Sexism, Bruhs, and Rock n Roll

Tag: Burn For You

Blog Post 28- The bird named Fabian Sparkle. September 1984

Michael Hutchence of INXS. From our front row seats at the Beacon Theatre on July 31, 1984. Photo taken by Jess.

When I left for Philadelphia over Labor Day weekend to start my junior year of college, I was not alone. I had a Lutino cockatiel of unknown sex with me.

That fall, my youngest brother and Terri’s younger sister were off to college for the first time. Terri’s sister Renee was going to California for college, and she needed someone to take care of her pet cockatiel. So, I agreed to take the bird to school with me.

I was moving back into the same apartment I lived in the year before, the place where Kirk Pengilly had sent me a letter. Karen and Dohi were my roommates for a third year. Our dorm room was a bit unusual because it was in a building that was a dorm, but it was also an apartment in a high-rise apartment building. So, we had a kitchenette, a living room, and two bedrooms for the three of us.

If I recall correctly, Renee had named the bird of unknown sex Boy George. A great name for this attractive, fancy bird with its crest of yellow-white feathers but I decided to change it to Fabian Sparkle, an even more fabulous name. So, I named the bird for Michael Hutchence but in a roundabout way. An inside joke of sorts.

This was funny to me on all sorts of levels. And I didn’t even know that sometime in the future, around 1988, Michael would take to wearing a white suit and then pretend to be Fabian Sparkle. I don’t know where or why he came up with that name to use in 1984 in the first place, but he must have liked it too if he resurrected it. I haven’t found the reference for this yet, but I will eventually. Martha Troup said it somewhere.

What is a Lutino Cockatiel?

The cockatiel is a smallish Australian bird that is related to the much larger cockatoo. The bird in the 1970’s American TV show called Baretta was a cockatoo. It’s a type of parrot.

Standard cockatiels are gray. Lutino cockatiels with their white and yellow feathers started as a mutation and then were bred to be a new variety of cockatiel.

I borrowed this photo from the internet because I don’t have a photo of Fabian Sparkle. But this is what the cockatiel looked like.

Lutino Cockatiel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutino_cockatiel

Terri goes to Los Angeles

Terri traveled out to Los Angeles when her sister did and that gave her an opportunity to see INXS at the Hollywood Paladium on September 1, 1984.

In my diary, at the end of September, I wrote that we spoke on the phone for four hours, so she probably told me lots about it. Unfortunately, I only wrote a couple of sentences in my diary about what was said in the call, and it wasn’t about the concert. I’m sure she probably told me that Andrew did not wear my hat out in LA either.

This is what I wrote in my diary- “She thought that I should have called in sick to work and we could have stayed on Michael’s floor.” That was about what happened on July 2, 1984. And I also wrote- “Wishy Washy is on-fond memories. Terri and I talked about it. She thought it was great. She said most people would have just watched Michael, but I was just doing my thing and enjoying the spotlight.” That was about what happened on August 10, 1984

Terri sees INXS in Los Angeles

But in a letter from her from October 1984, she mentioned the concert. She said that some bums kept climbing up on stage and then diving off into the audience. At the time, stage diving had been occurring at some shows, mostly punk shows, for about twenty years but there doesn’t seem to have been a name for that behavior until 1985.

According to Terri, Michael Hutchence was amused by it at first but then asked them nicely to stop doing it. Well, they kept on doing it. After about the 10th time, Timmy grabbed Michael’s microphone and said something like, “Stay in the audience or I’ll kick ya in the nuts!” Terri thought that was hilarious and so did I!

This article about when the term “stage diving” first appeared in print mentions an article about INXS in Billboard magazine in November 1985! They were playing the Paladium in Los Angeles again.

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/482863/when-and-by-whom-was-stage-diving-coined

What Jess wrote to me

Before INXS played in Los Angeles, they played at the California Theater in San Diego on 8/28. Jess had a friend there who went to the concert and who also met the band. I think Jess had written a letter to Garry Gary Beers and sent it to her friend so she could give it to him.

According to the letter Jess wrote to me on 9/19/84, Garry received the letter and her pal had a great time meeting “the guys.” Jess told me that her friend told her that Michael wore a cowboy hat. Her friend had also sent her photocopies of some pictures she had taken of INXS. That’s often what happened-instead of people sending actual prints of photos they would enclose photocopies instead. It’s cheaper that way to send them to all of your friends.

Jess wrote to me that the photocopies were very dark and that she might send them to me in the next letter. She still needed them because she was thinking of buying prints of the photos. I don’t think I ever got those photocopies, and I don’t know if Jess ever got prints of the photos.

One of the complaints in the letter was about being too busy with school to write letters so she was keeping all letters she wrote to only one page. Just enough to let people know she was still alive.

She also asked me, “Why does reading about INXS annoy you? I think a lot of this stuff is hysterical. (Especially the things you know are wrong.)”

I think her question is what caused me to write in my diary about a week later, “I’m sick of reading articles where the answers seem to be made up in order to give a good image and not promote controversy.” It doesn’t say in my diary that I was referring to INXS here but it’s a feeling I have had about things that members of INXS have said publicly and the feeling remains even to this day.

Jess also talked about how she had to go to a reference library in NYC often to read Australian literature for her independent study class. She mentioned that she was in the village (Greenwich Village) the other day and she passed by the store where we bought Timmy’s shirt. (His birthday present.)

One other thing she wrote about was her plan to travel to Australia after she graduated from college and she invited me to go with her. With the letter she enclosed a photocopy of a brochure for a package-deal trip to Australia.

Back to Fabian Sparkle

The bird named Fabian Sparkle lived in a cage in the living room of our apartment. He/she did not seem to care for me because the bird would try to bite me if I put my hand too close, but the bird also did not seem to like being alone.

Cockatiel calls

Fabian Sparkle was only quiet if I was in the living room. If I walked out of the room, the bird would start making a noise that sounded like “Weet!” The video I posted explains the different calls that cockatiels make. The bird was calling me to come back. I figured this out on my own when I stepped in and out of the room and bird would either call when it didn’t see me or be quiet when it did see me.

The problem with keeping this cockatiel in my dorm was that the call could be heard outside of our apartment, but I don’t know how long Fabian Sparkle continued to call for me after I left for class. No one ever complained so I guess it was okay, but I felt bad when I was standing in the hall waiting for the elevator to arrive and I heard a constant “weet, weet, weet, weet…”

There is an entry from my diary about Fabian Sparkle from 9/22/84, just a couple of weeks after classes started, that I wrote while I was working a graveyard shift at the front desk of my apartment building.

I wrote, “Brian and Jeff from across the hall came in and said I missed their heroin party, but that Fabian Sparkle (the bird) was the life of it. I died laughing because it was a hilarious connection even though it was unintentional on their part.”

What happened to Fabian Sparkle

Fabian Sparkle was only mine for the school year. At the end of my junior year in college, I decided to stay in Philadelphia for the summer so I could no longer take care of the cockatiel.

Jess graduated from college at the same time I ended my junior year and she was able to take the bird and keep it at her parent’s house in Wayne, NJ. Eventually, Fabian Sparkle started laying eggs, so we finally knew that she was a female cockatiel. Jess changed Fabian’s name to Fabianette and the bird lived happily for many years until she died.

Fall semester and INXS

My pocket calendar from September 3 to September 9, 1984.

You can see from this calendar page that my classes started on September 6th and after a full day of classes, I worked the graveyard shift at the front desk of High Rise South. Where I lived on Penn Campus was and still is called Superblock.

Superblock has three high-rise apartment buildings and back then they were nicknamed High Rise South, High Rise North, and High Rise East, based on where they were located. I’ve mentioned before that I lived in High Rise East as a freshman and then in High Rise North as a sophomore and junior.

The Man Behind Superblock

In between the three high-rise dorms is a giant red sculpture called The Covenant and it was made by the sculptor Alexander Liberman. The nickname for the sculpture then and now is “Dueling Tampons.”

“Dueling Tampons” or its real name “Covenant” by Alexander Liberman. 39th St. & Locust Walk. Penn campus.

During my graveyard shift that night, I wrote a poem about Glitter Girl. I wrote five letters to my friends, and I also wrote in my diary. From what I wrote in my diary, I can assume that I took up smoking cigarettes as soon as I left my mother’s house and moved to campus. This is what I wrote:

“9/7/84

GRAVEYARD POEM

There was a girl all done up in glitter

The sight of her made us all titter

Her makeup was three inches thick

All she wanted was poor Garry’s dick

I thought I was gonna be sick

I hope the sun comes up soon so I can play Burn For You.

I’m afraid I’m ruining my health from the caffeine and nicotine. At least when I sleep my body takes a break from my nasty habits.

I need to exert more control over myself. I know I’m not doing the best thing for my body, and it probably isn’t good for my mind either.

I still look at people sort of strangely as if I was not one of them and that I can’t relate to them.

These last two hours are always a bit difficult to get through. Five lucky people are getting letters from me in a few days. I need to find a product for my marketing class. It is almost sunrise. I still have Naseem’s autograph. I like that name.

I don’t have a good view of the sunrise from High Rise South. I’m making a mess of this desk and of course I didn’t do any reading. I’m out of stamps again already but it is worth it if I get mail often. I hate an empty mailbox.”

The poem ended up in at least one of the letters I wrote while at work that night because Susan mentions it in a letter she wrote to me, and some other friends mention that they heard it from her.

Letter from Jess

Jess wrote on 9/10/84 that Susan had recited my poem “Glitter” for her. She wrote, “Cute-real cute! Maybe you should send a copy to Garry. I’m sure he’d love it.”

She also wrote this about INXS in recent magazines:

“Video Rock Stars Oct/Nov issue has a one page article on INXS also. Dana has a Rock Show mag with these funny pics of Garry, Michael and Jon. They are pushing Jon off the couch. Also there is a pic of Michael and a girl in Japan (Japanese mag-so where else?) It’s on a page of couples-it might be Michele with short, straight hair. I’ll get your pics soon! TC! Lots of love, Jessy jesy.”

Letter from Susan

Susan also wrote back to me on September 10th. In her letter she wrote:

“Hiya! How are you? I’m fine! Wow! I got two letters from you, in a row! I feel so honored, especially since you’re in college and I’m just a lowly high school senior!

You’re right, you do do strange things to pictures of INXS! Guess what? On Saturday night, I was watching “Nite Tracks.” It’s a video show-they showed “Burn For You”!! I totally freaked out! I called Jess and woke her up, but later she said she was glad I called, and if I had just told her the next day that it was on, she would have killed me!!

That’s pretty funny that some girl rode all the way to Hartford from NJ! How did she get back?

Are you serious about Michael and heroin? That’s a pretty stiff drug, worse than cocaine! Anyway, if he ran out of heroin, he wouldn’t have been able to stand at the bar and calmly buy anybody a drink, because the “cold turkey” (withdrawal) from heroin is really rough. You see, while you are reading about philosophy, I’m reading about drugs! I have a good book called Christiane F. It’s an autobiography of a drug addict. Pretty disgusting habit, if you ask me.

I can tell you wrote your second letter at 5:00am! That poem is definitely middle of the night material! I loved it! Oh-I may be in high school, but I’m not that dumb! I know what ‘titter’ means!

Did you kill your bird yet? You could gag him! I suppose I should go now and look for some fb’s to send ya! Keep ya busy in the wee hours! Write soonly! Love, Susan”

She must have been responding to some of what I wrote in those letters she got from me.

If you have a couple of hours to kill, here is a compilation from the TBS show “Night Tracks” from 1984. I have no idea if INXS is in this. It has some commercials in it from back in the day.

Letter from Dana

In my last post, I said I would mention the rest of what Dana had written to me in a letter. I’ll just put the whole letter from 8/23/84 here.

“Dear Donna,

Hiya! I’m not holding up too well- I guess INXS withdrawal has set in. So, I’ve tried to go to as many other concerts as possible- I saw Illustrated Man, and I saw Echo and the Bunnymen and The Fleshtones twice. Still, nothing beats those clowns up there. God. When will they get back here? Anyway, so Andrew still hasn’t worn your hat? That’s not very nice…

Jes came over today and we spent most of the time going through pictures and FBs. I borrowed a bunch of pictures to put in the next newsletter. Speaking of the alliance, if you want your name and addy, etc., in, fill out the index card and send it back soon.

So Michael wanted to know how old you are. All I can say is you’d better watch out for those rock stars…

I worked at MTV the other day as relief receptionist. It was hectic, but fun. Some offices have magazines in their reception areas, they have MTV. Too bad it was only a one day job! Oh well. I’m finished with work for the summer-I’ll need the rest of the time to get ready to move to Barnard. Fun, fun, fun. One good thing-I’ll be on my own in the city! Yay!

Hey-next summer I’ll be 18, so if I want to go to Canada or anyplace else for that matter, my parents won’t be able to stop me. Wow. We’d better think up something good!

So you’ve got yourself a new Fabian Sparkle disguised as a bird. Does it have glittery feathers? Does it have a friend with leopard feather? Sorry-bad joke.

I’d better sign off. Take care and write soon! Dancing on the Jetty, Dana”

References in the letter

When Dana mentioned “those clowns up there” I’m sure she was referring to a photo of INXS at the top of the paper she was writing to me on. If I still have the original somewhere, I can’t find it. I started “digitizing” my letters and diaries early on to save space. First by typing them and later scanning them into a computer.

I don’t think I ever saved a copy of any of the INXS Alliance newsletters that she made and sent out, if I ever even put myself on the mailing list at all. It would be so great to have some of those newsletters right now.

FBs are short for friendship books. I wrote about those in an earlier post. It’s funny that the abbreviation is the same as Facebook because those friendship books were a form of social media before personal computers, the internet, and Mark Zuckerberg started what we call social media today.

After the graveyard shift

After my graveyard shift, I stayed awake long enough to go to my first statistics class. Then I went back to my apartment and slept. The next day I wrote in my diary that I went out dancing that night and I danced to some INXS.

“9/8/84

The sucko bank machine is closed. I’m broke, hungry and tired.

I Send a Message dropped out of the charts after a climb to #82 while meanwhile in Oz, Burn For You fell from #3 to #5. I went dancing last night and requested INXS. They played the One Thing and Original Sin back to back. That was very nice. My brain is still mush.

Well, I’ve run into some more people I met last year through Bill. Eric told me that Lynn is dealing in speed and heroin now. She is getting herself into some deep shit. I probably won’t see her at all because I’m not going to hang out with that crowd.”

References in my diary entry

Philadelphia had one of the first ATM networks in the United States. But we called those bank machines MAC machines because they were called Money Access Centers. It was Saturday and I wanted to withdraw money but the ATM at my bank two blocks away was not available.

Wikipedia article about Money Access Centers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_Access_Center

Bill had a punk rock sensibility and style and the way he looked reminded me of David Bowie.

Spending library time looking at Billboard magazine

It looks like I spent some time at the library on 9/8 and looked at the latest issue of Billboard magazine to see how INXS was doing when I should have been studying.

The Hits of the World section of Billboard magazine from September 8, 1984. This was where I saw that Burn For You had dropped to number five from number three in Australia.

Letter from Terri written on 9/18

“Four letter word for Aussie wild life- INXS!

Dear Donna,

What it is? Nice talking to you, although brief. Isn’t that phone of Susan’s a trip? She and Jes called once and totally confused me! I liked that-“What’s Susan doing in Florida?”

My mother said you were going to teach Fabian Japanese? (Japanese for travelling birds?)

I think I can buy your “feel as if I’ve eaten twenty field mines!” They’re a riot! Thanx ever so much again for lending me those tapes. Some if it’s just too happening for words.

You and your dreams (poor Andrew) and poems! Another goody! What’d Jes think?

Your picture order is 15 pix, not 13 like I originally counted (I counted a date and didn’t count that you want four of you and Michael.) Duh! They’re not here yet-I’ll just hold this until I get around to getting the pix!

I don’t know why they bother-#82! Gee whiz! When they can reach #3 and up down under, I don’t know why INXS even bothers with this stupid place! The only thing INXSive I’ve done lately was I wrote to Tim. He won’t get it, I’m sure. But I don’t buy strange albums or look up weird amphibians (Jess lurves axol) And I’m sure Susan told you about the Aussie girl she’s chasing all over her school!

Did you hear about INXS on “Rock of the 80s?” It’s good. It’s got its highlights, boy! Like Michael falling flat on his back! He’s a piece of work!

Eksesu? Yeh, good friends of mine! I love Mr. Beer’s name- Kari-Kari?!! I had to laugh at that one. Yeh, right! You can impress Michael with your knowledge of T-Rex, Violent American Femmes, and the Japanese language! Whatever turns you on! I won’t even bother to show up.

Thanx for the Tim thing. Here’s something from Toronto-we already knew, but I found it interesting to see it in print!

Why don’t you ask Dana to put you on the Alliance list? Hmmm!?

Gotta go to Differential Equations. That class is like a big suck! Please return the stamps that will be on your present to me!!! Keep swinging, Terri”

Rock of the 80s

One reason why it takes me so long to write new posts is because I try to find some of the things that are mentioned in these letters and in my diary. Searching for “Rock of the 80s” using Google got me nowhere. But the gigography that INXS included with it’s Calling All Nations Deluxe set had the concert listed. They recorded it on 6/19/1984 at the Hollywood Palace theater. That was before we even saw them for the first time in 1984, but it wasn’t shown on television until September.

I scanned the cover of this list of INXS shows from 1979-2012 that came with the Calling All Nations Deluxe Set that I bought.

Once I had the name of the venue, I was able to find the video for it on YouTube.

INXS live at the Hollywood Palace

Michael fell flat on his back at the beginning of the second song which was Melting in the Sun. When I watched this video, I noticed that Michael messed up the lyrics of the first song which was “The Swing.”

More about Terri’s letter

I had loaned some Tenpole Tudor cassette tapes to Terri and she was continuing our discussion about the lyrics for the song “Love and Food.” Here’s a video:

I’m pretty sure that we read or saw that Garry Gary either had a pet axolotl or he was fascinated by the prehistoric fish.

Axolotls as pets

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/axolotls-amphibians-that-never-grow-up.html

Terri wasn’t the only person I mentioned the Violent Femmes to in my letters. Their first album was one I listened to over and over at that time and I must have just recently acquired it, but my diary doesn’t say if I bought it. I have a feeling that my friend Adam owned it and he taped it for me.

It looks like I was using my “Japanese For Travellers” book to transcribe some Japanese articles about INXS into English. I told people that I would teach Fabian Sparkle, the bird, some Japanese but that didn’t work because it is cockatoos who can mimic words and not cockatiels.

This is the cover of the Japanese phrase book I bought in 1984 when I got back to college.

The “Tim thing” and what it was that we found out about INXS in Toronto that appeared in print is a mystery. Perhaps I had photocopied the photo of Tim and Nile Rodgers that appeared in the same issue Billboard magazine (September 8, 1984) where I learned that “I Send A Message” fell off the Hot 100 after reaching number 82.

A photo of Tim Farriss and Nile Rodgers from the Beacon Theatre show that appeared in Billboard magazine in the September 8, 1984 issue.

Maria tells her Kirk Pengilly story

“9/4/84

Dear Donna,

Hi, How are you? Do you remember that poster you made at Dana’s the day of INXS at the Beacon? Well my friend Dawn has it. I mentioned it to Dana that Dawn ended up with it, and Dana got real mad. Well since it was your poster, I hope you’re not mad about it. If you want it back I can talk to Dawn when I see her-I just wanted you to know. Okay!

Oh…We Are The Vegetables(WATV)-it’s my only INXS story! (Except for the soundcheck, but you guys were there also!)

WATV has to be one of their craziest songs and I’ve been dying to know about it for a long time! So that night I had the perfect opportunity to ask Kirk, so I went over (Susan followed me).

Kirk was impressed-I guess because WATV isn’t on any albums, and it’s pretty much unheard of-even in Australia. Kirk said it was the song they used for the B-side of their first single. He kept saying how it was such a fun song…and he’s like to do it again-then I said that Michael probably doesn’t remember the words-and Kirk laughed and agreed!

Let’s see, he also said that back in the days of Perth they used to end their gigs with that song and they made a big finale out of it! The funniest part about what he said was that they used to call each other vegetables! Unfortunately, I didn’t get to find out more about that because Susan wanted to show Kirk her pen!

How’s Fabian Sparkle doing? Wasn’t Tim’s name Alvin Purple? Now how did this thing with Fabian Sparkle come about? Is it just a name Michael used or what?

Did ya see newsletter #5. I thought it was great how it was dedicated to Gary Grant. He seems like he’s really nice. Ah, and Vance…#1 roadie that was funny!

Did I tell you I wrote to the other Vance “fan”-Chris from Fla. She’s in love with him, she said he has a place in NYC and she wants to go when she gets enough $.

Well Donna I gotta go. School started yesterday and I already have a ton of things to do-I hope I’m not this busy the whole year-I love to goof off and I’m good at it. I loved your INXS stories, they’re great! See ya and write soon. Luv, Maria”

We Are The Vegetables on YouTube

Letter from Dana with some INXS info

“9/10/84

Dear Donna,

Hiya! Nice Nick Cave paper. He’s kind of funny looking, though.

School’s okay so far. I’ve only had 2 of my classes. I’m taking Logic, Intro to Psychology, Freshman Seminar, Intro to Music, and Jazz Dance. Ha. I’ve never really taken dance before. This will be pretty funny!

How’s U. of P.? Is Philly a nice place? New York is great when you’re on your own! I don’t have to report to anyone now, so it’s really a totally new experience even though I’m in the same city.

Marc Bolan is dead, or, as my friend said, very dead. It seems that he was one of those “rock-hero” type people and his death was an event in rock history. Shows how much we know…

I’d love to hitchhike to Guam, but we might drown. How about a nice long swim?

Guess who I got a letter from last week! Here are a few hints. He plays bass, he’s got a double name, and his picture is up there. I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now! Yes, Garry Gary actually wrote to me again! He told me to call Connie at MMA, so I did and I’m going there on Tuesday to help out with the fan club. Should be fun…

I’ve just reread your letter and discovered that I haven’t responded to anything you wrote! Well, here goes. I don’t know of any companies that have sold stationery with rock stars as a business in itself. I have seen Menudo stationery, and Culture Club cards, but nothing more, except in London, where they have postcards.

Cute poem about Glitter Girl. Connie told me an interesting Garry story. One night he took a girl back to his room to talk. She wanted to sleep with him and he didn’t so she left the room. The next morning he got really upset ‘coz she came down hand in hand with Vance. Connie said he started complaining about all the sluts, etc. Oh-it seems that Garry and his girlfriend broke up right before the tour.

Garry wrote to me from Arizona. He told me that some guy in Texas threw a brand new Colt 45 on stage with a fan letter. Pretty weird, huh? [8/22, 8/23, and 8/24/1984 INXS played shows in Texas. 8/27 they were in Arizona so Garry wrote to her on 8/26 or thereabout]

How’s Tae Kwon Do? I took karate for 3 years. I had to quit ‘coz I have bad knees, but it was fun while it lasted.

My sister Jenny likes the Violent Femmes. The picture in Star Hits is really cute. Check out that Nick Cave shirt!!

If your friend Carlos thinks the cover of Shabooh Shoobah is kinky, you should show him the inside sleeve…

I think I’d better go now! Take care, Happy Birthday, Dana on the Jetty (Terri’s new name for me.)”

Last little bits from my diary

My pocket calendar from September 10 to September 16, 1984.

“9/16/84

I went shopping yesterday and bought cool boots and cool earrings and a Nick Cave album that I have to get Adam to tape for me. I’ve totally blown off studying and I’m reading Shogun. I’ve been smoking like a maniac. School sucks again. It hasn’t changed from last year and my mood and attitude is quite familiar. I’m so disorganized and apathetic.”

The Nick Cave album was “From Her To Eternity”. It was the last thing by Nick Cave that I ever bought. I loved his cover of “In The Ghetto” but that’s about it.

You can listen to the song here:

I’m sure I was reading Shogun because Tim Farriss was reading it in Florida.

Procrastination problems

9/18/84

“I have to get my ass in gear. At least Astronomy requires no work. I have to start reading statistics, accounting, and history.

9/20/84

I just saw a guy who looked like a Buddhist monk like in the video. [I Send A Message by INXS]

I’m taking a short break from reading statistics. I’m up to last week. Oh boy!

There is a five-year-old kid in England who got kicked out of kindergarten because he had a punky haircut. His picture is hanging on my wall. [I saw the article in the Weekly World News. I also used the photo from the article to make the photocopier stationery for when I wrote my friends.]

I met someone wearing an Original Sin t-shirt and talked to him. He was right behind us at the Mann Music Center and also walked out on The Go-Go’s.”

9/22/84

Saturday night graveyard. The last one. I hope there will be good parties next week. Last night during graveyard I wrote a twelve-page letter to Susan and told her some of my INXS stories.

Brian and Jeff from across the hall came in and said I missed their heroin party, but that Fabian Sparkle (the bird) was the life of it. I died laughing because it was a hilarious connection even though it was unintentional on their part.

I brought all my books but probably won’t use them. Dana might be in charge of the INXS fan club. That is cool.”

I’ll have to leave some of the letters from the end of September 1984 for my next post because this one is already too long.

August 25, 2026
Blog Post 27- INXS at the Metro. Chicago, Illinois, August 19, 1984

This is a photo of Tim Farriss that Jess took at the INXS concert in Hartford on 8/11/1984. Tim is wearing the shirt that we gave him as a birthday present.

In the one week between when Jess and I went to the INXS concert in Hartford, CT and when Jackie would see INXS in Chicago, we had to act quickly. Jess had to have an 8×10 print made of a photo she took of Tim Farriss performing on stage while wearing the shirt Terri gave him for his birthday. She needed to mail it to Chicago so Jackie would get it in time to take it to the INXS show there on Sunday August 19th.

I wrote a card/letter to Michael

I had decided to write a letter to Michael Hutchence and to send it to Jackie in the hope that she would have a chance to deliver it to him at the INXS concert. There wasn’t much time for me to do that because I worked from 5pm to 1am on that same Sunday we got home from Hartford and again from 11am until 3pm on Monday.

The letter was going to take up to three days to arrive so I would have wanted to mail it no later than Tuesday morning. Perhaps I dropped it at the post office on my way to work that day at the Emerson Hotel where I was scheduled to waitress from 12pm until 9pm.

My pocket calendar from August 13 to August 19, 1984.

How Kirk’s letter to me in 1983 came into play

Kirk Pengilly’s letter to me that I received about one year earlier was what I used as a model when I wrote my letter to Michael Hutchence. That letter was a nice, polite letter that fulfilled the promise he made to me to write while at the same time it conveyed to me that we would not be having a relationship in the future. It was clearly not a love letter, but it was caring. Mostly, it was an update on what he had been doing with his time.

What I said in the letter

There is nothing in my diary about the letter I wrote to Michael, and I didn’t keep a copy of it, so I don’t remember everything I wrote in the letter. But I remember that I started the letter by saying, “Sorry I didn’t get to know you better.” When I think of that now, I’m like, “Eeeew, cringe!”

Once I had apologized in that way for not having sex with him like I had sort of promised to do at a later date when I was in his hotel room with him and my friends on July 3rd, I started making excuses about how busy I was with work.

I’m not sure about how much I told him about my life except for one thing and that was that I’m sure I told him that I was studying business at either one of the best schools in the country or the best school in the country. Take your pick.

The Wharton School

I don’t think I told him specifically that I was studying at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance. Back then, mentioning Wharton didn’t mean much to the average person. It was only impressive to people who knew enough to be impressed.

Things are different today, now that the current President of the United States is a graduate of Wharton. The school is more well-known with people outside of the business world. Also, U.S. News & World Report only started ranking universities in 1983 and didn’t start ranking business schools until 1990 so there was less publicity back then.

A link to some info about Wharton:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/wharton.asp#toc-whartons-global-reputation-and-industry-impact

Maybe I’ll see you around

The only other thing I remember writing to Michael Hutchence was “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.” I hope that came across to him as noncommittal when he read it because I did not want to give him any ideas that something was ever going to happen in the future.

If only I could see the whole letter to know if what I think I remember is correct. What I believe I was going for in that letter was a way of saying, “I had to wash my hair” without actually using that phrase. The internet tells me that “I have to wash my hair” is still being used today as a flimsy excuse to get out of doing something.

When I said farewell to Kirk Pengilly in 1983, he had every bit of contact information for me that existed at that time- every address and phone number. I didn’t give Michael Hutchence any of that information in the letter because I wanted him to get the message that I was not interested in him without explicitly saying that.

Letter from Susan

Around the same time that I was mailing off the letter to Jackie in Chicago, Susan wrote to me. She was at the INXS concert in Cedar Grove, just a few days before she wrote, “I’m still spinning from this weekend! You must be spinning from your entire summer! Are you going to follow INXS around on their next tour? When you write back, please tell me some of the funnier moments! The only things I’ve heard are what Dana’s told me, and she hears it from Terri and Jess so I’m usually the third party! (Then I tell Maria and she tells Dawn…)”

Susan also told me that she wrote to Gary Grant to thank him for going to so much trouble for us and sent the letter to ATCO Records. She also wanted to know if we taped any of the concerts and if she could get a copy if she sent me a blank cassette tape. I’m not sure I even had a tape of the INXS concerts from Atlanta and St Petersburg in my possession at that point, so I doubt I was the one who helped her with that request.

I think I granted her request for a blank sheet of my INXS stationery. That would have been easy because it just was a photocopy of a photocopy of some INXS photo from a magazine that was positioned at the top of a piece of copy machine paper.

A photocopy of a magazine photo and the David Letterman show catchphrase, “They pelted us with rocks and garbage” combined to make some fun INXS stationery!

INXS at the Metro

On 8/19/1984, I wrote in my diary, “Just a few more days of work left. Somewhere in Chicago, Jackie is waiting for INXS.”

INXS was playing that night at the Metro in Chicago. The Metro was a new club back then as it had only opened in 1982. The club is still open and hosting bands today. It holds around 1100 people, and it is general admission so there are no seats.

Wikipedia article about the Metro club:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Chicago

Someone (probably Jess) had given Jackie an idea for how to get backstage to see the band before the show. Jackie had someone, perhaps her mother, call the Metro and say that they needed to speak to Jackie because there was an emergency.

Whoever got the call at the club believed it and went outside to get Jackie. I’m sure she was waiting in line near the door along with her four friends so they could get good seats. She was able to see the band backstage after she was escorted inside to take the “emergency” phone call.

Letter from Jackie

Here is a portion of the letter that Jackie wrote to me on September 12, 1984.

“Well, it’s been about three and a half weeks since I’ve seen INXS, and it feels like it’s been ages. I miss them so damn much. My mom saw “Burn For You” on our local video channel last week. I, of course, was on my way home from work and missed it. I cried when she told me. I heard “The One Thing” on the radio today.

I’m sure Terri and Jess have told you what I’ve told them about the concert at the Metro on the 19th. Everything went pretty well. The “emergency” phone call idea was clever! I gave Michael your card while I was backstage. He asked a few questions about you, like how old you were. I told him you’re 20, even though you weren’t exactly 20 yet! You’re not even 20 now, but it’s close enough! Duh! He said that he was almost finished with the books that you gave him, and that they were good books. He really enjoyed them. He also wanted to know if you were going back to school. He was being his usual sweet self.

Jon was very tired, but still nice to me like he always is. I love that man to death. I also talked to Timmy for a while and had him sign an 8×10 for Terri from Jess, and I got his autograph for Pete, too.

Jackie writes about the show

The concert was good, aside from getting crushed by hundreds of people. It was so uncomfortable that I could hardly enjoy myself. We were up front, but we kept getting pushed around. They did the usual material but threw in “All The Voices”. There weren’t that many voices, but it still sounded okay!

Jon saw me a couple of times, and so did Garry. Michael saw Karen, Sara, and I standing on the side of the stage during the encore and made it real obvious! It was so funny!

After the show, we (the five of us; Karen K from Jones’ Beach, Karen, Heike, Sara, and I) followed a taxi carrying Garry, Jon, Timmy, and Andrew back to their hotel. Sara found out Michael’s room number, so we went up and knocked on the door. Michael answered, and he talked to us out in the hall for a bit. Then he said, “I can’t leave you girls out here. Why don’t you come on in?” So, we walked in; I went first and the first thing I saw was Jon lying on the bed getting a massage, and he had no shirt on. I thought I was gonna drop right there. He looked marvelous!

Jackie writes about INXS dressed in towels

A few minutes later, Timmy came out of the shower, wearing only a towel. All I could say was, “If Terri saw this…!” He looked marvelous as well. We all just basically sat around, talked, and drank their beer!

I talked to Michael quite a bit. He told me that Michele was meeting him when he gets to Japan. Jon was acting strange; he was giving hand massages and talking like a queer. It was too funny! Michael also took a shower and ran around in his towel. Kirk had one on, too. Too bad I missed Jon’s shower!

We stayed in the room for quite a while and then decided to leave since they had a lot of straightening out to do, and Karen K had to have the car home by 2:30 am. I said goodbye to everyone else before saying goodbye to Jon. I saved him for last. I got hugs and kisses from Timmy, Kirk, and Michael, and just kinda said so long to Garry and Andrew who were just vegging out or something.

Jon was sitting on the bed when I said goodbye. I looked at him and thanked him for everything, for always being nice to me no matter what, and for making my summer, in general! He hugged me, and said thanks for the support, and he told me never to doubt his appreciation. We just looked at each other and hugged again.

Sara told me later on that Jon looked like he had just lost his best friend; she said he looked so sad! He gave me a kiss, and we said goodbye, etc., and Michael let us out of the door. I hugged and kissed Michael again, and as soon as I walked out the door, I broke down in tears. I never used to cry, until I got to know Jon Farriss! Saying goodbye to Jon was too emotional. You know how I get. We, yes, Donna- I have stopped crying for now, for the time being, at least! I’m just glad that I got to say bye to all of them.”

Things I can add about that portion of the letter

In my diary, I didn’t write about anything that Jackie told Terri and Jess about this night. All I know now is what is in Jackie’s letter.

I know I heard about what happened from Terri or Jess because I mentioned some of it in a letter I wrote to Dana sometime between August 20-22. But I only know that because Dana wrote to me on August 23,1984 and said “So, Michael wanted to know how old you are. All I can say is you’d better watch out for those rock stars…” I’ll share more from that letter in the next post.

Pete was Jackie’s new boyfriend at the time.

We must have met Karen K at the INXS/Go-Go’s concert at Jones Beach in June when Jackie was visiting us, but I don’t remember her at all from then. Karen K and Sara will appear again in future posts.

Sara probably got Michael’s room number because he was still using Fabian Sparkle as his fake name at the hotel and we knew that one so she could just ask for Fabian Sparkle at the reception desk.

INXS played concerts in Japan from September 10, 1984, through September 20, 1984. Then they had about a week off before playing two more shows back home in Perth, Australia. After that, INXS had a three-month break from touring.

More of Jackie’s letter

Jackie also wrote this in her letter to me:

“Thanks for the Birthday Party tape and lyrics. The album is so obnoxious-it’s so funny! I played it when I was down in Springfield, Illinois, for the State Fair. We were sitting in our hotel room, and everyone started falling asleep. I put the tape on, and everybody got up and left! Michael is wearing a Nick Cave shirt in the picture in Star Hits. Have you seen it?

Have you gotten the pictures of you and Michael yet? I’m enclosing the one of Jon and I.”

Jackie sent me this photo:

Jackie sent me this photo of her and Jon Farriss of INXS. It was taken in 1983 but I don’t know where.

If you remember, both Jackie and I listened to the Birthday Party cassette on Michael’s Walkman. When I wrote an earlier blog post, I was unsure about which album I bought in Toronto. But after reading my diary again and the letters I still have, I know for sure that it was the Junkyard album by the Birthday Party that I bought that day.

Before going back to college

On August 22, 1984, my father called me from the nursing home where he lived, and I mentioned it in my diary. He was somewhere in upstate New York, and I think he was in a VA (Veteran’s Administration) nursing home, but I never wrote it down, so I don’t know. I filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get his records, but I don’t know if I will ever receive anything.

“Dad called today. I’m going to see him next Tuesday. He is giving us $1000 each to try to square things with us. Grandpa’s estate is finally being settled.

That nursing home upsets me. I could hear the screaming in the background. Dad told me not to do anything to make him ashamed of me.

I think that it was very lucky for us all that he had a stroke and ended up where he is. I’d hate to imagine what it would be like if he was around to influence our lives all the time. There is security now that we know he can’t really get to us if he becomes angry.

I feel myself becoming depressed. I’m finally going through withdrawal. I bought Chipwiches to comfort it but I’m to the point where only sleep brings relief.”

The withdrawal I referred to in this entry was because I was no longer going to INXS concerts!

An article about the ice cream sandwich made with chocolate chip cookies called Chipwich:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipwich

This was what that week looked like:

My pocket calendar from August 20 to August 26, 1984.

Why was my father in a nursing home?

In a future post, I will write about my father in greater detail, but in the fall of 1980, when I was sixteen, he had surgery for an aneurysm in his brain. My parents were in the middle of getting divorced for the second time.

The surgery went well but after the surgery he had a stroke and it left him partially paralyzed on his left side. He went to a rehab facility, but I don’t think he did the work and just spent his time feeling sorry for himself, so he didn’t recover.

You can see from my diary entry that I was glad that he didn’t regain the ability to walk. We certainly had no interest in caring for him, so he ended up in a nursing home. I just spoke to my brother, and he said our father was in a place in Liberty, NY.

The drive from Hillsdale NJ to Liberty NY.

My pocket calendar from August 27 to September 2, 1984.

On August 28, I drove up to see my father so he could give me $3,000 for me and my two brothers. I know from my diary that my youngest brother was away so he could not have gone with me, but I don’t know if I went alone or not.

Why was he giving us money?

My father was giving us money from his father’s estate because he had “borrowed” money from his three children when we were young-under age 11. He asked us if he could use the money we had in our savings accounts so he could go to school to become a drug and alcohol counselor.

That is a path that many people take when they get sober. He had gone to Alcoholics Anonymous and gave up drinking. I think my parents were married for the second time when he asked us for the money. We all had money saved from our first communions.

I don’t think any of us actually wanted to give him our savings, but we all said yes because there was no way any of us were going to say no to the guy. Not after our experiences with him.

Two days after I went to see him, I mentioned it in my diary, but I didn’t say much. I wrote, “Well, I went to see Dad. The place is terrible, but his mind seems better. He doesn’t have many teeth left. He looks so old.” He was 49 at the time.

We brought my father to my brother Mike’s high school graduation in June 1983. He is in a wheelchair.

Here is a photo from my brother Mike’s high school graduation which took place in June 1983, a bit more than a year before I went to the nursing home. Now you can see what my father looked like at that time.

This photo was taken after I saw INXS in concert for the first time but before I saw them in concert for the second time and then kissed Kirk Pengilly later in the evening.

Weird INXS dream and The Wild Colonial Boy

In my diary for that day, I devoted as much space to a weird dream about Andrew Farriss and to the refrain of the folk song, “Wild Colonial Boy.”

Back in those days, there was no internet so, no source of information was readily available at your fingertips like it is now. Some homes contained reference books like a set of encyclopedias, but usually information had to be found by going to a library and looking for it in a book or magazine.

I was still home for the summer in Hillsdale, NJ. There was a library within walking distance, and I must have gone there and checked out a book about Australia. How else would some of the lyrics for an Australian folk song end up in my diary?

“So, come all my hearties

We’ll roam the mountains high

Together we will plunder

Together we will die

We’ll wander over valleys and

gallop over plains

We’ll scorn to live in slavery,

bound down with iron chains.”

That last line was what appealed to me, I have no doubt.

Here is a link to a Wikipedia article about the song:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Colonial_Boy

The Wild Colonial Boy video on You Tube:

I dreamed about Andrew??!

The dream I had about Andrew was crazy. Why did I dream about Andrew? Who knows? Probably because he took my hat and I was still thinking about that. There will be more about that in the next post.

In my dream, Andrew Farriss was dead, but he was still in INXS as a ghost. He wasn’t always a ghost because sometimes he turned into my pet cat, Melba. Andrew also stole Carl’s vintage Mercedes because it used to be his.

Carl was my mother’s new husband. He was the one with the bakery-the one where I worked in 1983. I wish I had a photo of his vintage Mercedes-Benz because it was a good-looking car. Then maybe I could figure out when it had been made. My best guess is sometime in the 1960s.

This photo I pulled from the internet is not what his car looked like exactly but it’s close enough.

A vintage Mercedes Benz car. I pulled this photo from the internet. My mother’s husband Carl owned something similar.

My last day of waitressing at the Emerson Hotel for the summer was on August 30th. I had two days to prepare to go back to Philly and I arrived back on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania on Sunday, September 2 which was the day before Labor Day. The summer of INXS was over.

August 5, 2026
Blog Post 25- INXS at the Meadowbrook. Cedar Grove, NJ. August 10, 1984

Jon Farriss opening a gift in the parking lot behind The Meadowbrook on his 23rd birthday. Photo by Jess.

We left Montreal and went back to New Jersey. INXS probably stayed in Montreal for another day because they didn’t have a show until the following day. Their next concert was at Toad’s Place in New Haven, Connecticut on Monday August 6th.

My pocket calendar from August 6 to August 12, 1984

The drive INXS took to get from Montreal, Canada to their show at Toad’s Place in New Haven, CT

INXS at Toad’s Place

Terri and Jess probably drove up to New Haven to see the show. I don’t remember if they did because I was working that day so I could not go with them if they went to yet another INXS concert.

The drive Terri might have taken to get to the INXS show at Toad’s Place in New Haven, CT

Our friend Dana, the girl from New York City, went to the show at Toad’s Place. Perhaps she went with Terri and Jess? Dana usually posts a photo on Facebook of herself with Michael from the day of the Toad’s Place show when it’s his birthday and on the anniversary of his death.

They are standing outside the club and they both look very cute. It must have been taken before the show because it was daytime.

In the photo, Michael was wearing the same clothes as he was when he did the interview in Montreal, including the hat. He has his arm around Dana’s shoulder, and she is resting her head against his shoulder. She only came up to his chin. His cheek looks to be against her big hair. They are looking at two different cameras though. Dana looks straight ahead while Michael looks at someone off to the left.

Toad’s Place article

https://apnews.com/article/toads-place-music-club-new-haven-1856abb962348b7313e6a5cfd285e938

It would have been fun to see a show at Toad’s Place, but I never went to one there because I wasn’t free.

Between New Haven and Cedar Grove

After playing in New Haven, INXS went off to play shows at clubs in Washington, DC and Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. None one I know went to those shows. I guess even we had limits!

Jon Farriss’ birthday and Smokey Bear

INXS played at the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, New Jersey on Friday, August 10, 1984, which was drummer Jon Farriss’ 23rd birthday. I had the mistaken idea that Smokey the Bear (Smokey Bear), a cartoon bear used in a public service ad campaign by the US Forest Service to educate people about wildfires, was introduced on August 10 and therefore had the same birthday as Jon.

In fact, Smokey Bear was introduced on August 9, 1944, which made the birthday card I gave to Jon Farriss even more nuts than it already was because what would a young Australian guy know about US Forest Service ad campaigns? More about that later.

Memories from the Meadowbrook

Normally, I add a link of some kind to an article about the club we went to for the INXS concert if I can find one. This time there is an entire book about the place!

Memories From The Meadowbrook

I found out later that I am in the book which was published in August 2014.

Here is an article from 1977 that tells of the Meadowbrook’s importance in the 1940s as a place where all of the popular “big bands” or swing bands played regularly.

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/09/18/archives/new-jersey-weekly-the-meadowbrook-show-time-again.html

On May 26, 2020, I was scrolling through my feed on Facebook, and I recognized myself in a photo that was posted to the private INXS Facebook group that I had joined because of Jackie.

I grabbed a copy of the photo and posted it to my own Facebook page where I mistakenly said that the photo must have been published in a newspaper back in the day because I didn’t know about the book at that time. It was great to have something pop up from the past that corroborates my story.

The photo also provided new information to me because I had no idea that someone had to pull Michael Hutchence off of the balcony’s railing. More about that later.

Front cover of the book about the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, NJ.

The photo of me and Michael Hutchence of INXS appears on the back cover of the book about the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, NJ.

It was supposed to be our last INXS show

The show at the Meadowbrook was supposed to be our last INXS concert for the summer. I don’t know if we told INXS that when we were in Canada, but they knew this information sometime before the show on August 10th.

Jen flew up from Tampa, Florida to visit and to see INXS. She probably stayed with Jess at her parent’s house in Wayne. Jess lived in a big house with lots of extra room. Her house was twice as big as where Terri lived and Terri’s house was twice as big as where I lived.

I know Jen didn’t stay with me. And if she had been staying with Terri then Terri would have known about the plan that Jess, Jen and I hatched before we got into the concert that night and Terri didn’t know.

Cedar Grove was closer to where we lived than all of the other places where we saw INXS. We didn’t have to spend hours in the car so that was nice.

The drive from Hillsdale to Cedar Grove. As we traveled down the freeway to the club.

The INXS gang hangs out in another parking lot

Seven of us met up in the parking lot of the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, NJ in the afternoon. We arrived before the band showed up for their soundcheck. While we were waiting, we posed for this photo. Jess was not in it because she took it. Both Terri and Jess brought their cameras to the club.

Maria, Jen, Terri, Susan, Donna, & Dana in the parking lot behind The Meadowbrook club before INXS arrived. Photo by Jess

From left to right are Maria, my fellow Kirk Pengilly fan, Jen from Tampa, Terri, my friend since seventh grade, Susan, a new friend, Donna (me) still in possession of my hat, and Dana, the person I mentioned earlier who was at the show at Toad’s Place.

Most of us wore skirts to show. Later on, during the concert, I will no longer have my red hat, and my hair will be loose. In the photo, I have it in a little ponytail. My skirt was made from the same nylon material used to make parachute pants which were popular at the time.

Article about parachute pants

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_pants

The shirt I was wearing was the same one I wore on the night of July 2, 1984, the one that Michael was tugging on and pulling at the neck while trying to stick his hand down the front of it. You can read about that here.

The crew arrives

Soon some people arrived to set up equipment for the soundcheck and the show. They were the road crew traveling with INXS and I think some local guys who worked at the club. Tommy and the others knew us at this point because we were at so many shows.

One of the guys asked us if we worked. I said to him, “I have a job and I worked every day this week!” My calendar doesn’t show that I worked every day but if I had been asked to fill in on short notice then I probably didn’t write it down. And I think I would have taken more shifts because I wasn’t working on Friday or Saturday which were the best days to make money.

Timmy throws a table in Wilkes Barre, PA

We talked to Tommy again and he told us that the club where INXS had played their last show on the 8th, a place called The Station in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, really sucked.

The place was an old train station that had been abandoned after the coal mines closed so besides being old, it probably wasn’t in good condition. I’ve never been there, but I imagine it was a shitty bar in a boring town full of people who probably didn’t have MTV and never heard of INXS.

Tommy told us that Tim Farriss got angry (it doesn’t say why in my diary) and threw an antique table. He broke it if I recall correctly. Timmy didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would do that so that was a surprise.

Birthday presents

Terri and Jess had birthday presents for both Jon and Timmy because Timmy’s birthday was coming up soon on August 16th, but we would not be around for it. The show at the Meadowbrook was supposed to be the last one we would see. All I had was the birthday card I made for Jon.

The other Donna who couldn’t be there

I don’t think I have mentioned that there was another young woman named Donna who was a fan of INXS. Perhaps I mentioned her when I wrote about the show at the Beacon Theater because I think she was there. But if I met her there or at other shows in the NYC area, I didn’t write about it. I’m pretty sure she lived in New York City and was friends with Dana and that was how she became part of our group.

She is in this blog post because she wrote letters to Jon Farriss and Kirk Pengilly and either mailed them or gave them to Terri so that Terri could pass them along to those band members.

INXS arrives and we get our money back

INXS arrived in their tour bus for the sound check but not all of the band got off the bus. I think Gary Grant got off the bus first because he had some business to settle with us. He gave me a kiss on the cheek.

Then he gave Terri $50 in US dollars to pay us back for the $50 in Canadian dollars that we had loaned to Michael in Montreal so he could go to the Beat Club. Cha-ching, we made a profit on that!

Gary Grant probably told Jon, Timmy, and Kirk that we had things to give them because they came off the bus while the others stayed inside.

Jon and Timmy open their gifts

Jess and Terri gave Jon a photo album full of INXS concert photos that they had taken. The photo at the top of this post shows him opening his gift and posing for a fun photo by making that surprised face for the camera. I think he said, “There are a lot of photos of me in here!”

Jon opened my card which I think contained some drawings and some words about forest fires along with birthday wishes and he looked at me like I was from outer space. He handed the card to his brother Tim after possibly commenting that it was weird, and Tim looked at it and said something like, “I think she’s very artistic!” And I said, “Did you say I was artistic or autistic?” because I knew that card was incredibly weird. Absurd was what I was going for.

Timmy thanked me for his birthday gift which I had nothing to do with buying for him, but I think he thought it was from all of us. Terri bought him a red t-shirt that had a V-shaped geometric design, sort of like an increase in sound volume, on the front. A photo of it will be in Blog Post 26 once I write it.

The other Donna’s letters to Kirk and Jon

Terri handed a letter to Kirk and said it was from Donna. He looked at me like he thought it was from me and I quickly let him know that it was not from me but from Donna B, the other Donna.

At the same time, Terri gave Jon his letter from Donna. After Jon read it, he spoke to us about it with concern. He told us that in the letter she kept putting herself down, calling herself a bitch and saying that she was such a jerk. Jon said, “I don’t understand why she is being so hard on herself and saying those things about herself!”

As young women we understood quite well why any of us would be harsh and judgmental towards ourselves. It was a common thing to do. That is what internalized misogyny looks like.

Kirk. Jon, and Timmy got back on the bus, I believe, because it wasn’t time for soundcheck. We remained in the parking lot behind the club near where the bus was parked.

I know Andrew didn’t want my hat. Why did he ask for it?

I think I was sitting on the same wall where we had posed for photo before the band arrived. Suddenly, Andrew Farriss came off the bus and walked over to me. That was fucking weird in and of itself because as far as I could tell, he had no interest in chatting with me or anyone else. That was the impression I had of him after seeing INXS so many times.

Then, to make it even weirder, he said, “I like your hat. Can I have it?” Now, I also really liked my hat.

I. Goldberg Army Navy store in Philly

There used to be a store in downtown Philadelphia on Chestnut Street called I. Goldberg. It was an Army & Navy surplus store where they sold Levi’s, cheap t-shirts, and other potentially punky clothes that I could afford.

Article about I. Goldberg

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/08/23/i-goldberg-philadelphia-closed

I had bought my red baseball cap from I. Goldberg for three dollars, and I liked it for its color and also because it had a longer bill than a regular baseball cap so it reminded me of the kinds of hats that Alannah Currie from the Thompson Twins would wear.

Why did I give away my red hat?

After all these years, I still get worked up over this incident. It was so strange that Andrew walked up to me and just asked for my hat. I had to think about whether I wanted to give Andrew my hat and I thought, “Both of his brothers just got gifts from us and so did Garry Gary and Kirk for their recent birthdays. Even Michael got something from us.”

So, I took my hat off and put it on Andrew’s head. It fit him so I said, “It looks good on you. You can have it as a birthday present.” Andrew replied, “It’s not my birthday. It’s my brother Jon’s birthday.” (Yeah, no shit, Andrew! We were all well-aware of when every member of INXS had a birthday.)

I told Andrew, “I know that, but since your brothers are getting birthday presents today, you can have my hat as a present for your next birthday.” After that, Andrew said, “Thanks” and then walked away and got back on the bus. The interaction ended as abruptly as it started.

My diary says, “That was the only time I had a conversation with Andrew. He’s a weirdo and I don’t like him.” It’s only recently that I stopped wondering what was wrong with Andrew because I realized that he was sent out there by Michael Hutchence.

What happened to my hat?

Michael would have been looking down at me from inside the bus and I think my hat was getting in the way so he couldn’t see my face. Now the question is, “How much of a fuss was Michael making to get Andrew to do something that I don’t think he ever would have wanted to do of his own accord?” Also, “what happened to my hat?”

Did Michael keep my hat? Was it tossed in the trash? Because something else that got me worked up over what happened with my hat was that I never saw it again. I expected to see Andrew wear the fucking hat after he said he liked it and then asked to have it. Every time I was reminded of that day for decades afterwards, I thought, “Where’s my fucking hat?” and I felt anger towards Andrew.

My head was now uncovered but I don’t know how long Michael might have had to watch me from inside the bus. All I know is that sometime after that, INXS was ready to do their soundcheck. They came off the bus, and they let us follow them inside the club.

Soundcheck

The Meadowbrook had a similar layout to the club in Toronto. Downstairs there was a stage at one end. In front of the stage, there was an open dance floor and no seats. To the left of the stage there was access to a stage entrance and a small backstage area. There was also a staircase leading up to the balcony along that side of the building.

The main entrance was toward the front of the building. Upstairs, there was a balcony that wrapped around on three sides and there were tables and chairs. If I recall correctly, there was also a bar up there, but I can’t be sure about that. It’s possible there was only one bar, and it was downstairs.

Our group of seven girls walked upstairs to the balcony that was facing the stage to watch the sound check. We sat down at a table. The guys in the band were playing around a lot at this soundcheck. Some of them found a few chairs that had wheels and used the large open dance floor downstairs to race each other back and forth.

Michael is teased using Steve Perry’s video

An ad from Billboard magazine for Steve Perry’s solo album from 1984.

Steve Perry was the lead singer of the band Journey. He released his first solo album in April 1984.

If you watch the Steve Perry video for “Oh Sherrie”, a hit song in 1984, you will see Steve Perry rebelling against the director of the music video. It was meant to show his integrity but at the same time he came across as a bit of a diva.

Steve walks off the set and then sings the song to his girlfriend. Some of the people in charge of shooting the video call out things like, “Steve, Steve! Come back!”

While members of INXS were playing around and being rowdy during the soundcheck, they started teasing Michael and saying things like, “C’mon, Steve!” to him. It was clearly a parody of the “Oh Sherrie” video.

They could have been referring to the woman we saw with Michael a couple of times. We didn’t know her name but, after the summer with INXS was over, when I got a letter from Kristen that talked about a woman named Sherrie who had been with Michael, I assumed it was the same woman we had seen.

Steve Perry’s Oh Sherrie video

Wikipedia article about Oh Sherrie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Sherrie

Here’s Andrew, but where’s my fucking hat?

Photo from the soundcheck at the Meadowbrook. August 10, 1984. Taken by Jess.

I’ve misplaced 14 of the original prints I had bought from Terri, Jess, and Jackie so now I can’t look at the back to see who took the photo and when. They were all scanned into my computer back in 2008 and the only information I have right now is what I entered into my computer at the time. Sometimes the original photos have more information on the back.

This photo was taken by Jess at the soundcheck at the Meadowbrook. I bought it because Gary Grant is in it. He seems to be wearing a t-shirt from a New Jersey radio station, and he is playing Tim’s guitar. The Yosemite Sam sticker is how I know it is Tim’s guitar as I was never a guitar player or a guitar aficionado.

It’s my only photo of Gary Grant and the only photo I bought that has Andrew Farriss in it. The microphone is blocking Andrew’s face and as you can see, he is not wearing the hat I had just given him. Michael is in the photo behind the drum set, hitting the bass drum with his foot and tapping on the cymbal.

Vance, the INXS roadie who “hassled me at the bar”, also took a turn playing the drums before the whole band took their proper places and treated us to a rendition of “Bang a Gong” by T Rex.

Bang A Gong video INXS and Zazie 1997

https://vimeo.com/323365334

I just wanted to watch the Burn For You video

After that, Terri went downstairs to talk to Tim Farriss. Someone had set up a screen above the stage so the band could screen their latest video from The Swing which was Burn For You.

Even though I had already seen the video while on the INXS tour bus in Florida, I still wanted to see it again during the soundcheck. While the video was playing, some white guy from New Jersey who was either the owner of the club or the manager of the club, came up to our table and said something like, “Hey girls, it’s time for you to leave now.”

I put my hand up with my index finger pointing to the sky in that gesture that means, “just a second” because I was quite happy to leave but I wanted to finish watching the INXS music video. Also, Terri had not come back upstairs yet.

An article about the “wait a moment” hand gesture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_finger

I don’t think I was being the slightest bit rude or unreasonable, but this guy got angry anyway and yelled at us that we had to leave immediately. Jess chimed in and explained to the man that we were waiting for our friend to come back from downstairs.

We are kicked out and banned from the concert

The man didn’t care about that and had to show us who was boss. He said that I was rude to him and because of that he was kicking all of us out and we would not be allowed back into the club to see the concert later. What an asshole!

Terri came back up and we told her what happened and that we had to leave. Six of us left the club while Terri went over to the owner/manager to explain to him and to try to smooth things over. The guy told Terri that she was allowed back into the club for the concert but “the blond one and the rest your friends will not get back in here tonight.” From then on, Terri referred to him as “the coke head.”

Of course, we weren’t about to give up and go home. We went somewhere nearby to kill some time and have dinner. Before the club opened its doors for the concert, we were back in the parking lot to wait for INXS to arrive for the show.

Gary Grant to the rescue

When I saw Gary Grant, I said, “Gary, I need to talk to you because I got us in trouble.” He said in a serious voice, “Donna, come here.” I started walking in his direction and the other six people in our group were following behind me. Gary Grant forcefully said, “No! Only ONE Donna.” So, I went to talk to him by myself.

I took responsibility for what happened and sheepishly explained to him that while we were upstairs watching the video during soundcheck, I had made the owner mad, and he had kicked us out and banned us from the show. “I don’t know what I did!” I told Gary and that was the truth. The guy was some hot-headed New Jersey macho man, and I didn’t show the proper deference or something.

Gary asked me how many of us there were and I told him six because Terri could get in the normal way through the front door. He said he would try to get us into the club later on, but he wasn’t sure he could get us all in. Then he went inside.

So, I went to my friends and told them what Gary said to me. Because I was responsible for getting us kicked out, I decided that I would be last in line to get in and if Gary could not manage to sneak in all six of us then I would sit outside in the parking lot until the show was over.

We see Rick Sales again

Kirk Pengilly and Rick Sales, Stone Mountain, Georgia, photo by Jess, 9/5/1983

The six of us waited near the backstage door for a while and then a car drove up Rick Sales got out. Rick Sales was the tour manager for INXS in 1983 when they toured the U.S. for the first time. He was carrying garment bags because he was delivering new stage outfits for the band. I think Jess had met him a couple of times before, so she stopped him and he told us what he was doing. He had just driven over from Manhattan with the clothes the band had bought there.

Gary Grant gets us in

A little later, Gary Grant came out and escorted Dana, Maria, and Susan into the club through the backstage door. While Jess, Jen and I waited without knowing if we would even get in to see the show, we decided to go to the INXS show in Hartford, Connecticut the next day, just the three of us, and we wouldn’t tell Terri,  Dana, Susan, or Maria that we were going. It would be easier to manage it that way.

At 11:45 pm, Gary Grant came out again and handed each of us a backstage pass before we followed him in through the backstage door. The pass was the size of a business card. I think the club had them printed in bulk and then just filled in the name of the band and the date as needed as you can see from the photo.

The backstage pass that Gary Grant gave me.

On the balcony

Inside the club, I decided to split from my friends because I didn’t want them to get in trouble if that owner/manager guy happened to see me inside the club. I thought that if I went up to the balcony that I would not be noticed. The club was full and the show was about to start. I found a spot along the railing near the first table where I could see everyone on stage pretty well except for Jon, the drummer.

My friends were down on the floor and about the same distance away from the stage as I was. If we had not been banned from the show, we would have waited at the front door for at least a couple of hours and gotten a good spot at the front. Perhaps against the stage. That’s what we did back then.

A free drink!

So, I had just been sneaked into the show that I had been banned from when a guy walked up to me with a drink in his hand and he asked me if I wanted it. My first response was no because I was not interested in meeting any guys. Then he told me that he had bought the drink for some other girl but that she had disappeared on him and now he had this drink he didn’t want. So, because it came with no strings attached, I accepted it and the guy left.

It was probably stupid of me to take the drink, but the guy seemed okay and not someone who wanted to drug me. I believed his story. The drink was a Long Island Iced Tea and there was nothing in it besides alcohol which I wasn’t supposed to have because I was not 21. It was my lucky night!

They showed the Burn For You video before the concert started. I watched the show from my spot in the balcony while getting drunk from my cocktail.

The new stage clothes

I thought the new stage clothes INXS wore were awful- at least what Michael and Kirk were wearing anyway. In my diary I wrote that Michael wore a one-piece jumpsuit that was a mess of brown, white, and beige and that Kirk wore an ugly, ripped suit of pink polyester with his green Day Glo socks. Ugh!

This photo of Michael and Garry Gary also appears in the book, “Memories from the Meadowbrook.” I scanned it from my copy of the book.

A link to a photo of the horrible new outfits:

https://www.gettyimages.com/collaboration/boards/XvzaAuzCr0aYYkAOe-GuEw

When INXS was playing the song “Black & White” from their album Shabooh Shoobah, I think Michael spotted me in the balcony. I raised my glass and toasted him when I thought he was looking my way.

All seven of us were thrilled when later in the show, Michael dedicated the song, “The Loved One”, to “all of the people here who are underage” because we were sure that he was dedicating it to us.

Here in the suburbs it’s all so Wishy Washy

INXS started playing “Wishy Washy” from their self-titled debut album. There is a long instrumental break in the song. If you watch this video from when INXS played in Hamburg before they came to the US for their tour in 1984 you can see Michael taking off his boots during the break.

When the break came during this show, Michael ran off the stage to the left while the rest of the band played their instruments. I leaned over to try to see where he went but I didn’t see him. I was still leaning forward and braced with my hands on the railing when I felt myself being jostled and pushed against a chair or table to my right. At the same time, I felt water being poured down the front of my skirt.

At that moment I had no idea what was happening and I was just trying not to fall over the railing or anywhere else. In my diary I wrote that Michael nearly pushed me off the balcony and I was scrunched between him and a chair.

When I saw the photo that was published in the book, I was surprised by what I saw because I had no idea that Michael had tried to climb on top of the railing and that there were a couple of guys who worked for the club pulling him down from there. In the photo you can see that I was not even looking to my left at all.

This is the photo of me next to Michael Hutchence that appears in the book, “Memories from the Meadowbrook. I scanned it from my copy of the book.

By the time I looked to my left, those guys were gone and Michael was standing next to me. Michael must have gone off stage to grab a jug of water and then he ran up the stairs to the balcony while holding the microphone out so the cord would not get caught.

Michael up on the balcony

The guys who grabbed him must have knocked the jug of water out of his hand and that was how it got on me. I wonder if Michael’s plan was to pour water from the balcony onto my friends. He was known for throwing water or other liquids at the audience from time to time.

When I became aware that Michael Hutchence was standing next to me on the balcony, I said, “Oh! Hi, Michael.” Then I noticed that a couple of young women were behind him and they were pinching his ass. That is just wrong, so I took it upon myself to fix that situation. I yelled at those women, “Cut it out! That’s not nice.” while I slapped their hands off Michael.

Once I took care of Michael’s attackers I turned my attention to the audience below me. It was great fun to be in the spotlight, and I made the most of it. My friends were cheering me and I waved to them.

Now it was time for Michael to start singing Wishy Washy again. The last verse is the same as the first. I sang along to the song which is what I did for all of the songs that INXS played in concert. When it got to the part where the lyric is, “Hello cars!” I waved hello to my friends below while I shouted that to them.

We share the microphone

Michael heard me and leaned towards me, so his face was right next to mine. He put the microphone between us, so I was able to sing the bit of Wishy Washy that isn’t in the recorded version of the song, but that Michael added to the song during the concerts in 1984. He would spell out the letters for the word bar- “B-A-R” after he sang, “to clubs and bars.” You can hear it in the video from Hamburg.

The INXS show from the Rockpalast Festival in Hamburg Germany on May 8, 1984, was recorded for television. This is the footage for Wishy Washy again which includes two minutes of clapping for an encore after the song ends and some backstage footage before they come back for an encore of The Loved One (not shown)

I knew it was coming because I had been to other concerts, so I chimed in at the right moment and we said it together. Afterwards, Terri and Jess said I did a good job.

Later, I also asked them if they had gotten a photo of us on the balcony and they told me that they had already used up all of the film in their cameras. That was disappointing.

I tried to find Cathy Miller, the woman who took the photo that is in the book, on the internet but I had no luck. It would have been amazing to have a photo of us sharing the microphone if she had taken a photo of that while we were up there.

After Michael was finished singing, he ran back downstairs because the women had started grabbing him again.

I hid outside after the show

When the concert was over, I gave my backstage pass to Terri and I waited outside. I didn’t want to get Gary Grant in any trouble with the owner after all he had done for me, so I made myself scarce.

Terri used the time to talk to Timmy again. She told me later that Timmy said that he loved her and she was happy about that. The rest of the band hugged and kissed her goodbye also.

INXS was going straight from the show in Cedar Grove to Hartford, Connecticut in their tour bus. So, they didn’t stay for long after the show was over.

The drive the INXS tour bus took after the show at the Meadowbrook to Hartford, Connecticut.

While I was outside the club, I saw Chris Murphy. I went up to him and I introduced myself. My diary tells me that it wasn’t in Montreal that I told him why I had screamed at him in Toronto. (It was at Gary Grant’s behest, if you recall.) I actually told him after this show at the Meadowbrook, and he said he remembered what I had done in Toronto.

Glitter Girl and Leopard Woman

We saw other fans hanging around and two of them stood out. They were hanging around with Garry Gary. We nicknamed them Leopard Woman and Glitter Girl because one was dressed in a leopard print outfit and the other was wearing a short dress that was silver and it sparkled. Both of the women wore makeup that had a lot of glitter.

In my diary, I wrote that I didn’t remember saying goodbye to anyone but Michael. He gave me a kiss and hugged me, and I had some warm feelings. He said to me, “Take care and be good.”

INXS left and so did we and it was around 4 in the morning when we got home.

June 21, 2026
Blog Post 20- INXS in St. Petersburg, Florida, July 25, 1984

Gary Grant, The co-manager for the rock band INXS, holding a sales award for The Swing, at his office, Hay St, Neutral Bay. September 16, 1986. (Photo by Adrian Greer Michael Short/Fairfax Media via Getty Images).

There aren’t many photos of Gary Grant out there so I am borrowing this one from Getty Images so you can see what he looked like.

On July 24, 1984, Jess, Terri, and I flew from Newark, New Jersey to St. Petersburg, Florida on People Express airline. You paid cash on board the plane and I paid my fare of $79 using one-dollar bills from the suitcase in my bedroom closet.

When we arrived, we picked up a rental car from Rent-A-Wreck so we could keep the costs of our trip low. The car really was a wreck. It had no radio and the handle for the window fell off when I closed the car door. Back then, most cars had crank windows that you had to open and close manually by turning a handle on the inside of the car door. Electric windows were a luxury item.

Chasing the mail carrier

The three of us drove over to Jen’s house in Tampa. Jen realized that she had given a letter meant for Jon Farriss to the mail carrier. Jackie sent it from Chicago, and we were supposed to deliver it to Jon when we saw INXS. So, we got back in the car and drove around near Jen’s neighborhood until we spotted the mail carrier and retrieved Jackie’s letter.

Next, we drove to the Bayfront Concourse hotel in St Petersburg. We knew that INXS would be staying on the tenth floor of the hotel. Like I have said before, I was not involved in getting that sort of information whether through asking Gary Grant, calling the MMA office, or asking a band member, so I don’t remember how that happened.

Waiting for the band at the hotel

Anyway, the hotel gave us a room on the same floor as INXS or at least that was what we hoped. The band was not there when we arrived. INXS was still the opening act for The Go-Go’s on their tour. They had played at the Sunrise Theater in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on July 22 and July 23. On July 24, the band had to travel four hours by bus to get to St Petersburg for the show on the 25th.

Our room was large and had a king-size bed. There was a large mirror on the ceiling over the bed. Once we got up to the room, we waited. Our window looked out over the front of the hotel, so we spent our time looking out the window. Terri started to worry that perhaps we were not at the right hotel.

But then an RV pulled up to the front door and we jumped around and screamed when we saw it. We opened the door to our room so we could see what was happening. Vance, the roadie, walked by our open door and went into the room next door to ours.

INXS arrives

Tim Farriss (fake name Alvin Purple) was the first member of the band to see us in our room. The details of what happened are lost now. Garry Gary Beers and Kirk Pengilly walked by, and we all said hello to each other, but they didn’t stick around. At some point Andrew Farriss popped into our room and remarked that our room was nicer than his and he wanted to switch rooms with us. We kept our room.

Gary Grant, the INXS manager who was also the tour manager for this tour, stopped in and told us that Michael Hutchence and some of the other band members would be busy doing telephone interviews with Australia for most of the night. We never even said hello to Michael or Jon Farriss because they didn’t come up to their rooms on the tenth floor with the rest of the band and we didn’t see them at all that night.

I removed my contact lenses and stored them in their case with some contact lens saline solution. They were soft contact lenses but they were not extended-wear lenses so they could not be worn while I was sleeping. Disposable contact lenses had not been invented yet.

Gary Grant wakes me up

We turned on the TV and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson came on at 11:30pm. I fell asleep on the floor. A short time later, I woke up because Gary Grant was standing over me in our room and screaming, “Wake up, Donna!” So, I got up off the floor and put my contact lenses back in because I am very near-sighted and couldn’t see without them.

David Letterman came on and Gary Grant stayed in our room to watch it with us. He was supervising the radio interviews, so he had to stay up for as long as the band were up doing them. When he wasn’t off checking on the band members, he hung out with us in our hotel room.

David Letterman with Billy Idol

The Late Night with David Letterman show aired at 12:30am ET on NBC. It was a late-night talk show hosted by a comedian who also did celebrity interviews much like all late-night talk shows on TV in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Night_with_David_Letterman

Billy Idol was on the show that night. He looked wasted and it seemed like he had been using cocaine before his appearance because he kept touching his nose. I thought he was a moron. The video appears below so you can judge for yourself.

July 24, 1984, David Letterman show interview with Billy Idol

Another segment of the show was a comedy bit where David asked the audience to pick a new catchphrase from a bunch they came up with. Number 3 was “They pelted us with rocks and garbage.” That was my favorite and it won. It made me think of INXS because of the stories they told the media about their pub shows in Australia. It was pretty much the only history of the band they had to talk about with anyone.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/63979/23-things-david-letterman-invented

They pelted us with rocks and garbage

Before there was the internet and internet memes, I combined David Letterman’s catchphrase with a photo of INXS and made my own meme of sorts to use as stationery when writing friends and pen pals.

A photocopy of a magazine photo and the David Letterman show catchphrase, “They pelted us with rocks and garbage” combined to make some fun INXS stationery!

Seeing Vance the roadie again

When the show was over, Gary Grant had to leave to check on things. Terri, Jess, Jen and I decided to go out to Burger King. I desperately needed some coffee if I was going to stay awake and help keep Gary Grant company. We were not people who used cocaine or took pills to stay awake. Not party girls or groupies either.

Out in the hall we bumped into Vance and stopped to say hello. He looked at me and said, “You look familiar. Were you in Fort Lauderdale?” I said, “No, I was in Long Island.” Then he remembered and said, “Oh yeah, you’re the girl I hassled in the bar.” Having been trained to appease men and make them comfortable, I told him, “Oh no, you didn’t hassle me!”

But he was right; he did hassle me. That he barely remembered after being on the road for a couple more weeks means that he probably just took his shot because I happened to be there and it’s what he did out on tour whenever he had a chance.

Burger King

At Burger King, I acted like a nut. Back then I could be described as “out there” because I loved comedy and I tried to be funny as much as possible. I was like a performance artist in many ways.

Jess had a little stuffed koala and I put it in the breast pocket of my shirt, so its head was sticking out. When I got to the counter, I asked for eucalyptus leaves because that is what koalas eat. Not a joke that was likely to be understood in Florida. And I also ordered coffee, of course, so I could stay awake.

There was a stack of Burger King crowns on the counter-the thick sheets of paper with slots for sizing that sort of look like a king’s crown. I took one, turned it into a hat and then wore it back to the hotel and in the room.

A stack of old, paper Burger King crowns

Gary Grant returns to hang out with us

Gary Grant came into our room again. Our room also had a table and two chairs next to the windows. He sat down in one and I sat in the other while Jess, Terri, and Jen sat on the bed, and we all chatted.

Our room with its mirror over the bed, came up in conversation. Gary too thought it was a better room than his and he wanted to switch with us. I made a joke that I had better be careful in case there was a hidden camera behind the mirror because I might want to be Miss America someday.

The Vanessa Williams Miss American scandal

That was a reference to Vanessa Williams. Her Miss America scandal was fresh, as she had resigned the title the day before. I’m pretty sure David Letterman made jokes about it on the show we had just watched.

Vanessa Williams was the first black woman to be crowned Miss America. She was crowned in September 1983 at 20 years old. She gave up her crown on July 23, 1984, at 21 years old when Penthouse magazine announced it would publish nude photos that had been taken when she was 19. Some of the photos included simulated sex acts with another woman.

Vanessa did not pose for Penthouse but for a photographer she was working for who said that the photos would be artistic, and she would not be recognizable. He also said that no one else would see them. He lied but she had no recourse because she had signed a release form. Scumbags like that guy were numerous in the 1980s.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-23/miss-america-resigns

Mary Tyler Moore

I told Gary Grant that I had been awake for more than 24 hours already because I stayed up watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show until it was time to leave for the airport.

Gary Grant said he hated Mary Tyler Moore because “she is such a dag.” Dag is an Australian slang word, and the meaning definitely came across as negative-like witch or bitch or ugly. It actually means “uncool.”

Now I wonder what it was that made her a dag in his opinion. Was it her feminism? Was she uncool because she wasn’t some rock and roll sexpot? Was she uncool because she stood up to men or stood up for what was right?

Meaning of the Australian slang word “dag”

https://slll.cass.anu.edu.au/centres/andc/meanings-origins/d

Mary Tyler Moore Show

Emerson Hotel

I’m pretty sure I spoke about paying for my flight using the one dollar bills I had in the suitcase in my closet and that led to me talking about my waitressing job at the Emerson Hotel which was not an actual hotel but only a restaurant. Gary Grant asked, “What hotel?” because I think he just wanted me to repeat the name. But I was always worried that people would think I worked at a hotel so instead of saying the name again, I replied, “It’s not a hotel.”

I forgot to mention that earlier in the day, before we checked in, my friends and I walked along the pier in St Petersburg which was not far from the hotel and did some shopping. I bought a silver ring with a black diamond-shaped pattern on the top side. Black and silver is a favorite combination of mine. In the room, I showed it to Gary.

REM

We heard some stories from him. For instance, they had gone to see REM in concert on one of their nights off and his opinion was that they sucked. INXS was much better live.

Burn For You

INXS now had a video for Burn For You and it was made in the style of a home movie. You can see that for yourself here. We didn’t know it yet, but we were going to see the new video the next day.

The underwear thrown on stage

Gary Grant also told us that Kirk’s girlfriend, the future mother of his child, Karen, who was still along on the tour, tried on the underwear that was thrown on stage by the crazed female fans to see if it fit her. I can’t believe he told us that!

Before Gary left us for the night, he gave us more details about the three nights INXS would play in eastern Canada in about a weeks’ time. INXS would be finished touring with The Go-Go’s after four more shows and then immediately do their own tour in clubs and small theaters.

The morning of the INXS concert

When we woke up on the morning of July 25th, we watched TV, and I also did some crossword puzzles. I had one of those soft covered books of crossword puzzles that you could buy at the newsstand. Perhaps I bought it at the airport to keep me busy.

Once again, we propped open the door to our hotel room so we could see if anyone from INXS walked by. Around lunch time, the four of us walked down the hall to Timmy’s room and knocked on his door.

Hey Timmy!

He opened the door, and he was nearly naked! All he had on was a pair of tiny shorts. His short shorts were even shorter than the short shorts I was wearing. My satiny shorts had about a two-inch inseam.

Tim had been reading Shogun by James Clavell and he was still holding the book. Shogun was a best-seller and had been turned into a hit TV mini-series in 1980. The mini-series had the second highest ratings in the U.S. after Roots. A third of America had watched Shogun.

Lunch with Tim Farriss

Timmy suggested that we all go to the restaurant downstairs, so we waited in the hall for him to put clothes on and come out. Then we went downstairs to the restaurant which was called the Greenhouse.

I sat on the other side of the table from Tim Farriss and I don’t remember where anyone else was sitting. In my diary it says that Tim drank some chocolate milk while I ordered strawberries and cream and only ate some of it. Tim was mostly smoking cigarettes and telling stories.

Animal Cruelty

My favorite story was about Timmy’s job at a chicken farm. The farm had a system where they would put a peg on a chicken’s cage if it didn’t lay any eggs. If the chicken received a certain number of pegs on its cage it would be killed for not laying enough eggs.

Sometimes there were chickens that would peck him so Tim would get revenge by taking pegs off another chicken’s cage and put them on the cage of the chicken that pecked him.

Tim picked up a butter knife from the table and demonstrated how the chickens were killed. Then he said he used to eat eggs in front of the chickens and tell them it was nothing personal.

He told us that he owned a ranch with an orchard and a vegetable garden. His cat was named Cat, and his dog was a boxer named Samantha. But he hated the dog so he would kick it and he would not let the dog come into the house.

Touring America

Jess said that she would make INXS some videotapes so they would have something different to watch while they were traveling on the tour bus. She asked Tim to tell her what she should tape for them, and he said, “you know what we like.”

Then he said that he would hate to tour America constantly. “With the exception of you guys, of course” he added when he realized how that sounded.

Kirk slits Michael’s throat

We also heard more about their videos and music. For example, I wrote in my diary that Tim told us that Kirk slits Michael’s throat in the Dancing on the Jetty video. I don’t know if that is what Tim really said or if I just remembered it wrong when I wrote it down because Kirk slits Michael’s throat in the video for Melting in the Sun and not Dancing on the Jetty.

Melting in the Sun was clearly filmed in London along with the end of the Burn For You video. The parts of the Dancing on the Jetty video with INXS in it look like it could also have been filmed in London at the same time so maybe Tim was confused.

Melting in the Sun video

More INXS music and video info

Tim told us that his son James Lee was in the video for Burn For You and also that his wife Buffy didn’t like it that there were women singing backup vocals in the song. I don’t think she had anything against the singers themselves-just that she would not have had singers from outside the band doing the vocals.

The only other stuff I wrote down was that Tim’s grandmother took him to see The Sound of Music and that American milkshakes are thicker than Australian ones.

He also said, “if you hear some songs that sound like us but are under a different name, it could be us.” I guess INXS had talked about doing some kind of project where they put out music under a different name, but I have never heard anything else about that other than what Tim told us. There is no music out there under a different name and no mention of a plan to do that in any books or articles.

Strawberries

While we were sitting at the table with Tim, Kirk and Karen walked into the restaurant. They sat down at a nearby table just to the right of where I was sitting. From where she sat, Karen could see that I had stopped eating my strawberries.

When Karen stood up from their table, I noticed it, and it looked like Kirk felt embarrassed and was trying to talk her out of doing what she was about to do.

Karen walked over to our table and asked me if I was finished eating my strawberries. She said that it was hard to get good, fresh food while on tour and asked if she could have the rest of my strawberries.

Kirk was looking sheepish. He knew what had happened between us and so did I, but I don’t think Karen did. Even though she was with Kirk instead of me, I didn’t mind at all that Karen asked for my strawberries. I was finished with them, and I gave them to Karen so they wouldn’t go to waste.

If she had known that her boyfriend had been making out with me ten months earlier, I don’t think she would have approached me. But I was trying my very best to act like I had never had anything to do with Kirk Pengilly beyond just being a fan of INXS. Which is how it always should have been because I was never trying to be anything more than a fan. Those guys messed with me and not the other way around.

Taking Tim’s cigarette butts

When Tim went back upstairs, we stayed behind for a few minutes. I took the cigarette butts that Tim had smoked out of the ashtray and put them in my purse. There were either two or three. I told Terri that I wanted to do something with them, but I didn’t know what yet.

Bumping into Jon Farriss

We went back upstairs and bumped into Jon Farriss in the hallway. My crossword puzzle was giving me some trouble so I said to Jon, “Can I ask you a question?” He said okay, so I asked him, “What European capital starts with the letter T?”

Jon didn’t have the answer and said, “At least you didn’t ask a question like, ‘Where did you get your name?’” Terri was confused and said, “What, Jon??”And he said, “No!! INXS!!” It seems that Jon was sick of being asked how INXS came up with their name. I don’t remember if Jon was given the letter from Jackie-maybe that happened when we were on the bus with INXS a short time later.

After that we were back in our hotel room with the door open, talking and joking about what we had just heard at lunch. It was hilarious that Kirk slit Michael’s throat in one of their music videos and we joked about that. Terri and Jess were almost as much a part of it as I was because they were there too when something happened with both Kirk and Michael. Also, it was very fitting after what Michael had done, getting me to kiss him when my loyalty belonged to Kirk Pengilly.

Michael Hutchence walks by

We had yet to see Michael Hutchence at all in the whole time we were there but now he was awake, and it was time to leave for the venue. He looked into our room as he wandered past the open door, and he was surprised to see that we were there.

Michael came into our room to chat for a couple of minutes. He also blatantly ogled me, taking a good look at me from my feet to my face and back again. It was quite rude, but I let him get away with it.

I was still wearing the short shorts and a cropped t-shirt. My wardrobe was quite modest, so my shirt wasn’t cropped very much but I was showing more skin than I ever had before because it was Florida in July.

The only thing my diary mentions besides the ogling is that Michael told us that he had been up all night doing interviews.

We all went down to the lobby together on the elevator. Once there, I stood by the elevator panel and held down the “door open” while my friends exited the elevator. Michael waited for me to get out and he put his arm out to keep the door from closing while he followed me. Gentlemanly, yes, but also a bit self-serving perhaps. Trying to earn brownie points for being polite while also having a view of my backside.

Watching Burn For You on the tour bus

The band was about to see the video for Burn For You for the first time and they invited us to get on the bus to watch it while they made their way to the Bayfront Concourse theater.

Michael sat down near the front of the bus, and I sat down next to him. He opened the book he brought with him and started reading. He never even looked up to watch the video.

Someone said that The Go-Go’s were getting emotional about them leaving the tour but I didn’t write down who it was.

Tasteless, Sexist Joke

There was something I remember that I never wrote about in my diary so I can’t be sure when it happened. I wrote about it in some of my letters because there are mentions of it in the replies from friends. But I have no way to determine exactly when it happened. It happened while we were on their tour bus, so it was either this day or another time in 1984. I’ll just assume it happened in Florida.

We were on the INXS tour bus and Jon Farriss was holding a dish that had some kind of pasta with a thick, white cream sauce in it. Perhaps a fettucine alfredo. He stuck the tip of his index finger into the sauce and then licked the sauce off. Then he said, “Tastes like fish!” Obviously making a crude sex joke about women’s vaginal secretions which can taste like fish if they have bacterial vaginosis.

My friends and I paid close attention to the music video, and we were able to watch it twice before the bus stopped and dropped us off outside the theater. The bus and the band proceeded into an underground parking garage.

What I did with the cigarette butts

A few girls were already outside and set upon us when they saw us get off the tour bus. They asked us questions about what we were doing. They seemed like they might be the kind of hysterical girl fan who annoyed me and that I liked to imitate and mock. So, I took the cigarette butts out of my purse and told them that Tim Farriss had just smoked them.

When I said, “Here, you can have them” and handed them to the girls, they squealed and screamed, “Oh my God, Oh my God!!” Then they asked if I could get them anything else from the band.

Inside the theater, it was general admission near the stage so there were a lot of people packed into that area. We were not at the very front for the show but somewhere in the middle.

Assault

Jess held up a small tape recorder and taped INXS. There were three guys behind us, and I felt someone touch my ass. I was furious so I turned around and yelled, “Don’t touch me!” Those assholes played innocent and denied it.

It wasn’t long before I felt a hand reach up the leg of my shorts to touch my private parts. Immediately, without turning around, I kicked back with one leg and threw both of my elbows back as hard as I could into the guy directly behind me.

When I turned around, the guy I hit whined, “I didn’t do anything!” I said, “I don’t care. If anyone touches me again, I am going to hit you again.” The jerks kept their hands to themselves after that.

If I had a time machine, I would go back there and kick all three of those guys in the nuts because I was not violent enough. I regret having been too nice to boys and men and just hitting that one guy was me being too nice in that situation.

Bootlegging

After the show, we waited for the band outside as usual. My diary says I was keeping myself occupied by balancing on a plank because I hated hanging around to see the band.

Someone must have seen Jess holding up the tape recorder during the show because when Gary Grant saw her, he came storming over. He was very angry. He said, “So, you’re a bootlegger, are you? Is this what it’s all about?”

I think he noticed that we all got quite upset because the last thing we wanted to do was make INXS or Gary Grant angry with us. We were on the verge of tears.

Jess said that no, she was not a bootlegger and was only making the tape for our personal use. Then she took the tape out and told Gary that he could have it. Gary didn’t take it. Instead, he said, “I trust you this time, but I don’t ever want to see you with a tape recorder again.”

We kept our promise to keep that INXS concert to ourselves.

In 2006, I sent the cassette tapes of the INXS concerts from 1983 and 1984 to a place that converted cassettes to CDs.

The CD I had made from the cassette recordings I had of two INXS concerts. I put the CD and case on my scanner bed and scanned it.

There’s nothing in my diary about hanging out with INXS after the show so I don’t think we did. I think that after Gary Grant yelled at us about taping the concert, INXS took off for Atlanta.

The Go-Go’s and INXS had a show the next night, July 26, in Atlanta, which was at least a seven-hour-long bus ride from St Petersburg, Florida.

Terri, Jess, and I did not follow INXS to Atlanta. We stayed in Florida for a few more days.

January 30, 2026