And Billy Squier responds, big time

Tomorrow, I return to my real life where I work as an English teacher, waking up at the ass-crack of dawn each morning to teach classes at 7:30 a.m. where 85 percent of my adolescent students are somnambulant after staying awake until 2 a.m. editing their TikTok videos[1].

Needless to say, I wasn’t humming “Put on a Happy Face” when I woke up on my last day of summer vacation, brewed a pot of java and braced myself for the morning headlines that would make the most ebullient optimist request a few drops of cyanide in their coffee.

I then opened the front door to gauge the weather[2] and spied a sizeable USPS manila envelope on the doorstep with “Please do not bend” handwritten in a black Sharpie beside my name and address.

My first thought—ever the cynic—was that my wife was divorcing me, and these were legal papers. I wasn’t quite sure what I had done but I understand that being married to me can be exhausting.

So I picked up the envelope and carried it inside, laying it on the kitchen table while trying to figure out how I was going to afford a lawyer. I tore open the top of the envelope and quickly gleaned that there weren’t divorce papers inside, rather a vinyl album.

Then I realized what it was[3].

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about my adoration for 80s rock-legend Billy Squier, and how one terrible music video for “Rock Me Tonite” torpedoed his career, not just because it was terrible,[4] rather due to the fact that many of his male fans turned out to be raging homophobes.

With the gift of retrospect, we can now understand that Squier’s downfall wasn’t simply the effeminate video—in three years hair band videos would release videos that made Squier look like John Rambo—rather, it was wretched timing.

So as a lifelong fan of Billy Squier’s music[5], I had decided one bibulous summer afternoon that I would seek out a vinyl copy of his 1981 album “Don’t Say No” at the vintage music shops in Manchester.

It was a scavenger hunt, of sorts.

While I couldn’t find a copy[6] of “Don’t Say No,” I found a copy of his 1982 follow-up “Emotions in Motion”—Andy Warhol did the cover painting on that album—and decided that I would table my search for “Don’t Say No,” purchase “Emotions in Motion,” and write the column anyway.

As it turned out, I was far from the only Billy Squier fan in the Manchester area. After the column was published, I began receiving messages on social media, via email and texts from people I never would’ve guessed shared my affinity for Squier’s music.

Then Manchester Ink Link publisher Carol Robidoux informed me that she had shared my column with Billy Squier’s PR people, and Squier had actually read and enjoyed it!

I was over the damn moon. Not only was his music a seminal part of my youth[7], but I continue to listen to him to this day.

Back to the large manila envelope on my kitchen table.

As it turned out, Billy Squier himself had sent me a vinyl copy of “Don’t So No” with a signed picture that I have since framed.

And the fact that Billy Squier—who has been understandably protective of his privacy—reached out to me, a columnist for a small Queen City news site, proves what I’ve always suspected: he’s a truly decent man.

Maybe the macro-lesson here is that some people, who are immensely talented and famous artists, still understand humility and decency, and it makes me love Billy Squier and his music that much more[8].

I could understand if Squier was bilious and bitter about the way bigotry derailed his career, but he’s clearly above that.

It’s truly strange. Some days you walk outside and there’s an envelope on your doorstep that changes the way you see the clouds and hear the birds, an envelope that makes you believe in people again.

_________

[1] In the students’ defense, all evidence indicates that Circadian rhythms in adolescents shift, making it near-impossible for many teenagers to get to sleep before midnight and wake up at the ass-crack of dawn.

[2] I’m not entirely sure why I bother with this practice, seeing I remain indoors for most of my days.

[3] Truth be told, I may have squealed when I saw it, which is not a particularly dignified response for a 47-year-old man.

[4] And I’m sure Billy Squier would agree it was bad, but a quick Google search on “MTV videos 1984” will quickly wield videos just as bad, or subjectively worse.

[5] I’m not exactly John Rambo, either.

[6] A good dude working at The Music Connection on South Willow Street—a guy around my age and gray like me—told me that “Don’t Say No” sells out quickly when they get them in.

[7] When I was in college, mid-Grunge in 1994, I would blast Billy Squier throughout my dorm (full disclosure: I was asked to leave said dorm, but not for playing Mr. Squier’s music).

[8] Billy, if you’re reading this, you made my goddamn life! Thank you.