Smeared Makeup, Prom and a Banana

How was YOUR prom? Did you go with the person who you wanted to go with? Did you ask or, did he/she ask? Was it romantic, friendly or other? I want to know if it was exciting? Disappointing? Was there a limo and taffeta involved? Did you skip it altogether?

The album cover for “Talk to Me” began with a conversation about my prom.

I can’t really remember if I asked my date to prom or if he asked me…upon my suggestion. I have to admit that I was googly-eyed because I thought he was such a good dancer. The night of prom I wanted romance and he showed up in a multicolored beanie with a helicopter on top. Enough said. Oh my gosh, I thought my dress was so pretty (it was not) and my hair, so fancy (it was hideous) and well….I want to hear about your prom.

When Dan Busta and I were thinking about the artwork for “Talk to Me”, a post prom, smeared make up, things-didn’t-go-so-well look popped into our heads, particularly when listening to “Fall for It”. Below are a couple stills of our photo shoot of this cover idea. I went overboard and brought a banana into it. Me going overboard is so out of character. This eventually led to…..another photo shoot and, a different idea! And that was the start of the “Talk to Me” cover!

I want to hear about your prom in the comments below. Details please!

47 thoughts on “Smeared Makeup, Prom and a Banana

  1. AK

    What, you didn’t like my beanie? Man, I thought I looked pretty cool.

    And about who asked who…I think you asked me….I liked you and was thinking about it, but you beat me to it.

    BTW, your dress was beautiful…and so was your hair (for that year!)!

    Reply
    1. Kat Post author

      Oh my! I love that you, my prom date, wrote in.

      I think it is impossible to look cool in a multicolored helicopter beanie!! But if anyone could, it would be you.

      Man, I am so impatient…if I had just waited….!

      And, thank you- your lies re: my dress and hair are very sweet….oh how styles have changed.

      Reply
      1. Carrie

        Kat, you have to post your prom pictures now!!! I really want to see this “hideous” hair! My prom was sort of lame… for some reason I was involved in a long distance relationship with a guy from Nebraska (as serious as relationships can be at 16) and he drove out, with his parents I believe, and he took me to my Junior Prom. Didn’t got to Senior prom. no one asked me. (I was shy!) and I didn’t / don’t have the balls to ask anyone!

        Reply
  2. debbie

    I hated my high school and most of my friends went to another high school. But I always wanted to go to a prom. So my boyfriend (who was already in college) and I went long enough for a dance and to have pictures made…. and then we left. We went back to his house and I’ll jump to the part of… well, we fell asleep… and I missed my curfew. My mother was waiting outside for us when we drove up at about 6:30 a.m. Uh oh!!!

    Reply
  3. michae

    I went to gonzaga, an all male high school so I did the asking and now that I think about it I didn’t get asked to any girl’s prom! so much for me having game back then. The two memories that spring to mind are that I brought a non catholic girl (northwestern high) to the prom and she addressed one of the priest chaperones with mr instead of father and he gave me a hard time about bringing a non catholic girl (he was a dick anyway) and that afterwards we went to the cemetery on riggs rd right next to the adelphi pool and made out for about two hours .. never could have gotten away with that with a catholic girl!

    for my junior prom I was riding in my friends bonneville convertible (with the top down!) as we left university park to pick up our dates a brand new song by the beatles came on .. I Want To Hold Your Hand (may/June 1964)… big smiles and the feeling of livin LARGE abounded!

    Reply
    1. Kat Post author

      i can’t imagine you ever not having game michael!! but I can see why a two hour makeout session would make anyone feel like they were livin’ large…what a success!! And what a sweet success to the soundtrack of the Beatles. 🙂

      Reply
  4. Phil

    Hey Kat! My prom was lovely, and as romantic as the worst romance movie you’ve ever seen. I was so into this girl, and she was my friend, but wasn’t having any of it 🙂 Let’s just say I cried at the end of the day. haha

    Reply
  5. Kate

    Awesome photo shoot, Kat! I loved my prom. Went with my bf at the time and a big group of friends, then to a friend’s lake house for the weekend. Only good memories, and just got rid of the dress which actually I still think was quite classy 🙂

    Reply
    1. Kat Post author

      Wow! A prom dress that survives the test of time! I have to see this! What does it look like? A lake house sounds so fun!

      Reply
  6. WF

    Ha.. now that I’m chairing my class’s 40th reunion, I’m finding out that there were several girls that would have been honored to be my prom date. I didn’t go, because I was way too shy to ask anyone. But they we telling me about the total losers they went with. One was a lounge lizard ten year’s older than her who was a friend of her parents. Another was a sappy friend of one of her cousins, also five years older. And of course the prom pics bore this out.. yuck!

    Reply
  7. Pat Williams

    I was asked to the senior prom by a really cute guy who I was hoping he would ask. I was so excited. I had my hair done – it was ghastly! I went home and redid it. There was so much spray and teasing that it took and hour just to brush it out. The rest of the night was great. Dinner, dancing and sunrise on the beach. Then breakfast and home. I was so tired that I slept the rest of the day.

    Reply
    1. Kat Post author

      That sounds like a successful night! And, yes, why do they use SO MUCH hairspray? If you have a pic, I want to see!

      Reply
  8. Dale

    The only somewhat similar event I can remember from the mid-1950s was a Sadie Hawkins (Lil Abner cartoon) Dance where the girl invilted the boy. Nancy and I got our photo in the school year book (sitting on a bale of hay). We did have an all night party at hs graduation–SO ahead of our time!

    Reply
  9. Mark Smith

    Wow, prom was 44 years ago! I actually liked Junior year prom better. I took Ellen Callahan a family friend and I drove my mom’s Ford LTD 2 door hardtop. Teddy and the Pandas played, the were a popular group in Rhode Island. The drummer gave Ellen a drum stick that was damaged and she was ecstatic. I wore a powder blue jacket (rented) that I would wear on a bet today.

    Reply
  10. Mary Gerloff

    In my junior year, I got asked to prom by a football player I had a huge crush on. I came from a family with 6 kids and my parents didn’t have a lot of money so my oldest sister took two of the dresses her bridesmaids wore (my other sister and sister-in-law) and made a beautiful and unique dress. No one else had one like it. She also did my hair and I felt like a fairy princess. I’m not sure if anyone else did but I think my date did. It was a wonderful memory and I’m glad I was able to experience it.

    Reply
  11. Mike

    I skipped my prom. A bunch of us hung out and got stoned and drank beer. We did crash a girl’s catered prom breakfast (we had serious munchies). we were there in jeans and t-shirts.

    Reply
  12. Sheri

    I have the best prom memories! My HS BF went to another school. So we went to each other proms. We did the limo thing one time but had more fun cruising in his Trimuph TR4A red convertible, while cranking Bruce Springsteen all the way up toOne year he wore a powder blue tux to match my blue ball gown dress, lol!

    Reply
  13. Julie Parsons

    I went to an all-girls school. We never had a prom but I was once asked to a school prom at Exeter Academy by an adorable guy who played the drums! I was so excited. How cool was it to get to fly to New England and spend the week end there but….I forgot my prom dress. I had to borrow a dress from the older woman with whom I was staying. Well the dress didn’t exactly fit nor was it in fashion or the littlest bit sexy!! Needless to say, the boy never spoke to me again after that week end but he was really nice to me during the time I was there.

    Reply
  14. Marisa

    My high school boyfriend was Mormon. I was (am) Jewish. Our Senior Prom night was dramatically tragic because we just weren’t meant to be – our religious differences would keep us apart. Like Romeo and Juliet, we were! 🙂

    Reply
  15. Keith

    I skipped my prom and went windsurfing instead. The biggest problem was we moved when I started high school. So, when I arrived at high school everyone was already in their cliques due to going to elementary and middle school together. So, I was the odd man out and decided to make the best of it by going on vacation and windsurf. I still windsurf and have never been to a prom and am married.

    Reply
    1. Kat Post author

      Keith, I’m impressed! Windsurfing is really hard! I took a weekend of lessons when I was in college and was happy to say I stood up first (I’m not competitive at all) and was the only woman in my class, but my skills and good fortune ended there! 🙂 PS. I think being the odd man out is cool.

      Reply
  16. Czarina

    As a good catholic school girl 😉 I went with my entire family to my prom… ‘Cause that’s how we do things here in the island (this is very common). My dress was a gorgeous dark blue and I had no date. But… My friends and I decided that staying all night at the beach beside the Hotel, drinking beers, dancing drunk salsa, and laughing all night long was the best way to spend our Post-Prom night. So, I got home really early in the morning and slept all day 🙂

    Reply
  17. Kathleen S.

    Before my senior prom, my boyfriend and I packed up a tasty picnic dinner and had a relaxed meal in a sunny, grassy park. Afterward, we both went home to change and he met me back at my house. He said he felt a little light-headed and wanted to go outside for a few minutes. We went out back, and on bended knee, he proposed. Needless to say, this was my most memorable prom. We’ll be celebrating 36 happy years of married life this May.

    Reply
  18. Jon

    For one reason or another, I never went to a single high school dance until my senior prom. A couple weeks before the dance, one of my close friends named Jessica (whom I had been (not so) secretly in love with for the last three years) broke up with her boyfriend. Things were rough for her, and she had already bought a dress, so I agreed to go with her. I bought tickets from a friend on the prom committee, who wrote on the ticket envelope “J&J,” with a little heart. It was like my dreams were magically coming true. Then, the week of the dance, she told me that she and her boyfriend had gotten back together, and that she was going to the dance with him instead. While heartbroken, I frantically searched for someone else to go with my extra ticket. With two days to go, one of my friends introduced me to a girl named Julie, who would very much like to go with me.

    An hour before the dance, we met up, I gave her a corsage of white orchids, and opened the envelope of two tickets labeled “J&J,” which may have been destined for us all along. We dined, we danced, we sang along to our favorite songs (we were both in choir), and held each other like we’d never let go. It was one of the most memorable nights of my life.

    A couple weeks later, we had graduated, and the reality that I was moving 2,000 miles away for college and possibly the rest of my life began to set in. I looked at my last summer at home and weighed my options. Rather than get too involved, I reasoned that it was better to end things sooner than in two months, when it would be more painful to leave. I broke up with Julie on my front porch. It was still pretty painful. To this day that is one of the decisions I regret most.

    Today I am still 2,000 miles away from home. Jessica and Julie are both married, the former with two kids. Prom may be a bit of a silly societal convention, but sometimes I wonder what would have happened, if only for slight differences in timing…

    Reply
  19. Marcie

    I think I got lucky in a clean way when it came to my prom – my bf and I split up 3 days before and so I took a friend who I had only met from going to one of his dances as his date (he was friends with my bff in high school we never got to do school things together as she was at a dif school so he took me so the two of us could) it was a totally validating event! I had called my bff in tears on tues night late, wed am she grabbed him at school and by lunch I had a prom date who was the sweetest thing there friends helped get money together for his tux pictures and flowers and I had a lovely night with no stress other then proms are kinda lame! – jump forward 32 years both my prom date and my ex are on my fb and I adore them both!

    Reply

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