Shortly before my first date with Catherine (my wife), a mutual friend asked her an important question: “How do you feel about Hall & Oates?”
Um …
This came with good reason. I am not merely a Hall & Oates fan. I am a Hall & Oates fanatic. I frggin’ love Hall & Oates. The good songs. The bad songs. The hits. The misses. The cheesy videos. The bootlegs. Daryl’s solo work. John’s solo work. I’ve seen Hall & Oates in concert only, oh, six or seven times—but that’s mainly because of limited opportunity, not lack of devotion. I own approximately 45 Hall & Oates CDs—a staggering number, considering that don’t have 45 CDs.
I first tasted the Hall & Oates bug back in the early 1980s, when I bought my brother David a copy of the H2O album for Chanukah. David never much cared for the record—so I made it my own. I listened and listened and listened some more, then jumped all over all the ensuing releases. At school, kids would mock me. “Hall and Oates suck … Hall and Oates are stupid … Hall and Oates are gay …” (gay, back then, was used without stigma) and I’d merely take it. They were my guys. My group.
I digress. Tonight, I learned Hall & Oates have been elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I feel many things—happy, content, giddy. Mostly, though, I feel vindicated.
Word.
