Here in Atlanta there used to be this Antique Market out towards the airport called Lakewood Antiques. It was mostly nicer stuff with a few crap booths for picking but no matter what it was always a good way to spend a day outside. Plus they had an amazing assortment of fair foods like Powder-Sugar-Fried-Batter or Any-Meat-There-Is-On-Sticks. Like all awesome things that burn twice as bright it this one burnt out twice as fast but rumor had it a lot of those vendors made their way up to another old flea market north of town in Cumming, GA. The place is called Dixie 400 Flea Market and being that I come from a long line of southern junk lovers it sounded like the perfect place to take my mom and step-dad the next time they came through. That time turned out to be this past weekend.

After throwing the idea out there and backing it with the authoritative “I heard on the internet that some of the Lakewood vendors went up there.” we headed out. Turns out Dixie 400 is a couple long out-buildings that were put up on some extra property around a convenient store. The kind of convenient store that has people E-brake powerslide into the parking lot like they’re fixing to rob the place only to come out with a gallon and a half of purple slushy. It also turns out that none of the Lakewood vendors migrated to Dixie. That rumor is as real as the one where you chant “Bloody Mary” at a mirror until her ghost shows up chillin’ next to your own reflection. This of course got me ragged on for bullshitting the bullshitters. That is UNTIL!!!….

*sniffy pit*

YUUUUUUUUUUUP!

George Michael – Faith complete WITH the lyric sheet.

BOOM!

And guess how much—2bucks bitchezzz!

DOUBLE BOOM!

I can’t begin to tell you how many times my wife has sung Father Figure, eyes closed, while drifting back to a George Michael poster hanged next to a peach canopied bed in a rose wallpapered bedroom. I watched her do it again after we got back from Dixie 400 when we put the album on.

Then she snapped out of it, lyric sheet in hand to ask the tough question, “How old were we?”

She didn’t mean it as a remember when thing, she meant it as a did we really think we knew what the hell he was talking about mixed with a little I wonder what was going through our parents heads thing. I can imagine it would have been something to see my wife age 9, eyes like above-ground pools, wailing out these lyrics:

That’s all I wanted, something special,
Something sacred in your eyes,
For just one moment, to be bold and naked
At your side

Sometimes I think that you’ll never understand me
Maybe this time is forever, say it can be

That’s all you wanted, something special,
Someone sacred in your life
Just for one moment, to be warm and naked
At my side

Sometimes I think that you’ll never understand me
But something tells me together, we’d be happy

For me questions of age are impossible to answer. I have no idea what age I was when anything happened or what grade I was in when I was how many years old. Especially when it comes to music, my childhood tends to be a mash of genres and TV imagery that makes no logical connection or reason. At first I thought I was the TV kid who just Mikey-Likes whatever I was spoon fed by MTV but that’s not exactly true. After consulting the Wikipedia and Google gods I learnt that Faith was put out in ’87 and blow’d up in ’88. That made me 13and/or14 and in the 7th-8-ish grade. In those days I was walking around in Airwalks, I had Tony Hawk’s haircut and my pants said Vision down the leg of them. I still rode around with my brother who wore a Metal Up Your Ass patched denim vest and drove a ’70 Chevelle. My music was everywhere and in between too. There was Violent Femmes, S.O.D., Join the Army, Master of Puppets, Big Lizard in My Backyard and yes, all that other awesomeness that was on on MTV. Looking over that list I guess my mom preferred to hear me wander around belting out:

I’ve had enough of danger
And people on the streets
I’m looking out for angels
Just trying to find some peace
Now I think it’s time
That you let me know
So if you love me
Say you love me
But if you don’t just let me go…

‘Cos teacher
There are things that I don’t want to learn
And the last one I had
Made me cry
So I don’t want to learn to
Hold you, touch you
Think that you’re mine
Because it ain’t no joy
For an uptown boy
Whose teacher has told him goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

The funniest part about me or my wife finding any emotional connection to songs like this Elton/Bernie/YellowBrickRoad-ish ballad is how utterly far away we both were from romantic relations of any kind. Her because of her age and me because I was crippling-ly spazzmatic. In fact I was so non existent to the ladies that when everybody else was freaking out at how graphic the video was for I Want Your Sex it wasn’t the dirties that had me stunned. It was the idea that a guy could spend so much consecutive time talking to a girl that he could reach a point where he would say

I swear I won’t tease you
Won’t tell you no lies
I don’t need no bible
Just look in my eyes
I’ve waited so long baby
Now that we’re friends
Every man’s got his patience
And here’s where my ends

It blew my mind and gave me hope to think there could be a lunch line long enough on earth where I might get to that point with a chick.

Flipping from Side 1 flipped to Side 2 was like putting the 80′s dance party to a screeching pause. Side 2 was like listening to all the previously unreleased songs that get put out after an artist dies. My wife and I just looked at each other silently waiting for one of us to show some sign of recognition. Nothing clicking, we eventually moved into the kitchen to unloaded the dishwasher and talk about the cat. It makes sense that we would only know the album from its singles. Out of 9 songs 6 topped some US chart or another and 5 of those had videos in constant play. Only one of those singles was on Side 2. Not to bash the music, its just that it’s an album of memories and those songs had none. Between me getting my fill of it from the tube and my wife auto-reversing her way back to the songs she knew best Side 2 was born to be forgotten.

I do have to say though the one song that did connect from Side 2 connected well. Like how a smell triggers something long gone in our heads, Side 2′s single gave me back a memory I had blocked out a long time ago. I was back hanging out with my brother and his dirt rock muscle car friends. I was still one foot in his shadow, one in my own life. Enough in his that I followed him out that night but enough in mine that I wasn’t smoking his Marlboros and trying to get in his favor. Instead I had decided to start nagging him about quitting, and taking the healthy route. Ignored as usual I somehow decided that the best way to get through to him would be with song… right there in front of his friends. So right there, mid tail stall on my pink and blue Tony Hawk Iron Cross I sang him the chorus to Monkey.

I didn’t just sing it that once though. I wasn’t that smart. Nope, I sang it all night. I sang it each and every time I heard the chime of a zippo. The only reason I can think of that he didn’t toss into a dumpster by my peroxide bangs must have been because I was so stupid I was funny.

When I scored this album I thought for sure it was one for the wifey and guaranteed points on the board for the next time I earned a place on the shit list. Turns out I got my share of stuff out of it too. Besides widening and repaving memory lane I learnt some facts. Facts like what? Facts like George arranged and produced the whole record. He wrote every song except “Look at Your Hands” which he co-did with David Austin and he also plays keys, drums and guitars all over the thing. Facts that when shared all surprised and impressed like with my wife she replied, “What, you think that guitar of his was just for looks?”