Just A Small Town Boy...

I admit to having a soft spot for Bret Michaels and Poison. Why? Two words.

Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

Bret and drummer Rikki Rocket hail from this small town outside of Harrisburg. I had family there and spent a lot of time running around the town as a little kid. It's a small community that, years ago, was dominated by a large dairy farm and nursery called Ashcombs, and a small amusement park and racetrack called William's Grove. Every summer when I would visit my family we would go to William's Grove and ride the rides all day, and at night watch the fireworks set off at the park from my aunt's front yard. Later at night you could always here the roar of the engines from the racetrack. My aunt lived very close to the dairy farm and nursery, so we could walk to get homemade ice cream in the nursery's store. The air had that cow manure smell, and we didn't worry about getting dirty running in the fields. It was a good place to be a kid.

I gravitated to Poison in the mid 80s because their music was pure fun, and they looked good. Yes, I'm a sucker for the glam rock look. And when I found out the band originated in Mechanicsburg, I was thrilled. It was an easy place to miss on the map, yet here was a major rock band calling it home! And I had a tie to it! Surely, if I ever met the band, I was in.

My aunt used to tell me about seeing Rikki around the store where she worked, shopping with his mom. She always knew it was him because, as she said, he was the only kid in Mechanicsburg with purple hair. She also knew a girl who used to date him, and this girl loaded my aunt up with tons of old flyers for me to have. They featured the band's original name, Spectres, and the pictures of teenage Bret and Rikki were cute. I saved them for posterity, in the hopes of being able to have them sign one when I finally met them.

Well, I'm still waiting. Not that I haven't tried. Poison opened for David Lee Roth when he played our local arena, Nassau Coliseum, in 1987, and my friends and I went to the hotel near the arena to try and find them. Now, I realize that because we're so close to Manhattan, most bands commute in to the shows, but then I really thought they'd be there. Instead, we got propositioned by one of Roth's roadies. Um, no thank you.

In the summer of 1999, I got the closest I'd ever been, at the PNC Bank Arts Center. I was there with my friends to see Great White, Ratt and Poison. Thanks to my best friend working in the industry, we had backstage passes. I got an autograph from CC Deville, but no Rikki or Bret. I saw Rikki's family in the catering area, but I was too shy to go up and start a conversation. The closest I got to Bret was when I literally almost bumped into him as he was heading for the stage with security while I was hurrying out front to see the start of the show. Afterwards, he was surrounded.

Now, with the success of Rock of Love, Bret Michaels is more famous than he's ever been. I watched every episode of all three seasons, fascinated and horrified at the same time. Where do they find these women? I've watched his True Hollywood Story and Behind the Music episodes, and can practically recite verbatim the story about writing "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" in a laundromat. I think Riki Rachtman had the best line on Behind the Music - Bret walks the fine line between slutty dirtbag and really nice guy. And even though I'm a bit perturbed that he hasn't accepted my Facebook friend request yet, I'll still keep coming back to him and Poison.

Small town ties are hard to break.