Nine years ago, I lived and worked in a tiny Northern California town called Chico. Eleven hours driving time from Los Angeles and two and a half hours north of San Francisco, this charming little province was populated mostly by students of the University, hippie doctors and lawyers, artists and the elderly. Work was scarce, but I managed to land a job with a giant healthcare corporation out in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Surrounded by rice fields and almond orchards, one felt a real sense of isolation--(and relief, having defected from Los Angeles and all of it's hustle and bustle.) I worked first as a receptionist and then was promoted to the claims department as a customer service specialist. Everyone on the team was as clueless about their job descriptions as I, and we spent most of the day sorting paperwork into random piles, answering calls from angry retirees who had been overcharged for doctor's visits and then transferring said retirees to another department, whose function was never fully explained.
There was a lot of downtime, so our team would spend the idle hours by sticking notes on one another's backs ("I love mullets!) or pouring salt into each other's coffee. In this department, I sat behind a young man who was tall and lean with high cheekbones, large, dark eyes and a broody demeanor. Of course I fell madly in love with him when he started making tapes for me and drawing me pictures. Homeboy had talent. The sketches he made for me were usually caricatures of our lame management team whose sole purpose seemed to be sleeping with attractive, young employees.
Unfortunately, this young man also happened to be Christian. No, I'm not talking Catholic or Unitarian, but the Pentecostal type that speaks in tongues, prays with their hands in the air and "rocks out" to modern Christian music. Hymns and masses in Latin, I can handle. Baptist choirs? I'm all over it. Witnessing to non-believers and totally eschewing science and evolution? Uh, no thanks.
Soon, we began debating the Bible and organized religion. All of my attempts to lure him over to the dark and Agnostic place proved impossible, so I did what I thought I had to do to win him over and played the spiritually thirsty student, who was oh-so curious as to the ways of his church.
That's the crazy thing about love-- one minute you're sticking to your core beliefs and the next you end up singing religious Christmas songs with an overzealous church group to Alzheimer's patients. It didn't help matters much that before I met up with my fellow carolers, I had taken several bong hits while lying on the back seat of my car. This undoubtedly caused me to forget the words to "Silent Night, " giggle throughout "The Little Drummer Boy," and repeatedly demand to sing "fun songs" like Rudolph or Frosty.
Of course, nothing ever came of my love for this young man. He was firm and confident in his beliefs and I quickly burned out on the prayer meetings where strangers would place their hands on me and scream out to God to save my soul. Alas, he found himself a young, blond, virginal, Christian gal and the last I heard, they were engaged. Looking back, I wondered why on earth I had such an attraction to this man. Surely, I enjoyed his wit, talent and intelligence, but there was an odd familiarity to his looks that I just could not place.
Finally, I figured it out... He resembled, to a "T", Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys. Adam was always my favorite- the tall, serious, hot guy with the deepest voice out of the trio. Adam Yauch has been fueling my fantasies since I discovered the Beastie Boys' "Check Your Head" when I was 21 years old. I listened to that CD obsessively, along with their previous record "Paul's Boutique." I waited outside of Tower Records, in the fucking rain, for the Beastie Boys next CD, ""Ill Communication." It was not nearly as good as "Check Your Head," but it did continue to offer some fabulous instrumental numbers that showcased the B-Boys' growing talent as musicians.
Adam Yauch was raised Jewish, but is now a practicing Buddhist who raises both cash and consciousness for Tibetan causes. I find this infinitely more attractive than Born Again Christianity, and I soon realized that the young man whom I adored was no more than a poor man's B-Boy fantasy and not a good match for me. It was a sad moment of realization, much like watching Star Wars years later and discovering that the special effects were at best, cheesy. The mirage ended, but it's still nice to know that Mr. Yauch is out there, doing his thang and aging quite handsomely.
Pass the mic and check out the pics of handsome MCA.
I love the story about caroling while high. I too tried to date overly Christian boys when I was younger, and all you can do is feign interest in listening to them talk about religion just so they're talking to you. Funny how you can fall for someone because they remind you of someone else. Anyway, I see this blog is inactive (I found it while looking for pics of a young Christopher Walken), hope there is another place you are writing somewhere.
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