There was a time when I wanted to be a rock star so badly that I tried to contact Satan through my Ouija board to offer him my soul. I had candles and a book of satanic invocations I'd borrowed from the school library. I surrounded myself with pictures of Blackie Lawless, Dave Mustaine and James Hetfield cut out meticulously from my massive collection of Circus Magazine and RIP. At 13-years-old, I didn't know what kind of problems eternal damnation would cause, and didn't care, really. I just knew I wanted to be something special, god-like, and finger tap the William Tell Overture like Yngwie Malmsteen.

Satan never showed, though. I had to do this one on my own.

It almost happened for me. I'm convinced that had I been given the proper guidance, been put up for adoption, and allowed to move to Los Angeles like I'd told my parents, I would've been a full-fledged, washed-up rock star by now. The signs were there: The guitar lessons began to pay off and by 14 I had become somewhat of a celebrity in junior high school because I was able to play "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "One" pretty flawlessly, except for some of the solos and backward chord progressions. My father, who had the best of intentions but poorest of intuitions about middle school angst, suggested I surface from the bedroom and join the school's jazz band because it would look great on an application to college. I wasn't looking to get into Julliard, I just wanted to grow my hair a little longer and bang Lita Ford. I joined reluctantly. And even though I had no idea how to read music, two months later I was standing in front of a packed auditorium with the rest of the clunky Richboro Junior High Jazz Ensemble at the annual Winter Wonderland Jazz Festival wearing a Santa Hat. No, it wasn't like playing The Whiskey in LA, but it was my first experience in front of a live audience. My mother still has the videotape. Well, the first part of it. She fell asleep about halfway through and turned the camera off.

More important than joining the dopey jazz band was that I was able to impress the high-haired, jean-jacketed, chain-smoking girls because I could play "Wanted Dead or Alive" and "Patience" on my acoustic guitar. Girls would come up to me and ask for homemade tapes of me playing their requested songs. Unfortunately, most of those tapes were given to their older, soon-to-be-convicted-of-a-major-felony boyfriends.

"Can you do 'Honestly' by Stryper? Me and Todd had a fight last night and it would mean a lot to me if you played that for us."

I was an eager middle-man and made a lot of tapes that year. I even got to second base thanks to my stirring rendition of White Lion's "When the Children Cry." I was living the dream, sort of. I would practice my autograph on my math book and cover my social studies book with fictitious band names like Death By Silence, Wykked Lester, and Forced Entry. It was around this time that I started to write my own songs. They were all dark, violent, and gloomy with titles like "The River Runs Death" and "Sanctified". However, I did make sure I put together an adequate mix of power ballads (for the radio)."Christie," in my mind, was guaranteed to be a hit:

Christie was a girl I knew in school,
We went out in Junior High,
I loved her, but she'll never know
Because I always said good-bye,
We were destiny but you could never tell
I always let her go and gave her hell
Now that she's gone forever,
And going out with Chris,
I never told her, but I said to myself,
Something that goes like this...

My father, oblivious to the burgeoning musical prodigy that lived under his roof, always used my healthy enthusiasm for heavy metal and all things guitar against me. If my grades in school started to suffer then all the magazine pictures that covered my wall would have to come down. Once when I got a "C" on my report card the guitar ended up in the trunk of his car for a full marking period. I even had to take the Metallica back patch off my jean jacket. I would usually sneak it into my bag and attach it with safety pins when I got to school.

With all these parental constraints working against me, it was tough to achieve my goal. However, I would've gladly given up all of those things if only I could've grown my hair as long as wanted to, which at the time would've been down to the floor. It's well known that in the late 80s a man was measured by the length of his hair. The guys that had the full, teased-out locks were the ones who got all the girls. They didn't even have to play an instrument. As long as they looked the part, they were hooked up. I was only able to get my hair a little bit past my collar before I'd my mother corralled me and I ended up in the barber chair. I would always get it thinned out, but for the most part I managed to keep the length with the hopes that a full summer without a haircut would get me the hairstyle I so eagerly hoped for. We would fight constantly.

"Do you not understand what you're doing to me? Do you not care what I look like?" I'd plead with her each time we went to the barber shop.

"I do care. I saw you from the back the other day and I thought you were a girl."

My mother's main provision was that the hair always looked "neat". I could have it long, but as long as it looked "neat" it would be okay. Unfortunately, "neat" haircuts usually resulted in an awful, spiky-haired monstrosity with a little bit of length curled under in the back. But as long as the back was a little long, I was able to maintain a bit of dignity. She never understood that and even went to the lengths of paying hairstylists extra money to cut the back of my hair regardless of what I'd ask them to do. One time she had a guy cut it so short that I walked home for the barber's, in tears and horrified by my appearance. When I got home I proceeded to call the barbershop over and over again screaming "I hope you die!" into the receiver and hang up. Eventually, my mom eased up. In 9th grade she let me do exactly what I wanted with my hair. With long hair, now I'd be able to reach my full potential as a rock star. It didn't matter that I never got any better at the guitar after that, just as long as my hair was exactly like I wanted it. I was prepared for super stardom and unheralded popularity. I was finally who I wanted to be, after two years of fighting and misunderstandings, the real A.J. Daulerio was about to take over the world:

Well, maybe she had a point. It looked good at the time.