FROM WHITE CASTLE TO THE NILE

   I discovered my dads stash of several Playboy and Hustler magazines when I was 12 and was both scandalized and turned-on for the first time ever. I kept occasionally returning to the stash to sneak a peek, and eventually boldly stole one, thinking I would be immune from persecution because he would have to admit to having them, which in my 11-year-old mind was impossible. My mom found it, confronted me, grounded me for the weekend, and threw it away.  My dad got me Licensed to Ill for my 12th birthday and we played the first few songs in his car and then continued in my living room. The first song she heard was “Girls” and she was not psyched. Then “Fight for your right to party” and the line “living at home is such a drag, your mom threw away your best porno mag” and she practically imploded with self-recognition. She didn’t want me listening to this stuff but couldn’t prohibit something that was so accurate.

​

  Somehow after all these years I just realized the crashed airplane on the cover strongly resembles  a stubbed-out joint. Never would have noticed this when the record came out when I was thirteen.  The Beasties came to Orlando on a stadium tour with Run DMC, but my mom wouldn't let me go because there was an article in the Orlando Sentinel warning parents they would have a 20-foot inflatable penis onstage.