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Ten Life Lessons I've Learned from Being a Die-Hard Duranie
1. No Matter How Much You Love Someone, You Cannot MAKE Them Love You Back Unfortunately, this plan didn't work out quite as I had
hoped. Before I could even turn fourteen, Simon was engaged to an eighteen-year-old
Canadian babe, Claire Stansfield. She was a model, of course, and I was
a devastated Duranie with bad skin. I do remember at the time, however,
that she needed a good eyebrow tweeze. Despite her Frida Kahlo look, I
was no match. Like any obsessed Simon fan, I cried myself to sleep for
nights on end and vowed that I would rise above this dire event and that
in just a few years, I would outgrow my gracelessness and blossom into
a sultry hottie just in time to steal Simon away from Claire. 2. Being a Drama Queen Will Get You Nowhere "Where are you going?!" she shouted over the din of the rain hitting the pavement and the roofs of houses. "To England! I have to stop the wedding!" I made it as far as the neighbors' back yard at the end of our cul-de-sac, where I crumpled beneath their swing set and let the rain soak me from tip to toe. It was a remarkable performance deserving of a Teen Choice Award. My friend Jodi, who lived across the street, was equally infatuated with John Taylor and experienced similar trauma when John became engaged to a model, Janine Andrews. Unlike my blatant outburst, her performance was tense and controlled, conjuring visions of Glenn Close in Dangerous Liasons. After calling me and whispering, "John's engaged to the bitch," she proceeded to walk out to her front yard, root herself against an oak tree and hang her head solemnly. She stood like that for hours on end, not moving, occasionally nodding to herself as if she were experiencing some sort of internal dialogue. Every once in a while I would walk outside to hand her notes I had written containing inspirational messages like, "WE WILL RISE ABOVE THIS" and "THAT STUPID BITCH COULD NEVER LOVE JOHN LIKE YOU DO."
"Just go insane," I pressed. "You know you need to." We sealed the box with electric tape and pushed it down the slope of our front yard with my sister inside it. When it reached the bottom and we opened the box to check on her, she seemed dazed but elated. "I think we should do it again," she said. We repeated this inane form of therapy for the next two hours as the ever-perplexed neighbors looked on curiously.
4. Never Take Your Mother for Granted My poor mother. She handled the job of being mother to a Die-Hard Duranie with grace and patience. When I think of the things I said to her during that period and some of the things I did (see Drama Queen above), I shudder. After discovering the Claire and Simon alliance, I outdid myself as a drama queen, being sure to recline catatonic for hours, staring up at my Duran poster on the ceiling and refusing dinner. I remember throwing a head of lettuce at her one time when she asked me to help her make a salad. "Make a salad?" I cried. "Can't you see I'm dead inside?!" I remember the glazed look she gave me after the wad of iceberg just missed her face. I am now convinced that if I ever have children, I will produce a female as dramatic and demanding as I was. As they say - payback's a bitch. Jodi's mother was equally tolerant. When the big D finally did roll into our area, Jodi's mother was kind enough to take us to see them. She deserves a medal for her bravery. Not only did a major snowstorm hit the greater Hartford, CT area that evening, but the three of us were so wound up, it was amazing we didn't faint before we got into the coliseum. Once Simon and company took the stage, it didn't take long for us to get so hysterical that Jodi's mother needed to escort us out into the lobby. I remember a security guard asking Jodi's mother if we were okay (we were basically on our hands and knees, gasping for breath). Jodi's mother smiled politely and said something about the situation being reminiscent of the Beatles. When the security guard laughed and agreed with her, we berated them both. "How can you saaaayyyyy that? It's not the saaaame! They're our liiiives!!"
5. Emulating Your Idols Will Only Make You Look Like an Ass
6. Keep Things in Perspective. Twenty Years from Now, You Won't Give a Flying Flingdoo Anyway. I used to vow that I'd "love Simon foreeeeever!" Similarly, later in life I thought I'd die before my feelings faded for a guy I dated - a good-looking yahoo with cow dung for brains and a penchant for hitting on my mother. Turns out it would become great writing material and something my friends and I could laugh about for years to come. Likewise, when I think of myself sobbing in the middle of a coliseum lobby over a rock star with a flaxen mullet, I get a good chuckle. This is not to say that I've forgotten about Simon completely. In 1999 when the band (sans the Taylors) played L.A., the three of us Die Hard Duranies united from our separate corners of the country to witness the spectacle once again (minus Jodi's mom). Like the other now-adult Duranies around us, we screamed our heads off and reached longingly toward the stage. Luckily, we had excellent seats and I finally got very close to Simon - if you count his crotch, which he kept corkscrewing in the air just a few feet away from my face.
7. You're Really Not that Special
8. Your Teen Dream is Never as Amazing as He Seems
"The backstage area was so small, it was like the size of a cubby hole. He was sitting in a chair surrounded by security guard types." As she told me the story I imagined a washed up rock star with a flailing solo career sitting on an imaginary throne. While she continued, I noticed the tone in her voice change from excitement to disappointment. "I had these photos with me that I had taken of him at a previous show and one of the guys standing nearby was really impressed. I showed them to John and he just sort of shrugged and was like, 'eh, whatever'. Then he asked me for a cigarette." She told me at this point she gave him a cigarette and made sure to lean over in her low cut blouse as she handed it to him. SCORE! Jodi got to show John the goods after all these years! Too bad he was too wrapped up in himself to notice.
9. Birmingham England is in the West Midlands between the M5 and the M4 When I went to school for a semester in England, my sister came to visit me after I finished my classes. We rented a Peugeot, started in Scotland, and followed the M5 all the way down the length of England to Wales, where we put the car on a ferry to Ireland. On our way, we got pretty loopy as sleep became a luxury we couldn't afford (we literally couldn't afford it and decided we were going to drive through three countries and ferry into a fourth all at once). On our way, we realized we would be driving right by Birmingham - homeland of the big D. Immediately my sister popped Rio into the tape deck (yes, we still listened to Duran Duran). We ended up singing the album from start to finish repeatedly all the way through South England. As we passed Birmingham, we could see the buildings in the distance, but couldn't stop due to lack of time. For a moment, I looked over, realizing that when we were hysterical teenagers, we would have given anything, ANYTHING to get there and now we were just whizzing past. This was where I wanted to go when I had found about Simon and Claire. This was where I was going to stop the wedding! 10. Don't Lose Yourself in Someone Else
Duran Duran Humor Page, featuring "101 Things To Do With Nick Rhodes" Read more Ape Culture stories about teen idol worship Were you a Nick girl, a Simon girl, or even a Roger
girl? Confess your love here.
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