Big Country concert in Tampa, Florida with Jess and Jen. March 1984.
Back to the diary entries
When I had a free minute after either working or seeing INXS over the previous two weeks, I wrote in my diary about my life. Bob was a guy who went to the University of Pennsylvania. It’s funny because I met him while riding on a bus in New York City when I was a freshman. He was talking to friends about a mural, and it sounded like the mural in my dorm, so I asked him if he was from Penn. It turned out that he lived on the floor that had the mural in the hall-one floor above me.
In the two weeks from June 27, 1984, to July 10, 1984, I saw INXS five times and waitressed during eight of the other nine days. That’s why I was so tired.
A calendar from 1984 in case you want to see what day it was.
7/10/84
I’m so tired. I wasn’t supposed to work today but now I’m doing double shift. I got a letter from Bob. He sort of invited me to see Elvis Costello. Bob is a real pain because he likes me so much and I don’t like him the same way.
Here is video from 1979 of a favorite Elvis Costello song of mine. Oliver’s Army. Warning: the lyrics contain the N-word. Not meant in any kind of racist way. It’s unfortunate that it was used as a descriptive term for soldiers in the song.
7/12/84
I hit four numbers in the Lotto tonight. I don’t know how much I’ve won yet, but I could use any money I can get.
7/14/84
I won $139 in the lottery. That will practically pay for my airfare to Florida. I’ll be glad to get away. I got a letter from Joyce today. She is sicker than I thought. She thought I was about seventeen. I do not take that as a compliment. She wants me to send her any addresses or phone numbers of the band that I might have. She must be kidding. I hate doing laundry every day, but I don’t know where Mom put the other uniform.
Note: Joyce was the girl who shared her seat with me at the INXS concert on July 2nd. Read about it here. We were planning to fly to St. Petersburg, Florida on People Express which cost $79 each way.
Video about People Express Airlines
Wikipedia article about the novel 1980s airline People Express
It was hot as hell in my room last night. I’ve been having weird dreams lately. Last night I was working lunch at the Emerson Hotel while at the same time I was watching All My Children. INXS came on the show and were doing Johnson’s Aeroplane. In the meantime, the place got very busy, and I was stuck. Then someone walked out without paying the check. Later on, I was sitting outside, and two girls wanted to know what TV show I had been on.
In my dream the other day, Terri and I followed the bus into a wooded area, and she went up the road to look. I was listening to the Walkman and chewing gum. Timmy came out dressed in the black and white striped shirt from I Send a Message. I couldn’t talk to him because I was choking on my gum but spit it out when Terri came down.
In Florida we will stay at the Bayfront Concourse on Tuesday night. On July 31 they will be at the Beacon Theater and then I might go to Canada for three days August 2, 3, and 4. I’m not scheduled to work until the 5th, so it is possible. By the time I catch up with Phila, there will be much more to write. This is definitely crazy.
I don’t think I should buy any more clothes for a while. I may also call up Laura R and schedule some hours during move-in so I can get some money sooner. I’ll probably work so much during first semester that I’ll run out of my grant.
What was I talking about?
There wasn’t any air conditioning in my bedroom. It wasn’t nearly as hot then as it is now in northern New Jersey in the summer but usually it got up as high as 85 degrees Fahrenheit during the day. On very hot days the temperature reached 90 degrees. My sleep suffered because my room was uncomfortably hot. Our house had a couple of window air-conditioners but not one in my room. My very small room had two windows which I kept open, and it would be cool enough to sleep okay around 4am.
All My Children was a daytime drama, also known as a soap opera, that was on Channel 7 which was the ABC network in New York City. I started watching the show in the summer of 1975 when I was ten years old. It was one of my favorite TV shows and I watched it as often as I could until it was cancelled in 2011. So, for 36 years. The show taught me a lot.
An All My Children episode from 2/20/1989
Here’s a video of INXS performing Johnson’s Aeroplane live in 1985. Michael messed up the lyrics. Andrew wrote the music and lyrics to that song and Michael seemed to have an even harder time remembering the lyrics if someone else wrote them.
I don’t have a document that shows how much money was allotted for my work study grant. The work study program is a financial aid program for needy students. They can get an approved work study job and then work and get paid up to the amount that was awarded in their financial aid package.
There was plenty of work in the dorms (where I had worked during my sophomore year at Penn) during the period when the students came back to school in the fall. They hired extra people to work behind the reception desk in the lobby because hundreds of students were picking up keys to their dorm rooms at the same time.
My diary entry mentions that I was thinking about signing up for some of those shifts. The next entry mentions that I won’t be able to afford textbooks so that is probably why.
INXS video for I Send A Message where Tim is wearing a black and white striped shirt.
One week until the INXS concert in Florida
7/18/84
Just one week until Florida. Renee and Danny both say I should go for it with Michael. My Weekly World News horoscope for next week says I should live it up, laugh it up, and be my usual fun self. An important person has had his eye on me for some time now and this may be the turning point. The answer to a nagging love problem is say yes. Sounds good to me.
I’m so excited about going on my trips. I’ll have almost two straight weeks off from work. I’m not going to be able to afford books in the fall. I worked lunch today and now I have off until Friday. After this weekend vacation starts.
Yesterday Renee and I went to Bergen Mall and then to an erotic cafe in Edgewater called Enigma. It was completely white inside, and body parts grew out of the walls. I had fun but the cappuccino made me sick. I asked the guy if they had any Birthday Party-he didn’t-Psychic TV was playing while we were there.
Danny and Steven F came into the Emerson Hotel today which was a surprise. I’m going over to the Ridge diner tonight to bum around. I tried out Renee’s inversion boots. They gave me a whopping headache.
What should I do about Michael?
You can tell from reading my diary that I was thinking about whether I should have sex with Michael Hutchence or not. His seduction techniques worked on me at least somewhat, and between that and the kissing, I was feeling desire and positive emotions towards him.
Feelings beyond just wanting to live like an adult in every way which was an ongoing thing even though I wasn’t mature enough to prepare for that life. I had never seen a gynecologist and I was thinking about buying a bathing suit on credit far more than I was thinking about getting birth control for my trip.
Asking my youngest brother Danny and Terri’s sister Renee what I should do tells me that my doubts and fears were stronger than my desires. They encouraged me sleep with him.
Even my horoscope said I should sleep with him and maybe I would have if he had been available on that one night in Florida when I was free and I didn’t have to go to work. I’ll never know. More on what happened in my next post.
Terri and I were friends and in the same class in high school. We met in seventh grade when my family moved to Hillsdale. My brother Danny and her sister Renee were also friends and in the same class in high school. Just the other day he was remembering that our father would call him an N-word lover because he was friends with Renee. More about my horrible racist father in a future post.
It’s unusual that Renee and I went on an adventure without either Terri or Danny there. Maybe they were working. I must have been over at their house that day too if I tried hanging upside-down in Renee’s inversion boots.
Steven F was part of the gang of neighborhood kids that we grew up with when we lived in Westwood, New Jersey. He was Danny’s age. They came in to eat lunch at the Emerson Hotel where I worked as a waitress.
Danny worked at the Ridge Diner in Park Ridge; starting as a busboy when he was still in high school. My mother sometimes waitressed at the Ridge Diner as one of her extra jobs to make ends meet and so did I. It’s still going strong today.
Psychic TV was a post punk band and performance art group. I was not a fan.
Trouser Press magazine
7/19/84
Breaker Morant is on tonight after the lottery drawing. Trouser Press went out of business. Record has taken over the subscription duties. It’s a shame that such a good magazine went down the tubes. The Go-Go’s were on the cover of Record. I’m sending away for a catalog of Aussie records.
I got my appetite back and have been putting the pounds back on. I need a new bathing suit for Florida, but I can’t afford it. Maybe I should try Bambergers and charge it. I have to find my missing pants. I think Mike “borrowed” them.
Notes
Bamberger’s was a department store. There was one at the Garden State Plaza shopping mall in Paramus, NJ.
Breaker Morant is an Australian movie from 1980. Bryan Brown was in that movie. He was also in the TV miniseries The Thorn Birds.
Trouser Press was my favorite music magazine. It featured many new wave bands.
A subscription form for Trouser Press magazine from one of my old copies.
Mike is my brother and the middle child in the family. He was the person I was hiding my money from by keeping it in a suitcase in my closet. We had a similar build and sometimes my jeans ended up in his dresser drawer.
MTV is boring
7/21/84
It is rainy outside, so I am stuck here. I feel like going back to bed.
Danny got into a fender bender this morning, but it wasn’t his fault. Some people are just stupid idiots and I’m the one who gets them at work.
MTV is boring. They play so much shit.
Note: I was not happy to be living at home over the summer. Like I said earlier, I wanted to live like an adult. My mother liked to worry about me and keep tabs. She also was very critical of me, and we did not get along well. Plus, there were five grown people living in a small house. I would leave to get away from all of that.
MTV was playing a lot of bands and artists I didn’t like such as ZZ Top, Van Halen, Huey Lewis and the News, John Waite, Wang Chung, Bon Jovi, and the big-haired metal bands like Ratt, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, and Motley Crue.
I found a roach in the coleslaw on Saturday night. [July 21,1984] Yummy. Somebody called before closing and whispered, “My stepmother is on her knees.” I don’t know what that means.
I had a couple of psychotic people today. They didn’t like the prime rib, so the woman sent it back. They were very annoying. I have to get a job that has a more expensive menu next time, so I don’t have to deal with so many cheapos.
7/23/84
Just a couple more hours and I’m off to Florida. I’m going to miss Michael K’s going away party. He leaves for the Navy on Wednesday.
I wonder if I’ll end up like Alice and start putting reminder notes everywhere like the ones on her pocketbook. “Remember to read other notes.”
DIAL-A-MATTRESS. Mary Tyler Moore is on now. I’m getting sleepy. I bought a nice-looking bathing suit and a new pocketbook. Danny and Carl are getting up soon to go to the bakery. I don’t know how they do it.
Like Steven F., Michael K. was one of the kids from the neighborhood in Westwood. His family lived across the street from ours. My mother met his mother when they were pregnant with boys who they would name Michael. Michael K. was the youngest of four kids. His sister Claire was my best friend. His other sister Kathleen was blind. His brother Danny was a teenager. Their father had died so they received government benefits.
St. Petersburg
As I mentioned in my diary on 7/16/1984, we had a room booked at the Bayfront Concourse hotel in St Petersburg, Florida for 7/24/84, the night before the INXS and Go-Go’s concert at the theater across the street from the hotel.
Jen is second from the left. Terri is third from the left. I am the one in the red hat. Jess is taking the photo. This photo is from a future INXS concert in August, 1984.
In 1984, the Bayfront Concourse Hotel was where the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront is now. The Bayfront Center Arena was where the Dali Museum is now. Google Maps.
Michael Hutchence, INXS, July 1984, Photo by Jackie
Where I left off:
Sophomore year of college has ended, and I have returned to Hillsdale, New Jersey for the summer. I’m waitressing at the Emerson Hotel (which is not a hotel but only a restaurant) for the second summer in a row. My friends and I are waiting for word on when INXS will tour.
5/29/84
I just pigged out on Doritos and two candy bars. Now Frank keeps telling me I’m going to get fat. No way. I’ve been working a lot and also doing stretching and exercise as well. I just have to get a haircut and I’ll look great.
Meatballs is on TV. I’m reading the Weekly World News. I’m getting slightly bored. I shouldn’t have eaten so much. I’m drinking Dr. Pepper to stay awake.
I got out of work late today. The party wasn’t too much work. I made $21 today.
I’m still waiting to get paid from the school. Hopefully the financial aid thing will come soon so I know how much I need to save this summer. Then when I’ve saved that I can buy things.
Time to go to bed. After tomorrow I will have worked seven days straight. Kim B has broken my 100m record. [One of my high school track records.] It makes me nauseous.
The trailer for Meatballs from 1979
More diary entries
In this entry I am sitting in Friendly’s eating a Sunday for some of the time. I mention opening a bank account because I had to hide my tip money from my brother (not Danny). This brother would steal various things like my coin collection or money so he could buy pot (marijuana). He would also eat the food that I bought. During both summers I was home waitressing I hid money in a suitcase in my closet-much of it was in dollar bills.
5/30/84
For the third day in a row the weather has been for the ducks and other amphibious creatures. I just saw Mr. DeCaro in Westwood. [A teacher from my high school.] I’m surprised he recognized me.
Sammy (one of the Albanian kitchen workers) kept saying “You get mashed potatoes for lunch”. He made sure I’d get some because I didn’t yesterday. He is nice. I still don’t understand him half of the time like when I was leaving, he said something about plants or something. Who knows?
David [Head cook at the Emerson Hotel] is starting in again with the still waters run deep stuff. Now I’m a prostitute in NY on my days off. Alicia [a fellow waitress] is the only one David treats halfway nicely, and he does it to get whoever he can steamed about it. He fed her Veal Parm a couple of times.
I should open a bank account and get my money out of the house.
Original Sin made it into the 50s and is now falling.
I’m at Friendly’s now. Another fit of hyperactivity and a whipped cream craving brought me here.
Gary Grant called Terri today. It seems that June is the month. I wonder what the future will bring?
Oh gee, I think life is just too exciting for me. I pity the people who work here. If I had to deal with all of these definite psychopaths every day, I don’t know what I’d do. They probably think I’m one of them. At least I’m quiet.
At least where I work, they’re too old to be rowdy. Too much excitement and they’d probably have a stroke. I should check out the parking lot in front of Medi Mart to see the lake.
Hillsdale is such a beat town. Two rednecks followed me in Music Merchant today. Where are all the real men? If I get some definite plans soon, I can arrange for days off. I love when people in jogging suits come in for a sundae.
David was saying how Alicia came in and told everyone she played the flute. The skin flute? These people must make garbage money. There’s another lone girl drinking coffee and smoking.
5/31/84
I said I wasn’t going to waste time, but it is three o’clock and I’ve done nothing. I just went to Quick Chek [a convenience store near Friendly’s. Half a mile from my house] to get lunch. Maybe I’ll go for a long walk later. I slept until after noon. It was so cold and dark outside I just couldn’t get out of bed. That is a habit I must break if I want to make the best use of my time. I made an appointment to get my haircut on Saturday.
I went up to PV [Pascack Valley High School where I went to school. Eight-tenths of a mile from my house] and looked to see if the record board was on the wall. It wasn’t. I jumped over a hurdle a few times and took a couple of long jumps. I jumped almost fourteen feet in my estimation. That’s pretty good for not having trained for two years and for wearing pants. There’s junk on TV as usual. I’m watching Oh Heavenly Dog. On my second walk I watched a rabbit eat.
6/1/84
I’m going to see Breakin’ today. I spoke to Terri on the phone recalling past stupidity over the wire like when someone called for Nora and I said, “She’s not here right now”. “When will she be back?” “Actually, she doesn’t live here”.
Breakin’ had good dancing but not much plot and terrible acting.
INXS is going to be here in the next two or three weeks. They have a date in Seattle on June 21.
I’m kind of depressed. I’m going to sleep now.
Trailer for Breakin’
Jean Paul Sartre and a new haircut
I needed to cut all my permed hair off because it looked like this. This photo also shows the hat I wore to the first INXS concert I went to in 1984. More on that soon.
At Jes’ house in 1983. Old photo. Donna. Sometime after start of sophomore year at Penn.
6/2/84
It’s almost time to get my haircut. My hair will probably never be this long again. I hope it turns out nice.
I finally finished Nausea. Roquentin’s life is over even though he is still alive because he has discovered that existence is meaningless. He thinks he is superfluous. “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.”
A YouTube video about Jean Paul Sartre’s novel, “Nausea.” I chose this video because it features a real person and isn’t created or narrated by AI.
6/3/84
Another Sunday over and done with. In twelve hours, I will be back working. I hope I don’t have dreams where I wait on people all night like last night. Everyone has complimented me on my haircut. It is very short, but I like it a lot. I have to see how punky it can get.
One table of Joanne’s was very nice. The woman said I could be a model pretty much because I am tall. “Tall is in”, she said. I suppose I can stop in at Reinhard’s [the Philly modeling agency] when I get back to school. It couldn’t hurt. I’d like to do a commercial or get into acting maybe. I wonder where I’ll be when I’m forty.
After the haircut
My new haircut. I am next to my brother Danny.
Mostly entries about work
I’ve included these to give an idea of what my job was like and how much money I made. Also to show that I did not have my own car and I had to share the cars with my mother and my mother’s husband, Carl. He had a vintage Mercedes that he brought to the marriage. He was not at all wealthy though. As a baker, he worked long hours and very hard, but he made very little profit. My mother was the primary wage earner. She was a chemist at a paper company.
Some guy was choking today. Jackie [a fellow waitress] tried to help him, but she wasn’t strong enough. Some man gave him the Heimlich maneuver and got the food out.
Yesterday, the police and ambulance were there because some old lady looked like she had an attack. She was OK too. It was a decent lunch today-$23. Usually, I only make about $15. I was worried this morning that I wouldn’t get to work because Carl took the car somewhere, but I made it.
I just went up to the track and ran a mile in 7:06. I’m not in terrible shape but I’ll be sore tomorrow. I saw Mr. Heinz [a teacher from my high school and one of my track coaches] and he told me that Kim B broke my 100 and long jump records. Heinz thinks it will take two more years for her to break the rest of them.
6/6/84
I hate working parties at lunch. Alice [my boss] wanted me to work on Friday, but I said no because I’m going to be up all of Thursday night. [Going to see Thomas Dolby in concert.] Alice is such a bitch. She doesn’t tell us anything and then chides us when we make a mistake. Jimmy (the owner) was getting on my nerves too. I don’t like people talking condescendingly to me. David (the cook) got on my nerves too. I want to get my ear double pierced tonight. Terri was bothering me about getting my hair cut short, but I told her to shut up until she sees it tomorrow.
6/7/84
Good morning. Off from work at last!
I went to Nanuet last night and got my right ear double pierced. People lie when they say it doesn’t hurt. I also bought a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I’m listening to Taking Tiger Mountain, the Brian Eno tape I bought yesterday. All of his records are the lowest price on the chart at Music Merchant.
Mom better not be getting nosy in my stuff because it is not her business. If she does then no way am I coming back to live here again if I can help it. Time to eat and watch the soaps. I have an hour to kill before I have to be at Terri’s.
Thomas Dolby concert & INXS is coming soon!
6/8/84
In three weeks, they are here. [INXS] June 28 at Radio City. June 30 at Jones Beach and July 2 at Holmdel.
The concert last night wasn’t as good as the other one I saw. It was too hot and sticky and hard to see. I’m sure that girl keyboard player is a transvestite. If she isn’t then she is an extremely ugly girl. My stomach acted up on me again. I missed Windpower because I had to go to the bathroom.
Terri and Jess seem to be sticks in the mud. I’ll deal with it if the time comes to. Driving in NYC is enough to give anyone an ulcer or heart attack. The drivers are crazy. We drove through Harlem, and it was really sad. Some places looked like they’d been bombed. We drove past an open fire hydrant and Terri said “Open the window” so I did, and we got soaked. She was only kidding but I’ll do just about anything if it is suggested.
Windpower video
Soccer
6/10/84
It has been a long day. It went by like it was three days instead of ten hours. I didn’t make much money today. My tables were cheap tippers. I told people I was getting a tattoo because Toni [a fellow waitress] is my idol. I was afraid to ask Alice for days off, but I did it and she marked it down in the book. I used Jackie Fuhrmann as my excuse.
It is so fucking hot. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep well tonight. Yesterday was the Sting game. Karl Heinz Granitza gave us some tickets and so did Seninho. Karl Heinz gave his jersey to Terri. The Sting left right after the game. We hung out and then went to the Front Row and talked.
My dad was a psycho
6/12/84
I woke up early today because Mom needed a ride to work. She is going to be away until Friday. I drove the Mercedes for the first time. It is easy to handle but it moves by itself, and I get startled every time it shifts gears on its own.
Yesterday, Danny drove me into Westwood. I went to Berkeley elementary school. It is a lot smaller than I remember. Of course, everything looks big when you are small. I can’t imagine myself that short. I went down by the brook and saw the waterfall. There was a no trespassing sign and a bunch of geese. I thought they were patrolling the property because they came towards me when I stepped on the grass. I don’t know why I was afraid of them. They don’t even have teeth. I walked back home and then ate dinner. I have to get out of the house when everyone else is there.
I went to the diner with Danny and Steven Flood. I think we were a bit loud while we were there. We were reminiscing. We talked about the old neighborhood in Westwood. We talked about the crazy and delinquent things that we did and about how psychotic my father was. We went driving in NY state and then came back here. We brought back Bill with us. He is also a busboy at the diner.
We played a game of Trivial Pursuit. Steven won with the help of a few lucky guesses. I came in second. Danny finally came in third at 2:30 in the morning.
I think I will close tonight at work. I don’t mind because I get a break to eat. Everyone there keeps saying how I talk more now and I’m getting wise. I can talk to other people easier. I’m more friendly than I used to be.
More harassment in New York City
6/13/84
I’m getting a taste of the days when there was no electricity. There was a huge storm when I was in NYC, and I guess that caused a power outage. I don’t think people ate Chef Boyardee mini ravioli in those days. I’m writing by candlelight-how romantic.
Terri and I went into the city to shop for clothes. I bought shoes, shorts, a dress, and some tops. It was hot earlier. Terri wore shorts but she regretted it when the comments and looks started. I bought a bird whistle from a man with one arm, and I decided to give it to Garry Gary for his birthday. Terri bought James Lee a red shirt and is going to put Stay Young on it and give it to Timmy. Someone gave me grapes for free and some other people offered us coffee. I don’t know why.
Working Tuesday night was a bitch. I got stuck with a lot of parties at one point. I had a fucking jerkoff table of six that left me $4.50 on a $70 check. Dicks.
I have to copy some good Ed Anger phrases so I can remember like “I’m sicker than a hog with a belly full of wild onions” and “Madder than Richard Simmons with a run in his leotard.”
I don’t think I would be able to survive without electricity. I’m too accustomed to it by now. I can still play my Casio because it has batteries.
Financial Aid
6/14/84
Someone is paving our driveway, and it is very noisy. I made a lot of money in May, but I haven’t saved much. I should enter the MTV party house contest. I would win a house in Indiana! Oh wow! Then me and John Mellencamp would paint the mother pink.
I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied with my wardrobe. I still need something decent to wear. The dress I bought was too small and I don’t like it. My stomach is a pain. I don’t look good in some things because of it and buying pants and skirts is a pain. I’m not satisfied with much of anything today.
I got the good news from the school. The grand total for my fine institution is $15,200. [That’s equivalent to about $47,400 in 2025.] I have to come up with $1300. [I paid a share determined by the university. My mother paid a share determined by the university. The rest was covered by financial aid, grants, and student loans.] That’s not too bad. I’ll have that in two weeks.
I finished reading 1984. It is a great book. I don’t know how easily I would succumb to doublethink. I did solve a mystery because of that book. I read about the snakes and ladders game which in this country is called chutes and ladders. I’m restless again. I feel like going for a walk or staying up all night.
A video about Chutes and Ladders. George Orwell’s novel, “1984”, mentions a game called Snakes and Ladders and I was able to deduce that the game was the same as the one in America called Chutes and Ladders. The INXS song “Melting in the Sun” has the lyric, “take a snake or take a ladder” and now I knew what that lyric meant. I had never heard of Snakes and Ladders before.
6/16/84
Bridget [fellow waitress] was encouraging about my future. She said I would get a new wardrobe, a good job, make lots of money, take vacations. I guess I should want that. I don’t know. She was encouraging me to go to Florida. [To see INXS in concert.] I suppose I could afford another trip.
I bought gray pants today. I have my outfit for Radio City. I keep going back and forth between thinking I look good and thinking I look awful. People are overly critical about their own looks. I saw Kathy [member of my high school track team] where I bought the pants. She works there doing the same thing as Terri-straightening out the racks and shit. We don’t have much in common besides track.
6/17/84
Home at last. Work sucked as it usually does on Sunday. I forgot Dad on this Father’s Day. Out of sight, out of mind.
6/18/84
Jackie will be here a week from tomorrow. I might go to Florida. [To see INXS in concert.] I have enough money for school, so I just need money for Florida. I’m going to see Ghostbusters tonight. There is too much to do. I want to be wealthy-then I wouldn’t have to work and could spend time on more important things.
Fun in New York City
6/19/84
Tomorrow I’m going into the city again. We are going to check out Canal St. I have a month to save the money for Florida.
6/20/84
I’m so tired. I got a message that Alice [my boss] called. She must have called this morning, but I’ve been in the city all day. I didn’t get back until 11:30pm.
I met Dana, the INXS Alliance girl. She has a job with the booking agent for The Go-Gos. That is a good job to have. I can’t afford to have a job just for making connections.
I’m not in the best of moods right now. It’s the usual anxiety attack.
I’m listening to a Chinese tape that I bought in Chinatown. I had fun today. I bought some earrings that mean happiness in Chinese. The owner translated all of the earrings for us. I also bought a Chinese mask. I got my fortune at a Buddhist temple for 50 cents. It says-“Probability of Success- excellent. Wherever in the world you may travel, some mystery you sure will unravel. A simple mallet dug out from gravel may turn to be a president’s gavel.” Some Chinese woman got me to buy four chicken sandwiches for her.
I met a guy who works security during concerts in the city. He will be doing Michael Jackson’s shows. He is into the martial arts. He told us not to be strangers but to keep being strange.
I’m getting sick of people calling me strange. Strange is the guy who asked me if I ever had frozen pink. He said I should put Jess’s Dekadance t-shirt in the freezer and then cut out the pink and eat it.
Danny is graduating from high school tomorrow. Dr. Poli [the high school principal] has banned cap throwing. Danny looked forward to chucking his cap and the whole place away.
Jess’s Dekadance t-shirt had a picture of the album cover on it. INXS released two different versions of the Dekadance EP. The one released in the U.S. had remixes of songs from Shabooh Shoobah.
INXS
6/22/84
Today is Garry Gary Beers’ birthday.
Yesterday I went to Danny’s graduation and saw some people I knew and then went to Terri’s to pick up my Casio.
I’m not in a good mood today. I hope I get my period soon to get over this soon. [PMS] I have to go to work today.
I got the concert days off but not the days around them. It’s going to be interesting. Terri called Gary [Gary Grant, INXS tour manager] in Michigan. He said Original Sin went to number one in France, but I didn’t see it.
Freddie Soehnlein [a family friend] died in a swimming pool. I read that in the paper while I was on the phone with Terri.
I made a ton of money today. $110. [The equivalent of $343 in 2025.] Somebody left me a $26 tip. It is pouring rain outside, or I’d go out. Van Halen is annoying me on MTV. I’m not into the videos they play these days.
I asked for July 7 off so I can go to Philly. [To see INXS in concert.]
I asked Aunt Barbara for my oboe back so I can get into it again.
6/25/84
I bought five tapes and went out to dinner at the diner. Then I went to see The Karate Kid and now I’m at home watching David Letterman.
6/26/84
I’m hyperactive now. Only 24 hrs. or so to go. I can’t wait. Jackie talked to them, [INXS] and they remember Terri. Terri is getting all of the inside information no problem.
The bird whistle
The plastic whistle that was shaped like a bird was extremely cheap. It wasn’t something I wanted. I only bought it on June 13th out of pity for the one-armed man who was selling them on the streets of New York City.
To turn it into a gag gift for Garry Gary for his birthday, I placed the whistle in a shoebox along with some articles that I cut out from the Weekly World News. I wrote a note from Eric, the bird whistle, that explained he was an orphan whose owner had been killed in a tragic boating accident. I named the toy, Eric, because I loved Monty Python’s Flying Circus which I watched as a kid. Channel 13 was the PBS (Public Broadcasting) channel in New York City, and they started showing Monty Python in 1974.
Channel 13 promo video
The sketches that included animals named Eric:
Fish License sketch video
Eric The Half a Bee video
I wrapped the shoebox in the cover of an issue of The Weekly World News. The headline was “Jealous Computer Kills Top Scientist.” I can’t find a photo of that issue on the internet.
Here’s a photo of a different issue from that time.
The cover of the Weekly World News tabloid paper from June 26, 1984.
On June 27, 1984, Jess, Terri, Jackie, and I went to New York City in the evening to wait in the lobby of the hotel where INXS would be staying. Terri drove us. I wrote in my diary that it was the Windsor Harley Hotel, but the internet tells me that the Helmsleys owned a hotel named Windsor and a hotel named Harley and not a hotel called Windsor Harley. My best guess is that INXS stayed at the Helmsley Windsor Hotel on 58th St and 6th Ave just up the street from Radio City Music Hall where they were to open for The Go-Go’s the next night.
Everyone had birthday presents for Garry Gary so what I remember is all of us being around Kirk and Garry while we gave him his gifts. Michael came over and planted a kiss on my cheek. Not something I was interested in because I still didn’t like him. The wrapping on my shoebox gave everyone a laugh. The gift though? Maybe not. It was weird.
Kirk told us that he had to go to the airport and pick up “the little battler.” That’s some kind of Australian slang that seemed kind of misogynistic or insulting like “the ball and chain” or “the old lady.” Not being Australian, I had no idea what he meant. The internet says that he called her a working-class person.
He was talking about his girlfriend, Karen Hutchinson, who was flying in from Australia to spend some time on tour with Kirk. Pretty clear message there that nothing further was going to happen between me and Kirk Pengilly.
I think I had already gotten that message though after getting the friendly, polite letter with no contact information and the revelation in the magazine that he had a girlfriend.
Before Kirk left, I told him that I had started playing the lottery and I asked for a number. He picked 26 which was his age. I also asked Gary Grant for a lottery number, and he picked 27 which I believe was also his age.
Scary drive back to New Jersey late at night
While Terri was driving north on Amsterdam Avenue to get to the George Washington Bridge, the car hit a huge pothole. I don’t know if we were in Harlem or already north of Harlem when it happened. Afterwards, we heard a scraping noise of metal in contact with the road. Terri pulled into a gas station, and we wanted the attendant to help us, but he refused to leave the booth he was in. That was a sign that we were in an area that had a lot of criminal activity.
Jackie was panicking and she lived in Chicago, so it was surprising that she was so frightened. The rest of us were also frightened and it only got worse when a car full of Hispanic guys stopped and asked if we needed help. Because now we have two problems; a broken car and several men we don’t know who might be looking to take advantage of an opportunity to hurt us.
Terri and I put on our toughest tough girl attitudes and Terri said no to them. She told them to go away very firmly when they asked again, and thankfully they did.
A piece of the car was hanging down and touching the ground. It turned out to be the oil pan, but I didn’t know what it was at the time. I had the idea to tie it back up to the underside of the car using my belt. I had a cool-looking hip belt. A hip belt was not worn through belt loops but was worn slung around your hips. My belt had a bunch of silver-colored rings about one inch in diameter and they were connected by strips of black leather. It was a sturdy belt.
An example of a hip belt from the 1980s. Mine had similar rings but they were held together by strips of black leather.
So, I took off my belt, got on the ground, and managed to loop the belt through some part of the oil pan and then loop my belt through some metal part of the underbody so the oil pan was not scraping the ground. Then I buckled the belt to secure it. After that, I bought a quart of oil from the attendant in the booth just in case the car was leaking oil, and we would need to add some on the way home.
We got back on the road and didn’t have any more problems getting back to New Jersey. Terri had to take her car to the shop to have the oil pan fixed, so we had to use Jess’ car to carry on with our adventures.
The INXS concert
The next day, June 28, 1984, was the day of the concert. Jess drove Terri, Jackie, and I into New York City in the afternoon and we parked in the Port Authority Bus Terminal lot.
When we went to Radio City Music Hall, we discovered that we had missed the soundcheck, so we walked over to the hotel. I wore big black felt hat with a flat top and a wide brim that I found at a thrift shop in Greenwich Village. It was similar to the hat that Michael Hutchence wore in the INXS video, “The One Thing” except that it didn’t have a band and the brim was wider. My shirt was black and gray striped-it was sleeveless, and it came up to my neck in front but was low-cut in back. Paired with gray cropped pants and cheap black sandals that looked a little punky because they had cheap metallic bits sewn to the straps across my feet. Around my hips was the famous belt that I had removed from underneath the car.
While walking to the hotel, we just happened to pop into a pizza parlor and Andrew Farriss was in there. Andrew wasn’t much into socializing, so we didn’t bother him often, but I took the opportunity to walk over to him to introduce myself. I extended my hand and said, “Hi! I’m Donna,” and we shook hands. Because other than Kirk, I don’t think any of them knew my name and they all already knew Terri, Jess, and Jackie.
We ran into Michael Hutchence on the sidewalk outside the hotel. I was surprised by how nice and friendly he was when we were talking to him because he had come across as arrogant in the past. This was the first time I had something other than a negative impression of him. As a person and not as a singer, that is.
He told me he liked my hat. I loved my hat! Terri often asked him, other members of the band, and Gary Grant, the manager, to do things for us. She told Michael that we did not have good seats near the front and asked him to tell the audience to move up to the front when he got on stage so we could move up closer. I can’t remember if he did that, but it was definitely something he would be willing to do.
The only thing I remember from the show is being angry because there was one girl who jumped up on stage and ran up to Michael three different times. Now, instead of singing the song for everyone, he had to hug the girl to try to be nice and then deal with her grabbing onto him until someone could pull her away.
The third time she jumped onstage, several other girls joined her, so Michael had multiple girls mauling him when he was trying to sing. They ruined more than one song. We hated that. It’s so rude in so many ways. Fans like that are a terrible problem.
After the show
We left Radio City Music Hall before The Go-Go’s took the stage and waited outside for INXS to leave. Gary Grant came out and we talked about the girls jumping onstage. He was also very angry and used rude language to talk about those girls. Called them all sorts of names.
Kirk Pengilly was outside signing autographs for some fans. He had his head down while doing it. I went over and said something like, “Kirk, you’ll never believe what happened to us when we drove home last night.” Without looking up he said, “What is it, Donna?” So, I told him the story about how we hit a pothole, and I used the belt that I was wearing to tie up the bottom of the car so we could drive home. For the second time in a row, we had a problem with the car when we went to see INXS. I had to tell him because it was like a thing now.
I’m sure plenty of other stuff happened but I was too busy to write it all down and I don’t remember anymore. All I know is that we took a horse-drawn carriage to get back to the car at Port Authority. It was fun but not at all scenic.
Here is a photo from 1991 and the black hat is sitting on the coatrack. You can see that it was collecting dust and I eventually got rid of it because I didn’t wear it and it did was take up space and collect dust.
My room in the apartment I shared in West Philadelphia. My hats and also some INXS stuff on the exposed drywall.
INXS stationery, Someone decorated the xeroxed photo. I think it was Terri.
As I wrote about in my last post, it was fall semester of my sophomore year in college when I got that letter from Kirk Pengilly. I managed to pass all my classes that semester, but I did not want to be in school. I wanted to learn things, but I didn’t want to be in school.
Letter from Terri about INXS
Terri sent me a letter dated January 19, 1984. She said that she was answering a letter from me that was dated December 5, 1983, and apologized for the delay. She had some INXS news for me-she told me she got INXS played on the radio again, “just a few minutes ago”, and said that they should pay her for doing promotions. That’s funny because I wrote the same thing in my diary a few months later-that they should be paying me for promoting them. We were great fans.
Jess called Terri and told her that MTV had announced that INXS would be back in the U.S. in early March and that the new album would also be out in March. “A little later than they expected,” according to Mark Goodman, the MTV VJ who reported the news. This information turned out to be wrong and the album showed up even later than that in the U.S. and the band didn’t show up until June! Terri wanted to know what was taking so long!
I know I visited the Australian consulate in New York City with somebody, but I can’t remember exactly when or with whom. It was during the fall of 1983 because Terri wondered in her letter how Kirk Pengilly, of Neutral Bay, with the silent listing was. Apparently, I called the operator in Australia to ask for his number and I was told that it was unlisted. When I was looking through the Sydney telephone books at the consulate, I ran across a listing for a K. Pengilly who lived at 59 Yeo Street in Neutral Bay. “That must be him” is what I thought so I gave it a try. I didn’t know he had a girlfriend when I did that.
Terri “lurved” the poem I wrote about Kirk Pengilly. If only I had a copy or remembered anything about that! It was probably at least somewhat flattering because I liked him a lot; unlike any poems I wrote about Michael Hutchence, but I probably also mocked him a little. No one in INXS escaped that treatment. Perhaps I mentioned his dislike for clothes dryers because Terri makes a reference to that. He must have talked about that when we were with him in Poughkeepsie, and he was washing his shirt in the bathroom sink.
The jerk from Scotland
Spring semester of college started out terribly. I wanted to do something else so badly. Instead, I was taking five classes and four of them were in business. My mental health was poor-a constant cough kept me from sleeping for over two weeks. And to top it off, I dated a jerk from Scotland who went to my school. He was very charismatic, and people flocked to him. I thought he liked me, and I came close to having sex with him, but I lost my nerve. After that he said we would go out but then he didn’t call and in the following days he started ignoring me.
My roommate Karen spoke to him at a party, and he told her that his friend had asked me out and he couldn’t believe it that I turned him down, so she walked away thinking he was an asshole too. And he was. A couple of weeks later, I ran into a fellow student, and she told me about her experience with the Scottish guy. They had dated during the fall semester, and he told her that he had an impotence problem. She helped him “solve it.” Then he spent Thanksgiving at her house and when he got back to campus, he had sex with a friend of hers.
In my diary, I asked, “why did he have to bother me?” and “how could I ever fall for him?” “This hasn’t been a good experience, and I don’t want to go through it again.” “He’s really done a number on me and I still don’t understand exactly what happened.” I said I was sick of people pestering me.
My world blew up. I felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Dropping my accounting class eased some of the pressure. I considered transferring to Terri’s school in Florida, but my mother wouldn’t let me. Trying to find the bright side of meeting this awful jerk, I told myself that maybe it was good because it caused me to think about why I was in school and what I really wanted to do with my life.
The movie, “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” was a big influence on me and especially the song, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” I quoted a lyric from it in my diary while I was writing about my problems.
After thinking about it, I decided to stay in Wharton and major in marketing instead of accounting because I couldn’t afford to switch to the College of Arts and Sciences and stay in college an extra year to study something else. My diary says, “I just have to get through the semester without killing myself and I should be OK.” I wished I could afford to quit school and travel and bum around. My financial situation depressed me. I owed $5200 in student loans at that point, and I would still owe that if I quit.
Billboard magazine
The management class I was taking did not interest me. The professor made me come talk to him after the first exam and he told me I had to do a lot better on the paper and the final exam. I used to go to the Lippincott Library of the Wharton School, but it wasn’t to do my schoolwork. It was to read the copies of Billboard magazine that they had there. Billboard magazine covers the music industry.
Here are links to a Wikipedia article about Billboard magazine and an actual copy from April 28, 1984 that has information about INXS.
It was important to find a topic for my paper that would interest me, so I chose to write a paper on the mergers and acquisitions of Warner Communications. Why that company? Because it was related to INXS, the Australian rock band, and the New York Cosmos soccer team. They owned Atlantic Records and the Atco imprint that was INXS’ record label in the U.S., and they also owned the Cosmos.
Both Atlantic Records and the NY Cosmos were founded by Ahmet Ertegun who was a horrible pig of a man who abused numerous women. That was not something I was aware of at the time, but I absolutely believe the accusations. I will write more about that in a future blog post.
Original Sin
It was now March and almost time for spring break. Terri heard that “Original Sin” would be released during the second week of March, 1984 and that INXS would be the opening act for Duran Duran. I called Capitol Records, Duran Duran’s record label, to ask if INXS would be opening for them. The person I spoke to didn’t know and suggested that I call Madison Square Garden, so I did, and they didn’t have any information either. None of this turned out to be true. It’s hard to find an exact date for when the song was released in the United States.
Towards the end of March, I wrote in my diary that I called WKDU which is the student-run radio station for Drexel University and asked them to play “Original Sin”, but they didn’t have it. The first time I tried calling, I dialed the wrong number and said to the old woman who answered, “Do you have original sin?” She said, “Excuse me?” so I said it again. Then she told me I had the wrong number. That was both embarrassing and hilarious because I must have sounded like a religious freak.
A screen shot from the April 28, 1984 issue of Billboard magazine.
On April 5, 1984, I saw in Billboard magazine that The Swing, the fourth album by INXS, had debuted at number one in Australia and the song “I Send A Message” had debuted at number seven there. Original Sin had been released in Australia in December 1983. It wasn’t until April 28, 1984 that Original Sin debuted on the Billboard chart for the U.S. at number 87.
Big Country
Big Country. Trouser Press magazine. March 1984Big Country concert in Tampa, Florida with Jess and Jen. March 1984.
Jess is a big part of my story but this is the first photo of her to be included in the blog. From left to right is Jess, Jen from Florida, and me with my permed hair. A guy at college told me I looked like David Lee Roth.
For spring break, I took a trip to Tampa, Florida to visit Terri. I needed a vacation. Jess came down for the week too. We went to a couple soccer games and hung around at Jen’s house. We also saw Big Country in concert and met Stuart Adamson and his young son.
Me with Big Country singer Stuart Adamson in Tampa, Florida
My diary says that I was reading A Clockwork Orange (not for school). I also had to read books and work on a paper for my sociology class. The conversations that my friends and I were having were about Duran Duran, INXS, and soccer. I also spent time drawing pictures of punk-rock cats that I called Anarkitties.
Big Country video
Graveyard shift
Two things I started doing during spring semester were smoking real cigarettes and working the graveyard shift at my work-study job in the dorms. The previous semester I had started smoking clove cigarettes. I stopped smoking them after they made me nauseous but unfortunately, I switched to smoking the regular kind. They helped me stay awake through my midnight to eight am shifts. It wasn’t a regular habit yet-that came later. When I worked all night, I drank Dr. Pepper and listened to music-sometimes INXS, Falco, Tenpole Tudor or something else I had on cassette, or I listened to the radio.
I wanted a boyfriend, and I wanted to have sex, but I still didn’t have any luck there. Hookups were not for me. My diary at the time said “I’ve never had any qualms about sex before marriage although I wouldn’t sleep with just any Joe Schmo off the street.”
I went to parties and met guys. One of the guys was named Mike and I wrote about him in my diary. He was funny. He showed me the P-Funk All-Stars sign which is when you make your hand into horns by holding your middle fingers down with your thumb. And he told me to sing, “Shit, Goddamn, Get off your ass and jam!” That was fun. We tried out different accents on each other. I used to pretend to be Irish or Scottish from time to time. When I came back to college for my junior year, I finally found a boyfriend and it was Mike!
Before I left school for the summer break, I went to an interview with Reinhard Modeling agency. They had advertised in the school paper that they would be on campus looking for models. I wasn’t sure if they were legit, and I wondered how much of the money they would get. One woman I spoke to said that models in Philadelphia were paid $100 an hour. The agency was interested but I was unsure-I thought my waist was too big and I was leaving Philadelphia for the summer so pursuing modeling would have to wait.
Modeling is another one of those industries where a lot of disgusting and bad things happen-especially to women. But the agency I went to is still operating and seems to be legit.
I will not have time to work on the blog for a little while so here are a few videos from early MTV.
Hillsdale, New Jersey was wired for cable TV in the late 1970s. My house was signed up for cable TV before MTV came on the air on August 1, 1981. I saw a lot of weird videos and found many bands to like while watching MTV starting in 1981. MTV launched just before I went back to school for my senior year of high school.
Tenpole Tudor- Swords of a Thousand Men. I was a huge fan of Tenpole Tudor and Adam & the Ants.
Antmusic by Adam & the Ants
Pop Muzik by M. I’m happy to say that I have been to New York, London, Paris, and Munich.
Blotto- I Wanna Be a Lifeguard
Split Enz- I Got You
Falco- Der Kommisar
Duran Duran- Planet Earth
U2- I Will Follow
Blancmange- Living on the Ceiling
Haircut 100- Love Plus One. I listened to the whole album (Pelican West) constantly when I was a freshman in college.
The English Beat- Save It For Later. One of my early MTV favorites. Loved all of the Special Beat Service album.
The Pretenders- Brass In Pocket. This video was played often on MTV. I loved it and the song. I thought James Honeyman-Scott was cute. Too bad drugs took him too.
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts- I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll. I never knew it was a cover of someone else’s song.
Weird Al Yankovic- Ricky. I love accordions and parodies.
