Proof of my musical idolatry could be found on the back of my car for many years. Believe it or not, when I moved here in 1983, nobody had this vanity plate, so I proclaimed my love for FZ’s amazing music for all to see.
For most of
you, this story probably won’t mean all that much because you aren’t likely to
be familiar with my musical idol, Frank Zappa.
For those of you who don’t know who he is, I’ll offer my opinion that he
was one of the greatest musical minds of the 20th century. In his 30-year musical career he released
about 70 albums in every possible musical style known to mankind. He was known as a “rock” musician because he
played a mean-ass guitar, but any given album (or even song!) could contain
musical elements of rock, blues, jazz, classical, avant-garde noise, and a
bunch of stuff nobody ever thought of trying before. Lyrically, Frank was know for his sarcasm and
satire, but an equal amount of his work was strictly instrumental. He composed music for and led bands from your
typical 5-piece rock bands to a 110-piece symphony orchestra and everything in
between. I discovered Zappa in 1980 and
to this day own about 40 pieces of his vinyl.
Yes, I’m a true fan, so what follows was a HUUUUUUGE deal to me.
I moved to Arizona in 1983 and I was lucky enough to attend a Zappa show at the Celebrity Theater in 1984. I fact, there were two shows that night, and I attended both of them, fortunately for me! I took my girlfriend Cindy to the first show, drove her home, and went back to the theater to the second show by myself. Because I had only bought a single ticket, I was able to get an awesome seat in the second row on the end of a row with only about 5 seats total. If you’ve ever been to the Celebrity Theater you know that the stage is only about 2-3 feet high, so I was basically standing right next to the stage. Best $15 I ever spent!
Frank and the band were playing a song called “You Are What You Is,” and there was a background vocal track opposite Frank’s lead vocal in the third verse that nobody in his band was singing. There weren’t any actual words—(my line was “ma-ma-ooh-ma-ma-mao”) and Frank saw me singing this background vocal part and he jumped off the stage and stood next to me at the end of my 2nd row seat and gave me a look like, “You’re up, man!” I was standing right next to Frank and he whipped the mic back and forth between us so we could trade lines into his mic. We sang the second verse together, and then he jumped jumped back onto the stage. If you’re curious about the song itself, check out the link below. Like many Frank tunes, it expresses its message in what would be considered a rather “politically incorrect” way by today’s standards. But that’s just another reason I love Frank! Google “Frank Zappa ‘You Are What You Is'” if you’re curious to hear the song. I can’t seem to get the YouTube link to insert, but I’m working on it!
Damn—I wish we had cell phone cams in those days, but all I’ve got is these lousy ticket stubs and my distant memory—Hahahaha!!! But as an amazing, unexpected life experience to be grateful for–I’ll take it!!!
“You Are What You Is” video if I did this correctly. I am definitely not a techie!!!
Our wedding pic in 1998. It was a beautiful December day at the mountain…
In a lot of ways, Sandy & I were fortunate to meet when we did, because I think Sandy was ready to break out of her New York City steady gig, and I was ready to settle down with the woman of my dreams. There’s not enough time in my life to tell every story about our lives together, but it was good for both of us that we met when we did and shared 20 years together. And I am very grateful for it.
Sandy & I met on a fashion photo shoot in December 1992. I was a relative newbie PA/motohome driver and Sandy was a younger but much more experienced photo assistant and pretty much her boss David’s right hand for anything work related. We stayed long-distance friends for a while via phone and letters before my first trip to New York in September 1993. We immediately hit it off, and by the following summer Sandy was headed to Arizona so we could be together. In the business arena, we each had somewhat different strengths that made us an excellent business team as well and immediately formed East-West Productions to handle all the out-of-town shoots that came to Arizona in the winter.
Besides all the joys of self-employment I’ve mentioned in my other writings, I particularly enjoyed my life with Sandy because we both got 6-10 weeks off in the summer to travel for both business and pleasure. We would road trip it (I hated flying and loved road trips—Sandy was just the opposite, but she tolerated me—Hahahaha!) first to Chicago and Milwaukee to visit my people and pitch potential clients for a few weeks, and the we would do the same thing in New York. I had never been to NYC, and for a guy from suburban Milwaukee, New York City was like another country (at least in certain neighborhoods!) I really loved our long visits to New York, but what I’m most grateful for is that we were able to spend so much time with family and friends and really enjoy the luxury of maintaining those relationships for decades. Many people don’t get that opportunity (and get to see and do things that would only be possible in NYC!!)
The other great thing about our summer “working” vacations is that besides always going to our hometowns in the Midwest and NYC, we would add different detours almost every year! Throughout our 20 years of traveling the US, we visited a lot of different cities, towns, and parts of the countryside visiting many different people. Here’s a short list off the top of my head: Boston & rural New England, Upstate New York, North Carolina, Florida, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Dallas/Ft. Worth, St. Louis & rural Missouri, Minneapolis & rural Minnesota, and at least a half dozen other places I can’t even think of right now. We had the pleasure of connecting with family, friends, and clients over the years to a much greater extent than most people do. I am very grateful for all the close friendships that freedom has allowed me to maintain that are still with me today!
We also took an awesome 23-day trip to Europe that I’ll talk about in a separate story. And I could kick myself now for passing up a couple of trips to Hong Kong and Singapore over the years. Sandy had family there, and I (what a dumbass I was!) decided that work was a higher priority and that I would always have another chance to get there. In fact, Sandy used to chastise me for never saying no to a gig, even when we already had a few others happening. She thought I was a little nuts in that department–I was Mr. Ambitious to the extreme, and Sandy–You were absolutely right! I’d feel a lot smarter right about now if I had said yes to Asia and no to a few of the 900 shoots we did in over two decades. But hindsight is 20/20, and I never expected what is happening to me now (or at least not so soon–Apparently, 55 is the new 95 in my case!) All in all though, I have nothing to complain about. Sandy and I explored a lot of places and had fun with a lot of people in 20 years!!!
Since Sandy is actually a real
photographer (with a real degree from FIT!), I’ll let each picture tell a
thousand words. (And you’re probably
sick of me blabbing by now—Hahaha!) Of
course, I could spend a year posting pics, but I’ll put up a few good ones so
you get the idea…
Yum yum, indeed Sandy! 🙂Sandy & our friend Nick on his rooftop. I love NY!One of my first times in the subway.We were both so 1990s then–Hahahaha!!Fashion does apparently run in 30-year cycles. Yoga pants are back and that’s a great thing! Ride ’em “Cowboy?”Chillin’ at “work” location scouting I think… We used to travel all around Arizona with cameras and call that a “job!”Sandy the Glamour Goddess!Good thing I liked Chinese food–Hahahaha!!At one of my 50th birthday parties–Thanks, Sandy!Me & my brother-in-law Evan. A truly awesome guy in every way! Sandy, Eric, Grace (Sandy’s sister) & EvanSandy’s friend Willie had his own recording studio, and I got to play guitar on a couple of his recordings. I wasn’t much of a rock balladeer. but I’ve attached the songs so you can be the judge… “I’ve Come a Long Way”“Fade Away”Me and Les Paul himself at the Iridium in NYC in the mid-90s. I would never have gotten to see or meet Les if I hadn’t met Sandy. With the Scruffs in 2013
Unfortunately, this story didn’t end quite as well as the first one, probably because it involved the “big city” Milwaukee police department instead of our local small-town suburban police. Things started out innocently enough with my girlfriend and I and another couple chilling out in a local city park in a place called Brown Deer, WI. I was 17, she was 16, and the drinking age at the time was 18. Not that it mattered a hell of a lot in Wisconsin at the time, and the park was literally deserted on a weekday afternoon in the summer around 1:00. The other couple wasn’t drinking, but my girlfriend and I decided to share a six-pack of beer. No big deal, we thought…
After we were about halfway through our beers, we noticed a couple of middle-aged guys in jeans and T-shirts tossing a football around about 100 yards away from us and didn’t really think anything of it. They gradually got closer, and pretty soon they were pretty much right on top of us in a giant empty park. Just as I was thinking how weird this was, one of the guys whips out his badge and tells us they are cops. I really wasn’t too nervous at this point—In Wisconsin in the 1970s, the cops were pretty lax about alcohol, and I honestly thought they would probably check our IDs, make us dump the beer, and kick us out of the park. But, alas—It was not to be. It turns out these clowns were “detectives” who were busy slacking off in the park, tossing a football around, and busting harmless kids for having a few beers (and getting waaaaaay overpaid to do it!). They carded us all and then started searching our pockets and looking for a reason to arrest us. Well, the beer was technically enough to arrest my girlfriend and I, but I had the misfortune to have the princely sum of about $3 worth of weed in my pocket. Officer Slacker immediately slapped the cuffs on us and radioed for (get this!) an old-school paddy wagon to cart us all the way downtown to the main county jail!
As the cops made us do the proverbial “walk of shame” handcuffed together (I kind of liked that part-wink!) through the park to the paddy wagon, my girlfriend was crying thinking about her parents punishing her (even though they knew full well that she drank beer like many other kids in that era!) In contrast, I was actually pretty pissed off at the hyperbolic response by these two “undercover detectives” looking for an easy day at work on the taxpayers’ dime rather than looking for any real criminals (who existed in large quantities only a few miles from the park!) Of course…Yours truly could not resist offering the cops exactly that opinion of their “work” that day pretty much from the moment they slapped the cuffs on us to when they sat me down in the station for what they thought would be their lecture to me. I expressed my annoyance at their lame lecture and gave them a piece of my mind about “harmless kids” versus “real criminals” and told them that two guys spending 6 hours each busting two kids for drinking beer was a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money!
The detectives did not take kindly to my diatribe and thought they would teach me a lesson by locking me in a real jail cell in the room behind them. I just shook my head and peacefully complied of course, and I spent the only three hours of my life I would ever spend inside a real jail cell. (And it was the old-school kind with rusty pale green bars, etc.—Kind of like this one.)
Not the actual jail but you get the idea! (This one is the original City of Phoenix jail, and we did a few video shoots here in my advertising years. I could come and go as I pleased, but it actually wasn’t as much fun as the real jail in Milwaukee turned out to be…
The jail was nearly empty on a weekday afternoon of course, so I had my own cell (probably because I was a minor I would guess). But there were two other people in nearby cells, and one of them gave me a friendly greeting as the cop led me past him into my cell. He was a white guy a few years older than me, and we started talking for a while about why we were there, etc. He was in the cell beside me so I couldn’t really see him. What I did notice for the first time in my life though was a black dude dressed in drag passed out on his bunk in the cell directly across from me! Being a suburban white dude, I had never seen anything like that before! I asked the other guy what the hell was up with that, and he explained that the passed out drag dude was probably a heroin addict they caught trying to turn tricks in exchange for his H.
I said something like, “Damn—I’m never doing that shit. I’ll stick to beer and weed!” The guy immediately replied, “Oh, you smoke weed?” I reiterated that I did and he surprised the hell out of me by asking if I wanted to smoke with him!!! I said: “You mean here? INSIDE THE MILWAUKEE COUNTY JAIL?!!!” He replied that that was exactly what he meant, and I asked him how he managed to get his weed inside the jail. I told him they took mine from my front pocket during my arrest, and he said: “Well, you should have put a doobie in your sock like I did!” It turns out he even had a pack of matches in there, so I can honestly say that the only time I ever went to jail, I arrived sober and left high. Talk about something that is very unusual to be grateful for—Hahahaha!!! Fortunately, the cops let me cool my heels in there for about three hours before my Mom showed up to get me. They told my Mom I seemed like a good kid who just had a problem with authority (you think?!) and that if I stayed out of trouble for a few more months until I was 18 my record would be expunged. I don’t happen to believe that “expunged records” really exist—Someone probably scanned them into a computer at some point in 1995 just in case… If not, they can read my blog about it!
Epilogue
Needless to say, my Mom was none too pleased as we left the station; she explained that my father was furious and that I would be grounded for a long time to come. Of course I can’t blame someone from her generation from being mortified at having to pick her son up from the police station, but I was still hopping mad about the way the whole thing went down and what I maintained was the cops’ huge overreaction. My Mom and I were on opposite sides of this authoritarian issue (and remain so to this day!), so I received an indefinite grounding as punishment. But a friend of mine was having a party that night (her parents were out of town—imagine that!), so I decided that I was simply not going to accept my punishment.
In my mind, I had done nothing wrong to anyone; I was behaving nicely and minding my own business drinking beer with my girlfriend, and it was the cops who were in the wrong for arresting me rather than simply dumping my beer and booting us out of the park. In that spirit, I went into the basement of our house, walked out the door, snagged my bike from the garage (couldn’t risk Mom & Dad hearing my car start!) and rode my bike to the party in about 20 minutes. To my credit, I called my parents immediately when I arrived so they wouldn’t worry about where I was and told them I did not agree with their punishment and simply refused to accept it. I didn’t want them to worry about me or be an asshole about it, but I had to be true to myself and honest with them. After getting over their initial anger, I think my parents understood that I had a point, and the next day we agreed on a 2-week grounding to keep peace in the household. Hey, even we anarchist libertarians can compromise for love…
I’m not sure all of you will approve of these stories either, but now that you have some idea who I am, you might be wondering whether I had any run-ins with the police in my lifetime. I can honestly say that I had several notable experiences but was fortunate enough to escape relatively unscathed in every sense. I can also say that I was still the same easygoing fun person I am today. I never thought of myself as some crazy rebel who hated the police or anything—I just didn’t (and still don’t!) believe that other people had some magical authority over me in terms of forcing “naptime” upon me at age 4 or telling me I couldn’t drink a beer or smoke a plant at age 16. I guess I was always hard wired to be an anarchist libertarian. At the end of the day, I’m grateful for my run-ins and close calls with the police at a young age because it made the concept of freedom crystal clear to me and gave me a healthy fear of what authoritarians could do to you if you weren’t careful. And holding freedom as one of my highest values allowed me to enjoy life waaaaaay more than I otherwise would have. (And I think they are pretty funny and ironic stories you may enjoy…)
My First Close Call (1978)
It was in 1978, and I was 16 years old at the time. Back in the 1970s, a steady supply of weed was difficult to come by consistently, particularly since we lived in Wisconsin about 1,500 miles from the Mexican border. Since my buds and I were regular weed smokers, it was a bummer when the town went “dry” for a month (usually in the winter when we needed it most!), and this pissed me off considering that we lived in a so-called “capitalist country.” My solution to the problem was quite rational (or so I thought at the time!)—I simply decided to buy quarter pounds of weed instead of smaller amounts (called “nickel bags” and “dime bags” back in the day because of their respective $5 and $10 price tags) so at least my close friends and I wouldn’t have to suffer during the dry spells. I would have enough in my inventory to sell to my friends for a while, and it had the added benefit of reducing the per unit cost by about 40% so I would get to smoke for free! (Yes, I was a capitalist even as a weed-smoking teenager!)
I had just returned to our local burg from my downtown high school where I scored a “QP” (quarter pound) of so-called “Gold ‘Lumbo” (it was probably grown in some hillbilly’s greenhouse in Kentucky—Hahahaha!) and went over to my friend K’s empty house (his parents had put it up for sale but he still had the keys) to divide it into smaller quantities I could share with my friends. We went inside for a while to smoke a quick one and shoot a round of pool, and I divided the bulk weed into 16 quarter ounces in sandwich baggies (how 1970s!!). We locked up the house around 5pm or so, hopped in K’s car, and were just about to take off when literally at least a half dozen cop cars (and at least twice as many cops) pulled into the driveway surrounding us! I was sitting in the back seat behind K, and was quickly getting pretty freaked out! A few thoughts went through my head (none of them good!) as I frantically stashed the bags of weed under the back seat of the car. Not only did I have weed; I had a quarter pound of it, AND it was in 16 separate baggies which automatically made me an evil “dope dealer!” Things could have turned out badly for me indeed!
I was sweating my ass off in the back seat and having visions of making the dreaded phone call to my parents…
Fortunately for all of us, K had the presence of mind to jump out of the car and immediately greet the first “Officer Friendly” who was walking up to the car. K quickly explained that he was the owner’s son and that his Dad sent him over to check on things or some BS story. While this was going on, one of the other cops peered through the windows at the rest of us, and I thought for sure he was going to search us or the car or both. Thankfully, K was such a great schmoozer that the cops bought his story and let us ride peacefully away in a few minutes. We were all sweating bullets of course and glad to have escaped unscathed. But that left a really important unanswered question…
I’m sure you’re wondering why all those cop cars would pull into the driveway of a residential home in a small town without suspecting a thing about us. I know I was confused, and it turns out that K’s dad (unbeknownst to K) had given the local cops permission to use his house and 5-acre lot for “training purposes,” and that’s why nearly every cop on the force showed up at once. For a training exercise. Talk about an unlucky coincidence! But it worked out much better than my next interaction in “Fun with the Police-Chapter 2…”
Back in the 1990s, I did a lot of work on old-school fashion catalogs, most of them out of New York. My ex-wife Sandy and I had East-West Productions, and at the same time Marc & I were partners in a production motorhome via Cinemasters. I used to do everything in those days—Be the local producer/location guy and chauffeur everyone around in the motorhome. I honestly can’t remember the particular client, but Heidi Klum was one of their regular fashion catalog models long before she became famous. I had worked with her several times by then with the same client, so we knew each other on a casual professional level. She was in her early 20s or so and was always a really fun, easygoing person who never took any of this stuff too seriously.
We were shooting down in Tucson on one of Arizona’s rare rainy days. The photographer was struggling a bit to find overhangs to park the models under in Tucson’s barrio district, so each shot was taking quite a bit of time. I think he was shooting a double or triple (we usually had 3-4 models each day), so Heidi and I were the only ones in the motorhome, and she was a little bored. To relieve her boredom, Heidi got the bright idea that it would be fun if she did hair and makeup on me, a rather plain 35-year-old dude who was not remotely photogenic. I looked at her quizzically, but within a nanosecond or so thought: “What the hell—If Heidi the Hottie wants to fondle my hair and face for a while, who am I to disappoint?!!!
At this point she told me to sit at the hair and makeup station but that I had to remove the mirror so I would have no idea what she was doing until she was done. Who was I to say no? For the next 45 minutes or so I got a complete makeover from one of the most beautiful (and funny!) women on the planet. To her credit, Heidi gave me the complete treatment including face makeup, eye makeup and a completely new hairstyle (good for her and I that I actually had kind of long hair!) I got the curling iron, hairspray, and the whole nine yards. Coincidentally, I had taken a couple of years of German in high school (thank you, MUHS!!!), and I could still remember a few hundred words or so. I’m sure she was impressed—NOT—Hahaha!
As we were finishing up, I asked Heidi when I would get to see her fine work. I was honestly imagining that I had become some kind of beautiful drag queen from the neck up and really was curious to see what I looked like as a femme gay dude or a “woman” (long before the days of #LGBTQXYZLMNOP, etc.!) She then explained that we were finished and she was ready to “model” with me outside live in front of the entire crew!!! I asked if I could at least see what I looked like first; Heidi refused of course, and led me arm-in-arm down the sidewalk toward the rest of the crew.
Well, as soon as we got close enough for them to see me, everyone broke out into derisive laughter! Of course, I didn’t know exactly why but the photographer and his assistant were more than happy to show me via their Polaroid camera. They snapped a few Polaroids of Heidi and I arm-in-arm on the sidewalk, and I waited anxiously for the Polaroids to develop (yes, I know I’m old, dammit!) When they finally came out, I looked something like the image at the end of this post from the neck up. I was appalled on the one hand but totally laughed my ass off on the other hand, because after all: “If you can’t have fun doing this, you’re doing it wrong!” And Heidi obviously agreed wholeheartedly with this sentiment.
So the obvious question remains in terms of where the original Polaroids are and why the hell am I not posting those? Well, I sure wish I had those to share now, but I have only myself to blame. I took the Polaroids at the time, tossed them on the dashboard of the motorhome and finished the shoot a few days later. We had all had our laugh and I didn’t think anything more of it. Stupid, stupid me got back home with the motorhome and while cleaning it up after the job, mindlessly threw the polaroids in the trash!!! I never gave it a second thought. We had our laughs on a rainy day, and Heidi wasn’t a household name yet, so why would I save them? Who would have thought I’d kill to have them now to share with the world. Thank you Heidi! That memory is unique and priceless and I’m extremely grateful for it. I am glad you stuck to modeling and didn’t get into hair & makeup though!
Eric “Mrs. Doubtfire”
I didn’t look exactly like that, but you get the ideaHeidi in her younger days when we were doing this catalog stuff. Imagine posing for a photo with her! Even if I looked like Mrs. Doubtfire–Hahahaha!!!
I think the photo speaks for itself (most of the time!)
I’m not sure all of you will approve of these stories, but I am grateful
that I took some risks in life and had some amazing experiences as a
result. Liberating the mind and opening
the famous “doors of perception” made for some very interesting experiences! And with death staring me in the face right
now, it’s particularly interesting to contemplate exactly what reality is in
terms of life and death. My friend Tim
has been talking lately about the entire universe simply being a high-tech
simulation of sorts, and I find that rather intriguing as well…
My First Trip (1978)
It was the summer of 1978 and I was 15 years old at the time. My friend Shelly and I had smoked weed a few times, and she thought it might be fun to turn the “newby” on to LSD one Saturday afternoon. Shelly’s mom worked in the office at the local bank, and she and her boss normally spent Saturday afternoons somewhere his wife wouldn’t look, so we had her house to ourselves for a while at least. I rode my bike over to Shelly’s around 11am and took the psychedelic plunge. To Shelly’s credit, she was a great acid coach in terms of telling me what to expect, and she explained that we were just going to chill in her peaceful yard and let our minds explore the universe. The trip was textbook in every way, from the initial giddy laughter to the visual trails and philosophizing about life as much as you can as a teenager. Around 5pm Shelly’s mom arrived home, and I started getting a little nervous. The way my mind felt, I was sure everyone else would know I was hallucinating, etc. and we would be busted for sure. Shelly was very reassuring, and sure enough, we sat down and talked to her mom for almost an hour and she didn’t suspect a thing!
Of course I told all my
friends about my experience, and a few of them were dying to try it. At that point, I started becoming the “acid
king” and the rest is history. Here are
just a few of over 100 psychedelic experiences I’ve had between ages 15 and 28.
I quickly became known as “Crickey the Acid King” because I was on a mission to “coach” everyone who was willing to achieve psychedelic nirvana. And most of the time we did!
Dosing the HS Football Team (1979)
Before I got involved with dosing about a dozen of the local football players, I first had an experience with some close friends (K & T) who were local jocks but regularly smoked weed and drank with my best friend Kevin and I. One night, we went over to K’s house and Kevin and I decided to drop some acid. Our football friends were definitely opposed to the idea and gave us “freaks” the stinkeye for doing it. But a couple hours later when Kevin and I were laughing our asses off and seeing trails, these two decided that they wanted to try it now. The only caveat was that we had to keep it a secret from their football buddies so they wouldn’t be ostracized or thrown off the team for hanging out with “the freaks”—Hahahaha!! The only problem was that I had only brought the two hits for Kevin and I, and the rest was stashed in the kitchen freezer at my parents’ house! After a little convincing, K’s sister drove me back across town where I surprised my parents (while tripping my ass off—Thanks for the lesson in “maintaining” Shelly!) and made up some lame excuse about forgetting a record album or something and snuck into the freezer for a couple more hits when they weren’t looking.
I dosed K & T when we got back and within a couple of hours all four of us were pretty much on the same mental page. Listening to music, hallucinating a bit, laughing a lot and the “jocks” were really having a great time on their first trip. Shelly had trained me well to be an “acid coach” and everything was working out fine. Just then the doorbell rang (surprise, surprise!) and it was my ex-GF Kim and her friend Terri who was visiting from Florida. Now my Kim was certainly attractive, but her friend Terri looked like some femme fatale version of a voluptuous cartoon that had come to life! Our tripping football friends weren’t quite sure if this was reality or some alternate universe and frankly I wasn’t so sure myself!
Terri was from somewhere in Florida and spoke with this surreal sexy southern accent that drove the boys crazy. And of course it was the summer of 1979, and Miss Voluptuous was literally wearing nothing more than tiny shorts, a cropped T-shirt and tennis shoes. (And I mean nothing else!!!) Nothing happened (except in our minds of course—Hahaha!), but that was that was K & T’s first foray into the land of psychedelia. I think they enjoyed it on several levels!
Of course, Kevin and I kept our promise to keep our friends’ trip a secret, but within a week I was getting phone calls from other members of the local football team wanting to know if I could “turn them on” too. Apparently, the experience was so intense that the boys just couldn’t keep their own secret! We lived in a small town, so my Mom knew that I didn’t hang out with the jock crowd and was wondering why they were calling me all of a sudden. I think my Dad figured it out, and he made some cryptic comment to me that he knew “something was going on.” But I don’t think he ever found out the truth! The truth was that I ended up dosing about a dozen members of the local football team a few weeks later, and what a “trip” that was for me to be “coaching” a bunch of high school jocks on the joys of psychedelia—Hahahaha!
Larry’ Bad Trip (1981)
My best friend Kevin’s friend Larry (MUHS Class of ’81 boys) had a trip so
bad he completely lost touch with reality.
I was a class ahead of Kevin (Class of 1980), so he and his Class of
1981 friends came out to visit me while I was a freshman in college at the U of
Wisconsin—Madison. It’s important to
know that UW Madison (and Wisconsin in general!) was a “party hearty” place like
no other I’ve seen since, especially where alcohol was concerned. In this case, Larry brought some LSD with him
so we could have a dose and enjoy the music festival going on that weekend.
Larry & I dropped some acid (and many beers of course), but Kevin and
Zach stuck to only weed and beer. When
the acid started kicking in for Larry and I, we all went cruising around the
backyard parties on Mifflin St. during the “Mifflin St. Days” festival, ending
up in the backyard of a house watching a pretty good Doors cover band.
During the show, Larry grabbed my arm and said something like: “Damn—Jim
Morrison is really awesome!” I thought he meant that the singer was doing
a pretty good job and I agreed that yes he was doing a very good Jim Morrison
impression. Larry looked at me in a strange and anxious way as though I
were nuts for not understanding that the guy was REALLY JIM MORRISON. The
weird part was that the singer was kind of a shorter half-Hispanic guy and
didn’t actually LOOK like Morrison at all! Kevin and I noticed Larry’s
increasing disorientation and anxiety and kept a very close eye on him. We stayed for a bit longer and I thought
Larry would eventually figure it out, but he kept making comments about how
awesome “The Doors” were! At one point I actually stated flat out that
Jim Morrison had died 10 years earlier, and this was strictly a tribute
band. Larry sort of looked at me in
disbelief, and my concern definitely increased at that point!
Kevin and I decided it might be best if we head back to my dorm room and get Larry out of his delusion, so we trekked out of there and stopped at the local liquor store (where I was quite well known by the owner for buying at least a case of Point beer every week!) on the way back. I grabbed the case of Point, threw it on the counter and then realized I had forgotten my wallet. I asked Larry if he would loan my $5 (yes, a case of swill beer was actually $5 in 1981!), so he pulled out his wallet, started looking at me and the liquor store owner quite strangely, and dashed out of the store without paying! The liquor store owner knew something was up, told me I could bring him the $5 tomorrow (imagine that!), and suggested I better keep a close eye on my friend. I told him I hoped the beer would help…
We went back to my dorm room to chill to some music (and not The Doors!!!),
and see if Larry would come back to reality at some point. He eventually
did, but things definitely got much worse before they got better. During
the next hour or two (my sense of time was bit distorted), Larry lost further
touch with reality and started saying that we (his HS friends) were cops,
totally freaked out, and tried to eat all of the drugs in his pocket!!!!
He had quite a bit of speed and acid in that baggie and could have died!
Thankfully, we were able to stop him in time and wrestle the drugs out of
his hands and pockets. He still didn’t know who we were. We kept
talking to him and trying to get him to recognize us and come back to reality,
but he just sat there breathing hard and looking paranoid as hell.
About an hour later, there was this loud crackling sound in my Witte Hall Madison dorm room, and we all looked around at each other as the universe completely changed. At first I thought it was an illusion in my tripping mind but we all audibly heard it. Even Kevin and Zach, who had ingested no psychedelics whatsoever, confirmed that they heard it too, and we all looked at Larry and knew he was 100% back to reality in that instant. He knew who we were and didn’t remember much of his bad trip at all. When we told him about it he reacted in total disbelief. We had to show him the bag of drugs we wrestled from him, and we definitely didn’t return it to him until the next day!
I’m still not sure what all that means, but perhaps it is something about
“The Doors of Perception” which speaks to my friend Tim’s theory about changing
the simulation. One door closed and another one opened in an instant.
Very strange…
My Last Trip (1990)
I had at least 100 good trips before I had a bad trip and then I was done.
My good friend Brian was there—We saw the Doors movie (what is it about
The Doors? Hmmmmm…) that had just come
out in the theaters and it depressed me and messed with my head a bit.
Nothing too serious—I knew who and where I was, but it was a total downer
nonetheless. Brian took the exact same stuff and dose and felt fine as
far as I remember. I can understand why psychedelics can be scary to many
people, and I certainly saw a few others have bad trips much worse than mine.
I remember our mutual friend Jeff being afraid to try acid, so we had
mercy on him and didn’t dose him without his consent anyway. We did
contemplate it briefly, but my libertarian side would never go for that!
Crickey the “Acid King” (one of my many nicknames—I owe that one to Kevin!)
When I moved back to Milwaukee briefly in 1989-90, I had the privilege to get into a band with a couple guys who were waaaaaaay better musicians than I was. The bass player was Miko Montgomery (jazz icon Wes Montgomery’s nephew), and our drummer Steve was certainly no slouch. The only reason I passed the audition was that I knew how to play all the grooves (funk, reggae and ska) Miko was looking for, and apparently no other guitarist in Cheeseland had that figured out at the time!
Our promo poster before the internet existed!
We played a bunch of gigs at local bars (of which there are many in Milwaukee!) and even got to play at the famous Summerfest music festival once. For me, the real achievement was getting to record a couple of tracks with these guys and our guest keyboardist Jeff Stehr. I was also lucky enough to know a guy named Jeff Solper from work who had a full-blown recording studio in his basement! Jeff dialed in a guitar sound that made me sound waaaaay better than I was, and for that I am eternally grateful. I’ve attached our songs here in case you are curious, and if you like them you can download them in the links just below.
ActivatorStanding on the Verge of Getting it On/Sex Machine
“Activator” is actually an instrumental ska/rock piece written by renowned Phoenix guitarist Donnie Dean of “The Effects” fame. I was a huge Effects fan, and Donnie taught me how to play “Activator” one day so I had to record it for posterity. I don’t think even Donnie has recorded it, but I’m sure his version would be better than mine. Thanks, Donnie!
The second song is a medley of Funkadelic’s “Standing on the Verge” and James Brown’s “Get Up/Sex Machine” and was Miko’s doing. Again, playing with people much better than I was made me sound much better than I was. Thanks, guys!!!
Try not to laugh too hard at the pics, and remember that I was never a real rock star–I just liked “playing one on TV”–Hahahaha!!!
At the Leinenkugel tent at Summerfest 1990
“Back of the Bus, White Boys”
Most of our gigs were playing at local bars as you can see from the photos, but Miko got us a gig playing at the Wisconsin chapter of the NAACP annual awards banquet. As you can also see from the photos, we set up like a typical rock trio–The drummer in the center rear and the two guitar players/singers/front men out front on either side. Pretty typical. However, this was not to be allowed at the NAACP gig because a condition of Miko getting the gig for his band with two white dudes was that he had to be the sole front man and lead singer! Even songs I normally sang lead on and that I had brought into the band I would not be allowed to sing, so we reconfigured our stage lineup (and song list!) so that “Steve the Ghost” and “Cracker Eric” were on the rear of the stage left and right, and our “Bro Miko” was front and center all by himself.
When I first heard about these conditions, I must admit I laughed my ass off at the irony of it. Miko was cool and said that if we crackers didn’t want to do the gig, he would totally understand, but to be honest I was rather intrigued by the concept of being on the other side of “racism” or whatever the hell you want to call it, and I was also quite curious about what the vibe would be towards me on gig night. Steve pretty much shared my attitude, and we figured that it would be interesting to see what it really felt like to “ride in the back of the bus” so to speak, and whether the NAACP people would be cool to us (other than the initial conditions!) in general. Besides, the gig paid about $500 for the band, which was about double the going rate at a club in those days. I’m certainly no whiny snowflake (Ha!), and the most important color of the evening was definitely green for me!
The gig was in a mid-size hotel ballroom, and I think there were about 200 NAACP attendees. Of course, Steve and I were the only white dudes in the room, and I have to say that everyone was really very cool and friendly to us the entire evening. Like any event of this type, they of course had a catered buffet which was actually quite good! A really nice lady coordinating the event invited all of us to help ourselves to the fried chicken entree, a variety of tasty side dishes, and of course watermelon for dessert. The food was all quite good, and I honestly didn’t think there was anything unusual about the menu, but Miko sure did! He pointed out the irony of an organization like the NAACP promoting black stereotypes by serving fried chicken and watermelon, and he steadfastly refused to be seen eating either of those items! Of course Steve and I had no qualms about chowing down on the tasty fried chicken and watermelon, and we taunted Miko mercilessly by holding our plates out to him offering up the food while munching on it and saying, “Mmmmmm…Tasty!” and shit like that–Hahaha!!! We experienced a lot of irony that night, and besides the decent money, we (well, we white boys at least!) got all the fried chicken and watermelon we could scarf down. We made sure to eat Miko’s share as well!!
I was born
in 1962 and adopted by my parents Bob and Peg when I was two months old. I am very grateful for this since they treated
me with the greatest of love and raised me in the positively idyllic setting of
Mequon, WI in the 1960s and 1970s. Abortion
and single motherhood were much less common then for a variety of reasons, and I
am extremely grateful to my birth mother for making two really good choices,
without which I may not have been able to have the awesome life that I
have.
Being a
typical dude, I’ve only been mildly curious about my birth parents and never
made any effort toward finding out who they were until my girlfriend Sherry
made an offhand comment to me one day while we were hiking. Sherry and I were avid hikers, and we would
typically hike for 1-2 hours several times a week. Sherry was of almost all Irish descent, and
would always cover up her awesome body and delightful alabaster skin with
hiking apparel, sunscreen or both! I
couldn’t blame her because when she missed a spot, she would burn, burn, burn
in a nanosecond or two. I on the other
hand, only wore athletic shorts, no shirt, and I don’t even own any
sunscreen.
Sherry & I Conquering the Mountain
One day after a particularly long hike, Sherry noticed my golden brown all-over tan and asked me about my genetic heritage. I told her what I had always been told—I was Irish and German. She kind of snickered in disbelief and said, “No way dude—I’m Irish and look at my skin compared to yours. You’ve got Greek skin!” I had never considered that before and told her she was nuts, but the more I thought about it, I realized that Sherry indeed had a point. What Northern European can walk around barely clothed in the blazing Arizona sunshine constantly and almost never burn? Sherry knew I was adopted and strongly encouraged me to do the Ancestry DNA thing, which I quickly agreed to. She was absolutely right in saying I really didn’t know shit except for some third-hand story I’d been told since birth.
Well, I spit
in the magic tube and sure enough the results came back in a few weeks. I’ve posted them below and it turns out the
lovely Sherry was not only beautiful but quite smart! This “German/Irish” guy turned out to be
about 25% Southern European and barely German at all!
“Surprise, surprise, surprise!” said this Gomer Pyle…
That was in 2016 and I pretty much forgot about it until my neurological problems started getting worse in mid-2018. I had heard you could download your raw DNA data and have it analyzed for health purposes, so I went back on the Ancestry DNA site for the first time in two years. When I signed on I noticed that I had a 6-month old email from a guy named Duane, and it said we were very close relative in the first cousin range. He told me a little bit about himself and was curious about how we might be related. After a few more emails, we figured out that his older sister Denise (or “Dese” as the much younger Duane called her) was indeed my birth mother! Their family were hard-core Catholics and Denise would never have considered an abortion (Thank you, thank you, thank you, Denise!), and my parents adopted me (I really shouldn’t tell you guys this!) for the princely sum of $5 and a modest donation to the Catholic Church (probably $100 or so). So I am definitely one of the cheapest bastards on the planet—Hahahahaha!!!
I can certainly see the resemblance, but I’m going with Uncle DQ’s opinion!And it’s not like Uncle DQ and I look all that different either. Who knew that Ancestry DNA shit really worked?!!!
After Duane (or Uncle DQ as I now call him!) and I hit it off pretty well during our email thread, we started exchanging photos, and I’ll leave it to you to decide whether I look like my birth mother Denise or not. I know Uncle DQ thinks so because we did eventually meet for lunch last winter when he was vacationing here in Arizona. He is a super chill guy who is actually crazy enough to live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in a town on Lake Superior (He’s a freakin’ “UPer”—Hahahahaha!), and we had a great time meeting for lunch at the Space Age diner in Gila Bend of all places. (Uncle DQ went camping in Why, AZ for 3 months and hates big cities—Ya think?!!) All during lunch, he kept staring at me and smiling, telling me it was exactly like looking at his older sister again. She had died of breast cancer at age 64 many years ago (he was 12 years younger than Denise), and I was so glad to be able to give him that gift. We still stay in touch via email, and this story is so full of gratefulness all the way around it could make one’s head spin.
I debated telling my adoptive parents Bob & Peg about this for many months, but as my disease got worse I decided to open up one day and tell them the story. My Mom was practically in tears and expressed her gratefulness for the decisions young Denise made in allowing them to have me as their son all these years.
There is one thing for which Denise and Peggy both deserve some blame though. If you find any of my writing or musical shit on this blog to be annoying, you only have these two women to blame. Denise was an opera singer/piano player, and she taught English and music as a career. My Mom knew all of this about Denise when she adopted me and always pushed me hard in both areas because she was convinced I had natural talents in music and writing. (Nature or nurture; talent or no—I’ll let you readers be the judge of all that—Hahaha!) I ended up playing guitar because I quit the viola (can you blame me?!) at age 12 when I became interested in rock music. But Mom insisted that I take up another instrument to my liking and adamantly refused to let me quit playing music altogether. Drums were my first choice, but I’ll leave you to guess which member of our household vetoed that idea—Hahahaha! (Hint—It wasn’t Mom…) And I had a 10-year career in writing which you can read about in my story “Do You Have the Term Paper Blues?” Nature or nurture? I’ll leave that for you to decide, although my mom certainly didn’t encourage my writing career in any way, shape, or form!
Thank you Sherry for your very wise observation about my “Greek Skin.” Many people owe you a debt of gratitude for leading us down the road almost not taken!
A couple more pics of Dese
And there’s “Grandpa” playing a ’52 Les Paul. Music really does run in the family!
:15 Version on YouTube–The :30 has a lot more Scruffs!!!
We were doing a couple of PetSmart commercials at one of my Arcadia homes (thank you, Shawna and family!) and everything went according to plan on the first spot in the morning. I knew it would be a long day to shoot two spots, so just for the hell of it I decided to bring my dog Scruffy (aka “the Scruffs”) to “work” with me so he wouldn’t be home alone all day. He wasn’t cast in the shoot or anything–We already had talent dogs for that.
My good friend Denise was the producer and about 90 minutes after lunch ended she came out to the garage talking to me in a panic. Apparently, the “talent” dog they booked to do the “Dinner Dance” was great at the audition, but now that there were lights, cameras, and 25 people watching, the poor thing got stage fright and wouldn’t do the dance. The conversation quickly moved in the direction of what the “Dinner Dance” entailed, and it was really nothing more than a boy holding a treat up in the air while his dog danced around on its hind legs.
“Can the Scruffs do something like that?” Denise asked me. I smiled and chuckled and said that for $10K the Scruffs could do whatever you asked him to! (I really didn’t say that but I wish I would have–Hahahaha!) I explained that the Scruffs would do it for me, but I had no idea whether he would do it on set either. With nothing to lose of course, we brought Scruffs in the house and he must have done 30+ takes in an hour or so. You are such an awesome dog, and I love you Scruffs!!!
I could sit here until 2022 posting production stills, but you get the idea. It sure beats a “real job!”
Feel free to share your stories and memories or send me some cool stuff we worked on together. Man, it was fun working with all of you! (Most of the time 🙂
“Instinct de Morte” in Monument ValleyUh Oh–I know whose camera car that is!!One of many PetSmart shoots over the decades. Gotta love “shooting dogs”–Hahahaha!Jaci & Amber working hard!Jaci and Eric working hard!
AMW at the Border 2003
GoDaddy with Danica 2009
Nike and Amare Stoudamire 2007
Wish the wimpy German client would have chosen this version. Only humor can make bug spray interesting!
