1989 Grateful Dead Spring Tour

As always my girlfriend Lona and I followed the very specific instructions on the Grateful Dead ticket hotline to a tee that spring, mailing out 5 separate envelopes to Grateful Dead Ticket Sales for the 8 shows we wanted to see at 5 different venues on the spring tour.  We were ecstatic when the return envelopes started coming back with kickass tickets, including front row for the April 9^th show in Louisville!  Row A on the floor??  No way!  I had seen them 31 times prior to this tour, but each new tour and new show was just as exciting.  I’d never had seats this good for a whole tour, and the front row tickets were a huge bonus.  Here were the 8 shows we planned on seeing:

4/8/89  Riverfront Arena - Cincinnati, OH
4/9/89  Freedom Hall - Louisville, KY
4/11/89  Rosemont Horizon - Chicago, IL
4/12/89  Rosemont Horizon - Chicago, IL
4/13/89  Rosemont Horizon - Chicago, IL
4/15/89  Mecca Arena - Milwaukee, WI
4/16/89  Mecca Arena - Milwaukee, WI
4/17/89  Met Center - Bloomington, MN

My oldest friend Cire Wonhsak was going to school at Miami University in Ohio, about an hour and a half north of Cincinnati.  I had met Cire when I was 3 and he was 2 and we grew up together in New York, but I hadn’t seen him in years and it turned out he was a deadhead too!  So I got ahold of him at the house he was renting on campus and made plans to meet up with him and go to the show together in Cincinnati.  So on the afternoon of April 7^th Lona and I loaded up my 1978 Toyota Celica and started the 700 mile journey from Minneapolis to Miami.

It is about an 11 hour drive so we left around 4pm, slept for 3 hours at a rest area and arrived at Cire’s place at 6am on the morning of the first show of the tour.  I knew we were in the right place because when we got there reggae music (The Itals) was playing softly on the stereo and there were bodies and empty beers strewn all over the place…on couches, chairs and the floor.  Cire had thrown a party the night before and the evidence was everywhere.  We had let ourselves in and we tiptoed over and around all the unconscious people and bottles, not sure what to do next.  Finally somebody noticed us and went and got Cire.  After a reunion hug he told us to chill out for awhile and he would be up in a few hours.  We were dead tired from the all night drive, so I grabbed a beer and then we laid down on the floor until Cire woke up around 10am.

After kicking the stragglers out Cire told me he had to pick up ‘The Yag’ and then we could go.  I just assumed he meant he had to pick up a friend nicknamed ‘Yag’, but then when he pulled into a liquor store and emerged with a bottle of Jagermeister and a big smile I realized who/what ‘The Yag’ actually was.  Then it was time to head south to Riverfront Arena to see the Dead.  We had a caravan of about 3 or 4 cars as Lona and I followed Cire who was following another car or two.

About an hour into the drive we were on a 2-lane country road and I was not behind Cire’s car anymore.  Other cars had gotten into the mix and I was not sure if the car in front of me was one of our people or not.  We were going fast, about 60 mph and the road was damp and a bit slippery as it had snowed the night before.  I was trying to keep close to the car in front of me so that I would not lose Cire when suddenly it slammed on its brakes!  I slammed on mine too but the road was too slick and I slid right into it.

We both pulled over and the chick driving was mad that I had banged up her Ford Mustang.  Not too much damage and nobody was hurt, but her back bumper got dented and my grill and front left headlight were smashed.  It turned out that she wasn’t in our caravan, but fortunately Cire had seen the accident in his rearview mirror and had turned around to come back and help.  I knew the cops would be arriving shortly so just in case I asked Cire to take my pipe and opium and keep it for me until this was over.  It was a little silver telescope pipe that I had gotten in 10^th grade…my very first pipe.  I told him there was no sense in him waiting around for me, that to just go on ahead to the concert and we would meet up with him there.

So Cire left and a cop showed up right after that.  After taking down my insurance information he gave me a stern look and asked if I had been drinking.  It was now about noon and I must have looked like it because I was extremely tired and bleary-eyed.  I told him no, but then he asked to smell my breath.  I remembered the one beer I’d had a few hours earlier and sure enough he smiled triumphantly, said he smelled beer and was going to take me in.  He did not have a breathalyzer with him so he said he would have to bring me to the station.  I was too tired to argue and while I was spread-eagled against the side of his car being searched I looked up and locked eyes with the chick from the Mustang.  She was visibly pissed off, thinking that some stupid long-haired drunk hippie had smashed into her sweet car.

The cop slapped on the handcuffs and put me in the back of his car.  But what about my car and my girlfriend?  I told Lona to start the car and make sure it still worked and then to follow me to the police station.  As we pulled back onto the road with Lona following, the cop radioed ahead to the station and with a smirk told them to get the new breathalyzer ready, that he’s bringing in a drunk.  I just sighed knowing that I should be fine, but I was still a little nervous as it is always a little unsettling to be handcuffed in the back of a cop car…you just never get used to that.  The cop was going fast and I was worried about Lona so I asked him to slow down.  He ignored me.  I kept looking back to make sure she was still following as neither of us had any idea where we were or where we were going.

Suddenly I looked back and Lona was not there!  Oh my god!  I told the cop to pull over, that my girlfriend had lost us!  We had to go back and find her!  I was panicking but the cop could care less.  He said we were going to the station and that was that.  He kept on driving and my mind was racing.  What happened?  Would I ever see her again?  There were no cell phones then and there was no way to find each other if we got lost. 

We pulled into the police station about 10 minutes later and he led me into the bowels of the building with a big smile on his face.  On the way he proudly paraded me past other cops letting them know he’s got a drunk driver.  In his mind it was not a question if I was drunk, just how drunk I was.  I was worried, thinking this guy is so sure that he’s making a legitimate arrest.  One beer was okay wasn’t it?  I was so tired and disorientated I started doubting myself.  Had I had more than one?  Had I drank any of the Jagermeister?  Was this guy going to figure out some way of making me guilty?

Eventually we got to the testing room with an entourage of about 3 or 4 cops that my cop had collected along the way to watch my demise.  He fired up the big huge breathalyzer machine with the fancy name like ‘The Toxicology 2000’ or something like that.  After it roared to life the cop triumphantly handed me a tube and told me to blow.  I blew and everyone waited.  As he peered at the modern digital display his eyes suddenly got huge and then he furrowed his brow and gave his precious machine a few sharp raps with his fist.  “Damn thing is acting up.” he muttered.  Angrily he thrust the tube back into my face and told me to blow again, “Harder this time!”  Trying not to smile I took a huge breath and blew as hard as I could.  “0.00.  That can’t be!”  He was extremely angry and red-faced now, especially when the other cops started laughing, shaking their heads and filing out of the room.

I was incredibly relieved, but what now I wondered?  Still trying not to smile, I looked over at Barney Fife.  “Get the hell out of here!” he shouted.  But what about my car?  My girlfriend?  “Get the hell out of here, now!!” he yelled and I ran out of the room and down the hall.  I got lost trying to find the exit and eventually the cop caught up to me, grabbed me by the arm, led me to the front of the station and shoved me out the door.  I stood there for a couple of minutes looking around wondering what to do.  It was a relief to be out of that hellhole and away from that miserable cop, but what was I going to do now?

Suddenly a car pulled up to the station and holy sh*t Lona jumped out of it!  No way!  Lona!  You’re alive!  The car left and Lona looked pale and shaky as she explained where she had been the last hour.  She had been doing her best to keep up with the cop, but it was a very gloomy, cold and dark day so she had turned on the headlights.  Suddenly she noticed smoke coming out from under the hood.  She wasn’t sure if she should pull over and lose us or keep on going, but the smoke was getting thick so she had to pull over.  She opened the hood and flames shot out!  The engine was on fire!  She started spitting on it but that wasn’t working so she grabbed snow from the side of the road and put it out with that.  But now what?  Thankfully a car pulled up to help and she told the driver the whole story.  He told her he knew where the nearest police station was so he gave her a ride and fortunately it was the one I was at.

I asked her if she remembered where the car was and she wasn’t sure.  She suggested that we go into the police station and ask them for help.  No way I was going back in there so I said let’s hitchhike back to the car.  I sort of remembered the way we had come, and from her description figured the car was a couple miles back on the main road.  We got a few blocks from the station and stuck out our thumbs and before long a cop pulled up and threatened to arrest us for hitchhiking and asked us if we would like to go to jail.  I told him I had just been in his jail and had no interest in going back.  I explained our situation and he stared at us for awhile before finally he said to hop in and we’d go look for our car.

We found it a few minutes later down the road, but now the question was if it was operable.  I put the key in, turned it and lo and behold it started up!  No electricity though.  When Lona had turned on the lights earlier, the smashed headlight shorted out and started on fire and fried all the electrical wiring.  The engine worked, but we had absolutely no electrical components.  No headlights, no taillights, no blinkers, no brakelights, no wipers, no radio, no heat…no nothing.  The cop told us we would need to go to the nearest garage and get it fixed in order for the car to be street legal.  We did not have the time or the money for that, but we lied and told him we would do that “right away sir” and he took off.  It was the first day of our trip and we would have to drive the entire journey during the day, all the while hoping it didn’t rain or snow anymore, hoping the engine would keep on working, and hoping we did not get pulled over for no blinkers or brakelights.  The last show of the tour was in Minneapolis so every mile we put behind us would be a relief, and one mile closer to home.

We decided to look on the bright side:  nobody was hurt, our car was still able to move forward, and we had tickets for 8 Grateful Dead shows starting that night!  So we hopped into our burned out car and headed for the Riverfront Arena in Cincinnati.  We never did run into my friend Cire at the show, but we had a great time anyways.  Say, Cire, if you’re reading this…you can keep the opium but if you still have that little silver pipe I’d like it back for sentimental reasons…thanks.  Cire is a doctor living in the San Francisco bay area now.  After our reunion in Miami, we have kept in touch and have had a lot of adventures over the years.  We were just talking on the phone recently and he reminded me of the time we were sitting in a bar in Madison, WI drinking capfuls of morphine from a bottle that I had procured somewhere.  Don’t ask me why.  The only thing I remember is the crazy drive back to my house and then both of us sleeping for like 14 hours straight.  Again, I have no idea why we were doing that, but hey – maybe that is why Cire became an anesthesiologist in real life!

Anyways, after Cincinnati we drove down to Louisville and yes our seats really were in the front row right between Bobby and Jerry!  Everyone around us was just as excited at their good fortune and somebody brought out some acid and everybody dosed.  It was awesome but a little bit weird being that close to the band, making eye contact with Bob and Jerry and wondering if they were as high as we were.  We slept in our car in the parking lot that night under a pile of blankets to keep warm.

The next day we headed for Chicago.  The car still worked and we had sprung for a hotel room for one of our nights there.  We couldn’t drive from the hotel to the show though because we didn’t have any headlights so we had to hitchhike.  Three more great shows though with great seats.

For the next two shows in Milwaukee we stayed at my parent’s lake-house in Delafield, a suburb of Milwaukee.  As luck would have it my parents were gone that weekend so we had a huge party and tons of friends stayed there too.  More great seats, and I will always remember my friend John Vita-Man (who looked exactly like Jimmy Page) drinking whiskey and throwing up out in the parking lot.  John is not with us anymore, but he was a really good guy.

Then came the final stretch home to Minneapolis.  We were so grateful and happy to see the Minneapolis skyline as we pulled into town.  Our car had made it!  We went to our house, rested for a bit, showered up and then off to the final show that night.  It was tense at times but still a fun trip.  One of many tours with the Dead and many more adventures to be written about…

My First Time In Madison, WI

My nephew Lance was in town here in Minneapolis a few nights ago to attend a scholarship presentation and to visit some relatives.  He plays on the University of Wisconsin/Madison football team and we got to talking about Madison and what a great city it is to live in.  I lived there for about 5 or 6 years in the mid-1990’s and I loved it.  After Lance left I was still reminiscing about Madison and then I got to thinking back to the first time that I ever visited there.

 

It was the fall of 1983, my senior year in high school.  I only went to Waukesha North High School for two years, my junior and senior year, but it was one of the most memorable times of my life and I had a blast.  Our powerhouse 11-0 football team was going to the Division 1 State Championship finals that year against D.C. Everest.  I did not really follow high school football however.  I had played on our football team my freshman year in 9^th grade, but I was not a typical ‘jock’ and did not fit in so I did not play after that.  I went back to playing soccer and have continued to play that all my life.

 

To fit in with the football team you had to be a ‘jock’, but I was more of a ‘freak’.  In our school you were labeled either a jock, a freak, or, I don’t know…a nerd?  I was all three really…a hybrid.  I was a jock in that I played soccer and was pretty good at sports.  I was a freak in that I smoked pot & cigarettes and most of my friends were freaks.  And I was a nerd in that I got mostly A’s and graduated with a 3.5 grade-point average.

 

I hung out with and had friends in all three groups, so it was pretty nice…nobody hated me and I got along with everybody to some degree.  This came in handy my junior year when the freak/jock wars were going on.  The freaks hated the jocks and the jocks hated the freaks and the nerds nervously just stood off to the side.  There were sporadic fights here and there, but it all came to a head one fall afternoon after school.

 

There were enough people mad at each other that by consensus a day was picked for a ‘rumble’ of sorts, with many fights pre-determined:  Mike Murphy (‘Murph’ was a scrappy cornerback on the team and is now a very close friend of mine) vs. Duane Rodefer (aka ‘Stinky’); Kurt Larson (went on to play for the Colts and the Packers) vs. Gary Meyer (a huge 250 lb guy with a cheesy goatee); and a few others.  The main event was going to be Jim Prochnow (a super nice guy on the team) vs. Jesse Burrelis (one of the baddest, toughest, craziest freaks in the land…as Murph recently put it:  “There are only 3 things in this world that scare me:  God, my wife, and Jesse Burrelis.”).

 

Our school had an attendance of about 1,500 people, and not many went home that day.  There was a nervous excitement and tension in the air the entire day and it just kept building and building.  Finally school let out and there were literally hundreds of kids and even a few teachers waiting outside after school that day for the festivities to begin.  There were a few fights here and there but eventually Jim and Jesse squared off with everyone gathered around for the main event.

 

Crazy Jesse started the fight with a roundhouse kick, missed and Jim jumped on top of him.  I had a slim tiny glimmer of hope for Jim, but Jesse quickly turned the tide and was on top of Jim with a handful of hair and was smashing his face into the concrete.  Horrible, but Jim came out of it with a bloody smile and relieved that it was over. And it was over.  It was like opening a soda and letting all the carbonation out…tensions eased and people got along better after that day.

 

Anyways I normally would not go to a high school football game because I had no interest.  On the many occasions when I told my parents I was going to a football or a basketball game on a Friday night, I was really going to a party or whatever.  But this was the State Championship game being played at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison.  It was a pretty big deal for our school and a lot of people were going so I was open to going too.  Then I found out Cindy Burelli was going and she invited me to go with her so that sealed it.

 

Remember Cindy?  She was the hot girl that I took to ‘The Who’ concert a year earlier in the fall of 1982.  I wanted to go out with her badly and invited her to the concert when I scored a pair of extremely hard to get tickets, only to find out that she did not want to go out with me…she just wanted to use me to get to see The Who.  Well for some reason after that I was still friends with her, and she invited me and my buddy Gary Paulson to join her in her parent’s van with a few other people for the one-hour ride from Waukesha to Madison for the game.

 

Gary and I got to her house on the day of the game and we went down to Cindy’s room to smoke a bowl.  Then a couple more people showed up and Cindy pulled out a 1-liter bottle of Southern Comfort and a 2-liter bottle of Coca Cola.  We dumped out half of the cola and poured the entire bottle of Southern Comfort into the soda bottle.  Then we all piled in the van and her mom drove us to the game.  We parked somewhere on a street outside of the stadium and headed in, where I immediately proceeded to lose everyone I came with.  I happened to be carrying the Comfort/Coke bottle, but where was everyone else?

 

I spent most of the game walking around, talking to people, taking swigs off the soda bottle, but I never did find my people.  I do not remember anything about the game and I guess we lost, but by the end of the game most of the bottle was gone and I was hammered.  I had no idea where we parked and I stumbled out of the stadium wondering what to do.  I wandered around for awhile looking for the van but then got extremely tired so I laid down on the hood of a car and went to sleep.  The next thing I know Gary was shaking me awake.  Luckily I had happened to pass out on a car that was on the same block as the van, just a few cars down the street.  They dragged me into the van and drove me home.

 

My ever-loving and saintly but reasonably distrusting mother had a policy in those days that whenever I went out I had to kiss her goodnight when I got back home.  She always said it was just to make sure that I made it home okay, but we both knew that it was also so that she could smell my breath to see what I had been up to.  My normal routine was to come home through the garage door, brush my teeth in the downstairs bathroom, spray my mouth/face/hair with Binaca breath spray, and then change into a clean tee-shirt that did not wreak of smoke.  Then I would go upstairs to my parents bedroom for the moment of truth.  I would slip in quietly so as not to wake my dad, go over to my mom’s side of the bed, whisper goodnight, and then hold my breath as I leaned down for the kiss on her cheek and wait for the inevitable “sniff, sniff”.  Then I would get the heck out of there safely down to my room in the basement.

 

On this particular night however I skipped my entire pre-kiss routine.  Most unfortunate.  I was too drunk and tired to go through the whole production so I just stumbled upstairs to my parents room and walked confidently in through their bedroom door determined to get it over with as soon as possible.  I had made this walk of shame a hundred times and even in the pitch darkness of their room I knew exactly where to go.  So I walked in and headed for where my parents bed was supposed to be, but before I got there:  ‘SMASH!’  Suddenly I was no longer walking towards the bed but instead I was laying on top of my naked father and my mom clad only in her skimpy yellow nightgown.

 

In my drunken state had I been too confident in my determination of where the bed was and miscalculated its whereabouts?  No, my mom had re-arranged the furniture in their room and the bed was not where it was supposed to be.  It was in an entirely new spot and I had arrived there much sooner than expected.  I landed right on top of my sleeping parents, spread-eagled over both of them, wreaking of Southern Comfort and smoke.

 

I was so tired that it actually felt pretty good to be horizontal instead of vertical, but my startled and quick-to-anger-at-1am father had other ideas.  He woke up swinging and swearing as I suppose he thought he was being attacked.  I covered my face to protect myself from his flailing arms, and from underneath me in a loud desperate whisper my mom asked me what the hell I was doing.  Still hoping to somehow salvage the situation without getting busted for being wasted, I scrambled to get off my parents but found it difficult to find a place to put my hands.  There was nothing but parent-flesh everywhere as I kept putting my hands down hoping to find bed but kept pushing on body parts.

 

Eventually I made my way off the bed, but by the time I did my dad was standing there glaring at me with his hands on his hips.  I could feel his eyes piercing my soul as they blazed at me with fury.  I think my mom was actually scared for me and she sat up and told me to hurry up and go to bed, so I ran out of there and didn’t look back.

 

I do not remember if there were any repercussions the next day.  I was probably grounded, but it was tough for my parents in those days.  I was bigger than my dad so he couldn’t spank me, and if they grounded me I could still sneak out at night or sneak friends into the basement.  I feel bad for all the sh*t I put them through and if I could go back in time I would be a much better kid.  I suppose their only solace is that now I have two young kids of my own who I assume will terrorize me some day.