Your friends call you a contrarian – nice word. You like what they don’t like – they don’t like what you like. Day is sunny, you predict rain – pouring buckets you talk about Santa Anas.
Down is up and up is down – you drive everybody around you crazy. Jabberwocky is your life’s pursuit.
No big secret – you hate school. You don’t like your teachers – you can’t stand your classes. The guys you meet make your skin crawl – the girls you know baffle you. Guys talk about cars – girls talk about clothes – nobody talks about anything real. You like real – they don’t. You like the sky when it starts to get dark. They don’t notice. They have small worlds – you have the universe.
Who are these people?
Your idea of dying and going straight to hell is listening to another lecture on Hygiene and dating. Your idea of having a Root Canal is sitting through another talent show. Your idea of torture is a Pep rally. Your idea of heaven is a quiet room and incense.
Your idea of heaven is having a conversation with somebody who gets you – a guy who looks you in the eye and doesn’t stare at your tits.
You want to have an out-of-body experience – you want your brain to tingle. School is a giant yawn. Your classes are a mouth looking for a scream.
Your parents pay no attention to you. Your dad laughs and says you’ll get over it. Your mom asks you about boys and if you’re pregnant.
You are speaking a language no one understands – your teachers look at you as if you’re on the wrong planet. You don’t see the point of hairspray and Cover Girl makeup.
You’re addicted to rolling your eyes and curling your lip. You can’t understand why you have friends.
You must remind them of somebody, somebody they like. It’s not you.
There’s a chance you’ll laugh at this – there’s a chance you’ll think about this someday and shrug your shoulders.
There’s a chance you were right all along.
In the meantime there’s your room, there’s your books, there’s all those glow-in-the-dark stars you painted on your ceiling.
And there’s those big, lofty thoughts – and you’re okay with that.
For now.
And Dave Hull at KRLA from January 26, 1968 on a Friday morning.
