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Encounter 1 - |
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at Club Cinema in Pompano Beach, Florida August 29 and 30, 2008
DeppAdmirer and I met up with a group of members from Deppography and hung out with them on Saturday night at the concert. A great group of women and Depp lovers! I know that there were also members of the Zone there, but don't know who they are and didn't make any connections with them in advance to meet up since I'm not a member at the Zone. I'm a member at Deppography, so it was easy to PM all the girls who said they were going, exchange arrival schedules and cell phone numbers, and then connect when we were all in Ft. Lauderdale. What an incredible weekend it was! Made even more incredible by the fact that Johnny drew all these fans together from all over the country, and we all met and made new friendships. It was definitely a great girls' weekend! I only took disposable cameras with me because we weren't sure what the camera policy was going to be, and I didn't want to chance getting a good camera confiscated. Club Cinema's rules are "no videos, no recording devices, no cameras" and our bags were searched as we entered the club. However, they must have only been searching for anything illegal, because everyone in the place had either cameras or video cameras - or both! No one tried to stop anyone from taking photos or videos during the concerts. As we entered the club, they had show programs stacked on a table and were giving them away free. They were also selling concert t-shirts for $15 each with the money going to the charity. The t-shirts don't have any photos on them, but on the back they have the dates and a list of all the bands that played. As you can see from the photos of both concerts, Johnny sweated up a storm on Friday night, but not as much on Saturday night. On Friday night, he was brightly lit with spotlights, as were both Bruce and Joey, who didn't seem to have a similar problem with excessive sweating. Poor Johnny barely made it through the first song when he was already very visibly affected by the heat of the lights. DeppAdmirer and I were about 4 or 5 rows of people back from the edge of the stage and we could see sweat dripping off his chin, his hair, and running down his chest. He had a small white towel on top of the amps behind him, and several bottles of water. As soon as each song ended, he grabbed the towel, started mopping himself off, and a couple of times, he put the towel on top of his head and tried to sop up some of the sweat in his hair. His hair was totally wet just as if he had showered. On Saturday night, the first thing I noticed was that Bruce and Joey were lit with spotlights, but Johnny had no spotlights on him. In fact, it was difficult to see him or get photos of him because he was in the shadows all the time. You could see that he was there, but you couldn't see details or the expressions on his face like we'd been able to see on Friday night. I'm guessing that he told them not to spotlight him on Saturday night so that he didn't have to deal with the heat of the lights and the sweating again all night. He possibly may have also wanted to highlight the rest of the guys in the band and sort of step back out of the spotlight himself. It was obvious that the majority of the crowd was there to see him, and many of them didn't really care about hearing the other bands. I think that Johnny probably is embarrassed by that, even though he obviously knows that him being there is a huge help to the Dan Marino Foundation in selling more tickets. When Johnny is playing guitar, he literally never stops moving! He is constantly prowling back and forth from his corner of the stage, along the back of the stage, and up near Beano's drum kit. He frequently would joke around with Beano while they were playing and you could see the two of them laughing. Sometimes Johnny would cross the entire stage and get next to Joey to play their guitars together side-by-side, or to share the mic with either Joey or Bruce when singing back-up vocals on some of the songs. Johnny also had a number of really good guitar solos in the middle of songs. There was a man standing behind our group on Saturday night, and one of the girls said she heard him say, "Well, he isn't Eric Clapton, but he sure can play that guitar!" For the fans in the audience, the fact that Johnny is never in one place for more than a few seconds makes it difficult to focus a camera and take a picture before he's already walked out of the view finder. When you see all those "shaky" YouTube videos, you'll have to understand that anyone with a video camera had to keep the camera constantly on the move trying to keep up with where Johnny was going on stage. He also tends to keep his head down and his hair was always hanging in his face obscuring his eyes. On Friday night, DeppAdmirer and I stood on the cement floor in front of the stage the entire time. In the beginning, while the other bands were playing, it wasn't too bad. You could easily move around, although I didn't move out of my spot because I knew I was standing directly in front of where Johnny would come out on stage later that night. The problem is that the floor in front of the stage is flat, so for me being 5'5", there was always someone taller than me standing in front of me blocking my view. I had to keep bobbing my head back and forth, trying to look between taller people who were in front of me or people who held their arms up in the air all night with either a video camera or a digital camera. The Romantics were the band that played right before The Kids on Friday night, and they had quite a good fan base there too. So when the stage crew started setting up the equipment for The Romantics, people who had been in other parts of the club up until then, started coming down to the floor level to get in front of the stage. It got more crowded, and people were pushing and jostling in front of those of us who had been standing there since the club opened that night, which made most of us very territorial and quite ticked off! By the time The Romantics ended their set and the stage was being set up for The Kids, even MORE people started invading the floor area to try to get as close as possible to Johnny. DeppAdmirer and I got separated because of people who pushed in between us. We could see each other, but there were half a dozen people standing in between us. I was over near the right side of the stage (right side if you're facing the stage) because that's where Johnny always stands when he's playing with The Kids. Sure enough, I saw one of the stage guys walk out with Johnny's vintage cream-colored Fender Telecaster guitar (the same one he played when he was a teenage member of The Kids). The guy strummed a few notes to make sure it was hooked up and working, and then he put it in a guitar stand that was on the side of the stage where I was standing. Unfortunately, there were three HUGE speakers on the corner of the stage that were about 15 ft. from me and had been all night. I didn't realize it during the concert, but by the time the show ended, I could barely hear anyone speaking to me, and that didn't go away until sometime the next day. I didn't think to bring ear plugs because I never imagined I'd be standing in front of 3 gigantic speakers all night just to get a closer look at Johnny! My temporary hearing impairment and pounding headache at the end of the night was more than worth the chance to see Johnny that close up and hear him play guitar! Just before The Kids came on stage, and even after they had started their show, people from other areas of the club kept coming down to the floor area and were trying to push their way into the crowd. Several times, I had people shove in front of me, and in every case, I was very verbal about telling them that they needed to get out of my way. I got into it with a woman who hadn't been down on the floor level all night until The Kids were about to come on stage. She was at least 6' tall, and she shoved her way into the crowd from the side, practically stepped on my feet trying to get through, and then stopped and stood right in front of me and a little teenage girl who had been standing there next to me all night. I tapped her on the shoulder, she turned, and I yelled into her ear, "I CAN NO LONGER SEE NOW THAT YOU'RE IN FRONT OF ME!! I'VE BEEN HERE ALL NIGHT - YOU HAVEN'T!!" She sort of blew me off and said she would move in a few minutes. I got right up into her ear, and I screamed, "YOU WILL MOVE...NOWWWW!!!!" She got the hint, gave me a dirty look, but started squeezing through the crowd back out the same way she had come in. There was a guy and his girlfriend standing behind me, and he tapped me on the shoulder, was laughing, and said, "Well, I guess you took care of her!" It got so crowded that I was constantly being elbowed or jabbed by people on all sides of me for the 90 minutes that The Kids were on stage. I stood my ground, dug my feet into the concrete floor, and wouldn't budge! I wanted to stand right in front of Johnny's little corner of the stage the whole time! Nobody was going to get between me and my view of Johnny! The Kids played about 90 minutes on Friday night, which was longer than any of the other bands. At the last part of the show, they invited all the other performers up onto the stage and they all jammed together on one finale song. It was sung to the tune of "Gloria" but the song was about Sheila Witkin, and they all sang "Sheila" instead of "Gloria." The stage was quite crowded with musicians and singers! When the stage gets crowded with other performers, Johnny tends to move toward the back of the stage and doesn't like to be out front, so it was very difficult to see him. He likes to hang out back around Beano's drums, and jam with other guitarists. At the end of the finale, I noticed there was an Exit door just to my right and that some of the fans in the club were rushing out that door. I quickly found DeppAdmirer, and we went out that door. I was thinking it must be the door that goes behind the club where fans were able to meet Johnny after the concert in 2007. Sure enough, we got outside into the back parking lot, and there was the staircase with the metal hand railing that I had seen Johnny leaning over in all those photos from the 2007 concert. This time, however, the entire back parking lot directly behind the club was walled off with chain link fencing that had a dark mesh covering so that you could barely see through it. Inside the gated area, we could see the tops of two big motor homes that were parked side by side. You could hear the A/C running in the motor homes and see lights on inside each. One of them looked like a nightclub inside - at least the little bit that I could see in the front area near the driver's seat. There was neon green rope lighting on the walls and it was subtle lighting inside as if you were in a bar or a nightclub. You could also see several cars and the always-present black SUV with blacked-out windows. A group of about 75-100 people gathered out back and stood outside the chain link fence, trying to listen to what was going on inside the fenced area, and finding spots to peer through the mesh fabric. At the time, DeppAdmirer and I had not connected with the girls from Deppography, so we didn't know what they looked like and didn't know that they too were standing out there waiting. Two of them had tried to call my cell phone while inside the club, but it was so loud in there that there was no way to talk on a cell phone. When I got outside, my ears were ringing and I could barely hear people talking to me, so I knew I wouldn't be able to have a cell phone conversation. I didn't try to call them while we stood outside because I was embarrassed that I couldn't hear! By that time, we had been continuously standing on our feet since around 7:30 pm and it was somewhere around 2:30 am. Our feet and legs were killing us! But I just couldn't go away without having the chance to possibly meet Johnny. I'd been waiting too many years for this, and I wasn't going to move from my spot! Included in the group were 5 paparazzi who had been inside the club photographing Johnny during the show. They all wore black pants and black t-shirts so they could blend into the darkness of the club without attracting attention. There were 4 men and 1 woman. Two of them had huge cameras they were lugging around, and one had a large black backpack. Another one had a bunch of rolled up posters (all identical) in his arms, while another had a good sized stack of books, magazines, and photographs stacked up and held under his arm. I assumed that they thought they were going to be able to get Johnny to autograph all these items. We could hear thunder getting closer to us, and at one point it started raining. The paparazzi quickly all jumped underneath the cover of the staircase and a couple other people got under there. Two guys found a huge, dirty tarp somewhere and they held it up in the air while about a dozen women got underneath. I was so hot and sweaty from being in that crowded club that I just stood there and let the rain cool me off. It wasn't a downpour...it felt refreshing to me, and it dampened my naturally curly hair which helped get rid of most of the frizziness from the high humidity and brought my curls back. There I was...just like all the other women....worrying about how we looked when we were going to get to meet Johnny! We still weren't sure what was going on behind the fenced area and whether we were going to see Johnny that night. Word started spreading through the group that Vanessa and Lily-Rose were there, and had been sitting up in a roped off VIP area in the balcony watching Johnny on stage, and Lily-Rose had been taking pictures of her daddy with a disposable camera. I never saw Vanessa or Lily-Rose, but by Saturday, there were more people who reported seeing them up there, so I'm assuming it was true. Jack wasn't with them or maybe he was sleeping out in the motor home. It would have been a bit late for a 6-year-old. I started thinking that this was probably the first time Lily-Rose (and maybe even Vanessa) had ever seen Johnny playing with The Kids since they didn't make the trip with him in 2007. Suddenly Jerry popped up over the top of the fence right in front of where I was standing. He took a few steps up that staircase and leaned over the top of the fence and surveyed the crowd, probably trying to see how many were there and make a decision as to whether he was going to go ahead with a "meet & greet." Several of us who recognized him said, "Hi, Jerry" but he didn't really respond. Everyone got very quiet waiting for him to say something. By then, some of the people had left when it started raining so the crowd had thinned out a bit. FINALLY, Jerry spoke! All he said was, "There will be no autographs!" At that point, I felt a sudden rush of excitement because I KNEW that we were going to get to meet Johnny! Jerry was very businesslike, wearing dress slacks, a white shirt and a sport coat. He spoke quietly in his Bristish accent, but you could tell that he really meant what he said. He is definitely in control of Johnny's security matters. There were a lot of other security people there - club security, local police, and also Paul, who is from Jerry's security agency. Paul is the black guy, usually is always dressed in a suit, and he isn't very tall. I'm 5'5" and he wasn't much taller than me. He's also British. You've probably seen him before in photos when Johnny is out at large events. He works in tandem with Jerry to make sure Johnny is protected. The most recent time I remember seeing him with Johnny (when Jerry wasn't there) was when Johnny and Keenan and Paul were going somewhere in an SUV in L.A. and paparazzi were tailing them. Johnny had them stop the car, and he got out to go confront the paparazzi at their car window. Paul and Keenan went with him, and you can clearly see Paul in most of that group of photos. Back to my story about the meet & greet....Jerry then laid down the rules of the meet & greet. He told us that Johnny had been there since 3:00 pm and it was 3:00 am, so Johnny was tired. He wanted to meet us, but Jerry wasn't going to allow him to take forever. He refers to Johnny as JD, and said, "These are not JD's rules. These are MY rules." The rules were that we couldn't ask for autographs or ask Johnny to pose in a picture with us. We had to line up single file and there would be no screaming. He wanted us to be calm and quiet. We could take pictures of Johnny as he moved down the line greeting people, but couldn't ask him to stop and pose for personal pictures - both that and the autographs slows up the line tremendously. Jerry told us that if anyone broke his rules, he would immediately stop the Meet & Greet, and everyone would be sent home. While still standing over the top of the fence, I saw Jerry glare at the group of paparazzi who were standing right up against the fence near to the opening where the gate swung open. Jerry held up a regular digital camera like you or I would have and said, "Look at this! THIS is a camera to me. These are allowed." Then he looked back at the paparazzi again as if to let them know that their gigantic cameras were not going to be allowed. Then he said, "This is for the fans {and looking straight at the paparazzi} - YOU are not fans!" Jerry disappeared behind the fence again, and we all waited some more. Everyone was buzzing with excitement that we were going to get to meet Johnny. I thought that Johnny would probably come out of the gated area into the parking area, and that Jerry would make us line up out there. Instead, the gate started opening and Jerry was standing at the open gate. He told us to come over and get lined up at the gate and he would let us in one by one. He held the gate open just far enough for him to stand there and one person at a time to go through. Inside the gates, Paul was directing everyone to line up along the back of the building in a single file line, and to make sure we stayed in line close to the back of the building. As I was about to go through the gate, I found myself directly behind the paparazzi. The guy with all the posters approached the gate and Jerry stopped him and told him he couldn't bring the posters in. The same thing with the guy who had all the books and magazines, and the same thing with the two big cameras. They must have gone and stashed all that stuff somewhere (maybe in a car) because they came back and got inside. The pap just in front of me had a big black backpack that he was carrying by the strap so that it was hanging down near his legs and feet. Jerry noticed it, stopped him at the gate, and told him to open the backpack so he could search it. The pap hesitated for just a few seconds, and Jerry said louder, "Open that bag! I want to search it!" The guy opened the bag, Jerry stuck a small flashlight inside, looked around, and then let the guy inside. I was next in line and I had a small backpack, but Jerry let me right through. The pap with the black backpack was the only one who got stopped and searched. I was sort of smirking at that, because I think Jerry got a kick out of annoying those paparazzi! I got inside the gates and found myself in line at about the center of the back of the building. The two motor homes were directly in front of me, about 50 yards away. There were a lot of people coming and going from the motor home that was closest to us (in front of the other one that we couldn't see). Johnny's bandmates were going in and out, as well as other people that I didn't recognize. This was the motor home that had all the neon lighting inside. In front of the motor home, there was another length of fencing that ran from the doors of the motor home down the length of the motor home so that anyone getting out of the motor home would have to walk down the length of fence and then out into the parking area. The line of fans stretched to the end of the building, curved and then stretched along the chain link fence back to the gate opening where we had entered. I couldn't believe that we were let inside the "inner sanctum" and that we were going to meet Johnny very soon! It was very hot and humid outside, even at 3:00 am, and a woman who was near the "curve" of the line apparently fainted or almost fainted and slumped down onto the ground. I heard someone yell to Jerry that someone was down. I didn't know at the time that it was the girls from Deppography who were standing next to this woman and who had alerted Jerry. Jerry ran over, then turned and yelled back to Paul to get a bottle of cold water. While Paul was fetching the water, the woman had come to but was still sitting on the ground. Jerry wanted to lighten it up a bit, so he jokingly said to her, "Sweetheart, you don't have to go to all of this in order to meet JD! He's going to be coming out in just a minute." I could see Jerry laughing and the lady was able to get up on her own, then seemed OK after that. We hadn't seen Johnny yet and we'd been standing inside the gated area for about 15 minutes. Jerry went inside the motor home, I think to tell Johnny that everything was ready or to find out what was delaying him. Suddenly, we could see Johnny just inside the glass doors of the motor home and he started down the steps near the driver's door. Jerry was with him. The bus doors opened, and they both stepped outside behind the fence that was along the length of the motor home. They both came out at the end of the fence, and there was Johnny, in all his glory, walking past us right in front of our eyes! He had that slow, leasurely, cat-like stroll that we've seen so often before. He had taken a shower in the motor home and had changed his clothes. His hair was still damp and hanging in his eyes. He had on well-worn jeans and one of his plaid long-sleeved shirts tied around his waist. His shirt was the brown-white-yellow plaid shirt with the sleeves cut off that he wore during the interview he did for the re-release of the "Cry-Baby" DVD - one of my favorite shirts on him because it shows lots of skin and tats! He had two of the bottom buttons on the shirt buttoned, but his chest was bare and his arms were bare. There was a woman in a wheelchair with her husband, and Jerry had moved them to the front of the line while they were getting the line arranged. Johnny started out at that end of the line and greeted them first. The very next woman that Johnny came to in line asked him if he would pose for a picture with her!!!! Everyone heard it, and people further back in the line started yelling, "Didn't you hear what Jerry said about no posed photos???" We were afraid that Johnny hadn't even gotten past the first two people, and Jerry may have gotten ticked off and sent us all home. Fortunately, that didn't happen. I would have died of disappointment if it had...but only after I'd taken time to go stomp that woman who disobeyed Jerry's rules! As soon as Johnny started going down the line, Paul took a position that was about 5 feet in front of Johnny, and he was constantly walking ahead of Johnny and watching the people that were in line that Johnny hadn't reached yet. Jerry stood very close to Johnny's left side, and gently but firmly put his right hand on Johnny's lower back, guiding Johnny down the line. Jerry was fully in control of how much time Johnny spent with each person. If he thought Johnny was spending too long with someone, he would nudge Johnny in the lower back, and say something like, "I'm sorry, folks, but we've got to move on." I got the impression that if Jerry wasn't there controlling the entire event, Johnny would probably stand out there and sign everything, allow lots of pictures, and talk to people until he dropped of exhaustion. Johnny seemed to hate to have to say no, so it was clear that Jerry was being the "bad cop" and had to keep Johnny moving and on a schedule. As Johnny was working his way down the line, everyone was very quiet. We could hear him gently talking to each person, see him shaking hands and giving out hugs when people asked for one. I tried to take some photos of him as he was coming down the line before he got to me, but I think that Paul blocked my view of Johnny in a couple of them because he was walking out in front of Johnny. At one point, as Johnny got closer and I could hear everything he was saying, I decided that I just wanted to savor the moment without worrying about the camera. I couldn't believe he was that close! His voice was soft and gentle, but deep and smooth as velvet just like we hear when he's being interviewed. He seemed very shy, but was careful to give each person his undivided attention even if just for 10-15 seconds each. From my perspective, it almost seemed as if Johnny was using the Meet & Greet as his opportunity to thank the people who had come out and to thank his supporters. I genuinely felt as if he didn't entirely see this as our opportunity to meet him, but more his opportunity to thank us. He thanked every single person that he met. Immediately to my right was a group of 3 young ladies (late teens to early 20's) who were there together. When Johnny reached them, I was just stunned because he was so close and he was so beautiful. All those stories I've heard from others who've met him were true...he truly is more beautiful in person than in any magazine or on the big screen. He didn't have any make-up on - not even his beloved eyeliner! His skin was gorgeous! He had a bit of a tan (not a lot) and it left his skin looking honey or caramel colored. I heard the 3 girls next to me all trying to talk to him at the same time because they were so excited, but for the life of me, I don't remember anything they were saying or what he was saying to them. I couldn't stop staring at him! There right in front of me were all those tattoos that I've seen so many times for years, the two skull rings were on his hands. I could see his wide brown leather watch band on his right wrist. On his left wrist, he had a new bracelet that you'll be able to see close up in some of the concert photos. It was obviously made by one of his children. It has different colored and sized beads, some of them in green (his favorite color). Right in the center of the bracelet there are small square block beads, each with one letter on them. They spell out "Petit Papa" with a heart in between the two words. It's been discussed and determined on other fan sites that Jack likely made the bracelet for him and that Petit Papa is French for Dear Papa or Sweet Papa. He didn't wear any pendants, but that was OK by me because he had that shirt unbuttoned all the way to his lower belly and I could see lots of skin! No sense covering up all that with chains! His facial hair has grown back and it looked as if he's trying to grow out his Dillinger haircut. The hair on the top has gotten quite a bit longer, and it's in that phase where it flops around a lot and hangs in his eyes. When it's damp, the ends curl around in front of his eyes. The razor cut in the back is gone and the hair is thicker and filling in, but it's still short. I noticed that on the same wrist where he had the new bracelet, he also had a thin black stretchy band that looked like a ponytail band to me. Maybe he uses it when he's not out in public to keep the hair from flopping into his face and being annoying. Anyway, the 3 girls next to me were all jabbering at once, and Jerry was nudging Johnny to move down. Suddenly, he was standing right in front of me! He was very close - there wasn't a lot of space between he and I as we were standing facing each other. It was all I could do to restrain myself from grabbing him and kissing him or running my hand down that smooth chest or those well-defined arms! As he stood in front of me, I could feel him extend his right hand to shake my hand, but the girls to my right were not about to give him up and they were still keeping his attention by talking to him. My biggest disappointment was that I didn't get the deep eye-to-eye contact and that connection with him because he was trying to be polite and was looking back at those girls who were still asking him questions. Since he was so close to me and I could feel his outstretched right hand in front of me, I touched his hand with my right hand, put my left hand gently on his upper right arm and said to him, "If you don't mind, I would rather have a hug." That brought his attention over to me, and he put his right arm around my waist, pulled me right into a hug, and his left arm went around my back. While we were hugging, I thanked him for all the great music that night, and he pulled back a bit and said, "Oh no, it was my pleasure. Thank you for being here." I think I got a bit of eye contact at that moment, but with the hair in his eyes, it was hard to tell. When he speaks to you, it's as if you're the only one there. It was incredible! Jerry started nudging him in the back to move him along, and I said, "I brought a gift for you." Johnny stopped again in front of me, and Jerry said, "Give the gift to Paul." (Paul was carrying any gifts that people had given Johnny as he went down the line.) I said to Johnny, "Could I just show it to you before Paul takes it?" and he said, "Yeah, sure!" I had brought him a CD from my own personal CD collection. It was one I'd had for several years, and all that time I had always told myself that if I ever got the chance to meet Johnny, I wanted to give him that CD. No one else would quite enjoy the CD as much as I thought Johnny would. It's a CD called "Pull My Finger" and it has 30 minutes of real (discretely recorded) farts of all kinds...all of them hysterical, some of them disgustingly so. The CD ends with several songs that are entirely recorded in farts - Happy Birthday, holiday tunes, the Fighting Irish theme, and even an outgoing message for your answering machine. I bought the CD from one of those late night TV infomercials and have already had my fun with it over the years, so I figured it would be best passed along to the one person who I know would truly appreciate it...a true fart afficionado! Johnny! As I held out the CD, he read the title while it was still in my hand, and then he started that really cute giggling just like he giggled and laughed so much when he and Tim were doing all those press interviews for Sweeney Todd and were cracking each other up. He then took the CD out of my hand, I leaned in toward him again and said, "You'll love it - it's disgustingly funny!" He gave me another really quick hug, thanked me, and then Jerry nudged him down to the next person in line. I never saw what he did with the CD, whether it was given to Paul, went into Johnny's jeans pocket, or what. I have no idea what happens to all the gifts that are given to him, whether he really goes back and looks at them and keeps some of them, or whether Paul just gets rid of them. I am really hoping that some day I'll be reading something about Johnny on the set of one of his upcoming films, and they talk about him playing practical jokes on everyone using a CD full of farts. That would just totally make my day! It already made my day that I was able to make him laugh when I had my very brief time with him - my two goals going into the thing were to get a hug and do something to make him laugh because I just love to hear his laugh. He's so boyish and silly and charming all at the same time when he laughs. As it turned out, the woman who was standing on my immediate left appeared to be an old friend of Johnny's, I'm guessing from when he and Sal grew up together. As soon as Johnny left me and spotted her, he yelled "OMG! I can't believe it! I haven't seen you in so long! How are you??" and they both threw their arms around each other and stood there hugging and patting each other's shoulders. Johnny pulled back a bit to look at her, and said "Have you seen Sal? Sal's here...do you want to see Sal?" Just at that moment, Jerry could sense that this was REALLY going to slow the line down, so he said, "Johnny, Sal has been gone for 20 minutes. Now, come on, we've got to keep this moving along." The woman and Johnny hugged tightly again, and he seemed reluctant to leave her, as if he really wanted to stay and get caught up for old times' sake, but Jerry was nudging him on down the line. I turned and took a photo of the woman and Johnny hugging, and I didn't think about it then, but I should have asked her for her contact info so I could send the photo to her. Unfortunately, as soon as each of us finished our few seconds with Johnny, we had to immediately leave the fenced area back through the same gate we had come in. We weren't allowed to stay inside and continue taking pictures of him as he worked his way down the rest of the line. There were club security guards who were following along in Johnny's wake, asking people to leave as soon as they had met Johnny. I was disappointed in that because I could have taken better photos of him as he walked away from me down the line since Paul wouldn't have been blocking the view. Everyone always wants to know what Johnny smelled like, and I remembered to take a deep breath as I was hugging him. Sorry to disappoint, but he didn't smell like anything at all...I couldn't detect any scent of sweat, soap, shampoo, cologne, cigarettes, or anything. I know he had just showered before he came out to meet us, so I was surprised he didn't smell like soap or shampoo, but there was absolutely no scent! I didn't smell anything on his breath. The one thing that all of us noticed was that he never smoked a single cigarette while on stage either night of the concerts. Smoking is allowed in that club, and there were plenty of people smoking, but Johnny didn't cave in and smoke even when there was smoke all around him. On Friday night when he came out on stage, he was chewing gum at a mad pace, so maybe that's what he does to try to hold down the urge to smoke. When he came out of the motor home, he didn't smell like cigarettes at all, so I'm assuming he didn't smoke after the show once he got into private and away from being watched. I know that he has said he's been trying to quit, and maybe he finally has been able to quit. Good for him! Even better for his kids! The other observations that I have after meeting him were that he seems to be about 5'9" tall. I didn't even see what boots or shoes he was wearing during the Meet & Greet - I couldn't take my eyes off his face, his arms and his chest! His skin is very soft, and he's very gentle in all his movements, but at the same time, he gives you a good, tight hug. He is definitely thin, but at the same time, the muscles in his arms are very well-defined, especially after he'd been out on that stage for 90 minutes tearing up that guitar! I would guess that he's maybe 145-155 lbs. but he isn't skinny or boney nor are his ribs visible. He's just very lean and muscled - he doesn't have an ounce of extra fat on him. I was very impressed with the muscles in his biceps as well as his forearms - you can definitely see the definition in them and can tell that he keeps himself in shape. I just wish I could have spent time running my hands over all those muscles on his arms....but I would have risked Jerry batting my head right off my shoulders and out of the fenced in area! On Saturday night, we had gotten in touch with a couple of the Deppography gals and agreed to meet them outside the club while standing in line to get inside. DeppAdmirer and I ended up finding one group of them and standing in line with them, while a second group of them came a bit later and were further back in line. Once we got inside the club, we all went to the same place which was where they had been standing the night before. We weren't at the floor level, but were one level above that. It was elevated about 5' above the floor level, had several big bars, a metal railing across the front and some chairs along the metal railing. We staked out our territory at the far end of that area, directly in front of and along the side of one of the bars. A couple of us got chairs, but the majority of us stood the whole time. We had a perfect view of Johnny's corner of the stage, and we were also close to the Exit door that we'd gone out the night before. It was a lot of fun all getting together in a group and being able to talk and laugh, even though we had to shout to be heard because of the music blaring. There were a lot more people in attendance on Saturday night, and it was much more crowded, stuffier, and warmer inside. Lots more cigarette smoke! I heard someone say that there were about 2300 there on Saturday night (I think the club holds 2500), but I never heard a figure from Friday night. We were right at the bar, so we could easily buy drinks - they had beer by the bottle and mixed drinks. I don't know what they were charging for those, but they looked a bit watered down to me, and they were in plastic cups (and not the large size cups!). I asked for a bottle of water, and it was $5.00!! I decided to nurse that expensive bottle of water all night long! About halfway through the night, I turned to get a drink from my water bottle and it was gone. The bartender had cleaned up all the empty cups and also took my bottle of water which was still about a third full. I wasn't about to pay another $5.00 for a new bottle, so I called her over and said something to her about it. She gave me a new bottle of water, really cold right out of the iced water in a big barrel behind the bar. That was enough to last me the rest of the night...I didn't want to drink too much because I didn't want to give up my spot to have to go to the restroom. There was a group of young women, all dressed to kill, who had moved right in beside me in front of the bar, and they were pushing down trying to get all of them squeezed into the same area. They thought that they were going to be able to push me down and out of the way so that they could take over the bar area, but I refused to budge. I dug my feet in, and pushed back every time I felt the girl next to me pushing me. They had all come up from Miami, and they were there only to see Johnny. They paid absolutely no attention to any of the other bands who were on stage. By the way they were dressed to the nines, I guess they figured they were going to be able to meet Johnny, impress him, and maybe he'd fall in love with one of them! Throughout the night, it was a constant battle between them and me. They kept crowding into a space that was much too small for their group, and they kept trying to push me to my right to give them more room. I was standing right at the end of the bar, and one of the girls from Deppography was right next to me. Finally, they had pushed me, literally, to my limit! I very firmly told the girl who was on my left that she could push all she wanted, but I was not going to move and was not going to give up the choice spot that I had for seeing Johnny and being able to take photos. I told her that I'd been the night before and had gotten pushed and shoved all over down on the floor level until it became very difficult for me to see and take pictures over the top of everyone else who'd pushed into the crowd ahead of the rest of us who'd been there all night. I told her that I wasn't going to allow that to happen again. I was fully expecting to get into an argument with her, but instead, she said, "You were here last night?? What was it like?? Did you get to see Johnny???" I told her that I had actually met him outside after the show, and she practically screamed, turned around to all her girlfriends, and was screaming to them that I had met Johnny the night before. Suddenly, she was my best friend! She introduced herself to me, asked my name, and her entire concern from that point on was that she wanted me to help her get out that back door so that she could meet Johnny after Saturday night's show. I pointed out our whole group, told her that we were all from various Depp fan sites and had come in from all over the country to be at the concerts. She was really impressed with that, and was acting like we were some sort of celebrities ourselves. From then on, she and her girlfriends stopped all the pushing, and she talked to me off and on the rest of the night. As it turned out, she and her girlfriends all left the club during one of the finale songs, and they went out the front door. They weren't out back after the concerts where we all gathered again to see if there would be another Meet & Greet. I was a bit disappointed with Saturday night's show because The Kids didn't play as long or as many songs, plus Johnny was totally in shadows so he was difficult to see. With my little disposable camera, I'm sure my photos are probably not going to come out. Johnny spent most of his time in the area near Beano's drums and very little time in his corner of the stage where we could have seen him better. He still was walking around the stage quite a bit, but seemed to remain in the back of the stage much more on Saturday night. They played many of the same songs that they had played the night before, with a few changes. It seemed to me that they had only played maybe 5 songs when Bruce started calling to all the other musicians to come up on stage and join them. The stage got very crowded and Johnny stayed in the back. The whole group of performers did two songs together and were going to do a third, big finale song. I noticed that Jerry had been standing at the edge of the stage on Johnny's side of the stage, and even before the last song ended, Jerry started motioning to Johnny, got his attention, pointed at his watch and made some sort of symbol with his hand. At that point, I saw Johnny go over toward Bruce while still playing their guitars, and he and Bruce both stopped playing and gave each other a really big hug. It looked like Johnny was saying good-bye to Bruce. Johnny then took his guitar off and carried it off stage; Jerry was right there by his side rushing him out the back door of the club. The song ended, and all the musicians sort of stood around talking to each other and getting a breather, and then they were going to start the last song. We all hung around thinking that Johnny would come back out on stage for the big finale song, but he never reappeared. Once we realized he wasn't coming back out, we all rushed out the Exit door into the back parking lot. There were a lot more people out there on Saturday night than there had been on Friday night. We were only out there about 10 minutes when the gates started opening and they were telling people to get out of the way. Two identical black SUVs with blacked-out windows drove out through the gates, so close together that they were almost bumper to bumper. After they left, the gates closed and we all stood around talking trying to decide whether that was Johnny that had just left or whether it was a decoy car. We decided to hang around longer and see what happened. We kept waiting and waiting, trying to peer into the fenced area through the gaps in the mesh covering the fence. We couldn't see Jerry or Paul anywhere, but we could see the other guys from The Kids going in and out of that same motor home that Johnny had come out of the night before. We didn't want to give up hope that maybe he was still back there, and once the crowd thinned out more, we would be able to get to meet him again. At various times, different people kept opening the gate in order to walk out and go to their cars. They were people who worked at the club or were musicians from some of the other bands. Each time someone came out, they would tell us that there was no sense waiting around because Johnny was long gone. Since we didn't know who these people were, we decided that we weren't going to leave until someone we knew and trusted came out and told us that Johnny was, in fact, gone. We thought that possibly it was a decoy to try to get as many of us to leave as possible. Various cars left the fenced in area, and one of the motor homes started up and left as well. We still had a bit of hope because the motor home that Johnny had come out of the night before was still parked inside the gated area. I could see a young woman with long brown hair, wearing jeans, sitting in the front seat of the motor home, directly behind the driver's seat. At one point, the driver got into the driver's seat in the motor home and looked like he was preparing to leave. Quite a few people did end up leaving, but our little group was hanging in there. We were realizing, though, that it seemed less likely that there was going to be a Meet & Greet. We hadn't seen Jerry anywhere, nor Paul, and Jerry would have come out and assessed the crowd by that time. Finally, the gate opened again, and there was Beano along with two other guys who were local musicians, but had not been involved in the concerts that night. Beano opened the gate wide and sort of addressed the crowd. He said that we all should go home because Johnny was long gone. He had left as soon as Jerry ushered him out the back door of the club. There was a blonde woman in the crowd who had not gotten to see Johnny on Friday night, and she was livid that she wasn't going to get to see him on Saturday night. I don't think she realized who Beano was, and she got right in front of him and was basically accusing him of lying to us in an effort to get us all to leave without seeing Johnny. She was convinced that Johnny was still there in that motor home. She was being really rude to Beano, and I felt so bad for him. He lives in Thailand now and had come all that distance to get together with his buddies and play in these concerts for charity. I went over where he was, and I was trying to deflect the woman's comments and get her to shut up and leave. I started saying, "Beano, thank you very much for being here and coming all that way...." but the woman persisted in arguing with him and I don't think he even heard me. He finally said to the woman, "Look, I'm the drummer in Johnny's band, and I'm telling you that he is no longer here! He's gone!" Another lady was standing there with two young daughters, and they also were really upset that they didn't get to meet Johnny. The little girls kept saying that they just HAD to meet him. The mother whispered to one of them, "Ask him if there's an after party." One little girl asked Beano if there was an after party and he said, "Yes there is, but unfortunately, it's only for people who were invited." The little girl kept asking if she could go, and then she asked Beano if he knew where the party was, and he said, "Yes, I do know where it is." Then the girl asked if he could tell them where the party was, and of course, Beano said that he wasn't going to tell them where the party was. After Beano had come out and said that Johnny was long gone, we finally felt as if he was someone that we could trust and that he wasn't just trying to get rid of us for Johnny's sake. He had also left the gate wide open, and we decided that if Johnny was back there in that motor home and Jerry was around somewhere, Jerry would never have allowed that gate to be left wide open. We decided at that point to give up, go back to our cars and head back to our hotels. Once again, it was somewhere between 2:30-3:00 am and it was threatening to rain again. By the time DeppAdmirer and I got back to our car, I think it did start raining as we were driving back to the hotel. It wasn't until yesterday when I saw the article about Johnny's yacht being moored outside a huge mansion with all the bells and whistles that he had rented for the time he was in Ft. Lauderdale. The article said that the mansion and yacht were the site of the after parties, and that all the guys in The Kids wanted to stay on Johnny's yacht every night instead of staying inside the mansion (I'm sure Vanessa loved that! She must not have gotten much lovin' time alone with Johnny on this trip!) You can just about imagine all the all-night partying and drinking going on, and how many cases of really good French wine was consumed by all, on Johnny's yacht over the course of the week they were there!! It seems like he had a whole entourage of a bunch of his childhood friends and buddies hanging around there. Sal was apparently there too. I could have died when I read that article about the mansion and the yacht because it said it was located "just minutes from the beach and from trendy Las Olas Boulevard." The hotel that DeppAdmirer and I were in was right on Las Olas!!! So close, but yet so far away! Ah, well, a very good time was had by all! For me, it was my long-time dream come true...I finally got to see and meet Johnny! I hope it won't be the last time! Deppraved
  DeppAdmirer emailed the first photo to me, and I hadn't even seen it yet on the Web. This is my hand (red nail polish) holding the "Pull My Finger" CD that I gave to Johnny. He's just reading the title (apparently Jerry is too which, of course, I didn't even notice at the time - who's going to notice anyone but Johnny when he's standing in front of you???) As soon as Johnny read the title, he started laughing and took the CD (see second photo above). I didn't notice if Jerry thought it was funny. I don't know how Jerry feels about fart jokes! If he's around Johnny all the time, I'm sure he's gotten used to them! So, I have a picture of my hand, my shoulder (in black) and my CD being passed on to Johnny. My proof that I actually met Johnny! I think one of the paparazzi who were lined up to the left of the woman on my left must have taken the photo. They weren't allowed to bring in their big cameras, but they also had normal-sized digital cameras like you or I would have, and they were snapping pictures of him as he was coming down the line greeting fans. The woman that you can partially see on the left side - you can see her nose, cheek and bangs - is the one who was on my immediate left. Johnny instantly recognized her as an old friend of his and Sal's, and threw his arms around her in a big bear hug. I was just a bit jealous at that moment!! One of my favorite parts of this photo (and favorite parts of Johnny!) - check out the bottom of his shirt where it's open just above his belt. There's his sexy flat little belly peeking out! Good thing I didn't notice that while I was in front of him....it would have been VERY difficult to control myself! Thanks to DeppAdmirer for finding this photo and passing it along to me. I'll treasure it forever! Below are more photos from the events. These photos were gathered from various websites and were not taken by Deppraved. If you determine any one of the photos were taken by you and would like credit, please email depfan and she will give you credit next to your photo(s). Thanks. The photo at the top of this story is from People Magazine, 9/15/08. The last photo below is from Rolling Stone Magazine, 10/2/08.
 
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DeppAdmirer and I went to the concerts - she flew in from across the country and I drove down from Orlando. We met for the first time, shared a hotel room and a car, and shared our very first experience of seeing Johnny Depp in person! It was even more special because we were able to see him at an event where he's playing music, which doesn't happen very often. Anyone could tell by the joy on his face and the big smiles and hugs he gave to his bandmates and all the rest of the performers who had played in S. Florida when Johnny was a teenager in a band, that Johnny was back in his element. He was lovin' it! When he says he's always going to be a musician at heart, you can definitely see that in his face when he's having a great time playing guitar and jamming with his friends. I hoped that he could forget about "Johnny the World's Best Loved Actor" or "Johnny the Celebrity" for even just a few hours while he was making music with his friends.
