The guy had messed up big time. He was sorry and desperately wanted his girlfriend back. This was his last ditch effort. A singing rock star telegram on Valentine’s Day.

“Bring her a dozen red roses,” he told Jeff Silverman, a professional rock musician. “No, wait, make it two dozen. And here’s our favorite song. Tell her I love her.”

So, that’s what Silverman did. He walked into her work place with his guitar slung over his shoulder, put two dozen red roses on her desk, sang her favorite song, and offered her boyfriend’s sincerest apologies and deepest love.

And her reply?

“She picked up the roses and threw them at me. ‘Tell that creep I never want to see him again,’ she said. He was outside waiting around the corner for me. ‘How’d it go?’ he asked.”

Uh, not too well, dude, Silverman said.

“Most times they’re less hostile. It’s never been where they throw their arms up in the air and say, ‘yes, yes, tell him I love him.’ It’s mostly just tell him thank you.”

Which beats the heck out of “tell the creep I never want to see him again.”

Silverman has delivered more than 300 rock star singing telegrams since coming up with the idea in 2009.

“I thought there has to be something cooler than singing quartets, which I hired for my own wife when I was going through a mid-life crisis,” he said this week getting ready for another busy Valentine’s Day.

“I really don’t care for pink tutu-dressed gorillas, clowns or, bad Elvis impersonators, so I came up with this genre – hiring working rock musicians, like myself, who are good guitar players and can deliver a great musical performance.”

He has rock musicians working for him in Los Angeles and San Diego, while he handles the singing telegrams in his home state, Oregon.

“We usually wear out our awesomeness after about 10 minutes,” he said. “After that people are looking at each other, and they’re like, dude, I got to get back to work.”

He’s gone from the hilarious to the heart touching all in one day – from roses thrown in his face to trying to keep his composure while singing “Here Comes the Sun” to a husband on hospice while his crying wife holds his hand.

A few weeks ago he did his first gender reveal telegram, walking into a restaurant carrying ‘it’s a girl’ and ‘it’s a boy’ balloons.

“The pregnant mom had been to the doctor that day and was going to tell her husband, parents and in laws what the baby was going to be. I sang is it girls just wanna have fun, or is it going to be the boys are back in town?

“Then I popped the girl balloon, and said, ‘it’s a boy!’ ”

His most bizarre rock star telegram was for a woman retiring from her job after 25 years. Her husband hired Jeff to perform four times on her last day at work.

“I did one at 10 a.m., changed costumes and came back at noon with different songs, then back at 1 p.m., and finally 3 p.m. By then, she and all her co-workers were just like, ‘would you get out of here, already.’

“The guy just wanted to make it the most memorable day of her life.”

The key to a successful singing telegram is to not wear out your welcome. Get in, sing your songs, and get out.

“I’ve seen some bad Elvis impersonators going on for 20 minutes,” Silverman said. “People are looking at their watches. You almost want to smack the guy and say, “dude, this is not about you. It’s about the birthday boy whose got to get back to work.’ ”

So, if you’ve messed up and want to make up this Valentine’s Day or anytime, give the rock stars a call at 323-762-5417, or go on line at rockstarsingingtelegrams.com.

With any luck, she won’t throw the roses at them.

Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Friday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.

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