from Hello Hello Hello to Here And Now

Day 631, Session 116:
When/Where: Wednesday March 12th - Running (not literally) around the neighborhood catching up on chores
First song: Hello Hello Hello by The XYZ Affair
Last full song: Here And Now by Del Amitri
Progress: 1862-1877 of 5814 (skipped one podcast)
Total Songs Heard: 1495

Sweet Jesus Beverly, I believe winter may finally be giving up its icy grip on Chicago. Yesterday, for the first time in forever, I was able to go outside for an extended period without wearing a coat. Man that was refreshing.

Musically the day started with The XYZ Affair. To the best of my knowledge, the musical version of The XYZ Affair has nothing to do with the late 18th-century diplomatic imbroglio between the U.S.A. and France. I found the XYZ Affair after watching this video on the You Tubes:

I like this particular song, All My Friends, quite a bit. I decided to investigate more XYZ Affair after seeing this video. If you grew up at the same time I did, you also loved Double Dare and Marc Summers. The idea of Marc Summers keeping green slime in his fridge at home immediately endeared this band to me. If you'd like to discover some XYZ Affair for yourself, check out their website.

Then there was Hello, Dolly!

It was April 3rd, 1992. It was a Friday. I was 16. It was the night of my first real date. Yes, I was 16 and it was my first date. Why, you may ask, did it take until I was 16 to have a first date? There are a few reasons: 1) Have you seen me? I look pretty much the same now as I did then, only without the beard (which is to say, like a dweeb. For some reason the girls didn't go for the dweeb look.) B) It would be much more effective for the rule of threes if I had a solid B in place here, but I'm having trouble thinking of one so I'll move directly onto... III) There was only one girl I wanted to date.

The problem with reason III is that while the girl and I were very close friends, she was consistently dating people who weren't me. In fact, I had just about given up on the girl. Around Christmas she had been boyfriend free and we started spending a lot of time together and I took the plunge and asked her out... and she said no. Then around my birthday I tried again... and she said no. At that point I had just enough pride to tell her that I wasn't going to ask her out again. Of course since I still wanted to go out with her, this made the relationship a little awkward over the next month until finally I told her that I needed to break up with her as a friend.

About a week later she asked me out. Her sister drove. Two other friends were there too. I spent the whole show trying to figure out exactly how I had ended up there and hoping my hand didn't start sweating too much while holding hers. It wasn't really just the two of us until after the show. "Mysteriously" after the show everyone else disappeared for a little. She was sitting on a window ledge. I was standing next to her. I remember thinking, "So, here we are," as she leaned over and we kissed for the first time. My first kiss. (did I mention I was 16?!?) I had been waiting for it for 4 years. It was totally worth it.

I don't remember a damn thing about the show itself, but when I heard Hello, Dolly!, all the rest came rushing back.

Turns out there is an advantage to having a severely limited dating history. All the important individual moments stay within reach in my swiss cheese brain.

Hello, Dolly! - Bobby Darin