out because I never made a move on her beyond making out. However, had she ever made the first move on me, I would have been naked and at full attention vertically and horizontally in a heartbeat. Regardless, I don’t think she was trying to call me out, but she was certainly sizing me up. Unfortunately, our little fling or whatever you want to call it fizzled out before we ever got to move beyond kissing.

NIGHT MOVES

Eventually, Darlene and I broke