duran duran – Bifocals and Barbells

They say the post achievement depression for Neil Armstrong after his moon walk was nearly unbearable. I’m hopeful that’s not how I’ll feel next Saturday. Though my highest of highs won’t be space travel. It’ll be far more astronomical. Or at least as astronomical as things can possibly get at a casino events center in Lincoln.

As a child, I was obsessed with a little musical group called Duran Duran. This was in the 80’s when a guy really had to work at being obsessed with something. Instead of internet searches and tik toks, middle school me had to beg friends to record MTV and shark around Front Street Cottonwood counting down until the latest issue of Bop was placed on the shelves of Holiday Market. Thanks Bruce!

The magazine had tear out posters that lined the walls of my room all the way up to the glitter infused popcorn ceiling. Not everyone made the wall though. There was a very strong middle school celebrity crush set of rules. Shondell liked Duran’s John Taylor. He was only to adorn my wall in group photos. My crush was Simon LeBon, the front man who crooned his way into establishing my lasting fixation on good chins. Some others got to be on the wall, the classic Rob Lowe in the ribbed white tank and the black and white Soloflex man also in a ribbed white tank. Sort of. Both are worth a google. They were both only supporting characters in the DD shrine.

If there was something Duran Duran to be had, I had it. T-shirt? Yep. Scarf printed with the band’s picture? Also yes. Facsimile to the best I could pre-amazon of Simon’s hat from the Hungry Like the Wolf video? Absolutely. Shondell and I would also scour the button collections at Mt. Shasta Mall making sure we had as many as we could in our respective stocks.

I dreamed of being able to see them live, but it was a different time. Concert tickets were not to be had by everyone. At the time, getting them meant hundreds of thousands of people waiting in lines for the bell to ring at the local ticket master vendor and hope that the odds were in their favor. It was too elusive to even try.

But that did not stop my fan loyalty. I waited eagerly for the new album, and am still so thankful my poor father who had to take me to Sierra Sound in all my Duran regalia to procure a copy of VINYL Seven and the Ragged Tiger as soon as it released. If there was to be any coverage of Duran Duran discussed by John Tesh and Mary Hart on Entertainment tonight, I was transfixed, making VHS recordings of the “news.” I remember feeling an unworthy amount of pride when the news was about my band making the theme song to a Bond movie. I concentrated harder on that coverage than I currently do on presidential elections.

Shondell and I had gone in halves on purchasing “Duran Duran-A collection of Duran Duran’s first 11 music videos” in stereo and unrated. We’d ordered the video from Bowman Video and counted the days until it was in. Our funding was largely sandwich bags of coins gathered in part from bottle recycle fees. Division of property resulted in her keeping custody of the actual tape after making me a copy and me keeping the official box. Some of the 11 videos were played more than others. Planet Earth was a little too much eyeliner for me. The Chauffer and Girls on Film really had no business being in our possession so they were played less (also worth a google). Save a Prayer moved whatever soul my 12 year old self thought it had. I wanted to move to Sri Lanka and London.

As is still who I am, I was all in on Duran Duran. Full send, or no send.

It’s more than a little cringy to look back on, though I didn’t know it at the time. Back then I was just a fan who would likely someday meet them and be asked to join the band on tour and whatnot.

Not terribly long ago though, I was given a glimpse into how I came across outside my head. I was talking to someone who I had gone to elementary school with at little old Evergreen. I’m pretty sure we were together there for years. Granted, I’m a look a bit different than I did at 13, but still…she simply could not place me no matter what context clues I threw down. Then, a dawning of knowledge slowly and fully spread across her face. “Duran Duran?” Yup. That was me. Not Crystal Palmer. Duran freaking Duran.

In the 1985 Evergreen annal, The Mirage, there is a picture of me in my DD vestments. The aesthetic is rounded out with my mullet perm and ear cuff. “Play it again, Duran” is the quote. The quote that as the editor gave me the opportunity to say “I’ll allow it.” Power like that shouldn’t go unchecked, but here we are.

Somewhere between 13 and now I grew up somewhat but that doesn’t take away the nostalgia from a far simpler time.

It’s been a minute since the biggest concern on my agenda was making sure that Shondell and I didn’t get the same buttons. But time changes also brought algorithms, the Bop magazine for the modern era. And the algorithms know that behind aged gym go-er is kid who loved D2.

There was nary a hesitative second between my phone showing me there was a concert coming and my debit card smoking with use. It’s not going to be 1984 for the performers or the fans. It’s not going to be the site of the Arena Live album; Oakland Colosseum. But Sally and I will see the band in all their glory. And even though I wish the show was earlier in the day because we all old, I can not wait! I’ll hold off on forwarding my mail to London, but if you don’t see me at work you’ll know why.

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I got a new phone yesterday. It has a new (to me) feature where I can make myself a talking shark. It’s cool, but it’s also embarrassing how I instantly turned 12 years old upon playing with it. And maybe that’s why I started to think about Margaret Thatcher and Duran Duran.

I was a lucky middle-schooler. I was spoiled and allowed to be whatever weird version of myself the changing moods of maturation could throw my way. Margaret Thatcher was my go-to example of gal empowerment.

She was the first female prime minister of the UK. That was about all I knew of her. That and she had some cool one liners that came about back in the day before you could steal one-liners off ye olde internet. “Standing in the middle of the road is dangerous, you get knocked down by traffic from both sides.” Not sure my interpretation of the quote was accurate, but middle school me thought it to mean the importance of taking a side. Something akin to “right, wrong, or indifferent; just do something.” This shit be still pure gold.

But how did a C’wd kid in the 80’s get to be Thatcher fan? Duran Duran. Obviously.

To say I was obsessed with that band would be an understatement. My walls were plastered with their posters; the fancy ones that came from wherever posters were sold, and ones that were out of magazines that I would beg to have purchased for me from the old Holiday Market in Cottonwood; Tiger Beat, and maybe something called Bop.

I HAD to have them. Not only did they have posters, sometimes they had song lyrics. This was critical because, again pre-internet. If you wanted to know every word to Hungry Like the Wolf, you had to seek it out. The magazines also had ads for exclusive European LP records. I was never fancy enough to procure one, but they were a big enough deal that I remember the kids who did. I had every button that the mall sold of the band. They made a scarf, I owned it. Lead singer wore a fedora in a video; I bought a fedora. Etc.

I’m not sure what the term for a group of middle school girls is, a giggle instead of a gaggle maybe; but I was in one. There were terms negotiated for which girl could like which Duran Duran guy. It was serious business; who knows the hurt Shondell would’ve felt if I’d have put up a poster of John Taylor instead of my appointed Simon Le Bon? Shondell and I were in this together, I couldn’t do that to her. I just couldn’t.

I mean without her, neither of us would have the crown jewel of our collection; the VHS tape of their music videos. Independently, we couldn’t afford it. So we pooled our money and rode our bikes down to Bowman Video. This was both a) when Bowman Video existed and b) when it was actually still on Bowman Road. Pat the owner had to flatten wrinkled ones and count our coins to make sure she had what she needed before she committed to work that was ordering a VHS in day. Shondell and I held discussion about how to share the resource; she got the original tape, I got the box. Her dad “knew a guy” who was able to connect 2 VCRs so that a bootleg copy could be made for me.

I’m sure everybody knows all things Duran, but just in case you don’t; they’re from England. So there it is. Because I was pretty sure I’d be living in England as an adult, I followed UK politics more than a Tehama County kid ever needed to and accidentally found myself a powerful dame to admire. England never got me as a resident. But; maybe, just maybe, there’s some good that comes from poor music choices after all.

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