Video Friday (with V.D.)

This really isn’t so much a tale about venereal disease, as it is about choices, hard work, dedication, attention to detail – and a brush with celebrity.
The venereal disease here is only implied.
Between my freshman and sophomore year at the university, I lived with First Sister in Norman, Okla., which is the home of Oklahoma University. I worked as a landscaper for the city of Norman, I loaded and unloaded trucks at UPS and on concert nights, I was a roadie at the Lloyd Noble Center, the basketball arena on campus.
Yes, I was a roadie. It was 1982.
Acts included Aldo Nova, Emmylou Harris, Kansas, Cinderella and Cheap Trick.
Cheap Trick was by far the best (although I remember being very excited about Aldo Nova).
Cheap Trick. Midwestern boys like ourselves who hit it big with the live album “At Budokan.” What kid didn’t have this blaring from his under-dash 8-track player in high school, I ask? No one.
Like everyone else in the Midwest, I was a fan (but by this stage in my life, I had gone over to punk).
The best thing, they all were actually nice to the roadies. And in this instance, we’re talking dumb college kids and a few burnt-out locals.
I think because I had clean skin and a nice haircut (I was truly into the Alarm then, so I had a shag, just like frontman Mike Peters and yes photographic evidence does exist of this, but I ain’t showing you), guitarist Rick Nielsen picked me to help his personal roadie with the guitars. Nielsen likes guitars. I got to carry his Hamer Explorer checkerboard, yes I did.
Anyway, about the (implied) venereal disease.
After the show, we were rolling cord, dismantling the lights and boxing up the set so the guys could head to Dallas, 31/2 hours south. Tommy Petersson and Robin Zander came out to talk to the local crew. With a woman.
She looked like a younger version of Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics; she had on this short, black jumper dress, white shirt tied at he waist and completely open so as to feature the red lace bra and red ribbon wrapped around her various parts.
I was helping Nielsen and his roadie crate all the guitars.
“Guys, get us out of here by 2 a.m., and she’s yours,” Zander said.
To drive home the deal, the young lass picked up a beer bottle. She did not use her hands.
Nielsen put his hand on my shoulder and said:
“It’s up to you, but I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick.”
And laughed, somewhat maniacally.
I’ve never again seen a bigger, hornier mass of sex-starved young men move as quickly and as organized as the crew that night.
We got the last van packed at 2:15 a.m.
Petersson, Zander and Nielson came back out, sans girl, to wish us well.
“Sooooo close,” Zander said.
Instead of V.D., the band gave us a case of Heineken and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon, both still cold.
I, personally, was thankful for the beer.
Minus a chance at the clap.

So for Video Friday, I present Cheap Trick’s “Surrender.” A song with the venereal-disease-themed lyrics like “Mother told me, yes, she told me I'd meet girls like you; She also told me, "Stay away, you'll never know what you'll catch. Just the other day I heard a soldier’s falling off, some Indonesian junk that's going round.”
Fitting, I think: