June 10, 2001

no, no, i'd say it was more a...

"Date that will live in infamy."

haha...anyway.

where do i start? ah yes, i wake up sunday morning with my friend victoria calling me about that days plans. of course, me being the person that i am, i have no clue whats going on. i tell her i'll call her back once i talk to my best friend sarah. so i call sarah and leave a retarded message on her answering machine something about 'i'm tired and yeah and victoria called me and yeah and i just woke up and i'm confused and we need to do something. yeah. call me back.' so sarah calls me back and we decide to leave at 1:45 to pick up our little supplies for that evening. so i embark on my journey exactly 1:45 with my 'I Love Tony' keychain in hand, and cellphone that i programmed to play the who's the boss? theme song. anyway, we get to walmart and buy four dark blue t-shirts, which are the same color as mine. the four t-shirts are for each of my four friends that i am bringing with me that evening. each shirt has a a felt letter on it, obviously spelling out TONY. i have a dark blue shirt that was made special by the lovely sarah royal for christmas that says 'Who's The Boss?' with a picture of Tony Danza right underneath it. On the back it says simply, 'I'm The Boss.' ok, so now that her awesome, super cool mom has stiched the felt letters upon the t-shirts we are ready to decorate our beautiful cars. the '87 volvo and '91 escort are written upon with white car chalk. each window either displaying the url to my wonderful website, i love tony, ay oh oh ay, who's the boss?, i'm the boss, or some variation of that. so now we're ready to leave. i am not allowed to pick up my other friends (because of a parental rule which we will not go into) and so sarah heads off to pick up emily, and morgan. i go home and get the money for pizza hut from my mom, and our tickets to see the tony man. i meet sarah at victoria's house at 4pm and now we drive in our little caravan to get to pizza hut. driving, driving, vanessa gets all caught up and starts driving straight to easton, almost missing the turn for pizza hut. so we eat pizza and its all good or disgusting or whatever. i'm sorta quiet, all excited about the major event that is now only 2 hours away. we play 'dude looks like a lady' and 'glory days' and a little 3rd Eye Blind on the jukebox thing. sadly, the elton john cd does not have 'tiny dancer' on it, but its alright. i'll make do. we get our pictures taken together by some waitress and buy ourselves some not so cool stickers for 50 cents and then pose in front of the cars for a little photo op. one picture is me lying on the front of the car stretched out looking sexy (more like insane) for victoria. above me is written in white letters on the top of my windshield, 'ay oh oh ay!' some more pictures, my friends spell out TONY a couple times and then we've had enough. we head to the p-burg mall to pick up a birthday card for my mom and then we're off! vanessa is supposed to lead, but of course she cannot figure out how to get out of the parking lot and go to the left towards easton. so then sarah leads, but vanessa soon pulls ahead and we're on our way. driving, driving, driving we soon hit easton. go across the free bridge, go around a little circle and drive up the street and what do we see? a bus full of old people. yes old people. we're talking 75 and up. ladies with walkers and ladies with wheelchairs. we get a little kick out of this, and realize and this confirms that we are the youngest people seeing the show that night. we cant find parking, and after half an hour decide on going in some private parking for a restaurant. (Mount Vernon?? we apologize) we walk and cross the street and now we're in front of the marquis (for some reason i'm thinking its french, sorry, thats not how you spell it) that says tony danza. i take a couple pictures and we walk over to the box office. sarah says she needs to talk to the lady in the box office about jethro tull tickets for her dad (Very important, remember this later when i explain everything), so we just stand around for a couple minutes. sarah comes out and says she's gonna have to talk with some other lady about the jethro tull thing. i say that we should go back in and ask that lady if there is anyway to see tony after the show cause its my birthday and i've loved him since i was like 11. the lady just looks at me and says 'i dont think thats possible. i dont know.' so i'm a little depressed, but then we go inside and my spirits are lifted when i see the sugar packet table. you see my first time seeing tony danza (five years earlier) i had taken some sugar packets from the buffet that we went to before the show started. i really dont know why i did it, but i did and now i find myself doing this exactly 5 years later in the easton state theatre building. we get a couple laughs out of this and take some pictures. we look a little insane but we dont care and decide to head up to our seats in the balcony. we're sort of far away but dead center so its not too bad. sarah says she has to leave now and find that other lady and ask about jethro tull so she leaves us for like 10 minutes before the show starts. she gets back and emily, victoria, me, sarah, and morgan sit there spelling out TONY with our shirts. (actually they spell out tony, i'm the special one that has the special shirt :]) i start flipping out cause i'm gonna see tony and i start flailing my arms all around and hitting the lady behind me pretty hard. oops. some lady in front of us tells us to be quiet and we are cause in just a couple more minutes the man i've loved like my entire life starts walking out on stage. i am totally mesmorized, can't take my eyes off him. he looks so damn cute and adorable. one of the first things he says is 'i know you've all come here and your biggest question is "tony danza, what does he do?"' and he says that in the cutest voice and i'm like dying cause i'm so happy. well he sings and dances and tells a couple of jokes, and plays the trumpet. and then he says he plays the piano too. so he sits down and what does he play? none other than my favorite song in the world, the one i played for my recital THIS year, Take The A Train. i almost past out right there. and then he says 27 a couple of times and morgan flips cause she's obsessed with that number. then tony says a couple dirty things about people having sex all over this house and then not wanting to put a sandwich on the kitchen table, and stuff about only showering the top half of his body after a break up. he tells a couple of over the hill jokes, which i dont understand cause he's not old at all! and he especially doesnt look it. anyway, tony danza then decides to be the coolest person ever by letting everyone take pictures in the theatre even when there are supposed to be strict rules about that sort of thing. so for half an hour u can take all these pictures that you want, and me and sarah run up to the front of the balcony and she takes a couple closer pictures of him. by now the show is coming to an end, its almost 8:30. his final song is the gershwin one that i LOVE, 'Our Love Is Here To Stay.' so its all over and i tell sarah, come on, we have to run down to the bottom to see if we can see him or something. i really dont know what i was thinking would happen, but anyway. sarah is a little hesitant but then she agrees and all these people part the way so we can get out faster, saying 'its the girls birthday, let her thru so she can see tony danza.' so we run downstairs and i go in the doors on the lower level and i see this lady standing there that looks like she works there. im all excited and i ask her 'please please can i meet tony danza i've loved him for the longest time and its my birthday and i really want to see him.' then the lady says something sort of strange. she goes, 'well you see the letter got put in his room but it didnt work out.' or something about tony saying no to it. i'm totally confused, but i try to make sense of it and think *oh ok, the theatre sends out letters to all the celebrities and asks them if they want to stay after the show for autographs and he just said no to it.* and then i ask if i can just walk up near the stage to get a good look of where he was at, and the lady says 'no you cant do that.' so i'm totally depressed and all of us start walking out of the theatre. when we get near the corner sarah starts crying and i'm really confused. she then tells me this Amazing story about how her mom knows some lady from work who has this brother who is best friends with the guy who runs the easton state theatre. sarah wrote a letter to tony danza that got sent to the guy, then to tony's publicist. they called her up and said 'tony is here now, we're going to put the letter in his room.' so the letter was supposed to be in his room and at the very least tony was to say 'happy birthday vanessa' to me onstage, and she's so upset because she was sure it was going to work. i am totally shocked. i can't believe what she is telling me and all i keep thinking is 'wow, she did all this stuff for me'. we're all really depressed, and i just keep trying to get it thru my brain of all this trouble that sarah had gone to for me. then this volunteer from the theatre walks over and says 'hi girls, did you get to see him' and sarah explains how they turned us down, and all the lady can think of is that we should go to the top parking lot, or to the back alley cause that might be where tony comes out after the show. so we start walking there, and sarah says how she pretended like she needed to talk to the lady in the box office about the jethro tull tickets earlier. but she made that all up, she really went in there because one of the ladies who had called her back from the theatre had told her to go in there when we got to the theatre and see if everything had worked out. so when she goes in there the lady said 'its looking good' and all that sorta stuff. (this part is a little fuzzy cause obviously i wasnt there and i got all this from sarah afterwards) then the lady told sarah that she had to talk to some other woman about it. and thats when she came out and i wanted to go back in and ask about seeing him (cause i didnt know AT ALL what she had been planning) so when we went back in and i asked the lady if he would be signing autographs after the show, sarah is standing behind me and pointing to me, whispering 'this is the birthday girl, dont say anything.' and thats when the lady said she didnt know and nothing else. and when we went up to our seats, sarah left for a couple minutes beause that woman at the box office sent her to find some other woman. she talked to the other lady and she told sarah that 'it looked like everything worked out. where are you sitting if we need to find you?' Sarah explains how we'd be up in the balcony, and then she comes back up to our seats and i'm all excited and had no clue about what she'd just done. well anyway, tony never said my name during the show and sarah was confused about that, but anyway, thats why she was hesitant to leave our seats right as the show ended, cause she was waiting to see if one of the ladies was trying to find us. anyway, she's telling me all this as we're walking, trying to figure out if tony would come out the top parking lot or the back alley. no ones in the parking lot so we walk down to the side alley and see about 5 people standing there and a limo and some men with walkie talkies. by this time i'm a little pissed off because after sarah told me the story i thought that tony just blew off her letter and didnt want to wish me a happy birthday or anything. and i'm cursing and thinking *damnit i'm still gonna take his stupid picture even if he doesnt want to wish me a happy birthday*. so we wait around and more people come. theres like 20 people standing there, and the man with the walkie talkies tells us to back away from the wall. and now we see the men with the walkie talkies and suits whispering something to each other and then to the limo driver. me and sarah think that they told the limo driver that there was too many people and that he should move to the parking lot to pick tony up. so sarah goes to me 'this is the biggest decision of your life dude. do we wait here or run up there' so we start running up that hill and then i stop and turn around. my other three friends are standing on top of the wall now spelling out TOY, its pretty funny and i see that the limo only backed up so it was directly in front of the door. they open the car door closest to the exit and then lock all the other doors. so i call to sarah and we start running back down the hill. now we are right behind the limo and edging out so we're almost in the middle of the street. this scary looking man keeps sticking his foot out in front of ours so he can jump tony when he comes out or something. we keep moving up and inching forward and then (i find out later) that this man came out of the back door of the building and points to my three friends on the wall. they thought that he was gonna yell at them for being up there, but instead he just walks back in. then another man walks out and is looking at me and sarah, he walks over and i'm pissed, thinking that he's gonna tell us to back away from the limo and everything. sarah doesnt want him to get mad at us so she tries being all friendly and says 'hi, how are you doing?' the man looks at us and leans in and says, 'how many people in your party?' sarah screams 'five' and then he says 'follow me.'!!!!!!!! so then the scary man who was standing next to us goes, 'i've been here since 4:30' and sarah is all smiling and says back 'well i wrote tony danza a letter' and then i look at the guy and laugh in his face, which was mean but hey, that guy was weird and creepy and i dont care cause now i'm going in the back door with my four friends and we're all screaming and so excited. we walk in and we're not right on the stage and the guys says, 'sit here.' so we sit on the edge of the stage and not 15 feet from me is the man i have dreamt about meeting like my whole life. im just staring at him and i can't believe it. its the most insane thing of my life. i take like 10 pictures of him from the back shaking hands with people and i'm in such awe. oh my god, thats tony danza. the lady we had spoken to earlier tells us that they went frantically looking for us after the show, and they thought we had left. there was some sort of mix up and right after she said to me that we couldnt meet him, she found out that we could and then didnt know where we had gone. so we're sitting there for less than 5 minutes i guess and then it happens. tony finishes shaking hands with those 10 or so people and goes 'ok ok everybody quiet down quiet down, where's the birthday girl?' and my hand shoots up and i'm laughing and giggling and i feel like i'm gonna pass out. he comes over and says 'happy birthday vanessa' and then asks sarah, 'are you jessica?' (something we still cant figure out, everyone thought her name was jessica, even though she signed the letter with sarah) and then he says to me 'i was going to wish you a happy birthday up on stage, i had it in my notes on the piano to say happy birthday to vanessa and i saw it a couple times but was saving it for the end but i forgot and i could kick myself.' i can't believe it, tony danza is speaking to me. then he says 'i wrote a special birthday song for you, you want to hear it?' or something like that and i must've nodded my head yes cause next thing i know, tony danza is singing this song he made up and in it he says my name a couple times and something about 'whos smiling and laughing -its you.' and when he's singing he's holding my hand and my hands are dripping with sweat, its gross. he touched my knee then too and i wanted to cry and jump down and hug him so hard. it was sooo amazing. and then the song is over and he jumps up on stage next to me (the first time he cant get up and makes some crack about how he's over the hill) and sits next to me and then i think he starts signing autographs. he takes my program and writes, 'Vanessa All my Best Happy Birthday Nice meeting you Love, Tony Danza' then he writes other things to my friends, like 'your pal tony danza' or something like that. and while he's signing mine im searching desperately for something to say and all i can think of is 'i saw you five years ago in atlantic city.' and then i say 'i wrote you a letter like five years ago too and it said circle who's personality most reflects yours and you circled tony canetti and signed your name and it was all colorful' and he goes 'yeah? really? i think i remember something like that, i get stuff like that sometimes.' and you knew he probably didnt remember at all but he was being sooo sooo nice and i couldnt believe tony danza was talking to me. and then he gets down i think, and i think he's finishing signing autographs, and i look over to sarah and i go 'can i ask him for a hug?' and sarah says something like 'go for it' so i say, 'tony, can i have a hug' and he says something like 'yeah sure, come down here' and i get off the stage and thats when everyone takes their camera's out and they take pictures of ME standing next to Tony Danza, smiling so big and i look like such a scrub cause i'm sweating like you wouldnt believe and my hairs all in my face, but it doesnt matter cause I'M standing next to TONY DANZA! with his arm around me. oh man, he's so hot. yes i am a little biased, but i'm telling you he looked really really good. he's all tan, and probably around 5ft 9 or 10 and really small. like i put my arm around his back or something and i felt like i could put my hands around his waist he was so little. but not just skinny, buff too. and he had the cutest little tan face and hair. he's wearing this black fitted shirt and dress pants. he is AMAZING. and then he calls over everyone else so that we spell out tony and we take some more pictures, i'm still standing next to him, i wasnt moving from that spot. he's getting such a kick out of this that he wants a picture for himself cause he thinks its funny that we went all out of our way to make the shirts. so then someone takes a picture for him (which means TONY DANZA is going to have a picture of me and my friends which is just mind blowing) and he wishes me a happy birthday again and says goodbye to morgan and emily, using everyones first names and stuff which was pretty cool, and then thats when we left. we spent about 10 minutes with tony danza, maybe even a little more. and he wished me a happy birthday and sang to me and touched me!! we started running out screaming, and then i slowed down so i could see him real fast for the last time, and he was kneeling on the stage, holding something out for someone who was standing on the floor, next to the stage to see, and he was smiling and he was gorgeous. and then that was it, i ran out with my friends and we all yelled and screamed and laughed and the people outside were all jealous and it was soo damn great. i'm running up the hill shaking and sarahs taking these pictures of me cause my face looks so funny, cause i'm in shock and i'm so happy that i cant stop smiling and laughing and i thought i was just going to drop and pass out. we ran up to where we parked and the first thing i do is call my mom and scream 'I met tony danza!!!' and sarah calls her mom and told her the whole plan worked, and then victoria sees a scary scary man who looks like he's following us and we're all spooked cause its dark and such, and he is a creepy man after all. so sarah yells 'get in the car, get in the fucking car' so i hang up on my mom and run in the car and we drive out of there as fast as we can, and get back on 78, and my cd player screws up and it needs to be reset but i cant do that while i'm driving, so i sit there in silence, staring at the back of sarahs volvo and seeing Tony Danza written on the back windo, and thinking *oh my god, i met him*. and its complete silence for about 10 minutes, i'm in a state of shock. i cant comprehend what just happened. and then 5 minutes before we get home i start to sing at the top of my lungs, 'Hold me Close young tony danza!' and i'm singing it and laughing and smiling so much and my minds spinning. we get to my house, and i stop and i just sit there in the car smiling still. and i open the door and sarah sees me and laughs cause i look so funny and dazed. the part when it really sunk in though, was the next morning. i wake up at 6 cause i couldnt sleep all that well obviously, and my dad drove me to school, and i walked in the doors and sarah was there at her locker and i just said 'Sarah, I met Tony Danza.' and it wasnt a dream, it was all real, and it was the Best day of my life.