MOG

In 1978, my aunt Joanie decided to join the Hassidim and a marriage was quickly arranged. My brother and sister copped out of going to New York to attend the wedding but I saw it as a great way to hit the NYC record stores and miss a few days of school while I was at it. I flew with my mother to NY and we stayed at my grandmother's house in Riverdale. I had recently been getting into Blue Öyster Cult, mostly their popular songs that I had recorded onto a cassette (TDK D-90, of course!) at my friend's house. Upon arrival in NY, my mother drove me up to a mall in Yonkers to buy clothes and other assorted household necessities. Mall record stores were never the best priced or well sorted but I nonetheless escaped to the record section of some department store (Gimbel's maybe?) and, in the cut-out section, landed one of my favorite records of all time -- Blue Oyster Cult's Secret Treaties...and for a mere $2.99. BÖC was in a transition period between the garagy metal leanings of their early albums and the tight prog-tinged albums they became famous for. In addition to the great songwriting, the things that really struck me was the humor and just totally out-there lyrics. What 14-year old wouldn't love "I want your wife to be my Baby tonight" or better yet: "I'd like to do it to your daughter on a dirt road.

The Seth Man has written a great review of Secret Treaties. As a matter of fact, all his reviews are great and worth reading.

Throughout the next few years, I continued to be a big BÖC fan as I collected their entire back catalogue. One thing I noticed was that all albums came without lyrics but had this odd offer whereby you could send $0.50 and a SASE to some fan club address in East Setauket, NY and they'd send you the lyrics. I finally got around to sending my sassy postmarked to my grandmother's who in turn forwarded the lyrics to me. They were printed out on mainframe printer paper complete with punch-hole ribbon on the edges and covered all albums up to 1977's Spectres. 1981's Fire of Unknown Origin (their last great album, really) was on heavy rotation as I entered my senior year in high school and I started applying to colleges. Coming from Mexico, I knew I was going to study engineering somewhere in the US where I would obtain a better preparation and I decided to apply to one good engineering school in every corner of the US which, from the perspective from outside the US, seemed like a decent strategy.

For the Northeast, I chose SUNY Stony Brook because it was the place where BOC went to college and had formed. This college selection strategy backfired because I was accepted to a few of the colleges but didn't have money to go tour to all corners of the US to check each one out. Ultimately, I chose Stony Brook because of the Blue Öyster Cult connection. In the Fall of '83, I took my first computer science course.When I made my first printout on the UNIVAC, I noticed that the paper was exactly like those with the BÖC lyrics - alternating color lines to ease reading through lines of code, punch-holes on the side...I hit me that this must be the same computer that housed and served up the BÖC lyrics for the worldwide fans! It all made sense considering that East Setauket was the next town over from Stony Brook. Maybe Buck Dharma had kept his computer account...

To high school MOGgers out there - don't try this at home.