Nile Rodgers, Tim Farriss and Garry Gary Beers. INXS at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. Photo by Jess
Michael Hutchence and Belinda Carlisle’s last night together
INXS opened for The Go-Go’s for the last time on July 29, 1984 at a show at Kings Dominion amusement park near Richmond, Virginia. Neither INXS nor The Go-Go’s had a concert on July 30. It’s not clear whether Belinda Carlisle and Michael Hutchence spent a final night together after the last show or if it was the following night. INXS did not arrive in New York City until the day of their show at the Beacon Theatre on the 31st.
Belinda Carlisle wrote in her book, “Lips Unsealed: A Memoir”, that she and Michael spent a sweet, sad, romantic, and passionate last night together where they promised to remain friends.
The Go-Go’s did their next show in Berkeley, California on August 1, 1984. INXS presumably traveled by bus to New York City from Richmond on July 31 to perform.
A screenshot from Google Maps showing the drive from the last INXS concert with The Go-Go’s to New York City where INXS would perform at the Beacon Theatre.
Front row seats
We had front row seats to the show because Jess, Terri and Dana had waited in front of the theater all night on the night before tickets went on sale to buy tickets for all of us. When that was, I don’t know because it isn’t in my diary. Probably some day or night when I was working and couldn’t spend all night on the sidewalk with them.
The page from my 1984 pocket-sized appointment book showing July 30 to August 5. INXS concerts and waitressing shifts.
Renee [Terri’s sister] is coming along with us. She is a great kid and a lot of fun. She isn’t a wet rag like some people I know. I’m going to run into Susan and Maria tomorrow and they’ll want to know everything that has ever happened to me. It might be fun to be infamous, but I don’t know. If I don’t want other people to spread gossip around, I have to watch what I say.
I think deep down inside I want to be notorious and have people whisper when I walk by. It might be fun to be on people’s bad side for a while. I am a weirdo.
I’m bored now. I have stuff I could do but I don’t feel like it. I’ll watch TV.
The morning of the show
On Tuesday morning, July 31st, Jess, Terri and I went into New York City. Terri or Jess would have driven us in. I’m 61 years old now and I have never driven into New York City. It’s too scary. If I was in charge of this stuff, we would have taken a bus into the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
While we were there, I made an INXS poster to take to the venue. If I didn’t have a letter from Maria that she wrote on 9/4/84, I would not know about the poster because I don’t remember.
It’s possible I also filled out a form for Dana’s INXS Alliance club. I remember writing that my goals were to be independently wealthy and a world traveler, but I don’t remember if that was at this gathering or some other time.
Back in 1984, I was envious of Dana. If I recall correctly, both of her mother and father were entertainment lawyers and based on their nice apartment in New York City, they seemed successful at their jobs.
They also had connections, so I was envious that Dana had opportunities that I did not have. My family could not fully foot the bill for my education even with financial aid, so I had to earn money to pay for part of my tuition and all of my expenses.
The waitressing job I had was essential because I made well above the minimum wage there. The tips were great because the Emerson Hotel was popular and busy, and I was a pretty young woman. It would have been stupid and dangerous for my future to blow off my job to stay with Michael Hutchence.
Some books by Jean Paul Sartre, French Existentialist
After thinking about it, I went out and purchased another book by Sartre so I could read it and then also give it to Michael. I didn’t write any of this down, so I no longer remember the name of the book I bought but I believe it was a different book in Sartre’s trilogy of novels than the one Michael showed me that night.
It was quite nice of me to spend some of the little money I had to buy a book for someone who had a hit record album in Australia. And it wouldn’t be the last time I gave him a book or spent money on a book that I tried to give to him when I barely had money myself. Lots of fans give gifts but I think Michael misconstrued what it meant when I did it. In a way, I was like Oprah Winfrey and wanted to share books I loved.
Waiting for INXS in the lobby of their hotel
At some point before we expected INXS to arrive from Richmond, Terri, Jess, and I got back into the car and drove to the Barbizon Plaza Hotel where INXS was staying.
A screenshot from the website nycago.org with a photo and description of the Barbizon Plaza Hotel.A screenshot from the website nysonglines.com that shows that the Barbizon Plaza Hotel was across from the Helmsley Windsor Hotel back in 1984
As we waited in the hotel lobby, Jon and Garry walked in and walked straight into an elevator. When Andrew walked by, he said hello to us. Then Timmy and Michael came into the hotel and the two of them looked extremely tired.
We stopped Michael and asked him to please wait because we had something to give him. Jess left to go to the car and retrieve the books and magazines. I asked him if he had read “Nausea” and when he said he had not, I told him that I had it for him.
I think it’s funny to say that I gave Michael Hutchence nausea.
Here is a video about the book. It’s a weird book.
Jess came back with the three Jean Paul Sartre books and also a couple of magazines about flying airplanes that she had found at her house in the den. She brought them for him because Michael had said he wanted to fly a plane that night when we were all in his room.
Michael’s manners
Michael said, “I’m forever in your debt” after I solemnly handed over the books to him. That was a bit much although I think it turned out to be true in the end. He was using the manners he had learned somewhere whether from his father or from the British community in Hong Kong.
Many people have remarked upon his somewhat unusual way of behaving. In this case I would describe him as being dramatically debonair. To me, it was memorable but weird. A regular “thank you, that’s nice of you” would have been better. I suppose I was being weird too by acting like books are holy. But they are!
Someone came over to ask us about Michael Hutchence. This person wanted to know who he was, so I said he was Michael Jackson and he was playing across the river. Michael Jackson and his brothers were doing a concert at Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands in New Jersey.
We left the hotel after that because Michael had gone to his room to sleep. I have no idea what we did until it was time to see the concert. Maybe we grabbed something to eat or went back to Dana’s apartment? If Dana lived on the Upper West Side, then we would have been able to walk from her place to the theater.
Beacon Theatre
The Beacon Theatre was and still is at 2124 Broadway between 74th and 75th Street. In Manhattan, 20 north-south blocks equal one mile. It would have been no more than fifteen blocks to walk there. But that is another thing I no longer remember.
Like I said earlier, we had front row seats, and they were near the middle of the stage. At least six of us, perhaps even a couple more girls I didn’t know, were there too. The concert itself is another thing I don’t remember. I’m sure I enjoyed it. If INXS had not been a good live band, I would not have wasted my time going to eleven shows that summer especially after Kirk Pengilly had brought his girlfriend over for the tour.
Screaming girls
The main things that I disliked were when girls screamed or jumped on stage to attack Michael and when Michael messed up the words. And by screaming, I don’t mean cheering. I didn’t mind cheering. Some of the girls let out the loudest, high-pitched screams like they were seeing the Beatles and while I hate to describe it as hysterical, the word fits. It was painful and I think it damaged my hearing.
Nile Rodgers, former guitarist for Chic and famous record producer, came onstage and played guitar when INXS performed Original Sin. The photo at the top of the page is from the concert. Nile Rodgers had produced the song almost a year earlier in New York City at the Power Station.
If it wasn’t for the letter from Maria that she wrote on 9/26/84, I wouldn’t know that Michael Hutchence came over to me during the show and sang The One Thing right into my face. She wrote, “Something like that is hard to forget!” and yet, over the years, I forgot!
The Beacon Theatre stage door
After the show, we waited along with dozens of other INXS fans on 75th Street where the stage door to the Beacon Theatre is located. There must have been some kind of lounge on the second or third floor where the band was hanging out.
There were windows facing 75th Street and we saw Tim Farriss at one of the windows. He was looking at the crowd of fans who had gathered and he yelled, “No shit!” to all of us because he was pleased to see so many fans.
Michael then leaned out of the window and threw a bunch of white, rectangular cards that were about 3 inches by 5 inches in size. We grabbed some and saw that it was an invitation to an after-show party at some club called Pizza A Go Go.
The invitation to the INXS concert after-party that Michael Hutchence threw from the window of the Beacon Theatre.
When Michael saw Terri, Jess and I, he tried to pour beer on us from the bottle he was holding. He missed. That was not the kind of behavior that I found amusing. It was not something that would win me over. Just the opposite-it was the behavior of a 12-year-old boy in middle school who was a jerk, and I hated those boys.
After a while, everyone with INXS came out from the theater except for Timmy and Jon. We stayed and waited for Timmy because Jess and Terri wanted to show him a list of VHS videocassette tapes they had made with movies and shows on them and find out which ones he wanted.
When Timmy and Jon came out of the stage door, some weird guy walked by and asked us where the stars were. I pointed to the sky and told him, “Up there.” Timmy had hurt his head somehow, so he didn’t want to look at the list of tapes and we let them leave.
Pizza A Go Go
We decided to drive downtown to check out the club. When we got there it did not look interesting but then I saw that Ronald, a guy who sold t-shirts for INXS, was there and that seemed like a good sign so we decided to stay for a while and see if anyone from the band would show up.
We greeted Michael and he kissed each of us hello. Michael was wearing a bright blue shirt. When a song by the Talking Heads started playing, all of us went out on the dance floor and danced together. The lead singer of INXS danced in the club the same way he danced when he was performing onstage.
Nile told me he didn’t remember me after I said that I was not the girl with the shaved head. You can read about that day in the studio in Blog Post 5. He was friendly and nice, but I don’t think we talked for long after that. Maybe I talked to him about the concert, but I don’t remember.
We saw Gary Grant making out with Ellen, someone we had met in Philadelphia, so we left him alone. Bonny and Franny were glommed on to Jon Farriss, same as they were in Philadelphia, and they also recognized me from there. They were talking his ear off again, so we spent most of our time at Pizza A Go Go chatting with Garry Gary Beers.
On that day in Florida, the tour with the Go-Go’s was close to its end and Garry had told the woman who took care of the Go-Go’s clothes while on tour that he would be breaking things off with her and she was very upset about it. He felt bad about that so that’s why he didn’t feel like talking.
Terri, Jess and I left the club before the band did and drove home. Timmy had not shown up at the club so there was no reason why Terri would want to stay.
We had spent a lot of time with Garry Gary, so Jess was happy. I didn’t have to work the next day for a change, but I usually didn’t want to be out with INXS in the first place, so I didn’t mind leaving.
We needed to get some rest because we would be driving to Toronto, Canada in about 24 hours, on the night of August 1st, to see INXS play at The Concert Hall in the Masonic Temple. It was going to be an eight-hour drive.
Michael Hutchence, INXS. Photo by Terri. July 3, 1984
This photo of Michael was taken by Terri on July 3, 1984 at The Jag Club in East Hampton on Long Island.
When I ended the last blog post, Michael had gone into the hotel with his British friends and left Terri, Jess, Jackie, and I standing in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn in Rockville Centre, NY. We got into the car so we could find a fast-food place and grab something to eat. On the way out, Jess and I got out of the car and made sure there wasn’t anyone from INXS in the bar and there wasn’t.
There still wasn’t anyone from the band in the bar when we came back so we sat down outside for a while. Danny, the old-guy bartender from the other night, wasn’t working so we didn’t have him to talk to.
Eventually, Michael came back down and went to the bar. That’s when we decided to go inside and sit down at a table. Michael was sitting next to Vance, the INXS roadie. The two of them were sitting on the left side of the bar so they did not have their backs to us. I was sitting in a spot at the table where I was facing the bar, so I was looking in Michael and Vance’s direction.
Vance the Australian Roadie for INXS
I watched Vance talking to Michael and from time to time, Vance would turn his head and smile at me. After a while, Vance got up from his seat and came over to our table to talk to me. He sat down and we had a conversation. I wasn’t going to be rude and tell him to go away or anything. For my part of the conversation, I talked about what life was like in America and that I had to work so I could pay for college. He told me he got into the music business when he was 19. Vance had a very optimistic view of things and told me that if I wanted to do something then I should do it. I heard from him that Australia is the best country in the world and that he wouldn’t be back there until October or November because of the tour.
Then he asked if I had any drugs with me and he asked if I ever smoked pot. I told him that I didn’t have any drugs. I’ve already mentioned in other blog posts that my friends and I weren’t illicit drug users. My friends didn’t usually drink either because they were driving while I sometimes had a drink when the bartenders were lax and didn’t check ID. Legally, I was too young at 19. Jackie was still in high school. Terri was too young at 20. Only Jess was 21 and allowed to drink alcohol.
I told Vance that I smoked pot once in a while but that was a massive exaggeration. Marijuana was another thing I decided I didn’t like after I had tried it a couple of times. But I didn’t want to say that and look uncool. Vance asked me if I wanted to go up to his room with him to smoke pot. To me that sounded more like an invitation to have sex with him, and I didn’t want to have sex or smoke pot so I said I wasn’t sure, and I would think about it. That was my way of saying no without saying no. Rejecting a man can be a dangerous thing so it’s often best to do it in a way that doesn’t seem like rejection. Vance told me he was in room 599 and then he left and went to his room.
William the Roadie for The Stray Cats
Once he was gone, I ordered a drink at the bar- a drink I knew of as a Southern Belle. It was a drink made with Southern Comfort, Amaretto, and pineapple juice- very sweet. These days the drink is known as a Hawaiian Hooker.
After Vance left, we talked to the guy named William. That was probably how we found out that he was a roadie for The Stray Cats. I don’t remember much about the conversation. My diary says that William told Terri that she wasn’t pretty but that she had interesting features. He should have kept that to himself.
While we were talking to William, Vance came back; I think it was to check on me. But first Vance and William made jokes about sex because Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” was playing on the jukebox. The actual jokes went unrecorded in my diary probably because they were tacky and gross.
Vance again
Vance invited me up to his room again and this time I said, “I don’t think so.” He left the bar and didn’t come back again. Michael was still sitting at the bar in the same spot. While I was finishing my drink, I saw Michael look over at me a couple of times. Kirk had not come down to the bar, so we were thinking about leaving for home.
Saying goodbye to drunk Michael
Terri wanted to wait a little longer because she said that a drunk Michael saying goodnight was something else. I think what she meant by that was that Michael was extra friendly and liked to kiss people when he was drunk. Terri had enjoyed a previous experience of saying goodnight to drunk Michael. Must have been one of the times when I was not there in 1983.
The Ant Shirt
When we got up to leave, Michael came over to us and we told him we were leaving. Michael was wearing a white shirt with bugs on it. I asked him, “Are those cockroaches?” and he said, “No, ants.”
This video of INXS performing “I Send A Message” on television in 1983 shows Michael wearing the shirt. The lighting is good, so it is easy to see the pocket on the shirt.
We were standing around talking about what Michael was wearing and someone asked him about his shoes. He said something about his feet, and I said, “Oh! is that what they’re called? Feet! I’ll have to remember that.” I was trying to be funny by pretending I had no idea what feet were, and it seemed like Michael thought it was funny. Then he told us that he had to wear braces on his feet when he was young because he couldn’t walk right. Back then I took everything he said at face value and what I am writing here is what Michael said. But it turns out that what he said was often fabricated, embellished, exaggerated, a lie, bullshit, or whatever you want to call it.
Michael’s Hair
Terri just loved Michael’s hair a lot and I think she was the one who took the opportunity to touch his hair. Then Jackie and Jess also touched his hair. I did not have a crush on Michael or his hair like so many girls and women did. To me he seemed kind of dumb, kind of crazy, and kind of a jerk and I didn’t think he was as good-looking as Jon Farriss, Kirk Pengilly, or Garry Gary Beers. He was kind of cute sometimes.
But I thought I should play along and touch his hair while also showing my disdain for what my friends and I were doing. So, I grabbed a strand of hair from near his shoulder, taking it between my thumb and my index finger at the bottom of the strand, and I rubbed it between my fingers once before letting it go. Like whoop-de-doo it’s hair.
Michael doesn’t feel like sleeping
After that, we announced we were leaving. Michael kissed Terri on the cheek and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. We were about to walk away but then Michael said to all of us, “Would you like to come up to my room? I don’t feel like sleeping.” So, the four of us looked at each other and we all seemed fine with it, so we accepted his invitation. It was a friendly invitation, and it didn’t sound the slightest bit sexual.
Cigarette machine
Before we went up to his room, we had to find change for the cigarette machine so Michael could buy cigarettes. William threw some change down on a table. The cigarette machine was just outside the entrance to the bar. I was feeling tipsy and silly because of the drink I had. Michael stood in front of the cigarette machine looking at the choices and I stood there next to him. It was taking him a long time to decide so I said, “I vote for Marlboro Lights”, and he responded, “Oh, you vote, do you?”
Finally, he pulled the knob and a pack of Vantage cigarettes came out. As you can see from the photo, the graphic on the package looks like a bullseye, so I said we could use the package for archery practice. That led Michael to ask if he had mentioned archery earlier (when he was drunk in the parking lot), and I told them that he had talked about archery. Have you ever met a chatty five-year-old who wanted to have a conversation with you and show you his toys? That’s what Michael was like sometimes.
A 1980s advertisement for Vantage cigarettes.
This is how children and teens could buy cigarettes back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Funny video of how to use a cigarette machine.
Going Up to the Fifth Floor
Now that the cigarettes were bought, we had to make our way to an elevator. While I was walking behind Michael, I imitated the way he was walking. He was quite peculiar back then- he was like a fairy from another planet and he often seemed to be prancing on the balls of his feet. I stopped imitating him when we all got to the elevator.
Once we got in, Michael slid down the wall and sat on the floor. When the elevator got to the fifth floor, he was able to get up. We weren’t sure he would. The corridor we walked down was open on one side- the rooms were all on the left and the night air was to the right. Michael stopped at a door and started to open it (the door was unlocked) and we were all ready to follow him inside but when he opened the door halfway, I could see there were people inside. He realized it wasn’t his room, so he shut the door. I didn’t think to look at the room number to see if it was Vance’s room. It’s bothered me since because I’m wondering if he made a mistake or if he opened the door to that room on purpose so the people in there could see that I was with him. Because who knows what Michael and Vance were talking about in the bar.
Michael’s hotel room
Michael was in room 589. The room had a low dresser and a desk on the left wall as you walked in and two double beds on the right wall. There was a nightstand between the two beds and the bathroom was on the right past where the beds were. We looked around and saw that Michael’s belongings were strewn around on top of the dresser and the desk. I described the room as messy in my diary.
All five of us sat down on the beds. I sat on the bed closest to the door right up against the nightstand. Michael sat in the same spot on the other bed. When I sat down, I looked at what was on the nightstand and that’s when I saw the gun. It was a toy gun made of black plastic and there were several one-inch white, hard-plastic bullets on the nightstand with it.
Michael’s gun
In those days, I would do whatever I needed to do to protect myself and I didn’t trust Michael Hutchence so I discreetly scooped up those loose bullets and put them in the pocket of my shorts so he wouldn’t be able to shoot more bullets than what was already in the gun. They looked dangerous.
I was wearing Bermuda shorts and a light gray top that was slightly cropped. It was boxy but fit very tightly around my shoulders-it had been very difficult to put my arms through the armholes when I put it on that day. It was not revealing.
Michael picked up the gun from the nightstand and shot it towards the dresser a couple of times. The bullets looked like they had a high velocity. It looked like it would hurt to be hit by one and I was thinking about that when I said, “I wonder what it would feel like to be shot by one of those bullets?” Michael immediately put the gun against my knee and said, “Do you want to find out?” I quite adamantly said, “No!” He immediately changed his tone from being mischievous to being all sensitive and caring. “I would never do that. I would never hurt you”, he said, really emphasizing “never.” It was weird.
Nick Cave
Also on the nightstand was a Polaroid picture of Michael wearing a t-shirt with a guy’s face on it. I asked him who was the guy on the t-shirt in the photo, and he said it was Nick Cave who was the singer for The Birthday Party. I’d never heard of either of them. According to Michael, Nick Cave was a friend of his. He said, “He’s a genius and a heroin addict but we have fun together.”
I think it was a Polaroid from a photo shoot for Star Hits. A picture of Michael Hutchence wearing a Nick Cave t-shirt appeared in the October 1984 issue. Star Hits was a short-lived American version of the British music magazine Smash Hits. They produced the magazine in New York City which was where INXS was at this time. It makes sense that the band would have done promotional work like this while they were in town.
The Birthday Party
Michael got up and grabbed his Sony Walkman. The cassette tape in the Walkman was Junkyard by The Birthday Party. He offered it to Jackie so she could listen to it. Then when Jackie was done, I put on the headphones and listened for a minute. The song was Dead Joe which has something of a fast, hardcore-punk sound. I nodded my head slightly in time with the fast beat. It just so happened that I listened to one of the few songs I like.
My friends and I started getting Michael’s life story as he brought out different items he had with him. He had at least two watches with him. One was a watch that his father had given to him. “This was one of the first thin watches”, he told us. We saw a family photo from when he was ten. I think he told us the story about his sister Tina being a go-go dancer. It’s not in my diary but I knew that story long before I ever read about it in any of the books that came out after his death. We were in his room for at least two hours so there was a lot of ground covered in that time and I didn’t write it all down.
Michael’s girlfriend
Michele, Michael’s girlfriend in Australia, became a topic of conversation. Michael wanted us to be impressed by her, I think. He showed us a wallet-sized photo of the two of them together. We were told it was taken when “she was 16 and still a virgin.” Which was wild to me because Michele and Michael were topless. They were embracing and their chests were touching so that Michele’s breasts were not visible. Their faces were turned towards the camera. It was a different pose from a similar photo that was published in “Just A Man”, the book by Michael’s mother and sister that came out after his death.
Michael kissed the photo and exclaimed, “I love her!” and said, “she’s very intelligent.” He told us that she knew how to speak Mandarin and I said, “Wow, she speaks Chinese?” We heard that she was in “The One Thing” video but that she didn’t like to do that sort of thing. So, she was too cool for music videos, and she was so smart that she could speak Chinese.
In “The One Thing” video, Michele is the woman sitting between Kirk and Garry Gary.
Michael’s net worth
There was a leather folio lying on one of the beds and it looked like it was there because Michael had been looking at it earlier. The folio was like something a lawyer would carry to hold documents-it looked fancy. Michael picked it up and asked us if we wanted to see how much he was worth. I was studying at the Wharton School of Finance (Michael Hutchence didn’t know that) and I had already taken a financial accounting class, so I said, “Sure!” It would have been interesting to me as a real-life example of finance. He changed his mind about showing us right after I said yes. I asked, “Is that your portfolio of investments?” Michael seemed amused that I used that lingo.
Michael’s book purchases
Next, he pulled out a couple of books he had bought, maybe to try to show me that he wasn’t stupid. My diary does not say the titles of the books probably because it was something I thought I would remember forever. That’s a problem now because there are some key bits of information that I cannot recall no matter how hard I try.
Anyway, Michael pulled out a slim book written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I looked at it and said “Wow, Dostoyevsky!” Jess looked at it and said, “I can’t even pronounce that!” The book was likely “Notes from Underground”, but it could have been “The Gambler.” There’s no way based on the size of the book that it was “Crime and Punishment” or “The Brothers Karamazov.”
Jean Paul Sartre and Existentialism
Then he pulled out a book by Jean Paul Sartre. I’m pretty sure it was one of the three novels from The Roads to Freedom series. It was not one of the two books I had read- “Nausea” or Sartre’s autobiography “The Words.” I saw the Sartre book and got all excited because I loved books. Books were holy to me. I was waving my arm, pointing, and going ooh, ooh, ooh. “I just read Nausea!!” After hearing that, Michael came toward me and hugged me while saying, “This could be true love!” Both of us had been standing when he was showing us the books.
It was back to sitting on the beds after that and Michael and I talked about existentialism for a bit. What I wrote in my diary was that Michael said he used to be into existentialism but now he thought it might be silly, so he wasn’t into it anymore. The way he described existentialism was more like mindfulness. He moved is foot forward and said, “Now I’m doing this” and then he moved his foot back while saying, “And now I’m doing this.” I laughed and said, “yeah.” Because there is an element of what he described in existentialist philosophy.
I also told Michael that I had read “The Words” by Jean Paul Sartre and told him what it was about and that it was good.
Around this time, I got up to use the bathroom. Later, after we had left, I heard that while I was in the bathroom, Michael started telling Jess, Terri and Jackie that he liked me. He said, “I like Donna. She’s lovely.” Things got weirder from there.
Smoking
When I came back, I sat down on the bed opposite of the one Michael was sitting on. He had the pack of cigarettes he bought in the chest pocket of his shirt. I wanted to smoke a cigarette, so I reached over and took the pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket without asking first. That caused Michael to say to me, “You’re wonderful.”
Terri was upset and said, “Since when do you smoke?” and I said, “For a while now.” Back when I was smoking clove cigarettes in school, I mentioned it to Terri, and she said that I had better not start smoking or else. She was correct that smoking is a terrible habit, and no one should do it but that didn’t stop me. I had not been smoking while at home for the summer because I would have had to hide it from my mother, and it wasn’t worth the trouble. It wasn’t an addiction for me yet.
Michael asked me if I smoked because I needed to do something with my fingers and I said yes. His question made me think that one of the reasons he smoked was to keep his hands busy. He told me that I shouldn’t smoke so I didn’t open the pack of cigarettes and put it down. Maybe on the nightstand where earlier I had discreetly removed the plastic bullets from my pocket and put them back where I found them.
It was a surprise when Michael declared that if he was president, he would make cigarettes and alcohol illegal. He said it was hypocritical for those things to be legal when other drugs were illegal and that they both killed a lot of people.
I don’t remember the conversation that followed except that I said I thought hypocrisy was a basic trait of mankind and you had to expect hypocritical behavior from people but that religious people were the worst hypocrites.
My friends were part of the conversations, but I don’t remember much of what they said. My diary is largely about me so…but I did write things down about them here and there.
Staring and smirking
Things were getting to a point where every time I looked over towards Michael, he was looking at me, but I’ll get back to that.
There was this one conversation that we were all participating in, and I can’t remember what it was about except it was about something mundane, some everyday kind of activity. First Terri said something and whatever it was made Michael start smirking. I could tell that he was turning her words into something sexual; either about the first time she had sex or the last time she had sex when there was nothing sexual about them. Then Jess said something about the same subject, and he smirked some more. Same thing when Jackie spoke. My turn came and I looked at Michael, shook my head, and then mouthed the word no. I was not going to fall for that shit.
Girls jumping on stage
Terri brought up what happened at the concert at Radio City Music Hall where the one girl jumped up on stage and grabbed him more than once. At first, he said he didn’t mind and that there was nothing he could do about it. We hated it when girls did that stuff because it’s rude and it messes up the show and we said so. After that Michael said that he had wanted to tell her to fuck off. She was pinching his ass, but he still felt he wasn’t allowed to do it.
I told the story about what happened to us on the night before the Radio City show when we hit a pothole on the way home and how I used my belt to tie the oil pan up so it didn’t scrape the ground and we could drive home. Michael said I was clever.
Sometime during the hours, we spent with him Michael yelled “Jackie Muthafucka” very loudly at Jackie. He was doing an imitation of an American inner-city black man.
Flying planes
It’s possible that INXS thought we were rich because they saw us in so many places, but we were economizing in many of the same ways that they were. We shared hotel rooms or just drove back and forth from New Jersey and split the gas and toll expenses. Terri and I both had jobs. Jess and Terri had economy cars and I had no car because their parents were well-off compared to mine. I was lower middle class, and they were more like regular middle class or upper middle class. We shopped in New York City sometimes, but it was to find bargains on clothes. No expensive designer stuff for us.
But I think that was why Michael asked us if any of us knew how to fly an airplane. He said he wanted to learn how to be a pilot. The answer from us was no. I said to him that I didn’t think I was allowed to fly a plane because my eyesight was very bad. My impression was that there were restrictions for people who did not have 20-20 vision. I told Michael that I was wearing contact lenses and he looked into my eyes. When I said that I was afraid I would go blind someday, he looked very sad and said, “Don’t say that!” which I thought was weird. Then he said, “You can’t go blind” like that would be a tragedy for him so right away I told him, “Don’t worry, I won’t go blind” just to make him feel better and so he could stop being weird.
The conversation got around to my job as a waitress at the Emerson Hotel. Whenever I mentioned the Emerson Hotel to someone who didn’t know the place, I said that it’s not a hotel, it’s a restaurant and I said that to Michael. I said it was on Emerson Road in Emerson, New Jersey. He repeated, “Emerson, Emerson, Emerson” like he was trying to memorize it and he said he would come visit me at work.
Graveyards
I also talked about my love for the Old City neighborhood in Philadelphia. When I was in the city for school I liked to go down there and look around. The burial ground of Christ Church is where Benjamin Franklin is buried. I liked to hang out in that graveyard and when I said that Michael said “Wow, you like graveyards?” He looked and sounded smitten.
More staring
Around this time is when I noticed once again that when I looked his way, he was staring at me. I thought, “You want to stare? I can stare!”- like a staring contest but I didn’t know I was about to make a big mistake. As many, many people have said, Michael Hutchence could be quite mesmerizing so staring at him was not the smart thing to do. But I did it. Because I intended a staring contest, I stared back at him for a long time and then it had the effect that he wanted it to have. I started smiling at him. And then I got up and sat next to him on the other bed.
Attempted seduction
My friends now had to watch as Michael and I ignored them and focused on each other. I asked him, “Besides the Birthday Party, what are you into?” My desire was to get to know more about him. He answered, “You.” His desire was to seduce me. It’s hard to know if he had asked me if I had ever had a tan during this time or if it had happened earlier in the evening. But I see that now as “negging.” My skin was very pale and maybe he thought I was insecure about it but unfortunately for him, I was not an insecure person. Inexperienced was more like it which worked in his favor too, but not as well as insecurity would have.
Michael’s approach to seducing me was like a pick-up artist. He flattered me and laid it on thick. He said he loved me and that I was sweet, gorgeous, and he told me, “You understand things.” I said to him something like, “Gee, I’m flattered.” Not because I felt flattered but because he was obviously trying to flatter me, and I was trying to be polite. When he saw that I wasn’t buying it, he said, “You probably think I’m throwing you a bush but I’m not. I mean it.” The way he said it was like he really did mean the compliments he was giving me. But still, for me, it was hard to believe.
Kissing in front of my friends
The flattery wasn’t working so next he whispered in my ear, “Give me a kiss.” And that worked on me. I turned and looked at him and I gave him a kiss. When I gave him another kiss he put his tongue in my mouth. It was very enjoyable, so we made out for a while. I stopped a couple of times to catch my breath. After the second time I put my hand underneath his hair and held the back of his head while we kissed.
My poor friends. Michael was getting out of control. He started stroking my inner thigh and he grabbed my shirt and started tugging on the side it. He then grabbed the neck of the shirt and pulled it towards him while trying to stick his other hand down the front of my shirt. It was then that I smacked his hands off me and told him to “cut it out!” I realized that this had all just happened right in front of my friends and it seemed like he would have had sex with me right in front of them if I had not stopped him.
Trying to get me to stay
After I stopped him, he basically told all of us that he wanted to make love to me. I looked at my watch and I no longer remember what time it was exactly but it sometime between 3:30am and 5am. So, I told him that I couldn’t because I had to be at work in a few hours and we still had to drive back to New Jersey.
My friend Jess suggested that I call out sick and stay. She had the idea that they could pick me up in East Hampton. Michael jumped all over that idea and said that I could stay and then ride on the tour bus to the show in East Hampton and meet up with my friends there. I said that I would get fired if I didn’t go to work.
Michael suggested that my friends could sleep in one bed and that he was willing to have one guest in his bed-he meant me, of course-and he said that we wouldn’t do anything; we would just sleep. I insisted that I had to go home. He said, “It’s okay, I understand.” The way he said that bothered me-like he was a great guy for being so understanding. It was like he was giving me permission to go home.
He offered to give Terri some cocaine to help her stay awake for the ride home. We never saw the drug because Terri immediately declined. While we were in Michael’s room with him, nobody drank alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or did drugs of any kind.
Telling us what to wear
Now that it was clear that we were going to leave, the talk turned to clothes. Michael said, “Two years from now, I’m going to see you in a club in New York City. You will be wearing a tight, metallic, 50’s style dress that is down to your knees, and you are going to look unbelievable.” Then he told me that I should go to New York City and buy the dress on Broadway. I guess that was where the band shopped for clothes. He told Terri that she would look good in a cheap, black suit.
Time to leave
It was time to leave so Michael hugged Terri, Jess, and Jackie and they left the room. Michael wanted to know if my parents were the reason why I wasn’t staying and I said, “No, it’s my friends.” It was a lot more complicated than that but throwing my friends under the bus was the easy thing to do at the time.
We kissed a little more, but I was too distracted to enjoy it because Jess was yelling, “What about Kirk?” and Terri was yelling something too and I was worried about them waking up the other hotel guests.
Michael asked, “Will I see you again?” and I said yes. “Maybe” would have been a more honest answer because he was really asking if I would sleep with him in the future and I was going to consider it. Technically speaking, what I said wasn’t a lie because I already had plans to go to more INXS concerts and he did “see” me. He kissed me again and called me “smiley”. Before I left, he took my hand in his and bent down and kissed the back of my hand and then he said, “I want to ravish you.” I think I laughed and told him I had to go. And then I walked out of his hotel room and met up with my friends.
I felt about bad about what happened. I didn’t think I was the kind of person who would be rude enough to ignore my friends and then make out with a guy right in front of them. I didn’t want to be that kind of person either. In the car, Jackie told me that she would have done the same thing if she had been in my place.
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.
