You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Way cool Jr.
“Way Cool Jr.” is Ratt Song. No, not a song sung by a rat, but a song sung by an 80’s glam rock group that smoked enough “rope” to name themselves Ratt.
Ratt?
Only in rock and roll would you name yourself after a diseased rodent.
Steve Jobs didn’t turn to the boys on the board and say “I know the red shiny fruit that tempted Adam is testing well. But we are going to call our new multi media conglomerate Python Puss.”
For research, I just watched :45 seconds of the Way Cool Jr music video. It tells a twisted love story of leather and low cut tops and big hair and tight leather pants searching the Sunset Blvd for love, for at least 15 minutes in a bathroom stall.
Yikes.
With that kind of inspiration, why wouldn’t you name your 80’s cover rock band “Way Cool Jr”
Well guess what? That’s exactly what a San Diego group of dudes decided to do.
And on this life’s crazy kind of night, I’m watching them perform at the House of Blues in San Diego.
What’s crazy about that you say?
Perhaps that the lead singer is a plump, balding, 40-something man named Darryl.
I know this because Darryl is a work mate of my buddy who brought us to the show.
Darryl is talking to us at the bar. He is a regular guy. A good guy. Not too good looking. Not too anything. Darryl is ordinary. But when he puts on that wig? He is the crotch packed pistol pump of Way Cool Jr.
I don’t even know what that means…
Darryl is the lead singer of Way Cool Jr. I don’t know him more than 5 minutes. But talking to Darryl at the bar, he seems like a normal dude with normal stuff going on in his life.
He has a power bill like you. Darryl has a car payment like you. Darryl probably has trouble getting a good flow going in the morning like most old dudes who wear tight leather pants suffocating their junk on a regular basis.
“I gotta go get ready,” he says to us, as he leaves the bar.
“Isn’t it crazy he’s the leader of a band,” my buddy says.
Yes. Yes it is.
I’ve never seen the group perform so I’m not sure what to expect. But since I am the traffic cop of 1985, I am surely intrigued by the possibilities.
I nurse a huge beer that was designed for Andre the Giant. Then suddenly, the lights dim and the rock and roll thunder begins.
The crowd surges with energy as 5 side show freaks take the stage through a blue hue.
The lights go full like an engine being flooded with gas. The guitar riff rips through the tiny club and the band explodes into action.
The lead singer rushes to the stage. He is short and stocky. He has long blonde hair and a round melon face. He is wearing a British Union Jack sleeveless T shirt and leather pants.
I wouldn’t F*** him with your D*** I think is how the saying goes.
He is a comic strip of what 80’s glam rock was like.
He launches into Ain’t Nothing but a Good Time by Poison. A classic 80’s staple.
The crowd belches excitement as one.
The lead singer gyrates across the stage, pelvic thrusts a plenty.
I quietly hope he doesn’t throw a disc.
The singer screeches a line from the song, running to his lead guitarist who is wearing an equally gaudy black wig and sun glasses.
“Isn’t Darryl great,” my friend screams in my ear.
Darryl?
OMG
That’s when I remember the little ordinary dude at the bar quietly talking about his enlarged prostate.
Damn. For a guy who has trouble pissing in the morning, he is the 1980’s version of a toaster in a bath tub full of gin.
Darryl is the leather pant version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Way Cool Darryl is racing around the front of the stage belting out power ballad after power ballad.
We are standing about 4 feet from the front of the stage.
Darryl breaks into a Def Leppard song.
The crowd thumps with enthusiasm. I see fists in the air. Lighters are cliché so people turn on their iphones as a nostalgic tribute and perhaps as a way to make sure Darryl can read the set list with those aging way cool eyes.
The crowd is older. Some of the women are wearing clothes they bought in 1986. That extra roll of time is filling up that stretchy dress like a sailboat mast full of nor’easter.
I watch as women – who once thought big hair was a good look – Give Way Cool Darryl the goo goo eyes.
If only I had leather pants and a guitar and a wig that looks like it was borrowed from the janitorial closet of an elementary school, then I too could get some goo goo eye contact.
I laugh to myself. If only these crowd beasties knew what Way Cool Jr looks like sans wig.
And they will.
After the show, a sweaty tired Darryl has transformed.
The hard rocking glam guy is gone. His crotch bulge is missing a sock. His mop hair is replaced by the Hair Club for Men.
Darryl, the mild manner unremarkable guy is standing with us on the sidewalk, looking completely unremarkable.
“Did you like the show?” he will ask in a calm relaxed voice that has not one trace of screech or whiskey breath.
“It was great,” we say.
“That wig is crazy.”
“Yeah. It gets hot,” he says calmly with a smile.
What a transformation
Gyrating, sex God on stage playing to the women, playing with the crowd. On the sidewalk, now, in the late San Diego night, he is another so-what old dude these over the hill women won’t give a second glance.
The show was great, the music nostalgic, and the night fun.
I watch as women I danced next to walk by Darryl unknowingly.
“That’s Darryl,” I say to a woman walking by.
She smiles but has no idea what I’m talking about.
She probably thinks this is some new wave pick up line. “That’s Darryl.”
She walks away. We all laugh.
If this was Ratt we’d all be at an after party snorting cocaine off a hard body laying on an ironing board.
Tonight? Tonight, it’s a beer and a cab home. It’s 2013 and we have enlarged prostates to worry about.
From wall flower to wild man back to wall flower.
Way Cool Jr.
“Talk Dirty to Me.”
Life’s Crazy™