I chose the name Sexism, Bruhs, and Rock n Roll for this blog because it is a play on the phrase “Sex, Drugs & Rock and Roll”. I love music but I hate that culture. “Sex, Drugs, & Rock and Roll” is not my philosophy or my lifestyle. Bro would have been a better word to choose because of the way bro culture relates to sexism and misogyny but bruhs sounds more like drugs so I went with that. The name reflects what I will be writing about.

Much of this blog will be about the Australian rock band INXS (pronounced in excess). MTV began in 1981 in the summer before my senior year of high school. I lived in the New Jersey suburbs of New York City and we had cable TV. I discovered many of my favorite bands through MTV and college radio. Bands like Tenpole Tudor, The English Beat, and Adam and the Ants.

In 1982, MTV started showing the video for The One Thing from the INXS album Shabooh Shoobah. I loved that video with the cats on the table full of food. Jon Farriss eating grapes. Kirk Pengilly on the floor playing the saxophone and showing his Union Jack socks. Tim Farriss also on the floor playing the guitar. And I liked the hat Michael Hutchence was wearing. My friends also liked the video.

INXS arrived in the U.S. for their first tour in the spring of 1983. My friends saw them at St. John’s University in NYC where they opened for Adam and the Ants. I was too busy at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia so I didn’t go. My friends were impressed by the show and the band members who they met afterwards. So when INXS played at the Ritz in NYC in May 1983, I went with them to see the show.

I kept a diary and I will be sharing from the diary. It’s kind of a crazy story and I hope you will follow along. I wish I still had the numerous letters that I wrote to my friends and the INXS fans who became my friends and the notes that I wrote to Michael Hutchence and Kirk Pengilly because those would be funny and illuminating. Unfortunately I wasn’t the kind of person who expected to be famous as a literary figure and therefore needed to save all writings for posterity. I never made copies of my letters before I sent them off or wrote down the content of the notes in my diary. I remember very little beyond what I had written down. Even the best memories fade and I have forgotten things that I never wrote down. I didn’t write them down because I thought I would remember them forever. Oh well.

The photo of the Japanese ema is from Yohashira Shrine in Matsumoto, Japan. I hung it in June 2022. While I lived in Japan I hung 59 emas that said “Induct INXS into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.” An ema expresses a wish to the gods. It hasn’t worked yet.