A Top Ten Memoir: 1987 - "Welcome to the big time..."
1987 started out well enough as Tony and I took a trip out to San Diego to see Ron. It was a great long weekend where we enjoyed the sun, our time with Ron, and I even snagged a Valentine’s Date with a bartender. It was pure joy.
Coming back to Chicago wasn’t a happy return though. I thought maybe it was time for me to move there. Madonna’s La Isla Bonita was out at the time and everything about it kept me longing for the beaches, sunny skies, and romance seemingly available in San Diego: “It all seems like yesterday, not far away…tropical the island breeze, all of nature wild and free, this is where I want to be.” I was sick of my work and personal life and longed to be where I felt I could “run free.” It felt so good to hear Madonna sing: “I want to be where the sun warms the sky, when it’s time for siesta you can watch them go by – beautiful faces, no cares in this world…”
Because I felt such a strong need to escape and was generally dissatisfied with my life, I entered therapy for the first time as an adult. My former roommate Angie was seeing a woman named Judy who she felt was helping with her own struggles.
Angie agreed to give me part of her session and I immediately knew it was something I’d needed for some time. Judy quickly helped me see that moving to San Diego wouldn’t solve much as I’d still need my support system. She was right: by the age of 24 I had already developed a great network of friends and colleagues that were hugely helpful in my day to day life.
Being roommates with Steve wasn’t completely working out very well though. While he did throw me a great surprise birthday party and was very generous with his cleanliness and cooking, financially Steve was a mess. He lost a job and quickly found himself out of work. I was very concerned about how this would affect our monthly rent and Tony convinced me that it might be time to give Steve an ultimatum: either he finds a job or move out. He chose the latter. I found myself with a big two-bedroom apartment in Chicago and a need for more income.
That Spring I went on several job interviews, wanting to get away from the stresses of working with an unstable and chronically mentally population. I felt pretty determined. As Swing Out Sister sang in Breakout: “When explanations make no sense, when evidence is wrong, you’re fighting with self-confidence, the expectations gone. The time has come to make or break. Move on don’t hesitate. Breakout.” The song became one of my many 1987 anthems.
I still didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do though. I even went to a recruiters’ event that was looking to hire high powered sales people. (I knew THAT was big mistake fast!) Part of me wanted to explore human resources as a career, the other part wanted something closer to my college experiences, perhaps working in the field of admissions counseling. I had a lot of questions about where I was going. Paul Simon sings in You Can Call Me Al: “A man walks down the street he says why am I short of attention and wo my nights are so long. Where’s my wife and family? What if I die here? Who’ll be my role model not that my role model is gone?” Ron. Mary. These people were no longer regularly in my life. I had to find new mentors and people to look up to and guide me. A few times I’d have an interview that went really well and I felt a surge of confidence and energy. Simon’s lines: “If you be my bodyguard I can be your long, lost pal” accompanied me on these great interviews. If they’d take care of me, I could be the best employee they’d have, or so I thought during that high. The excitement in my car would be palpable, “He looks around, around, he sees angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity, he says Amen and Hallelujah.” Those moments made me feel like I was finding myself again.
Interestingly, one of the other contributions to my therapy was the elimination of some religiously based ritualistic thinking. While I had left the Catholic church back in high school, I still felt that prayer might help me. I’d find myself lying in bed at night repeating Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s. I had to say them over and over, a certain number of times, to feel like I was being heard. If I didn’t remember if I reached that number or not, I’d have to start again. My therapist Judy helped me to see that this type of thinking wasn’t helping. I wasn’t even really believing any of it, but felt I needed the ritual. She helped me eliminate them from my nightly routines and I felt freer… for a while.
My Top Ten of 1987:
1. So Emotional – Whitney Houston
2. Shakedown – Bob Seger
3. You Can Call Me Al – Paul Simon
4. La Isla Bonita – Madonna
5. Valerie – Steve Winwood
6. Looking for a New Love – Jody Watley
7. Little Lies – Fleetwood Mac
8. La Bamba – Los Lobos
9. Breakout – Swing Out Sister
10. Don’t Mean Nothing – Richard Marx
I was feeling more drive and ambition. Bob Seger’s Shakedown also accompanied me in my search for better things: “No matter what you do I’m going to take you down” and “No matter where you hide I’m coming after you.” Whether it was a new job, a boyfriend, or simply a great moment, the song aided me in whatever goal with driving energy and passion.
Finally, in June it happened: I landed a job in the corporate world. Adia Personnel Services helped other companies fill their temporary worker needs with qualified adults in need of part-time work. In a way, it was an extension of what I was doing at the Lake County Health Department but without the “certified” chronically mentally ill population. (This was debatable in some cases though…) The job felt very glamorous at first. I was working in a glass office building in Schaumburg, Illinois where many big companies were located. I was told there was all kinds of room for advancement. Tony had worked for the company as one of those workers until he obtained a permanent position at a major digital tech company. Marlee had also used their services and ended up with a position at AT&T. This seemed to be a route worth taking. I thought it was my chance to utilize what I had learned from my Industrial/Organizational Psychology degree.
As the weeks went on at Adia, I found myself in a similar position as my previous job: forced into dealing with numbers. In this case, there were plenty of jobs to place people into but not enough actual workers in our rolodexes. One day, my supervisor Ann took me out to recruit people that could become part of our worker base. She insisted on going to schools, including Virginia Lake where I first attended upon moving to Palatine in sixth grade. We went into the main office and attempted to leave stacks of cards and brochures on the office counter promoting our services to stay at home mom’s. The principal wanted nothing to do with us and we left. Instead of heading away from the school, Ann decided we should pass out our materials to moms as they were picking up their kids at lunch time. This bothered me. We had already been told to leave. I didn’t think it was ethically right. Ann said, “Dan, sometimes you just have to put on a mask and do these things.” This didn’t sit well with me. I was thinking I’d rather be working behind that counter at the school then be working for a pushy corporation. Not long after that, one week before Christmas, I was fired from Adia.
It was a devastating blow. How would I survive? I had already moved out of the two-bedroom apartment I had shared with Steve and was living in a studio in Buena Park, near Chicago’s gay neighborhood. How could I pay rent without a job?
Contrary to what this photo shows, I was miserable. Richard Marx’s Don’t Mean Nothing was my angry song geared at the corporate world: “Welcome to the big time, you’re bound to be a star! Even if you don’t go all the way I know that you’ll go far!” This seemed to be Adia’s corporate promise. Marx goes on to sing, “This race is for rats, it’ll turn you upside down. No one you can count on in this sleazy little town. Lots of promises here in the dark. Don’t you open your heart because it don’t mean nothing, the words that they say. It don’t mean nothing, these games that people play.” I needed to be out of that kind of world.
The day after I was fired, Pat and Sue took me out to lunch and told me now was the time for me to do anything I wanted. They suggested I consider getting a Master’s Degree in media pointing out that I had enough film, TV, and radio books in my apartment to write an entire thesis! They were certainly right about that. However, I was torn and feeling a bit lost.
Other songs in my Top Ten that reflected this turning point I was faced with. Jody Watley’s Looking for a New was a danceable tune which embraced saying goodbye and moving on: “You know that I wanted you. You know that you meant the world to me. You know I had to have you. Now I’m gonna find somebody new” and “hasta la vista, baby!”
Steve Winwood’s Valerie is a cry out to lost love: “Love songs fill the night, but they don’t tell it all.” Winwood is passionate in voice and keyboard playing, “so cool…like jazz on a summer’s day.” While I loved the coolness of living in the city, its beauty was sometimes filled with shadows of the losses I had endured in ’87 and in the previous two years.
However, I kept my head up, enjoying the pure thrill of dancing to Los Lobos’ version of La Bamba. Fantasy helped too. Fleetwood Mac sang about getting by with Little Lies: “If I could turn the page, in time I’d rearrange just a day or two – close my eyes. But I couldn’t find a way, so I’ll settle for one day to believe in you. Tell me lies, sweet little lies, you can’t disguise.” If I couldn’t have what I wanted I could pretend I’d have it. I was, at times, allowing some fantasy to set in when reality was too much to bear. (Ah yes, the fantasy world of Dan from ’76 was back again!)
Whitney Houston’s So Emotional captured this best: “I’ve been hearing your heartbeat inside of me. I keep your photograph beside my bed. Living in a world of fantasy, I can’t get you out of my head.” What was the fantasy? A man? A better life? More fulfilling job? San Diego? Any of it was part of my ’87 mind. Of course, finding a man was always supposed to be the answer. Tony and I would go out to Sidetracks on Halsted Street every Friday, watch all the men come in, and let our knees touch their behinds as they walked into the then tiny bar. “I’ve gotta watch you walk in the room baby. I gotta watch you walk out. Yes I do. I like the animal way you move and when you talk I just watch your mouth.” I did this every week. It helped the dark days of getting a bad job evaluation, losing that job, and dealing with general day to day pressures. I had hit the big time of life as a single adult, hating my jobs, wishing I was elsewhere, and then finding myself with a huge void by the end of year.
I held the Top Ten Party that year in my studio apartment. Marlee was unable to attend, as she was several months pregnant with her son Nick. Instead, she sent her Top Ten in individually sealed envelopes. Gretchen had some car or boyfriend issues but phoned in her Top Ten. Steve and I were a bit estranged but he did mail in his list. However, Tony and Javier attended, as did two friends from the corporate world: Mary Beth, who worked with me at Adia, and Vicky, who Tony knew from his company. They were all very empathic as I relayed the year’s ups and downs. I had hope though. I was glad to say goodbye to 1987 and ready for what was coming next.
Links to my Top Ten of 1987:
Other favorites from 1987:
Don’t Shed a Tear - Paul Carrack, Should’ve Known Better - Richard Marx, What You Get is What You See - Tina Turner, Every Little Kiss - Bruce Hornsby & the Range, Brand New Lover - Dead or Alive, Cry Wolf - a-ha, U Got the Look - Prince & Sheena Easton, Smoking Gun - Robert Cray Band, River of Love - Nicholas Tremulis, Don’t Disturb This Groove - The System, Moment of Truth - Whitney Houston, I Wanna Dance With Somebody - Whitney Houston, Bad - Michael Jackson, Where the Streets Have No Name - U2, More Than the Truth - Nichols Tremulis
What were your favorites from 1987?
Up next…1988, “Now that the night is over…”
No order,of course
* Faith - George Michael
* Lost in Emotion - Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam
(Que SERa Que SERa 🤔)
* U Got the Look (Prince & Sheena)
* Have a Little Faith in Me (John Hiatt)
* Seven Wonders - Fleetwood Mac
* True - Concrete Blonde
* At This Moment - Billy Vera
(I blaim Michael J Fox, Tracy Pollen and Family Ties for this one 🤷🏼♀️)
* Telling Me Lies -Parton, Ronstadt, Harris (their voices were great together)
* I wanna dance with somebody - Whitney Houston
* Where The Streets have no name - U2
Just missed the list: Reconsider Me (Warren Zevon); With or without you (U2); Fairytale of New York (Pogues); Head to Toe (Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam); Hungry Eyes (Eric Carmen); Tell it to my heart (Taylor Dayne); Just Like Heaven (The Cure)
That California sun has always drawn you. So glad we can now spend a portion of the year there!!
Again, great connection to the songs and the pictures really add that human touch. So much of this is heartfelt. Often we seem to envy people in their 20s but it can be a rough time while one figures out where one is headed. That is more universal than we’d care to admit. Another good read!
Here are my top songs of 1987. Still pretty much tied to Top 40 radio. That will change
You Got it All-The Jets
Living on a Prayer-Bon Jovi
Caught Up in the Rapture-Anita Baker
Big Love-Fleetwood Mac
Fascinated-Company B
Sweet 16-Billy Idol
Heart & Soul-T’Pau
Living in a Box-Living in a Box
I Heard a Rumor-Bananarama
Little Lies-Fleetwood Mac
Breakout-Swing Out Sister
Mony Mony-Billy Idol
Need U Tonight-INXS
There’s the Girl-Heart
Motortown-Kane Gang