I can now die.  I have officially reached that moment of Zen most people can only hope to achieve in life.  Over the weekend, I partied with my all-time favorite group The B-52’s.

Through a series of small miracles and constant groveling, I finagled a pass to go backstage after their recent concert in Palm Desert, California.  This is the second time I’ve met them.  (The first time was in 2001 over Labor Day.)   I don’t remember much about that initial meeting other than my legs refused to work when I stood up to greet them.  I also babbled incoherently because my tongue had swelled to 50x its normal size.   Color me completely star struck.  Color them polite, but unimpressed.

This time I vowed to be much cooler if I got backstage.  And not suffer from a series of mini-strokes like I did nearly a decade earlier.  My friend Cris and I hovered backstage like two giddy school girls.  Okay, Cris was positively calm in comparison to me.  I saw Cindy walk by the green room door and I sucked in so much air the curtains on the other side of the room flapped.   Cris immediately shot me a look.  It said, “I will bitch slap you into oblivion if you don’t pull it together.”

Cindy was the first to arrive.  She was stunning.  She smiled, walked over and gave us hugs like we were old friends.  I may have peed myself a little.  I thought about asking her who she was wearing, but quickly realized this wasn’t the Grammys.  And I’m not Joan Rivers.  She started chatting with us.  I started to fawn over her.  There may have been a brief period of uncontrollably clapping as well.   Cris shot me another look.  This time it said, “I am poised to punch you in the throat.”  Cindy’s molasses-drawl was slow and methodic.  I was talking so fast I sounded like a 33RPM record turned up well past 45RPM.  Cindy’s fan club was in full force outside, so she didn’t spend much time with us.  But she is just as warm and inviting as you’d expect.  She has Earth Momma written all over her.  I had nervous, fidgety, sweaty crack addict written all over me.

Fred was the second on scene.  Two things to note about Fred … 1) he has 18 million  facial expressions; none of them are big toothy smiles.  So you can’t really tell where you stand with him.  And 2), he can be looking right at you while looking right THROUGH you.  Having been forewarned that he doesn’t particularly care for meet-and-greets, I quickly walked up and introduced myself as a friend of a mutual friend we have in common.  (Shout out, Dusti Cunningham!)  And while Fred didn’t exactly light up, he did seem a little less … uh, inconvenienced.  Fred asked if there was anything fun to do in town.  I immediately rambled off a list of about 15 bars.  I was well on my way to listing every bar within a 30-mile radius when Cris stabbed me in the back of my leg with a plastic fork.   Stupid Craft services.   Fred mentioned he was off to a BDay party, and like the wind he was gone.

Kate was the last to arrive.  (Keith obviously had the night off from shaking hands and kissing babies.)   By this point, I was in complete stimulus overload.  We chatted, exchanged pleasantries and then the strangest thing happened.  Fred suddenly arrived back in the room and invited us to tag along to the BDay party.  (Turns out it was Kate’s partner’s BDay and there was going to be a party in her honor.)   I looked at Cris.  His face was now devoid of any expression.  I think he realized we were poised to party with The B’s.  I said a silent prayer that Fred wasn’t going to say “PSYCHE!” at any second.  But true to his word … we got to be his guest for a night I will never forget.

Stay tuned to Channel Z to read Part II.