semantikon feature literature
Nov. 2003
Patrick Sebastian
works
biography

Patrick Sebastian has been writing and performing for some 12 years. Works from his chap book Growing Up Jimmy, featured here, have been serialized in City Paper.

Patrick's column Dorothy and the Snake Handlers is available exclusively
from semantikon.com

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patric sebastian, dayton ohio, sante fe, new mexico, essayist, humor, poetry, performance artist, growing up jimmy, dorothy and the snake handlers

True Confessions of a Music Nerd

In the beginning, there was gospel music. Country gospel music. Only Country gospel music. I mean gimme that ol’ time religion, guitar and banjo type stuff here. I’m not kidding around. By the time I had turned eleven or twelve, the family had progressed to the more modern sounds of Jimmy Swaggart (yes, him), The Cathedrals, and The Rambos. There remained though, only Gospel music allowed in the house. Whether it was radio, or, eventually, the television, it had to be gospel music, quickly be changed, or be hit. At first, with such a wide array of other possibilities for getting hit, I conformed. I may have learned to swallow my complaints every time I had to turn down the television volume on one of those “worldly music” K-tel commercials, but I could not hide my keen interest and mounting curiosity. I mean what kind of evil did Barry Manilow and The Captain and Tenille possess that just hearing them could…could what? I wasn’t sure. Dilute your mind? Damn your soul? Or send you into a tailspin of temptation that would drill you right to China? I didn’t know, but it sure seemed to scare the bejeezus out of Mom and Dad. This fact alone meant it couldn’t be all bad and was definitely worthy of further investigation.

To this day, I’m unsure if dancing really does lead to sex, or if it’s actually sex that leads to dancing. It would explain the lack of rhythm in our church. It remains a fact, however, that once I heard The Sylvers’ “Boogie Fever” on the next-door neighbor’s radio – I was infected. Yes. I caught “Boogie Fever”; and, according to the church, S.T.D.’s were sure to follow. As it turned out, S.T.D.’s and anything remotely possible of transmitting one remained at bay for nearly a decade. In the meantime, something far more sinister became a regular part of my life. Every Sunday. Each and every Sunday at twelve noon, Satan himself, in the form of Casey Kasem and American Top 40 held me captive. I hadn’t the power, not the will to resist. I quickly found myself completely devoted, a slave to the rhythm, despite my rock of ages upbringing. If I was disciplined in nothing else, I was religious about this weekly ritual.

I would sweat bullets to get home from church so I could secretly and under risk of switch-welted legs catch the entire Top 40 show. When it became apparent that I could regularly lose as many as eight or ten song rankings due to a long-winded evangelist, something had to be done. I began to secretly tape record the show until I could get home from church at whatever hour and jettison to my room to ensure all had gone well. Every Sunday I played “American Top 40: Mission Impossible.” Even in my initiation to American Top 40, the amount of vital information to remember was overwhelming. Memorizing the books of the Bible proved small potatoes compared to the ever changing charts. I mean, how many weeks had the song been on the charts? How many spots had the song ascended or fallen since last week? Where was the artist from? What was their story? Was there a story behind the song? How many copies had it sold to date? Was the song’s ranking about to tie or top a long standing Top 40 record? This information had to be cataloged. And that’s exactly what I began to do.

Every Sunday, with the commitment of an aesthetic, I would studiously record all the chart details on notebook paper. Under the heading of “American Top 40” and that particular Sunday’s date I neatly wrote out each ranking song and artist, number of weeks on the chart, and chart movement (up 3 or down 8) since last week, as well as any pertinent artist facts for each song #40 down to #1. I devoured all of it: The Commodores, “Car Wash,” The Little River Band, Loverboy, K.C. and the Sunshine Band, or The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. It didn’t matter, I devoured it all. Here was a whole world of sounds and beats outside of Country gospel music I couldn’t have ever even imagined. And, through the music, also, a whole world of emotion outside of exclusively rage, fear, and praising God. In the sincere, warm tones of Casey’s voice and, more importantly, the music itself, I found connection and drew conclusions.

While the tenets of the “church in the dale” may have maintained that sultry “Muskrat Love” could lead to beaver, I failed to be convinced of eminent damnation. I mean how evil could Casey be? He routinely sent out long distance dedications to dying children or spouses separated by misunderstanding or military tenure. If this was an introduction to hell, it was certainly kinder and gentler than the introduction to heaven I'd been given thus far.

It turns out that Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 was a gateway drug, much like marijuana would be later. It wasn’t long before I was old enough to be left home alone during my folks’ trips to the grocery. During these brief moments of unbridled freedom, years of the reign being held too tight and feeling the stinging last of the switch too often came to a rolling boil. In these raucous moments, Casey’s dulcet tones were a distant Sunday memory as I heeded the imperative of the local FM Rock station DJ in that Monster Rig/Tractor Pull-commercial-voice to “Tune it in and rip off the knob!” His tone suggested, “Or else!” But I didn’t need further encouragement. I tuned, I ripped, I seethed with rock rebellion; all the while nervously peering from behind the drawn draped and instantly switching to inspirational programming if I thought I heard the grinding of the driveway gravel, my heart still pounding from bringing to frightening full life all the passion of Billy Squire’s “The Stroke” or AC/DC’s “TNT Dynamite.” I strutted and pranced, pumped my fist and popped my eyes in what I imagined to be true rock star style. Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” was the perfect antithesis to every overwrought, sweaty, old spice stinking evangelist that ever “laid hands” on me. Loverboy’s “Turn me loose” became my secret anthem and ammunition. Left home alone, radio blaring, I shouted into my mother’s hairbrush, spittle flying and veins pulsing: “I’ve had all I can take! I can’t take it no more! I’m gonna pack my bags and fly!!” I hurled each lyric as an assault and declaration as if my father were tied and gagged in the kitchen chair positioned in front of me. It would require some counseling and my eventual terrified call to the police, but I did “pack my bags and fly!!” I would find out much later that I was born with an inextinguishable fire within me. Loverboy provided some kindling when the embers burned low.