Aug. 15: Raspberry beret
Believe it or not, there
actually was a girl in a raspberry beret. I saw her in an
arcade/restaurant in Drumheller. She was drinking ginger ale and playing
pinball. She wore black cowboy boots, blue jeans, a black T-shirt and a
blue jeanjacket. Long blonde hair, blue eyes, and that famous raspberry
beret.
I think her name was Brandi but it might have been Brenda.
-
I was sort of involved with a church youth group at the time. One of the girls in the group warned me to stay away from Brandi/Brenda. “She’s a slut,” she said. “She went to Germany on a school trip last summer and they could have made a movie about it. Brandi does Berlin.”
The girl told me that Brandi/Brenda was a walking STD factory.
I had no idea what to believe.
-
There was a girl in my high school who had a reputation for being easy. She gave me her phone number once and I spent about five hours one Saturday night talking to her on the phone. “Everyone says I’m easy,” she said. “They’re wrong. I’m not easy at all.”
Her voice had an accusatory note to it and I thought maybe she suspected I was one of the people spreading the ugly rumour about her. Twenty years later, I finally realized the truth: She wondered if the only reason I’d befriended her was because I’d heard she was easy.
-
I have met a few easy women in my life.
In Grade 12, I was working in a pizza parlor and these two teenaged girls walked in. One of them gave me her phone number and asked me to call her. I did. She wanted to meetup on Saturday night (and could I bring a friend to introduce to her friend?)
And so I did.
We wound up at my friend’s house. The four of us are in the basement and things are getting heavy and I backed off. I was a virgin and this girl, who was two years younger than me, made it pretty clear that she’d been with a whole bunch of guys. I drove her home while my friend and his girl got it on. When I talked to my girl the next day, I asked her what she thought of that.“What’s to think of it?” she asked. “It happens all the time.”
She asked me to come by her house so we could talk. I did. She lived in a bungalow somewhere in southwest Calgary. She invited me into her bedroom and she started telling me that there were a whole bunch of guys she was interested in and if I wanted to be her boyfriend then I’d better do something to stand out. “And don’t do any stupid magic tricks,” she warned. “Magic is for losers.”
Then her dad came in the room and she screamed and swore at him and he apologized and left. Then the girl asked me if I’d drive her to a chicken restaurant on the other end of town because her ex-boyfriend worked there and he had a whole lot of prime dope and she wanted to get some so she could get stoned. I told her no and she swore at me and so I left and I haven’t heard from her since but I did hear that she ran over her foot once while mowing the lawn.
-
When I was a student at the Rosebud School of the Arts, my fellow student, Jodie, once wore a raspberry beret. I’d already earned a reputation as a Prince fan and I asked her if she liked the song Raspberry Beret and Jodie said yes, but it wasn’t one of her favourites.
Then I asked her about her nose ring and she said she got it after her seventh anniversary of being a Christian. She told me that in Bible times, servants got their noses pierced after seven years of working for their master, but only if their masters had been good to them. It was seen as a high compliment.
That’s actually the most memorable thing that happened to me my year in Rosebud.
-
Jodie and I acted in a play once. We were the only two people in the cast who were under six feet tall. Once she got stung by a bee and there was a mild panic because she’s allergic to bees. She was in her mid 20s at the time but she was already a veteran of the Rosebud stage. In one play, she played a bird. She also sang in the choir. She was an alto. She is the person who first told me about Seasonal Affectation Disorder. In another play, she played a pastor’s wife named Nightingale.
-
I have not been to Rosebud in about 10 years. Rosebud used to do four plays a year and most of them were originals, written either by the playwright-in-residence or his star student. Around the time I got there, Rosebud started doing plays written by people who had never been to Rosebud. They did a production of a play called Cotton Patch Gospel , which offended some Christians because it took the gospel message and retold it in a Mason-Dixon kind of way (two thousand years ago, these Christians would have been called Pharisees.)
Then they did a play called An Inspector Calls, which was a British murder mystery. Jodie had a role in it. I think the person who wrote An Inspector Calls died before Rosebud even churned out its first play.
And I doubt the person who wrote An Inspector Calls ever wore a raspberry beret.
-
Prince’s song Raspberry Beret tells about a sexual encounter a young man has while working in a five and dime. There he is, working away, when a girl walks in through the out door. She wore a raspberry beret, the kind you find in a secondhand store. Raspberry beret, and if it was warm she wouldn’t wear much more. Tells you everything you need to know, doesn’t it?
-
When I was a kid, I was walking up the beach near my grandparents’ cottage in Saskatchewan. It was dusk and the sun was starting to set. There it was, this giant orange ball, maybe a quarter of it swallowed by the horizon. It lit up thewater with this sort of magical glow and did all sorts of funky things with the sky, making it black and purple and red and blue.
There was a girl in the water. She was about nineteen I guess and she was washing her hair. Her hair was very long. I don’t know what colour it was, she was nothing but a silhouette. What she did is she rubbed shampoo into her hair, scrubbed it, and then dunked her head under the water so her hair would get all wet. And then – here’s the best part – she stood and threw her hair back and just kind of sprayed water droplets everywhere. One of them landed on my chest. Then the girl wrapped both hands around her hair and twisted and more water fell out.
She saw me looking at her and she stopped. She looked at me for about a second and then she went back to washing her hair. I went back to the cottage. My whole life had changed but I didn’t know why. All I knew was that things were different now.
I never found out that girl’s name so I gave her a name in my mind.
Malona.
-
From Raspberry Beret:
Built like she was, she had the nerve 2 ask me if I planned 2 do her any harm
So I put her on the back of my bike and we went riding down by Old Man Johnson’s Farm
I said now overcast days never turned me on but something about the clouds and her mixed
She wasn’t too bright but I could tell when she kissed me she knew how to get her kicks
-
Young innocent love is under-rated and sex is overrated. I hate seeing TV shows where preteen girls have steady boyfriends. I hate seeing 11-year-olds in miniskirts. Why do kids want to grow up so fast?
-
The average lifespan is about 80 years though there are those among us who would argue it only lasts about 12. There are those among us who think you die once you lose your innocence and you realize that life is about working, struggling, and putting your dreams on hold – often indefinitely – so you can help your family.
I love to write.
-
I actually did have a few encounters with Brandi/Brenda. We shot a game of pool once and then I bought her a hot dog and fries. She asked how old I was. I told her I was 19.This excited her. “Will you buy me beer?”
No, I said. I wouldn’t buy her beer because it would get me in trouble. She had no sympathy for me. She knew I was at the Bible college and she mocked me for it. “Too much of a Jesus boy to do anything illegal. Who gives a shit about you?”
Saw her a couple months later outside the movie theatre in Drumheller. She was with some friends and they all started singing a sarcastic rendition of Jesus Loves Me. I did my best to ignore her, but it hurt.
I should note that on both the above occasions, she was not wearing her raspberry beret.
She was wearing it the last time I saw her.
She was alone that time, eating a hamburger at the A&W. She seemed excited to see me and told me to sit with her. She was super friendly this time. Apparently, she’d forgotten all about how she yelled at me for not buying beer or how she mocked me outside the theatre. I guess I was in a charitable mood that day because I decided not to bring it up.
Brandi/Brenda talked my ear off for about 30 minutes. I don’t remember much of what she said. I remember her saying she was going back to high school for another year and that she’d just gotten a dog, which she called Buster. She told me she just broke up with her boyfriend because he’d been cheating on her and that her brother had lost his job at a gas station because the manager had accused him of stealing. She asked meif I wanted to take her to a movie that weekend and I told her I couldn’t because I had a play rehearsal.
“Oh well,” she said.
Then she farted.
I think her name was Brandi but it might have been Brenda.
-
I was sort of involved with a church youth group at the time. One of the girls in the group warned me to stay away from Brandi/Brenda. “She’s a slut,” she said. “She went to Germany on a school trip last summer and they could have made a movie about it. Brandi does Berlin.”
The girl told me that Brandi/Brenda was a walking STD factory.
I had no idea what to believe.
-
There was a girl in my high school who had a reputation for being easy. She gave me her phone number once and I spent about five hours one Saturday night talking to her on the phone. “Everyone says I’m easy,” she said. “They’re wrong. I’m not easy at all.”
Her voice had an accusatory note to it and I thought maybe she suspected I was one of the people spreading the ugly rumour about her. Twenty years later, I finally realized the truth: She wondered if the only reason I’d befriended her was because I’d heard she was easy.
-
I have met a few easy women in my life.
In Grade 12, I was working in a pizza parlor and these two teenaged girls walked in. One of them gave me her phone number and asked me to call her. I did. She wanted to meetup on Saturday night (and could I bring a friend to introduce to her friend?)
And so I did.
We wound up at my friend’s house. The four of us are in the basement and things are getting heavy and I backed off. I was a virgin and this girl, who was two years younger than me, made it pretty clear that she’d been with a whole bunch of guys. I drove her home while my friend and his girl got it on. When I talked to my girl the next day, I asked her what she thought of that.“What’s to think of it?” she asked. “It happens all the time.”
She asked me to come by her house so we could talk. I did. She lived in a bungalow somewhere in southwest Calgary. She invited me into her bedroom and she started telling me that there were a whole bunch of guys she was interested in and if I wanted to be her boyfriend then I’d better do something to stand out. “And don’t do any stupid magic tricks,” she warned. “Magic is for losers.”
Then her dad came in the room and she screamed and swore at him and he apologized and left. Then the girl asked me if I’d drive her to a chicken restaurant on the other end of town because her ex-boyfriend worked there and he had a whole lot of prime dope and she wanted to get some so she could get stoned. I told her no and she swore at me and so I left and I haven’t heard from her since but I did hear that she ran over her foot once while mowing the lawn.
-
When I was a student at the Rosebud School of the Arts, my fellow student, Jodie, once wore a raspberry beret. I’d already earned a reputation as a Prince fan and I asked her if she liked the song Raspberry Beret and Jodie said yes, but it wasn’t one of her favourites.
Then I asked her about her nose ring and she said she got it after her seventh anniversary of being a Christian. She told me that in Bible times, servants got their noses pierced after seven years of working for their master, but only if their masters had been good to them. It was seen as a high compliment.
That’s actually the most memorable thing that happened to me my year in Rosebud.
-
Jodie and I acted in a play once. We were the only two people in the cast who were under six feet tall. Once she got stung by a bee and there was a mild panic because she’s allergic to bees. She was in her mid 20s at the time but she was already a veteran of the Rosebud stage. In one play, she played a bird. She also sang in the choir. She was an alto. She is the person who first told me about Seasonal Affectation Disorder. In another play, she played a pastor’s wife named Nightingale.
-
I have not been to Rosebud in about 10 years. Rosebud used to do four plays a year and most of them were originals, written either by the playwright-in-residence or his star student. Around the time I got there, Rosebud started doing plays written by people who had never been to Rosebud. They did a production of a play called Cotton Patch Gospel , which offended some Christians because it took the gospel message and retold it in a Mason-Dixon kind of way (two thousand years ago, these Christians would have been called Pharisees.)
Then they did a play called An Inspector Calls, which was a British murder mystery. Jodie had a role in it. I think the person who wrote An Inspector Calls died before Rosebud even churned out its first play.
And I doubt the person who wrote An Inspector Calls ever wore a raspberry beret.
-
Prince’s song Raspberry Beret tells about a sexual encounter a young man has while working in a five and dime. There he is, working away, when a girl walks in through the out door. She wore a raspberry beret, the kind you find in a secondhand store. Raspberry beret, and if it was warm she wouldn’t wear much more. Tells you everything you need to know, doesn’t it?
-
When I was a kid, I was walking up the beach near my grandparents’ cottage in Saskatchewan. It was dusk and the sun was starting to set. There it was, this giant orange ball, maybe a quarter of it swallowed by the horizon. It lit up thewater with this sort of magical glow and did all sorts of funky things with the sky, making it black and purple and red and blue.
There was a girl in the water. She was about nineteen I guess and she was washing her hair. Her hair was very long. I don’t know what colour it was, she was nothing but a silhouette. What she did is she rubbed shampoo into her hair, scrubbed it, and then dunked her head under the water so her hair would get all wet. And then – here’s the best part – she stood and threw her hair back and just kind of sprayed water droplets everywhere. One of them landed on my chest. Then the girl wrapped both hands around her hair and twisted and more water fell out.
She saw me looking at her and she stopped. She looked at me for about a second and then she went back to washing her hair. I went back to the cottage. My whole life had changed but I didn’t know why. All I knew was that things were different now.
I never found out that girl’s name so I gave her a name in my mind.
Malona.
-
From Raspberry Beret:
Built like she was, she had the nerve 2 ask me if I planned 2 do her any harm
So I put her on the back of my bike and we went riding down by Old Man Johnson’s Farm
I said now overcast days never turned me on but something about the clouds and her mixed
She wasn’t too bright but I could tell when she kissed me she knew how to get her kicks
-
Young innocent love is under-rated and sex is overrated. I hate seeing TV shows where preteen girls have steady boyfriends. I hate seeing 11-year-olds in miniskirts. Why do kids want to grow up so fast?
-
The average lifespan is about 80 years though there are those among us who would argue it only lasts about 12. There are those among us who think you die once you lose your innocence and you realize that life is about working, struggling, and putting your dreams on hold – often indefinitely – so you can help your family.
I love to write.
-
I actually did have a few encounters with Brandi/Brenda. We shot a game of pool once and then I bought her a hot dog and fries. She asked how old I was. I told her I was 19.This excited her. “Will you buy me beer?”
No, I said. I wouldn’t buy her beer because it would get me in trouble. She had no sympathy for me. She knew I was at the Bible college and she mocked me for it. “Too much of a Jesus boy to do anything illegal. Who gives a shit about you?”
Saw her a couple months later outside the movie theatre in Drumheller. She was with some friends and they all started singing a sarcastic rendition of Jesus Loves Me. I did my best to ignore her, but it hurt.
I should note that on both the above occasions, she was not wearing her raspberry beret.
She was wearing it the last time I saw her.
She was alone that time, eating a hamburger at the A&W. She seemed excited to see me and told me to sit with her. She was super friendly this time. Apparently, she’d forgotten all about how she yelled at me for not buying beer or how she mocked me outside the theatre. I guess I was in a charitable mood that day because I decided not to bring it up.
Brandi/Brenda talked my ear off for about 30 minutes. I don’t remember much of what she said. I remember her saying she was going back to high school for another year and that she’d just gotten a dog, which she called Buster. She told me she just broke up with her boyfriend because he’d been cheating on her and that her brother had lost his job at a gas station because the manager had accused him of stealing. She asked meif I wanted to take her to a movie that weekend and I told her I couldn’t because I had a play rehearsal.
“Oh well,” she said.
Then she farted.
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