The Dependables: A Golden Boys Story

You know that movie, The Expendables? A bunch of old guys get together for one more mission, unless it does well at the box office, in which case they’ll do a few more missions. I think that’s me and The Golden Boys, except we’re not expendable. We’ve known each other our entire lives. We’re dependable. And one day we’ll be in Depends, but we’ll still be getting together every summer. Last weekend was our Golden Boy weekend. Usually these weekends involve golf, drinking, matching shirts, and whatever other trouble we can get ourselves into.

Part of each Golden Boy weekend is The Nipple Ring Open. The Nipple Ring Open is our golf tournament that only has us as participants and has on occasion involved partially clothed or naked golf as well as some very unique rule changes.  It was named The Nipple Ring Open because Golden Boy Chuck went away to the Navy and came back two years later with…yup, you guessed it, a nipple ring. Just one. Not even a matching set. The first year of the shirts was 2000.

We all wore these to a McDonald’s on the way and I think the kid at the counter assumed we’re all romantic partners. We’re not, but we did nothing to dispel this assumption. This year shortly after I arrived at Gooby’s house the ceremonial presentation of the shirts occurred. Below is this years logo.

After golf we cooked ourselves a feast of steak and lobster. Then we left for the evenings festivities. Gooby had procured free tickets to a concert. Not just any concert; an 80’s concert! Benny Mardones, a resident of our hometown had one hit song in the 1980’s. He was hosting a concert with several other one hit bands from the 1980’s to benefit the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund. Carol Baldwin is a survivor of breast cancer, also from our hometown,  and the mom of actors Alec, Stephen, and Daniel Baldwin. Stephen made an appearance at the show.

The band lineup for the show included Animotion, Tommy Tutone, A Flock of Seagulls, Naked Eyes, and of course hometown favorite Benny Mardones. I’ve linked each band to the video of their big 80’s hit song. My favorite is Tommy Tutone. Remember Jenny/867-5309? We arrived and joined the crowd on the floor to enjoy the show. Then we moved up to some vacant seating to watch. Most people would just sit, watch, and enjoy. The Golden Boys are not most people.

As we were on the upper concourse I noticed a set of stairs from the concourse down to what appeared to be the area behind the stage. That area was cordoned off from the commoners. The area was where the bands and the V.I.P.’s got free drinks and hob knobbed with each other. I pointed to the stairs and their apparent access to the V.I.P. area. Gooby decided to go check it out. He went down the stairs casually and walked past the V.I.P. area and emerged on the other side of the stage. He came back and reported that there didn’t appear to be any reason we couldn’t just join the V.I.P’s. Our friend Carol, who had seen our check in on Facebook had found us. She decided she would head down there and walk right in to the V.I.P. area to get a free drink. She did so successfully and waved to us. I went down and joined her, soon to be followed by Gooby and Cliff and later by another high school friend Elaine. Before we knew it The Golden Boys were rubbing elbows with anyone and everyone.  I had a lengthy and weird conversation with Tommy of Tommy Tutone about fireflies. Oddly he had never heard of The Golden Boys. It was such a  long and weird a conversation that I was thinking of faking that I had a phone call I had to take.  Then thankfully, Tommy did just that. A lead singer from one of the bands was kind of a mean jerk to everybody but I won’t name him. He did almost walk off the stage but not where the stairs were. He would have taken an accidental dive had there not been people there to stop him. Below is a picture of me with the singer from Naked Eyes. He asked for it so he could prove to his kids he met The Phil Factor guy.

As always, feel free to share #ThePhilFactor on Facebook, Twitter, or by re-blogging. If you’d like to read how the Golden Boys would handle a murder mystery in their own neighborhood, try one of my novels. Have a great Saturday! ~ Phil