Though you'll never admit it to anyone and always bemoan the fact that the song is being played in your club, you somehow enjoyed it.
As mom and my older sister played The Carpenters on the car stereo I listened to MxPx, Face to Face, Suicide Machines, or Bouncing Souls on my discman.
The planets all aligned for a mighty fine show at the 2018 Williamstown Literary Festival on Saturday evening 16 June. Photos by Eric Algra.
J. Rohr Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois Circa 2005 Though the place is crowded there's an absence in here. Shoulder to shoulder patrons squeeze their way around. A laptop looped into the stereo spits a predictable playlist of pop, while bar banter buzzes like oblivious static; anything could be playing so long as the groove [...]
After I paid my co-pay and got my prescription refill, I navigated the Walgreens parking lot, like a bumper car ride at the fair. The car radio was on an oldies station.
With a scowl that could scorch the tops of crème brûlée, I would stalk through the bar to the alleyway to glower outside until the song ended. Even the rotting potato peels and pools of stale beer were preferable to hearing it again.
Papa, I understood how you stood against the world when it came to the principles you protected. I understood your sense of space in that old pawnshop where you read books by Alexandre Dumas and Arthur Conan Doyle.
I am free to find new horizons and make them mine. I am more than my bullies ever imagined and becoming more with each passing day. I refuse to let the past define me.
Introducing some playful rhymes from our poet-in-residence, Damian Balassone...
While the song plays I remember being a wispy 14-year-old who bought batik scarves from the forbidden head shop in town. I twisted them into halter tops which I wore under more demure shirts until I was safely out of the house.