Memorable Concert Moments: Lollapalooza 1991 and 1992

So the 2008 edition of Lollapalooza was this past weekend, and the show got more buzz than I can remember hearing about it in years. Perry Farrell's brainchild has definitely taken a long, strange trip since its 1991 inception. And my own first couple of attempts to attend met with varying degrees of success.

When the inaugural lineup was put together I was flabbergasted. Some of my favorite acts were part of that initial tour -- Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T & Body Count and Violent Femmes in particular. The closest the festival was scheduled to be was in New Jersey three days before my wedding.

Perfect timing, right? Well, not to Danelle. Try as I might, I could not convince her that going to the show would have no effect on our impending nuptials. She was afraid I'd get beat up, or we'd have relatives in town that it would be rude for me to ditch, or I shouldn't take another day off of work right before our honeymoon or any number of a zillion other nightmare scenarios. There was no talking her out of it -- I wasn't going.

Of the two events I'm certainly glad I chose our wedding over the concert. She did make it up to me by performing homemade karaoke versions of a couple of Living Colour songs for me on our first anniversary.

The next year we moved to Dallas, and the tour was back and coming to town. The year two lineup was arguably even better than the first, with Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pearl Jam and Lush all on the main stage. I had no plans to get married again so my there were no apparent conflicts. I bought my ticket right when they went on sale and eagerly counted the days until I could wash away the last remnants of the previous year's disappointment.

Then as the glorious day approached, a conflict arose. Danelle's grandmother was having her 80th birthday party the same day.

I truly felt Lollapacursed. But I'd already bought the ticket, and we had dinner with Danelle's grandmother regularly. So I convinced myself that skipping the party for the concert was no big deal. Besides, Danelle's dear sweet Mamaw would completely understand, right?

I explained the situation to her, and her dear, sweet words still echo in my head to this day.

"That's all right, hon. I only want people there who want to be there."

Stunned doesn't even begin to describe my reaction. I'm not even sure what I said in reply, if anything. What reply is there to that? That's light years beyond "Do these jeans make me look fat?" on the no-win scale and right up there with "Do you still have a drinking problem?" There's no way out. Game over.

I went to the concert and had a great time, and I don't think there was any lingering ill will between Mamaw and I through her passing a few years later. I went to the next two Lollapaloozas, too, before losing interest. But not before enjoying the likes of Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, Arrested Development, Green Day and Rage Against the Machine on the main stage. The second stage also introduced me to great acts like Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E, The Boo Radleys, The Pharcyde and Shonen Knife.

But the most unforgettable Lollapalooza performance for me by far came from Danelle's Mamaw. If I ever get invited to someone's 80th birthday party again, I'm pretty sure I'll make sure to be there.

UPDATE: Danelle and Nana both informed that Mamaw never actually got over my snub, and continued to bring it up long after the fact. Sorry, Mamaw. :(

Woody Harrelson Will Play Me In the Movie

Thanks to this inspired piece of brilliance from Athlists, I was reminded of my own nuclear fail while once attempting to dunk a basketball.

I was at my friend Nathan Sicko's house, probably around 1982. Yes, "Sicko" was his real last name. But he was still a decent kid. And his older sister Christy was cute despite being nominally challenged, so that added to the motivation to hang out with him sometimes.

He had a basketball hoop in his dirt driveway, and while we were outside shooting one day one of us got the brilliant idea to get a stepladder and see if we could dunk.

We put it right next to the hoop to start, and the initial results were quite good. We were rim-rocking like Dr. J himself.

But of course we couldn't just leave it at that. So we gradually moved the ladder farther and farther away so we could get more hang time. And this, too, went well...for a while.

I was the one who finally moved the ladder past its tipping point. Literally. The farther away we got, the more we had to jump forward to reach the hoop as opposed to just jumping up. We'd gotten it about three feet away, and as I pushed off instead of me flying towards the hoop the ladder went flying away from it.

This left me in a fairly vulnerable position, and I came crashing to the ground. I landed face-first and smashed the frame of my glasses. When I got up they were actually hanging from one of my cheeks.

Fortunately the lenses hadn't shattered and the frames weren't embedded too deeply. My pride was more gravely injured than anything else. I mumbled some sort of lame excuse and hastily pedaled back home. Sadly this was well before the current age of cheap and plentiful video recording equipment, so this escapade wasn't captured to be shared with the world like these.

Christy never did express any sort of interest in me either, so I wonder if she had watched the whole incident unfold and decided there was no way she could go out with someone with my obvious lack of both hops and brains.

Maybe I should have tried to impress her with my Dungeons & Dragons prowess instead. I never knew anyone who got a 20-sided die stuck in his face.

The Wrong Tool For the Job Is Usually Me

I just spent 20 minutes trying to re-hang one of Zak's closet doors. Well, that's not entirely true. At first a couple of his doors were just out of their bottom tracks, which sometimes happens when he and Taryn have been playing in his room and knock them a bit. But as I tried to tug the first one back into place I over-compensated a bit for only using one arm and accidentally pulled it off its top track. Then as I was trying to get the door back on its top track I again used a little too much force (frustration was creeping in by this point) and somehow knocked the other TWO doors both off their top tracks.

By this point I was just a poke in the eye away from being in a Three Stooges skit. But I eventually got them all back on. And as much as I'd like to chalk the whole thing up to my favorite scapegoat for anything that doesn't go quite right these days -- The Fact That I Have a Broken Wrist -- a contributing factor was undoubtedly that I am just not very handy.

Whoever coined the phrase that they couldn't use any tool with more moving parts than a screwdriver was definitely a kindred spirit of mine. I don't build things or change my own oil. Doing this would probably challenge me.

I put the front tire fork of Taryn's Dora bicycle on backwards this past Christmas and didn't realize it -- one of my neighbors had to point it out. I think Michael Keaton's "220, 221 -- whatever it takes" line in Mr. Mom is funny but I'm not sure why.

As I was disconnecting the washing machine in our house in Dallas for the movers to take to Denver I somehow unleashed a gusher of boiling hot water into our laundry room. So I did the only logical thing -- called Danelle, who had already gotten a job in Denver and moved out a couple of months earlier. "Um...turn it off," was her brilliant suggestion. So I wrapped a towel around my hand and did just that. Fortunately I had the good sense to leave the dryer hooked up for all the towels I had to use to sop up the aftermath. But seriously, I couldn't think of that on my own?

I do have one accomplishment that I point to when I'm accused of having no skills in this area at all -- I installed a shower door in our house in Conifer. The caulking job looked like a second-grader's attempt to ice a cake, but it never leaked or fell apart so at least it was functional. Aesthetics are for wimps.

I'm a firm believer that I get paid for the skills I do have so I can pay other people to do things I don't have the skills for. I don't suppose there's much chance Zak learned that lesson while he watched me from his bed during my struggle with the doors, though.

I'll Bet the Rose Still Doesn't Want to Be Called "Fred," No Matter How It Smells

I had a phone interview with a recruiter recently. Even though we'd had an e-mail dialogue beforehand, I still called her the wrong name. You'd think this would have been the kiss of death for my employment chances. But I quickly apologized and joked about what bad form it was and we moved on, and I'm fortunately scheduled to have an in-person interview with the organization next week.

I was quick to handle the gaffe because this sadly wasn't an isolated incident for me; I've had a lot of practice. For whatever reason, I'm just really bad with names. I even called Danelle by the wrong name on our first date, but somehow managed to overcome that faux pas, too.

It's sort of a weird flaw, because I otherwise have a pretty solid memory. I tend to waste the ability on stuff like sports trivia, '80s songs and movie casts, but it sometimes has more tangible benefits. Like helping the Colonie Central High School team retire as three-time undefeated champs on Answers Please. I was disappointed not to see that sweet trophy not still proudly displayed in the lobby when I went back for my 20th reunion, but that's another issue all together.

Back to the name thing -- I do fess up most of the time and try not to fall back on calling people things like "big guy" or "hey...you." I think for the most part people can tell when you have absolutely zero recollection of their name. They then get some perverse pleasure out of using yours repeatedly, just to twist the knife a bit. So I try to be up front as often as I can and just come clean with a simple, "I'm really sorry, but I can't remember your name." I've managed to convince myself that candor is better in that sort of already-awkward situation.

That card has no more than one use, though. And yes, there have been times when I've played it and then run into the person later and AGAIN blanked on their name. Then you really have no choice but to fake it and hope for the best. You can't go back to that well twice without looking like a completely insensitive jerk.

Similarly, there are the times when you've known a person too long or had too many interactions with them to confess to not knowing their name. It's not quite the same as having already admitted to them that you don't know it, because it never even crosses their minds that you might not. There was an executive at CBS4 who fell into this category for me. We worked on projects together for years, but enough time passed between each of our interactions that I could never remember her name the next time we saw each other.

Finally, there's an odd category of people who enter my life from time to time whose names I know, and I know I know them. But something inside me won't let me actually utter the name for fear of being wrong. We had an operations guy at the stadium like this. I'd see him, I'd know immediately what his name was, but I still had to sneak a peek at his security credential just to erase that little gnawing sliver of doubt.

I try to build a bank of karmic goodwill against this shortcoming by pre-emptively introducing other people. As in if I'm with Bill and Joe walks up, I'll quickly say something like, "Bill, you remember Joe, right?" Assuming everyone else shares the same affliction somehow makes mine more forgiveable.

I don't know if I'm going to get this position I'm interviewing for next week or not. But hopefully I won't skewer my chances by screwing up the hiring manager's name. I guess it's not like I'm going to ask her to marry me one day or anything, though...