“Denise. Take a deep breath. You can do this. Remember, if you are planning on making this public knowledge, there is no shame in announcing it to your 12,000 readers. You can no longer bear this secret burden alone. For the past year you have been deceiving your family, your friends, your boyfriends, your roommate and yourself. You can admit to this. It’s time to face the music.”
Those were the words of my voice of reason. Or maybe they were the words of that little angel who sits on my right shoulder and whispers to me the differences between “right” and “wrong.” For example, it might say something like, “Denise, it is wrong to slam down eight shots of Absolut and then go home with that sketchy man who has a tongue ring and is wearing blue pleather pants.” Or they could have just been those voices in my head that keep talking to me and that tell me to do stuff like douse myself in gasoline and light myself on fire or stick needles under my fingernails.
Regardless, as soon as I heard these words, I realized that it was time — it was time to start being honest to the people I care about and to myself. It was time to face the embarrassment, the shunning and probably people throwing rocks at me. It was time for me to step out of the good ol’ proverbial closet.
I am an in-the-closet hardcore country music fan.
I have been forced to listen to Garth and Reba, LeAnn and Shania and the Dixie Chicks and Alabama in secret. I tell people that my Walkman came pre-programmed and that I just can figure out how to get rid of that damn Country 99.5. I hide my CD cases when friends come to visit — lest they see my copies of “Wide Open Spaces” and “Fly,” which are neatly hidden behind Ben Fold’s Five, Billy Joel and Bach.
A simple trip to the music store hasn’t required this much underground, reconnaissance work since Nixon’s penetration of Cambodia. That is, when I go looking for country music, I go completely incognito. So if you’ve ever spotted a fat, toothless, flannel-clad, balding man with liver spots lurking around the country music racks at Tower Records like a twice-convicted sex offender — it probably wasn’t me (my disguise isn’t THAT good). But if you had looked behind him, I was the tall blonde with black sunglasses and BU baseball cap crouching like a puppy who is about to be beaten with a rolled up newspaper. Not only was I trying to discreetly squeeze my hand between his rolls of flesh and flannel and grab the last copy of the Garth anthology before being spotted by my Dr. Dre, Lil’ Kim, and Tori Amos listenin’ friends, but I was also trying to do it as fast as humanly possible so that baldie didn’t get any ideas (so he wouldn’t consequently feel obligated to offer to whisk me back to his place via pickup truck and a stop at KFC for a bucket of wings to meet his mom and to have me make a man out of him).
However, I refuse to cower, listening in secret any longer! I vow to turn up my stereo, throw away my headphones and unpack my CDs.
Somehow it no longer bothers me that my mother is also a country music fan. Maybe she is right. Country is cool. It is perfect for any situation. It offers anything a person could want out of their music. For example, there are love songs, drinking songs, I’m-a-total-failure songs, break-up songs, please-take-me-back-I-was-a-complete-fool songs, make-up songs, make-out songs, etc …
Country music can be as therapeutic as a pint of Ben and Jerry’s sans 3,000 extra calories. That is, there is no way any of your problems can ever compare to the trucker who is singing about how his wife, the bleach-blonde waitress of his dreams, up and left him for his cowboy brother who stole his pickup truck, ran over his dog and left him with nothing but a six pack of beer, a broken heart, his guitar and a song.
Although I think country music is the greatest thing ever, I am not trying to push it on everyone. It is an acquired taste — like fine wines, art and keg beer. And you have to discover country music for yourself. Don’t bother rushing out to Newbury Comics to invest in Alabama’s greatest hits. Instead, download a couple of songs off Napster, wait until your roommate is passed out on her bed with that guy with the nose ring and the leather pants, roll up your jeans, fasten on that red bandana and give country music a whirl. Who knows, you might be the next in-the-closet fan.
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