NJM 5 in NoJoMo 2019

This is going to be a two-fer. No, wait, I’m going to hold off on the next Melissa Etheridge entry. So…

The prompt: What is one event that changed a strongly-held previous opinion you had?

I have been a Duranie since I was 9 years old. From 9 to 14 years, it was hard core Duran fever for me. lol Just as bad as I am now.

It was either my 13th or 14th birthday party. I got super pissed off at one of my friends and walked out of my own party. A few of my friends followed me, and we ended up walking around the block.

Mind you, it’s the middle of January in Massachusetts, so it was feckin’ cold, and a shit ton of snow on the ground (it was a clear night, though).

When we got to the corner of West ave and Lafayette st, there were a couple of older kids standing in the doorway of the drugstore (which was closed) trying to stay out of the wind. They had a “boom box” playing heavy metal. We glanced at them, and just kept walking.

They followed. They followed us all the way back to my house. My friends were a bit uncomfortable, but I’m a bit crazy so if they got weird I would have just destroyed the radio and their balls. I didn’t get that threatening feeling from them, y’know?

When we got to my driveway, I finally asked them what the fuck their problem was. They just wanted to talk to us blah blah blah. Well, it turned out they were super nice guys.

I asked them who they had playing on the radio. I had been listening to the lyrics and was intrigued. Metallica, Master of Puppets album. One of them, Danny (who became my brother from another mother) took the cassette out of the radio and handed it to me. Told me to really listen to it. Read the lyrics.

Like I said, I was a die-hard Duranie. Very “new wave”, “goth”, “punk”. Duran, Depeche Mode, Kate Bush, The Smiths, yadda yadda. Even though I found the lyrics to the Metallica songs making so much sense to me emotionally, I didn’t think I would actually like the music.

I loved it. Absolutely loved it. I got into all the heavy metal bands, and some hair bands, too. And classic rock. Lots of Zepplin. I still listened to DD, but they were slowly fading out of my life. Big Thing was the last album I bought, I think.

I know that this isn’t an “important” opinion type of answer, it’s even a bit silly, really. But it was a pretty big impact on me at that time of my life. Listening to just one band that I never listened to before changed many things about me. My outlook on life, my attitude, my image.

I changed a lot. Not all good, not all bad. Just… changed.