OK, you are allowed to make endless fun of me for this.

My first rock concert: Picture a skinny, freckled 16-year-old girl wearing faded blue jeans with a double-wrap-around slim white belt hanging down over her hips, and one of those cotton pastel shirts with the snaps and the mesh pull-down shoulder, hair feathered and teased and sprayed to the degree that it no longer moves in any discernible way when the wind blows.

The year is 1986, and I’m rocking out to Rick Springfield in the Pensacola Civic Center in Pensacola, Florida. ‘Til Tuesday opened for him (the only song I even remember from TT is “Voices Carry”). Every boy there is wearing Polo. And — a little bit of weird MotherMirth trivia — somewhere in the throngs of sweaty, Rick-crazy teens is my future husband, whom I didn’t know and wouldn’t have glanced at twice in those years anyway because, well, he wasn’t blonde.

It’s standing room only, and it’s late in the show. A very sweaty Rick Springfield shakes his head around, and the sweat goes flying into the masses of girls-who-wanna-carry-Rick’s-baby crowding the stage. Some sprinkles my way, and I promise never again to wash the shoulder where I felt those magic, sexy sweat drops land.

Go ahead, giggle away. I deserve it.

Yes, I rocked out to Rick Springfield. And now, this evening, 20 years later, VH1 is telling me that I can get “Jessie’s Girl” the acoustic version, along with many of my other 80s favorites, all on one CD. It’s probably $19.95, but I was so flabbergasted I didn’t note the price. One word kept replaying in my head. Acoustic.

Now, I haven’t turned on VHI in probably 6 or 7 years. But tonight, we were too tired for a movie on DVD yet wanted some mindless entertainment before retreating to our respective computers to check email and then drag our sad carcasses to bed. Because a little slumber is nice before the older one wakes up with the inevitable full bladder or nightmare. Thus, Allen was flipping through the channels, and he landed on VH1, where a video was just ending with gyrating scantily clothed dancing women singing something about buttons. We then groaned our way through Rod Stewart’s video “Passion” –which is apparently all about the fact that Rod wasn’t getting enough passion and… uh, wanted more?

But, back to the point: VH1 knows that the kids who rocked out in the 80s are RIGHT NOW sitting on their couches, massaging their tired feet, watching a little TV after putting the kids to bed. There’s a bullseye somewhere on my forehead, and that always freaks me out a little bit when I’m watching TV and being targeted for marketing. It’s also one of the reasons I don’t WATCH TV. But that’s a whole other blog entry.

So. 80s music, acoustic versions. It’s like they’ve hunted down and skinned the fierce tiger that is my rock soul! They’re curing the striped pelt and manufacturing it into cute stripey bunnies and puppies, with pink bows and lace. They’re taking my rock and SUBTRACTING the rock, injecting it with calm, and reprocessing it into neat little packages of folk music.

My current playlist on itunes is much heavier on the Dave Matthews–Ben Harper–Jack Johnson type of music than anything contemporary that might be the parallel to what 80s rock was for me in the 80s. Sure, the 36-year-old self is now attracted to stuff the 16-year old would look at in disgust. But c’mon. I also get laid regularly and own a house. But I still rock, don’t I?

Acoustic 80s rock. Part of me is appalled. The other part of me? Really, is it any surprise that I’m getting out my checkbook?

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