Just going over my 5 year old son Jake’s Christmas wish list. He has been pretty good this year. Let’s see…roller skates? Check. Flash Girl? I don’t know what that is…I’ll have to google it. New tree ornaments? Check. Time machine? I’ll leave that one for Santa. Toy dinosaurs? Check. I still need to get the Jurassic Playset, the Lion Guard Kion Playset, and a rocket. A brother? I will have to have a long talk with my wife…
From time to time, when I have time I will post stories, thoughts...stuff that has happened to me maybe 20 minutes ago, or maybe 20 years ago. The names in the stories will be changed to protect the guilty.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Jake's Christmas Wish List
Just going over my 5 year old son Jake’s Christmas wish list. He has been pretty good this year. Let’s see…roller skates? Check. Flash Girl? I don’t know what that is…I’ll have to google it. New tree ornaments? Check. Time machine? I’ll leave that one for Santa. Toy dinosaurs? Check. I still need to get the Jurassic Playset, the Lion Guard Kion Playset, and a rocket. A brother? I will have to have a long talk with my wife…
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Jerry and Bob acoustic - 3/22/89 in San Francisco
I just stumbled across this concert on the internet and as I type I am listening to it now for the first time since that night. It was one of the coolest Jerry-experiences I ever had and certainly the most intimate. The idea of me going at all started in my apartment in Minneapolis about a month or two earlier when I called the Grateful Dead hotline to see if there was any new information about the ’89 Spring Tour. The usual stuff was on there but then at the end there was a little blurb about Jerry and Bob appearing acoustic at an art gallery for a benefit show. What?! Did I hear that right? I listened again. That sounded awesome! I decided that if I could find reasonable airfare I had to fly out there for this one show because nobody was talking about it and it would certainly be different from the previous 31 Grateful Dead shows I had seen up to that point. I cleared it with my girlfriend Lona, cleared it with my parents who lived in the Bay Area at the time, found acceptable airfare, and concert tickets. I was in!
The only stipulation my mom
had put on me for coming out and staying with them was that I had to take my
two younger sisters to the concert.
“Why?!” I wondered and argued.
For some reason my mom was bound and determined that they go with me,
despite the fact that my sisters had zero
interest in the Grateful Dead. I think
she just wanted her kids to hang out together, so I agreed and my mom even paid
for the three tickets. It was kind of a
coincidence that my whole family was going to be in San Francisco at the same
time. My parents and little brother were
out there because my dad was on a sabbatical from GE with Stanford, my sisters
Jan and Cindy were there visiting for Spring break, and I was there for Jerry
Garcia (oh yes, and my family). Once I
was sold on the idea of going to the concert with my sisters I tried to sell them on the idea. I told them about the peace and the love and
the community and the joyful experience of being at a Dead show. They could care less, but gamely agreed to go
and make the best of it.
I did not remember exactly
what the event was for until just now while researching online. It was a poster artist
benefit…Stanley Mouse/Rick Griffin/Alton Kelley/Wes Wilson/Victor Moscoso…all
the heavyweights of the Bill Graham/Fillmore-era 60’s poster artists. Damn I wish I knew then what I know now about
these posters and their incredible ever-increasing value, not to mention their
beauty and historical significance. I am
sure they had old posters for sale there at a fraction of what I am paying now
but I did not buy anything. And…holy
crap…I just found online the actual poster that was made just for this
event…see the picture below. It is a
20”x26” limited edition of 350 posters signed by the five artists. They are now selling for $599.95 a poster…I
bet they were maybe $50 at most that
night. <sigh>
I remember it being in an art
gallery sort of a place, although I just googled the address and now it is a
jewelry store. It looked like an art gallery because there were framed posters all
over the walls. The first small stage
was just a foot off the ground in the right corner of the room closest to the
entrance and you could walk right up to it.
No security, just a couple hundred Deadheads milling around. Suddenly Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and John Kahn
walked up onto the little platform with acoustic guitars and played for 35
minutes. Jerry was just a couple of feet
from me! I was completely star-struck,
standing right in front of my hero. I had
seen them play in stadiums across the nation, and now I could reach out and touch Jerry if I wanted to. Their opening set was all too brief but
incredibly intimate and awesome. I had
never seen the Dead play a couple of those tunes, I had never seen them play
acoustic, and I had never been that close to them. I was just blown away and could not even begin to express to my sisters how
f*cking cool it was! Two weeks later on
4/9/89 I would see them again front row in Louisville (see my 6/28/13 blog post
entitled ‘1989 Grateful Dead Spring Tour’) but that was a large arena and could
not compare to this.
During the show we ran into
my buddy Tommy the Freak who was living in the Bay Area at the time after
traveling out there in his white station-wagon ambulance. Freak was living the trifecta…the Freaker’s
Musical Triangle that consisted of Minneapolis, San Francisco and New
Orleans. Back then he alternated living
in all three cities for a few years.
That night he had hitchhiked for some reason to the concert with his
girlfriend but she was not as overjoyed by the music and the dancing and the
hippies as Freak was. He was doing his
usual, wild, long-haired dance and she was getting pissed at him but that just
made him dance harder and crazier. God
bless the Freak. I also ran into another
friend that was living out there, but I will get into that later.
After Jerry and Bob left the
stage I was certain they would come back…whoever heard of Jerry Garcia opening a show? After a bit Country Joe McDonald came on the
stage for a cool set, and Jerry joined him for two songs: ‘Starship Ride’ and ‘Lady With The Lamp’. Yes!
Now bring back Jerry and Bob!
They just had to come
back. My sisters and I wandered around
looking at all the posters and exhibits and my sisters in their black garb were
not amused by the happy, brightly-colored hippie chicks dancing in their faces.
I could tell they wanted to leave but I
kept telling them that Jerry and Bob would be coming back, probably next, and
we had to stay. But they did not come back…if I remember
correctly Nick Gravenites came on next, and then on a slightly larger stage in the
back corner of the room the Bay Area supergroup the Dinosaurs came on for an
amazing set that seemed to go on for hours.
It was the only time I ever got to see legendary guitarist John
Cipollina, who would die two months later on 5/29/89 from a rare genetic
disorder.
I still held out hope for
more Jerry but the show was obviously over after the Dinosaurs ended and
everybody started to file out. It was
very late. Bob and Jerry probably left hours
ago. My poor sisters were getting pretty
mad by then and just wanted to get the hell out of there, but I added a little
hiccup to the plan. To this day I cannot
remember who it was and neither could Freak when I asked him on the phone the
other day, but I had run into another friend at the concert and he asked if I
could give him and his girlfriend a ride home.
“No problem”, I told them. Jan
was really pissed now, but she had no
choice because I was driving. My friend
did not live anywhere near the Pavilion or my parent’s house in Menlo Park, so
my sisters were trapped in the car listening to the high girlfriend go on and
on for about 45 minutes about how Jerry was like her father and how much the
Grateful Dead meant to her. Hey…I
totally got it, Jerry was like a god, but my gothy sisters were just rolling
their eyes and probably wanted to strangle her.
We finally got to my friend’s
apartment and there was one more little surprise…he had to take a urine test in
the morning for his probation officer and he wondered if one of the three of us
could give him a clean urine-sample. I certainly couldn’t, so I asked my
sisters which one of them would want to do my friend a solid and go in his
apartment and pee in a cup. You should
have seen the look on Jan’s face. “No!”
she screamed. “No!! No!!
No!!” I could see she was tired
and not thinking rationally, so I apologized to my friend and told him we had
to get going. One last fun little tidbit
was in store for my sisters…shortly after we left my buddy’s apartment a carload
of guys pulled up alongside of us at a stoplight. They noticed my hot sisters in the car and
started hooting and hollering and gesturing for me to pull over. Hey…I totally got it, stupid guys like to
hoot at hot chicks, but my sisters were NOT flattered. Then it actually got a bit scary as they
followed us for like 10 minutes, pulling up next to us at each stoplight all
the while whistling and yelling at us at 1:00 am. We ignored them, so they eventually turned
off and we finally made it home.
Despite Jerry and Bob only
playing one short set, it was an incredible night of music and one of the best
twenty dollars I ever spent. As I said,
I am listening to it now and you can too by clicking on either one of the links
below. Crazy cool intimate acoustic
Jerry and Bob. My sisters do not remember
it as fondly as I do and to this day I am sorry they were subjected to a night
to my hippie ways, but I hope they had at least some fun. Love you! And to whoever I gave that ride to, if you
are reading this, I am sorry we could not make that pee sample happen for you
but I hope you got around the bastard somehow.
Deep Elem Blues, Wang Dang Doodle, Wind And Rain, When I Paint My Masterpiece, Bird Song, Easy To Slip
(Poster Artists Benefit: Jerry Garcia, John Kahn, and Bob Weir;
Country Joe McDonald, Dinosaurs, and Nick Gravenites and Animal Mind.)
Friday, January 29, 2016
My First Trip To California with The Dead/1986 (Part 2)
As I wrote in Part 1 of this story in my last blog entry, my friend Ron Bronson and I were driving from Minneapolis to Oakland to see the Grateful Dead at the H.J.K. Convention Center on 12/30 and 12/31/86. We brought my friend Sean Morrison with but had dropped him off in Albuquerque, NM on the way there and would pick him up in Lovington, NM on the way back. After 63 hours on the road we finally made it to the Kaiser at around 9 pm on December 28th. The Dead were playing that night but we only had tickets for the 30th and 31st. We parked on the street next to a park which was across the street from the Convention Center. We excitedly jumped out of the car and headed into the park where hundreds of Deadheads were milling around, drinking, smoking, dancing, and selling their wares.
At a Dead parking lot scene you can buy pretty much anything you want from tee-shirts, jewelry, art and pipes to drugs, beer and food. Speaking of food, we were starving. For the last two days all we had eaten were Sean’s mom’s Christmas cookies and gas station food. I gave Ron $20 out of the $120 I had left and put him in charge of getting us some food and a couple of beers while I went across the street to the Kaiser to see if we could possibly get in…maybe for free like we had for Huey Lewis an hour earlier. I discovered there was no way of sneaking into the concert, but there may have been speakers set up outside because you could hear the music pretty well and there were a lot of people dancing around.
I went back to the car to
meet Ron, but when I got there expecting a veggie burrito and a beer I instead
found Ron carefully picking at a small, round, dark-greenish plant. He looked up, and with a huge smile he triumphantly
produced a tin foil wrapper with five more of the wet greenish-brown
things. “Peyote buttons!” he said
excitedly. What the hell? Ron had used the entire $20 to buy half a
dozen peyote buttons…a golf ball sized psychoactive cactus that contains
mescaline and can produce trippy acid-like effects. Who needs food when you can just trip? Ron handed me one and said we should eat
three of them each. I declined, telling
him I was tired from the long drive up the coast that day and did not want to
trip. Ron ate one button and then we
went back over to the Kaiser and danced outside until the show was over. We hung out in the park for a bit and then
went to our car to sleep for the night with me in the front seat and Ron in the
back.
The next morning, December 29th,
we woke up to a beautiful sunny day and decided to head over to San
Francisco. They Dead were playing 4
shows this run on the 27th, 28th, 30th &
31st so we had a day off from the Dead. We found a Chinese restaurant just down the
block that sold egg rolls for 50 cents, so after scarfing down a couple of egg
rolls each we drove over the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. We went to the Haight-Ashbury district and
took pictures of the signpost at the famous intersection as well as the Grateful
Dead’s old house at 710 Ashbury Street.
Ron got a picture of me doing a headstand on the porch steps. We checked out all the cool shops and the
hippies and then climbed up the hill at Buena Vista Park and hung out for a bit
taking in the sights. It was nice and
peaceful and felt good to just relax and chill up there. Then we walked over to Golden Gate Park and
hung out for a couple of hours. For some
reason we climbed up onto the roof of a building and we could see seals
inside. Strange.
Then we found our car and
headed to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Instead of going over the bridge we pulled off onto a side street under
the bridge near the water. The bridge
towered above us. Ron pulled out a joint
and although I rarely smoked pot anymore, I decided how could I not…I was in San Francisco with tickets
to see two Dead shows! We finished the
joint and then Ron brought out the tinfoil he had purchased the night
before. He opened it up and the five
remaining peyote buttons were now a giant pile of greenish-brown goo. He reasoned that we had better hurry up and
eat them before they got any grosser. I
could not argue with that logic so we hunkered down in my car for a meal. Ron solemnly explained to me that the guy who
sold them to him told him that you cannot just eat the whole button…you have to
carefully pick out the white hairs in the middle because they are poisonous and
you will die if you eat them. Um,
okay. So after spending about a half
hour carefully picking thru the wet gloppy mess we decided that we had removed
every last dastardly hair. Isn’t half
the fun of doing drugs the preparation
of doing the drugs? Then we set about
eating what was left. They were wet,
mushy and very gritty…just horrible, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta
do.
It was now mid-afternoon on a
Monday…normal people were getting off of work and rush hour was just
starting. Dammit, with my low tolerance
that joint had gotten right on top of me and the peyote was starting to kick
in. Coming from the flat Midwest I was
completely dumfounded and amazed that people actually drove cars on these
crazy-steep streets. Ron had a map so he
directed me towards the top of Lombard Street, wanting to go down the famous
curvy street. To get there though we had
to climb up, up, up in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic in my stick-shift
Toyota Celica and I was starting to freak out.
This was absolutely insane I thought.
We were on a 45 degree angle going up with cars right behind me. It was
impossibly steep and I was certain the car was going to tip backwards and roll
end over end back down the street, or at the very least I was going to roll
back and hit the guy behind me.
I was having a hard time discerning what was real and what were the peyote effects. We would move 5 feet, stop, and I would have to put on the emergency brake to keep from rolling backwards because my legs were shaking so badly…all part of the freak-out process. Then the car ahead of me would move a few feet so I would have to mash down on the brakes as hard as I could, take off the emergency brake and then floor the gas while my shaky leg slowly let off the clutch. The car would lurch up a few feet and die while the cars behind me honked. I could not do this, but I was not going to let Ron do it. While I was sweating and hallucinating and freaking out behind the wheel Ron was next to me laughing his ass off telling me to turn right, left, right, left. The map was upside down and he was clearly incapable of navigating much less driving.
I was having a hard time discerning what was real and what were the peyote effects. We would move 5 feet, stop, and I would have to put on the emergency brake to keep from rolling backwards because my legs were shaking so badly…all part of the freak-out process. Then the car ahead of me would move a few feet so I would have to mash down on the brakes as hard as I could, take off the emergency brake and then floor the gas while my shaky leg slowly let off the clutch. The car would lurch up a few feet and die while the cars behind me honked. I could not do this, but I was not going to let Ron do it. While I was sweating and hallucinating and freaking out behind the wheel Ron was next to me laughing his ass off telling me to turn right, left, right, left. The map was upside down and he was clearly incapable of navigating much less driving.
After what seemed like many
tense hours we were suddenly at the top of Lombard and heading down…holy
sh*t…this cannot be real…this has to be the peyote talking. How do people live like this I wondered? I was really starting to lose it so at the
bottom of Lombard I grabbed the map, shook it violently in front of Ron’s face
and yelled at him to get me the hell out of this goddamn city! Ron suddenly stopped laughing and told me he
knew of some friends in a rock band that lived about an hour or two north of
Oakland. We eventually made it back over
the Bay Bridge to the Oakland side and headed north on the freeway.
It was dark now and I did not care where we were going. I was just so happy and relieved to be out of the city and those crazy streets and on a wide open 5-lane freeway. We drove for a couple hours and then Ron admitted he had no idea of the address or phone number of these friends of his. I was fine with that because I was still pretty loopy from the peyote and not feeling very sociable. So we turned around and drove the two hours back to the Kaiser. We found a parking spot on the same street next to the park and went to sleep, happy that we were going to live another day.
It was dark now and I did not care where we were going. I was just so happy and relieved to be out of the city and those crazy streets and on a wide open 5-lane freeway. We drove for a couple hours and then Ron admitted he had no idea of the address or phone number of these friends of his. I was fine with that because I was still pretty loopy from the peyote and not feeling very sociable. So we turned around and drove the two hours back to the Kaiser. We found a parking spot on the same street next to the park and went to sleep, happy that we were going to live another day.
Waking up on the morning of
December 30th we decided to take inventory of what we had in our
possession. We had a pile of dirty
clothes, the concert tickets, the cassettes, my camera, some cookies and about
$90. Figuring gas was about a buck a
gallon and my car got 30 miles to the gallon, we had enough gas money to get us
2,700 miles. After carefully studying
the map we figured from Oakland, CA to Lovington, NM and then back up to
Minneapolis was about 2,650 miles. That
was way too close. Plus that left no
money for food and we were down to our last ten Christmas cookies. What were we going to do for money?! I told Ron I was going to walk around and
think and I would bring back some egg rolls.
When I got back an hour later
I could see Ron standing by my car shouting something. What was he yelling? When I got closer I could see that he was
standing behind a folding card table shouting:
“Tee shirts, cookies, cassettes for sale!” What the hell?! I ran up to him and he was maniacal. He quickly explained that he had found the
table in a ditch and was trying to get us some money. He was frantically trying to sell everything
in my car. “We need money!” he shouted
at me. He had also found a pen and paper
and had everything marked…cookies for 25 cents, cassettes for a dollar and
shirts for $5. I grabbed my shirts off
the table and threw them in the car.
When I went back for my cassettes he had grabbed my shirts from the car
and put them back on the table. We went
around in circles like this for a bit, the whole time him yelling at the top of
his lungs at the people walking by until finally I grabbed the front of his
shirt with two hands and started shaking him.
“Ron! Stop it! Quit selling my sh*t!” “But we need money!” he blurted in rebuttal as he tried to grab the cassettes
out of my hand. He was losing it so I
slapped him across the face and suddenly he stopped…he was calm…everything was
going to be okay.
I handed him an egg roll and
told him I had a plan. I had been
watching the acid dealers in the park and they were selling sheets of acid for
$50. That’s 100 hits, or 50 cents each. If we turned around and sold individual hits
for $2 apiece we would quadruple our
money…we could turn that $50 into $200!
So as evening approached we went into the park looking for some
acid. Before long I saw a guy walking
around quietly and carefully saying:
“Acid...I got sheets…$50.”
Sweet. I pretended to know what I
was doing by asking him what kind, how strong it was and how long before it
kicks in. He told me it was strong white
blotter and he would hang out with me until it kicked in. Well that seemed like an ironclad foolproof
way of knowing it was real. The whole
time he was talking to me though a distressed hippie was standing behind him
shaking his head at me and mouthing the words:
“No, no, no!” Whatever…he
probably just wanted in on my guy’s action…that wasn’t cool. So I handed my guy $50 and he produced a
square piece of paper with 10 rows of indents across and down. Upon first glance it looked real…sort of. The
hippie sadly shook his head and walked away.
I ripped off one little square each for me and Ron. We excitedly turned to each other seeing
dollar signs in our future as we placed the paper on our tongues.
We decided that we would wait
till the acid kicked in, then we would know it was real and we could start
walking around selling as many hits as possible before the concert
started. I turned to ask our new friend
a question, but he was gone. Huh. He must have had to take off. No matter…the acid had to be real…nobody would just walk around selling fake acid. Knowing we had money coming our way we
splurged and bought a couple beers and talked happily about the concert
starting in an hour. It was finally
here…this was what the journey was all about…road-tripping across the continent
to see the Grateful Dead in sunny California!
We finished our beers and I asked Ron if he felt anything yet. “I think so” he said. “You?”
“Yep…it’s definitely kicking in.” I said as I stared at my hand and
waved it around to see if I could see any trails yet. Not yet…but I think it was starting. 15
minutes later and we still weren’t taking off…it had to be soon. We decided to go into the show...we would
sell the hits after the show.
While walking to the concert
we ran across a girl looking for tickets.
We knew we had money coming in so we weren’t interested in selling ours,
but for the heck of it I asked how much she was willing to pay. “I’ll give you $75 for the pair!” she
replied. Wow…we had only paid $17.50
each for our tickets, so that would be more than double our money! I looked
at Ron…we stared at each other for a few seconds and then I shook my head
no. That was a LOT of money, but we came
here for these two concerts. We have to go in. So in we went and found a kickass spot on the
side balcony to the right of the stage.
The Neville Brothers were opening and they were awesome but we were
getting excited for the Dead!
After awhile though we realized we were not tripping. Did we just happen to get a part of the sheet that was accidentally not dipped in the acid? We were grasping at straws, not willing to believe that we had just handed a guy $50 for a 4”x4” piece of worthless paper. I pulled the paper out and ripped off two more squares and we ate that. Looking carefully now at the paper, it was starting to look more and more like some random piece of thick white paper that the guy had made little perforation marks on with a paper clip or a knife point. We got screwed…totally f*cking screwed and we were down to about $35. How were we going to get home?
After awhile though we realized we were not tripping. Did we just happen to get a part of the sheet that was accidentally not dipped in the acid? We were grasping at straws, not willing to believe that we had just handed a guy $50 for a 4”x4” piece of worthless paper. I pulled the paper out and ripped off two more squares and we ate that. Looking carefully now at the paper, it was starting to look more and more like some random piece of thick white paper that the guy had made little perforation marks on with a paper clip or a knife point. We got screwed…totally f*cking screwed and we were down to about $35. How were we going to get home?
It was a great show and we
had a great time dancing to the Dead…my highlight was the awesome ‘Estimated
Prophet’ into ‘Eyes Of the World’ (“California!
I’ll be knocking on the golden door!”).
Our money problem weighed heavily on us though and was in the back of
our minds the whole time. Should we
still try and sell the acid in individual hits?
It seemed like a dirty thing to do, but we had gotten screwed over and
we needed the money. We decided we could
not sell it there in the park though…after three days these people had become
our family and we could not screw them over.
We decided we would head back over to the Haight-Ashbury district the
next day and screw those people
over. We did not feel good about it, but
we decided we had no choice.
The next day was the 31st. After eating our
daily ration of two eggrolls each we drove back over the bridge to the
Haight. Armed with our worthless little
piece of paper we tried to figure out how to do this. As we had seen done in the park, we stood in
one spot waiting for ‘cool’ people to walk by…hippies, freaks,
long-hairs…anybody that looked as if they might like acid. Then we would mutter “Acid…need any
acid?” After a couple of failed attempts
where people just smiled and kept walking or gave us dirty looks or ignored us
completely, something ominous was coming our way. It was about 6’ 6” tall with a black
tee-shirt, black fingerless gloves, black jeans, black boots and a full black
leather coat that went down to the ground.
He had long black hair on the right half of his head, and the left side
was shaved smooth allowing everyone to see the large black raven he had
tattooed onto his skull and face. He
skin was white as chalk but he had black eye makeup, black lipstick and black
fingernails. “Just ignore him!” Ron pleaded,
but I was desperate and we needed to make some money.
“Hey man, do you need any
acid?” I said, my voice quaking. Raven
stopped, looked down at me and sneered.
He regarded us like two sniveling bugs who had actually dared to talk to him. I think he respected that. He stared into my eyes for awhile and I felt
like he was trying to read my mind. I
was scared shitless. I was thinking
about how to abort this doomed mission when he said that he would love some
acid, but that if it was not real he was going to break all four of our
legs. He said we had to hang out with
him until it kicked in. “Oh my god, we
will not have to worry about our money problems anymore because Raven is going
to kill us.” I thought to myself. He
pulled two dollars out of a wallet that was on the end of a long chain and I
pulled out the little piece of paper. I
ripped off a small piece and handed it to him.
He stared at the pathetic little scrap and said: “This isn’t real…is it.”
“No no, it’s real!” I
protested. “Here…you take the acid and
keep your money, and if you like it, then
you pay us.” I reasoned that if we
didn’t take his money, maybe he wouldn’t kill us. There was no way I was going to hang out with
Mr. Creepy for the next hour though just waiting for the inevitable
beating. Ron and I were small, wiry
dudes while Raven was huge with massive heavy boots…he would never be able to
catch us. We were following Raven down
some street to god-knows-where. When we
got to the corner I motioned to Ron and we both took off running as fast as we
could. “Get back here you little f*cks!”
shouted Raven, but we just kept running for about 10
blocks. When we dared to stop and look
back there was no sign of him. Now we
just had to loop around and get back to our car without him seeing us. We walked back up onto the hill at Buena
Vista Park and hid there for about an hour while keeping a careful
lookout. No sign of Raven, so we walked
back down, took some side streets to our car and took off for our ‘home’ in
Oakland. Just as poor.
We parked on our familiar
block by the park completely dejected and feeling hopeless. Real
home seemed like a million miles away.
Then I remembered seeing a commercial where you could get money wired to
you magically over the phone lines.
Western Union I think they called it.
Should I call my mom and see if she would do that? I did not want to and
I did not tell Ron my idea, but I kept that vaguely possible option in my back
pocket. I tried to make light of the situation
by taking out the piece of paper, ripping it in half and shoving it into my
mouth. “Look! Ron! I
just took 50 hits of acid!” We both
laughed and walked across the street to the park to hang out. We only had about $30 left, but at least it
was New Years Eve and we were seeing the Grateful Dead.
Before long we saw a dude selling his New Years Eve ticket to somebody. Suddenly another dude ran up breathlessly and asked if had another one to sell? Nope. The guy looked sad so I walked up to him. He asked me if I had a ticket to sell. “I’ll give you $200, cash, right here, right now.” he said hopefully. Holy f*cking sh*t. $200?! Face value was only $25. With $200 we would have MORE than enough gas money to get home. We could even buy some real food…get a good meal and some beer! Could I really drive over 5,000 miles to see the Dead on New Years and then sell the ticket though? We were desperate, and we had already seen them last night I rationalized.
Before long we saw a dude selling his New Years Eve ticket to somebody. Suddenly another dude ran up breathlessly and asked if had another one to sell? Nope. The guy looked sad so I walked up to him. He asked me if I had a ticket to sell. “I’ll give you $200, cash, right here, right now.” he said hopefully. Holy f*cking sh*t. $200?! Face value was only $25. With $200 we would have MORE than enough gas money to get home. We could even buy some real food…get a good meal and some beer! Could I really drive over 5,000 miles to see the Dead on New Years and then sell the ticket though? We were desperate, and we had already seen them last night I rationalized.
With a heavy heart I
said: “Okay.” He happily handed my $200 while I placed the
ticket in his eager hands. I looked at
Ron sadly and he shrugged and said he would do the same thing. I told him not to bother…we had plenty of
money. We bought a couple beers and
walked around for a bit when suddenly I heard a guy asking if anybody needed a
ticket. “How much?” I asked. “$100.” He said. “I’ll take it!” I shouted. We would still have enough money to get home,
and I would get to go to the concert!
Just then Ron was about 20 feet away talking to a guy. What was he doing? He walked back over with a smile and showed
me a wad of cash. He had just sold his
ticket for $140. “Dude, you didn’t have
to do that…I have $100 and a ticket
now!” A few minutes later though Ron
found another guy selling an extra ticket for $100 so Ron bought that. Suddenly we had $140 more than we had an hour
ago! We were saved!
We went into the show as
happy as could be, excited for the countdown and the concert. We found almost the same spot up in the
balcony just to the right side of the stage and had a blast. David Crosby opened first, and then the
Neville Brothers. Close to midnight Bill
Graham appeared at the back of the auditorium dressed as an eagle. He flew over the crowd tossing down roses,
and then descended to the stage during the countdown. Millions of balloons dropped as the Dead
started the second set with ‘Touch Of Grey’.
The Nevilles sat in with the Dead for a few songs. After the last notes of ‘Brokedown Palace’
drifted away to end the third set we blissfully filed out of the Kaiser. We had a couple of beers in the park and then
went to bed happy. Now for the journey
home.
The next day on January 1st,
we woke up excited for the road trip and happy to be getting the hell out of
Oakland. It was a new day, a new year,
and who knows what 1987 held for us. We
jumped on Highway 5 and zipped down to Bakersfield by mid-afternoon. Taking turns driving we crossed Arizona and
got to Albuquerque in the middle of the night.
We stopped at a rest area and slept until morning before heading down to
Lovington, NM to grab Sean and head back north to home. We got to Reinhart’s place around noon on
January 2nd and it was weird and a little bit disconcerting walking
around in the wide open desert after hanging out in a crowded hectic city for
the last few days.
Reinhart was renting a little
pink house (think ‘Pink Houses’ by John Mellencamp) for $75/month that was in
the middle of effing nowhere. I think he
thought we were going to stay awhile, but after driving an additional 4 ½ hours
south out of our way from Albuquerque to get Sean we just wanted to get back on
the road to home. Plus, sorry Reiny,
Lovington just looks so desolate and boring.
It’s always nice hanging out with Reinhart for a bit and catching up,
but we only stayed for a few hours. We
went to an old Pony Express station not far from his house and took turns
shooting his new .357 Magnum at bottles and cans. That was and is the only time in my life I
have ever shot a handgun…not a fan. We also
went over to his friend Mike’s house for a couple beers and to smoke some
weed. As any normal New Mexican would,
Mike thought Ron was gay because of his short spikey blond hair, his long
trench coat, and his short black boots with heels that zipped up the side. Ron was not gay but he fancied himself a
quirky rock star because he was the drummer in a band called Three-Car
Garage. Mike’s weed turned out to be
strangely dark green and no good. We
left after a bit to go back to Reinhart’s place.
Despite Reinhart’s protests
to stay longer we pulled out of Lovington late that afternoon on January 2nd
and were finally heading home. Within
minutes we were in Texas and not long after that I got pulled over for speeding
through some tiny town. I think I was
going 30 in a 25. The town sheriff took
a long, slow suspicious look at the three of us but without too much hassle let
us go with a $50 speeding ticket. I
never paid that sucker and may still be a wanted man in Texas for all I
know.
Eventually we got to Kansas City on the morning of January 3rd and instead of continuing on with the final 6 hours home, Sean took the off-ramp into the city. He informed us that we needed to stop and collect on a guy that he used to be in a band with. The band had been touring out in California and the gigs dried up so Sean quit, but the band stole Sean’s guitar and all his equipment. Sean wanted to find this drummer and either get a guitar from him or some money or he was going to beat the guy up. Really? I just wanted to go home but Sean did not give us an option. We drove around all day making phone calls and trying to track this guy down. I was getting pissed at the huge delay when we were so close to home but Sean was determined and finally got an address on the guy.
Eventually we got to Kansas City on the morning of January 3rd and instead of continuing on with the final 6 hours home, Sean took the off-ramp into the city. He informed us that we needed to stop and collect on a guy that he used to be in a band with. The band had been touring out in California and the gigs dried up so Sean quit, but the band stole Sean’s guitar and all his equipment. Sean wanted to find this drummer and either get a guitar from him or some money or he was going to beat the guy up. Really? I just wanted to go home but Sean did not give us an option. We drove around all day making phone calls and trying to track this guy down. I was getting pissed at the huge delay when we were so close to home but Sean was determined and finally got an address on the guy.
It was afternoon and light
was fading. Sean had a grim look on his
face as we pulled into the guy’s neighborhood and parked a few houses down the
street. He told us this shouldn’t be a
big deal, but then explained that if the guy got uppity or had friends with him
he might need some back up. Some
muscle. Me and Ron muscle? I was a peace-loving
hippie and Ron weighed about 100 pounds, but okay…we were Sean’s muscle. Sean knew the guy would not answer the door
if he knocked, so he wanted me to knock on the door while him and
Ron waited in the bushes. Then when the
guy came to the door Sean would appear.
After a minute the guy came to the door wondering who the heck I
was. Sean slowly merged out of the
bushes and you should have seen the look on the guy’s face. He was almost crying as he immediately
started apologizing and blubbering to Sean that he did not have any money or
his guitar and that the band had ripped him
off too.
So after talking to him for
awhile Sean let him off the hook (it’s hard to beat up a whimpering grown man I
guess) and we got back on the road to Minneapolis. We got in late that night on January 3rd. I was exhausted and completely broke but so
happy to be home after 9 full days on the road.
Lona was glad to see me but she was a little pissed off as she had been
expecting and waiting for me all day. I
explained about the delay in Kansas City and then curled up in our bed…an
actual bed instead of the front
bucket seat of a Celica. We had a
fantastic trip to California, but it was just the first of many…
Friday, January 22, 2016
My First Trip To California with The Dead/1986 (Part 1)
It was December of 1986. I was 20 years old, in my 3rd year of college at the University of Minnesota and really starting to get into the Grateful Dead. I had only seen them 5 times prior to this but they were quickly becoming a way of life. One day I got a call from a buddy of mine who had seen a couple of Dead shows at Alpine Valley the previous summer and had got all caught up in the frenzy. He had bought a VW bus, plastered it with Dead stickers and suddenly he was a Deadhead. He even went so far as to mail-order for New Years Eve tickets to see the Dead in Oakland before he realized he was not that into it and did not want to “drive all the way to California in the middle of winter to see a couple of freakin’ concerts.” He had scored a pair of tickets for the 12/30 & 12/31/86 Dead shows at the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, so he called me up and asked if I wanted them. I hung up and called my buddy Ron ‘The Snake’ Bronson and he immediately said yes, he’s in. We’ll take ‘em! We decided the two of us would drive out there right after Christmas in my yellow ’78 Toyota Celica.
I had been visiting my
parents for Christmas at their house in Waukesha near Milwaukee. With deep and valid concern in my mother’s
eyes as I pulled out of the driveway, I headed up to Minneapolis early on
December 26th to get Ron. I
got there around 11 am and our friend Sean Morrison was at Ron’s house. Sean had nothing to do and thought it would
be fun to visit our friend Reinhart Simpson who lived in Lovington, New
Mexico. He asked if we would drop him
off in Albuquerque on the way to Oakland and pick him up in Lovington on the
way back. Sure! The more the merrier! Wait…I asked him if New Mexico was on the way
to Oakland. “Practically”, he said. He noted that it was a littttle bit farther
south than one would normally be going from Minneapolis to Oakland but that it
was almost as fast if not faster because one would avoid the worst of the Rocky
Mountains in the winter. Fine, no
problem, let’s do it.
I had a small pack with some
underpants, some tee-shirts, the concert tickets, a briefcase full of
cassettes, a camera and about $200. Gas
was still just under $1/gallon so I figured $200 would be plenty to get us there
and back, and any leftover money would be for food. Sean had a small pack, and Ron just brought a
case of beer. We had everything we
needed. The three of us set out from Minneapolis
around noon heading south on I-35 with me behind the wheel, Sean riding shotgun
and Ron in the back.
By the time we had gotten
half-way through Iowa Ron had plowed through half the case of beer and was
puking and obnoxious. By the time we go
to Missouri he had passed out but wet his pants and he was really starting to
stink up my car. I begged Sean to let me
pull over at a rest stop and leave him there.
I rationalized that Ron could hitchhike back to Minneapolis and Sean
could take Ron’s place. The voice of
reason, Sean said no but that we could stop in Kansas City where his mom lived
and get Ron cleaned up. She was a very
sweet, understanding lady who had seen a lot in her days of raising Sean and
his brother. She washed Ron’s pants,
gave us a large plate of Christmas cookies and sent us on our away.
It was about 9 pm and a
blinding ice storm had moved into the area.
Sean was driving now as we continued south towards Wichita and then
Oklahoma City. After an hour we had
finally gotten clear of the Kansas City metro area and into the open plains,
but the ice storm was making the going very slow as Sean slid around on the
highway trying to avoid the ditches on either side. I was up front holding on for dear life while
Ron snored away in the back seat. It was
getting late and Sean reasoned that with all the beers he had drunk there was
no way he was going to make it through the night without some extra help so he
produced a baggie full of mushrooms. He
held the bag up and with a nod motioned me to dig in, but I declined citing the
need for sleep. He placed the bag on his
lap and started munching away while driving.
I fell asleep but at some point during the night was awakened by a large
“THUMP”! We were still moving, but Sean
sadly told me that he had hit a large white dog running across the
freeway. In his hallucinogenic state I
could not be sure if that was true or not, but we had definitely hit something.
I woke up the next morning
and looked out at bright sunny Texas. No
more snow and ice! Sean was still
driving and grinning and said that other than a few fishtail episodes on the
ice, the hassle of avoiding all the cars that were off the side of the road and
the one huge dog he had hit, everything was groovy. We pulled over in the desert, got out and
climbed around. I marveled at all the
cactus and tumbleweeds and lizards and stuff I had never seen before. At a lonely gas station in the middle of
nowhere there was a large cowboy about 20 feet tall pointing a pistol, so I had
Sean pull over and take a picture of me getting shot.
Ron and I eventually realized
that Albuquerque was nowhere near San Francisco, but the three of us finally
got to Albuquerque on the evening of the 27th. We met up with our college buddy Reinhart at
a bar, had a few beers and talked about old times. Then Ron and I continued on into the night
heading for California with Ron driving while I slept. I woke up briefly as we approached Winslow,
AZ and I made Ron pull over and take a picture of me next to the sign so I could
say that I was “standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona”. It was, in fact, not such a fine sight to see and not one single girl in a flatbed
Ford slowed down to take a look at me.
I woke up early the next
morning at the California border with Ron stopped at a checkpoint. Huh?
They wanted to know if we had any fruit.
Hell no I thought, but I hope they don’t search us and find Ron’s weed. Nope…we continued on and got to Los Angeles
around 9 am on the morning of December 28th. We decided not to stop in L.A., but just head
straight up to the Bay Area. We could
have taken the faster way on Hwy 5 which is only about 6 hours, but we had
heard how beautiful Hwy 1 is along the coast.
So with me behind the wheel we took the 9 hour way up the scenic winding
coastal highway. It was absolutely
breathtakingly beautiful for a couple of Minnesotans who had never seen the
Pacific Ocean before, but after a few hours it got tiresome…left, right, left,
right, constantly turning the whole way along this never-ending winding
road.
Late in the afternoon we made
it to Big Sur near Monterey. We sneaked
past the checkpoint and went into the Big Sur State Park looking for a free
shower. We hiked around for a bit,
showered, and I called my girlfriend Lona to let her know that I had made it to
California and everything was groovy.
There was a lot of noise in the background and it sounded like she was
having a party. She did not seem interested
in hearing about what a great time I was having so I made it a quick call and
hung up. Feeling refreshed we got back
onto Hwy 1 and headed for Oakland. We
did not have tickets for the Dead’s show that night or any extra money to
spare, but I started thinking that maybe when we got to the H.J.K Convention
Center we could somehow score some free or cheap tickets for that night’s
show. Four out of my five previous
experiences with the Grateful Dead had been at Alpine Valley, so I just assumed
there would be a nice friendly camping area and plenty of extra tickets.
We finally got to the Bay
Area and were heading northing on Hwy 880 around 8 pm on the night of the 28th. Suddenly I saw a large arena off to the right
packed with cars in the lot and I assumed it was where the Dead were
playing. What luck! We had no idea where the Kaiser was, and we
just happened to stumble across it! We
joyously pulled into the parking lot and slowly drove through the rows of cars
looking for a spot. But wait…this was weird. The lot was packed with cars but no people.
Where were all the Deadheads? The
VW buses? The hippies milling around
selling tie-dyes and beers and bracelets?
The loud Dead music with a different bootlegged concert blaring out of
every other car? I realized the show had
already started but the lot was like a ghost town. Maybe they do things differently in
California? Maybe once the show starts
everyone with a ticket goes in and everyone else leaves.
So we parked our car and
headed towards the arena. We could hear
the music playing and we were getting more and more excited as we got up to the
gate. Then…we just walked right in! Nobody asked us for a ticket! Holy crap, we had just gotten into our first
California Dead show for free! We stood in a stairwell near the stage to
check it out and look for open seats, but something was not right. Was that even the Dead? I did not recognize
the song at all. I did not have my
glasses on, but it sure did not look or sound like them. Ron had never seen the Dead and he had no
idea what was going on, so pointing to the stage I asked a guy if that was the
Grateful Dead. He just stared at me,
then slowly shook his head and said:
“No…that’s Huey Lewis and the News.”
Dammit! We were not at the H.J.K. Convention Center…we were at the Oakland
Coliseum.
(Weird side-note: I am typing this here at work on my lunch
break. Just a second ago at the exact
moment that I was on Google getting the correct spelling of ‘Huey Lewis’, the
girl in the next cubicle took her headphones off and I could hear the familiar
sounds of the popular 80’s song ‘The Heart Of Rock And Roll’ playing. Am I mistaken or is that a Huey Lewis
song? Yep…I just Googled the song and
yes it is Huey Lewis.)
Anyways, we sheepishly backtracked out of the
Oakland Coliseum, jumped in the car and headed further north looking for the
Kaiser. After driving around for a bit
we eventually found it right smack in the middle of Oakland. After 63 hours on the road I had finally made
it from Waukesha, WI to Oakland, CA. We
found a parking spot on the road across the street from the park which was
across the street from the Kaiser. For
the next four nights this block on this street would be our home. I will close the story here for now, as the entire story is going to be very
long. This first part is the
intro…getting to Oakland. Part 2 will be
all the stuff that happened in the Bay Area, as well as getting home.
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