What do you do when you meet someone you love more than life itself and are forced to let them go so they can experience life without attachment?
Two chance encounters set this story in motion and send Nick's introverted soul down a long avoided mem...
"You're cynical and beautiful You always make a scene You're monochrome delirious You're nothing that you seem I'm drownin' in your vanity Your laugh is a disease You're dirty, and you're sweet You know you're everything to me.
Everything you are Falls from the sky like a star Everything you are Whatever ever you want."
Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy
For those of you just tuning in, Sofi was not a fan or even a follower of modern music of any kind. I had been discreetly trying but felt it better to just expose her to a bunch of different types of music, and she would sort it out on her own. I worked at an AM radio station at the time, but we shared workspace with our sister FM station, which was formatted as Active Rock. There was a lot of new music to choose from.
Against my better judgment, I had already exposed her to my favorite form of music, punk. Going from her ballet slippers surrounded by the genius of Tchaikovsky and Strauss to the heavy-handed rantings of Danzig and Jerry Only, well, it was not one of my best thought out moments, but the Misfits was her first live show. She was a sport about it too. I had always loved old SciFi and horror movies as a kid. The Misfits did too. They embodied some of my core likes, zombies, horror movies, heavy music, you know the stuff. I forgot to explain any of that to Sof. So, in all their fury, the Misfits launched into their set.
The venue, a local place called The Masquerade, was a small and intimate setting. Intimate does not seem the right word when describing a Misfits show, but here we are. The music is punishing and rapid-fire. And their appearance, something to behold. Jerry Only and Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein look like scary buffed-out zombie executioners. That's about all the adjectives I can muster. They perform in front of a backdrop of the grinning skeletal image they have been known for since the beginning; The Crimson Ghost.
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So we're close because this is one of my favorites. By the third song, the crowd was beginning to get rowdier, if possible. Only and Von Frankenstein's guitars looked like strange medieval weapons. They were close; the stage was only three feet or so from the floor. The fourth song was Astro Zombies. I took her hand in the dark to pull her closer with me into the melee. She didn't budge. I stopped and looked over at her in the smoke-filled haze, and my heart sank. Sofi had a look of abject horror on her face. She was frozen, wide-eyed, her mouth ever so slightly open as if she could scream at any moment. I pulled her close to me and held her around the waist. She didn't even look at me, never took her eyes off the stage. I knew how some parents might feel when their kid gets scared at a haunted house. I pulled her to the back of the room and got her calmed down, and enjoyed the rest of the show at a relatively safe distance.
So, that was her first experience. Again, not one of my finer moments. Then one afternoon, Sofi came home raving about a song she had heard on the radio. It was Slide from the upcoming Goo Goo Dolls release, Dizzy Up the Girl. I guess not the worst song but not their best. Worse still, she was also turned onto Iris, released just a little earlier. I had several of their earlier releases, as, believe it or not, they were initially a reasonably decent punk band. She never listened to them, not even under suggestion. Unreal. And the roller coaster was only getting started.
A few days later, I came home from work, and she was waiting up for me. She was excited to tell me that none other than the Goo Goo Dolls would play where else? The Masquerade. I knew about it already but kept it under my collar. I knew the type of show it was going to be. This was a small tour, a warm-up tour if you will. The record was not out yet but was releasing soon, and Slide was already doing very well. These types of shows, though, are very unpredictable. The bands are just keeping limber for the extensive upcoming promoted tour. It's a fan's show because you often hear much of the obscure and older music played live that you would not otherwise.
I warned her of this and explained the whole thing. Again told her to listen to the CDs I had left out on the stereo cabinet. That was the real Goo Goo Dolls, as I knew them then. Jed is one of the best punk records out there, and absolutely nothing like Dizzy Up the Girl. Sof kept bugging me about going. That sickening song she must have played a hundred times. Finally, I relented and got tickets from work. Two days before the show Dizzy Up the Girl was released, Sofi bought a copy. I warned her in earnest about the type of little tour it was, the crowd that generally went to the Masquerade, and of course, that she might not hear her favorite songs. Still, she would also likely hear many more she would be unfamiliar with if she did not give any of the old CD's a listen.
Wasted words, all of them. So the night of the show, I was held up at work and got home late. Luckily we lived not too far from the venue. She looked beautiful, stunning. Faded blue jeans, white tee-shirt, black leather jacket, high-heeled boots, hair, and make-up, hot. I had never seen her look like that, never imagined I would. At any rate, we get there and get upstairs with only moments to spare. It is relatively crowded for a mid-week show that was practically unannounced. And bam! They open up with Dizzy, the first song on the new recording. Then three more songs from the new recording, only 1 of which Rzeznik (the pretty one with the dirty blond hair) sang. This was followed by an hour and then some of the old fast punkish Goo Goo Dolls songs that they were known for. Didn't play either song she wanted to hear.
When it was over, she still couldn't believe it. She was fuming. I had purchased a drink just minutes before the show ended, so I held her back, and we waited until the crowd thinned out quite a bit and I had finished before we started out. By that time, someone had opened the rear doors to the hall. Instead of taking the long way back through the entire building, we left through them. The stairs were tall, but before the bottom turned to face the parking lot on a small wooden landing. As we came down onto the landing, I noticed the parked tour bus and Johnny Rzeznik standing beside it, talking to a couple of fellows.
"Oh, look, there's Johnny Rzeznik," I said casually.
No big deal.
Except it was a big deal.
"Where?" was all she said in a snap.
"Right there," I pointed, still without a clue.
The speed with which she moved caught me by surprise. She cleared the last three or four steps leaving me with the only option of trying to reach out to grasp her belt loop. My hand only grazed her rear end without success. In a few more steps, she had bee-lined right to him. I caught up about the time she slapped his shoulder overhanded to get his attention.
He was smiling but was surprised. And for whatever reason, he had the sense enough not to make eye contact with her but rather with me. It might have saved him.
"You suck!" she yelled, pointing up at him.
"I bought your stupid CD, and you didn't play one good song all night!"
Then I put an arm around her neck, secured it with my other hand, and gently but purposefully led her away from her prey as she continued her berating.
Again he and I made eye contact. He was even laughing a little bit which was a relief, and I swear he had sympathy in his eyes.
To this day, I can't listen to that music.
The next afternoon my friend and co-worker asked me how Sofi had enjoyed the show.
