Lost Journal: I’ll Have a Bacon Double Bacon Burger

Journal entry: August 11, 2000 (age 31) – Bacon Burger

I think I just overdosed on bacon. Kevin Bacon. He and his brother, Michael, have a musical brother act not oddly named “the Bacon Brothers.” My wife, Amanda, and I went to see them in concert today at the Birchmere, a great nightclub in Alexandria, Va. The club has a gift shop, and before the show we bought the brothers’ CD, Forosoco. The night was still young after the concert, so we decided to catch a movie. A quick scan of the newspaper’s movie listings showed that we had one obvious choice: Hollow Man, starring Kevin Bacon.

Between the concert tickets, the CD, and the movie admission, my Kevin Bacon purchases today may not qualify as pork-barrel spending, but they certainly were unnecessary. But they brought me so close to the spike-haired actor that I think I can reasonably claim to be just one degree of separation from Kevin Bacon. That’s two degrees closer than Dom DeLuise, who was in The Muppet Movie with Edgar Bergen, who was in Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd in Sweden, which I believe Kevin Bacon saw when he was home sick from school one time.

During the concert, I kinda felt bad for Michael Bacon. No one was paying to see him. By George, Michael is the Andrew Ridgeley to Kevin’s George Michael. (In the previous sentence, the ratio of proper names to other kinds of words was 7:4. Wham! This beats the previous record, set by Bob Dole in a 1996 discussion about Bob Dole.) Perhaps a better analogy is that Michael Bacon fans at a Bacon Brothers concert are as numerous as Marlon Jackson fans at a Jackson 5 reunion. I mean, he’s no Michael. Oh wait, yes he is. My analogies are like saints – they’re not very good.

But the performance revealed that both brothers are talented musicians. They both sing and play guitar, and Michael even played the cello on one song. Their music is a mixture of folk, rock, soul and country, which is how they came up with the name of the Forosoco album. (I’m not sure what a combination of death metal, sea shanties, Presbyterian hymns, and Tuvan throat singing would spell, but it probably wouldn’t be as catchy.)

For their encore, Kevin sang the theme from Footloose. He, of course, was the star of the movie. But the “Footloose” theme was written and sung by Kenny Loggins. I worry that the same reasoning could lead Chevy Chase to tour with his rendition of the Loggins tune “I’m Alright (Theme from Caddyshack).” Worse still, Sylvester Stallone might record an a capella version of “Meet Me Half Way,” the theme from his arm-wrestling epic Over the Top.

Overall, we spent an enjoyable day, filled with Bacon. Next week, we’re going to have a Meat Loaf date.

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Tim Mollen

Buy your copy of "Lost Journal - the Book" at www.timmollen.com.Each Lost Journal column is a journal entry written in retrospect. In other words, Mollen chooses a different day from his past, and writes about it as though it were today. The date may be last week, Halloween 1980, or the day he was born (May 4, 1969). Some of you may be asking, “But how would he have been able to write a journal entry on the day he was born?” To you he says: “Lighten up. It’s a humor column.” Mollen is a nationally syndicated columnist and actor, and he is available as a speaker on writing and humor.