Hacker Chronicles 2/HACKER2.BIN/613.FEA3

Text File | 1993-08-29 | 9KB | 171 lines

This Retro Emotion - 48 Hour Blast from the Past
Copyright (c) 1993, Gage Steele
All rights reserved



     I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow the news reports informed us
that humanity had begun to devolve.  What is it with this retro thing,
anyway?  On every street corner, in every department store, and on
every radio station, all I see and all I hear is the past revisited.
When the bellbottoms hit Macy's a few months ago, I cackled and said,
"The fashion mucky-mucks must be sitting somewhere laughing at all the
idiots they actually got to buy this crap."  Then, when old farts like
Duran Duran got it in their minds to make that ever-so hip comeback, I
smirked, and again wondered who in the world was stuck so far in the
past to financially support them.
     So, I'm a bit cynical.  Duran Duran, clad in bells no less, disco-
disco up the charts and across the nation as I write.
     I was going to attend the Duran show at Concord Pavilion this
August, but couldn't bring myself to purchase a ticket.  Let's think
about Elvis for a second.  You know how you remember Elvis.  In the
words of Denis Leary, "You remember him fat, hairy, and on the can.
His final piece of kingly evidence floating in the toilet."  I didn't
want to ruin my tainted, misty memouries of the Duran boys by forcing
myself to watch them, wrinkled, vocal chords shot, hopelessly clinging
to a time gone by.  Can you blame me?
     Alas, curiosity got the better of me.  I decided to interview a
girl friend of mine who did go see them play.  So, giggling like the
teenager I once was, I got the poopscoop on Simon, Nick, John, and
Warren.


GAGE STEELE:  Kelly, I've been trying to call you for days.  How was
              the show?
KELLY WILSON: You're never gonna believe where I've been.  I feel like
              such a dork.  Oh, my God.
GS:  What?  You didn't get in?
KW:  No, I did.  They played.  They sang.  It was chill.  But what
     happened to us [she and a friend, Jim, went together] AFTER the
     concert is way more interesting.
GS:  Oh?  What happened?
KW:  It's kind of a long story.
GS:  That's okay.  This is a 100 minute tape and I have nothing better
     to do.
KW:  Oh, thanks a lot!  [laughs]  Okay, let me see.  First, we waited
     around at the stage door, but [the Concord Pavilion employees]
     kept saying that Duran Duran had already left.
GS:  Why were you waiting around?
KW:  I've been waiting like 10 years for this.  I've never met anyone
     and they may not ever tour again.  So, I figured I didn't have
     anything to lose, right?
GS:  Uh huh.
KW:  So, then we took one of those shuttles down to Jim's car.  We were
     pretty much the last people left.
GS:  Oh?
KW:  Yeah, well, we waited at the stage door for almost an hour.  And
     basically the only people still coming to their cars were Pavilion
     people.  Jim goes, "Who's watching the door if the workers are
     leaving?"  Duh!  So, we walked up the hill to the backstage lot
     again.
GS:  Was there anyone up there?
KW:  Not really.  There were three tour buses and a couple of huge
     moving vans, but it was pretty dead.  Then, this burly guy comes
     out and hands Jim his crew pass.
GS:  Whoa!
KW:  Yeah, I know.  And he sort of smiled, so, Jim took it and we
     walked right in.  We went right to the Duran Duran dressing
     room...
GS:  How do you know it was theirs?
KW:  I stole the sign off the door!  [laughs]  There was all this trash
     on the floor and the ashtray was full of cigarettes and banana
     peels.  Jim took this wet towel from the bathroom, but we really
     didn't pull the full-on clepto other than that.
GS:  Nobody stopped you?
KW:  There wasn't anyone back there!  Not the band or the bouncers.  No
     one!  We walked back out and went over to the tour buses.  One of
     them, it was blue with North Carolina plates, was full of people.
     Jim wanted to climb aboard, but we didn't think our little crew
     pass would fly.  Besides, there was this other bouncer guy that
     kept going on and off.  He was dumping trash and stuff.
GS:  Could you hear anything... anyone specific that you recognised?
KW:  No.  There were too many voices on top of each other.  So, we
     walked down the hill and we were gonna go home, but that bus
     started up and we decided to follow it.
GS:  Oh, no!
KW:  I know.  What were we thinking?  I don't know!  [The bus driver]
     drove hella slow all the way to Walnut Creek BART [about 10 miles
     from the Pavilion].  We were just following him, along with
     another car.
GS:  So, you weren't the only ones left?
KW:  I guess not!  These other two chicks came out of the lower lot and
     followed, too.  Then, at BART, the bus pulled halfway in the lot
     and stopped.  By the time we got around him and turned around, he
     was gone!
GS:  Hmm.
KW:  So, Jim pulls in BART behind the two girls' car.  We talked for a
     second and the driver says they probably knew we were following,
     but we could hop the freeway and catch them.  We [drove
     wrecklessly], but never saw them.  We even went down the other
     freeway to see if they took the roundabout way into the City, but
     nothing.
GS:  What time was it?
KW:  God, it was like 1am by then.  Finally, in Hayward, we all pulled
     off and Michelle, the other driver, gave us her number and said if
     we heard anything to call her, any hour.  And she went home.
GS:  Did you and Jim go home, too?
KW:  We were gonna!  Jim got on the freeway and we were driving along,
     right, but we had to pass through Concord to get home.  So, Jim
     turns to me and says, "We could always look in the hotel parking
     lots."  There aren't a lot of hotels in Concord, either.  So, we
     went to the Embassy Suites...
GS:  What were you looking for?  Tour buses?
KW:  Yup.  You can't just hide a tour bus.
GS:  Were they at Embassy?
KW:  Nope.  They were at Hilton.  We felt so stupid!  All that time
     chasing shadows down the freeway, and they were in Concord Hilton
     the whole time!  That's like 5 minutes from the Pav!
GS:  [laughing]  You didn't stake out Hilton, did you?
KW:  Well...
GS:  Oh, Kelly.  You didn't!
KW:  I felt like a fool the whole time, but we did.  Jim kept saying,
     "We're too old to be doing this," but...  We pulled in and we were
     going to get a room to make it legit, but not only did we not have
     enough money for [snooty voice] Hilton, but they didn't have any
     rooms left.  There was some convention going on.  I called
     Michelle and she drove down.  We sat in the car and guarded those
     tour buses until about 9...
GS:  In the morning?!  As in 9 AM?
KW:  Yeah.
GS:  Oh-kay.
KW:  Then, we went in and took the elevator upstairs.  We started on
     the top floor, but they were on the 10th.
GS:  How do you know?
KW:  The food trays and the voices coming from the rooms.  And there
     were a thousand roadies all over the place up there.
GS:  You scoped the room service trays?
KW:  Yeah, we did!  So, we came back downstairs and there was this limo
     at the front door.  Two other girls were waiting.  They said that
     Duran had the day off and that they'd probably be coming down, but
     they didn't.  It was Terrence Trent Darby's [opening act] stupid
     limo.  So, those other chicks left and we waited in the car some
     more.
GS:  Wait a minute.  What time was this?
KW:  Uhm.  It was about 2.
GS:  On Monday afternoon?
KW:  Yeah.
GS:  And you hadn't planned on doing any of this?
KW:  Nope.
GS:  So, you were in the same clothes and everything?
KW:  It gets worse than that.  When we figured they were staying in the
     hotel that day because it was way after check-out time, we went to
     Denny's.  I washed a little in the bathroom and combed my hair
     with a fork.
GS:  Oh, Kelly.
KW:  I know.  We waited until 10am Tuesday and we never saw them at all.
     The buses were for Darby's backup band and the roadie loading them
     said that Duran left in a black airport shuttle on Monday night.
     I think they left when we were eating.  I know it sounds really
     dumb, but all I wanted to do was say, "Hi, guys.  Thanks for being
     there when teen life was [expletive]."  They never came downstairs,
     though.  I could understand if there were 100 screaming people down
     there, but there were just 3 or 4 of us the whole time.  It isn't
     like they're famous anymore.  Not like the 80s.


     The 80s...  I feel old now.  I should get my old Duran albums out.
Maybe that'll make me feel better.  Maybe that's what it is with this
retro emotion.