A Common Pornography_ A Memoir - Kevin Sampsell [33]
In a classic double-cross moment, Doug somehow talked Terry into playing guitar for him on a song that he wrote called “Kevin, You’re Such a Fag.” I admit that it was a pretty catchy song, especially with the cool drum machine they must have borrowed from someone.
Even though it was fun to record the Neon Vomit songs, I still wanted to sing (not just yell) in a band that would actually play shows. My friend Len played keyboards and wanted to form a more traditional New Wave band—with expensive haircuts, high-fashion clothes, poetic lyrics, and a sexy name.
I was writing more and more songs as Len tried to find a guitarist and a drummer. My lyrics started to sound a little less like Henry Rollins and more like a Prince protégé. It was an embarrassing mix of those two influences, with some Cure and Scritti Politti blended in. A classic case of some journals I should have burned a long time ago. Thankfully, nothing ever came of it.
Daphne
I met Daphne at the Palace. She lived in Hermiston, so instead of driving back that night, she and a friend stayed at a cheap roadside motel. I went to the hotel too, and Daphne and I had sex on the floor while her friend slept in the bed. I liked her immediately because she also liked Prince and she was easy, like me. Easy and eager.
We saw each other off and on for a few months, whenever she came to town for the weekend dances or to shop at the mall. An alternating gaggle of other kids from Hermiston also would come up with her. They always stood out a little because their sense of style was actually more small-town than the Tri-Cities. They tried a little harder to seem different. But under their Goth makeup and torn punk jackets, they were hicks like us.
Daphne and I would have sex anywhere, anytime. She wanted to do it in a cemetery once, so we drove to one and did it in the back of her station wagon.
She had a problem with acne, as did I, and sometimes when we made out, our mouths would inadvertently slurp up all the Neutrogena acne wash and cover-up cream. I thought that her skin problems were probably due to stress. I’m sure it was a burden to always be so horny and to have a dad who was a minister.
One of the last times we had sex was in the middle of my high school football field. We brought a sleeping bag out to the fifty-yard line and squeezed inside. We called it the Human Burrito.
Making the Band
David was one of the other Hermiston kids. He was a stocky grocery store worker, always trying to talk me into starting a New Wave band with him.
Almost every weekend, David and Daphne and whoever else was around would sleep on Marco Torrez’s floor. Marco was this guy all my other friends made fun of. He was a tall, black-clad Mexican who wore lipstick and women’s hats.
One night, David and Daphne met me at Shari’s, one of those twenty-four-hour restaurants that we often found ourselves in since we were too young to go to bars. David kept going on about how he was learning guitar and buying a drum machine. “We could be like the Jesus and Mary Chain,” he said. “There’re only two guys in that band.” David seemed to think I was going to be the singer in his band. “We have to think of a good name and we have to take press photos,” he said as he sipped from the oversize milkshake in front of him. I looked at Daphne to try and gauge her position on the matter.
“You should take naked photos,” she said. “That would get some attention