I know it’s on the horizon now. It was brought up in the context of a goodbye party for my co-worker and friend Gwen, who will be leaving for the States soon. If it’s not at her party, it’s still bound to happen eventually — me and the profs I work with will eventually end up in a noraebang (a karaoke room).

I don’t think they have songs by Cam’Ron at these places:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/qbzYXQpdUfU" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

… so I suppose I’ll have to settle for a good old standby from my teenaged headbanger days:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/IYRC4H64EFk" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

Which reminds me, I’ve never mentioned my long-ago G’n’R jacket on this site. I don’t think so, anyway. When I was living in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, I developed the sense that there were three kinds of guys: hockey players, metalheads, and guys who got beaten up by hockey players.

So I grew my hair a little, as much as I could get away with, which wasn’t much — thanks, Mum! — and then I got myself a nice black jean jacket and turned it into a G’n’R tribute jacket. It ended up sporting a backpatch, yes, iron-glued on the back, but I also applied badges up and down the arms — cub scout style, actually — and one on the front. One of each badge available, which wasn’t many because they’d only put out one album by then that I knew of — Appetite for Destruction. Only a few years later, a friend was referring to it as “classic sleaze rock” and when I listened to it, I got a headache.

But, man, at the time? That jacket did help my social status. I remember a few weeks after assembling it, I went to the mall with my AD&D buddy Meka (a guy) and then, the next day, a girl from a school I’d attended a few years before called me, saying she’d seen me at the mall, and that I’d “looked hot” Since I’d not magically turned into a male model  at age 15, it was pretty clear that it was the jacket that had caught her attention.

But a year later, I’d begun to get into jazz, and I ended up selling the jacket to a neighbor girl. The kicker? The girl who bought it was pretty severely hearing impaired. I’m not laughing at her hearing impairment, but just the logical connection between that condition and her enthusiasm for that particular band.

Alright, one more blast from the bizarre past. No embedding, so here’s the link to a fond, goofy memory.