Chapter VII: Video Killed the Radio Star

Chapter Seven: Video Killed the Radio Star

Tully's house had a big hole in the roof so Roland, Kurt, me and Tully's cousin Cullen would stand on the sidewalk in the winter and pelt the roof with snowballs trying to get one in the hole. A squirrel would wait in a nearby tree until the snowballs stopped hitting the roof before leaping onto the roof and racing for the hole. At that point we all aimed for the squirrel. Throwing a snowball in Tully's attic was worth fifty points. Hitting the squirrel was worth 1000 points.

After our arms got tired we would go into Roland's house. Tully's house, needless to say, was a complete dump filled with every Bone Harbor Herald newspaper since 1963, dishes in the bathtub, a totally crazy aunt or mother or grandmother (who knew for sure?) named Nana among other crap that made a visit uncomfortable, not to mention the fact that some crazy kids kept throwing snowballs in the roof and the melt water ran into Tully's bedroom.

In Roland's house we watched Channel 56 out of Boston for nifty music videos during the hour after school We ate peanut butter and fluff sandwiches and wiped our hands on the carpet. Videos in 1984 featured Michael Jackson, The Culture Club, Run DMC, and Van Halen. I loved them all and campaigned daily to convince my father to rent the cable box so we could get the mother of all video channels, MTV.

The MTV generation didn't have to go to concerts unless of course they wanted to smoke free pot. Instead, bands came to us on Channel 40 and the prospect of masturbating while watching a Blondie video was enough to dampen my 24-inch waist underwear. Tom Bergeron was a WHEB disk jockey and it was a treat to see him acting goofy at the Greenfields Mall giving out Frisbees or John Lennon tape singles but it was never a substitute for the Madonna's lacy outfits and sexually charged dance routines. Still, WHEB played all the great songs by Prince, Hall & Oates and Duran Duran making the fact that my father refused to subscribe to cable almost bearable. Roland claimed the newest video by Corey Hart featured 'super foxy girls in lingerie' so I felt truly deprived when my father declared the house off limits to “video smut.” Video smut was all I could think about for several months. So when my hamsters' nocturnal exercise program, including a lively game of chase and “Chew the plastic cage until the shoe hits the cage” kept me awake on Sunday nights I would listen to Dr. Demento's late night program broadcast by WHEB for all the new songs by Weird Al Yankovich and wait patiently until I could go to Roland's house.

After the videos stopped and after Casper and Scooby Doo and Inspector Gadget (before Three's Company), we would get out a big piece of linoleum and put it in Roland's living room to practice break-dancing. This included the moonwalk, the caterpillar, the backspin, the headspin and other fresh and def moves that we practiced until our necks hurt. Roland was good at it and went so far as to buy a one color vinyl suit and a painter's cap to wear with the brim on sideways to get him into the breakin' groove. Roland was also the first person I knew to own a portable tape cassette player known as a Walkman. These had been too expensive for us until the price dropped around 1983. Cullen and I were amazed at how small the contraption was and we were incredibly envious that Roland could listen to Run DMC tapes or the latest from 'Rap Master' Kurtis Blow while we had to listen to Ms. Dykesburg lecture us on neat homework.

Tully just goofed off when we danced around. He didn't appreciate the breakin' art form, the dedication, the mystique. Tully preferred to wear skids pants and vans and practice his skateboarding and BMX bike tricking. This hobby would cost Tully a few weeks in the hospital that summer when he failed to jump fifteen kids in the neighborhood to celebrate his fifteenth birthday. But it would also earn him our respect when he pedaled up and over the green metal guardrail of the Sagamore River “Singing” Bridge, riding his rad BMX bike heroically into the quick current.

Kurt would normally leave after the music videos because he considered break-dancing something only “Faggots” or “Queers” would do. The joke was on him though because it was obvious in the videos that the girls flocked to break-dancers not only for their fresh moves and def rhymes but because the neon graffiti was so artistic. Kurt's eyesight wasn't good so that could explain his ambivalence towards neon socks.

Cullen was the best break-dancer. He could spin around on just his right hand while we played L.L. Cool J and Fat Boys records and clapped. He also mastered the art of hand and arm dancing and could imitate a wave or a robot, as the music demanded. Cullen did not need to be a good break-dancer to be popular since his parents owned the Little Store two blocks from my house on the corner of Richards and Lincoln. As long as the penny candy was supplied his popularity was assured.

After break-dancing we ate some pizza heated in Roland's giant microwave oven. The thing was nearly as big as a refrigerator but it turned the pizza into a bubbling, steaming blob in less than three minutes. It also did crazy things to cassette tapes and Tully's retainer. Before we all went to our respective homes Roland would perform the entire “Billy Jean” video for us, complete with song and dance, in the living room. With a tip of his hat and a dramatic Jacksonian toe-stand we were off to our homes for early evening television. Next door, Tully threw one last snowball at the hole in his roof, swearing as it missed, and went inside where Cullen and I could hear an argument start immediately between him and his crazy guardian as we raced down South Street to Richards Ave. discussing the new Atari 2600 games and the latest victory by the Celtics. We turned left near The Monahan's house, next door to Jordan and Mack Wynter's house, which was across the street from loathsome Becky Rudder's house. Our Youthtribe lived as tightly as ants in a secured colony. These had all been my classmates at Bone Harbor Elementary school and then Junior High School and would eventually spit on me in the halls and classrooms of BHHS.

Cullen and I would continue to the store his parents owned on the corner of Lincoln and Richards, two blocks from my house and two blocks from Leary Field. Depending on the year and if I had a spare quarter, I would play a game of Venture or Galaga or Asteroids. Cullen mastered Pac Man but the maze format never inspired the same passion in me that Asteroids or Donkey Kong did. After a game or two I would buy some Bazooka Joe gum and chuckle at the inane pun that served as a joke. I was saving the points to buy a plastic rifle or spaceship so I tucked the wrapper in my pocket. If I were really rich, the owner of, say, two dollars, I would buy a pack of baseball cards which included a powdery stick of gum anyway. Then I would walk home in the early dusk reciting Kurtis Blow's Magnum Opus “Basketball” along with choreographed arm movements and fresh dance steps. When I got home I would play Speed Racer or Pitfall on my Atari or watch The A-Team until my dad came home and ordered Pizza from Pizza Hut. Then Brooklyn would come home from Berwick Academy and would argue with my father about the relevance and application of Algebra while I laughed at Night Court. Then I sleepily climbed the stairs to my bedroom to read my Ninja Magazines and sort my baseball cards while I waited for a Wham! Song to add to my collection.. Dewey would curl up on my lap and let me scratch his ears so I ignored the sneezing fits that followed. As I opened the pack of baseball cards I prayed I would get Carl Yastrzemski's card. His final year was had just passed and I was trying to collect every card of his as a tribute to his greatness.

These memories had not been invited on the ride with Vance. They simply appeared before me, flew around me until I was overwhelmed. These were the times before the Great Defeat, before Ray Knight, before the Wraiths, before Ray Knight. They should have been closeted, these memories, but Bullwhip and the other Wraiths brought them out of me like a q-tip extracting culture samples to make sure I didn't have Gonorrhea. Like the q-tip, these memories had been harmless but in the hands of the Wraiths were now as lethal as Bruce Hurst curveball. How had I let them, my own cultivated childhood treasures, be used against me? Watch and maybe you will learn.

“You know how, Oggy. You had the choice. History doesn't teach itself. You don't feel cold anymore do you? Can you feel the fire? Can you smell the smoke?”