Everything Is Wrong with Me (16 page)

A year after I graduated from college, I was living in New York City working as a paralegal at a large corporate law firm. Over happy-hour drinks, I told the Uncle Petey Pepper Story to some friends and coworkers. They turned out to be much more ambitious than I was, and we were shortly planning our own Pepper Party. The concept was simple: the fifteen dollars it costs to get into our little shindig would cover the cost of booze and the prize money. Just because you came to the party, you did not have to eat the pepper—that was optional. We would have a sign-up sheet, and unlike Petey’s contest, there would be no time markers for cash awards. We thought this would get too complicated so instead we decided that all contestants would eat the peppers at the same time. The last one standing who didn’t drink or eat anything would get the cash. The rest of the party would cry tears of laughter as contestants fell into paroxysms of pain. A good time would be had by all.

We were able to get the Scotch bonnets from a Jamaican grocery store in Queens, grabbing a few dozen of the little bastards. I had not seen the peppers since that summer at Petey’s house, and when I looked at them in their little plastic bags, I got chills. Or rather, I should say, sweats. After the incident, I looked at the Scotch bonnets in the same way that I imagine a shark attack victim thinks of sharks, postattack—with an unnerving sense of terror but also a profound sense of respect. I daresay that there was also a sense of kinship, as if I could approach the bonnets and say offhandedly, “So, how about these poor bastards? They have no idea what they’re getting into, the stupid sons of bitches!” And the peppers and I would laugh, laugh, and laugh, and maybe go grab a drink and catch a game.

In addition to the peppers, we also made sure to get lots of booze, some liquid courage to help any takers on the action. We didn’t know how many people would be willing to eat the peppers, and so we also got lots of white bread, milk, and ice cream. This way we could ensure successful triage if needed, coaxing those who weren’t 100 percent sure into taking the chance. Every contestant had heard the story, but none had previously eaten the pepper. This didn’t stop the contestants from displaying various level of arrogance running the gamut from “I’m pretty sure I can do this” to “You might have to give me two.” But as you might guess, they weren’t feeling so full of themselves once they popped the bonnet. One thing that was different this time around was the availability and consumption of booze, an unfortunate upshot (no pun intended) of which was that people were throwing up everywhere (though we had large trash cans set up for such purposes). It went from funny to really funny to nasty to oh-man-that’s-terrible very, very quickly.

And there was another difference this time around. Someone ate the pepper without a problem. A guy named Calvin, who said his parents raised him on a steady diet of spicy foods, ate the pepper and stood calmly as the people around him descended into hysterical madness. While water and milk were spilling everywhere, people were vomiting into the trash cans, and slices of white bread were flying through the air, Calvin chewed his pepper, swallowed it, and sat back and waited to be named the winner. He was cold as
ice,
and we could only assume that he spent a portion of his childhood living on a pepper farm and/or the sun.

So the moral of the story is that yes, it can be done. But at the same time, please
do not try this at home
. I don’t want to be held responsible for anyone getting seriously hurt because they tried to eat a hot pepper, and if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure, you may actually die if you attempt to do this.
*
Not because I have a conscience or anything, but because I already have enough legal problems on my hands. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Chapter Eight

Intermezzo: The Top Six Most Influential Songs of My Adolescence

“Crazy for You” Madonna

If you were to stop a person on the street and ask him or her what lovemaking sounds like, he or she might moan, shout, purr, or, in the case of my ex-girlfriend, make absolutely no sound except for saying, “Seriously, you’re not done yet?” after about forty seconds. If I were one of the people you stopped and you asked me what lovemaking sounds like, I’d take off my iPod, put it on your ears, then play this song. Then you and I would make love. Not right there on the street, but in my car, which is parked right around the corner. It’s not far, I swear.

If I’m not mistaken, I believe I was reprising John Travolta’s Danny Zuko in this photo.

I did not know what the word
sensual
meant when I first heard this song as a seven-year-old, but last year when I finally did learn what it meant, I immediately thought of “Crazy for You.” While Madonna has been known as the embodiment of sexuality throughout her career, in this song she expresses a more delicate and vulnerable side of herself and her music. This is what makes this song unique and all the more appealing. While “Like a Virgin” is a thinly veiled satire that overflows with sexuality, “Crazy for You” oozes with genuine naïveté. At first, the protagonist appears to be cool and confident in a sexual setting (the dance floor), but soon she reveals her anxiousness and unfamiliarity with her simple, poignant lyrics (“I never wanted anyone like this…”, “Trying hard to control my heart…”, “It’s so brand-new…”, etc.).

But any way that I analyze it, one fact remains constant: this song gets me hot. To this day, I have an unhealthy obsession with it. Every time I hear it I experience the same reaction—I feel nervous, I get sweaty, and then something comes out of my bird that is like pee but not quite because it’s clearer and more sticky and it smells like bleach. If I ever found a woman with low enough self-esteem or one who spoke such poor English I could trick her into agreeing to it, I would make love while this song played, on a bed of red silk sheets, in a room filled with tall candles, with slow, open-mouthed kisses, fingers passionately running through hair, a bowl of strawberries and whipped cream on the bedside table, and me in a Dracula costume. Until that happens, I’ll have to stick to the status quo—jacking off at work while this plays on my iPod. Let’s hope that by next Valentine’s Day I’ll have a reason to buy the red silk sheets I’ve always wanted.

“Look Away” Chicago

In no point in the history of art, literature, or music has the essence of lost love been captured and analyzed with such grace, beauty, and sorrow as it has in this song. Neruda came close in his “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines” and in his “Song of Despair” the story of the ill-fated love between Héloïse and Abélard may stir similar emotions; the breakup of Ross and Rachel tugged at our collective heartstrings. But it was the prog-rock band Chicago and the songwriting genius of Diane Warren that taught yours truly about the depths and darkness of love.

In the song, the protagonist learns that his former lover, their relationship having been mutually ended only a short time before, has found a new lover. Devastation so enraptures him that he pleads, if they should see each other socially, that she “look away,” lest she see his tears of regret.

[
pause
]

I’ll give you a moment to collect yourself, what with your heart most likely having just exploded in your chest.

Why I related so intensely to this song, I don’t know, but I did. True, I was ten years old when this song first hit the airwaves. And true, what I knew of love at the time was limited to Tastykakes and my hamster, Boojee. But hearing this song was like being awakened and guided by the heartfelt and pained vocals of Bill Champlain into a world in which love is master, cruel master. Other songs had taught me of the glory of love (like, for example, “The Glory of Love” by former Chicago singer Peter Cetera), but this was the first to introduce me to the other side of the coin, showing me the perilous yin to love’s joyful yang. And while I still have yet to experience love—that’s a pretty complete emotion for someone who broke up with his last girlfriend to start dating a sausage—I am still grateful to Ms. Warren and Chicago for warning me, at an early age, about the dangers of love and heartbreak. Without their introduction by way of “Look Away,” I would surely be writing this from a mental institution.

“Can You Stand the Rain” New Edition

I can say with a great degree of certainty that I was one of the only straight white boys in the greater Philadelphia area who wanted more than anything else to be a member of New Edition. If there were others, I would like to meet them. Perhaps we can start some sort of club or something. That might be nice.

New Edition does not get proper treatment by music historians, falling as they did between the Jackson 5, with whom they shared race and an advanced degree of musicality, and the New Kids on the Block, with whom they shared producers and hometown. The Jackson 5 grew out of the Motown era and was the launching pad for one of the most successful careers in music history (and in general weirdness) in the person of Michael Jackson. The New Kids on the Block were an astoundingly successful group of marginally talented Massholes whose claim to fame was that they served as fodder for masturbatory fantasies for girls the world over before those girls even understood what the words
masturbatory
and
fantasy
meant. New Edition is now unfairly known as that group Bobby Brown was in before he grew up to be a crazy person and married Whitney Houston.

If there is one thing I would like to accomplish, it is to let the world know about the greatness of New Edition. However, that seems like a lot of work, so I’ll just explain why I love this song and then head back to bed.

Playing on the universal and time-tested metaphor of rain as trouble, what the group is trying to determine in “Can You Stand the Rain” is if the woman or lover can handle the difficult times. It is a simple and effective theme that spoke to me on many levels as a nine-year-old, curious as I was about how my girlfriend and I would handle those difficult times in our relationship, most of which I assumed would revolve around why I was so reluctant to take my shirt off at the beach. But it is not so much the theme of the song that affected me, but the sheer beauty of the vocals.

While I was a fan of New Edition’s earlier stuff with the aforementioned cantankerous Bobby Brown (“Mr. Telephone Man,” “Candy Girl,” “Popcorn Love,” “Cool It Now,” etc.), I preferred their more mature sound with Johnny Gill. This is not because I felt that Gill’s songs were catchy or better written, but because of the incredible vocal talent of the man himself.

If you are unfamiliar with the voice of Johnny Gill, you are an incomplete person. His voice is a masterwork, like an orgasm covered in chocolate. From the start of this song, as soon as I hear his voice, I immediately know that I am safe, loved, and sexually adequate. The first time I heard Johnny sing this song, I felt alternatively blessed and saddened: blessed to hear such incredibly dulcet and ebonylicious tones; saddened because I knew that for the rest of my life my ears would be merely empty shells of cartilage, occupied only with nostalgia, possessed by longing, forever hoping to feel what they felt the first time they heard Johnny Gill so sweetly sing, “Tell me, can you weather a storm?” Put simply, if God had a voice, His voice would be shit compared to Johnny Gill’s.

(But let’s hope He’s not black. Because if He is, I am in serious, serious trouble. I don’t even want to think about this right now. Let’s move on—quickly.)

It is for this reason that I include this song on my list. “Can You Stand the Rain” opened my life to a world of aural pleasure that was previously unimaginable. There are few songs in my life that I’ve been compelled to say “Wow” to after listening to them for the first time, and not only is this a member of that exclusive group, but it’s also the founder and president. My very idea of music and its potential was changed because of this song. And all I can offer in return is a simple affirmative—yes, I can stand the rain. Not because I am a strong man, but because with this song, and with that voice, anything is possible.

“Blame It on the Rain” Milli Vanilli

Our second song with “rain” in the title and also our second song written by Diane Warren, Milli Vanilli’s seminal 1989 album
Girl You Know It’s True
was, along with Bobby Brown’s
My Prerogative
, the first album I got on cassette.
*
I spent Christmas morning in 1989 rocking out to these cassettes in my new yellow Sony Walkman, smiling and chubby. It is this Christmas morning that I so fondly remember when I’m doing something very adult, like getting my taxes done or buying alcohol or buying alcohol for underage kids.

I am not ashamed to say that I was and still am a huge Milli Vanilli fan. Vacuous pop music that essentially defrauded the entire world? Sure. But do you turn this song off when it comes on your car radio? I rest my case.