13

Tonight, for reasons that will remain somewhat vague for the moment, I was trying to remember what I was like as a thirteen year old kid. I started out drawing a total blank, then piece by piece it all started coming into focus. As it does, I am realizing just how the events that happened that year were so monumental to the way I viewed everything forevermore. Thirteen may be when I first became cognizant of the bigger world out there, and conscious of what would become my go-to trivia catagory, pop culture. Some fantastically humongous personal events happened too, like how I got linked up with a hairdresser, an Irishman named Brian, that would see me through most of my teenage angst years, always at the ready with a pair of shears to shape both my hair and the all-too-important high school image, TOTALLY 80′S NEW WAVE TEENAGER™.

That’s me on the bottom left.



I loved loved loved music. I loved Mtv and I still have some of the VHS tapes I made while sitting for hours watching and absorbing all that I could. I even have some (get this) slides that I took OF THE TV SCREEN when Simon LeBon and Nick Rhodes were the guest VJ’s one night. SLIDES. THAT I TOOK OF THE TV. THINK ABOUT THAT. I had an exponentially expanding and AWESOME LP collection, so much so that I ended up acting as DJ for most of my 8th grade dances that year. I know, right?

What other amazing things happened you asked?

1. The final episode of MASH - I so didn’t get it. To me, MASH was the super boring show that my grandparents had on every time I visted them. My grandfather had been Army Air Corps and then Air Force and my grandmother was a nurse. THEY LOVED THIS SHOW. I’ve watched the final episode in recent years and I can tell you with crystalline certainty that the scenes that I did not have the depth to appreciate at 13, rip your guts out as an adult. RIP YOUR GUTS. I completely get it now.

2. Michael Jackson did the moonwalk on the Motown 25th Anniversary special - I watched it that night. It is no wonder that when he died a few months ago, I felt like a big chunk of my childhood died right alongside him.

3. Nintendo went on sale in Japan – the trajectory was set. In another two years it would be released in America and BLOW ALL OUR MINDS. I used to play so much Super Mario Bros that I would DREAM about it at night and work out ways to find invisible blocks.

4. Korean Air flight 007 is shot down by the USSR - First, allow me to say that I was sure I would never graduate from high school because I was so terrified of the Soviet Union that I was POSITIVE that I would die in a horrible nuclear annihilation before I could. This plane crash ruined me. All I could think about was how this mother and father confirmed that their two young daughters had died onboard by identifying their shoes that were found in the debris field. They had had a special way of tying their shoes and that’s how they knew. I’ve never forgotten that. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.

5. Microsoft Word is first released - There it would be…lurking…waiting for me… Thank God I took typing in high school. Single most valuable class I ever took. EVER.

6. Thriller Video released – see number 2. lather, rinse, repeat.


My kid just got cast in 13. He’ll turn 12 in the middle of the production. All of this…all of that…it’s blowing my mind.