I’m not usually one for starting lighthearted memes, but here goes:
1. What’s the one book you are most embarrassed to admit you’ve read and enjoyed (as an adult)? No question: Bridges of Madison County. I picked it up in the spring of 1993 (when everyone was reading it). I read it in the North Campus student center at UCLA, while I was supposed to be finishing my prep for my qualifying exams. I read it in one sitting, and burst into tears halfway through. One of my students (I was a TA) came over to ask if I was all right; I nodded and pointed wordlessly to the book. I re-read it a few years later, expecting to laugh at myself, and found myself in tears all over again. There’s a point at which sentimentality trumps good taste, and my affection for this book is surely proof I’ve crossed that line.
2. What album are you most embarrassed to admit you bought as a teenager? Well, I’ve never admitted this on the blog, but I spent most of the 1980s as a devoted fan of the Scorpions. That’s embarrassing enough, but rock bottom was hit in the early to mid-1980s when I developed a real devotion to Dokken (often credited with starting the ’80s glam-metal revival that culminated years later with the likes of Poison.) My high school girlfriend was in love with Don Dokken, and, I believe, tried to be one of his groupies. The Dokken debut album, Breaking the Chains is still, I must confess, one of my favorite albums of the era. You can listen to samples on the Amazon site, and shake your head ruefully.
3. Celebrity you’re most embarrassed to admit you had a crush on in your youth: As a kid, I was a devoted fan of Little House on the Prairie. Did I get a crush on Melissa Gilbert or Melissa Sue Anderson? Oh no. At age ten, I had a thing for Mrs. Ingalls, Karen Grassle. “More coffee, Charles?” was about all she ever got to say, but cripes, she said it well — and I loved that hair.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
This made me laugh. I was a metal fan in the 80s, too, and am pretty appalled by those old tapes and CDs now…
You might enjoy Chuck Klosterman’s memoir about his heavy metal years, Fargo Rock City. He may be the only unrepentant metal fan I know of. :-)
Hahaha! I must say, that is pretty funny. So, I know I’m only 19, but I grew up amongst many head-bangers, so I laughed out loud when you brought this up in class the other day. The ironic thing is just how sexist alot of those bands were. Ugh, and the videos! They were pretty bad. No offense. Hehe. Oh man, Scorpions. Hey, did you like Queensryche? I saw them live when I was ten. Ah, memories.
They were very sexist, Natali; I did like Queensryche. Now I have “Jet City Woman” in my head…
My 15yo daughter likes Bon Jovi. I’m praying that she doesn’t encounter Ratt, or any of their videos. OI!
“More coffee, Charles?” was about all she ever got to say
She said a WHOLE lot more than that. Maybe you need to re-watch the series. We’ve contemplated watching this, along with other series, in a “Study of Acting” course. One of the fun things about home education is that you can study all sorts of fun things in the midst of all the core academics.
I shouldn’t have been so facetious about Mrs. Ingalls, Cait. I know the series very, very well. She actually had some great episodes, and I need to be fairer. She just had such a great face…
Ratt was cool, but I always felt like they were deliberately channeling Aerosmith, and failing.
I always felt Ratt was *extremely* sexist, to put it mildly. Some of those videos were …
And I’ll confess to having a huge crush on Michael Landon, beginning before his Little House days. There was just something about Little Joe. ;-)
My best friend and I had bad crushes on Michael Landon when we were kids. We never missed Little House We also had crushes on Engelbert Humperdinck. Gad, we were nerds! LOL
I forgot my obsession with Tatum O’Neal after “Bad News Bears”, which was the first PG rated film I was allowed to see.
Oh, man, I loved Toto. Must’ve listed to the “Rains in Africa” a thousand times. I told my kids that the other day and they still tease me about it.
Stephen
My kids are starting to come around to the fact that they like the same music to which I grew up listening. Now they’re wondering why their friends just assume that music I like is so different than the “kids music.” Go figure.
Just so long as I’m not on my way to a migraine, that is. Then there’s a “no headache music” rule.
Please come join the message board for Karen. at the above link.