A lot of material was covered in every class, so it was bad that I skipped classes to go see Kirk Pengilly in New York City. Especially my finance class which was very difficult. On my first test, I scored 13 points out of 100 but because the test was graded on a curve, it was a passing grade. It was a D. That means that most of the students got low scores but did somewhat better than I did.
I had to get a work-study job for the first time to pay my expenses. Freshman year I didn’t work during the school year. I seem to recall that I was getting a check from Social Security because my father was disabled but the law was changed in 1981 and that payment was being phased out for college students so maybe I remember it wrong.
Diary entries from this period were few-maybe one per month. So, whatever I might have been thinking about Kirk Pengilly was lost to time. I saved some letters from my friends though and through their responses to my letters I can glean some information.
Long-distance phone calls-an 80s thing
Jess wrote to me on September 16, 1983 which was two days after we were at the Power Station music studio together with INXS. She had to write a letter because she couldn’t afford to make a long-distance call to me to say what she wanted to say.
It was so long ago that I don’t really remember exactly how the phone company billed for calls. Back then the telephones were attached to wall in the house. If you had more than one phone, then you were financially well-off. An unlimited number of local calls were allowed for a monthly fee. The area around your home that was considered a local call was a small one. Every other call was long-distance, and those calls were expensive and charged by the minute unless you were calling a toll-free number.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-distance_calling
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/07/style/saving-on-costs-of-long-distance-calls.html
More about our visit to the Power Station
Jess gave me her address at her college in New Jersey so I could write back to her. She wrote, “Dear Donna (Pengilly),” and said she was feeling guilty and wanted to apologize for not finding a way to give Kirk and I more time alone. She thought she should not have gone out to dinner with us.
I must have given her $50 towards the fee she had to pay to get her car back after it was towed from a parking spot near the studio because she said she put it in her account but would not touch it and offered to give it back to me.
She mentions a couple of things from the studio. One is a slightly different take on what I wrote in my diary- Jon says, “It makes about as much sense as natives wearing turquoise and silver” when asked about the “dream on white boy, dream on white girl” lyric. Jess remembered Michael’s answer the same as me-“You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
Jon Farriss was making a reference to the INXS song, “Old World, New World” from the album Shabooh Shoobah.
While we were in the lobby area of the studio, “the guys” (some number of the band members of INXS) sang “like an animal.” Jess asked me if I remembered that and “what that was for or from?” We would not have an answer to that until the album (The Swing) came out and we heard the song, “I Send A Message” because it’s from that song.
Someone must have said something about Andrew having a good head on his shoulders because Jess quotes that in her letter after expressing her disappointment with Garry Gary Beers. The way he acted towards her made her feel that he didn’t like her. That Garry knew she liked him and was avoiding her to the point where he could not be friendly or have a normal conversation with her. She said would forget Garry and pick Andrew as the band member to like instead.
The letter from Jess ended with her saying she can’t wait for the new INXS album to come out. Original Sin was an excellent song that should be even better with the vocals.
Terri’s letters to me from the fall of 1983
Terri wrote to me on September 30, 1983
Another bit of information that didn’t make it into my diary was that Michael Hutchence said his mother had run away before he was born. He just came out with that while he was out there in the lounge- probably when he was telling those high school girls that were his guests about the Chinese restaurants in Australia.
Apparently, I had written to Terri and told her “Weird INXS additions.” I also wrote to her about “Krik.” She wrote, “I don’t mind your talking about ‘Krik’ or whatever he calls himself (Bob Smith?) He’s a doll, I like Kirk.
Terri told me that she found the single for To Look At You in the New Releases section at a record store in Tampa. The B-side for that single was “The Sax Thing”, an instrumental by Kirk Pengilly. She couldn’t tell me what it sounded like. Said that she would have to bring it to Jen’s house to listen to it. She said that she had a bad feeling that it might be a saxophone version of The One Thing and that she liked to hear singing and not just music.
While she was there, she saw an issue of Trouser Press magazine with the Flock of Seagulls on the cover and asked me if I still get the magazine. The answer was yes. I had a subscription to Trouser Press magazine up until the time it went out of business. Terri said that I would notice that my Shriekback was profiled and also New Models. Both bands were now connected with INXS. Shriekback because it led to everything that happened with Kirk Pengilly and New Models because they opened for INXS at the Ritz in New York City. If you have it, do me a big favor and xerox it for me, is what she wrote.
Postcards were mentioned. Terri told me to let her know if “Krik’s” postcard arrives before March! (I think we had heard that INXS would come back in March?) She mentioned that Jess told her about the postcard I sent to her that was wacko, I’m sure. I wrote and drew lot of strange things back then. The postcard said something about Andrew Farriss. The two main songwriters for INXS were the two people in the band I didn’t like. I seem to have drawn a cartoon about Michael Hutchence that I sent to Terri. Mocking him, I’m sure. Terri said she sent a copy of it to Michael with my name on it. Then she said she was just kidding. (Terri had an address in Australia where she did write to members of the band.) She also told me I have nerve to say Michael is strange. That’s because I was strange, but I liked my kind of strange and not his.
Another letter from Terri is dated October 23, 1983. This letter was written on homemade stationery. We used to xerox photos of INXS (or others) at the top of the page and then write the letter on the rest of the paper. Terri used this photo and called it “To jump at you!”
This letter informed me that I had sent a 90-minute-high fidelity blank cassette tape so Terri could record The Sax Thing for me on a low fidelity stereo. I really wanted to hear the song! She taped it three times for me so I wouldn’t have to rewind it as much. Very thoughtful. Terri complimented Kirk’s song and said she played it over the phone for Jess to hear it. My friends were great-they shared their music purchases with me. We all shared as much as we could with each other, but my resources were the most limited.
I tried to make up for it by being entertaining. I wrote poems about INXS, and I drew cartoons. Pretty sure I wrote a poem about Michael Hutchence called “The Drug Thing”, but I don’t know if it was what Terri referred to in this letter. She wrote, “Like I already told ya, I lurved your poems. Write anything on rhymable Kirk yet?! What the heck does Kirk rhyme with? Jerk, perk, clerk, turk, work; not normal words, fer sure! And what of this story you mentioned- I’m almost afraid to ask!” It would be nice if I had an answer to the question about the story I seem to have written way back when. Not a clue what it was.
My work-study job involved checking IDs to keep people who weren’t students out of the dorms in the western part of Penn campus where my dorm was. Sometimes I would work behind the front desk at the high-rise apartments that were dorms where I would answer the phone, etc. I would write these letters and create my poems, drawings, and cartoons while at work instead of studying for class or doing my homework.
About my cartoon, Terri wrote, “You were right-I did hang it up! Thanks for your highly unusual ‘masterpiece!’ I’m so proud to be the owner of the original-this thing will be worth big money someday! I had to share it, tho, so I xeroxed it for Jackie and Jess (haven’t sent it to Jess yet)…I laughed so hard. I especially got a kick out of “Garry Gary Baah” and the bit about Andrew…that was really funny, probably because it’s true!! Thanx very much, Mrs. Penguinilly!” I can only assume that I turned every member of INXS into some kind of animal in the cartoon.
There was a part of the letter where Terri talked a lot about music because she had finally found a radio station in Tampa that played new wave music from midnight until 3am. She taped it so she could listen to it and find new bands. “Soon we MAY see the days when I get to name some obscure band and maybe someone will take notice of ME! I can dream, ya know!” That’s what happened with me and Kirk Pengilly. One night Terri called the new wave program and requested INXS- supporting our band!
I must have mentioned that I was smoking clove cigarettes and that made Terri angry. She was right- it was a bad and stupid habit. Yelled at me that she would fuck me up and that Kirk would think he was kissing a dirty ashtray. It turned out that I was never going to kiss Kirk again, but we didn’t know that at the time.
One last quote from Terri’s letter, “When Jess and I were talking about the band taking turns on the b sides of the single, we couldn’t help but wonder what the hell GG might come up with. We figured, maybe “The Bass thing” of all bassline! (His spine is the bassline) And what of “Duh” Hutchence? He doesn’t write music, to my knowledge. That is, what will he do-recite poetry or something? “Gimme drugs…I need some Silly Shit!!””
Kirk writes Donna a letter from Japan
And then one day in November 1983, I checked my mailbox and there was a letter from Kirk Pengilly. I still have it and I’ll say what is in it because it’s not some kind of personal love letter but I’m not going to share it. Here is a picture of the envelope instead.
As you can see, it was posted on November 2, 1983, from Akasaka in Tokyo, Japan. The letter was written on November 1st on one side of one sheet of hotel stationery from The President Hotel. The hotel’s address was 2-2-3 Minamiaoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Located kind of in between Meiji Jingu and the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. There is still a building at this address today in 2025 but it is no longer a hotel.
Kirk apologized that he had not written sooner. He said that the day after we had visited him in New York City and the car had been towed, that his wallet had been stolen. No story about how that happened-just a list of what went missing: money, credit cards, passport, and my address. That was the day (September 14, 1983) when they were back in the studio at the Power Station recording the vocals with Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates.
Now in New York City back in 1983, especially in Hell’s Kitchen, there was a lot of crime, so the story was believable in that respect. So many years have passed now where I didn’t even think about INXS or what transpired that I can’t remember what I knew back then when I received this letter. But I surely would have known which address was on which piece of paper that I had given to Kirk. The bank where I had my checking account was near the Penn campus in West Philadelphia. That’s where I lived for most of the year. My school address would have been on the deposit slip if there was an address on it.
He wrote that while he was packing to leave for Japan, he found my address on the postcard from me that was given to him in Atlanta. INXS left London for Japan on the day before he wrote the letter. Back when I wrote the postcard for him, I’m not sure I even knew my address at college. Also, the whole point of that postcard was to tell him where I lived in New Jersey and that would have been in Hillsdale, not Philadelphia. So, I think I took this story as a lie. Well-meaning, but still, a lie.
If Kirk really had had his wallet stolen, and he wasn’t just writing this letter to me to be polite because he said he would write to me, then he could have told me his address and asked me to write to him and give him the contact information that was lost. Besides just trying to let me down easy, I think he did what he did because he was living with the future mother of his child, Karen Hutchinson, before he even met me. And that’s what bothers me today. Neither of us women deserved to be treated like that.
Even if they had some kind of understanding with each other about activities on the road, I wasn’t part of that. It wasn’t fair to me. I deserved respect. Toby Creswell interviewed Karen for his book, “Shine Like it Does: The Life of Michael Hutchence”. On page 105, Karen said, “You’d be crazy to think that twenty-year-old guys who had it thrown at them every night were not seeing other people occasionally.” That was not what happened between Kirk and me. I was pursued just because I was there and too pretty to be left in peace; it was not by invitation. We weren’t there for sex and they knew it.
Kirk was not a pig about it and didn’t obviously salivate over me the way Michael Hutchence was going to a year later. If he had done that then I would not have liked him. He wasn’t coming on to me. We were having conversations and I enjoyed them. I thought Kirk Pengilly was interesting. But now it seems that the goal was to take advantage of being out on the road. I’m not going to let women take the blame for these guy’s behaviors. INXS as a rock band was not as badly behaved as Mötley Crüe. That’s a fact. But that doesn’t make them good guys or excuse them.
Back to the letter- Kirk wrote that he was in Japan for one week and INXS would be making a couple of videos. The recording of the album was going well and after Japan they would be going back to Sydney to finish the album (The Swing). He hoped that school was going well for me.
He had fun in London where he spent all his money on clothes and saw the band Big Country in concert. And that’s pretty much all he wrote. He said he hoped I was well and happy before signing off. Of course, I was happy to get a letter and I told my friends immediately!
While INXS was in Japan they made videos for Original Sin, and I Send A Message. I lived in Japan from 2021 until 2024 so I visited the temple where I Send A Message was filmed. Gokokuji Temple in Tokyo. I have Matthew Marsland to thank for that. I didn’t know where the video was filmed but he did.
Matthew Marsland’s Facebook post about visiting Gokokuji Temple
https://www.facebook.com/profile/501692468/search?q=%20temple%20tokyo