Let us stay Forever Now...

1983-84?
I'm 12 going on 13, my sister Andrea has one of those rare (back then) moments where she decides to do something totally cool with me. She buys me a ticket to see the Psychedelic Furs and Talk Talk play at Isle view Park in North Tonawanda! It was part of this three-day festival. Each day featured a different style of music, (Country, Metal and New Wave). The "New Wave" show is the least attended (like I could tell). To me, there was a shitload of people!!

Andrea and I pull up some lawn as we sit through the opening act... Some unknown College band from Jamestown called The 10,000 Maniacs(Go figure!)
Talk Talk comes on and suddenly we're engulfed by people. Everyone stands up and we can barely see over their heads.

Now comes the break before "The Furs." Andrea and I wait till most of the crowd heads to the beer tents and we make a beeline all the way to the front row. When the Furs come out, we are right in front! This was during the "Forever Now" tour so they opened w/"Love my Way." Andrea and I freaked b/c we (like everyone else our age) were die-hard MTV viewers, and knew all the dance moves from the video. Well, I'm sure I was the youngest person in the front row (and if I was 12, I'm sure I was wearing something super-spiffy like my "Smurf" t-shirt)::slaps forehead::: Anyway, we're dancing right along with him step for step, he sees us and he blows us a kiss... We scream!

1886
The "Mirror Moves" tour comes to Darien Lake Amphitheater, which is (at the time) nothing but a stage at the bottom of a grassy hill). My older brother, John, takes me because the girl he likes is going with her friends instead. I was recently busted by my Mom for smoking and the only reason she let me go was because John would've been out the price of the ticket if I didn't.

We get in his car and speed towards the park. Once we get on the Thruway, he asks me if I smoke. I say "No!" thinking that I'm in for a lecture. "Too bad," he says, "Cause I DO!!" He laughs maniacally as he lights a smoke and tosses me the pack. "Oh man! You have NO idea how much shit I get away with because Mom's always looking to bust you! You're the best thing that's ever happened to me!"

He buys me a tin pail of beer. Yeah, they served beer from the tap in these tin pails that cost $6 and held about 4 cups of beer (I still have mine!) I befriend the girl he's crushing on and she decides to date him on my advice. Til Tuesday opens and The Furs were brilliant as always! They add this horn section for "Sleep Comes Down" and I don't know why, but it reminds me of Gunga Din.

1987 - 88?
"Midnight to Midnight" tour - I'm probably in trouble for ~something~ again. All I know is that the local news is doing a live interview with Richard Butler and the opening act is about to take the stage. I leave the dinner table and go sit on the front steps. I don't want anyone to tease me for crying over missing a concert.

My brother comes outside and sees me feverishly trying to brush away my tears. He looks at me, shakes his head in exasperation and says, "Let's go." We make it to Darien Lake in 20 minutes. A record time no one has ever beat to this day.

I run into the same girl my brother used to date while waiting in line for the girls' bathroom but the line's waaaaay too long, so we decide to pee in the boys' bathroom. They don't seem to mind. My brother buys me (another) bucket of beer and a t-shirt that I wear every day for gym class... when I actually go to gym.

They play "Heartbreak Beat" and I am dancing like a mad woman underneath the stars on a beautiful summer night. I am on the cusp of turning 17. I am beautiful and everyone is watching me dance ... I vow to stay this way forever...

2002-03?
I see the Furs one more time in an old theatre in North Tonawanda (ironically). This time; ~I~ buy the tickets for my sister and I.

We walk in. The place is crowded but the first 3 rows are empty. Thinking of my past experiences, we sit in the front row. They take the stage, we all jump up and start dancing... Suddenly, we are being hit w/popcorn. We turn around... everyone is in their seats and they are yelling at us to sit down!!!!

We are devastated. Now we are sitting in the front row... sulking. Richard looks me in the eye. I mouth, "I'm sorry!" He winks and blows me and Andrea another kiss. We stand up and get heckled into sitting back down over and over through the entire show. I feel as if I've broken a vow. The 16 year-old me would have flipped off the entire crowd and danced like nobody was watching. The 30-ish me is self-conscious and astounded that these guys have taken the stage while it's still daylight out and have agreed to play in a place where they only serve beer in the lobby... Plus, they're ~inside!~

PS: They play "Forever Now" as an encore. It's like a spell is broken and suddenly ~everyone~ rushes to the front of the stage. Andrea and I find ourselves getting elbowed to the back. I can't be sure of this part but it seems to me that Richard sings to only us. :)

My First Love Letter

Ok... Unless you were following me on MySpace back in 05 this story is new to you.

I went to a catholic grade school and my very first crush was a boy in my first-grade class named Joey. Joey was a troublemaker. He was always being sent home with a note pinned to his chest for his Mom, and this made me love him even more! He rolled his sleeves up and slouched in his seat. He ate paste on a dare and would always say “Yeah” during roll call instead of “Present.”

One day, someone stole my crayons from my desk. I immediately started crying because my mother had so meticulously printed my initials on EVERY crayon to prevent such a misfortune. Joey, taking pity on me, offered to share his crayons with me. I was so thrilled, I pretended not to notice the tiny “NM” printed on the paper wrapper of the Cornflower Blue Crayola.

Finally, I just couldn’t take it any more. I HAD to profess my love to Joey even if it meant that he might punch me in the stomach as I’d seen him do to other girls. I decided the best way to avoid physical harm was to launch a covert operation. I would write him a love letter!

“A Love letter! Perfect,” I thought to myself, “I can drop it on his desk near the end of the day!” I figured that the end-of-the-day confusion would allow me to place my missive of love on his desk and have plenty of time to get out of the way of any stomach punching.

That night, I spent agonizing hours hunched over the dining room table carefully constructing what was to be my opus of love. To this day, I have no idea what I wrote on that spiral-bound piece of notebook paper with my #2 pencil but I’m pretty sure it went something like this:

Dear Joey,

I love you.

If you love me, check this box.

After slaving over this soul-bearing note, I realized my mistake... I had written it on plain notebook paper! Love notes of this magnitude aren’t supposed to be written on plain notebook paper! What could I do? Re-writing it on stationery was out of the question. I was a lefty and a horrible printer. I was actually supposed to skip first grade but only if I learned to print legibly. Lucky for me, I refused to practice that summer or I never would have met my Joey.

The only viable solution was to make the note look better somehow. It needed a decoration of some kind to convey exactly how much Joey meant to me.

Seeing that my crayons were gone, I decided to remove several of the jagged strips of paper from the spiral in my notebook and tie them around my note, wrapping it up like a present... a small... crumpled up... wad-of-paper-like present.

The next day at school was a blur. I spent the entire day checking the pocket of my cardigan to make sure I hadn’t lost the note. I didn’t even participate in singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes” for fear that it would fall from my pocket.

Finally, my moment came. As everyone in my class was getting ready to leave for the day, I executed my plan. I stood up with my trusty #2 pencil and went to the sharpener. This way I could survey Joey for the perfect opportunity (when he wasn’t punching people in the stomach) to make my move. Just as I ground my pencil to a stub, my moment arrived. Our teacher, Mrs. Smock, reprimanded Joey for horsing around and he was now sulking by himself with his head resting on his Evel Knievel backpack.

It was now or never... My palms were sweating profusely as I casually tried to stride past Joey’s desk. I reached in my pocket and deftly palmed my precious note. You couldn’t quite tell that the strips of paper had been tied into neat bows anymore because I had been squeezing the note all day, but I was sure that Joey would understand the painstaking amount of time that I had put into this note all for him.

With all the skill of a superior note-passer, I flipped the note out of my pocket and on to Joey’s desk where it gracefully slid and came to a stop just underneath Joey’s sulking eyes.

I did it!! With the delivery complete, I ran back to my desk so I could watch Joey’s reaction to my very first love letter from a safe distance. My mind’s eye was filled with endless afternoons of building Lego mansions together where our combined families of Fisher Price Little People would live happily ever after.

My reverie was suddenly broken with a shout.

“Hey!” Joey yelled as he stood up from his desk, my note grasped in his hand.

The entire room was suddenly silent. Joey’s outburst commanded everyone’s attention. All eyes were on him as turned, red-faced and angry from the teacher’s scolding, and pointed his finger right at me!!!

“Don’t you throw your trash on my desk... EVER AGAIN!”

With that, Joey took my heartfelt confession of primary school love, wadded it up (as if it could ~be~ any more wadded) and threw it in the waste basket.

I just stood there and looked at my love-letter resting on the top of the wastebasket... looking for all the world like a crumpled up piece of spiral book notepaper and not like a note at all.

The next day, I told Mrs. Smock that Joey had stolen my crayons and that I could prove it because my initials were written on every one. Joey was sent to the Principal's office and had to eat lunch alone for the rest of that week.

Heh, heh... Hell hath no fury like a first grader spurned. ;D

Wow... I've been a Marketer my whole life.

First off, so much for "Blog every week day month." Meh...

So, my Mom sends me this letter in the mail the other day.
Inside the letter is a note I wrote her when I was a little girl...

See, my brother and I were joined at the hip when we were little...





But we also could fight like cats and dogs and I guess that's where this note comes from...
Apparently, we must have pushed her to the brink one day and I'm guessing she went off on us so, in an effort to make amends, I wrote the following, in pencil on one o' those cheap paper pulp "Fun Books." The note (barely legible after 30 some-odd years) reads:

From my heart.
Mom + Dad, this is from my heart.
John and I haven't been the best of help and so we will dedicate July 2, to you.
We will help with chores and earns (SIC "errands" maybe?) and best of all... John and I will try not to fight for the rest of the week!!!!!!!!
We hope you enjoy this.

After I picked myself up off the floor from laughing hysterically, I took a good look at this note and realized that I've pretty much been a Marketer my whole life!

• Take note: I did not tell her that we'd change our act or do more chores around the house for general purposes... Naw! I gave her one whole day instead!


• Note how I build up the value of my offer with the words "best of all..." a statement that I use in certain points of copy to this day!


• I also follow up my "best of all" statement with something that the customer (ie: Mom) would have gotten anyway - a blissful reprieve. However, note that the caveat is defined in realistic terms. I didn't tell her we'd never fight again. Even I knew that stating that would be an unrealistic claim that I could never deliver. This lends an air of truth to my entire claim.


• But the crown jewel of the entire missive is, "We hope you enjoy this." Bwahahaha! Basically, I'm saying to her, "It's not gonna get any better so I hope you accept this."

Yup... a true marketer through and through! ;D

... I hope you enjoyed this.