Next Up On My Wall: 3 Autographed Samantha Fox Posters

Here is a post lifted from my Collectibles blog...

I received this cylinder in the mail two weeks ago and have been waiting to make good use of it ever since:

Yes, that's direct mail from Samantha Fox, my favourite lead singer of the 1980s, my favourite pop music queen, my childhood crush obsession, the lone ''non-rock'' patch on my teenage jean jacket...

I contemplated having its contents laminated, but because they are of ''unusual'' (read: British) dimensions (12x16.5 inches), I would have had to do so on larger-than-the-poster canvasses; it took me a long time to find ideal-sized and affordable frames... until last Sunday.

And so:

Oh, yes, these are going on my wall.

She sells unsigned versions of these at 10 pounds apiece ($20 U.S.), and signed ones for 30 each ($60 U.S.). I got them for much, much less than that - because I'm a musician, proved to be a true fan, did my best to attend every single one of her performances in my part of the world... and took advantage of a sale on her website. 1+1+1= oh yeah.

There are days where I regret some of the choices I've made in my life, like foregoing on a hockey career to pursue my education, or choosing the least faithful out of two possible ladies as a long-term companion, or leading a relatively unhealthy lifestyle without the trade-off of at least feeling like it was worth the damage done.

But there are days where I tell myself that every choice I've made has led me right here, and there is no way I could possibly want to trade that away. This is one of them:

There is a God - he just hasn't made me a photographer. BEST BLACK DRESS, EVER; ALL-TIME GREATEST USE OF WIND. I even noticed the shoes, and I'm neither gay nor a lady! Oh, and superb signature. I nominate this as the greatest piece of human history ever created.

There is also this sexy bustier shot, which I had a blown-up poster of (unsigned) earlier in my life:

And this one, showing a rather large tattoo I had never noticed on her before (let me reiterate that I've seen her perform live and state for the record that I've met her maybe 5 years ago when she came to town to play an outdoors show at out Gay Pride festival):

Another cool black dress, the like of could have been worn in a sexy, almost-goth fashionable wedding à la November Rain, the epic 1992 Guns N' Roses video. I volunteer to be the groom.

Homoerotic Wednesdays

It's been a bizarre day, to say the least.

I woke up around 11AM, which isn't so bad since I was only working at noon. But the reason I was working at noon was because I had to finish by 7PM to help Alternate Lady Of The House move some boxes from her current apartment to what will be, in a week, her new home.

I have a glance at the news on Cyberpresse to find out that the Habs traded Kyle Chipchura to the Anaheim Ducks for a 4th-round draft pick - could have been better, could have been worse, but that's another slow player no longer on our team.

Upon opening my email (mainly to see if work has unexpected news for me to attend to before getting there), I get this:


That's right: Traci fucking Lords wants to follow me on Twitter. The real Traci Lords. One of my first boyhood crushes (alongside Samantha Fox, Claire Pimparé, Nathalie Simard, ahead of Demi Moore - who caught up on lost time in my teen years, though! - or Christina Applegate) - and a pioneer in self-advertising (as well as in underage porn, pseudo-techno music and other things).

Then I get ready and leave, and just as I'm locking my front door, I notice the light from my porch broken on the ground. This, after twice having people de-pot flowers and put them in our mailbox at night... and our next-door neighbour not being targeted that way... it kind of got me wondering if we'd done anything wrong lately...

Then I walked to the subway to realize it was warmer out than I had expected - a very welcome surprise - accompanied by the extra surprise of having the subway attendant refusing to let me purchase a ticket, then scooting outside for no apparent reason, leaving me to pass through without paying - which, again, suited me fine because I'm dead broke, as the bank froze my fucking account for no reason whatsoever.

The ride to work was uneventful, as I was reading Slash's autobiography and listening to my mp3 player - both very entertaining.

I get to work and know I'll have three employees at my disposal for tonight's shift, two that are doing well and one who needs coaching, but that I'd have to give everyone at least a few common pointers to look for even though two of them don't really need them... except that Brendan, the one who needs help, isn't there... so we can just have the shift as is and not be bothered to give out a long speech and teach - and that works for me, too, because I just realized that my voice is on the verge of disappearing.

I then made a call to the Alternate Lady Of The House only to find out she may not need my services after all, as her mother's there already, painting and bossing people around.

So it was a mid-karmaic day, with one good thing offset by a bad one, but never to the extreme of any one side... and Greg, my employee and sometime drummer is in a homoerotic mood, mostly joking about balls, cocks and asses in double-entendres.

As Ice Cube once said, and as I've quoted on here before:

All in all, I gotta say, it was a good day

The Jenn Fiasco

Ah, the summer of '94. That was a busy one.

15 years old, almost 16, between grades 10 and 11. The summer that may have made me the man I am today. 125 days in which I lived enough to go through 4 years...

But most of it started in the winter before it, making friends with hockey teammates Nick and Todd. Most of our weekends were spent together, and my friends and theirs meshed and became a big whole bunch. Of their friends, another goalie, Eugene, that I sort of ran out of town the next year by taking his place as the neighbourhood's star and starter in nets, and a couple I liked, Chris and Jenn.

Chris was a short and aggressive fellow, often out looking for a fight, usually one in which he'd end up victorious - or less beaten up than his opponent. And when it went sour, Eugene and I, as resident giants, were there to get him out of any additional trouble. The only thing shorter than his temper was his hair - shaved bald.

Jenn was more reserved, seemingly always glued to Chris' left arm, or standing right behind him when trouble came calling. A pretty brunette with shoulder-length straight-ish hair, she seemed to have character, her eyes exuded it, but her demeanor was laid back.

It was a fine winter and spring, filled with plenty of action and commotion, underage drinking, arcades and late night movies. Summer was gearing up to be magical.

There was one night where a bunch of guys gathered at Todd's place to watch a Pay-Per-View special (UFC 2, March 11th) and most crashed there. There was little sleep, plenty of beer, and enough guys' talk to not have to scratch our balls for a week afterwards. Innocently enough, I mentioned to Chris at some point that I found his girlfriend attractive, but nothing was made of it - there was nothing to make of it, it was in innocent enough comment.

In June, however, it was brought to my attention that they no longer were an item, although I really paid no mind to it. It was Finals at school and in hockey, my time was well taken care of, and I was looking elsewhere for lady-fun-times - every so often with some measure of success.

There was one instance where most of our gang went out for drinks on Crescent street - Todd, Dan, Nick, Rachel, Chris, Eugene, Jenn and a few others whose names elude me fifteen years later - and Jenn asked me what ''my comment'' was about. It took me a while to understand what specific comment she was referring to, but once it was clearly established, we moved onto bigger and better subjects.

Over time, we saw less and less of some people (Nick, Chris, Eugene) and our immediate circle got tighter. Our activities were more entertaining and mature, too - less time playing pool in arcades and crashing at people's houses, more time going to midnight movie showings and hanging out in parks - where we met fun, quirky and at times disturbing characters.

One such character was a chick called Morgan that I really got into, another was an Indian girl her brother nicknamed ''Me Too'' because as a kid she would follow his every footstep. There was also Sylvie, an ex-girlfriend's best friend, and Jill, who is a whole other chapter - maybe even her own book. Heck, maybe even a Trilogy.

I was hanging out with Jenn at least every other day and she quickly started having feelings for me, but the more I was with her, the more I realized we weren't on the same wavelength at all. Everybody had already warned me, but I guess I had to see it for myself, and I surely did: she was just fucking crazy.

She was into Grand Gestures to show her appreciation of me, but every single one brought me closer to one of the other ladies - and to regretting having ever known Jenn. But it was livable, for most of the summer, because humans can adapt to most situations - and I hadn't really been dating any of these girls.

Then came Shannon. We met Shannon while hanging out in a park in Montreal West. She was 18, tall, platinum blonde - she looked just like Kim Basinger (albeit with much bigger boobs), and every single one of my male friends wanted to get in her pants. But she only had eyes for me.

She was at the other end of that park in the wee hours of the morning on that warm July night with her (even hotter, redhead, looking like an early Alanis with even bigger boobs) friend Veronica when she realized a guy we were hanging out with, Nathaniel, was a mutual friend. Introductions were made and I spent practically the rest of the night with her, side by side on a swing set, getting to know each other. Jenn was fuming!

It only took a couple of days before Shannon and I decided to start ''dating''. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of blondes (apart from Samantha Fox, of course, I'm her #1 fan), her thick set of lips were full of promise. Well, that and the massive chest. But unfortunately for us, no one wanted this relationship to work out: her parents hated me (maybe because I was 4 years younger than she was, maybe not, but anytime we were at her place, we could never be alone for even a minute), my male friends would all just try to hit on her behind my back, hers were inventing rumours about me so she would dump me and try them on for size (some included Jenn) - and Jenn wouldn't leave us the fuck alone, like a fly on sugar-covered shit, either imposing her presence with our approval or showing up impromptu.

Needless to say, when all was factored in, we didn't last all that long. After a month of trying to get it on and never getting to it, at our age, we went our separate ways. A year later, I met Veronica while walking downtown and asked for news... turns out Shannon had had a kid, and was already pregnant with her second. So the break-up wasn't all bad...

On a side note, one thing I regret was not asking Veronica out right then and there. She was the one I really got along with at that time, smart, funny, sarcastic, longer and darker hair, tall, bigger boobs, three years older than me as well...

But back to the main story. August was coming to an end now, and Jenn had managed to split the friends we had in common into two factions: 1. pro-Jenn/Seb used me and he's an asshole and a liar, and 2. Seb's friends, who didn't care about what did or didn't happen but would rather be friends with a sane person and trusted his judgement. Seems stupid and juvenile, I know, but I guess the mid-90s were a magnet for that sort of behaviour.

Until school was well back under way, I'd get bizarre offerings from Jenn in my mailbox, ranging from angry or sad letters to empty morning-after pill receptacles. It was odd, but strangely humourous, on my end anyway. Until late September, early October, at least...

Then came The Erica Situation. Erica, for totally different reasons from Jill, also probably deserves her own book. She'll likely get her own entry here in the future, so I won't go into the whole details of it, but she was the girl I dated for most of Grade 11. She attended a different high school than mine and, again, was a couple of years older than I was.

But she wasn't an Amazon like Veronica and Shannon were, she was barely five feet tall (if that, come to think of it). So, when Jenn totally blew her gasket on her case and started stalking her and following her around, not just during leisure time but also during school hours, it turned psychopathic. That's where a whole bunch of people had to tell her to back off, some even resorting to threats; even The Law got involved, and eventually it waned, then disappeared.

And here's where it gets really bizarre: a former friend of mine/ours/our summertime gang, Dan, must have found something cute in her dedication and passion, and she must have turned her obsessive-compulsiveness onto him as well, because I heard they dated for a while that year, maybe even for longer than a year, I'm not sure anymore, and I'm sort of glad I don't recall.

It was a weird few months but every day brought on new adventures and new people to meet, each more fucked up than the next. Adult-sized babies, circus freaks, hermaphrodites, teenage sex, third nipples, underage alcoholism, amusement parks, going sleepless then taking prescription drugs to compensate, violence, hiding from cops then running from them, walking on railroad tracks in near-total darkness and surviving... and always good company to be around, regardless of who went nark that day.

125 days. A summer I'll never forget, with memories I'd rather not remember. Good times.

You burden me with your problems
By telling me more than mine
I'm always so concerned
With the way you say
You've always go to stop
To think of us being one
Is more than I ever know
But this time, I realize
I'm going to shoot through
And leave you
- EMF, Unbelievable (1990)

Lux Interior Of The Cramps: R.I.P.

It was late in 1989 or early in 1990 and for the second time I went to Sam The Record Man, a popular chain of record stores at the time, to exchange what I thought was a defective Love And Rockets cassette, its then-unknown to me lo-finess sounding more like a muddy copy of a muddy copy of a muddy tape than the clean sounds I was more accustomed to, be it the pop crap of MC Hammer of the hard rock of Guns N' Roses or the new gangsta sounds of N.W.A.

My mother had given me a ride there and was waiting in the car as I brought the 'defective' cassette back to exchange it for the final time. I went straight to the rack, grabbed the tape and went straight to the cash where I was fourth or fifth in line, receipt in hand, ready for the exchange. I took a look into the Bargain Bin, in case I would find that elusive Samantha Fox cassette that wasn't a good seller and maybe they had lost patience with and would finally let me leave with at a price I could afford, hopefully 99 cents. It was part of the experience of going to Sam's, searching the Bargain Bin for that rare, obscure find that would forever change your life.

Alas, all I could find as I was nearing the bottom of the bin was the Chess soundtrack with the Murray Head track One Night In Bangkok - for $4.99, about $4.50 more than I would have been willing to pay for an already-old One Hit Wonder. And that's when SHE appeared.


Topless, wearing a thong and high-heel shoes, redheaded and - most important - $1.99, a price I could afford. The Cramps was the name of the band, and I knew absolutely nothing about them, but I didn't need to. She had stolen my heart and was likely to step all over it. ''Stay Sick!'' was the name of the record, and I was sure it would live up to its title, and I was sure she would, too. I took her home and couldn't wait to get there.

Oh, I had gone there for Love And Rockets, but what mattered most now was to find out what The Cramps were all about. I was eleven years old and I didn't dare take the cassette out of the bag and show it to my mom, who even inquired if I wanted to use the car's tape deck to test for sound quality, and the only excuse I could find for not opening my bag was ''no, really, I want to keep it suspenseful all the way home''.

The second the car was parked in front of the house, I ran straight into my room, reached in the bag and pulled the tape out, unwrapped it in record time and stuck it into my dual tape deck - and that's when the shock came. There was a punk-rockabilly band, tight as all heck, with an Elvis impersonator singing, but not the cheesy Elvis my mom liked, a dangerous one who was likely to drive up to elementary schools and offer kids some candy if they get into his car.

And I opened the booklet to find out that these guys were dressed like girls. Not wanna-be girls, not gay-for-eyeliner drag queens like Poison, no: actual hot, highly fuckable young-adult-looking horny secretary girls wearing leather, vinyl and animal patterns, the type that if they didn't take your virginity away would help you get Samantha Fox in your bed 'cause they were that cool.

And that's the way The Cramps were built. Lux Interior once said that when they played CBGB's, they thought it was a one-night thing, they wanted to see what would happen if they went on stage doing what they did, see if they would get beat up, or what.

What happened is they rocked. They could shock you into getting your attention, but once they had it, they were going to keep it with their chops. They did it with mine - and with many others.

Today, we learned the death of the one and only Lux Interior, which very likely means the end of The Cramps. After Ron Asheton of The Stooges, we lose another very important figure in meaningful music. The link above will lead to a bunch of videos and quotes on the man, do yourselves a favour and check some of them out.

I feel lucky to have seen them live in NYC in 2005 at Avalon, which was none other than the rechristened Limelight I had played in 6 years before, a redesigned and recycled church become palace of rock. Even if the outside line-up made it so that we only saw the last few minutes of the show, those minutes were enough to make the night worthwhile.

I have a feeling I'll be listening to a lot of Cramps stuff for the next while and, if history repeats itself, maybe I won't be listening to Love And Rockets at all for the next two or three weeks.