classic rock?

so my mom called me earlier in the week to let me know that def leppard (and bryan adams) were going to be on the today show this morning.

maybe we need some backstory.

when i was 12 i fell in love with def leppard, specifically steve clark. DL took my love way from styx -- anyways, i was desperately in love with steve clark. i even named myself hez clark and would sign all my school papers with that. every day i wrote in my spiral notebook to steve, which was lovingly collaged with DL pics and assorted rock things.

dear steve,

today i saw you on an interview show and you looked sad. i wish you weren't so sad all the time. i wish i could make you happy.

love,

hez

looking back, it was defintely a journal in the form of writing letters to steve. this went on until i was about (eegads!) 16.

lest you think i was retarded, my best friend Kym, whom i met when i was 14 was also a huge def leppard fan...she loved joe elliott and then transfered her love to rick savage. (incidentally when kym was 21 she had a son and named him rick allen -- HAHAHA) ok so, not only was *I* writing letters to the love of my life, but Kym was too. in the same format. BEFORE i met her.

here is what we did with our notebooks.

when we were about 17, we drove down to providence, RI in Kym's 1979 white Z28. we went to the Def Lep show at the Providence Civic Center and then, because we were pros (phoned our 'rents and said we had car trouble and were staying in providence), went over to the omni-biltmore hotel and changed our clothes in the lobby bathroom into more "acceptable" ladies clothing and hung out in the lobby, inconspicuously behind a potted plant or something, each with an armful of notebooks. when steve and rick finally came thorugh the lobby -- and they did -- we approached them and handed over years and years of secret letters. omg. how awesome is that? they were kinda, um, surprised?

my love for def leppard ended when steve clark died from alcohol and drug related "issues" in 1991, truthfully it probably ended a little before that (even tho i was a HUGE viv campbell fan from when he was in Dio - kym and i have a great story of us running behind viv's limo all the way to the hotel one night after a Dio show) honestly, there is nothing better than High n' Dry, when they sounded pure. more refined than On Through the Night and not as polished sounding as Pyromania.

so my mom calls to tell me that they are on the Today show this morning probably because she still thinks i am 13 since that's what i act like most of the time. my curiosity got the best of me and i tivo'd the show. i was slightly aware that rick savage was now a bloated mess and that joe had a tummy...but ya know. ya gotta check that shit out.

so yeah, classic rock. that's what katie couric called them and bryan adams. classic rock. really? i think of ram jam as more of classic rock. don't you?

incidentally, when did bryan adams become hot? he was really good looking. he always had that boyish charm kinda thing, but now? dang.