How a Tweet Got Us Dinner with Dee Snider

Score Technicians: Stacey Hanlon and John Ormond

On December 4th, 2014, we – your PCS power couple – went to see Dee Snider’s Rock & Roll Christmas Tale at the Broadway Playhouse in Chicago. The musical is the story of an aging 80's hair metal band called Däisy Cütter who, in a desperate attempt to make it big, try to sell their souls to the Devil, but find the meaning of Christmas instead. A Satanic ritual Christmas story? How could we possibly say no?! We were in. At the end of the show, during curtain call, Dee Snider mentioned that we could tweet about the show and the best tweets would win dinner with him. And by the power vested in us by the Heavy Metal Gods and St. Dio, we won! Holy crap! We’re having dinner with Dee Snider!

Are you ready for breadsticks? I said, ARE YOU READY FOR BREADSTICKS?!?

• Our winning Tweet = +25pts

• Doing, quite literally, the easiest thing we have ever done to win one of the coolest prizes we have ever won. = +18pts 
• Having conversations like this leading up to the event: “What are you guys doing this week?” “Oh, we’re just having dinner with a ROCK STAR! What are you doing?” = +16pts 
• Starting to get ready for dinner way too early because we just didn’t know what else to do with ourselves. = +3pts 
• After spending three months in Chicago, Dee Snider spends his last night in town having a three hour dinner with a bunch of strangers – because THAT, my friends, is how you Rock Star. = +40pts 
• During his time in Chicago, Dee worked the phone bank for The Red Cross, was Grand Marshal of the Thanksgiving parade, lit the Christmas tree on Michigan Avenue and sang the National Anthem at a Bulls game. If he would just sell off an essential public service to a private corporate interest, he could be Mayor! = +7pts 
• Remembering that saying: “There is always one weirdo at every gathering. If you look around and you can’t determine who the weirdo is, then it is you.” Every one of the dozen or so people here at this dinner is lovely, so that must mean…oh, crap. = -5pts 
• Stacey not being able to sit next to her social anxiety wing-man, John. = -9pts 
• Stacey realizing that John is her social anxiety wing-man. = +20pts 
• Getting backstage stories about Dee’s time on Celebrity Apprentice. = +6pts 
• Spending most of the night trying to control our potty mouths due to two teenagers being in the room. = -9pts 
• Kale salad! = +5pts 
• Holy shit! Dee Snider really likes kale salad. = +15pts 
• Dee tells John that he looks like a young Charlie Manson. Sadly, he is not the first person to do this. = -6pts 
• Getting to also meet Rock & Roll Christmas Tale’s producer, John Yonover, who organized, and paid for, the entire evening at RPM Italian. = +19pts 
• Being in a room with The Producer, John Yonover, and The Talent, Dee Snider, and having no one yell at each other even once. What kind of theater is this? = +7pts 
• John not wearing the biggest skull ring in the room. = +12pts 
• Getting backstage stories about Dee’s time on Celebrity Wife Swap. = +4pts 
• Food tip: If you are going to make carbonara for Dee, do not make it “wet.” Dee Snider will not eat your shitty, wet carbonara. = +6pts 
• Being witnesses to Dee, a registered officiant, renewing the vows of a newly married couple after dinner, but before dessert. = +14pts 
• Remembering to bring a black fine point Sharpie for autograph signing. = +8pts 
• Not being the only ones to bring actual artifacts from the 80’s for Dee to sign = +16pts 
• Receiving an autographed copy of Dee’s autobiography, Shut Up and Give Me the Mic. = +10pts 
• Best story: One day, when one of Dee’s sons was in school, a bully came up to him outside of class. “I wanna rock,” he sniggered. The young Snider, fresh from Earth Science, pulled an actual rock from his backpack and offered it to the boy. The other student stared at it for a moment, then said, “Do you always carry these around with you?” (We would.)= +10pts 
• Suggesting that the song Dee wrote for his movie Strangeland, “Inconclusion,” be included on his upcoming music retrospective and having Dee make a note of the suggestion. We helped! = +16pts 
• Talking to Dee about Strangeland and noticing that the room is becoming increasingly silent. = +15pts
• Witnessing Dee create a new hashtag - #WhiskeyCoat for when you aren’t wearing enough clothes, like on Halloween or New Year’s Eve, but you are too wasted to care. We expect to see this trending, people. C’mon PCS folks, don’t let us down! = +7pts 
• Learning Dee’s personal philosophy and life mantra which is simply, “Don’t be a dick.” = +30pts 
• Obtaining photographic proof that this happened. = +100pts 

Total score = +400pts

Dee Snider can be found weekly on his radio show House of Hair. If you can’t listen to the show, the web site posts playlists that are very helpful in finding new music or reacquainting yourself with stuff you forgot you liked.

And remember, if it ain’t metal, it’s crap. \,,,/