"The guy with the hair!"

I know you all have been dying to hear how the Billy Corgan poetry reading went and I can honestly say that I was glad that I was able to relive my high school years for that short period of time.

I went to the show with my long-lost friend and fellow Billy Corgan enthusiast, Jeremiah. He, however, is still a huge Billy Corgan fan, while my feelings about him have dwindled throughout the years. The show was pretty cool except that Billy had this weird Tibetan lady who was like chanting along with him. It was really stupid. At one point I actually think he was making fun of her. It was kind of a mixture of reading poetry and playing what seemed like some mellow new solo stuff. Just him and his guitar.

The best part of the night though was when Billy was flipping through his binder of poetry trying to decide what to read next and he said "oh, I don't know. Does anyone else want to read something?" Of course, everyone was screaming "YEAH!!!!" so he had the house lights brought up and started picking people out of the audience. The 9:30 club is a super small place so he could obviously see everyone. Jeremiah and I were standing straight across from the stage where the sound/light operator was. Now Jeremiah probably loves Billy Corgan more than anyone else in the world loves Billy Corgan, so one of his friends and I made it a point to point to him and have him get up on that stage.

"The guy with the hair!" Billy said pointing right at Jeremiah. I don't really know why he said "the guy with the hair" but maybe it's because Billy Corgan doesn't have any hair, so anyone with hair is weird. Anyway, Jeremiah got up on stage, sat next to Billy and read a poem from his book. HOW COOL IS THAT? Jeremiah was on stage with Billy Corgan!! The entire evening was very intimate and I really enjoyed it. So, yeah, Billy's still kind of a has been, but he puts on a good show even without all the loud guitar solos.

But if I go cold, I won't get sold

Okay, I know I've been super awful about updating this thing, but I'm a busy girl, what can I say? We're all busy, I don't know one person who is able to consistently keep up a blog.

Anyway, what's giving me this sudden urge to write a blog entry is that I am going to see BILLY CORGAN at the 9:30 Club this Sunday. A totally random thing, but something I feel I have to share with the world.

My mom called me today (for the first time in five days!!! Wow Mom!!) and told me that Howie Day was going to be at the 9:30 sometime soon, that she'd heard it on the radio. I'm a huge Howie fan and thought it would be fun to go with my Howie fan partner-in-crime, Katie. BUT I found out that it's not just Howie that will be at there but a bunch of other people too, and tickets are 40 bucks. I love Howie, but I'm not going to pay 40 bucks to see him play for 15 minutes or something crazy like that.

While stumbling through the 9:30 Club web site I saw "Just Announced: An Evening of Poetry with BILLY CORGAN." What the hell??? So, I looked into it. Apparently, Billy is trying to make a come back. He's got a book of poetry that just came out entitled Blinking With Fists which sounds very dark and Billy-like AND he's coming out with a solo album. Crazy!

Crazy because I was OBSESSED with Billy and The Smashing Pumpkins in high school, around ninth and tenth grade. I wore almost nothing but Smashing Pumpkins tee shirts and listened to nothing but Smashing Pumpkins albums and desperately tried to learn how to play Smashing Pumpkins songs on my guitar. There are still remnants of my Smashing Pumpkins obsession on my walls at home. Lots of posters, framed ticket stubs, and collages of magazine clippings are still hanging up, for no reason other than I am too lazy to take them down and I don't spend enough time in that room to really care. When I was fifteen, my friend Heather and I used to fight over who would get to marry him and we would bawl our eyes out whenever we saw him in concert and scream "WE LOVE YOU BILLY!!!!" Oh my God.

It's funny how people you idolize and obsess over in high school turn into has-beens who sell tickets to their poetry readings/concerts for 15 dollars. I mean, back in the old days, you paid 50 bucks, if not more, for a Pumpkins ticket. I guess that whole 1990s alternative grunge rock stuff has officially died. Wow. Seven years ago, Heather and I would have given our left boobs to go see Billy read poetry.

Anyway, just for nostalgia's sake, I'm going to see him. I bought two tickets for the show this Sunday at 5:30pm at the 9:30 Club. Tickets are $15.00 and you can probably buy them at the door, so if anyone wants to (please someone!) join Heather (most likely) and I on Sunday that would be awesome!

I don't know why, but this has made my day. It's almost like the untouchable Billy Corgan that I loved in high school stepped down from the pedestal that I put him on and all I was left with was the memory of what it was like to love someone so much. But now, on Sunday, I will refresh my memory and relive my teenage years. WOOHOO!

This is how my parents must feel whenever they go see has-been rock stars that they listened to in high school at Wolf Trap. However, my mom did point out that she was thirty before the artists she listened to in high school became has-beens.

Oh well Billy, you had a good run.