There are things you don’t forget, like the oversized lenses of her stylish Italian sunglasses. They were so big they obscured half her face behind rhinestones and pink glass. The setting sun reflecting back into my face, I notice the left lens now bore a large streak of grease. I had just awkwardly pressed my forehead into her eye in my first attempt to kiss her. Now, I could see the ocean dully undulate behind me in the smudged reflection. I’m slightly embarrassed by it and I wonder what it looks like to view the sunset through that much face grease. Celine doesn’t seem to mind and her perfectly soft lips give way to a smile that melts me, like her her broken English. I swoon while she stumbles over her words, my focus now entirely on those lips as they mangled my mother tongue.
“No one ever write me song before.” I feel a fat rush of endorphins shoot down my body in concert with some waves splashing about our ankles. It’s as good as the kiss itself and it had been a savagely good kiss. I go in for another and head butt her while trying to avoid painting her shades with oil and sweat. I lose my balance and grip her perfectly supple waist to regain my footing. The shifting wet sand is sucked from under me by retreating waves. The ordeal is concluded when we hug each other tightly and I smash my cheekbone against her sunglasses once again. It’s the best moment I’ve enjoyed in a year and I’ll remember every bit of it. I’ll have to. I don’t know Celine at all. I’m not even positive that’s actually her name. Who can tell with that accent? This was our first date, and though she speaks four languages quite fluently, English isn’t one of them. I found myself immediately and completely uncontrollably in love with her… ahem…
So, I told her I was going to write her a song. It’s about the smoothest thing you can do when you pull it off, but this was premature and a little desperate. I employed the technique to secure a second date as much as a third kiss, and hopefully would all culminate in a boob fondle. Celine was still a mystery to me but it didn’t take a lot of time to see she had fantastic breasts. I for one absolutely had to see them. If I had to write an opus, I would try. That’s when she tells me in this accent, half Japanese, half Brazilian, outrageously sexy, that this is the first song anyone has ever written for her. Her reaction was utterly sweet, which was tough to take knowing I was probably lying. There is an inverse relationship between how fast she would put out and how good the song might be, if I got around to writing it at all. Several thoughts roiled under my false grin; that I was a smooth character, that I was also a jerk, that her heaving breasts were positively glowing, and foremost, that nothing comforts me more than those words, “no one has ever written me a song before” (even if the grammar is buggered).
We walked hand in hand towards the Venice Pier, the late afternoon sun at our backs. Her hands were tiny and her fingernails looked bitten to nubs, which I hate. Already I was regretting the promise I made. Sure she was beautiful and of course I was smitten for the moment, but still, this was where our relationship would start and likely end, out with the tide, so to speak. I spent the remainder of our date half listening to garbled chit chat about her family in Brazil and her religious affiliations, while I thought back on the first times I had heard those nearly sacred words before; at Dennis O’Conner High School, and Lakefield Camp… later from Tricia, and finally from Mayumi. I dig my toes in deep, the cool water and sand sloshing about our bare feet and rolled up jeans. I am momentarily transported to a time in my youth when I had been deathly afraid of the water. Celine asks me something about my thoughts on God, but I’ve long since drifted away, fully bored of trying to understand her. Instead I remember the women I loved and duped over the years. I remember all of them but some stand out. An emotional cocktail stirs inside me, equal parts grief, self-loathing, and crack head ecstasy. I start humming “I’m a Junkie For Your Love”. This is the last serious thought I had about actually writing this song I was yapping about.
You could say it all started when I was a pale, skinny fourteen year old and I went to Lakefield Camp for the summer. It was the first time I had ever gone to camp and it was forced on me much against my will. It hadn’t occurred to my mother that I should have ever gone to camp. Now though, I had a stepfather who was a good man and a half assed Jew. Camp is what Jewish kids do in the summer apparently.
My vehement objections notwithstanding, Mom and new dad, Arnie drove me to a bus parked in a school lot two minutes from our house. A man I took to be the bus driver was loading luggage and another guy stood at the open door with a clipboard and a very self conscious smile. The bus was already packed with rowdy, brown and tan children, many of their faces pressed up against the tinted glass. I raised a final futile objection to my parents. I wasn’t a camp kind of guy, you see. I didn’t go in water, at all. I had what I called hydrophobia. I figured that was probably the technical word for the disorder. Coupled with that was a savage fear of having my shirt off in public (due to my unusually large breasts for a fourteen year old boy). I’m pretty sure there’s a word for that fear too. I had a serious phobia of flying insects, or non-flying insects, and fish. I knew camp meant insects, lot’s of ‘em, and water, and it didn’t sit well with me. The forest was no place for me, with trees, children rolling in kayaks, mashing their feet through the muddy bottom of a lake teaming with weeds and minnows, water spiders, dead things, live things, and slimy things with legs that crawl. I was, in short, not a camp guy.
I made a face, unfastened the seat belt and watched my parents cheerfully (gleefully, in fact) unload a suitcase, my Ibanez electric guitar and my Peavey amplifier. I had been playing now for a year or two and had a repertoire of about six songs, Wanted Dead or Alive and La Bamba being the crowd favourites. I’d sometimes have to play La Bamba twice or more (depending on how many encores) at the shows I would put on in the garage.
I had no intention of traveling without my guitar. It was like an electric security blanket. I was honing my skills as a mariachi and couldn’t afford to fall behind on my practice. More to the point, I was a musician and I would not be stripped of my only weapon against the sporty little bastards that were going to tear my willowy flesh to pieces over the next two months. The guitar was going to get me through the summer in one piece. In theory, I might even find a half decent looking girlfriend that I would get to kiss, possibly with tongue and the Ibanez was intrinsic to my plan. I had already written one song, a ballad, for one of my first girlfriends, Vicky Kutzmenda. The lyrics are as follows, the tune is utterly irrelevant…
Didn’t know much about love, until you came along and stood there by my side
Didn’t know much about love, until you came along and acted as my guide
Now I sit inside my empty room, Not much to do, just thinking bout you
The things that I now will have a chance to do, that’s why dear Vicky
I say that I love you, I do
Oooooh oooh,
I do
(Copywrite 1988)
When I played it for her in her living room, I closed my eyes tightly until strumming the last chord on a beat up arch top acoustic. I open them to see her smiling, bigger than I’d seen before in the ten days I’d called her my girlfriend.
“No one’s ever written a song for me before” she said. Then we made out for a while, no boob touching or anything, just French kissing and some zealous moaning on her part and mine. She kissed rather deeply for a thirteen-year-old girl, but it was super nice. Vicky had a wiry mass of long blond curly hair and sounded like a Polish Kermit the frog. Her features were, to be fair, kind of piggish with her turned up nose and round pink face, bristling with coarse bleached hairs. I could feel them swish against my comparatively smooth top lip. Kissing her was ecstasy. My meagre, if not mediocre skills as a songwriter had lit a fire under Vicky, one that burned hotly for at least another two weeks before life and circumstance pulled us in different directions. It may not have been love, but it was then I learned a valuable lesson. My guitar was magic. Under my nascent fingertips, women were easy prey. I was taking it with me to camp. It was also my understanding that they gave guitar lessons there.
I put on a fresh pout, and got out of the car. My mother looked like she was dying inside. Was it hard for her to say goodbye? Was she regretting casting me off? No. You would think, but no, not at all. The vicious cow was laughing her ass off on the inside. She was watching her shy, socially awkward son being shipped off for the first time in his life and on the brink of his first nervous breakdown. She could see my fear and pain and the fact that I was nearly going to cry, and it brought her some kind of joy. She attempted to mask her laughter, but it just pulled her face unnaturally tight around her lips. It kept giving way to a snicker, each time she had to talk.
“I know you feel like this now, but you’re going to have a great time! You’re going to love it! It’s a really nice place, Cary. And it’s international! You’ll meet kids from all over the world!” I was not moved, “ You’re only a two hours away and if you really don’t like it after two weeks, just tell us and you can come home” However, instinctively I knew this woman could not be trusted. I was going to have to endure a wretched summer of mosquito hell. I was as sulky as I could muster (for all the good it did) and made my way to the bus, barely looking back, and then only to make sure my pain was registering with her. With my back turned I could still hear her laughing. I negotiated the first steps up to the driver with my Ibanez in my hands. At least I wouldn’t have to bare her heartless laughter anymore. Goodbye Mother, won’t likely be hearing from me for a while.
I spun round on the top step to behold forty smiling faces staring at me. They were noisy and fun looking and shook the bus, climbing over each other, yelling loudly in what… Spanish? I went steady with a cute Mexican girl in the eighth grade, Erica. It sounded very much like Erica when she talked to her Mom. Another brown face but older, a man my stepfathers age but (presumably) Mexican, stands in the aisle with another clipboard. He smiles broadly and gestures and shouts what sounds like the Mexican version of “shush” which makes everyone shush themselves. All eyes are on me.
“Hello! What eez jour name?” Oh Christ, I think, don’t do this to me guy. I’m not ready for this kind of attention. I’m going to start sobbing.
“I’m Cary.” I muster.
The bus erupts into a cheer like my name was the punch line to a joke someone had started the moment before I arrived. Their excitement frightened the bejeezus out of me but made me smile reflexively. I scour the bus for an empty seat to sit down and end the interrogation, careful not to meet anyone’s eyes. Still I can hardly help but notice there are at least a dozen gorgeous young girls, and really, I thought… not a white face among them, how strange. Lakefield Camp International. That was the full name of the place. I guess a lot of people come there come from somewhere else. That’s cool, I think… for them. There aren’t many spots left on the bus and now I felt like the Ibanez was a pretty awkward carry-on, given the limited space on the bus.
“Hello Cary! Everybody say, ‘Hola to Cary!’” the man says. Everyone chants on command “HOLA CARY!” I’m still mortified, and now there’s a language barrier, this is really going to suck. I swing the case up onto the overhead rack and fuss to squeeze it in a spot that is slightly too small. The crowd hushes for a second time.
“Where are joo from?” He bellows through a warm accent like a Mexican mustache. Or maybe I was just thinking of that because of his thick black mustache. Where am I from? I’m from Toronto. Where else would I be from? His line of questioning wasn’t making much sense. Surely I wasn’t the only kid from around the block. I started to wonder if that was the only criteria my mother really considered in choosing my first camp. She wanted to know our proximity to the bus drop off station. Who knows where the hell I’m going now? I was going to Mexican camp apparently, in Northern Ontario. Just fucking joyful. Where am I from? Where am I from?!
“Ireland” I say.
The Mexican man looks confused. Everyone on the bus looks at him for a translation, or guidance. He gives me a penetrating look.
“From where?” he twists his neck to show me his big ears. Man they’re some big ears, I think.
“Ireland” I say it in an accent this time. It sounds fake, but to a busload of Mexicans, it’ll do. He pauses a moment and then beams.
“England?” he asks, for clarification. I consider this a mercy killing.
“Yeah” I say, “England”. I can do English about as well as I can do Irish, which is not terribly well.
“England!” He shouts in Spanish. Everyone cheers, there’s jubilation in the air! Everyone is thrilled that we get to spend the summer in Canada together. Not our boring old homes in Mexico or Brazil or the UK. I find a seat and start to develop my back-story. If I was going to be English (or Irish), I was going to have to know some pertinent details of my life in the auld country. The two-hour drive up north was spent thusly, quietly contemplating my alter ego.
When we finally arrived at Lakefield, it was a little like landing in the Small World attraction at Disney, or a Benneton’s add. Bustling activity, screaming, laughing, echoing foreign curses, a game of tag, a Spanish children’s song like mist wafting across the soccer pitch. There were school desks cluttered with forms and pitchers of fruit juice. Most unsettlingly, there was boating gear, enough for a small navy. Lakefield camp made a summer home in an elite private school that was empty from June till September. Its lakefront grounds weren’t exactly rustic. A winding road connected about seven large dormitories and a farmhouse. I was relieved there would be beds and at least semi private rooms. It was another myth I had about camp, being a greenhorn. There were also several larger buildings that held classrooms, a chapel and even a theater. Lakefield was a little town of its own, but to me it was still Hotel California, a prison in paradise.
There were, I could see, some other white boys skulking around, but when they spoke to each other as I passed it was in German. They said something German to me but I pretended not to hear them and kept walking. I always found my own mother’s hint of xenophobia amusing but entirely antiquated. In my case, I would say it was shyness that made the boys seem terrible to me. Still, I walked on trying to look like I was listening to the Walkman I wasn’t wearing, and that I was perhaps suffering a loss of peripheral vision due to a head injury or say, cataracts. I had been instructed by the bus captain to go to the orientation queue so I made a B line. I would be processed and assigned a room. I would likely have to explain that I was on strict orders to stay out of the water for a medical condition. It would be a pain, especially in my accent. On the bus I considered dropping it entirely, but now that I was here, the accent had taken control of me. I had a character now. I was Paddy Shields, a name borrowed from my great uncle. When I got to the front of the line, a man with a big blond curly mop of a head introduced his self. He looked like a young Roger Daltry, as it happened, one of my heros.
“I’m Steve, but everyone here calls me Coco” His eyes, slightly wild.
“Why?” I asked curiously.
“Oh I don’t know, because I’m crazy I guess. The kids here call me that. It sounds like loco, which means crazy in Spanish.” Camp’s been going on for about twenty minutes and this guy’s got a nickname. Whatever with these people.
“Oh.” I figure the craziest thing about Coco is his hair style.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Cary” It’s my first try talking with the accent to another Canadian and it sounds like I should have maybe picked one first.
“Where you from?” His keen ear has picked up that I’m foreign.
“Ireland” says I, “Dublin” says I. He looks at a paper in front of him. Trying to find my name and whatever other info he may have on me. “I live here now though… in Toronto” I feel ridiculous. “Most people call me Patrick.” It starts to sound like something. Maybe Irish. Certain words anyway.
“Hey great, Cary!” Coco seems ecstatic, too happy to notice “You’re in my house! I’m your counsellor! Alright buddy!” He seems cool enough, still not sure just how crazy he is, but likeable. “I see you got a guitar too! I’m the guitar teacher!” I feel excited about that. Things really are brightening up. “So” he says, momentarily serious, “Why are you here exactly?” I’m not sure what to say to that. I don’t know. I mean… my parents sent me. Wasn’t that enough?
“My Parents sent me.” His smile began to fade, “It’s my first time going to camp. I don’t know why I’m here. Honestly, I’d rather be back at home… in Dublin… watching the Tellie” I thought saying “tellie” was a nice touch, authentic.
“Oh, but I mean… you speak English.”
“Oh. Well, yes.”
“This camp is for ESL” he seemed embarrassed for me. I tried hard to think of what ESL might stand for, that it was upsetting him so.
“What’s ESL?” My accent might have slipped a little at this point.
“It’s ‘English second language’. It’s… you know, for kids to learn English.” I considered this for moment,
“I speak English.” Coco was till managing to smile, but it was starting to look like sympathy.
“I know.”
We stared at each other for a proper beat, trying to apprehend the situation. My mother had sent me to a camp for two months, to learn English I guess. Where did we go from here? I couldn’t very well pretend I was Mexican... Or could I? I could do one accent as well as the other. Of course it might be odd that I didn’t actually speak Spanish. No, it was a ridiculous idea and not worth entertaining.
“Hey, you should pretend you’re Mexican!” said Coco. Brilliant.
“How am I gonna pull that off?” now that I had a co conspirator I let the accent go for the time being. There were logistics to consider and time was short. Coco leaned in and laid out his idea.
“In a few minutes, you’re going to go find out what level English you speak. You’re going to meet that girl there, Sandra, and she’s going to interview you.” He had a mad smile on his face, the madness of Coco I guess. He pointed about twenty feet away. He seemed an enjoyable guy; I admit I liked him despite his lame nickname. “Everything she says to you, just say, no comprendo.”
“That’s it. That’s your plan?” It lacked the finesse of my accent, in my opinion.
“Yes” huh. I look at Sandra and then back at Coco.
“No comprendo?”
“No comprendo” Then, off my look he says, “She doesn’t speak any Spanish either.”
Sandra sat at another desk, in the cafeteria building directly behind Coco. She, like seemingly everyone in this story had a mass of curly blond hair. She was between eighteen and thirty years old, by my best judgment at the time. She was very pretty in what I would call a generic way; blue saucer eyes, juicy lips that smelled overwhelmingly like cherry lip balm. She had an inviting smile though, and moments later she beckoned me to come over to the school desk she sat at. Coco walked me over himself and made the introduction. He introduced me as Carlos and left us alone then sat at a desk behind her, watching. I sat down opposite Sandra, unsurely, hesitant, but this was just part of my character.
“Hello Carlos” Her voice was soothing, but I was focused on the task of deceiving her.
“Hola”
“Where are you from?” I screwed up my face in consternation.
“Como?” Carlos fit like a glove. I had colours, levels and depth.
“Where are you from?”
“No comprendo” I made a sad confused face. I thought it might be too much but Coco loved it.
“Where are you from? What city?” She spoke carefully and softly, always smiling her cherry smile.
“City?” I repeated. I wanted to give her a little hope.
“Yes, city!” Sandra figured we were getting somewhere. In a moment we will have communicated an idea to one another in English. This was a start. I showed her a flash of recognition.
“Acapulco” I didn’t know many cities in Mexico. I think my Mom went there on vacation at some point. I remember a Tshirt she had that said it on the front.
“Acapulco! Wow! Is it sunny there? Sunny?”
“Mmmmmmm, no comprendo” we both got a little sullen for a moment.
“Sunny?” She gestured with her hands to make a mini jumping jack, or demonstrate a rainbow, or perhaps do some sort of dance. I wasn’t sure so I copied her movement and said as best I could the word I think she just said.
“Su…sunny?”
“Yes!” Thrilled with our progress, Sandra looked like we were about to really get moving in our chat.
“No comprendo” Her expression shifted to one of slight disappointment. I was going to be a tough case, she thought.
“Do you have any brothers? Or sisters?” This time I just gave her a blank look. It was more effective than anything so far. “Ok. Great! So Carlos, we’re going to start you at level one.” And interview over.
“Okay, super” I said.
“Steve, can you take Carlos through orientation?” I’d nearly forgotten Coco was also called Steve. The whole thing was turning into a mess of double and triple identities. He erupts and tells her all about our ruse. I think it’s a bit premature cause I’m just starting to enjoy myself. But he’s laughing loudly and I feel superb, so I just enjoy the moment.
“Oh, so you do speak English!”
“Of course.”
“Awww, you guys are too funny… So where are you from, Carlos?”
“Dublin” I said in a thick indeterminable accent.
I kept it up for the rest of the summer. Coco had to know I was bullshitting but never said anything about it. He became an indispensable ally and a valuable teacher, showing me how to play the solo from Hotel California and perhaps more importantly how to maximize its effect on the little foreign honeys populating Lakefield. The accent became so natural that I would forget I was using it even when I talked to my mother on the phone.
“You sound a bit English” she said, mocking the idiosyncratic cadence that I invented, informed mostly from watching Quadrophenia.
“It’s Irish” I corrected her. “Speaking of,” I was as wry and posh as could be, “my English is improving dramatically, thanks to daily lessons.” I also reported that things at Lakefield had shaped up quite a bit. I had stayed entirely dry for the duration, which actually raised more eyebrows than the accent, or the fact that I spoke English at an ESL camp. I had also met a girl, my first love and she made the summer, not just bearable but one of the best in my memory. A French Canadian girl named Veronique. She was perfect in every way except that she had coarse black hair on the back of her thighs. And she was a bit thick, but I had no idea until years later, looking back in photos. I discovered into our relationship that she had braces on the inside of her bottom teeth left over, she had said, from her previous dental work. I found it incredibly sexy that I knew such an intimate detail about the inside of her mouth. She loved my accent, so I kept it up for our entire relationship, which lasted well beyond the summer. I adored her and wrote her a song about one year into our romance. I called it Veronique and recorded it on a four track in my garage, playing all the instruments myself, like Paul McCartney did on Maybe I’m Amazed. I played it for her over the phone placing the mouthpiece close to the stereo speaker while it played for three minutes. When the tape stopped I put the receiver to my ear, for her response.
“No one’s ever written me a song before. Wow!” I smiled because it reminded me of Vicky Kutzmenda, her sloppy kisses and just how powerful a good song is with girls. Vero said it way cuter, with a little accent that sounds like a French duck speaking English. It wasn’t until four years later that Veronique and I actually had sex, costing us both our virtue and the price of a hotel in Niagara Falls. It was a long time in the making and was definitely worth the wait. What really struck me was that they responded exactly the same way to the song. No critique of the actual work, which I knew was kinda crap anyway, but still, exactly the same phrase? And why wasn’t anyone else writing songs for these girls? Had I discovered something? Something only Paul McCartney and myself had tapped into?
The answer, I believe, is yes. Years of subsequent field research has proved time and time again that women will invariably respond that no one has ever written a song for them before. This is even the case when it’s not actually true, which is interesting! It’s like a compulsion, something that bubbles up like an emotional geyser. I think maybe the third time I had tried the song bit was with Julie in tenth grade. She wore red lipstick and panty hose that had a black line down the back, which I thought made her look like a whore in a movie about the thirties. She was a year older than me and far out of my league. She was also a relative stranger, someone I passed in the halls. I knew her little sister Renee, but Julie and I had never said anything to one another. I liked her, but there wasn’t a wealth of experience to draw on for a new song. So, I changed the name in my recording of Vicky’s song to Julie. In recording terms, it’s called a punch in.
I summoned the courage and talked her into a water fountain alcove once and played the new mix of Vicky’s song on my Walkman. It was our first conversation and I had every faith this was my best shot. She looked uncomfortable and under whelmed. She dealt with it well though, and dutifully reported, “No one’s ever written me a song before.”
“I know,” I said, “that’s what everyone says.” Then I walked to shop class, feeling like I got the better of her. It never developed beyond that point, though I did once make out with her sister. It was unrelated to the song.
Up until now, there has been no significant variation on the theme. In one way or another, everything I have written has been for some girl or other. I’m not that prolific, but there are still a number of remarkable women represented in the group. I once wrote a song for Petra, a bona fide supermodel, while we dated. I called it Petrafied, which I thought was clever. The song itself wasn’t half bad either, but elicited no different a response. “No one has ever…” she started to say, before I stopped listening. She went on to date James Blunt right after we split up. I don’t know why, but that really got under my skin. I found myself wondering if he would be as inspired, or at least as manipulative as I was. After all, he had written, “You’re Beautiful”, which had to get him laid for all of 2004 and most of 2005, for all it’s sappy pappy sentimentality. If this man was an adversary, he was worthy, if a bit of a wanker. I waited to hear his next album, looking for traces of our common love, a secret the three of us knew about Petra, wrapped in a coy lyric. That’s how I would do it.
I must have written twenty separate songs for Mayumi, most of which she’ll likely never hear. Of course, there’s not much point after the initial tune, the ecstatic joy of doing something unique and creative (however pat) diminishes greatly after one or two more attempts. After a while it’s just, ‘oh, another song for me, how nice’.
This weekend, when I met Celine, the Japanese/Brazilian girl from the beginning of my story, here in Venice, California, I felt the impetus to try it once more. I noticed her walk into my local bar immediately and was happy when I later discovered she was single. She wore a scarf and suit jacket and her cleavage sat recessed behind the curtain which served to make it that much more alluring and mysterious. It was Karaoke night, and she was tone deaf, but adorable. We agreed on a date the following day. When I did meet her she wore a green sundress that emphasized everything she concealed the night before. The first thing she said was that the tag was scratching her side, would I please cut it off? After a desperate search I found dull garden shears and hacked away at the delicate material of her dress an inch or less from her skin. Close enough to smell her. Then she tells me that she’s moving to Las Vegas that night. I think that kicked me into high gear. She could be the one. How can I let her go now? I was flooded by inspiration, soaking my pant legs, as a tide of ideas and songs ebbed and flowed leaving salt stains at the high water mark above my chest, up to about her neck.
“I’m going to write a song for you” And then I’m going to lick your nipple.
“Wow” she says, “No one is ever write me a song before.”
“Really?” I ask with tremendous surprise, “Well then you’re due I guess. I’m going to write you a song this week. And I’ll play it for you when I come visit you in Las Vegas.” I thought for a moment. “Can I come visit you in Las Vegas?”
“Of course!” she seemed happy about that too. Lovely girl. She had very cute feet and weird hands. She’s an unbelievable kisser… almost my favourite ever. We kissed, standing in the water in Venice Beach, and then continued to kiss for hours, waiting for the greyhound that would take her from me, presumably forever. I had a hope, a hope that this girl might return, for her song at least, and another unforgettable kiss. It has worked before.
When I got home, I picked up my guitar, strummed a few familiar chords, tossed around a few lyric ideas, and then packed it in and watched a movie on my laptop, the romance of the moment having faded considerably. When did this become such a rotten habit? When had the childlike innocence of the whole exercise turned into a hideous pickup line designed solely to expedite a boob grab, or was it ever anything but that? Was the breast a sufficient muse? It leads me to question if there has ever been another motivation for any of my actions. At this point, I’m thinking, no. The memory of Lakefield, and Coco, and Veronique are still strong, and the lessons in seduction I learned are still as valuable and applicable today. In every woman lives a teenage girl, longing to be wooed by a boy with a guitar slung on his back, no matter how gawky, pimply, or misogynistic, so long as it’s all for them. They want us to want to touch their boobs. They don’t want us to say it in the lyric, necessarily. Not much rhymes with boob anyway. Nothing good. I’ve tried.
Tube… Lube… Rube… Doob… Not much fodder for romance there.