2001-11-08

Voices Carry, dontcha know...

So I'm sitting here at my desk listening to this �Til Tuesday "retrospective" when I notice a coworker lurking around my door.

"Can I help you?"

"Is that �Til Tuesday?"

"Yeah. It's sort of a �best of' CD..."

"Didn't they only have, like, one hit?"

Straight up, yo -- you'd best not be gettin' all up in my Kool-Aid about �Til Tuesday. I loved them, all right?

OK, so...show of hands: how many people here at first thought that Robert Holmes was a girl? OK, so...now how many of you found him incredibly attractive when you learned the truth? Boy howdy, �Til Tuesday threw my blossoming ideas about sexuality right down the proverbial terlet. Screw Aimee Mann; Robert Holmes had the best hair in that band.

I was already good and worked up about the whole thing when my sister, all of 11 years old and thoroughly unimpressed with popular music at that point, peered into my bedroom one afternoon as I was playing the "Love in A Vacuum" 45 for the umpteenth time and announced: "Um? I know his sister, you know?"

Tina thoroughly irritated me back then (to be fair, though, most people thoroughly irritated me; I was on my own island in 1984, one I still occasionally visit). "Who are you talking about?" I sneered.

"Robert Holmes? He's in �Til Tuesday? I know his sister..."

Well. I viewed Tina in an entirely different light right there and then. Try as I might, though, I never snagged the coveted invitation to go "play" over at the Holmes residence, even though I knew that I was well past the age where one goes to "play" at someone's house, anyway, and the chances of Robert even being there were nil to begin with.

Years later, my bandmate Geissler and I read somewhere that Robert Holmes owned a vintage clothing-type establishment in the area. We were all over it. Somehow, though, we sort of forgot about making this pilgrimage in the way that you tend to forget all of those great friggin' ideas that are born of one too many bong hits.

Maybe he still owns the place. I don't know.

lisamcc at 5:34 p.m.

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