Meeting Alice Cooper

So Alice Cooper was just in town, right here, off the beaten path, far away from everything remotely hip. We had just seen him perform in Dallas back in the summer,so when the radio station was giving away free tickets, well what’s wrong with free? The trouble was that the tickets were in Section Y and the very last section is Z, so they were really, really far away. As luck would have it, my beloved, the other guy with long hair in the also amazing, but-on-a-much-smaller-scale band, Hell On Wheels, has friends in L.A. Yeah, that’s right. He spent some time out there as he likes to say “eating dirt” and also maybe eating some pizza at the Rainbow Bar & Grill. So he calls his friend, who happens to have a friend who is Alice Cooper’s personal assistant. Crazy, right? So the next thing we know, we are to be set up with backstage passes. Backstage passes? I’ve never met anyone famous in my life! So we dress up and head down to City Hall, because in our town, that’s where you have cool rock concert whenever there is one, but there has never been one like Alice Cooper! The trouble was, there was no text or message from Alice’s personal assistant on where to pick up the passes. They were left at Will Call and we didn’t know, so we were busy up at the top of the balcony nursing our nose bleeding. Then a text came. Then the next thing we knew, Alice’s personal assistant, yes that’s correct, his personal assistant was bringing us the passes. Upon seeing where we were comfortably lodged, he decided that we needed to be much closer and said “follow me.” He didn’t have to say it twice. We were airborne, outta there…as soon as my eyes could adjust to the dark, which took a little while, anyway…we were follwing the Assistant. We got down on the main floor, and he was opening it to take us up to the front for available seats, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the female ushers coming after us in her Pedors…. “Just a minute….” It feel on deaf ears, she was in hot pursuit. About that time, the Assistant turned and flashed his nuclear I-Work-For-Alice badge at her and it was just like the old movies where the intrepid vampire hunters are making their way through dangerous, uncharted territory when they are beseiged by vampires, so they flash the wooden cross and the vampires recoil in blind, futile horror. The usher recoiled. “Go on, git, just git, you crazy Rock’n Roll people!” We were safe. I’ve never been that close to a band. A big, loud band exuding the kind of energy that you wish you could bottle. Color. Bubbles. Lights. Screaming people. And he has been doing it since 1968. Perhaps the best thing, in real life, Alice Cooper is the nicest guy that you could pretty much ever meet. Nice Guy indeed, Mr. Cooper…