35 - 2/23/11 - Marshside Storytime II

Initial Impressions

35 – 2/23/11 – Marshside Storytime II

Somebody to Love c.1993-94

Time for Marshside Storytime again.  This time it is the story of the famed Prep Boys, Liam and myself.  Being young and ‘hardcore’ back in 1994-95 we would blast all sorts of grunge and alternative music to get ourselves motivated for the insanely long Maui prep lists that greeted us every morning on the prep room wall.

            These prep lists were a full sheet of yellow-lined paper with two columns of items to be done, some items contained more than one thing ie: slice and dice tomatoes.  This was also before we had the intercom, although that was short-lived as I mentioned in my first Marsh storytime.  So when we had our music loud blasting Nirvana, Pearl Jam, STP, and Alice In Chains, it was virtually impossible to hear any whistles or shouts from across the parking lot.  Needless to say that got us into lots of trouble at times, but that’s a story for another day.

            Anyway, during our long prep days we would have the grunge and alt rock blasting away, echoing off of the walls.  In fact I loved it louder than Liam did, still do.  He would get angry at times at how loud it was.  His favorite trick was to not speak at all but just move his lips like he was saying something to get me to turn the music down.  Once I did he would keep moving his lips silently and then laugh at me.  Thanks man, always appreciated that!

            After a long prep day it would be time to clean up.  Now from what you have read about our musical taste I’ll bet you have a pretty good idea as to what our ‘clean up theme’ was, right?  Something by Nirvana? Wrong.  Something by Pearl Jam? Wrong.  Something by RHCP? Wrong.  STP? AIC? Soundgarden?  Wrong again.  No, our song of choice for cleaning up was ‘Somebody to Love’ by Queen.

            Give me a break all right, it was 1993, 94, we were 16 or 17, and Queen had a resurgence after Wayne’s World had showcased Bohemian Rhapsody in 1992.  Still, even though the song is quite different from the grunge/alt we had played our reaction to it was much the same.  You haven’t lived until you’ve gone nuts to a softer, mellow song. 

            Our typical cleaning to this song consisted of playing air guitar on a broom while standing on one of the stainless steel prep tables.  There was also some dancing with the round Rubbermaid trash can, spinning, and spinning.  This resulted in the handle of the trash can crashing through the wall, leaving a nice hole in the wall which we quickly covered up with duct tape.  There was also a thrashing incident that ended with a steel, used for sharpening knives, being pitched like a javelin into the wall until only the black handle was visible.  This was also quickly covered up.

            Like I said in my first piece, there is a statute of limitations here, hell this building I am speaking of does not even exist anymore so I would like to think I am in the clear as far as any foolishness perpetrated by myself or anyone else.

            So there you have it, perhaps the most famous of all of the Prep Boys theme songs is a Queen song about being lonely without love.  Yet somehow it all fit in and all made sense.  Hope you enjoyed my secret/sad revelations.  Join me again next time for Marshside Storytime.  Cheers!