I’m in the seventh grade. My girlfriend, Aimee, and I are lying in her room listening to music when I realize something.
“We need to make a music video.”
I pull my second-hand VHS Camcorder out of my sleepover duffle and begin to hatch a plan.
“Let’s do Personal Jesus.”
“Yes. What will the story be?”
I think about it. “Let’s be high-priced escorts who are doing cocaine and then Jesus touches us and we have to go see a priest.”
“I don’t have a priest costume.”
We paint our faces with heavy makeup. We make our hair as voluminous as possible. I place the camera on the desk beside us and hit the record button. We pretended to snort cocaine. I choose improv and shoot-up with a baby carrot.
“I think we got it.”
We move outside and I chase Aimee with the camera rolling. My arm is outstretched and in the frame. I’m chasing her and trying to touch her. My arm is Jesus’s arm. I have a brown robe on. We run for too long but our story plot is too short for how long the song is, so I extend this scene.
“I think we got it.”
“What do we do about the priest?” Aimee pants, from the running.
“There’s a priest that lives three houses away, right?”
“Yeah.”
We stand on the veranda and Aimee knocks on the door. I am ready with the camera.
The door opens, it’s the priest in full priest gear. The robe, the white collar.
I whisper, “Oh my God.”
With her full face of makeup, and Dynasty hair, Aimee is following the script and plan.
“Hi! I am a student in the neighborhood and was wondering if you’d like to buy cookies to support my Biology class field trip to Toronto. They’re five dollars.”
She raises a box of cookies we stole from her Mom’s kitchen.
The priest pays and wishes us well on the biology field trip.
“I think we got it.”
Walking back to Aimee’s house, I look at the five-dollar bill in her hand and ask, “Do you think we are bad influences on each other?”
Aimee turns to me and smiles, “Bad? What’s bad?”
Addendum: Some of the playlist songs were released in ‘88 but weren’t popular until ‘89.
I do not want emails about this.
Love that you included Pretty Hate Machine which I've grown to love over the years and would like to say I was cool enough to know about when it was released. But I wasn't. I was 9 in 1989, and was still hooked on Paula Abdul, The Bangles, Janet, Belinda Carlisle, and Madonna, etc. I have to say though, Love Shack is so '89 to me.
Love the playlist! And loved seeing your early filmmaker skills in action - omg the Priest!