By the age of eighteen I had consumed an ungodly amount of drugs. It not as if I left the house on a daily basis with an implicit desire to seek out and experience strange and exciting new kicks. The fact of the matter is that drugs most often found their way to me. Granted I did by choice immerse myself in situations where drugs seemed to be the common currency.

            While harder drugs and hallucinogens were save for the most special occasions. My daily stock and trade was marijuana. I often wonder how without jobs we managed to satiate our near unquenchable desire for grass. When cash was low however we had our methods. During our time at the Cattle Club we devised a hideous and effective little con for the procurement of marijuana. On a night when we found ourselves lacking in incendiaries we would head out to the back patio to find our mark. Grass smokers are painfully easy to spot. The most effective way to keep your dope smoking covert is to keep it entirely out in the open. No square would expect a doper to have the audacity to just stand there smoking grass. Would he? In the desperation to make it appear as if they’re not up the anything most folks may as well raise a bright red flag emblazoned with the words ‘We’re smoking dope over here!’. Huddled together in small groups, heads alternately bent down with faces awash in amber flickering light it’s as if they’re begging to be caught.

            Once we had a confirmed visual ID phase two of the plan would go into effect. We would casually walk back into the club leaving the dopers secure in the belief that we were clueless of their actions. Within moment of our departure two of The Cattle Clubs finest would purposefully descend upon them. Being the incredibly friendly bouncers that they were captured pot heads were often let go with a stern warning. However, they never left with their grass. That was ours, a well earned payment for helping to maintain law and order.

(If you have not read the previous post you should do so before you read this.)

There are those moments in everyone’s lives where just as everything seems to be falling to pieces the world regains its composure and at very least offers you a slightly less fucked circumstance. Said moments are rare and magical and should be cherished. Not unlike the exceptional occasion where you drop your beer and by the grace of the gods you manage to catch it or it lands on the ground right side up. In a matter of moments our walls had come crumbling down upon us. Although I didn’t know it at the time I would escape this predicament relatively unscathed.

            The back of a police cruiser is not built to be comfortable. The hard plastic seats are constructed with purpose of reminding you that you have somehow managed to blow it so badly that you are no longer worthy of anything soft. The words of the officers who had taken us into custody seemed to be chosen by the same premise. Nothing soft here, only hard words meant to frighten. Declarations meant to inform you that you had chosen the wrong path and that there is heavy price to be paid for walking the road of the one percenter.

            We were taken to the parking lot of the nearest super market where we were made to wait for our parents who had been called at three in the morning and made aware of their children’s indiscretions. While we waited the officers did their best to instill the fear of god and prison in us. Unfortunately for them I did not believe in god. I did however believe in prison and despite my cool exterior I DID know what they did to soft little boys like us in prison. I prayed only that it would be my mother to come retrieve me. She would be understanding and comforting.

My heart sank as I watched my father pull into the parking lot. He was livid and only half awake. As far as my father’s disposition went this was a deadly combination. He had been woken at three in the morning out of a dead sleep and he was obviously not happy about it. It had been a long night it was apparently not ending any time soon. He stepped out of the truck, greeted the officers and proceeded to initiate a conversation which would solidify his place in my mind as the single coolest parent ever known. The officers made him aware of what had taken place in the soccer field at Star King. He stood stoic, silent, listening as the officers rambled. It was at this point that one of the officers dropped what he suspected to be the major bomb.

            “Did you know that you son is smoking marijuana?”

            “yeah.”

            “And don’t you think there’s something you should do about that?”

            There was a pause that seemed like an eternity of time and space spreading out before me. Then it happened.

            “My dad couldn’t have done anything to stop me from smoking grass and I suspect that I can’t do anything to stop him.”

I looked over at my dad flabbergasted at his response and then to the officer in charge who seemed to be more dumbfounded than I. This was not how it was supposed to happen. Upon being informed that your child has been consuming illicit drugs you are supposed to fly into a blind rage. The officer at this point was supposed to be restraining my father from brutally beating some sense into me. Things were not going according to plan. I folded my arms and smirked. Victory was mine. My dad did fly into a rage. However it was not of the physical variety and it was not directed at me. He launched into a long winded, high volume diatribe regarding being woken at three in the morning on a work day for “nothing”, tax dollars wasted and rapists and murderers that needed catching. I was right. My father was angry but not at me. Not for taking drugs, not for drinking booze, and certainly not for being picked up by the police. We drove home in silence which was only broken when he turned to offer me some advice.

            “Be more careful next time.”

            I later learned that the exchange between Roric’s dad and the police was not unlike ours. Unfortunately for Mac however his parent knew how to play the part properly and they played it well. They had taken the officer’s business card and for the next year or so would wave it front of Mac’s face for almost any reason. He was promptly checked into rehab and there he learned about more powerful effective drugs.

            I guess when it comes right down to it they really only caught one of us that night. We did learn some lessons that evening but despite the best efforts of the police they were not the lessons they had intended. We learned that cops really are dicks, Never let booze go to waste no matter how cheap and you can not hide from a helicopter under a tree.

I’ve asked around quite extensively and it would seem that precious few sixteen year olds can say that they’ve been chased down by helicopters, handcuffed and thrown in the back of a cop car. However god, the petty and vindictive son of a bitch that he is found it best to bestow me with such an experience.

It was another average night for my friends and I. We had played a show for some five-hundred ravenous undergarment tossing fans and planned to round out the evening with a sound dose of drugs, drink and debauchery. The only thing different about this night as opposed to any other was where we chose to perform the latter of these tasks. More often than not our elicit activities were confined within the soundly constructed walls of one of out Carmichael homes. It would seem that this night however we were full of youthful defiance and a well honed belief that we were invincible. We had decided that the best arena for the under aged consumption of mass amount of drugs and alcohol was Star King Middle School. Nestled safely within one of the many sub-suburbs Star King was not unlike any other middle school found in Carmichael. Unfortunately unlike many of the other houses of education found in the area Star King had recently experienced a rash of vandalism. It was this unknown fact that would prove to be our undoing.

In a decision that we at the time found to incredibly wise we chose to set up shop at the far end of the property. On the bleachers where hundreds perhaps thousands of parents had sat to watch their children play soccer we set out to become thoroughly inebriated. Even then we knew it to be impossible to have an acceptably good time without the proper music to awaken the slumbering soul. A boom box was brought forth to amplify what we found to be the great music of our era. I’m sure now that any house within earshot (of which there were quite a few) found their quiet bedrooms filled with the less than soothing voices of Ben Weasel, Fat Mike and Joe Queer. However the assurance of a sound nights sleep for a few squares was the least of our concerns.

We were sixteen year old gods rollicking on the field of battle that is adolescence. For almost three hours we worshipped at the throne of hedonism and all were welcome to the plunder. Stacks of Natural Ice piled chest high, uncountable bottles of Boones Farm representing every color of the rainbow and sandwich baggies that in grade school had once housed peanut butter sandwiches were now overflowing with the finest marijuana a high school campus could provide. We had made ourselves kings and even went so far as to provide the court with crowns. For as anyone who has wasted a respectable amount of their lives drink cheap booze knows that a twelve pack box fits perfectly over ones head. However it would seem that our reign was not meant to last. Perhaps we had grown too vain with power. Perhaps we hadn’t offered the gods proper tribute. Regardless of what brought about our fate, in the end our empire would be inexplicably crushed.

Like a specter of doom a helicopter rose on the horizon and adorned with an empty twelve pack box on my head I mused,

“Wouldn’t it be funny… If that helicopter was here for us?”

Before the quip could complete its escape from my lips the heavens broke open and the light of judgment shown upon us. In simpler terms the cops wrecked our fucking party. The ensuing moments were absolute chaos. Perhaps it is because I was thoroughly fucking hammered but all I remember are glimpses of moments, flashes and Oliver Stone jump cuts. Although I do recall vividly that the officer manning the helicopter’s loud speaker was a godless condescending cocksucker. From the height and perspective of the helicopter it was undoubtedly a ridiculous site. Within seconds all twenty of us has scattered like so many pieces of drunken shrapnel. I now understand the vague and primal concept of fight or flight. The moment that spotlight dropped down upon us it was every man and woman for themselves. Like very one of my friends I chose to run like hell. Had I chosen fight what would I have done? Should I have thrown my beer can skyward in an attempt to bring down the helicopter? Ultimately, running was most likely the best choice. Eleven years later I now realize that there was a third option open to us. We could have, I suppose, stayed right where we were and waited to receive our fair and just punishment. However there was no way I was going out like that. Outside of running my first instinct was to hide. Although it seemed logical at the time I now know that you can not hide from a helicopter under a tree. I pressed myself against the nearest trunk certain that the canopy of leaves would offer me the cover I so desperately needed. 

As I looked out on the seen before me I witnessed Mac perform an act I will forever admire him for. He had been caught dead to rights in the unforgiving glow of the spotlight. In one hand he held a half drained bottle of Boones Farm, in the other a cigarette. He looked up directly into the light. He then looked over to his bottle of Boones Farm and then his cigarette. He finally turned his eyes to me and then in complete silence, without a single word being spoken we had a conversation.

“What should I do?” his eyes pleaded.

My eyes told him to run.

“What about the Boones. And the cigarette!?”

As I shot him the glare that told him to forget about it I could tell he had already made his decision. He turned his head skyward for but a second assessing the situation. Then while bathed in light with determination the likes of which I had never seen he proceeded to chug the rest of his Boones Farm, take one last drag of his cigarette, toss them both and run. It was a bold and defiant move. One that unmistakably declared,

“I paid three dollars for this booze and I’m not letting it go to waste!”

Upon Mac’s departure the helicopter turned its attention to me. The tree which I was certain would provide my solace was immediately awash in light. A smug voice came through the loud speaker,

“I can see you down there smart guy! DO NOT RUN!”

I hadn’t run far enough or fast enough. I knew I had been beaten. I was instructed to return to my vehicle and I did so. Upon my arrival I was greeted by Mac and Rorick, their faces drenched with sweat and fear. Police cruisers descended upon us. Out of twenty they had brought down only the three of us but we would be made to know who was in charge. We were bullied threatened and ultimately cuffed and thrown in the back of a cop car. As we departed an officer leaned in and asked,

“Do you know what happens to soft little suburban boys like you in prison?”

Ever the defiant little son of a bitch I responded,

“No, what happens to soft little suburban boys like us in prison?”

I’m sure they were only trying to do their best. But what in god’s name were my parents thinking. By the time I was 18 I had seen more of the sick and depraved than some men twice my age could ever hope to see. I can sit comfortably at the age of 27 knowing, that I’ve stood within the gates of Sodom and Gomorrah smacking and sodomizing vile flesh and taste testing the broad range of perversions that IS the totality of experience. It was some time in my 12th year that I boldly declared to my parents that I was to be a musician. I’m sure they were somewhat dismayed at the idea of their little boy moving into a vocation that had precious few opportunities for financial solvency. However it was far too late in the game to back down off of the “You can do anything you want to do if you put your mind to it.” trip. It wasn’t long before I was spending four or more nights a week at a local music venue. And despite everyone’s best efforts to shield me from the dark underbelly of world of live music, like a dog I managed to stuff my nose anywhere it smelled bad. And boy did the Cattle Club ever smell bad. To this day when I get a whiff of the sickening smell of sour beer and stale cigarette smoke I feel like I’m home. This lifestyle almost immediately became a detriment to my schooling. I found no reason to go to bed at a reasonable hour so I could wake up and go to school the next day when there were so many drugs to do and so many beers to drink. Perhaps this isn’t quite the proper mindset for a fourteen-year-old but given the opportunity I wouldn’t change a thing.

There are occasions, which have permanently etched themselves into my consciousness; Bare breasts and acid trips, fist fights and blowjobs, being hit on by grown gay men and oversexed straight women, breaking and entering and brush fires. In four short years I garnered a lifetime of experience. Some days I wonder what exactly my parent where thinking when I came home at four in the morning reeking of booze. What did they say to each other when I walked in the door obviously frying my ass off on acid? All I can say is that I’m truly fortunate that my parents raised me in the fashion they did. A child of lesser intelligence and a poorer grasp of what the world was really about would have ended up in jail and or spending the rest of their empty lives in a drug induced haze. As it is my teenage debauchery was just a phase which I grew out of much in the same fashion another child of my age may have grown out of playing with toys (something I’ve never grown out of). These days I rarely ever drink and the last time I took acid I was 20 and I spent the entire night in the fetal position on the floor. Many of the kids I knew who were pulling down straight A’s are now drunks or crack addicts. I suppose the moral of the story is to get your kids on drugs as soon as possible so they can get that shit out of their system.

I would be hard pressed to convey my favorite story of my Cattle Club years. But if you held my feet to the fire I could say that one of the most entertaining is a great little yarn involving the greatest bartender I’ve ever known, an ice pick and massive quantities of booze.

I’ve sat down at a an incalculable number of bars all over the world and been served by at least as many bartenders none of which have come close to holding a candle to my absolute favorite drink slinger. Keith was an amazing bartender. Two Parts philosopher, one part councilor, four parts preacher and three parts John Wayne. Adorned with an Abe Lincoln beard and thinning hair Keith dressed in a kind of hobo sheik that would never have worked on anyone else and almost didn’t work on him. I would often wonder if his closet was full of freshly washed plain black shirts riddled with holes and cut off black denim shorts or did he just wake up wearing the same clothes he wore all week neglecting the approval of a mirror as he walked out the door. Did he sleep wearing the same black All Stars with the sole desperately clinging on at the heel or did he buy new pairs and liberate the oppressed sole from the rest of the shoe so that his right foot could “breath”? Keith was a religious drinker. I don’t mean this in sense that he drank at the same time everyday or something benign like that. He viewed being an alcoholic as a religion. He would often make references to “the alcohol gods” as if he had velvet paintings over his bed and prayer candles emblazoned with their images. If upon pouring a drink a drop or two would hit the bar he would mumble some sort of incomprehensible prayer to him self and trace the sign of the cross over his chest. I have seen few Christians or Catholics with the kind of devotion that Keith held for the alcohol gods. And much like any good Christian if pressed you would be made aware how gravely serious he was about his beliefs. One night well after closing time Mac and I sat at the bar with our manager Jon drinking ourselves silly. At some point our conversation turned to those poor souls who could recite beer label credos from memory. Keith was quick to point out that he had spent some time in the navy where he had gained the ability to recite the Budweiser label in its entirety without error. I found this to be truly stunning. Not that he could recite the Budweiser that actually seemed perfectly characteristic. It was the fact that Keith had spent time in the Navy. It seemed almost implausible. As far as knew they didn’t have bars OR bartenders on naval ships. Jon scooped up a Budweiser and insisted that Keith prove himself to us. Keith tipped back his head in a state of rapture and spoke,

“This is the famous Budweiser beer. We know of no brand produced by any other brewer which costs so much to age and brew”.

Jon winced and turned the label to Keith. You could almost see his heart sink. Any committed alcoholic worth his weight in hops knows that it’s “brew” then “age” and not the other way around as Keith had stated. You could see that he was shamed and heart broken.

“I must pay penance”, he mumbled toward his shoes.

Being the malicious son of a bitch that he was Jon was more than happy to help and he would make sure that paying this penance was not easy because as anyone who has spent the night on a filthy bathroom floor knows the alcohol gods are vengeful and unforgiving. Jon stepped behind the bar, retrieved the largest glass he could find and proceeded to fill it with everything. I don’t mean that he mixed a few different beers in one glass. I mean that he put EVERY liquid that was behind that bar into a glass. Beer, mixers, hard alcohol, dishwater and more. Keith took the glass dropped to one knee, whispered a prayer to himself and drank the whole glass at once. Up until that point I had never seen Keith with so much as a buzz and now it was painfully obvious that not only was he buzzed but unequivocally drunk. Everything seemed to be just fine until I heard him say,

“You guys wanna see put an ice pick through my hand?”

Okay, this is not the kind of question that should be answer lightly. On one hand if you answer yes you could conceivably be held guilty of aiding an individual who is unquestionably inebriated in making a decision which could lead to injury or worse. On the other hand, when will someone ever offer this kind of performance for free again?

“Yes…Yes I DO want to see you put an ice pick through your hand.”

For all of us in attendance that night it seemed like an innocuous enough task. Sure! You just jam that fucker through your palm…Right? Well, apparently we were all wrong. With the point of the pick pressed into to the flesh of his palm Keith proceeded to slam the handle into the top of the bar in an attempt to drive the metal rod through his hand. He didn’t seem to have much trouble getting it through the palm of his hand. It was the flesh on the top of his hand, which was proving to be more resistant to puncture. Because of this the pick coming through the opposite side of his hand was creating a kind of flesh tent on the top of his hand. Unwilling to relent Keith continued to twist and push the handle of the ice pick occasionally swearing and turning his head to me with a look that expressed absolute disbelief that the flesh of his hand was putting up such a fight. Eventually, fed up with his vain attempt he grabbed a lime knife looked up at me and chuckled,

“Why didn’t I think of this sooner?!”

Jeez I don’t know. Everybody knows that when you’re trying to mutilate yourself with an ice pick you should always cut a slit in the top of you hand first. They teach you THAT shit in grade school. In seconds it was over and Keith spent the rest of the night with that ice pick sticking right through his hand as if it was the coolest body modification a middle aged hipster could ask for. After a few more hours it was obvious that we should leave before someone could offer to drive something metal through his scrotum. As we were walking out the door I turned around and saw Keith hunched over the bar furiously scribbling onto a cocktail napkin. Contrary to my better judgment I asked,

“What are you doing?”

Without looking up he replied,

“No big deal. I just figured out infinity that’s all”.

“Oh” I said,

“Is that all?”

I love shopping for records with an unbridled passion that is usually reserved for such primal activities as sexual intercourse. Its speaks to a baser need that is buried somewhere deep in my core. Something left over from simpler more barbaric times. It’s the thrill of the hunt. Sometimes you get rabbits and sometimes you take down the fucking mammoth but you rarely come back empty handed. If you did you would somehow be less of a man, unable to provide aural sustenance for your tribe. There is a certain moment when you’re out on the field of battle when things can turn vicious. Consider this: Your flipping through a record bin which has been filled seemingly at random. You must weed out the unworthy game from the truly amazing kill. You look to your right and notice another hunter. Most of the time (for myself at least) this doesn’t pose a problem, yet occasionally you realize that this fellow primate is hunting the same game as yourself. You realize your working your way through fields, which were once rich with the type of game that you and your tribe thrive on. However this hunter has picked the fields bare. You are at odds. There have been occasions where I wondered if I could take this hunter out and hide the body before an employee realizes that Ive just killed a man over a Kinks or Standells record. Perhaps I was born too late maybe I’m a relic from a time I never lived in. However, know this: If you see me in a music store don’t touch my records or Ill fucking kill you!