Van Hagar '04 Part One: Thank God Its Saturday

Rest assured, fugitives of the arena rock days, that sometimes gods still hurl lightning bolts and stomp mightily. Some slumber for awhile, then awake to find that no one cares anymore. But some rub the sleep from their eyes, stretch, and roar again like in the days of yore. The Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen came to the Save Mart Center in Fresno on August 14th, 2004, and captured the sheer joy of the "Party On, Garth" days long thought lost.

Tickets for this event were announced a few months in advance and on the first day of sale, I bought a quartet of them for my wife Mary and I, Mary's sister Jean and her husband Scott. August 14th was to be a Saturday night, which meant it would be a party atmosphere with the ultimate party band. We sat on these tickets for what seemed to be forever and the excitement of going to the show waned a bit there for a time. But in the days leading up to the concert, I started looking forward to the show more and more. I played the handful of Van Halen discs featuring Sammy that I have and imagined the tunes cranked up live and loud. One of the releases I have with Hagar is the double live Right Here Right Now which was actually recorded in Fresno back in 1992 over two sold out nights at the old Selland Arena and released in '93 as a album and a video. Its a pretty good representation of the band at the time and I used it to get reacquainted with that Van Hagar sound. (Note: I was at the first of those two nights as well, but no good stories to tell).

The four of us decided to get something to eat at TGI Friday's, not for the exquisite cuisine and classy decor (now featuring more flair!), but simply for convenience. There are closer restaurants to the SMC arena, but I figured that they'd be packed with drunken, rabid mullet-heads, and we'd never get seated in time. Saturday night would also make it too busy to get into some of our choices out in the burgeoning Riverpark area of town, which really is just a commercial cluster of even more Middle America approved, lowest common denominator, national chain feed-troughs that seem to specialize in deep frying anything that may have started out as somewhat healthy. (On a side note; without a doubt, the most overheard comment at Krispy Kreme is, "I hear that "insert neighboring town here" is getting a Krispy Kreme too.") TGI Friday's, being in a central location to meet Jean and Scott and somewhat away from the masses treating themselves to what Fresnans call a "nice" dinner, got the vote and turned out to be a good choice. We beat the crowd, got seated right away (although too far away from the hypnotic draw of the Raiders pre-season game on T.V.), and got a round of drinks for a toast to our genius. I was feeling assured that we'd get to the show in plenty of time to people-watch and get to our seats in time to catch some of the opening act if we wanted.

I had exchanged cell numbers with a few folks that I knew would be at the show that night. During dinner, I got a call from Mark, a really cool guy from one of my accounts, who told me that he and his buddy would be in the parking lot tailgating. He also said that there were signs posted prohibiting any sort of tailgating, especially with booze. We both laughed over the crackling cell signal as he gave me navigation to his parking spot. I folded up my phone and looked at Mary. She was making a stressful face. I asked her what was wrong and she replied that something was going wrong with her stomach. "Easy, girl", I said.

Mary and Jean had ordered Long Island Iced Teas and it looked like Mary had slammed hers a bit fast, burning her tummy as it paid her a punitive effect. Jean to the rescue; she produced a Nexium from her purse. It worked almost instantly and Mary was back in the game, this time ordering a Widmer. "Atta babe", I said.

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I know from experience how those TGI Fridays Long Islands can creep up on you. Years ago, on the night of my 21st birthday, my co-workers at the bank I worked took me out to TGI Fridays. Mary met us and we had drinks, me gladly showing my I.D. when checked by the waiter or bartenders. Mary and I were heading to Reno the next day so I could celebrate by gambling and drinking legally. I was a fairly proficient beer drinker by this time, but not so experienced with spirits, and I was given Long Island after Long Island by my "friends" from work and soon was touting this particular mixture as the "bes' fuggin' drink inna wurlda!" Then they ordered a bottle of champagne. You could almost hear the referee start the 10-count at that moment.

Somehow, I managed to shower and pack the next morning. I felt surprisingly alright, but a bit sluggish. I had Mary's car and as I drove to her place the next morning, while waiting at a stoplight, my left leg began shaking as I attempted to hold in the clutch. It wasn't a muscle spasm, but an involuntary shut down of motor skills. My brain was emphatically telling that leg to stay put, but it seemed like it was trying to bounce out of the car. I fought my way through the remaining lights with a cold sweat beading up on my forehead and chills running all the way to my fingertips. What the hell was this, some sort of delayed hangover? I pulled up to Mary's house and she met me at the door. I could tell by the look on her face that I couldn't have looked so hot. I mumbled something about how she should probably drive to start out. Before she made it to the outskirts of town, I had crawled into the back seat of that '87 Nova and snored all the way to Sacramento where I forced myself to eat some breakfast at Denny's to start my recovery. As I blinked from time to time from deep sleep to severe grogginess, I would hear Mary changing cassettes. One was Van Halen's OU812, making it kind of a full circle Six Degrees between Van Halen and TGI Fridays for me.

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We finished up the last round of drinks and drove over to Jean and Scott's house to park Mary's car in driveway. They don't live far from the arena and this way we'd save on parking while Mary could rest easier with her car at Jean's instead of Fridays. While Mary and Jean freshened up, Scott and I popped a beer. Not necessary, but a good time-filler. The girls came out beautiful, Scott and I stayed ugly, and we piled into their SUV for the short trip to the Save Mart Center. By cell phone, I verified Mark's position and gave him an ETA. We breezed through the surface street traffic, pulled up to pay for parking and saw the signs pertaining to tailgating. More laughter. We'd seen Mark's car from the overpass, and Jean made a bee-line towards the Honda that held the promise of more beer. The gravel laid on the temporary lot crunched loudly under the tires, but I could still hear Van Halen tunes pumping over car stereos from all over the hard rock bivouac.

Next Up: Van Hagar '04 Part Two: A Phoenix Soars In Fresno

Once A Friend, Now A Rival?

My pal Paul, over there on the sidebar under Paul's Rants And Raves, has gone and posted up a nice little telling of a real onstage performance. I don't think he's trying to steal any of my thunder, so I figured I'd steer you good people over there once again (go click on it for a free ride). But in the future, any more concert related stories on his site and I will delete his link from my Blogger Friends section.

Nah, that's too much work. Just watch it, Paul!

Don't Change That Channel!

You're in the right place, I've just changed the look of the site a bit. All the same high jinks will go on here, it will just look sharper. Whadya think? Pretty spiffy, no?

Anyway........

Now that the Pat Tragedy saga is done with, we can move forward into real concert stories again. Recollections of recent shows and blasts from the distant past are in the works as I write this note to you good folks. Mary and I just saw the reunited Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen at the new local arena and a few weeks earlier saw Heart out at an Indian casino, so there are two distinct tales right there. Also, I'm currently holding tickets to see George Thorogood at a small club in Modesto (on my birthday, no less--we'll see if I even remember anything about that one), and Prince back at the arena here in Fresno. If you'd told me 20 years ago that I'd be at a Prince concert by choice someday, I'm sure I'd have suffered a massive stroke due to the logjam of possible retorts fighting their way from my brain to my mouth.

So I'll leave you with this little teaser. Speaking of Van Halen, look who Mary bumped into before the show. More on this later. Check back, wontcha?


Cellphone photo, 08/14/04

The Pat Tragedy Story: Epilogue

In the days following the Air Guitar Contest, we found out that the Audio/Video class had videotaped the entire event. There were three camera angles, and since we were in a Broadcasting class that shared the same facilities, we made dubs for ourselves and watched the tapes with glee. Eric's friend Dale, who went to a different school, had ditched class that day and videotaped our performance from right in front of the stage as well. Nice close-ups, but my mumbling was much more visible. It was interesting to watch the performance from these vantage points. We were also able to critique ourselves and notice nuances that were oblivious to us at the time. One case in point: Eric put some extra emphasis on a head shake during his solo and his sunglasses flew off. Sean, seeing this from his catbird seat back on drums and thinking this was a choreographed move that he'd somehow forgotten from rehearsal, reached up and flung his sunglasses to the stage floor. I can say with confidence that absolutely not one person in the audience noticed this at the time. Even if someone had, they certainly didn't make the connection that we did later watching the tape.

Later in the semester, one of the projects in Broadcasting class was to shoot a music video. Music videos were still in their infancy on MTV and many, much like an air guitar show, would mainly consist of lip-synching in a mock performance, so it wasn't that hard to mimic what was passing for a polished video in 1985. The project was useful in teaching direction, laying out and lighting shots, editing, and casting. I assumed the David Coverdale role and used Eric and Chet on guitar and bass respectively, along with a different guy on drums to perform Whitesnake's Spit It Out. Chet chose UFO's Natural Thing, this time casting himself on vocals, while I moved to bass. Eric thought it would be a good idea to resurrect The Pat Travers Band to do the song Hot Shot. So I broke out the long black wig once more and Pat Tragedy was reborn in the studio. The shoot was a success, but there certainly wasn't any rush like the one we'd gotten on the amphitheater stage weeks earlier.

I was also in a photography class during my senior year and was shown some pictures of the air guitar contest that were taken by the instructor. One of them was the now infamous photo of Pat Tragedy taken at an upward angle from in front of the stage (seen in the post, Do You Know This Rocker? in the July archives). I told him that it was me in the photo and he couldn't believe it. He gave me the negative and I made some prints. Over the years, I've had the photo displayed off and on somewhere in the house. Sometimes, a young niece or nephew will ask me who that is in the picture. I tell them that it's me from my high school days. I always love to see their faces twisted into a look that is a mix of wonder and disbelief. When adults notice the shot and inquire about it, I ask them, "Don't you recognize him? You've actually met him before." This always gets them thinking for a few minutes, trying to imagine when they've ever met a real live rock star before.

The persona has also taken over my being a few times since high school. A handful of different Halloween parties have provided the opportunity to don the wig and glasses again, although I'm usually just impersonating a nondescript biker. But in my mind, behind the shades and under the drape of black locks, I become again the rock star that never was; Pat Tragedy.


The author, pictured standing on the historic spot where Pat Tragedy stood
19 years earlier.

The Pat Tragedy Story Chapter Three: Flying Blind To The Edge

The air guitar contest was held on the last day of school before spring break, which naturally fell on a Friday. This day was usually pretty light on actual school work and heavy on activities. This was fortunate for me because I'd become more anxious than I'd expected and had trouble concentrating in my morning classes. I knew in my heart that we were ready for this thing. Hell, we practiced for it. I couldn't think of any other geeks that got into it so far as to actually rehearse. So what was I concerned about?

I'd seen the guys earlier in the day and we excitedly talked about the contest. We'd all brought our various wardrobe accents. Chet had his leather jacket, Eric had borrowed a bandoleer with fake rifle shells, and I had my wig. All four of us had our sunglasses.

Back in the '80s, prescription sunglasses were a luxury that really wasn't considered. My only option back then was to wear those clip-on lenses that you see dorky tourists wear in the movies. My dork quotient was already simmering to a point where I passed for cool in most circles, but wearing those things, under any circumstances, would put me over the top into a social bracket I wasn't comfortable with. So I never owned shades of my own. Any crow's feet I have later in life will be attributed to the squinting caused by my desire to maintain whatever coolness I had in high school. Without a pair of my own and not wanting to spend any of my precious cassette money on a cheap set, I borrowed a red pair of Vuarnet knock-offs from my mom. How cool is that? Not very, but I lived through it.

I had to explain to the guys that without my prescription glasses, I wouldn't be able to see much at all when we got onstage. By choosing to wear my mom's sunglasses, I'd basically be legally blind out there. Now, I can see without my glasses, but it's like looking through one of those old shower doors. Everything's fuzzy at best, so I'd need some direction when we hit the stage.

The four of us met again in the hour before the contest behind the amphitheater at the door to the music department's practice room, along with all the other contestants. Now we were visibly teeming with nerves. At least three of us were. Sean was very quiet and did not respond much when asked if he was nervous. At the time, I wondered if he'd taken something because he looked catatonic. He may have even snuck in a beer or two, but in retrospect, I believe his system just shut down a little while dealing with butterflies.

We talked a little with some of the other acts. Marco, a very popular senior who I'd known since junior high, was fronting an outfit called Ozzy's Kids. He and three other wildly popular jocks would be doing Ozzy Ozbourne's Crazy Train. But they had no prop instruments and Marco commented that with our look and the real guitars, we'd blow them away. I did not tell him so, but I had to agree. We wished each other luck and I continued looking around and talking with the other performers. It was then that I saw the horns. Lots of horns.

John walked over from the group with the horns when he saw me staring at them. "Hey, Tony, who're you guys supposed to be?", he asked.

I was looking down at the trombone in his hand and replied, "Uh, The Pat Travers Band. Y'know, Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights)?"

"Nuh-uh", he grunted. "When do you guys go on?"

"I don't know yet. Who are you guys playing?", I asked. He looked over his shoulder and nodded towards the dozen or so dudes dressed in Mod attire complete with skinny ties and Ray-Bans. "We doing Madness; One Step Beyond."

"That's cool", I said, not really meaning it. I hated all that New Wave stuff then, especially ska. But I did recognize the potential in a lip-synched performance of that tune.

He then added, "Yeah, we've been practicing for a couple of weeks now. Pretty nerdy, huh?"

Shit! Real competition. "Heh, yeah well....", I trailed off.

Just then, a geek from the marching band came up to us and blurted, "What's your band's name?" He had a clipboard cradled in his arm and a pencil clenched between his teeth. He looked a little frazzled. I told him who we were and he scoured his list. "Okay, you go on fourth. Go ahead and come inside the music room and wait your turn. The first band is going on in ten minutes."

I snuck a look at his clipboard as we stepped into the school band's rehearsal room. There were about 25 acts today. Going on fourth would be good because people would still be interested in the novelty of the event. But they could also forget our performance after seeing so many bands play after us. But the prevailing thought among us would be that there was an advantage to getting it over and done with. The nerves were creeping in on us. Eric was taking big breaths, Chet was pacing, Sean was withdrawing, and I was struggling to get the wig out of its bag without creating a tangled mess. Inside the room were the first three acts, all getting ready for their moment in the spring sunshine, whether it be to cheers or ridicule.

"Cyndi Lauper, you're on! Let's go! Let's go!", came the call from the clipboard kid. This was it. The show was underway.

I got the wig out of the bag and was attempting to fix the tangles while the other guys put on their accessories. We were all pretty much ready to go when the kid with the clipboard came up again and asked for our taped music. I produced the cassette from my shirt pocket and told the guy, "Make sure its on Side One. It's all cued up and ready to go". Some cheerleader was in charge of starting the music and I didn't want this airhead putting on Side Two and having the middle of Heat In The Street come blasting through the P.A. with us standing there swinging in the breeze. Before he got to the door, I yelled out to him, "Hey! Is there a mic stand out there on the stage?" He looked back and shrugged. "I'll let you know" and he opened the door to the stage just slightly and watched Cyndi Lauper finish up. We could hear the applause. Pulses hiked a bit.

The second act was ushered to the stage as "Cyndi" lept by us giggling on her way to hugs from her girlfriends. She was squealing about how fun that was. Good sign, I thought. I don't remember what the second act was, but it was short. We were positioned at the stage door behind the waiting third act. I don't remember them at all. Time was speeding up and details have been blurred by the excitement of the moment and the time that has passed. What I do remember is that when clipboard kid came back to get the third act, the stage door swung wide open and all four of us in The Pat Travers Band got a good look at the crowd standing on the grass of the amphitheater.

"Fuuuhhhck", we all said in unison.


There were alot of people out there. When the door slammed shut and the muffled music of the third act was heard, we all looked at each other and laughed nervously. Except Sean. He was out on his feet, glassy eyed and head bent slightly downward. It was time for me to finally finish my look. With the wig already on and adjusted, I put on my mom's sunglasses. I folded up my prescription glasses and put them with our guitar cases. I was blind and vulnerable now. I leaned in to Eric and told him to point me in the direction of where the faux mic stand would be when we got out there. He was looking right through me. "Dude! You hear me?", I said loudly. He shook himself out of it for a moment and said feebly, "Yeah...'kay."

At the door to the stage, hearing the pumping beats of the music and the crowd's reaction, we all got a little flushed. My stomach seemed to be trying to crawl out of my body through my spine and my hands were shaking a little. Eric and I compared tremors. On the surface, Chet was the coolest of all of us. He seemed to be taking it all in stride, but the long, tight-lipped exhaling he produced belied his calm. We heard the song end and the cheers went up. My head suddenly went abuzz with terror.

Clipboard kid came rushing to us behind the exiting third act. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!", he loudly whispered to us as he guided Chet out the door to the stage. Then went Sean, a little wobbly. Eric looked at me and dove out the door with me in tow. The crowd was actually pretty loud as we walked to our positions on the stage. I had to yell into Eric's ear to be heard as I frantically asked, "Is there a mic stand?" He never looked back at me and simply hollered over his shoulder to me, "I don't know".

He didn't know? How could he not know? He could see. With the adrenaline rush and the sight of the huge crowd, it was the last thing on his mind as he strode to his spot stage left. So without anyone to guide me, I trodded forward to the edge of center stage. My legs were not listening to my brain ("Walk, damn you! Walk!") at this point and I felt like every step was taken in a World War Two era diving suit. I heard some giggles and "omigods" as I approached the edge of the massive concrete stage, which stretched into a semi-circle overlooking the grassy area in the middle of the high school campus . Alas, no mic stand was to be found, for I surely would have walked into it by this point. I'd have to lip synch into the air before me.

In the brief moment before the music, I scanned the crowd. I could sense hundreds of eyes upon me in my wig. There were at least 300-400 kids out there, but the crowd seemed to us as large as Woodstock. Without my prescription lenses, they all looked like the background of a LeRoy Neiman painting. We stood there for just a moment. I heard a few rockers yell out; "Yeaaahh!"

Suddenly, the shrill voice of the cheerleader jumped through the P.A., "Ladies and gentlemen, The Pat Travers Band!" A horrific blast of crowd noise startled me and my eyes darted about, looking for the source of the enthusiasts. But in that nano-second, I realized that it was the audience from 1978 enjoying the real Pat Travers Band captured live on the album Go For What You Know. I had cued the cassette with a bit of space between tracks so as to hit our mark properly. The machine gun drum intro played and we were off!

Faking the bouncing bass line was easy enough and a good way to start the performance. Eric and Chet had a soaring twin-lead section to open up with before I started the vocals. I bobbed my head up and down, getting my novelty-store mane to swing a bit as I made pouty rock star faces. I looked over at Chet, then Eric as they phonied up the fading notes of the intro. It was all coming along naturally, just as we'd rehearsed so many times. I took a step forward to the imaginary mic stand. The boogie shuffle guitars started and it was time to lip-synch my heart out.

I opened my mouth as Pat Travers' voice shot out over the P.A. and into the faces of the student body. But open my mouth was just about all I did. The words were not coming. I had blanked out on the lyrics! All that practice, all that preparation, just to forget the lyrics onstage in front of hundreds of students ready to laugh an act right off the stage. Instead of panicking, I decided to bluff my way through the song until I could regain my composure. So I basically mumbled my way throught the first verse. I was playing catch up with the lines sung by Pat Travers and what I couldn't catch up with, I made up my own words. If I were actually being recorded, it would have sounded something like this:

Bum bum dee da, ma say dee doh ra la da da, ma lo hey da
revised lyrics copyright Pat Tragedy, 1985

On the spot, I rationalized that perhaps the folks up front could see that I wasn't quite on cue with my lip-synching if they were paying close attention, but if I carried myself with confidence and made all the right moves, the folks farther back wouldn't know the wiser. I'm sure that's the rationale that Britney Spears uses these days.

So it went until the chorus, where I jumped aboard the rumbling train that was Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights). I had only moments before the speaking part, where Pat Travers beckons the crowd to follow his lead and participate in the "Out Go The Lights" line, so I had to maintain the charade. Unfortunately, my enthusiastic head movements had indeed caused the wig to swing. Right into my open mouth. To make matters worse, because of my nervousness, my mouth had gone impossibly dry and the synthetic strands of black hair were stuck to my tongue and lips. Trying desperately to brush them aside without missing chords on the bass became comical, so I basically chewed hair for the last half of the song.

In Pat Travers' speech, he beckons the audience, "Let me see your hands up above your heads. That's right, way up high. Way up high above your heads". Eric and Chet started doing that extended arms clap to the beat that performers do which almost always induces crowd participation, and in this case it worked. Even in my vision deprived state, I could see hands clapping and heads bobbing up and down. It was happening, I thought, they're getting into it. Through my body, Travers instructed the audience to respond to his "Boom boom" with "Out go the lights" and we all went on a trial run; it was difficult to differentiate the live voices from the blaring PA's, but some of those kids played along, pumping fists and all.

After a call and response session with the crowd, Eric and Chet got to trade off searing solos and take center stage. They both got into it and it was fun for me to watch them from behind and get the view of the crowd reacting to something so close to a live performance. We were killing them out there. I took a glance back at Sean playing his cross handed strokes on the invisible high-hat and snare. He seemed okay, maybe a little tired, as he pounded away in his own little world. It didn't matter as I saw it. Chet, Eric, and I were the show now.

We took our positions for the final power chords flawlessly. The three of us swung and weaved to perfection. On the last note, I threw in a little unrehearsed Pete Townsend leap and my Footjoy raquetball shoes hit the stage as the recorded audience's cheers were abruptly cut off, but met Clovis High's clapping and yelling, creating a seamless appreciation for our efforts. We exited the stage with arms raised in triumph.

Through the doors back into the music room we sprung. I immediately went for my glasses. We all laughed and whooped, exchanging high-fives and singing our own praises. The act that followed us rushed by with dazed smiles. We left the music room out the back door, where I took off the wig and Eric and Chet took off their costume pieces. We put the instruments into the cases and walked around the edge of the stage to watch the rest of the show. As we passed the outside rim of students watching the show, I heard some guys shout, "Holy shit! Was that you Tony?". I just nodded as they gave us the Dio-inspired devil horns salute. You know the one: kinda like the "hang loose" sign, but with the thumb pressed over the two middle fingers.

We watched a couple of acts from the side of the stage, including the guys doing the Madness tune. We all thought they were really good and worried a bit that with their real instruments and choreographed movements, they would overshadow us. Then came a lame Go-Gos attempt, followed by a group of freshman stoners doing an AC/DC tune. We were getting to about the half-way point and felt pretty confident about our chances.

Then came Ozzy's Kids. The students went nuts just seeing who was onstage, one being Marco and the others being among the in-crowd at Clovis High. The familiar opening to Crazy Train came over the PA and Marco played it to the hilt. His backing band flailed about on imaginary instruments as he nailed the first few lines, while we endured the screams from the females in the underclasses. He flicked his tongue and flashed the devil-horned salute with glee. I admired him and despised him at the same time.

During the song, we in the Pat Travers Band walked along the ridge that made up the amphitheater's grassy viewing area. Strange looks accompanied the occasional high-five or "whoooo" as we made our way to the back of the audience. Ozzy's Kids had finished up and we were served with acts ranging from Flock Of Seagulls to the predictable Duran Duran. We bumped into Gavin back there. He had his arms around a couple of young girls and he was shaking his head at us. "People were laughing at you dudes, dudes", he sneered.

"Yeah?", said Eric, not convinced.

Gavin dismissed his companions and leaned forward. "Oh yeah, I was feeling sorry for you guys up there. They were laughing at you".

I could sense that he was still hurt from being omitted from the group and probably a bit jealous. I asked, "What were they laughing at?"

"They were just laughing, dude. It was stupid. They didn't like it. Just so you know", he replied. We all felt the bitterness in his voice.

"Yeah, well at least we were up there giving it a serious shot", Chet interjected, hinting not so subtly to the fact that Gavin would have fucked up the whole thing.

Gavin, having nothing left in his arsenal, replied, "Yeah, well, just so you know".

We walked out to the student parking lot to put the instruments in Eric's car. We questioned ourselves a little about Gavin's comments and eventually took them as bunk. We came back to the lawn to watch the last air guitar acts finish up. It was pretty uneventful and even somewhat boring. I really started to think that we had this thing in the bag. I only saw the Madness guys as competition.

The crowd buzzed with anticipation when the show ended. To be completely honest, I do not remember how the judging was determined. It was not by applause and not by ballot. There must have been a panel of some sort. The airheaded cheerleader's voice shrieked over the PA again, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have the winner of the 1985 Air Guitar Contest!"

The four of us stood at the back of the lawn while the cheerleader was handed a slip of paper. I was ready to hear the repeat of her squealing, "The Pat Travers Band", but still open to the thought of "Madness" taking the prize. She stepped to center stage and put the microphone to her mouth:

"The winner of the 1985 Air Guitar Contest is.........."

The Pat Travers Band, I thought, clenching my fists.

".........Ozzy's Kids", she screeched into the mic.

"Motherfuckers", Chet murmured.

"Bullshit", said Eric.

I chimed in with, "What the fuck?"

Sean simply said, "Hmmph".

We all looked at each other incredulously. But then again, we felt that this might have ended up being a popularity contest. There was a collective shrug as we made our way to our hangout spot in front of the art building. We stood there, wondering what might have made it better for us, but also knowing that we gave it our best.

"Fuck it", said Chet.

"Fuck it", Eric and I responded in stereo.

"Hmmph", said Sean.
Next: epilogue to the Pat Tragedy Story

Pat Tragedy Stalled--Read All About It

Sorry for the delay in getting the conclusion of the Pat Tragedy story out to you folks. I know a lot of you have been checking back from time to time and I really do thank you for not giving up on this hack of a writer. Chapter Three is almost done. In doing some editing, I mistakenly deleted about 1/3 of the chapter and I've had to try to rewrite it. Someday, I'll figure out this here computing machine and avoid this type of mistake.

Please hang in there and keep checking this site. Hopefully you have it bookmarked by now. In an attempt to keep you all interested in future Hazy Concert Memories, I will tell you that the wife and I saw Heart recently and there's a nice story brewing there. I'm also holding tickets to see Van Halen in a couple of weeks and then Prince in early September, so there should be some tales therein as well. Also, I have a heartfelt short piece called The Corkboard that's rattling around in my skull. Later this year, when my intrusive job slows down for the winter months, I have some ideas for some short fiction that I hope come out as nicely as they play in my head.

Anyway, if you are new to this site, please be patient and don't give up if you've enjoyed what you've read to this point. I'll get there eventually. If you haven't already, check the archives for older stories. For faithful Tony's readers: another thank you for sticking with me and for all the emails and comments.

Pat Tragedy conclusion coming soon. I promise!

Tony