A Common Pornography: A Memoir

OK 95

The popular radio station was OK 95. They hosted a discount at the River-Vue Drive-In movie once and I went with a bunch of friends and one of their parents. We loaded up a station wagon full of people and got in for ninety-five cents. Some people from the radio station were giving out records as we drove in. My friends and I stuck our heads out the windows to see what they had. There were a couple of boxes full of albums, but it was all stuff we had never heard of. They were probably rejects, bands from small labels that sent their records to the station in hopes of getting their big break. A dozen cars behind us started to get impatient, revving their engines and honking their horns, but we didn’t know what to take. Finally, the radio station people gave each of us a random record. They all looked suspiciously like hard rock, which OK 95 wasn’t playing at the time. I ended up with a record by Krokus. It was called Hardware. When I listened to it later, I was repulsed by the music—a tasteless sort of stoner metal. There was one song in particular called “Smelly Nelly” that talked about a girl’s crotch. It has the worst lyrics ever (“Her skin is dry and spotty but her ass is just the best”). I’m sure OK 95 was glad to be rid of all those records.