I Loved You Once, But Now...
I got the call around 10:20 last night from Lisa. She, Lara and their mom was in town and currently in a hotel about 20 minutes away, so literally still in my pajamas I shrugged on a bra and a heavy coat and stormed off into the night across town and was instantly tackled by Lisa as soon as the elevator doors opened to their floor. In the room I was given long, emotional embraces by Lara and their mother Lois, and for one of the many strangest moments in my life it felt as if 20 years had never passed.
Lois, whom I always remembered from my childhood as this old school punk chick with jet black spiky hair and black goth dresses, looks as if hardly a day has past since I last saw her in the early 80's. For several years she was involved in the in-house booking and promotions for Boston's famed punk club the Ratskellar (or "The Rat", as it was called then), and she regaled me with wonderful, fascinating stories about booking The Police back when nobody had heard of them, and the Buzzcocks show where Steve Diggle shot off a gun during the concert, and... wow, countless amazing tales, all of them. She got out of the business for awhile and tried the 9-5 desk job routine for a change of pace, but she still longs to get back into the booking grind again. Yeah, tell me about it.
Lara is still as breathtakingly beautiful as she's ever been, and probably even more so, although she did have a bad cold last night and was feeling miserable. She currently worked for Boston's (also famed) Newbury Comics a the webmaster and customer service, and gets access to vinyl and comics and DVDs beyond anything she could ever assimilate in a lifetime. Lisa is ever so much the sister with the big personality -- loud, loquacious, eyes and hands and body moving at all times. It's a shame that Sheryl couldn't make it. It would have been perfect. But we still spent the next 3 hours catching up as well as reliving the past -- like the time Ron, who had a crush on Lara, jumped off the neighbor's front porch onto Lara and his top front teeth got stuck into the back of Lara's head. Or when Ron's brother Gary (whom Lisa was in love with), stoned out of his mind, showed up at Lisa's 13th birthday party with a snake in a shoebox for her as a joke, and she threw it in the air screaming and we all had to scurry around trying to catch it. or when Lara and I went to see The Empire Strikes Back and Lara got so mad at Boba Fett she threw her flip-flop at the movie screen. Well, little things like that, but still, God did we ever laugh. Like, tears and sobs and rolling out of our seats laughter. My word. So much time has passed. And to my astonishment, so much had been happening around that same time in which I was completely oblivious. But it was a surreal evening, and I left around 1am after saying farewell to Lara and Lois, promising to visit them in Boston soon, and making plans to take Lisa around Sunday morning before her flight home so she can see the old neighborhood again.
Anyway, as I was driving home I was remembering this thing that Lara and I recall more than anyone else, of that summer in 1983 when HBO showed the movie Clash Of The Titans over and over and we practically memorized every word of that bizarre, cheesy-assed movie. One thing that we joked about The Eye, or what looked like a giant marble that these three blind witches held over their heads to see. And of course we just yucked it up for years after, making "The eye! Theeee eyeeeeee... who's got the eyeeeee...?" in a creaky old lady voice part of our in-joke vernacular. We even made up our own movie tie-in promotion product called "Kracken Breakfast Cereal", with little marshmallow "Eyeeeeeesssss!!!" (as well as marshmallow Pegasus, marshmallow Robot Owl, marshmallow Burgess Meredith) which had us in stitches remembering all the terrible lines from that picture (Lawrence Olivier: "Send in... the KRRRACKEN!" Ursula Andress: *robotic acting* "I loved you once..... but now...."). So anyhoo, here's a scene with the three witches and "The Eyeeee!" which the three sisters used to act out with a tennis ball in the front yard, much to my side-holding, gut-busting childish amusement. Somehow I sense a week-long nostalgia trip through youtube in future posts, if you folks will bear with me (and thank you, as always, for doing so).
Lois, whom I always remembered from my childhood as this old school punk chick with jet black spiky hair and black goth dresses, looks as if hardly a day has past since I last saw her in the early 80's. For several years she was involved in the in-house booking and promotions for Boston's famed punk club the Ratskellar (or "The Rat", as it was called then), and she regaled me with wonderful, fascinating stories about booking The Police back when nobody had heard of them, and the Buzzcocks show where Steve Diggle shot off a gun during the concert, and... wow, countless amazing tales, all of them. She got out of the business for awhile and tried the 9-5 desk job routine for a change of pace, but she still longs to get back into the booking grind again. Yeah, tell me about it.
Lara is still as breathtakingly beautiful as she's ever been, and probably even more so, although she did have a bad cold last night and was feeling miserable. She currently worked for Boston's (also famed) Newbury Comics a the webmaster and customer service, and gets access to vinyl and comics and DVDs beyond anything she could ever assimilate in a lifetime. Lisa is ever so much the sister with the big personality -- loud, loquacious, eyes and hands and body moving at all times. It's a shame that Sheryl couldn't make it. It would have been perfect. But we still spent the next 3 hours catching up as well as reliving the past -- like the time Ron, who had a crush on Lara, jumped off the neighbor's front porch onto Lara and his top front teeth got stuck into the back of Lara's head. Or when Ron's brother Gary (whom Lisa was in love with), stoned out of his mind, showed up at Lisa's 13th birthday party with a snake in a shoebox for her as a joke, and she threw it in the air screaming and we all had to scurry around trying to catch it. or when Lara and I went to see The Empire Strikes Back and Lara got so mad at Boba Fett she threw her flip-flop at the movie screen. Well, little things like that, but still, God did we ever laugh. Like, tears and sobs and rolling out of our seats laughter. My word. So much time has passed. And to my astonishment, so much had been happening around that same time in which I was completely oblivious. But it was a surreal evening, and I left around 1am after saying farewell to Lara and Lois, promising to visit them in Boston soon, and making plans to take Lisa around Sunday morning before her flight home so she can see the old neighborhood again.
Anyway, as I was driving home I was remembering this thing that Lara and I recall more than anyone else, of that summer in 1983 when HBO showed the movie Clash Of The Titans over and over and we practically memorized every word of that bizarre, cheesy-assed movie. One thing that we joked about The Eye, or what looked like a giant marble that these three blind witches held over their heads to see. And of course we just yucked it up for years after, making "The eye! Theeee eyeeeeee... who's got the eyeeeee...?" in a creaky old lady voice part of our in-joke vernacular. We even made up our own movie tie-in promotion product called "Kracken Breakfast Cereal", with little marshmallow "Eyeeeeeesssss!!!" (as well as marshmallow Pegasus, marshmallow Robot Owl, marshmallow Burgess Meredith) which had us in stitches remembering all the terrible lines from that picture (Lawrence Olivier: "Send in... the KRRRACKEN!" Ursula Andress: *robotic acting* "I loved you once..... but now...."). So anyhoo, here's a scene with the three witches and "The Eyeeee!" which the three sisters used to act out with a tennis ball in the front yard, much to my side-holding, gut-busting childish amusement. Somehow I sense a week-long nostalgia trip through youtube in future posts, if you folks will bear with me (and thank you, as always, for doing so).
posted by Melissa at 8:45 AM
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