Here's a leftover story from New Year's . . .
For the last several years, during the week around New Years, my wife's family convenes in Newport, Rhode Island for a few days at a timeshare. Prior to having kids, my wife and I might go out for New Year's Eve, but in these last few years, we've generally stayed in.
That was the case this year. As midnight approached we found ourselves watching Ryan Seacrest as he did the Dick Clark thing.
At some point, Seacrest brought out Debbie Harry and Blondie, who chatted for a few minutes, and then launched into a few of their hits.
My wife's family was remarking how good Debbie Harry both looks and sounds, though she is approaching 70 years old.
My mind suddenly jumped back nearly 20 years.
In the mid-90s, when I was living in Virginia, my roommate was a Virginia Tech grad, and a football fan. When the Hokies made it to the Sugar Bowl, we decided to hit the road.
New Orleans for New Year's Eve? Hell yeah!
The football game was exciting. Tech won. We were in an upbeat mood as we headed down to Bourbon Street, trying to decide where we'd go to celebrate midnight.
We noticed that at one of the clubs, the headliner for the evening was Debbie Harry.
"Debbie Harry!?!!? C'mon!" I remember exclaiming.
Harry hadn't had a hit in years and years. I presumed she was old and washed up and why would I want to spend New Year's Eve with that?
So there I was, back in 2013 on New Year's Eve, sitting in a timeshare sipping some wine in my pajamas with my wife and my In-Laws waiting for the clock to hit midnight so I could go to bed, while I watched Debbie Harry rocking out on National TV, whipping the Times Square audience into a frenzy, looking fabulous as she neared 70. . .
I looked at the TV. I looked at my pajamas. I looked at the TV and said out loud:
"Who's washed up now, Debbie Harry?"
Hear the song on Youtube.
Hear Blondie on New Year's Eve 2013 on Youtube.
Showing posts with label virginia tech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label virginia tech. Show all posts
Monday, January 13, 2014
Monday, June 25, 2012
Sugar "If I Can't Change Your Mind"
"What the hell happened to you?!" the kid behind the counter at Subway had apparently asked, with just a little bit of trepidation.
Looking at my roommate, it's not hard to understand why the kid would have thought a crazy, perhaps dangerous man had just been in the sandwich shop.
It had been a loooonng day, and it started early.
This was when I was living in Southwest Virginia, in the a big farmhouse called 7 Maples. Living out the post-college dream of being on the radio, drinking beer, staying up late, being with friends, watching a lot of sports and listening to a lot of music.
My roommate was both a huge Bob Mould fan, and (because he was an alumnus) a Virginia Tech football fan. And on a hot, hot fall Saturday, there was both a game, and a Sugar show to go to.
So we were up early, with his Dad. I didn't have tickets to the game, but I took the road trip two hours up I-81, to sit in a bar within earshot of the stadium to watch the game on TV, while they went to the game.
I knew it was going to be a long, long journey into the night so I sipped my beer slowly, as the frat kids around me got sloppier and sloppier.
The sight of my roommate after the game, made me laugh.
"You sat on the sunny side of the stadium, huh?"
Lane Stadium could be a cold, unforgiving place in November and December. But on this day, half the crowd was on a concrete cookie sheet baking in the sun.
And my roommate was quick to turn lobster red in those conditions.
We split with his Dad, who returned to Abingdon, and we traveled on to Chapel Hill for Sugar, who were touring behind "File Under Easy Listening."
The Cat's Cradle that night was like a convection oven---mostly airless, but except of gusts of hotter heat that swirled around the raucous activity of the crowd.
Sugar was just a singular kind of band. They had this focused, precise, tight type of anger---a really amazing mix of ferocity and control. And the audience acted accordingly, moving and swaying and sweating en mass, both exhausted and still frenzied.
With our ears still ringing, we started our long drive home.
We were both broke, having spent what we had on gas and beer, but we scraped together a couple of bucks as we pulled into a local Subway. My roommate offered to go in himself, while I kept the car running.
I wish I could have seen the look on the kid's face when this large, tired-looking, wrung-out red man, fully drenched in sweat, walked into Subway and said, "Can I have two Gatorades and a small bag of pretzels?"
But my roommate came out laughing, having been previously unaware at just how horrible and weird he must look to the rest of the normal world, a world that hadn't spent the day watching football, drinking beer, driving a few hundred miles, jumping around at a rock show and steeling himself for another few hundred miles of highway home.
Hear the song on Youtube.
Looking at my roommate, it's not hard to understand why the kid would have thought a crazy, perhaps dangerous man had just been in the sandwich shop.
It had been a loooonng day, and it started early.
This was when I was living in Southwest Virginia, in the a big farmhouse called 7 Maples. Living out the post-college dream of being on the radio, drinking beer, staying up late, being with friends, watching a lot of sports and listening to a lot of music.
My roommate was both a huge Bob Mould fan, and (because he was an alumnus) a Virginia Tech football fan. And on a hot, hot fall Saturday, there was both a game, and a Sugar show to go to.
So we were up early, with his Dad. I didn't have tickets to the game, but I took the road trip two hours up I-81, to sit in a bar within earshot of the stadium to watch the game on TV, while they went to the game.
I knew it was going to be a long, long journey into the night so I sipped my beer slowly, as the frat kids around me got sloppier and sloppier.
The sight of my roommate after the game, made me laugh.
"You sat on the sunny side of the stadium, huh?"
Lane Stadium could be a cold, unforgiving place in November and December. But on this day, half the crowd was on a concrete cookie sheet baking in the sun.
And my roommate was quick to turn lobster red in those conditions.
We split with his Dad, who returned to Abingdon, and we traveled on to Chapel Hill for Sugar, who were touring behind "File Under Easy Listening."
The Cat's Cradle that night was like a convection oven---mostly airless, but except of gusts of hotter heat that swirled around the raucous activity of the crowd.
Sugar was just a singular kind of band. They had this focused, precise, tight type of anger---a really amazing mix of ferocity and control. And the audience acted accordingly, moving and swaying and sweating en mass, both exhausted and still frenzied.
With our ears still ringing, we started our long drive home.
We were both broke, having spent what we had on gas and beer, but we scraped together a couple of bucks as we pulled into a local Subway. My roommate offered to go in himself, while I kept the car running.
I wish I could have seen the look on the kid's face when this large, tired-looking, wrung-out red man, fully drenched in sweat, walked into Subway and said, "Can I have two Gatorades and a small bag of pretzels?"
But my roommate came out laughing, having been previously unaware at just how horrible and weird he must look to the rest of the normal world, a world that hadn't spent the day watching football, drinking beer, driving a few hundred miles, jumping around at a rock show and steeling himself for another few hundred miles of highway home.
Hear the song on Youtube.
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