This song recently came on after one of my Spotify playlists ended, and it's been stuck in my head ever since. It's so deep in there that when I wake up every day, it's already roaring through my synapses. I wondered, what would Mom think of this song? She liked some of my heavier music, so she might have enjoyed this, especially if she knew the subject matter. It hit me then.
I often say that my love of history goes back to when my grandmother on my dad's side got me a book called Don't Know Much About History by Kenneth C. Davis, and I learned about all the American propaganda I'd been taught at school. I wanted to know what really happened (ah, sweet naivete!), and I have never been bored by it. But my interest went back beyond even that.
(In a perverse twist of fate, it was also school that taught me to distrust that American propaganda. Mr. Torney's US History class at York introduced me to George Orwell and gave me most of the tools I'd need to ferret out bullshit wherever it reigned supreme.)
Because Mom was big into history, and I got an earful of it when I was a li'l kid. Her favorite topic was JFK and Jackie, but her second favorite was Nicholas and Alexandra. Which is why "Rasputin" reminded me of this. It was like opening a secret portal into the past for a very brief memory. Sitting in my mom's Mustang, driving along with the radio on, the wind whipping through the windows, a McDonald's drink in the cupholder clipped to the rubber in the window. She told me the story of Rasputin. She always knew my interests went dark, and she correctly guessed that was the part of the story I'd be interested in.
She did not, by the way, tell me about the alleged story about Rasputin's cock (which is a great name for a rock band, as Dave Barry might say). I found that out when I was researching the black market for famous body parts. That story turned into "A Market for All Things," which was originally published in Strange Sex 3 but is currently available in Dong of Frankenstein and Other Pornos You Can't Jerk It To, should you decide to give it a shot. In case you were wondering, Napoleon's dick suffered much the same fate.*
You can take that one to bed with you. Goodnight, fuckers.
____________________________________________________________
*Fine, fine. Allegedly. For Pete's sake. But, ah, check it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment