the kids from fame

the summer after my sixth grade year, my family and i went to england for two weeks. my sister and i hated every second of it. lots of going to visit "relatives" and staying in guest houses- which was like staying at somebody elses house. which i guess is what a guest house is.

my sister and i ended up getting in a big fight in one of the guest houses. i don't remember what it was about but i know i told her to, "HAVE A HEART, JENNIFER!" I thought this was very dramatic at the time, I wish I knew what it was concerning. It was the only time I remember physically fighting with her. I whipped her with my yellow walkman headset cord.

I remember reading "Petals on The Wind," the sequel to "Flowers In The Attic." I also listened to a lot of my "The Kids From Fame" album.



We flew to Jersey, an island in the English Channel that was occupied by the Nazis. We saw a Nazi hospital and a bunch of other creepy Nazi stuff. I would have been really into this now, but I wasn't having any part of it then. We visited another "relative" who lived in a studio apartment similar to the one I live in now and I thought it was very depressing. Lots of knick knacks. The bed was in the same room as the couch! I turned up my nose at the whole thing.

On the way back from Jersey, my parents decided it would be fun to take a hydroplane back to England, rather than fly. Again my sister and I could have given two shits about anything my parents suggested- we just wanted to be home. We both had our walkmans on. She listened to a "Berlin" album and I listened to my "Kids From Fame" album as we sped across the notoriously rough English Channel in a hydroplane.

The English Channel got rougher and rougher and stormier and stormier as we "floated" across. I think it takes like three hours or something to cross the English Channel. But the hydroplane kept stopping because it was too rough. When we did start up again the hydroplane literally dipped into the ocean and back up again and dipped in again and back up again. We were on the bottom level so at times, the water was completely covering the windows. My parents were visibly nervous and they usually keep a good front up so we knew that this wasn't good.

At that age, I wasn't as neurotic and anxiety ridden as I am now. If I was on that thing now, I would have swallowed my entire bottle of klonopin and probably would have jumped into the English Channel. But at that age I remember listening to a synthesized version of some classical song over and over from my "Kids From Fame" album. We eventually made it out of that boat alive and everyone acted like the trip was totally fine and normal. Whatever.

Anyway, I recently received my "The Kids From Fame: Live From Royal Albert Hall" VHS that I bought on half.com for $3.00. I only got about half way through it before I shut it off. It's still good, I guess you just can't go home again. Does that cliche fit? Anyway, I still like the song "Starmaker" one of the Kids From Fame's big hits.

Maybe we can listen to it sometime when you invite me to go for a romantic trip to England with you. I wouldn't mind going as long as we don't stay at a guest house or ride a hydroplane.