Monday, February 28

11:50 am
My Suite

Fun night off.  Even if I'm in trouble.

Flew up to Boston this morning.  Great show last night in DC, crowd was full of energy.  I really would have liked to go longer but knew I couldn't. (Now that's not something I say often, heh heh.)  With four big shows in the next five days I gotta save the chords.  Especially since I get fired up in Boston and Philly.

But it was fun.  The band was tight, everybody was having a good time.  Richie in particular was in another world.  That new spin he and Davey worked up for Lay Your Hands was a-fuckin'-mazing.  Hallelujah, Brother Richie! Ha ha.

Cate had to fly home on the red-eye this morning; she had a meeting at 10 am she couldn't miss.  Hated to kiss her goodbye but at least I'll see her tomorrow night.  Back in my own bed for a few more days.  Cate's taking Wednesday and Thursday off for the Philly show, going out to the Jersey house after she gets off work on Tuesday.  We're going wheels up as soon as the show's over, I'll be crawling into bed with my wife around 2 am Wednesday morning.

Nice way to kick off my birthday.

Had a little early celebration tonight, with an old Buddy.  Once we got settled at the hotel I headed over to Bill's house for dinner.  The minute I got there he shoved a beer in my hand and dragged me out by the pool to throw a couple big-ass steaks on the grill.  Nothing like grilling in Boston in February, ha ha.

Had a great time catching up, talking football and music and families and all kinds of stuff.  After I snarfed down what had to be at least half a cow and a baked potato as big as my head we lumbered into Bill's Man-Cave to have a cigar and a nice glass of brandy and watch some hockey.

I was feeling nice and toasty in my red meat-and-booze coma, doing a little off-the-record debate about the NFL players' contract negotiations when my phone buzzed.  It was Dorothea.  And she was NOT happy.  Her text was short, sweet, and to the point:  "Call Me NOW."

There was a picture attached to the message -- of the Chuckleheads, looking very guilty and very colorful.  The were dressed up in their old Halloween GI Joe costumes, and they had some sort of shit all over their faces.

Apparently that was the problem.

Well, having a nice buzz on and being stupid enough to take the bait, I immediately apologized to Bill and called Dorothea.  She wasted no time letting me know that she has had enough of MY youngest sons, who have been a complete pain in her ass all weekend long and who get their unusually sadistic wild streak from their Italian father.  Then she ordered me to talk to Jacob and Romeo on speakerphone, so they could tell me what they'd done and I could respond appropriately.

I heard her click the phone over to speaker, and in my best stern Dad voice I said "Boys, your mother tells me you've been giving her some trouble.  What did you do?"

I about busted a gut when Romeo explained, very simply and patiently, that he and Jakey wanted to play GI Joe.  So they got out their uniforms, built a couple forts in their rooms and in the living room, and tried to hide.  But they couldn't hide well enough because the bad guys kept finding them.  So they needed "that face paint that makes you invisible."

And where do you find face paint that makes you invisible?  Why, in your mother's makeup case, of course.

Sure enough, Jake and Romeo got into Dorothea's makeup bag and covered their faces and hands with her fifty-dollar-a-tiny-jar little pots of eyeshadow and blush.  And they drew all kinds of designs on each other with her eyeliner wands.  Then they fled the scene of the crime, apparently leaving her bathroom looking like the remains of a bombed-out al-Quaida training camp.

I just couldn't help myself.  The image in my brain of the boys painting each other up with D's makeup was just too much.  I laughed so hard I could hardly talk.  Bill asked me what was so fucking funny and I very quickly summed up the story for him, and he started in.  That made me laugh harder.

Yeah, Dorothea was not amused.  I apparently was supposed to chew the boys' asses and dole out some sort of disciplinary wisdom, but I couldn't do it.  I was laughing my ass off because not only was the story funny as hell the way Romeo told it, but because I thought it was pretty damned ingenious of them to cammo up with Dorothea's warpaint.

And Holy Shit, did that get me into trouble.  I'm busting a gut, puffing on my cigar and grinning at Bill, when all of a sudden all I hear is Dorothea's voice in my ear, using my full given name.  "John Francis Bongiovi, YOUR sons have been absolute fucking Holy Terrors all weekend and YOU are LAUGHING?"

Yeah, she took the boys off speakerphone to rip me a new one because I couldn't help myself.  I know, I know, the boys were little Hellions all weekend long and Dorothea was at her wits' end and I should have backed her up, but this was too damned funny.

My sons' mother proceeded to cuss me up and down and accuse me of contributing all the Stupid Chromosomes to my two offspring, because they act just like me, stubborn, impulsive, and most of the time without a damned brain in their heads.

Um, yeah. They're BOYS.

Anyway, now I'm in the doghouse with Dorothea because my laughing at Jake and Romeo just wound them up even more, and now she's gotta be the bad guy discipline-wise.  I realize it's really not fair and I apologized   about a hundred times to her for putting her in such a predicament, but what's done can't be undone.

And it was her makeup, after all.

Damn, it's times like these that being on the road is a sweet deal.  If I was home I would have had to go over there or D could have just dumped the Chuckleheads on my doorstep and said "Here, YOU take 'em."

But instead I got to stay and enjoy my brandy and cigar, heh heh.

I'll make it right tomorrow, I swear.  Tonight's my night off.