It’s My Beautiful and Brilliant Girlfriend's Birthday!!!

Of course, she's better known around these precincts as A Certain Shady Dame of My Acquaintance, or BG, but you get the idea.

In any case: I love you, kiddo, and I owe you more than I can express. I mean, for starters you (literally) saved my life a few years ago.

But now a couple of footnotes.

Number One: And I don't know if I've ever mentioned this here at the blog before, but we originally bonded over the fact that we had both attended The Yardbirds' legendary 1968 concert at the Anderson Theater in New York's East Village.

I should add that while the Anderson was (if memory serves) a 3000-seater (tops), at the point in history when BG and I first met, approximately 50,000 people were already on record as claiming they'd attended that historic show. So let's just say there was a certain amount of trust involved in our hooking up.

Number Two: I have another story involving us and the Yardbirds which I don't think I've previously shared either.

(And which also -- and more importantly -- proves just what a twit your humble scribe actually is.)

The short version: Sometime in 2010, after BG and I had been an item for a while, I suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands (specifially, I had just parted ways with the folks at Box Office Magazine, for whom I had been doing a daily online column for a couple of years). Anyway, as a result I decided to compile a greatest hits album by The Floor Models, i.e. the '80s band I had toiled in and which never received the popular/critical acclaim I was convinced we were due.

I also had a cover concept for said theoretical CD, and since I knew that BG was a terrifically talented graphic artist, I thought I might shnorr her into doing the actual artwork for said cover.

So anyway, I took her out for dinner one evening, the idea being that I would proposition her for the job at some point. And as we were waiting for dessert, I made the following pitch.

ME: Hey toots -- so am I correct that if I wanted to do a Floor Models album cover based on the front of the Yardbirds American debut LP, all I would need is four playing-card shaped photos of me and the other guys in the Flo Mos, and then a talented designer like you could subsitute our photos where Jeff Beck et al had originally appeared?

BG: Uh sure.

ME: Great. Would you like the job?

BG: Uh sure. And you're gonna call it "Floor Your Love," right?

ME: (fainting, and falling off my chair).

Swear to god -- that title had never occured to me.

Not even once.

Have I mentioned there's a reason I call her my beautiful and brilliant girlfriend?

Anyway -- happy birthday, babe. You're the best. Period.