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. 

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. 

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:

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:

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.

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. 

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. 

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.