When Liking Something Different Defines You
I Didn’t Even Know What A Kink Was, Let Alone Lola
As a kid transplanted from West Texas at the age of ten, I thought all of California as liberal, to the extent that I knew the difference. We moved to Ventura County in 1968, and free love was everywhere. To me, it was most evident on the on-ramps that led northbound to San Francisco on the 101. It was the only way to get there since I-5 had not been completed between Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
Legions of hippies hitchhiked, holding signs that said “Frisco” on the on-ramp at Seaward Avenue. Along the way on Seaward towards the beach was a cluster of hippie-ish boutiques. It seemed they all sold tie-dyed shirts and peace sign necklaces along with other flower-children items of the day. Every time I smell patchouli, I think of that first walk and how the essence of the incense overpowered the scent of the ocean that was so new to me.
Ventura County lies adjacent to Los Angeles County, just to its north and west. So, yes, from the Valley, you can drive west and not land in the ocean! In addition, the county line runs along with a range of mountains, so the urban sprawl of Los Angeles could never really spill into Ventura County. Politically, it was a divide that just happened to have physical detail to it. The older I get, the more conservative it gets. That often happens to us “older” people.
While I lived with my Dad in Ventura, my Mom was just 60 miles down the road in Los Angeles. She lived in hip and swanky places (Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Westwood), so I looked forward to taking the Greyhound Bus on the weekends to see her.
Whereas the shopping in Ventura included stores like Montgomery Ward, Penny’s, and the Broadway, Mom would take me for school clothes at Bullock’s Wilshire. Kind of like living in Abilene, TX but going to Dallas to shop at Neiman-Marcus. She adapted to the fast life of LA quickly and was always a fashionista. As should I be!
And so it was that I got a shag haircut, the first at my junior high school to get one. Probably the last one as well. Yes, I became the “shag fag”. “Gay” wasn’t really a word back then. It was always fag.
I didn’t understand why it was perfectly normal to look like Rod Stewart or David Cassidy in LA, but not so much in Ventura. Still, I managed to weather through it.
My taste in music also separated me from others. I mean, most kids were listening to “Sugar, Sugar,” “Candida,” and “We’ve Only Just Begun.” I liked those songs even if they were a bit geeky. But having a sister four years older, I also liked edgier stuff like Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Cream. I was never attuned to the lyrics, just the melodies, and the guitar riffs.
Then along came The Kinks. But, of course, a kink pertains to a couple of very different things. I didn’t know the word had sexual connotations, but I doubt anyone else my age did either. I just knew I loved the opening guitar riff on “Lola!” So I went to Kmart and plunked down my 64 cents (67 with tax) and bought the single.
When I started playing it at home, I began to listen to the lyrics:
Well I’m not dumb but I can’t understand Why she walked like a woman and talked like a man
Hmmm. What was that?
Now suffice it to say, I knew my feelings were different from the other boys but were never something I would talk about or admit to. Because I wasn’t a fag!
Then.
I forgot about it for a while, but after about the 119th time I played the record, I heard this:
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, except for Lola
This started to sound more controversial than a 13-year-old boy wanted. It could play heavily combined with my shag.
Well, I’m not the world’s most masculine man But I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man And so’s Lola La-la-la-la Lola La-la-la-la Lola
So Lola was a transvestite? (Another word I didn’t know at the time.) That was the end. I had to get rid of this record. So I called my friend Alice across the street. Sixty-seven cents was too much to throw away.
“Hey Alice, can you come over and bring your records? Maybe we could make a trade.”
I asked her if she liked “Lola,” and she said definitely. So then I looked through her collection and found “Lay Down” by Melanie. I really liked the song, but again, I had no idea what the lyrics were about:
Lay down, lay down, lay it all down Let your white birds smile up at the ones who stand and frown.
?????
We made the deal, and I was done with my “fag evidence.” There would be more accusations and bullying as the grades passed by. I finally came out in 1998, not as a fag, but gay. And I don’t care if people don’t like what I listen to anymore. Give me more ABBA!
“Lola” — The Kinks. Lyrics by Ray Davies, Music by Dave Davies “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” — Lyrics and Music by Melanie Safka
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