(PREVIEW)
Chapter 1
Freaky Deaky
Billy and Jake were my two partners. We got along splendidly about everything except music — the only reason we were together in the first place.
We had just been picked up by our first major record label. They swooped down and spirited us off to New York - first class plane tickets, limousines, the works. Our new producer, Monte, took care of everything. We were to record our debut album at Decca Recording Studios on 57th Street, just down the block from Carnegie Hall.
This was the closest we ever got to Carnegie Hall.
Monte was determined we would be stars. He booked us into The Bitter End, the hottest club in New York at the time. When you played there they made you sign a contract that stated you wouldn’t appear at another club nearer than three hundred miles away for at least six months. It was on Bleaker Street in Greenwich Village. They didn’t serve liquor. Our alcoholic intake at this time was world class, so this fact did not sit well with us at all. However, there was a place next to the Bitter End called Nobody’s. It stayed open all night and served anything you could think of. Every body hung out there.
We were living in a house on the beach on Long Island. 610 Broadway in Longbeach, across the street from the boardwalk. We told our record company that we couldn’t rehearse unless we were within a hundred feet of the beach so they had actually rented a house on the beach for us. Go figure.
Then they decided that we should be closer to them. It would be easier for us to get to work and for them to keep an eye on us.
This was the last time they ever did that.
Monte’s assistant booked us into a very classy hotel on 5th Avenue near 14th Street. Its regular clientele were oil sheiks from Kuwait and diplomats in for a weekend at the U.N.
We were the first and last Rock and Roll band ever to stay there.
Our suites cost eleven hundred dollars a week each. The maid put a mint on your pillow case every night. She stopped doing this after the first three nights. Then she refused to enter our suites if we were there and things went from bad to worse.
We were four days into a two-week engagement with Jim Webb when one of our musical discussions got us eighty-sixed from the club during business hours. We were only allowed inside to do our shows. This was alright with us because they didn’t serve liquor anyway. We spent all our time between shows at Nobody’s talking about things.
We were sitting Nobody’s one night discussing matters pertinent to our career. Namely, the fact that no one had gotten lucky four weeks. I was voted to have gotten closest. I met a gorgeous red head on the beach the week before, but I didn’t have the guts to call her. Since then she was all I could talk about. I couldn’t help it. My glands made me do it.
Billy told me if I didn’t shut up and call her, he was going to. He had her number too.
I dove for my wallet.
I had her number safely ensconced between my Dick Dastardly Vulture Squadron Card and my Eastern Airline Junior Pilot’s License Certificate. Getting the number turned out to be a tad more difficult than anticipated. Someone poured a beer down the back of my chair soaking me and my wallet. The number was totally illegible. It looked like a demented Rorschach test.
I was desperate. I finally worked up the nerve to call her, and now I couldn’t.
Then I remembered. Billy had the number!
I leaned over the table to ask him for it. This took a while because the jukebox had been permanently welded at 130 decibels and you could hear the waitresses screaming over that. Finally, after a combination of sign language and all my cash, I got the number from Billy and ran for the phone.
It didn’t occur to me that it was two o’clock in the Morning. Apparently it didn’t occur to Joyce either. She said that everyone called her at two a.m. and that she would just love to meet me at the hotel in half an hour.
This was IT!
“Choice Joyce!” Things were definitely looking up.
Life was good.
I fought my way back to the table. Jake was gone. Billy told me that while I was making my phone call, they decided to have a little party at the hotel. Jake had invited some friends over to the hotel to party for awhile. I should have grokked something was up, but all I could think of was “Choice Joyce” and room service.
The two o’clock “crush” arrived and Nobody’s was starting to rock.
Janis Joplin swaggered in trailing a nine foot feather boa looking for big game. She scanned the room and settled on Billy as her evening’s trophy.
This scared Billy, as well it should have. I told him that if he immediately gave me back the money he had extorted from me for Joyce’s phone number, I would extricate him from his predicament, pronto. The feather boa snaked closer, like a Hooded Cobra ready to feed. Billy blanched and instantly agreed to my offer. I went to the bar had him paged on the phone, then we met at the front door and escaped into the night.
Discretion before valor. The motto of rock n’ roll.
Billy and I turned the corner up Macdougal Street. When we got to Washington Square, we fired up a doobie to elevate our consciousness’s a “tad” more. It never hurts to elevate your consciousness a little more.
By now I was in love with Joyce.
This was not going to be one of your basic Rock and Roll one night stands.
No Siree.
This was going to be romance city. Dr. Zhivago eat my smoke!
New York in the springtime.
A beautiful red head.
My first record.
A mint on the pillow.
Dreams fulfilled.
Love.
It was awesome!
As Billy and I strolled up to the hotel everything was peaceful and serene. We succeeded in reaching our objective. We also succeeded in elevating our consciousness to the point where it was hard to speak English. The first subtle hint of trouble was Jake’s lilting voice floating mellifluously down the hall.
“I DON’T GIVE A FLYING FUCK WHAT YOU SAY!” he was screaming, “OUR RECORD COMPANY’S PAYING A MILLION’ DOLLARS A WEEK FOR THESE CRUMMY ROOMS. I’LL BRING ANYBODY HERE I WANT TO! THESE ARE MY FRIENDS!”
Billy and I turned the corner into the lobby. Instantly I knew I was never going to get to make love again, certainly not in New York, certainly not to Joyce, not to mention I was probably looking at the end of my professional music career as well.
I looked at Billy. He looked back at me with a serene smile.
He was elevated.
I turned back to the lobby.
The first thing I saw was a terrified night manager spread-eagled against the pigeon holes. Jake was jumping up and down on the desk in front of him screaming loud enough to be heard in New Jersey. And, standing in front of Jake, the desk and the night manager and screaming even louder than Jake were eleven MIDGETS!
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