Duran Duran was the first rock band I ever saw in concert. I was about 13 at the time, and wasn’t a devoted fan, but my two older sisters were fawning groupies. For reasons that continue to mystify me to this day, my Dad (whose disdain of any popular music dating from after – say – the Kingston Trio’s heyday was well-established) bought tickets for my sisters, my mother and me to attend a concert in Reno (I think it was for the Seven and the Ragged Tiger tour). We lived near Monterey at the time, and made a weekend event out of it.
The straight teenage boys’ terror of being associated with DD fandom once spared me a great deal of agony. In junior high, I was a perennial target for bullies – overweight, thick glasses, braces, asthma, and possessed of the tendency to feel very self-satisfied when informing some slackjawed jock that he lacked a functional medulla oblongata. One particular kid, Rob, with whom I had previously been on, if not friendly, at least neutral terms, suddenly began picking on me. He’d shoot me in the back of the neck with rubber bands (demonstrating deadly marksmanship). He’d reach across the aisle and nudge my elbow with a ruler when I was trying to write. The final straw came when Rob slipped a half-rotten banana into my backpack and proceeded to mash it with his foot for the better part of an hour. As it happened, his sister and my sister were close friends, a situation that provided me with just the ammunition I needed to get Rob off my back for good. Turns out he was a rabid Duran Duran fan, and, according to his sister, had posters of Simon and the Boys all over his bedroom walls. So when the next opportunity arose – our English teacher stepped out of the room for a few minutes – I turned and cryptically informed Rob that I knew “all about his wallpaper”. Judging from the look of horrified realization that crept across his face, I might as well have pulled a loaded gun on the guy. He never bothered me again.