My Jon Bon Jovi story

Last week we got a last minute invite to see Jon Bon Jovi live here in concert in Houston at the Toyota Center. Paul works closely with a coach year round at one of the local high schools who had coached one of Bon Jovi's football teams in the past and so knew him personally. He got Paul and I free tickets, just about 5 rows back, which was pretty neat. I'm not really a Bon Jovi music fan but still the tickets were free and well, it IS Bon Jovi.

Coach also got us and a handful of others back-stage passes to meet Bon Jovi in person before the start of the concert. That was pretty neat, especially since I'd never gotten to do the "back stage" thing before...and this was BON JOVI, American icon. When he first came out to meet us he did seem tired (or high, I thought...NAHHHH...) and wondered out loud later how he found the energy to perform when he seemed so wiped out.

ANYWAY, because I was just coming off of NASA-loving Seth Green and LeVar Burton, I asked Bon Jovi what I thought was a benign enough question, which was if he'd ever had the chance to tour NASA during any of his Houston visits. It wasn't too far fetched, especially since I knew he was on the President's council for investigating what children's community programs were working and what wasn't in the cities he was touring in. He'd met with mayor Parker the day before over this. When I asked my question, he just GLARED at me long and hard like I was CUH-RAZY and I should know better (who let the geek in? I'm THE Bon Jovi, you little freak!). It was a long enough pause that I thought for a second, OMG, did I ask a politically incorrect question? WHAT IF HE'S ONE OF THOSE SPACE PROGRAM HATERS?! Yes. I was apparently uncoool. But at least he followed up with the fact that he doesn't get to tour much while on tour, going to so many places so quickly and yadda-yadda-yadda...and I was like "Oh, right, sure, um, of course" and I did NOT say "Well Bono and Aerosmith did it..." which would be bad because this was Bon Jovi's concert and I was backstage before it and well, you know.

And that is my Bon Jovi story. Later I learned that he'd done some PR affair where he did meet some of the STS-132 shuttle crew or something so I'm sure he's not a NASA hater. I just need to remember the next time I'm in the presence of a major rock star to maybe just keep my mouth shut and ask him to just sign my boobs.