Who Can It Be Now?

I had dinner once in 1987 with Colin James Hay. He was the lead singer for the 80's band Men at Work for those of you who don't recognize the name. It wasn't just the two of us, it was a record company dinner for him as he passed through Phoenix on a radio tour supporting his first solo album Looking for Jack. Instead of touring with a band and playing gigs, he did interviews and played acoustically at radio stations.

My then boss Mark at Tower Records asked if I wanted to go simply because he could bring someone, and he had only been told about it that day...so it was a last minute kind of thing. I thought, "free dinner, sure", and off we went. It was in Scottsdale at a upscale Italian restaurant whose name i can't remember.

I ended up sitting right next to Mr. Hay, even though I was just somebody's guest at this thing. We talked about music mostly (No! Really?). I remember a lengthy conversation about Frank Zappa, and another about life in Australia. He was very nice, and he even chatted me up about my then band Fine Science once I brought the subject up.

The most memorable thing about the whole evening, though, was when we left. Colin and I walked out together, still talking, and as we stepped outside it was snowing. He said something like, "Hey, look at that?", and i replied, "yeah, this doesn't happen in Scottsdale." Of course it didn't stick, it just melted immediately, but it sure was beautiful.