Dark Days at Mayham

Some of you may be thinking, that Tara is always trying to be so cheerful about stuff, it's so annoying, blah blah blah. But I will tell you I wasn't always like this. Here is a story of dark days.

The summer after high school, my friends Whtiney and Bryce got an apartment in a very questionable complex on Mayham Road at LBJ and Central. It is shocking that their mothers let them live in this place. But they did, so we all had a place to hang out. It was a bad summer for me. I was transitioning away from heavy metal and into the unknown. I was getting ready to go off to UNT in the fall to study - get this - business. I had no ambition. I was 17. I think what I probably thought I wanted to do at the time was work my way up the Sound Warehouse ladder of success, and maybe if I was lucky I could weasle my way into a job at a record company as the girl who goes around to the Sound Warehouses to put up posters. Everyone wanted this job. Those people got a lot of free stuff like CDs and tickets to big rock shows and backstage passes.
Anyway, every night, a bunch of people would gather at the Mayham apartment, because it was the only place to go. At any given time, there could be 15 or 20 people over there. There would always be a couple hours of doing hair and make-up. This was the guys. I can hear Bryce now..."It wasn't make-up...it was European Theatrical Grease-Paint." I stand corrected. Before grease-paint was applied, mohawks had to be achieved. Those guys kept Aqua-net in business through the late 1980's. I don't know what the primping was all about, because I don't actually remember ever going anywhere except for Denny's.
One night this guy Dino came over. I don't know which cat dragged him in. I think Bryce or somebody met him at the mall and thought he was cool or something. Dino was all bedraggled and punk, with a 12 inch mohawk and the most horrific B.O. you have ever smelled. Dino had a posse of two or three semi-normal guys whose names all started with "J". Once Dino found out about the apartment, he was there ALL the time. One night, Dino and the J's went to the mall and returned with a Ouija Board and a giant machete. Nobody in their right mind would sell any sharp object much less a machete to someone who looked like Dino, so that tells you about the kind of people who worked in the knife store at the mall. During play with the Ouija Board (such utter nonsense) Dino mentioned to someone that he often had homicidal thoughts. It was about that time that someone, I think Bryce, told Dino he was no longer welcome at the apartment. Mayham became slightly less interesting, but smelled a lot better.
Several video tapes were big players at Mayham. The ones I remember most were "Another State of Mind" which was the story of the first Social Distortion tour. It had lots of curse words. Most of my friends had the thing memorized. Another was "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle" which featured Malcolm McClaren and his tiny friend, and a song whose only lyric was "Who killed Bambi" which was repeated over and over in increasingly annoying silly voices. I am pretty sure that both of these films are terrible, and not worth watching, even for nostalgia.
Most of the time, I would get to the apartment early and find a spot on the couch, and watch the goings-on until it was time to go to Denny's.
I was not cheerful then. I complained a lot. If you would have told me I'd eventually like puppies and birds and little children, I would have thought you were nuts.
At least I learned about some good music during that time.
And in case you are wondering, everyone turned out OK. They all have jobs and families and normal hair now.