Every single one of us the devil inside

Lately, I've been playing a lot of Rock Band and Guitar Hero with Hoodie. I'm fairly good at both of them, if I do say so myself. Okay, not good enough to be on some reality-based tv show where real rock-n-rollers are looking for their next band member!

Speaking of rock and roll. Did I ever tell you about the spring of 1985 when E (one of my best friends from high school) and I begged my Mom to drive our fishnetted-flouncyminiskirt and pastelcolored-tanktop-under-the-neck-cutout-ofthesweatshirt-soyourshouldersshowed-wearing selves to a theme park to see a semi new to the USA band who was playing there?

E was way ahead of everyone at our school with her taste in music, and I owe my love for Duran Duran, Billy Idol and all things SKA to her! Anyway, she was forever reading SPIN magazine or the cool magazine from the Sunday LA Times and told me that Adam Ant and this other Australian group of hotties were in California playing small venues and did I want to go see them with her?

See, her Mom wouldn't let her go most places unless I went too because her parents had this silly thought I was this safe and stable influence in her life. While I wasn't so goody-goody that I'd sit and polish my halo, I WAS forever dying to be adventurous and sublimely cool like her.

So one Saturday when my Mom got off work at 2:00 in the afternoon, I fanagled her to drive E and I to this particular theme park about 90 minutes south of where we live. There were a lot of new wave groups that played live throughout the 80's there and many of them got their "big break" with all of the exposure.

Adam Ant was supposed to headline a concert with INXS that day, but come to find out -- he had taken another gig elsewhere, which was fine by us because we had been listening to Shaboo Shoobah nonstop on our Walkmans and were already loving all the songs. So we get there and scramble away leaving my Mom to figure out how to kill 4 hours!

The line into the concert already snaked throughout the waiting area of the pavillion they were playing in. It was situated on the side of a hill and no breeze could get to us. We were all getting sweaty and bored, and the throngs of girls wearing ripped INXS t-shirts gathered in clusters to moan and mooch off strangers with sodas. All I remember after that, is somehow getting to be about 6 feet from the end of the tiny stage and jumping up and down constantly while screaming my brains out all of the lyrics to their music. I don't remember what the guys were wearing or what order they sang the songs in. I do remember that "Don't Change" was the very last song and that somewhere in the middle of the concert, two other events happened.

E and I were so starstruck by these drop dead gorgeous men that desperation to meet them prodded us to scribbled some sort of honey coated dribble professing our undying love and devotion to the entire band and promising "acts" which we knew not of, but figured if we wrote them down anyway we'd have a better chance of reaching our goal. We took the piece of paper and rolled it up in a small tube and tied it with a skinny hair ribbon E had been wearing, and decided that she would be the one to take aim and chuck it onto the stage whereby the glorious Michael Hutchence himself would pick it up mid-song and read it while still singing, know miraculously and instantaneously it was from the 2 most beautiful girls in the third row that threw it to him and passionately motion to the concert staff to usher us backstage!!!

Shut. Up. It could've happened!

Anyway, E launched our love note with all her might and it sailed -- nay, it SOARED in slow motion over two rows of bouncing teenage heads, across a 3 foot wide trench of sweaty faced security guards and kerplopped perfectly at the feet of Andrew Farris -- who although we were sure he was very nice and all, was NOT the intended receiver of our unrequited lust.

After stomping on it a few times, he noticed something under his foot and looked down, bent over and picked it up. This look of what can only be described as apathetic blankness took over his face as we watched him shrug his shoulders and set the scroll on top of an amplifier all while E and I kept screaming, "READ IT READ IT OR GIVE IT TO MICHAEL PLEASE ANDREW PLEASE!!!!!" Less than 10 minutes later, half of the audience had figured out what we had done and began throwing their own notes, pieces of candy or gum, lapel pins, and whatnot at the stage much to the confusion of the band. They obviously hadn't experienced EVERY aspect of up and coming stardom as obviously no one had ever tossed anything before at the stage during a concert.

By the end of this "Chuck your stuff at INXS" free for all, underwear and bras started making it onto the stage which brought happier and more appreciative looks from the Aussie boys than squares of Bubble Yum did. Which leads to the second thing that happened.

E decided that she would not be "one-upped" by anyone else in the audience and by GOD if our efforts to get the band's attention was going to be stripped away by all these blatant hussies, then she too was going to hussify herself. Sooner than you can say "Tie me kangaroo down sport" she took off her 36C racer-backed bra (because those were the only bras you could still wear tank tops with and not have the straps show which was a NOT acceptable back then and not have your mother yelling at you to "house those girls" before you could leave the house), ripped it in half (she's mighty strong!), and sent one half flying Frisbee style to Garry Gary (my personal fave) and the other half to Kirk (even though it was meant for her fave, Jon).

After the concert was over, the only thing we regretted was not thinking to write our names and phone numbers down on the bra halves first. Needless to say, when my Mom let us go on a few rides before we left that night, E found out about gravity the hard way!