The Change Was Made Uptown...

Flashback to 1984.  Sixth grade.  Northwest Georgia.  I was a fat kid with bad teeth and an even worse haircut.  Eleven pushing twelve.  That painfully awkward time in a young man's life when girls are suddenly something, these new-fangled things called boners start sprouting up everytime the wind blows crossways, and you've got no idea what to do with or about either one.  That time is even more painfully awkward if you happen to be built like a flour sack full of mashed potatoes, sport a Moe Howard haircut, and have a grin that would make an out-to-pasture donkey jack wince with pity. Suffice it to say that while lots of my peers were busy learning the ins and outs of social interaction, I was sequestered in my room surrounded by comics, books on loan from the public library, and records - LOTS of records. 

Singles were the order of the day.  Well, vinyl singles and full-length cassettes.  I had a fuckton of the former, as they fit more into line with the meager budget of my parents.  Cassettes were reserved for Christmas and birthday gifts, while vinyl LPs could be occasionally obtained from the dump and cut-out bins at the local K-Mart.  Shit, man - damn near EVERYTHING we had came from K-Mart.   I can remember exactly where the vinyl racks were and just how fucking sweet it was pouring over each and every picture sleeve on the shelves while my mom was shopping for whatever the fuck it was that sent adults into K-Mart once a week.

 I was quickly becoming a record geek, or as much of one as life in a rural backwater would allow.  While some of the dear friends that I would meet much later in life might have been seeing Black Flag and the like during that same time period, I was standing in a podunk K-Mart that smelled like soft pretzels, Cherry ICEEs, and body odor, trying to figure out if I should spend that week's two bucks on the lastest Men at Work or Men Without Hats.  Maybe some Dexy's Midnight Runners, Rick Springfield, or Cyndi Lauper (who I'll still own up to having an insatiable crush on to this day - and let's not even get into my infatuation with the androgynous beauty of Annie Lennox...I'm already in counseling, fer fucksakes!)? 

Let's face it, there was a lot of shit on the racks back in 1984.  And in the Rossville, Georgia K-Mart it was pretty much all shit.  Top 40 or nothing.  Being a young turk,  I was of course grabbing some Quiet Riot, Van Halen, Joan Jett, and such when the opportunity presented itself.  Being a cornfed hick, I was also grabbing CDB, Bocephus, and Willie records. And by some odd stroke of luck, I was fortunate enough to get turned on to bands like the Kinks and the Stones during my never-ending explorations of my friendly local discount retailer's singles racks.  Much like today, I was all over the musical map.  If it looked in the least bit interesting, I wanted to indulge myself.  MTV was still new to our neck of the woods, the radio was still jammed up with shit like The Captain & Tenille and The Carpenters, and there was no goddamned internet to allow one to check out every kind of music under the sun.  It was a smash and grab mentality.  For every one Kinks treasure scored, there were a dozen Duran Durans, Aldo Novas, Steel Breezes, and Quarterflashes to suffer through.  I was playing high-stakes craps with two bucks a week...is it any wonder I avoided records by a guy with a goofy-assed name like Bruce Springsteen for so long?

C'mon, man.  What kinda name is that?  I'm praying for Kiss records and here's some guy that looks like he oughta be working over at the bowling alley or something.  Give me a break.  The first single I remember seeing was "Dancing in the Dark." 

Exhibit A: 

Need I say more?

Twenty-five years (burnin') down the road and this rabid Springsteen nut will still tell you that's a pretty damned lame record sleeve.  I would be absolutely no more prone to buying it today than I was then, truth be told.  I didn't know this guy from Jack Shit, but I knew one thing for certain - the only thing more boring than his name was his record sleeve.

Little did I know that my opinion about this character who looked about as exciting as the guy who pumped gas down at the Union 76 was about to undergo a drastic change...

To Be Continued...HERE