Remember?

If not, I will share the pain. Not for the weak-eared or faint-hearted.

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“Groupies sleep with rockstars because they want to be near someone famous. We are here because of the music, we inspire the music. We are Band Aids,” ~Penny Lane, “Almost Famous“

Last week I went to the Medina Ballroom to see Bret Michaels. Yeah. It’s taken me an entire week to process the experience. It was unlike any concert I have ever attended and I’m hoping it stays that way.

With each year I grow older, my desire to go see live rock and roll diminishes a little more. In fact, there are fewer and fewer acts that can lure me out of the house. Is that a little lame? Yes, but I don’t care. It’s why I much prefer being a booknerd and not not a musicgeek.

Left to my own devices I’d never, ever attend a Bret Michaels concert. But it was FFJ’s birthday and I’d do just about anything to make her happy, even attending a concert where about 50% of the attendees were dressed like rejects from Whore Bus and the other 50% were the men who lust after them. I was definitely uncomfortable. It was not my scene at all.

Adding to my discomfort was the fact that I felt kind of suckered. I’ve made it clear that I doubt the seriousness of Michaels’ various health ailments. Plus, I can guarantee you that show was nowhere near sold out until after Michaels’ became headline news. I’d venture to guess that nearly half of 2000+ audience had no intention of going to a Bret Michaels concert before he suffered the hemorrhage. (Just like how his Facebook page went from 30,000 fans right before the news and skyrocketed to more than 380,000 after the news spread).

It was just kind of icky. I wasn’t there for the music. I’m a casual Poison fan at best. That’s probably even too strong. I’m a non-hater, a status that has become even more precarious after hearing Bret slaughter a cover of Sublime’s “What I Got.”

While I wasn’t there to be near anyone famous, it sure felt like a lot of people were.

Matters weren’t helped by the merch table, where if you were willing to shell out $150 (the price had gone up from the pre-illness rate of $100, the signs were crudely marked up with a black Sharpie) for “vintage” Bret-gear you would get a VIP pass and the opportunity to meet Bret outside the Whore Bus.

Since FFJ was one of those willing to shell out the bucks to meet Bret, I got to spend a lot of time sitting on the side of a hill pondering things.

The Bret Michaels people were not messing around about who could and could not linger next to the Whore Bus — it was very clearly for paying customers only. I watched as they aggressively threatened a few people who were standing too close without paying for the privilege. While FFJ mixed with the VIPs, I wondered who I would pay $150 to meet. I couldn’t think of anyone.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, I thought, I’d pay $150 to see Barack Obama speak, but then only if it was a fundraiser. I did pay $30 to hear (not meet) John Irving, but I also got a signed first-edition hardcover book with that.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s nobody I’d pay $150 to meet.

Once FFJ came back, dreamy-eyed and giddy over having hugged Bret, she told me how even with the VIPs security weren’t messing around. She said they kept reminding everyone that he is sick, which made me feel a little better. But mostly it just made me feel kind of sad, as sad as you can feel for someone who, by my estimation, made at least $10,000 from the people who wanted to meet him.

It made me sad. Not just because people were willing to pay to be near someone famous, but that Bret Michaels, at least to me, had ceased being a person and had become sort of commodity.

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Something smells fishy.

Now, admittedly, I got my medical degree from Speculation U, but things just aren’t adding up here. How you can go from having a brain hemorrhage, a “warning stroke,” and a hole in your heart one week and then be on every single talkshow on the planet the a few weeks later.

And not just every single talkshow but also American Idol, oh yeah and then kicking off a summer concert tour in Biloxi, MS. Yes, he was back on stage performing a little more than five weeks after suffering from a brain hemorrhage. The type of hemorrhage that kills 20% of people who suffer from it (according to People Magazine). So is Bret, who has suffered from diabetes most of his life, some sort of superhuman?

I’m not saying he faked it. That’d be totally macabre and I like to believe no human alive would be that desperate for the spotlight. I’m just saying that the timing for a deathbed comeback was kind of fortuitous. Was it not? Plus, what great promotion for Snapple, Donald Trump, The Apprentice, American Idol, and the VH-1 reality show about Bret’s life. Money cannot buy this kind of media blitz.

Usually I’m pretty skeptical in general and tend to think everything I see and read is either some sort of marketing ploy or a public relations push. I just don’t believe anything I read (or hear) in the media. But this one I fell for.

Sucker.

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Since this was pre-widespread Internet use and pre-cellphones news travelled the old-fashioned way by TV and telephone. I learned about River Phoenix’s death when my friend Whitley called to tell me. Or maybe I got my Mom’s call first. I know it wasn’t Jodi Hanson’s call first, but maybe it was Nikki’s. I don’t remember exactly. All I do know is that my friends and family were curious I was handling the death of someone I fell in love with sometime in 1987. A love that I very clearly communicated to anyone who would listen.

Today, I’m getting that deja vu feeling with the news that Bret Michaels is in critical condition with a brain hemorrhage. Once again my friends and family have flooded me with the news of Bret’s condition. Again, I guess I’m not subtle with voicing my affection. Even Sister #2 asked if I was, and I quote, “freaking out.”

I’m not freaking out. I’m concerned. It’s the kind of concern I’d have for any person I never met but who had entertained me for many hours.

What I’m really curious about is how long it takes to recover from something like this. FFJ and I have tickets for his June 4th concert at the Medina Ballroom. Is a brain hemorrhage something that you walk away from and start rocking out on stage a mere six weeks later?

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Bret seals the deal. Obviously. I’m not sure why he has so much sway over my television habits, but he does. I wasn’t a big Poison fan either. Though I do remember singing a particularly memorable a capella version of “Talk Dirty to Me” in Jenny Trunnel’s driveway. I had the 45 and loved the hell out of that song.

Really, Sister #3 was the Poison fan. She papered her bedroom walls (at least the walls she was allocated under the Sister Shared Bedroom Wall Act of 1991) with pictures of Michaels and Poison. I think her sixth or seventh grade school picture prominently features a Poison t-shirt.

But in summer of 07 when Rock of Love first premiered I fell under the spell of Bret Michaels, and I cannot even figure out why. He has fake Barbie hair, his music is not my thing, and I’m not even partial to blondes at all. In fact, of all the hair colors blondes are my least favorite.

There’s a lot of bad hair on this show between the Don and Bret and Rod Blagoblahblah. But that’s beside the point.

The point is I am sitting here, a little giddy, at watching Bret Michaels fry up some burgers. What happened here? I wish someone could explain it.

P.S.POILER. Bret’s team Rocksolid just won the first task. And I feel bad for rooting for the men, and against Cyndi Lauper.

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