Icons: Pat Benatar and Blondie

The local DJ introducing the show said, "Can you smell that smell in the air tonight? It smells like flowers and sweat. That's the smell of an estrogen heavy hard rock show, man! Breathe deep!"

We breathed deep.

Pat Benatar and Spyder Giraldo started playing together the year The Donnas were born. They haven't stopped since. Stepping once again into the shallow end of the pool (I always like it there. The water's warmer. You can say that's because the little kids pee there, but I won't hear you. LALALALALALALA!) Pat looks amazing. The years have been kind to her. Uber kind. Dude. I'm certain that there is a portrait of her somewhere that is aging normally. That's really the only explanation I can come up with.


She didn't hit all the high notes, but that was ok. Our minds filled in the blanks. She and her band knew what the crowd wanted and they delivered it. I felt like I was in college again.

That's a real, real good thing.


Blondie was up next. Debbie Harry took the stage like she owned it. Girlfriend is 64. I looked it up. Sixty-four and dancing, strutting, posing, and generally just rocking the house.


The stage set and the band took me back to 1982. Ms. Harry herself is timeless.


Their first callback song was a punkified cover of the ridiculously inane 'My Heart Will Go On". They made THAT cool. THAT, my fine friends, is no small feat.

THAT, my fine friends, is Blondie.


And THAT, my fine friends, concludes the week of a thousand bands. Or, you know, eight. To recap:

The Prodigals

Blue Oyster Cult and Alice Cooper

Joan Jett and the B-52's

The Donnas, Pat Benatar and Blondie

You can hold up your iPhones with their lighter applications as long as you want, but there won't be an encore from me anytime soon.

Unless, you know, an opportunity knocks and I score some tickets.

Will blog for tix.

(The more observant among you might notice that there are only two tix for The Donnas, Pat Benatar and Blondie. We didn't ditch the kids that night, but we did leave them in the cheap seats. My cousin got us two sweet seats, but couldn't manage five. When I visited with the girls after The Donnas' set, I said - "It was so cool! We could see the pink bass strings! We could see the little sparkle thingy on the singer's face!" They responded, "We could tell the singer had a head." Meh, they're young. Their opportunities for sweet seats will come...)

Warming Up (That's Hot)

The Donnas - every single Donna (none of whom are named Donna) were all born in 1979. I know this because Tom looked it up. Tom could tell you their whole history. I know, 'cause he told me. When the squealy fanboy bug bit him, it bit hard. My first reaction to hearing this was, "Holy crap! I'm old enough to have been their unwed teenaged mother!" (You know, because having a child at seventeen is feasible, but marrying the boy I was dating when I was seventeen? I shudder.) My second and more prevalent reaction was, "They're THIRTY?" Because from the sixth row not one of them looked old enough to drink a legal beer. Third thought? Thank God they're thirty, because the thought of Tom getting so hot and bothered over teenagers was a little unnerving.

How cool are her pink bass strings? How cool is it that we were close enough to see her pink bass strings?

Our introduction to The Donnas came when we watched the special features included on the Detroit Rock City DVD. If you're waiting for me to apologize for or justify liking Detroit Rock City, I sure hope you're comfortable, 'cause that's not going to happen any time soon. Anyway. Here was this cute, young, girl band in KISS face make-up singing 'Strutter', rocking hard, and clearly having a ball. Not one thing wrong with that.

When The Donnas took the stage (For a mere four songs. That's how it goes when you're the warm-up band for not one but two icons.) Tom was on his feet for the whole short set. Most folks were not. MOST folks had not even showed up yet. When the set was over, he was all smiles. "I KNOW she saw me, Tam. SHE saw me and APPRECIATED me."

"She liked you, stud. Ain't no doubt."

They would've been great opening for Joan Jett. But then Tom's head might have exploded.

Next up? Pat Benatar and Blondie. And I'm still in the sixth row, center. Yeah.

Birth of a Squealy Fanboy: Joan Jett and the B-52's

Midway through the Joan Jett concert Tom turned to me and said, "I get it now."

"Get what?"

"That full body visceral reaction you have when Steven Tyler makes that noise. I think Joan Jett is my Steven Tyler."

He said something like that, anyway. It was pretty loud.

My husband had just discovered his inner squealy fanboy.

Nice.

But I got it, too. Joan Jett has replaced Dave Navarro as my favorite pocket rock star. How does so much sound come out of such a wee tiny thing? And how does a chick who represents as such a badass (one might even be tempted to say she had a bad reputation about which she didn't give a damn) present with such a contagious smile? Seriously, ya'll, her smile was brighter than the stage lights. When she went into her cover of the theme from the Mary Tyler Moore show (I KNOW! Right?) asking "Who can turn the world on with her smile?" I just wanted to say, "well it's you girl, and you should know it."


She rocks it as hard as she did when I was in college.

Also she's really hot. If you're into that sort of thing.

I think I'm gonna get a shag haircut.

I LOVE rock and roll!

so put another dime in the juke box, baby

so hurry up, and bring your juke box money

See how smoothly I segued between Joan Jett and the B-52's? My transition was considerably smoother than the actual one, which was sort of jarring. I like both bands, but I don't know whose idea it was to book them together.

It was not a great idea.

When we tried to decide who SHOULD'VE opened for the B-52's, though, we came up blank. They're sort of in a genre all their own. Lots of acts could've opened for Joan, though. Just sayin'.

Ack! Pictures were a lot more challenging after dark when flashes were prohibited!

The B-52's were just what I expected them to be. They bring the party, they do. They bring the retro, trippy, psychedelic party. They bring the strobe lights and the go-go dancing and the weirdly staccato vocal stylings for which they are known.

I was glad I got to go to the party.

Not everyone gets to hang out on Planet Claire. It's a groovy scene, for sure.

But it was a weird scene to enter from the back alley, where I'd just spent time hanging out with the bad kids in their black leather.

"Do you think she saw me, Tam?" Tom asked as we were walking out of the venue.

"Who?"

"Joan Jett. Do you think she saw me? I got my hands up really high..."

"I think she winked at you, hon. I was way jealous of your obvious connection."

I've been at this squealy fangirl thing a lot longer than he has. It's so easy to make us happy and hopeful. His giant goofy smile confirmed it.

One of us. One of us. One of us. One of us. One of us.

Randomness and a Winner

I heard you missed me, I'm back. I brought my pencil - er - netbook. Give me somethin' to write on...

I'm looking forward to visiting with everyone this week, which is really the only thing I'm looking forward to upon returning home. Away = Good; Home = Suck. But hey! Time for the interwebs! So it's not all bad.

First order of business - a winner of the pay it forward giveaway has been drawn. A couple days later than I promised, but I wanted to include pics of the drawing to keep it on the up and up and, as I mentioned, for some reason neither Tom nor I can figure out, I can't download pictures on the road, even though I have all the same equipment with me. He actually used that as a selling point when I was so bummed about coming home, "But when you get home, you can download your pics!" Always look on the bright side of life. (this is the part where I whistle...)

So without further ado:
We decided to do the drawing on the boardwalk in front of the casino, since a drawing is SORT of like a gamble, even though you don't really have anything to lose. Also because we were in Atlantic City so we could.

We put everyone's name on a slip of paper, but then couldn't decide what to draw it from. Pink was along for the ride, so we put her to use. Practical AND beautiful - is there anything that owl can't do? Lea is pretty cute, too.

A wider view of the boardwalk.

Turn around 180 degrees to this.

Pick a good one, Liv!

Savant is a wiener! (I always suspected as much) Congrats, Savant! I'll send you an email soon to clear up the deets.

And in birthday news, today is Tom's birthday. He got to spend it driving from Atlantic City to Uh-hi-uh. Try not to be jealous of his amazing good fortune. At this moment, we are sitting still in traffic somewhere in West Virginia. See? Everything about going home blows.

If you look in the mirror and don't like what you see, you'll find out firsthand what it's like to be me. (yeah, my angsty teen and tween are into My Chemical Romance. What can I say? It's a good lyric.) So I've written about weight and weight issues before (sigh). This weekend we went to Tom's HS reunion. I was nervous because I so hate the way I look and I didn't want it to reflect badly on him. I spent weeks trying to convince myself it didn't matter, but it always does. I can't tell you how many times I thought about bagging it. But go I did. I was so nervous. Meeting people has been scary for me ever since I gained the weight (before I put it on, meeting people was my favorite favorite). But I went and I quickly downed some liquid courage and before long it didn't matter if I was cute or not because I was having so much fun. Switched from vodka to rum and found myself doing the Time Warp (again). Next morning a lot of people had posted pics on Facebook and I was all, "Oh my SHIT I'm fat!" (Also - drunk doesn't look as good as it feels. Frack.) But you know what? The bottom line is that I DID have fun, a LOT of fun, actually, and if anyone judged me OR Tom because of it, I didn't know about it. (And I usually do know or at least suspect - there's a certain paranoia that comes along with hating how one looks.) Maybe I'm the one who needs to become less judgmental. If I'd let my insecurities keep me in I would've missed a really good time.

I just spent two weeks in Eastern PA and South Jersey and didn't even make an ATTEMPT to hook up with any of the people I TRULY MISS because I am so embarrassed about how I look. How freakin' dumb was that? Cut off my nose to spite my (ridiculously round) face.

Workin' on accepting who and what I am. Baby steps, baby steps.

Well, back to the grind. In as much as my life of leisure can be considered a grind. The laundry will wait, unpacking will wait, groceries will wait - I wanna see The Time Traveler's Wife. (Maybe that explains all the time jumps in this post. Am I home? Am I at the beach? Am I on the road in West Virginia? - yep, that's it. Time travel. I'm all of those places and more.) And download a bunch of pictures. I wonder why nothing ever gets done around here? Weird.

We All Went Down to Woodstock

In keeping with the concert theme, and in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, a short trip down Memory Lane - this time only going back to 1994.

Forty years ago this week, when the original Woodstock was held on Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel NY, I was six. Now I reckon there were indeed six year olds at Woodstock, but none of them were the children of my parents, who harbored a deep seeded fear of hippies, weirdos and freaks.

Fifteen years ago, however, when the 25th anniversary of 3 days of love and music was held, I was way older than six. And I considered hippies, weirdos and freaks to be my peeps. I was in.

Tom and I were not dating at the time, but we were friends. Really good friends. Best friends. We decided to go to Woodstock together. (mistake #1) We lived in South Jersey at the time, which is not exactly right around the corner from Saugerties NY. We decided to go on a sponsored bus trip rather than messing with the driving (mistake #2)

I bought a cheap two-man pop up tent, just big enough for us each to unroll a sleeping bag in (mistake #3 - see mistake #1) We packed as lightly as possible, knowing that we would have very little space and no shower facilities. (misfortune #1)

We were up well before the crack of dawn, waiting in the parking lot with lots of other tired but excited Boomers and X-ers.

The ride there was uneventful. We were corralled through extensive security and eventually were on the grounds and ready to find a place to set up camp. We settled on a spot, popped the tent up, unrolled our sleeping bags and set off to explore the grounds and plot our course.

Oh, we had big plans. We were gonna see it all. One stage to the next. (mistake #4) Long before the first scheduled band played it's first note we knew THAT wasn't going to happen. The stages were quite spread out and the crowd was thick. Ridiculously thick. Before the shows even started. There would be no hopping from stage to stage.

We took our blanket and walked to the main stage. We'd be sacrificing a few things we wanted to see, but it made the most sense.

The rain started before the sun went down. (misfortune #2)

The next day we set off for the main stage again, armed only with our blanket and our still quite sunny dispositions. (Sunny being a relative term, as Tom and I are both more Eeyore than Tigger.)

The weather over the course of the weekend fluctuated between rain and scorching heat. The mud was ubiquitous. (misfortune #3) But we'd secured a decent position on the lawn (high point #1) and were determined to make the most of it.

The Rollins Band performed (high point #2) and made the whole damn trip worthwhile, no lie. I'd ALMOST be willing to do it again, just for the opportunity to have another chance to see just. that. set. Oh, kids, I do love me some Henry Rollins. He makes me feel all tingly inside. (Oh, Plankton, that's the way you're supposed to feel!) He - and his music - are just so - POWERFUL. I'm trembling thinking about it.

Ahem.

There was a blanket full of teenagers spread out behind us. They provided a moment or two of amusement for us. To whit:

Overheard at Woodstock

"Who's coming on next?"

"It says Joe Cocker."

"Who's that?"

"I don't know. Some old dude."

"I think he sang the theme for 'The Wonder Years'"

~later that evening~

"I love Nine Inch Nails. I hope they play every song they've ever played. AND MORE."

(to us) "NIN is my favorite band. Could you guys just, sort of, sit down or something during their set so I can see them better? I mean, like, you can still dance around and stuff, but I really want to see them."

" God I love NIN. I can't wait, man, I can't wait."

~one half hour later~

(announcer) "Nine Inch Nails!"

(boy behind us, curled in a fetal position) ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Metallica came on after NIN. We were so tired and cramped and miserable at that point. Earlier in the day Tom had ventured out to find nourishment. It took him the better part of an hour to make his way through the crowd to the concession stand, pay a ridiculous sum of money for a lousy Dominoes pizza and a 2-liter bottle of warm Pepsi, and find his way back to our blanket. We were both, it turned out, a little bit afraid we'd never see each other again.

We watched a little bit of Metallica's set then decided we'd be able to hear them as we walked, so we'd start back to the tent. (mistake #5)

Tom and I are in agreement that the crush we got ourselves caught up in on the way back to our tent ranks in the top five scariest moments either of us have ever experienced. The crowd sort of became an entity of it's own which moved of it's own volition. (misfortune #3) We were merely carried along with it. If we had wavered or - God forbid - fallen, we would have been trampled and killed in the mud. We had no doubt about this.

Aerosmith closed that night. We were already in our tent (and shaking like leaves after the near-crushing incident) when they started. We could hear the whole set, but we couldn't see a thing. Tom figured it wouldn't matter since I'd seen them four times already on that tour alone. (mistake #6) Tom can be so silly sometimes.

The next day opened with us cranky, muddy and sore. We brushed our teeth, spit on the ground, and threw on bandannas and that completed our grooming regimens. We could barely stand ourselves, much less each other. We both wanted to go home, but since we'd come by bus we had no choice but to wait,

When we finally did make it through the muck and the mud to the bus the next morning, we left behind our tent, our blanket, and a ridiculous amount of money. The tent and blanket had soaked up so much mud that they were too heavy to reasonably carry back to the bus. (misfortune #4) The money? Oh, hell, you know where the money went. 'Twas a festival of Peace, Music, Mud and Commercialism. (mistake #7)

So the bus load of us had all survived the same ordeal. I mean - experienced the same great event. The ride home was a lot quieter than the ride there had been. When we stopped at a rest stop, I opted to stay on the bus. Tom got off the bus to use the facilities. When he returned, having been in polite company and fresh air for 5 minutes or so, he said, "You can't even imagine how bad we smell."

The weekend had been rough on our friendship. The close quarters, the mud, the near death experience - it all took it's toll. But when we got back to my apartment, there was no need for discussion. No one would need to wait for a shower. Besides, I didn't really want either of us sitting on my furniture while waiting for the other to shower. We took one together. (high point #3)

When they held the 30th anniversary concert, we watched it on our mutual TV with a toddler in my lap and a preschooler in his. Peace, music and love prevailed. We'll skip the mud and commercialism this time around, thanks.

Frumpy is the New Dangerous

"Open your bag please, ma'am."

We've all heard it or some variation thereof. Perhaps we were going through the security check at the airport, perhaps we were entering a museum, perhaps we may have even been going to a concert.

As I may have mentioned, my family attended a couple concerts last week. My husband carries a messenger bag with numerous pockets and zippers. Upon entering one of the concerts he held his bag open and a guard glanced inside it then waved him through. My youngest daughter was right behind him. She did not have a bag, but she did have on a pair of baggy pants with numerous pockets and zippers. She was waved on through. My eldest was wearing jeans so tight there was no WAY she was carrying contraband. She was waved on through. My niece is small and cute and I'm not even sure they noticed her. She walked right through.

I approached the security table with my tote bag opened wide. No pockets. No zippers. I expected to keep walking. The guard held up his hand. "Please start removing items one at a time, ma'am."

I removed my journal. He made me open it.

I removed my reusable shopping bag. He made me open it, as well.

He spotted two cases for eyeglasses. He made me open both of those.

The line behind me was growing longer.

I removed my wallet.

"Is that your wallet, ma'am?"

"Yes." I avoided the temptation to say, "No, it's my diaphragm" because he didn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. And also because it's really big. And also because it was clearly a wallet. And also because I didn't think of it till much later.

"I'll need you to open it for me, please."

Oh, for reals? I opened my wallet. Each compartment.

He spotted my camera. "No flash photography, or you WILL be ejected."

On that friendly note he waved me on through to join my family. He seemed a little disappointed at not having been able to make a bust.

"Move along please, ma'am." he chided as I tried to fold everything back up so that it would fit in my bag.

Now let me be clear: I understand and respect the necessity of security checkpoints. If everyone had been receiving the same degree of scrutiny I would not have been offended at all. But I really seemed to have been singled out.

"Profiling!" I screamed (you know, in my head), but I couldn't decide what profile I fit. Do they have a big problem in this town with rogue middle-aged fat chick hoodlum gangs? Is there now a known correlation between frumpiness and danger of which I am not aware? Are all the nogoodniks smuggling illegal substances into concerts in their bifocal cases these days?

Maybe I need to watch the news more.

Random Randomness That's Random

Here's what's been running all around in my brain:

-Meta stuff: I've been reading a lot of posts lately in which people are blogging about blogging. I need to do a little bit of that, too. I feel so selfish AND self centered saying this, but here goes. I have been visiting relatives for the past week and will be for the next week. I have a little time each day to write, but not a lot. I have been using a lot of that time reading and commenting on blogs, as is my habit. Some of you may (or may not - how big is my ego, anyway?) have noticed that I have been less faithful about it this week. I intend to be even less faithful next week. I'm in the middle of a visiting vacation. I'm taking a little time off.

Here's where the selfish part kicks in - I MAY still post. I have found myself all kinds of inspired on my cousin's beautiful grounds and I may manage to find time to do that. But I just can't make the time for more - not this week. I apologize if that sounds bitchy or selfish - I'm really not either of those things (much) but there's just so little time and I need some of it for me. When I get back home it will be business as usual, I promise.

- The Week of a Thousand Bands: I will post about the concerts I saw this week, but I'm holding off on that till I get home, too. It's the dangdest thing - I can't upload pictures on the road. Same camera, same laptop, same cords - works at home, doesn't work on the road. (Yes, I have a laptop AND a netbook on vacation - because that's how my mind works. See why I need a break?) It must be a server issue or something, although that makes very little sense to me. But anyway. Since I had GREAT seats for these shows, I definitely want to be able to show you pictures. So that's on hold, but only for a little while.

- Close Encounters: Between bands at one of the shows, I pulled out my journal to jot down a few quick notes. A gentleman approached me and asked if I wrote in a journal religiously. (I'm really more of a secular scribbler, but that didn't seem to be the information he was actually seeking...) I told him I wrote a blog and that I liked to jot down ideas for it from time to time so I wouldn't forget. He replied, "A blog. Is that, like, a computer thing?"

"Yeah, something like that."

Ya'll! There is a whole chunk of society out there that doesn't even know we exist and I met one of their scouts! I hope I represented us well...

Sex and Money: (now that I have your attention...) Before our last show, Tom hit the ATM. It informed him that our balance was dangerously low. That didn't make sense, as that particular day was pay day and his check should've been deposited. He started making calls - first to the bank (no sir, we received no direct deposit to your account today) Then a text to his boss (dude! something I need to know?) Then a call to HR. He THOUGHT he knew the number for HR. He dialed it with a 1-800 prefix and got nothing. He tried again with a 1-888 prefix and got more than he bargained for. Let's just say that apparently a lot of beautiful horny women are hot for my husband and would like to tell him so for a small fee. For the next 10 minutes his texts alternated between 'account balance low" warnings and variations of "hey, stud, feel like talking?"

We figured out the money thing (which was and remains a total pain in the ass, but isn't germane to this story, so I'll skip it) but the sex thing remained. He pointed out that it said if he texted 'end' to a certain number, the requests would stop. He hesitated to do so, lest that be a pay service, too, or, you know, lest whatever. But these hot sexy girls were getting pretty persistent. Something had to be done. He sent the end request and it was honored, so that ended well. And gave us something to talk about.

So that's what's running around in my brain today. If you haven't entered my 200th post giveaway, do so! When I'm done with my selfish me-time, I want to make something for you! (I am still getting used to the netbook keyboard and originally typed 'somethong'. Maybe they have a job for me somewhere texting hot, lonely guys...)