Spike, The genius behind Bedazzled brought back memories to me that flooded in like, well a flood of... Memories?

Cut me some slack, I'm sick!

He posted on his website a video of The Pretenders playing The Capitol Theatre in Passaic NJ and one of the songs hit me hard.

"Precious"

I remember when they saved my life. That first album changed me. I remember driving my oldest brother, who is about 18 years older than me, around town when I was learning to drive and I put "Precious" on in my tape player. I wanted him to hear what I was hearing, To feel what I was feeling, How it was going to change my life and how this song and The Pretenders was going to protect me from the bullies in my world...

See, my older brothers we're really into music, but I was so much younger than them and all their music was of protest against the war.

The Viet Nam War... How old do you think I am?

Anyway, I got all their hand-me-down records, but I believe that made my musical tastes better than kids my age at the time. They'd be listening to Bad Disco and I'd be listening to MC5, or Neil Young, or The Kinks...

I think because of those days going through their music and searching the bins at the record stores is why I became a DeeJay.

And maybe why I'm partially deaf...

Back to that horrible day in my Mercury with my brother and The Pretenders;He hated it and we got in a huge fight. I may have even cried because I looked up to him so. I wanted him to be proud of something I discovered. A band that was mine and no one in that stinking town knew about them.

Seeing that video brought all that back. I like a lot of music, but they really got to me then.

I remember searching out Chrissie Hynde's lyrics and her critical writings on Rock and how I would find pictures and posters of her and imagine her taking me to her room in the tour bus and forcing me to undress in front of her at gun point and how she would strap me down and spank me with her belt.

I was very troubled as a child, but I knew she was the kind of woman I wanted, smart, cool, sexy, dark, mysterious and would force me to undress in front of her at gun point and would strap me down and spank me with her belt.

Time has passed, but I still want her. I use to write these embarrassingly long emotion letters to her. Get my mom to mail them to the record label. I remember I use to scent the letters with Aqua Velva thinking they would stand out from all her other teen groupies. I heard nothing...

Sad.

I loved then and still do the lyrics to Precious:

I like the way you cross the street ’cause your precious
Moving through the Cleveland heat how precious
Taking rides and all the kicks was so precious
But you know I was shittin’ bricks ’cause I’m precious

Made me wanna, made me wanna, you made me make it
Oh, you’re so mean

East 55th and Euclid Avenue was real precious
Hotel Sterling coming into view how precious
It’s a pity that you bruised my hip ’cause I’m precious
You shouldn’t let your manners slip you’re too precious

Made me wanna, made me wanna, you made me make it
Oh, you’re so mean

We went around and round and round and round and round the
Shoreway

We was a duet duet duet duet do it on the pavement
Oh maybe maybe I’m gonna have a baby
We was a duet oh we do it all night

I was feeling kind of ethereal ’cause I’m precious
I had my eye on your Imperial you’re so precious
Now Howard the Duck and Mr. Stress both stayed
Trapped in a world that they never made
But not me baby I’m too precious I had to fuck off

Made me wanna, made me wanna, you made me make it
Oh, you’re so mean

.......................

They were like scenes from a True Crime Romance, a Pulp Novel, Guncrazy, Detour, the lyrics gave me a location, a geography, she mentions Howard the Duck, a comic book I read and loved at the time, Mr. Stress, the Blues Guy whose career stayed focused while his wife and the world moved on without him, I knew this world, these words, the car, The Imperial and I wanted Chrissie Hynde in bed and waiting for me with the loot we stole in a room at the Sterling Hotel...