Today is Joey’s 37th birthday. We celebrated by stuffing ourselves silly at the Japanese steakhouse along with Monkey Man, Joey’s brother and his new wife, and then having a Monkey Man-designed birthday cake afterwards. Apparently, it’s mandatory that the cake has to be covered in yellow frosting balloons with colorful frosting ribbons…well, I couldn’t exactly meet those specifications but it did have little red, blue, and yellow balloons on there. Monkey Man has been obsessing over this cake for days, and this morning I was telling Joey about it and he said, “Just like his momma – always trying to plan the next party.” Umm, guilty as charged. Like how I had a little drunkfest at the pool this afternoon with four of my girlfriends and several pitchers of drinks while Joey played golf. You've got to plan ahead for these things, like making sure you have enough portable pitchers to mix at least two kinds of margaritas and some lemon drop martinis so you can - ahem - surreptitiously sneak them into the pool area.
When I first met Joey, I found out that he played guitar and I was so excited I almost peed in my britches. I had dated a guy for 2 years who has gone on to be a fairly successful musician (with a video coming out on MTV2 sometime this fall that hopefully won’t be a replay of our 10-year class reunion where he played a song saying how he hated me for breaking up with him) and I really missed having that in my life. I’m a classically trained pianist, violinist, and flautist – and can rock out on the English handbells too – so obviously music is a very important part of my life.
But the first time I heard Joey play, I was somewhat disappointed. He knew one song. One. Song. And every time he played it, it all sounded the same:
Duh duh duh, duh duh DUH DUH
Duh duh duh DUH
Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh
Over and over and over again. To the point I wanted to get a gun and shoot the guitar to put it out of its misery. Two years ago when I was working out on the jobsite, SG and Cat Door M were hanging out in my office and we were joking about having our own jobsite band…SG knew that Joey played guitar and suggested inviting him to play with us, but I just gave him the look of death and said, “He knows one song, and it all sounds the freaking same and he plays it over and over again until I want to shoot him.”
Last Thursday, I was driving along and – believe it or not – NOT listening to Def Leppard, but XM radio.
And the song came on.
Duh duh duh, duh duh DUH DUH
Duh duh duh DUH
Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh
I was all like – what the hell? It’s a real freaking song? Yup, “The Innocent” by Drivin’ N Cryin’. Just shows how much of that I listened to in college. I was so shocked that I almost drove off the road and spent the rest of my drive laughing so hard I was crying. Driving and crying, get it? (Thank you, thank you – I’ll be here through Saturday night…)
This morning I finally told Joey about hearing the song. “How the hell did you ever hear the song anyway?” I asked him, since I think 95% of the music he listened to at that point was Kiss and not much else. As it turns out, he had a few friends in college that all used to get together and jam out on Thursday nights and one of them put in the Drivin’ N Cryin’ CD on that particular song and they all were able to play it instantly. Go figure.
So, I don’t think I have much to worry about in terms of him becoming a rich and famous guitarist – but he is such a great guy. He has 144 employees that he has to worry about keeping employed every day so they can feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. His parents that need him a little more every day as they get older. Me, Little Miss High Maintenance. And Monkey Man, who thinks he’s the best thing since the Power Rangers. It’s not just anyone that would get a special birthday cake with yellow balloons.
So honey, you may not be a rock star - but you rock my world every day. Happy birthday.
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