Monday, February 26, 2018

The Shit Is Bananas

Back in the summer of 1983 a little gay boy from a small town in upstate New York first saw the video for Robert DeNiro's Waiting on one of those half hour, low budget, not-MTV video shows that used to play in the summer when the kids were out of school, and before he even knew what an earworm was the song was stuck in his head and he was obsessed with Bananarama, the girl group who sang it.  He bought all their albums and learned all the lyrics, studied their videos and learned the choreography while the other kids were out riding bikes or climbing trees, and even roped his brother and a neighbor girl into performing a dance routine to Cruel Summer at the annual block party, mercifully before everyone had cellphones to videotape everything and embarrass the shit out of him as an adult.  He went through lineup changes, stood at the wrong stage door after a March 1989 DC concert, tracked down an elusive European album on a trip to Paris, waited patiently in line at a CD signing in Long Beach, and was one of a handful of queens in the half empty audience of their 2012 Pinktober show, so you bet your sweet ass he, I mean I, lost my shit when they announced the original lineup was reuniting for a tour, with a stop in New York City, and you KNOW my gay ass was stalking Ticketmaster in the hours before the tickets went on sale, and you can best be sure I bought the meet and greet package.  You guys, this picture is thirty five years in the making!  The shit is bananas!