Ok, I said I would share some Blessid Union of Souls songs and a story about one of the songs I discussed a little over in Brandon's Odds and Ends thread, so who wants story time with Adam Cole, I mean, PB?
BrandonDaCollector wrote:I'm glad you rethought/remembered about something else of My showcase because sometimes I wonder why stuff wasn't said about other great things I posted especially when I think heavy of it. Well, that's some good trivia there Packer and I'm glad that you recalled that from 1997, what a year that was. Boy, I think I would have asked one of'em out especially if it was a crush. If I didn't I'd still be thinking of what could have been I mean I still do from time to time with My girlfriends from long ago in school & so on.
So, it's 1997, I'm a year out of high school and working at JC Penney in the Galleria Mall. Now, in my younger days I had a near crippling shyness around girls. I've discussed this before, but I think since my parents moved so much when I was younger I never really developed lasting friendships with anyone, so when the hormones started hitting I was truly ill-equipped to handle that stuff as a dorky kid in school and generally rarely talked to people of the opposite sex in my age bracket. The funny thing about a job is you're pretty much stuck with the people you work with for hours so unless you want things to be extremely awkward, you need to learn to be more sociable. So back then I worked in Mens Sportswear which was for more mature men--think of things like Dockers slacks and IZOD golf shirts. The next department over was Young Mens--think Levi jeans and at that time, crazy things like Jnco jeans the giant circus tent pant legs and FUBU jumpsuits (For Us, By Us).
How the hell was this ever fashonable????
So retail is a funny animal. People come and go quickly. Some come on for Christmas or summer jobs and are quickly gone, but others stay longer, and for me it was a job to work through college. There were women who worked with me that were attractive and only a couple years older than me, and that sort of allowed me to build up my tolerance to talking with women. We'd even go out for drinks as a group sometimes after a long holiday shift. I even got invited to one of their weddings which I attended, like Gilbert O'Sullivan, alone, naturally.
Ok, so here's a tangent story. So, I would've been 19 back then and the legal drinking age is 21, but the TGIF near the mall was notorious for being a little laxed and the ID checking. So the one night we all went there for drinks, now I've had alcohol before that, but I had never gone anywhere to actually order a drink. I didn't want to just order a beer or a rum and coke because I wanted to seem cool and hip and knowledgeable about adult things like mixed drinks. So I wanted to order something fancy. I liked iced tea and I knew there was an iced tea drink but for the life of me the name was escaping me but I knew it tied into New York City somehow and the first thing that came to me was...Manhattan. So I sophisticatedly asked for a Manhattan and waited for our drinks to arrive.
Now, you may or may not know your alcoholic beverages but I think most people have heard of a Long Island Iced Tea which is drink consisting of tequila, rum, vodka, gin, and triple sec; while a Manhattan is made with whiskey, vermouth, and bitters. A Long Island is generally served in a regular glass while a Manhattan is served in a cocktail glass and the two look nor taste remotely close. And to many, the Manhattan is also considered more of a girly drink probably because of how it looks.
Imagine my shock and horror when a drink looking like the second image arrived and I had to embarrassingly try to act like that was exactly what I wanted while everyone else (guys and girls) were drinking beers or rum and cokes, lol. Ah, fun times.
Sorry for the sidetrack. I'll try to get this into the garage faster now. So, Christmas one year a new girl started working in Young Men's and it turned out she remembered me from high school which was weird because I didn't remember her and wouldn't have expected any girls to have remembered me from school since I was quiet and really unremarkable. Young Men's was a third the size as Men's Sportswear so they often only had one associate working there so sometimes we would have to cover their breaks or lunches, so I would often find myself over there talking with her. Our departments were on the second floor so at the end of closing shifts we even took the elevator downstairs together. And she was nice, and pretty, and fun to talk to but I was still that shy kid. Finally, as that summer was winding down I found out she had sadly put in her two-week notice. So on her last day, because I was nothing if not a true procrastinator, I finally got up the nerve to ask her if she wanted to go see a movie or something. And of course it turned out she was leaving in a couple days to attend a college in Florida and she said she wished I would've asked her sooner. Womp womp. But that was how things went for me back in those days, lol crying.
So what does that have to do with music? Well, Penneys like most stores, has music playing all day and when you work for 8 hours you hear a lot of songs and after a while you pick up on the lyrics and sometimes they even seem to touch on your own life. The more you hear songs the more they grow on you. A few years earlier this type of music would've never been that appealing to me but by 1997 I was outgrowing stuff like grunge and looking for more meaning in life and lyrics. So Brandon posted an ad for Blessid Union of Souls, and that made me think of this songs which immediately takes me back to 1997 and the loneliness and shyness I felt. And this song often makes me think back on these events, so here it is...
Now if you listen to the lyrics they are more about a love that has ended more so than tying into my story, but the last verse is what always struck me the most.
There's a light in my eyes it's too bright to see
And a pain in my heart where you used to be
Guess I was wrong to assume that you were waiting here for me
There's a light in your eyes
Did you leave that light burning for me
I actually bought the CD because of that song because back then you couldn't just go to youtube for a song, lol. It's a decent album I still have. Here's a couple bonuses. Their biggest hit was probably from their first album.
And then I always liked the song Hey Leonardo from their third album. It's a little more fun and quirky and has some fun topical references and the one Jim Carrey line always makes me chuckle.
She likes me for me
Not because I'm
Tough like Dirty Harry
Make her laugh
Just like Jim Carrey
Unlike The Cable Guy
Because The Cable Guy was an awful awful movie, lol. Anyway, that was a little of my history and a few old songs. Thanks for being a free therapy session for me, lol.
