Forgotten Dream

I had VH1 Classic on while I was poodling around the house yesterday at lunchtime, and I had a huge flashback of one of my best "when I grow up" dreams. My ambitions as a child tended to be very gender-based and very modest. I wanted to be a secretary, I wanted to be a school teacher, etc. These were the things that were appropriate for women, to my widdle mind.

Of course, I also wanted to be a ZZ Top girl.


MTV did form a generation, there's no doubt. That fabulous video for "Legs" was what came on yesterday. I immediately sat down and enjoyed the sluttification of the nice shoe salesman lady. You know the one--she goes to the diner, gets molested all along the way and teased by nasty, trashy people, but then the ZZ Top car comes for her, full of fabulously 80s women and they save her!

I'm deeply sad that I couldn't find screen shots of this from the internets. Remember the pink ripped outfit, pink stockings and little pink mary jane socks she ends up with? PERFECTION.

As I sat there I tried to remember: did I want to be the girl the ZZ Top Ladies helped, or did I want to be in the car? I think I evolved from one into the other. I was awkward looking for a looooong time as a girl. Wasn't until the end of sophomore year in high school that things started settling into the right places and my height finally worked for me. But I knew parts of me had potential. Until then, I definitely needed a carload of hot girls in crazy tattered short skirts and enormous hair to fix me up. After I came into my own, or at least started to, I wanted to be in the car. It was like a "What Not To Wear" for the mid-1980s.

Brilliant formula. Brilliant band. Here's to ZZ as we end our week. I'm going to iTunes immediately. Because every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man!