I heard Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon” on the way to the post office today. It was a welcome change from the syrupy Christmas Muzak that the City of Adelaide has decided to pipe into Rundle Mall to inspire that festive spirit and loosen the purse strings. Every time I hear “Karma Chameleon”, I have a little giggle at myself. It’s a musical reminder of my inherent cluelessness.

In the autumn of 1983, Culture Club was red hot. Their sophomore album “Colour By Numbers” had hit number 1 in the UK and “Karma Chameleon” was all over pop radio, even in my backwater part of the U.S. And I loved it. I loved Boy George in all his transvesting glory, loved the band’s soulful synth-pop and the cheesy Margaret Mitchell casted by drag queens video of “Karma Chameleon” that was getting played to death on MTV. I was 13 that year and starting my first year of Junior High School. I was going to a new school and had a new opportunity at the ‘coolness’ that had eluded me up until that point. Some time early in the school year I decided that what I needed to demonstrate the kind of hipster I knew myself to be was to advertise my allegiance to one of the coolest bands on the planet that year.

I managed to find myself an over-sized Culture Club t-shirt somewhere – it certainly wasn’t my hometown, probably Gainesville to the south. It was the must have fashion statement for the discerning teenagers that fall. I was immensely pleased with myself and proudly sported my new shirt (I’m fairly certain that it bore the image at the top of this post) and headed for school on Monday morning.

Even if you’re as much as a social misfit as I was then, you probably can guess what happened. The thing that I missed, the obvious thing that I missed, was that the over-sized Culture Club t-shirt was the must have fashion item for the discerning teenage girl in the Fall of ‘83.  You see, in my little town near the asshole of Florida, only girls and ‘homos’ liked Culture Club. When I got off the bus, I was cornered and asked to declare which of these I, in fact, was. That, gentle readers, is a tough question to answer when you’re 13*.

The thing is, I sometimes still feel like I’ve just gotten off the school bus in an over-sized Boy George t-shirt. Walking back from lunch today, iPod turned up loud to try to drown out the sound of “Silent Night”, seemingly the only person headed west in a tide of people headed east, I felt just like I did at 13. But the difference today is that I just don’t care whether anyone laughs at me. I just wish they would turn off that damn Christmas muzak.

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* If you find yourself in a similar situation, the correct answer is not one that I tried a couple of years later: “Yes, I am a homo and so are you. We’re both Homo sapiens.” That answer is as likely as not to get you a sock in the kisser. Trust me.

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If you must, “Colour By Numbers” is available from Culture Club - Colour By Numbers.

 
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