Danny Cohen Blog Installment #2
With his new album, Shades Of Dorian Gray, set to street on 02/06/07, Danny Cohen is doing a series of blogs to give some insight into the creation of the record.
Out Of Time
I was a decorated stair and hall monitor; Junior Firman, Cub Scout; I even sold noon candy in Junior High. The kids always bought the same thing. They ordered briskly, in a mutter, as if ashamed of their habit. Fowler wanted his 'Fire Stick'; Ogulnik had his 'Junior Mints'; Keyes his 'Good & Plenty'.
[Also, a new white Fender 'Jaguar', as his dad was a banker. I put him in my band solely for his guitar. There was an accordian virtuoso who could play 'Miserlou'. We headlined school dances and played the Teenage Fair with the Seeds and Neil Young, for a Gillette razor.]
I stood at the counter in my white socks and hush puppies, khaki slacks, madras shirt; red hair parted on the side, and slicked with 'Brylcream'. The 'Hard Guys' had fence climbers (pointed dress shoes), black jeans, white shirts, tanker jackets (heavy blue nylon) and metal combs (hair greased straight back). They ordered 'Milk Duds' and 'Hot Tamales'.
They saw through my camouflage Richie Cunningham rouse. I was not to be 'creamed' or 'pounded' under the bridge after school. I was not another passive, timid, conformist 'Normal' (I'd merely infiltrated their majority, and besides, I was their 'pusher'). I was neither fish nor fowl; an odd, fearless interloper from another time and place (the tough inner-city, and a Victorian mind-set; an isolated, velveteen Captain Nemo, that read and played Bach and preyed on bullies from behind a bush).
My 'outsider' aura caused teachers to resent me. I daydreamed and refused to shower or pith frogs.
We took 'Chef' class to get out of P.E. The 'greaser' girls did too. They had ratted bee hives, short skirts and dense mascara. They proffered 'beaver shots', but I never noticed. They shot 'spit balls' (tiny paper and saliva wads propelled through a straw) at teachers, and yanked 'Normals' through the backs of chairs (like they were bottomless pits).
As I guarded a hall portal, a 'greaser' gal asked to see my dick. I called her "insane", then she begged. I had a thin, pretty blonde girlfriend, but we never talked; We just held hands, or danced "uncoordinated".
One Friday night, I won a giant box of 'Hot Tamales' (the door prize in a raffle) at a school gym screening of George Pal's 'The Time Machine'. I was subsequently proclaimed a leader (as well as eccentric), Like Rod Taylor in the movie. I also hated my own time, and saw parallels to the 'Eloi'/'Morlock'-predator/prey class divisions in school and male/WASP society.
This is the premise of 'The Prophecy' (as it still relates today), a bold and heroic new song on my new Anti CD 'Shades of Dorian Gray' (due Feb. 6). It puts you at the helm of eternity, where you can get out along the way.