I recently attended a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concert with nine of my closest friends, including my wife. The band was great, the evening was great, but…

My perspective on these things has changed.

The concert took place at Red Rocks Amphitheater, an amazing outdoor facility in the foothills just west of Denver. The venue is a natural amphitheater formed by gigantic red rocks (hence the name) that jut from the earth like gigantic orange nacho chips stuck in sandy bean dip. The stage and seating areas have some history as well — they were constructed by the CCC in the 1930s. All told, it’s one of the best places in the U.S. to see a rock concert on a clear night.

Our group consisted of four couples, all in their thirties or early forties, plus two teenage boys. We immediately noticed that our troupe was outrageously non-conformist. For instance, rather than sporting the myriad of piercings, tattoos, and chain-link necklaces that the lemming-like crowd favored, my buddy Tim and I made a bold statement with our plaid shirts. In fact, that we wore shirts at all was a choice that few other males were willing to make; in a hopeless show of obedience with the group mind, one male after another stripped to the waist to display anemic white suburban-bred bodies with identical West African tribal tattoo markings.

I believe the crowd was in awe of us and kept their distance out of respect or perhaps fear. Instead of lighting up the obligatory marijuana cigarette, my wife and I opened our small cooler and had a mind-expanding meal of Subway sandwiches and cold cans of soda. The crowd let out a collective gasp as I crunched into the Kosher deli pickle that I had neatly stored in a small Zip-Loc bag. One young man tentatively asked me if I had “a pipe,” to which I replied that I did not, but I had some of those long, cigar-shaped pretzels and I was willing to share. He declined, sadly.

At Red Rocks, the concept of seating is reduced to its bare minimum: long wooden planks serve as benches at the edge of wide concrete steps. Therefore, most people bring old blankets to soften the impact of the nearly-petrified wood, as well as protecting delicate hineys from splinters. My wife and I spread a thick, old picnic blanket on the bench, folded four times to provide maximum softness.

Several drunk, giggly girls of approximate college age sat behind us. When one of them spilled an entire 16-ounce cup of beer, partially soaking our picnic blanket, we shrugged and rearranged the blanket to avoid wetting our behinds. When the same girl spilled another beer, five minutes later, soaking one of the few remaining dry sections of our blanket, I responded harshly by telling her to, “Watch what the hell you’re doing.”

This elicited a response from an aging hippie near us to “lighten up.” My wife and I did not feel like lightening up at this point, but we did take satisfaction in making fun of the fact that the aging hippie was only dimly identifiable as a woman, having long since abandoned any attempt at femininity. My wife referred to this creature as “he/she.” This he/she continued to frown at me for the rest of the evening, apparently forgetting his/her own advice about “lightening up.”

The concert began, with “The Wallflowers” opening. The Wallflowers are a respectively-talented band that had a string of hits back in the mid 90s, and likely would have faded into obscurity by now except that Jakob Dylan, son of Bob, is the lead singer. Jakob is a more musically-gifted singer than his father, but isn’t much better-looking and doesn’t exhibit an exuberant stage presence to show his thankfulness at not having to service pop machines for a living. Not that there’s anything wrong with servicing pop machines; if you’re someone who keeps my all-important cans of diet Coke cold and ready to be dispensed at a moment’s notice, I thank you.

In any event, Jakob Dylan stood in front of his band, singing his string of hit songs, looking dour and serious. This did not prevent the hordes of scantily-dressed young women, only a small portion of which actually deserved to be scantily clad, from screaming and whistling and shouting, “Woo!” throughout The Wallflowers’ 45-minute set. At one point, a young woman actually lobbed a white #10 envelope to Jakob, presumably filled with directions to her apartment and descriptions of the acts she might be willing to perform should he actually show up. Jakob attempted to read it while singing, then tossed it aside on the drum riser, where it most likely sat until being retrieved by a desperate roadie named Vic later that evening.

After The Wallflowers finished, my wife pointed out a young woman sitting several rows in front of us wearing the latest low-cut mauve pleather jeans. This is of the type popularized recently by Brittany Spears and Christina Agu-whatever-the-hell-her-name-is. Unfortunately, her stylishness was mitigated by the fact that her purple thong panties were NOT low-cut, and indeed, came right up out of the back of her pants in all their dotted purple mesh glory. My wife observed that women are finally catching up to men, who have been wearing their undergarments out of the top of their pants for years now. My wife said she actually prefers women exposing their underwear out of the top of their pants, since women generally have “prettier” underwear.

My wife is not normally this witty, but she was “on” this evening.

Soon the lights went dark and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers appeared on stage, playing brilliant versions their many hit songs. Tom Petty won major points from us by actually smiling at the audience and his band, as if he actually enjoys his job of being simultaneously adored by tens of thousands of people. His light blond hair is more gray than blond these days, and he’s no longer stick thin, but he still looked cool in a sparkly coat that could only be worn by a rock star or a mother-of-the-bride. A tuft of beard made him resemble a very hip Colonel Sanders — the old patron saint of Kentucky Fried Chicken before it was neutered to the initials “KFC” in the hopes that people might forget that fried chicken is actually fried.

After a half hour or so of great music, my wife and I climbed the very steep, non-”Americans-with-Disabilities-Act”-compliant steps to the top of Red Rocks. From the top, you can see the twinkling nighttime lights of Denver spread out behind the stage. It was a special night. We kissed. We held hands. We bought an enormous lemonade for six dollars. And as we made our way back to our seats, we carefully avoided the young couple who were also sharing a special moment as she barfed and he held her hair out of her barf stream.

Tom Petty played for two nearly flawless hours before taking a short break. In fact, the only downer of the evening came as he started playing “Free Falling” for an encore. For some reason, the band chose to release great quantities of poison gas into the sky, emitted from deadly devices known as “fog machines.” My eyes watered and began to sting. As I blinked, I wondered why anyone would choose to inflict this hideous toxic cloud upon such an enthusiastic and compliant audience – an audience that had paid $45 per ticket plus another $11.50 per ticket in dubious service charges from the Servants of Hell at Ticketmaster, just for the privilege of having our lungs burned with mustard gas.

It was a memorable evening. Old people smoked pot, tall people stood on benches right in front of us, and the “he/she” woman of near-indeterminate gender whistled so loudly in my left ear that I went temporarily deaf. In the end, we gathered up our beer-soaked blanket and drove home, humming Tom Petty songs all the way.

Illustration by Tim Noreen

1. The garage shall be forever kept as the sacred realm of the Man. No lacy curtains nor gingham privacy panels shall be allowed on the windows of the sacred garage.
2. The garage shall not be cleaned, except in cases of extreme need, such as when a pair of holy Vise-Grip locking pliers hath gone missing.
3. Sawdust, grease, and oil are the holy sacraments of the garage, and thus must never be disposed of in haste or with malice.
4. Honor thy rags.
5. Complaineth not when the Man’s Friends cometh over to work on a four-wheel-drive vehicle on a Thursday night until 2:00 a.m. Be thee grateful that the Man and his Friends are not attending stimulating performances of voluptuous harlots at Shotgun Willies on this evening.
6. Thou shalt not remove the beer bottles from the front yard before work in the garage hath yet been completed. Yea, the front yard must be considered an extension of the garage when the garage door remaineth in an upright and horizontal position.
7. Honor the Man and his Friends at all times, even when one of these Friends dropeth a heavy steel truck wheel in the driveway at 12:30 a.m., awakening thyself and wrathful neighbors who calleth to complain.
8. Storeth not antique doll houses in the garage.
9. Thou shalt not ask the Man to bring in the groceries when you see that his hands are greasy, or that he is underneath a car working on the evil U-joint.
10. Adjust not the volume of music that playeth in the garage. Impose not your questionable music tastes on those who savor the druidic chant of Rage Against The Machine at 11 p.m.
11. Borroweth not the hammer of the Man which hangeth in position on the blessed pegboard. If thou breakest this commandment, at least have the courtesy to place the hammer back in correct position on the blessed pegboard. No, putting it on the workbench isn’t good enough — how wouldst the man know to looketh there?
12. Tools of the garage shouldst remain in the garage at all times, excepting when the Man shall use them for home repair, in which case the sacred tools must remain wherever the Man leaves them, verily including even the kitchen counter and the upstairs hallway.
13. Leaveth not the tools of the Man on the back porch, lest they become rusty from rain.
14. Loaneth not the tools of the Man to your fishy work friends who hath not earned tools of their own.
15. Pulleth not your car into the garage whilst a repair doth transpire in the other bay. The space is needed for many great deliberations and ritual beer drinking. Considereth any snow removal that may be required from your vehicle the next morning as a small penance to pay in comparison to the bloody knuckles, hangover, and bodily suffering borne by the Man.
16. Closeth the trash can at all time, lest the stinking odor of cat poop foul the air.
17. Covet not the eleven Phillips head screwdrivers on the Man’s pegboard, and cast not thy insults on the Man’s need for additional screwdrivers in the future. Each screwdriver serves a unique, substitution-impossible purpose.
18. Thou shalt not remove the multitude of straightened, oddly-formed, spray-paint-encrusted coat hangers dangling from the garage ceiling. Resist the temptation to dispose of these humble tools, and your rewards shall include a freshly painted iron planter — as soon as the Man finishes working on his four-wheel-drive vehicle, of course.
19. Maintaineth a minimum of six yo-yo’s (retracting tape rulers), or findeth not one when needed.
20. A man’s worth shall be measured by the number of cans of partially used spray paint on his shelves. However, the Man will never have the right color for the job at hand.
21. Obey the Flat Surface Rule. Always put down the tool you are using on the nearest flat surface. Then look for it elsewhere — stopeth for a beer when discouraged.
22. Respect the large piece of cardboard against the garage wall. The Man useth it to lay on when he is under the car. Touch it not, lest lightning strike thee dead.
23. I sayeth to you: No sweeter sound ever shall be heard than thy own air impact wrench in thy own garage.
24. Thou shalt love the smell of grease as thou loveth thyself.
25. Take not the name of GOJO Creme Formula hand cleaner in vain, especially in the fruity lemon scent.

Our motto: That spark plug socket must be here somewhere.

This is a story about Gus the cat. He was one of the most wonderful cats that ever lived. He died a few months ago, in July. This is the story of who he was, and how he lived.

My wife and I met Gus at an animal shelter in January 1995. He greeted us at the door with a loud meow and tried to get past us to go outside. He was one of the largest cats either of us had ever seen. He was an orange tabby, short hair, and looked quite a bit like Morris the cat from the TV commercials.

My wife and I had decided to adopt a cat. I already had one cat, a small gray tabby named Jezebel who had been mine since she was a kitten. My previous roommate and I both had had cats: my Jezebel and his Sybil. (Our hope was that if we named our cats after erratic women perhaps we could avoid dating them. Unfortunately, Sybil truly was erratic; she clawed the furniture to shreds and pooped in the bathtub.)

In late 1994, Sybil and Jezebel parted company when my wife and I purchased a condo on the far north side of Chicago. Jez was very lonely. When we arrived home after a day’s work, she acted as if she had been abandoned for weeks. We felt guilty. Jez needed a friend.

The animal shelter was an old Victorian house on Irving Park Road in Chicago. It was full of hundreds of cats of every shape, color, breed, and personality. Cats were everywhere. (There was also one unlucky dog who lived in the enormous house of cats.) My wife and I entered the animal shelter. Gus followed us.

We explored the nooks and crannies of this cat shelter. There were cats everywhere, playing, napping, eating, fighting, occasionally trying to get our attention. When we went downstairs, a cat tried to attack our hair from his hideout near the ceiling. Everywhere we went, Gus followed. When my wife sat in a chair, Gus leapt into her lap, and started purring loudly.

We decided to adopt Gus.

People may “adopt” cats, but cats choose people. Since I was Jezebel’s person, we wanted Gus to pick Karie as his favorite human friend. So after we got him home, I attempted to ignore him for a few weeks, while Karie lavished him with love. Jezebel hid under the bed for several days at first, emerging to eat and hiss at this intruder into her house.

It didn’t take long for Gus to work his way into our hearts. For a start, he wasn’t like other cats. Make a quick list of the traits that cat-haters cite when asked why they don’t like cats: haughty, arrogant, non-loving, diffident, mean…Gus was none of these. Indeed, Gus seemed to have the personality of a dog – he loved all people, strangers and friends. Countless times we heard, “I’ve never much liked cats, but I love Gus.”

Gus was gentle. He’d play with you, and sometimes chew your finger, but it was never a hard bite. He would let you do anything with him; you could pick him up and carry him around upside down and he would just purr. He lived for attention. He was like Will Rogers – he never met a person he didn’t like.

Everyone loved Gus, but Gus loved no one as much as Karie. When Karie arrived home every day, Gus greeted her at the door with a loud yowl. “Where have you been? Why did you leave me?” If Karie was watching TV, Gus was on her lap. When Karie went to bed, Gus slept on her pillow – indeed, he took most of it, being the large-size fellow that he was.

He was the smartest cat I’ve ever known. He knew how to open the doors to cabinets and crawl inside. When my parents visited us in Colorado after we bought a house, they investigated a curious sound coming from under the sink in the guest bathroom. It was Gus, curled up and purring. He gave them a plaintive “meow” that said, “What took you so long? I’ve been starved for attention!”

Karie and I often wondered where Gus had come from. We found him at a shelter, but clearly he was a cat who had grown up in somebody’s home, giving and receiving love. He was no stray alley cat who tolerated people; he loved people.

Gus lived for two things: attention and going outside. When we lived in Chicago, he would occasionally escape into the hallway of our building or onto the back porch. He knew we would chase him when he made these escapes, so after running to the end of the porch, by our neighbors’ apartment, he would lie down and wait for us to come and get him. While he waited, he would snack on their houseplants.

When we moved to Colorado and bought a house, we started to let the cats into the back yard. Jezebel was timid and would stay close to the house, ready to run inside at the first sign of anything scary. Gus, however, was clearly in his element. He would eat grass and weeds, hide under shrubs, and lie in the sun. He soon learned to jump the fence. When he jumped the back fence, he could visit the neighbors’ dogs, who barked and growled and yipped and yowled, which didn’t faze Gus in the least. If he jumped the front fence, he could visit our front yard, where there might be kids. He loved kids. After a while, he didn’t bother jumping the back fence anymore.

All the kids in the neighborhood knew Gus. He was he most docile, affectionate cat anyone had ever seen. Kids who had cats at home would come across the street to play with Gus in our front yard. If there were no kids nearby, he would wander down the street looking for them. It got to be a regular event: we’d let Gus run out the back door, and about 45 minutes later, a small kid would ring our front doorbell, struggling to hold enormous Gus, who was completely relaxed and purring loudly. Karie kept a jar of Tootsie Rolls by the front door to give to kids who brought Gus home.

One time, three neighborhood kids, two boys and a girl, decided to take Gus for “a walk.” Gus may have been dog-like in many ways, but walking on a leash was not one of these. The kids hooked up a leash, and then proceeded to drag him around the yard. When they stopped, he purred. Then the kids decided that it would be interesting to watch him climb the enormous cottonwood tree in our front yard. Since Gus was more interested in being petted than climbing trees, the kids thought maybe they should give him a head start. They began pulling him up the tree by the leash. At this point, any other cat would have freaked, but not Gus. He simply hung there by the collar, several feet off the ground, as kids exhorted him to “Climb, Gus!” I think he would have hung there until he was hanged if my wife and I hadn’t rescued him. We removed the leash, and Gus looked up at Karie with much love and purred.

Gus was full-grown when we found him at the shelter. As he grew older, he slowly lost his hearing. He stopped greeting my wife at the door when she got home from work because he couldn’t hear her arrive. Karie would go looking for him, and there he would be, asleep on a shelf in the linen closet. Sometimes he would be startled when she reached down to pet him, since he hadn’t heard her approach. But he always gave her a big “meow” and then started to purr.

Gus was the loudest purring cat I’ve ever heard. You could hear him purring on Karie’s lap from across the room. He purred on Karie’s pillow every night, until finally everyone fell asleep. When you retrieved him from a neighbor’s yard, and carried him, belly up, he purred the whole way home.

Karie usually goes to bed before I do, and Gus would always stay up with me. Jez would follow Karie to the bedroom and curl up with her, but Gus wanted to be where the action was. Before I turned out the lights, I would pick up Gus and carry him upstairs (invariably he would be asleep at this point, having grown bored of whatever I was doing). He lay still in my arms until I reached the bedroom, whereupon he would spring from my arms to the bed, and settle down on Karie’s pillow. Sometimes he actually settled down on Karie’s head if she hadn’t left him enough room on the pillow.

Karie is a musician. She teaches piano to a few of the neighbors’ kids. During many of these lessons, there were three on the piano bench – Karie, cat, and kid. She also plays French horn in a quintet, which occasionally practices at our house. Gus would sit in the middle of the circle, listening to two trumpets, trombone, French horn, and tuba. He would also manage to get orange hair all over the instrument cases.

My wife and I are both cat lovers. We both grew up with cats around the house. The one piece of love advice that Karie’s mother had given her as a girl was, “Look for a man who loves cats.” I scored big points when we started dating and I introduced her to Jezebel (it was lucky that Jez immediately approved of Karie as well).

Between us, we’ve lived with nearly a dozen cats. But there was only one Gus. We miss him terribly. And while we will continue to love cats, Gus will always occupy a special place in both of our hearts.

Jezebel, Karie, Gus

A few weeks ago, August 31, was the third anniversary of Princess Di’s death.

I know this because I read it on the Net, where I get most of my news.

“Princess Diana’s death was a milestone event in Net history, as millions of people flocked to the Web to share their grief by posting to online bulletin boards and building Web page shrines.” MSNBC, August 30, 2000

Whether historians will look to Diana’s death as an “Important Internet Event” on par with, say, the release of Netscape 3.0 is debatable. But it’s another issue that the MSNBC article brought to mind that I’d like to flog to a bloody pulp.

Here’s the thing that floored me. Why would anyone feel the need to expunge their uncontrollable grief over the death of someone they did not know, with whom they had no personal relationship, and who was a highly privileged, wealthy member of an archaic aristocracy to boot? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

Don’t get me wrong – I have nothing but respect for the person who was Princess Diana. By all accounts, she was kind, gracious, and worked for all the right causes. She was a glowing icon for the country of England. She was a wonderful mother. She was an outstanding role model for women everywhere. She even looked great in polka dots.

So when Lady Di smacked into a wall at 800 mph, it wasn’t like I wanted to throw a party or anything. Far from it! In the early hours, I followed the news and hoped that she might pull through. I cursed the paparazzi. I kept vigil by the TV for the latest developments from the police. I felt sorry for Will and Harry and even Prince Charles, the poor schmuck.

Later, I purchased the special Princess Diana memorial issue of “People” at the grocery store. (However, I did not purchase the collectible commemorative plate that they were hawking on QVC. Those things are pricey.)

Yes, I mourned her passing. No, I did not grieve.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

Last year, it was America’s turn to grieve for dead royalty. John F. Kennedy, Jr. died in a plane crash near Martha’s Vineyard. It was regrettable, it was a real shame, and I felt bad for the Kennedy family who have lost so many in such awful circumstances.

But again, I did not feel any grief in John John’s passing. I did not know the man.

In fact, JFK Jr.’s death provided the ultimate example of the absurdity of mass public grief over the loss of public figures. In the days following his death, AOL presented an opinion poll in which you could vote on the following:

Which do you think affected the nation more?

• The death of John F. Kennedy, Jr. in 1999.
• The death of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

I found this to be ridiculous beyond belief.
Which do YOU think affected the nation more?

The death of the man who…

• Was voted into the nation’s highest office by the citizens of the United States of America.
• Was the first president born in the 20th century, as well as the nation’s first (and so far only) Catholic president.
• Challenged and inspired the nation to win the space race and put a man on the moon.
• Engaged the world’s most powerful military force in a war that tore the nation apart, a war that would be ultimately abandoned without victory.

Or the death of the man who…

• Was voted the “Sexiest Man Alive,” by the editors of People magazine (1988).
• Was well known for failing the New York bar exam twice.
• Started a magazine called “George,” where he “developed a reputation as an editor who took a ‘hands-on’ approach to stories” – then posed nude to increase sales and publicity for the magazine.

Look, I’ve got absolutely nothing against JFK Jr. – he seemed like a nice guy and he never ran for office, which he could have because he was a “Kennedy.” That’s big points as far as I’m concerned. But which affected the nation more? Give me a break.

MY SPECIAL TALENT FOR BEING A JERK REARS ITS UGLY HEAD

All of these thoughts about the idiocy of experiencing grief for the death of public figures left me feeling quite morally superior as I read MSNBC’s story about the third anniversary of Diana’s demise. “How can people grieve for someone with whom they have no real-world relationship?” I thought to myself smugly. “I’ve never done that. I can’t imagine that the death of ANY public figure would make me grieve enough to write a sappy poem, or maintain a memorial Web site, or…

Then I remembered Kurt Cobain.

KURT COBAIN?

I can hear you thinking, “Morally superior? You chastise us for grieving Diana, a princess turned humanitarian, a role model for children, a veritable saint who walked the Earth? You sick, celebrity-worshipping scum! You grieved over the death of a heroin junkie rock star (worth millions) who shot himself in the head rather than face up to the fact that he didn’t want to be a rock star anymore?”

Yep. That’s me. I grieved for Kurt Cobain like he lived next door. I guess I felt like I DID know him personally, since I’d listened to the words of so many of his songs. I felt like he was the voice of – well, not really my generation, since I never really identified with my generation of paisley-wearing, Polo-shirted, Whitney Houston-listening idiots. But I felt like he was the voice of those of us who never really fit in, the unfashionable, the nerdy, the people who were always picked last for sports, who would rather watch Brazil than Top Gun, who’d rather read an obscure book about depressed botanists than play golf, who dress funny, look funny, have peculiar ideas, and who will always harbor vast insecurities about themselves no matter how successful they grow up to be.

He was the anti-Mick Jagger. He was our hero.

Kurt Cobain was a terrible rock star. He didn’t really like being in the limelight, he wrote sensitive songs, he was a feminist. He weighed like 120 lbs. He wore cardigan sweaters and dyed his hair pink. He screwed up even when he didn’t want to screw up.

He was both sensitive AND dangerous to the establishment. These days you can easily find any ONE of these qualities, via Sarah McLachlan or Eminem, but nobody out there is doing both. And Britney Spears and NSYNC don’t even bother to pretend.

Yeah, he was stupid. He got addicted to smack and was obsessed with suicide. He married someone who LOVED being a star and was obsessed with fame. And although he had minimal obligations, the freedom of wealth, and the adoration of millions, he blew his brains out with a shotgun in his garage.

He could have done anything he wanted. He could have destroyed his guitars, divorced Courtney Love, and holed up like J. D. Salinger. He could have lived in a box in Montana, released bluegrass songs on cassette tape, and appeared in person only at the soup kitchen where he volunteered to serve the elderly homeless insane.

What a cretin.

But yeah, I grieved the day his dead body was discovered in that garage. I sometimes feel a twinge of regret when I hear “All Apologies.” I wonder what music he would have composed by now, and what music he would have continued to write as we both grew old. After all, he was a few years younger than me.

What a waste.

I GET THE PICTURE NOW

To all you Princess Diana fans, admirers, and mourners out there, my condolences. She was a great lady.

“All events have a half life. What’s interesting about Diana’s is how long her half-life has extended. In moments of really intense grief, in a culture where people have trouble expressing that grief with one another, an online service is the ideal center for people to express really deep and powerful emotions. This was national catharsis, that’s the point. We’ve seen this again and again since then.” Jesse Kornbluth, editorial director of America Online, as quoted by MSNBC, August 30, 2000

NOTE

I originally wrote this piece in September 2000. No other Rusty Brain piece has generated as much e-mail as this one, mostly from barely-literate teenagers who think I’m dissing their anti-hero, Kurt Cobain.

Feel free to continue sending me hate mail, but before you do, read the piece again. I liked Kurt Cobain. That was, and still is, the point.