Saturday, May 05, 2007

Some Folks Calls it a Wham Line


In the legendary and glorious early days of The Brat Pack, there was a life changing rehearsal when the original four discovered an immutable truth about being Champaign, Illinois' greatest 80s cover band. There existed a line even they could not cross, and that was Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go." Now, I wasn't there of course, because if I had been, they would have made it through the very first words - "do the jitterbug" - without cracking up so hard they couldn't move on. Probably if I'd been there it wouldn't have seemed funny at all but actually very serious and awesome, and we'd be doing that sweet toe-tapper to this day. Maybe we would now have something like a Vanity Six line instead.

But it happened that way. The "Wham Line" is the one thing you won't do for The Brat Pack. I know that for most of my gazillion readers, it's kind of hard to imagine ANYTHING you wouldn't do for The Brat Pack, but these guys have standards, artistic values, deep sensitivities, even longings for beauty and order in an otherwise chaotic expanding universe.

New Wave Dave declared that his Wham Line is in fact Wham (such a traditionalist) just before he knocked me to the floor in his bunny suit. Jesse Van Halen's Wham Line is Boxcar Willie. Tommy didn't argue when I told everyone his Wham Line was Rock Lobster, but I think he thought I was talking about using differential equations to further distort the medicaid formulary. I imagine the line he won't cross is having a line he won't cross. Josh says he already got kicked out of the Secret Society of the Guys Who Are Too Cool to Dress Like Nerds and Play 80s Pop Hits, so he doesn't care anymore. That's totally what we did to Guido when he said he'd never shave his head to be Mr. T or wear a really cute schoolgirl uniform and be Natalie from Facts of Life, but he looked so hot in both roles. My Wham Line is naked (but not Naked Eyes!) Kendell's Wham Line is death. I tried to find out if Larry had any limits he'd put on what he'd do for us, but he acted real busy like he didn't hear the question.