Friday, March 24, 2017

THE CULT OF MEDIOCRITY




So, Dawn and I actually spent the years from 4th grade to whenever we moved out of our parents’ houses living less than a mile from each other, up in the hills to the northeast of town, past the cemetery.  We had screwy bus routes out in the boonies.  For a very brief period, we rode the same bus, but then we ended up on separate ones whose routes briefly overlapped.   She knows most of the people in this tale of the early 80s, but wasn’t there for the specifics.
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We had this group of kids on my bus, 3 dope-smoking high school kids and a batch of younger wanna-bes, who were all obsessed with Styx.  All the bus rides to school and home were filled with discussions of the various solos and lyrics and artwork associated with THE GRAND ILLUSION, PIECES OF EIGHT and CORNERSTONE.  The band had a few songs I liked, but I mostly considered them to be dork music to the nth degree.  I was deeply into my long hair/Pink Floyd/new wave/punk thing at the time (well, I outgrew the long hair, but not the rest), so we didn’t have any musical common ground and I was left out of these conversations  and generally shunned for my heretical ways.  It was all pretty funny. 


We had a substitute bus driver who always seemed to get no small amount of joy from these goofy adolescent factions.  I think she leaned more in my direction, though, as she liked to talk about DARK SIDE OF THE MOON with me.  Or maybe it was just pity.
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In any event, PARADISE THEATER (a thoroughly dorky album, I gotta say) sent the gang into new levels of ecstasy when it came out, but I think the cult had mainly dissolved by KILROY WAS HERE (the dorkiest one yet).  I think the high schoolers had graduated by this time, which is a shame, since I never got to hear them hold forth on the profundities of Mr Roboto……..



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