50. I'm Radioactive!

50. "Back in the U.S.S.R." by the Beatles

In my youth, the Soviet Union was filled with the worst bad guys. Yes, everyone still hated Nazi's--especially Steven Spielberg--but they had been defeated in World War II by Hogan's Heroes, so the big living, breathing enemy was anyone with a Russian-sounding name. Yet because I had been raised on the Beatles' White Album, I believed that maybe there was something good to be found in the Soviet Union, namely, beautiful and sexy women. This belief was reinforced by every James Bond film I ever saw, as well as the Pink Panther Strikes Again.


My interest in Russian women went so far as to get me to study the Russian language and culture for about two months during my freshman year of college. It wasn't a class for credit, so I didn't learn much other than how to say Yes (Da) and No (Nyet)--two words that I think would have served me well if I had actually gone to Russia at any point in my life, but it was not to be.

The closest I got to Mother Russia was on my mission in Sweden, where I met a Russian businessman that asked me to explain the rules of American football to him, which was kind of difficult because we didn't learn how to say "linebacker" in the MTC. I liked the guy, so my opinion of Russians became really positive.

I also ended up getting a part of Russia embedded in my flesh for life when Chernobyl exploded and the winds blew all the leftovers into Sweden. I didn't like being bombarded with radiation, and my opinion of the Russians sank to the lowest it had ever been.

But my opinion of Russian people--not their leaders--was forever shifted into the positive range when Billy Joel went on tour there. Them liking Billy so much made me think I had waaaaaaaaaaay more in common with the Russian people than I'd like to admit. And because I had grown up singing "Back in the U.S.S.R" at home, I knew all the words when I saw Billy sing it in concert in Leningrad. He ended up writing another song about how he made friends with some Russian clown (that's his vocation, I'm not using the word "clown" in a derogatory sense just then). But Billy's song "Leningrad" didn't shift my feelings towards the Russians any more than it already was. Watching him sing "Back in the U.S.S.R." was all I needed.

 

Now, if that performance doesn't make your balalaikas ring, then you are a clown (and I mean that in the most derogatory sense possible).