727 / Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight) * THE RAMONES

Another classic Christmas song.

The first time I heard this was when my friend Chris Skelton made me a mixed tape that included The Cramps classic 'bikini girls with machine guns' and this really dirty sounding version of 'No Particular Place to Go'. I've still never found out who sang that version, but I liked how the agressive and frustrated sounding singer makes it pretty clear that the stuck seat belt is getting in the way of sexy times.

Update: I think it was The Meteors, but if you look on Youtube you can't find the version I heard which was live and incredibly raw.

I was a confused 21 year old. I was still a Christian, but horny, musically curious and longing for Chris Skelton to figure out he was actually in love with me. He wore a leather jacket, his dyed black hair sprayed into a fifties quiff, his love of Elvis equal only to his love of executing precise art. While he never fell in love with me, hanging out with him and his lapsed Catholic friends was a pretty good second. I was sort of like a sister. None of them wanted to fuck me, and most of them were deeply in love with drugs. The Chilli Peppers sang about Catholic school girls and how they ruled, and I felt Catholic boys might have merited a song of their own.

I made two friends on that Pre-Graphic Design TOPS course (these were courses for those languishing on the dole), one was Chris, and the other Jacinda Klouens. I was still brimful of preachin's n teachin's, but that wasn't going to stop me borrowing Jacinda's records and falling in love with The Pixies. Until that point my music tastes consisted mainly of Janis Joplin, T-Rex, Kate Bush and The Who. I used to feel like Marc Bolan was singing for me, and this was when many of my peers were listening to Duran Duran or Wham . I had joined the A-ha bandwagon when I was 14 though. I liked the key-board player. He didn't look as delicate as Morten Harkett, a man prettier than I could ever hope to be.

The TOPS course was pretty amazing, we got given decent materials and good tutors, and we had a really excellent group. There was Adam, a handsome boy, the one I should have had a crush on. He came to Auckland one weekend and stayed at my house once the course had finished, but I blew it by talking about Chris. I had this sort of delayed realisation that Adam was actually pretty hot, but he wouldn't communicate with me after that weekend. It was disappointing; by the time I realised I wanted to kiss him he wouldn't even reply to a letter. Ah life, it's a funny little thing!

There was also Pomare, a beautiful man who did drag shows. Jacinda and I went and saw him lip syncing to a Diana Ross song at Staircase (remember Staircase?) one night, he was truly gorgeous.

Jacinda herself was the very definition of edgy, I loved going to see her band "Fatal Jelly Space" perform. They even put out a record called "Death Fuck Pop".

Chris, Jacinda and I all got the opportunity to get free training in animation, but I was terrified, I wanted to be a 'real artist' and make people, you know, think. I was scared of drawing mickey mouses and plutos over and over again. Jacinda wasn't, and she ended up probably being the wisest of us three. Chris and I applied for Foundation Studies in Art and Design at A.U.T. I scraped in. I wasn't overly talented at art, but I wanted to be.

Music always brings up memories of people and places. That Foundation year was fantastic, this hot guy called Rhys introduced me to The Hard Ons (not his own sadly) and I continued to preach to anyone with the patience to bear it. The Hard Ons seem amazingly dated when you listen to them now. I bought shoes with steel caps in them so that when I went to gigs I could mosh and not get crushed feet. I learned how to jump high enough with my elbows turned out. Weren't many girls moshing, usually much taller boys. I can't even remember what I went to see. Who was I moshing to? I know it was sometimes with Chris, and other times Jacinda, and then when I had that lovely boyfriend Charlie Loughman we went and saw the 3D's. He was gorgeous, that Charlie Loughman. I totally sabotaged that relationship with my Christian anxiety. I asked him to come to Church with me (just to see!) and he wouldn't. He didn't realise I was asking him because I wanted to leave, and I had hoped that in seeing what I was trying to leave he'd help me to do it. I felt like I couldn't say it though. I felt like to admit this outright was a betryal of everything I swore I believed. How could I explain that I was actually feeling trapped in a manipulative cult and that I feared for my mental health? Instead we cried in each other's arms and within weeks he had a new girlfriend who'd been molested as a child.

I should have lost my virginity to him really, he was so incredibly nice and had impeccable taste in music. Also, he was from Christchurch, and as we all know, people from the South Island ooze loveliness in the same way that many Aucklanders ooze cynicism.

This is the kind of thing I think when I listen to a song. It's entwined with all these people and memories. I'm feeling happy and nostalgic. I've always had amazing friends and some of them are no longer in my life, but they are still in me.
What happened to Bruce Ferguson? He was such a good friend, but I think he went and got too cool (and too drugged?) and bumping into him in the street years later, it was as if our weird adventures together had never happened. He seemed embarrassed to look me in the eye, yet when I looked at him I could still see the funny, loping and lanquid 22 year old. Where had he gone? Why was he pretending to be so aloof? Odd.

So many friendships, so many adventures. I have loved well, and been loved so well in my life, and I'm not even half way done living.

Merry Christmas.