With all this week’s juggling between two of my kids still being home for summer vacation but still needing to get all my work hours in, the anniversary of this blog slipped right past me. Since I’m not one to miss the opportunity to celebrate anniversaries and milestones, I still wanted to mark the occasion, even if it’s a couple of days late.
When I wrote the first blog post on Aug. 8, 2014, I had NO idea of the impact that my returning RS crush would have on my life. I had just finished reading “Late, Late at Night,” which had rekindled some memories of my high school crush and I was just starting to catch up on the past 15 years of his work. I even found my 1982 diary, which marked my very first year of RS fandom.
Shortly after that, he was coming to town and I got to briefly meet him. Then I saw him about six more times after that, the last one being in July 2016.
He’ll be here again in a couple of weeks, but I’ve yet to get tickets. After being in the first few rows for the past few concerts, I’m hesitant to get the cheaper seats further back but closer tickets for this particular show are very pricey and I don’t have anyone who is willing to spend that kind of money on tickets. If I’m not in the potential eye contact zone or the “Human Touch” zone, then what’s the point, right?
(I’m kidding of course, though it’s really a different show based on where your seats are.) Sometimes the “Human Touch” zone goes pretty far out in the crowd, but sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes some fan knocks him over and bloodies his leg and he doesn’t get past the first section. I guess I’m still a little bitter over that. (See “What happened in Vegas” for context.)
Anyway, where was I?
Oh right, I was marking a milestone.
Here are the stats: As of today, there have been 354 posts (including this one), 19,163 visitors and 33,425 views. The date with the best views ever was Jan. 16, 2018, right in the midst of all the promotion for “The Snake King.”
Some of my highlights since I started this blog, besides the concerts and brief RS encounters, are, in no particular order:
- Interacting with fellow RS fans.
- When Doug Davidson (RS’s best friend) followed me on Twitter and liked one of my tweets. We were “pen pals” when I was in high school, so the tweet like was pretty exciting.
- Having the link to the blog added to the “We Love Rick Springfield” fan site (which is sadly no longer around) and to the Rick Springfield and Us site.
- Listening to Rowdy Ron’s Springfield Special shows (the next one is Aug. 25).
- Participating in the GetRick Fit challenges
- Having a phone conversation with music producer Jeff Silverman (after hearing an interview with him on a Rowdy Ron radio show) who was SO encouraging about my songwriting and who suggested I get in touch with the local songwriters association, which I did, and have learned so much from their programs over the past year and a half or so. Even if he was just being nice after listening to some of my songs, I really appreciate the encouragement.
- Starting to write songs again after a 10-year hiatus, beginning with “My Rick Springfield Crush Revival”
(Hopefully my guitar playing has gotten better since then. I have learned more chords at least.)
So that’s that. Four years of My Rick Springfield Crush.
In case you’re interested, here are the links to past anniversary posts (looks like I missed doing one in 2017.):
Thanks for reading!
My Rick Springfield crush 