Starring: Samantha Fox

[Originally posted on March26, 2019 — old blog]

So let me tell you about the time my brother Nick and I had naked posters of Samantha Fox hanging in our bedroom as preteens. When we were just wee lads, we shared a bedroom that was the finished attic in a twin home my parents purchased in the suburbs of Philadelphia. We moved there in December of 1986 and shared that room since one of us moved out. This story takes place before we were even in high school. Nick was in 5th grade, I was in 7th. Every Summer my family vacationed in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, close enough to the popular coastal locations like Ocean City and Wildwood. Well, it was one of the closing weeks during the summer of 1988. The family had planned a last full-day hurrah in Wildwood. We’d spend all day at the beach and then all night on the boardwalk. As anyone who frequented Wildwood, NJ boardwalk knows, if and when you won any prizes while playing games, you had to carry them around with you for the rest of the night. Well, as we were popping in and out of every arcade on the boardwalk that night, Nick happen to win big at one game. I recall it being skee-ball because he’s always been really good at that, and tickets just kept piling up out of that machine. But what he later exchanged for those tickets was….are you ready?…A Guns n’ Roses — Appetite for Destruction poster. I’m sure he won a lot more swag that night, but I have to assume we wound up breaking everything else within minutes, but this poster, along with a similar one I had, are very significant to this story.

It was almost time to meet back with our parents at the end of the night. So we headed toward the meeting point with our new wares to hang on the walls in our new big ass bedroom. We finally met up with mom and dad, and for some dumb and lucky reason, Nick and I decided to show off our new bad ass posters. Immediately my mom’s eyes lit up at Nick’s poster. We knew instantly it wasn’t in excitement. She shrieked, “WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT!?!” And Nick honestly told her it was the album cover to Guns n’ Roses — Appetite for Destruction. She quipped, “NOT IN MY HOUSE IT ISN’T! YOU’RE NOT HANGING THOSE SKULLS IN MY HOUSE!” Our heads both sank and our bodies simultaneously turned toward the trash can to toss out our prizes. But right before we dunked them in the bin, mom said, “Well wait. What were your choices?” Nick spun around and faced her like an Army private and said something like “It was a choice between this or Samantha Fox…nude”. In that very moment angels took over my mothers body and made her blurt out the sweetest words young boys our age would ever hear. She said, “Well I’d rather there be a pair of tits on my walls than skulls!” Nick and I looked at each other, then looked at mom. And Nick said, “Can we trade these in!?” And as we heard her say, “Ye…”, we were gone. Running down the boardwalk, weaving in and out of families strolling, dodging the TramCar, just to get back to the spot were we got these stupid skull posters. At this point, we were bound for titties. Glorious, glorious titties…and we were about to be allowed to hang them on our bedroom wall. Without questioning our age, the vendor simply let us exchange skulls for titties. Thank you, 1980s.

We couldn’t wait to get home. As soon as we did, I got the level out to hang these majestic “pieces”. Samantha Fox “I wanna have some fun. Move my body all night long” SAMANTHA FOX! She was now hanging beautifully on our wall. She looked amazing in all her glory. There was glory from our end too. And from that point on, that glory grew as every new friend entered our room to play Nintendo. That Nintendo was never immediately turned on again. At least until the novelty wore off, and boy did it. So a year or 2 goes by and those posters were getting dusty. And young boys learn lots of new things in that amount of time. For instance, ninja mastership. There’s a lot to learn about being a ninja. And we did just that thanks to SEGA’s hit arcade game called Shinobi. This game, along with volume “N” (for ninja) of our World Books Encyclopedia set my mom recently purchased from a door salesman, taught us the basics of ninjahood. We learned about Samurai swords, nunchucks, kubotan, and of course, the oft-wrongly named “Chinese star”. For the uninitiated…a ninja throwing star. I guess the cardboard cutout weapons we made just weren’t “cutting” it anymore. Because one day, I don’t remember who, but someone came out to play with a real Chinese star.

I can’t recall if someone or their older brother bought it from the Balcony on 69th street in Upper Darby, or from some store on South street in Philadelphia. I just don’t know how this beautifully crafted piece of metal showed up in our circle of friends. But there it was. A throwing star. We immediately ran to the local park to play with it. We threw it at everything we knew it would stick into, accept, believe it or not, ourselves. It was so exhilarating. Throwing a piece of death metal at a high velocity released our stupid little endorphins. We really thought we were ninja. Rolling on the ground or doing flips and throwing the star. Throwing it back-handed. Every way we could imagine, without killing ourselves. I’m still shocked at that fact. But young boys can’t play in the park forever. Not because we were growing up, but because it was getting dark and we had to get home for dinner. I recall leaving the park that day, and we all agreed that someone got to hold onto the star after each time we met.

At some point, I was allowed to possess the star for the night. I took it home and pulled it out once I was in our bedroom. I held it like a fidget spinner and just kept spinning it in my hand, over and over and over. All I wanted to do was “Have Some Fun” and just throw this star over and over while it was in my possession. But I couldn’t. I had no where to throw it. Until…as I was holding the star up, spinning it in my hand in front of my face, I looked past the star and there they were again. Samantha Fox’s voluptuous breasts. “Hello, ladies!” And without much more hesitation, I chucked the star across the room right at one of her nipples. I completely missed, I’m sure. But something just happened. And a realization was made. The realization was that when correctly thrown, the star striking the wall wasn’t that loud. Just a quick little thud. Ninjas know this, and now I did too. But what happened was, I retrieved the star from a null area of this poster, and I tried again. So close! But no cigar. And before you know it, Nick and I were throwing the Chinese star at Samantha Fox’s breasts, seeing who would be the first to bulls eye one of her nipples. Nick and I examined the wall. The star only left a tiny little hole. We were good.

Well for the next week, the Nintendo was useless. We were now throwing that star 100s of times at boobs. Between my brother and I, along with Andrew, John, Kupsey and I’m sure plenty of others, we all took turns making our throws. All 4 nipples were eventually destroyed. But we didn’t care. We just kept throwing, over and over at different parts until those posters turned to shreds. And we soon came to realize that those little holes, accumulated over time, destroys a wall. It almost looked like the wall was shot at with an automatic BB air rifle, like the ones they had on the boardwalk. But these holes were all made from a single Chinese star.

The lesson learned here…everything isn’t about learning. Just kidding. Once mom and dad got wind of the Chinese star business and saw the damage it caused, that was it. No more ninja dojo in the attic. And I’m sure we had to scrub stuff around the house and do yard work for months to make up for being horny little ninja wannabes. But that wall stayed mangled until years later when Jerry claimed the empty attic as his domain. He refinished it with a beautiful modern look, so the new owners have no clue about that room once being a titty torture chamber.