deanmiles13

[deanmiles13]

LEAVE THE DRIVING TO US…

A.K.A.

MEETING CRAIG WAGNER

Oh, to travel America and the open road. Especially when you’re not doing the driving. 

I had done this particular trip before. On The Dog as they say.. The Greyhound bus.

It was the affordable way to travel for the dirtier denizens of our society. No half decent human being would EVER subject themselves to the punishment the dog can deal out. It could be considered a large, long trailer with seating on both sides and the shitter in the back. It reeked of whatever agent they used to mask the original odor in the first place. So imagine having to endure 3 plus days on this journey. AND you’re only 15 years old. 

I would often be mistaken much older for my age and also for being in the military. I had a really close shaved haircut and traveled with all my belongings in a gunny sack. A green military bag for all their stuff, which I obtained at the army surplus. Which is where I also got my combat boots. So, I guess I can see how I was putting that vibe out. 

But this was also the early 80’s and what T shirt you wore, spoke volumes about WHO you were.

That is what set me apart here. It was a fucking killer print I have never seen before or since of Suicidal Tendencies. Had the sleeves cut off and the sides split. And when I boarded the bus for a return trip BACK to Indiana, this was my calling card and it got the attention of two dudes as soon as I boarded in downtown Tucson. When the bus station was across from Hotel Congress. They also had a “calling card” that only certain people would know. This was more intense than just a shirt too. It was a tattoo. And not just any tattoo, but a MOTORHEAD tattoo.

The best band ever. It’s a know fact to any punk or metal head. It was this tattoo, that turned my head as I searched for an empty seat. Hopefully not too far from this lot…

The bus pulled out and immediately the older of the two came over grinning from ear to ear. He said “Hey.. My name is Craig. Where ya headed?” And he plopped down into the empty seat next to me. I told him “Indiana” and that was about it. I just though he was too cool to want to talk with me and that couldn’t have been further from the truth. 

With the passing of time, details are lost, but he introduced me to his brother. We talked music and all that. I showed him my puny “X” tattoo. He didn’t laugh or anything and just said “Oh, I love them!”

There was a stop somewhere along the way I do recall, that we got off and had a little time. The three of us headed to a store and they ended up getting some peppermint schnapps. We snuck it back on the bus and all took turns knippin’ on it. The stories continued and they told me about being from Santa Rosa, CA. Tales of seeing all the good bands and then the bus stopped and they had to get off. It occurred, I never even asked where they were going. 

I believe it was New Mexico… Craig leaned over to me and snuck the schnapps into my leather jacket inside pocket and handed me something. “You got a bit of a trip ahead of you and you might need this more than me.” It was some sorta sleeping pills. Nothing heavy… If I remember correctly!

This was a mighty generous offer and made me feel a little better about this hellish journey I was in for. 

I had to go back to Indiana because It was the middle of summer when I moved to Tucson and It was too much for me. I begged my Great Grandmother, Hazel, for the bus fair. It was like a hundred bucks or something. I loved her so much. I could trust her with my secrets and know she passed no judgement. Just wanted me to be safe out there at 15 years old. I was tossed to Tucson when my Mom had enough of me fucking up her perfect new marriage. “SO… You wanna go meet your Dad?!?!” I jumped at the chance and left immediately after my sophomore year at Pike High School. Enduring the bus trip that time around, I knew exactly what I was in for this trip. Like my friend Abel said one time after taking the bus up to Portland to see me. “Dude, I swear, when you hit Ashland, the people on the bus are like in a G.G. Allin look a like contest. They smell like him too!”

So, I just popped the pills into my mouth and took the cap off the schnapps and guzzled. 

Wake me up when I get there….

We’ll skip that part actually and just say, me going back to Indiana and thinking it was gonna work, was insane. I mean, I was 15! Come on… I wasn’t the brightest bulb yet.

I can only equate it to taking a caged animal at the zoo and setting it free for the first time. Then go and retrieve said animal and put it back in the cage. Not a good recipe. I hopped on the next Dog outta town and relished the trip and all the new people I would meet.

Hell… I slept through one stop and ended up in Oklahoma somehow and had to get on another bus going the way I need to go. That set me back another day or so, but what the fuck. 

There really wasn’t anyone especially waiting for me. 

The situation with Pops was one that had me running for the nearest exit and shacking up with anyone that would take me. Girlfriends, maybe their unsuspecting parents, schoolmates, girls I would take home. Oh wait, I mean, take me to their homes. You get the picture. I was scraping by. So much so that the girl I was with at this point was a beautiful girl who actually sought me out. Quite shocking, as it may have been the first REAL chance I had at really being with a woman. Not a girl…

We had ourselves this killer hole in the ground that we called home. And when I say hole in the ground, I mean A HOLE IN THE GROUND. It was under an adobe in Tucson. We “rented” the place from maybe someone we knew from school?!?! I’m not certain. The woman who lived there spoke little English and was old school Mexican. She cooked stuff for us and I think was happy to have us there. We were in fucking High School and there was actually another couple that we shared it with. Man… I went back there one time and had a chance to peek in the “basement” that we lived in and it was shocking. Even to me… I mean, just ask anyone from Tucson if they have a “basement” and you’ll get the picture.

We had a 7-11 near us that we frequented for many of the things we needed. The girls with their cigarettes and us with our beer. Well, we all smoked and drank, what am I talking about?

Anyway, to give this some more air and let the timeline shore up a little bit, I had started school at Cholla H.S. for a semester and then got over to Project MORE. It was an alternative school that had all sorts of kids trying to finish the time there. I’m gonna guess that it was at least 6 month to a year passed since I was on that initial bus trip home.

Being broke and having tons of time on our hands, we had those hands extended for spare change at the local 7-11 one afternoon. Nothing special was going down except the usual “Get a job!” And sexual advances on the girls… Then a motorcycle was pulling into the lot. I always checked out bikes and the make and model. What the person riding was wearing and everything. I grew up in it and longed for my own bike real soon.

This particular make was 70’s era B.M.W. the exact details lost to time, but the ONE detail I did notice on the rider was a Motorhead tattoo!!! Nice…. 

Wait!!!???!!! I remembered a guy who had a similar tattoo, but anyone could get that tattooed.

But his hair… It was spiky and not long and greasy. His face too… It was young at dare I say movie star like. It wasn’t some old grey beard! This was all a little too close to coincidence, so I followed behind. I let him do his thing and I believe he grabbed some beer. He was making his way to exit and I looked him straight on and asked “Is your name Craig?” 

He kind of looked surprised and then I think it started to sink in with him, and before he could put it together, I explained that I was that kid on the bus!!!

We both confirmed that indeed it was the both of us on the bus that time and we made our way outside. He had a girl with him and explained what it was all about and I caught my lady up on the near cosmic coincidence that was taking place at of all places, a 7-11.

Craig then explained how they had literally JUST pulled into to Tucson and were wondering about their next move. He mentions something about needing to unload some smoke he had brought and I explained that was NOT gonna be a problem. He then said they needed a place to stay. I said, again, that will not be a problem. “You can stay with us!”

Now, this is where again, I might not remember everything. But they probably followed us the few blocks back to the hole and took one look in there and decided to take their chances with the rattlesnakes and javelina in the desert.

Betsy and I did eventually get out of that little pit and got a nice space on the corner of 6th and ?

This place actually had a basement. I KNOW huh?!?!? What are the odds. 

We rented it from an elderly couple who live across the alley. The house itself was across from Tucson H.S.

We had random “Hobo” types stop and knock on our door. They asked for food and we were miffed by it. I think we mentioned it to someone one day and they said we had “Hobo Markings” in the yard. Some rocks were arranged a certain way and that was the signal.

We also had a really spooky situation there.

One night, Betsy and I decided to spend the night in the front living room. We had lived there for a little while already and felt okay there. Well, not this night. I know we weren’t creeping ourselves out. We had a pull out couch that was there when we moved in, and we just were laying there and both of us sort of got up at the same time and said enough of this.

It was the weirdest vibe I’ve ever experienced. It was definitely like some was watching us. 

And we were not welcome there at that time. I got our blankets rounded up and Betsy was back in our bedroom before I could get there.

To be honest, I think it had something to do with that basement. When we moved in, of course we went down there and thought “Band Room” but it was all finished and had surfaced areas. 

But, at the end of the room was this steamer trunk. 

Just sitting there. I mean, the place did come “furnished” but what was this?

So we opened it and there were some clothes and who can remember. But I did get a cool pair of paints that were awesome 50’s or 60’s era. They were green slack type pants that were pegged. Man, they were sweet. Maybe the dead haunted our living room for messing with the trunk down there?

The place we had was attached to other units and had a courtyard in the center of our backyards. We eventually got Craig and his girl moved into our next door unit.

It was cool, because we all were taking care of each other and Craig and I tried to put together some music, but I was just a drummer and he was just a singer. I’m not sure if he played guitar or not….

But that fizzled, and we still were friends. Spending time together listening to records and just hanging out in general. He turned me onto Metallica’s demo tape when we lived together. We both loved FANG. And of course Motorhead!!!

I never got up to any trouble with Craig. He always seemed focused.

My life was swirling at a mile a minute and he seemed a little older and knew what to do.

With him just hitting town, he still need to find his crowd. I think he fell in with the Blood Spasm crew and it’s not like our worlds never collided. Hell, they were our best buds.

But, at some point we all moved on… He got another place and we did as well. 

Craig and Leelanne became a “Thing” and were soon to be wedded!

Man, he was trucking and I was just spinning my wheels. 

Well, I probably didn’t need to be married at 16 years old. That’s for sure.

But, they were doing it and we all got to be a part of the great day.

I recall we departed from the OZ house in Sam Zero’s truck. It was a tiny Toyota pickup and probably fit 5-6 people. Tops…

The wedding was at a home I believe, somewhere “WE” were not used to being. In the hills or something like that. It was kind of intimate and family was in town, so of course our “crew” was the odd man out here. We of course hit the bar and scarfed any food available and then made our way out to the pool area. Man, this was swank! 

I remember a nice big pool with people just chilling out and having a great time. 

A little band was gathered in the corner playing some standard tunes. Nothing wild, nothing too boring. Just a decent band… 

Well, get a room full of musicians all drunk and loose and said band takes a breather….

Look out!!!

“Hey Dean!!! We should get up there and play some Hendrix” Paul Young, says to me.

He was the guitarist in Blood Spasm who was known for doing a Gene Simmons gimmick with the blood capsules in the mouth routine. Looked awesome.

Anyway, we are pestering the band, they of course just give us the brush. We meander around, somewhat disgruntled and eventually just resume free drinks and food.

I make my way over to the people I came with…. ( I can’t remember if we brought Paul with us or not) But I was just chilling out on the side of the pool nearest the house. Across the pool is a small wall that surrounds the pool and property. 

Well, a little swell of commotion if going on over there and we hear people starting to yell and scream “PAUL!!! DON’T”

And before I could say “We got cactus” Paul is buck naked, with his clothes in a pile on the ground and him on top of this little retaining wall. “Hey.. Look at me!” Is what I believe he said as he proceeded to swan dive into the pool.

As he comes up from underwater, he has that huge Paul Young grin on his face and swims towards our side of the pool now. 

There were screams of all sorts that moment. Maybe delight? (Doubtful)

Maybe laughter? Oh yeah.. plenty of laughs. Uncomfortable groans of what to do next.

That was the overwhelming vibe. Paul was that turd in the punch bowl right now, and we all had the scent of shit on us as well. So, he comes up and flicks his curly long hair back and just bellows that laugh of his….

At this point people from inside are making their way to the party outside. And from here it is like this was all scripted. I swear, I thought they had this worked out together. Like in wrestling. Where the two guys do it with a nod and a wink. 

Craig approached the poolside with his just wedded in tuxedo and shining shoes. He looked like a million bucks. And he bent down to talk to Paul sorta under his breath. Bye now, EVERYONE was watching. I mean, you could hear a pin drop. And he extends his hand out to Paul as he’s saying “Paul… I think you need to get OUT of the pool!” 

As calmly and cooly as he can.

And without missing a beat (His comedic timing was perfect) Paul says to Craig…

“NO Craig, I think you need to get IN!” And just yanked Craig into the pool. I think they wrestled around and splashed each other for a split second, but it was met with utter disdain. 

I thought immediately of the suit. The host thought immediately of the cops. And were kind enough to inform us so. 

It was all a blur from there. We made our exit and were met by the sheriffs at our truck. All of us looking crazy and Paul soaking wet with his clothes half on. “Which one of you is driving?” The cops asked us. Luckily Erin got right up there and said 

“ME Officer!” They asked her if she’d been drinking and she shot back “NO, I’m straight edge and don’t drink or take drugs!” Which was NOT true, but did the trick and we got the hell out dodge. I always wonder if we were like that scene in Suburbia, when they had the funeral scene and all the girls family is there and so are the T.R. gang. 

The mom is crying about the punks being there and the dad comes over to say “Don’t you see… We don’t want you here!” And the punk says back “But she’s OUR friend too!”

I imagined that hopefully that was just silly sidebar and hopefully they went on to have a great night. And a great life… 

I kinda lost track of Craig after that. I had heard he joined the military and that was not a surprise. It made me proud to know him and that he wanted to server our country.

I ended up leaving Tucson myself not shortly there after. I moved to Portland and would often remember that bus trip long ago and Craig and how it was such a “Small World” thing when we met there at 7-11 that day. 

Then Facebook brought us all back together and a little closer. We “friended” each other and it was like no time passed. Found out he was in Austin and made it a point to catch up with him, since I am in Austin frequently. In 2019 we did that. I made my way over to his place when he got off that day and we got coffee and went back to his place and chilled outside and caught up. He had arranged for some family and friends to “Meet my buddy Dean”

He made all this food and we had his daughters over. I got to meet the girls he talked so much about. We talked about everything under the sun… Had that dinner and talked some more. He was starting a new job the next day, but that did not stop him from hanging out. He milked his time with me and we said goodnight. I crashed on the couch. Underneath the awesome Tiki painting, or burnings, that he did. He was so talented. I was marveling at the pieces all night and he just off the cuff mentioned, “Oh yeah, I did those!”

I had to get my ass back to Portland the next day and he was up before I even got going so all I had was that small 18 hours with him, but I left full. 

Full of love and companionship. Full of the faith in family and just being there for people. When Craig was with you, he was with YOU. He made you feel important and also shared what was important to him. 

When I think of some of the last post he made about having a cook out with the neighbors that he met, and how they hung out talked after dinner and then figured they would do it more often. Craig had invited one them to a punk rock show, FEAR if I remember correctly. THAT just spoke volumes about WHO he was. To ME at least….

An honest, hard working, patriotic, punk rocker who just loved to break down that stereotype of the menacing punk rocker. If you even dared say hi to him, that’s it, you were hooked. He had ya and before ya knew it, you could be in a band, or riding motorcycles, making art, enjoying live bands, traveling the world… Whatever it was, he seemed ready willing and able.

When we visited, he told me this story about getting ready to leave somewhere after deployment and the higher ups came around looking for “Volunteers” to load ALL the luggage and stuff. Craig said “I raised my hand and said We’ll do it!” Then all the other men in his platoon started to moan and groan “Why did you volunteer US? We are almost done and out of here?”

Craig just said “Trust Me!” 

So they got to humping all this gear and breaking a sweat as everyone else boarded the plane home. When they got all the luggage loaded, the head honcho says to him “Wagner, your group rides first class all the way home!” Craig just gave that all knowing grin and said “SEE?”

I learned of Craigs passing this week and it’s been sitting kinda hard with me.

Trying to imagine the void that his girls and everyone in his life is feeling. It hurts… Only the good die young?!?! 

Huh….  Well that shit sucks!!!!

Craig, you worked hard, you played hard dude!!! Enjoy that first class trip home, brother. 

You fucking earned it. Respect!!!

Your Cosmic Greyhound Bus Buddy:

Dean 13 Miles

[deanmiles13]

I’m Your Turbo Lover!

IM A TURBO LOVER

It’s Deathtime!!!

Hank is dead. I know that’s the name of the new album and all that, but this is real.

Never is forever.... I don’t think we’ll ever meet again.

My love affair with a band halfway around the world, started with a mere mention of them. 

But it was from Pig Champion that this recommendation came and with that, my ears perked up. He said it was like Mudhoney with 3 guitars. They had just played at Blue Gallery and I missed it. So, I promptly got the TRBNGR 12” which I think is call Turboloid? They were pretty grungy and heavy and loose. I loved it. Played the tunes quite a bit and would turn people onto it whenever I thought it was appropriate.

I recall a Flipside issue with them on tour in the states. I wish I could find it. (UDATE: A friend got it for me on Ebay.) They had denim vest on but were wicked sunburned from being in Southern California. It was pretty funny.

I also had friends in the Bay Area that had seen them on couple different occasions. Punks with Presses and maybe Chameleon Club? When I went to stay with my friend, he lived with Dave Ed from Neurosis. He had tales of the shows being completely off the charts and then the band did some tribute to SF and Levis and exchanged their denim with the crowd, and somehow one of these vests ended up  at the house, up on the wall. Also, Dave had gotten an advance copy of Apocalypse Dudes and it was just what we needed. That AND Hellacopters “Payin’ The Dues” were played to me on that trip to the bay. 

This was all there was for me to bite on, until word came that they were playing at a building that our rehearsal space was in, called Suburbia. Wow!!! 

Tom Pig lived right next to our room and he was obviously the conduit for the show,. By this time, Ass Cobra was out and we played the shit out of it. Our band was also covering the song, Turbonegro Hates The Kids. Tom would hear this and come over. He mentioned that we needed to hear the first album. WE thought Ass Cobra WAS, the first album. NOPE! You also have to realize this was the very end of turning people onto things via word of mouth. The computer was about to enter all our lives and the internet would solve all your curiousities with a click. The computer was gonna come in handy though here in a little bit and provide a major part of this story.

One quick note is that, my old band member Phil (Whisky Rebel) Irwin had done the liner notes on the cover of Ass Cobra. This was really close to home. AND they had a song called Screwed and Tattooed, which Rancid Vat had as well. I hoped and prayed it was a cover of our song, but it wasn’t. It was even better!!!

BUT, the show at Suburbia loomed in the distance, until it came to the night. I went to pick up my buddy/band mate to accompany me to the show. I had done my talk up and maybe even played what tunes we had. Well, we proceeded to drink beers and decided that it was not on our radar to go to this show tonight.  Majorly bad decision, as they were touring Apocalypse Dudes and we fucking missed a legendary show. I never let my friend forget it. But we actually mended that fence by doing a tribute band shortly after. Because the band broke up not too long after, we felt they were a band that JUST needed to be heard. And we wanted to spread the Darkness a little.

It was decided to do a tribute band and call it Denim Demons. We gave it a lot of attention and time but I drew the line at profiting from this venture. Although we did make a couple bucks, we just wanted to keep the music alive and the name out there. We played local club gigs and gutted a few feather pillows on the way. We would get V.H.S. tapes from eBay to study Rokpolast broadcast and listen to the live album that was released posthumously by the band. One of the coolest gigs we had was a lesbian wedding we did. I even gave the couple an out, by giving them all sorts options for bands I was in, or could get. I gave them a Turbonegro C.D. to get them famaliar with what a Denim Demons set could consist of. When we got together to see what it was they wanted, they wanted “The band that sang the song GOOD HEAD!”

Okay then… We were informed it was at the Portland Art Museum downtown. Whoa!!!

It WAS swanky, but very low key. We had a blast and did a photo shoot all over the place. Then we had to play. It was a huge hall and little kids were there and we are singing “Don’t say Motherfucker, Motherfucker” and “I Hate the Kids”. It was funny and awkward. You know, a typical gig! Then I broke my bass drum head and NO ONE carries an extra bass drum or bass drum head to a gig. This, plus we were the only entertainment. The couple was cool though and we knocked off and just hung out. Still made a little dough for the efforts, as well.

Let’s see…. So, by us doing this band, we send Happy Tom a C.D. and maybe a VHS of a show. We received back a letter back from Tom. He was blown away by the effort and our attention to detail. We sent a C.D. of our other band and he praised that as well. 

This stuff also got us on the radar of the guy who ran the Turbojugend USA site. This was, like I said, the early days of the inter web and he took this thing and ran with it. It was actually really cool thing and place for all us Turbo Lovers to get together. I had not actually started the jugend here in Portland yet. But he was a big fan of our Denim Demons thing and extended an invitation only type thing to all of us, to come and see Turbo in S.F. 2/12/2003 This was crazy!!! 

I took my brother as a plus one and we took Mike Thrasher along and hooked up with friend in the city before the show. Come to find out, it was an employee party for Carling and Levis. Turbonegro was the entertainment that night and we got to come along. The show was amazing and they played a new song that night. Sell Your Body To the Night. It was placed in the middle of their set while the crowd was good and lathered up. Come to find out, Spike Jonze was shooting a video for the band. We all had a raging time and got back on the over nite flights home. Way hung over and glowing with posters as our trophies, we had finally seen the band. LIVE!!!! Unforgettable…. Truly.

Now, not much Turbo activity until THEY RE-UNITE!!! It was a short list of dates in Europe, and mainly in Germany. I wanna say it was 5-6 dates. These dates coincided with something else major in my life. 

I was going to marry  my woman in September and we had procured airline tickets to Europe. We did it all backwards in a way and were going on our honeymoon first, in May 2003. We had a two week stay in Amsterdam and then were traveling to Prague by train. Well, by serendipity or whatever, the travel days ended up being on the dates of these Turbo shows. I was outta my skin!!! This was early dial up modem days and I had to get tickets on the German version of Ticketmaster. Soooo…. I also, had to translate all the instructions myself. My high school German class’s had long faded,  I actually completed the the whole thing, cashed out and then within a day or two, I swear, the tickets were in my mailbox. Unbelievable….

So, we get to our honeymoon and do Amsterdam and then get to Köln. Do a little day tripping around and then head back towards E-werk, the name of the club, and hit a little bar around the corner. Already the sea of denim was getting thick. We get to a bar and order our drinks, and the bar maid ask if we were here for the show tonite. I couldn’t believe it. We didn’t even have anything cool on. But maybe our accents gave us up. 

The show goes on and it was awesome.

Big time stuff with paper cannons with dollar bills and big light show etc. Kids in Turbo makeup. Like a KISS concert or something. So, after the set, I make my way to the floor level and go to the bathroom. I see a dude with a few laminates around his neck and I ask if he is with the band. He hears my accent and asks where I’m from. I  say Portland, Oregon, home of Poison Idea! He just orders me to come with him. I inform him I have to get Darcy and then we will meet back up. We meet outside the club by a big tour bus. All sorts of fans are milling about and we talk with folks for a while. I eventually ask him when the band is going to come off the bus and hang out. He laughed and said “This is our bus!” Motioning to all Turbojugend hanging around. I was blown away. Then without missing a beat, he says “Yeah, we have room for you two to go to Stuggart!” Uh….. Huh?!?! Totally inviting and welcoming from the jump. His name was Pete Porno. 

From here, we make our way back into the club and downstairs to the dressing room. The place is already heaving with backstage activities and laughter. Various band members in different rooms, just lounging and relaxing. It’s like you always imagined…. So, we feel like fish out of water. We are dressed for traveling, so we have shorts on with light weight Nike jackets and shit. SO NOT ROCK AND ROLL!!!! I didn’t matter one bit though. Not At ALL!!! We were just swallowed up with love and friendship. The band made themselves available for quick autographs on shit I was ripping off the wall. OH, I did get a set list from the stage just by showing my invite only my t-shirt. 

THAT was my ticket to almost all this. When people saw THAT, it was my conduit to conversation. So, we chat and hang out, then I see Tom getting paid in a room that is locked. Well, when he came out, I was standing by the door and he handed me a little piece of paper about the size of a fortune cookie with an address on it. It was in German of course, and I had no idea where it was. 

The pace of the backstage area was changing by now and you could tell people were leaving. The jugend would none of our 5:00 am train to catch and demanded we get a cab to the address and meet them there. Everyone raced out the door and to the designated place of this after party. Darcy and I were eventually left standing just outside the back door of E Werk in the warm Koln night. It was getting late and we had a decision to make. Train station or party?Then Hank, Tom and Euroboy came out and were just standing around just like us. I think they were waiting for their ride. I was nervous but I went to Tom and asked if we could just catch a lift over there with them. He said “Ride with us” and just kinda chuckled because that was actually the name of a recent tune they had.

I remember turning to Darc at some point too in the little van cab we took, and whispered “No ONE would believe me if I told them this happened. I’m so glad you are here to confirm it.”

We arrive at another club of sorts and they got the White Stripes cranked up. We come in WITH the band members we rode with. It was wild….. The reception and embracing of us! WE were as much the life of the party as were the band. They heard we were to be married and were giving us marriage advice. I remember one of them said “Don’t let the parents get too involved!” They wanted to know what Poison Idea was up to. Euroboy actually asked me how Tom played guitar so well when his fingers were “so fat!” I was grilled on my thoughts of the new album, Scandinavian Leather. We got on a snow plow in the middle of May if ya dig my vibe? There was so much face time and fun with the band, I was in heaven. They were emphatic that we would be going with them to Stuttgart. We seriously considered it, but last minute changes with foreign languages etc. totally intimidated us. We went with the plan we had and split from the band around 4:00 am. They had a bus call at 5 and we had a train at 5:30. At the station, we had thought ahead and had left our luggage in the lockers there. So we scrambled our way onto the train to Prague and the next thing I remember was two sweet German ladies cutting up an apple and feeding it to us in slices, ever so gingerly. We had our hoodies turned backwards to block the light and must have reeked of booze from the night before. Praise the lord for those women, and again, extending such German kindness to two total complete, messed up, strangers. Without a hint of disgust.

There was one last European Turbo related story. I was in Prague in the main square and was just minding my own business as this guy made his way towards me from clear across this big place. All of the sudden he opens up his button down shirt and has a Turbonegro shirt on. I had on my invite only shirt and he just shook my hand. We both just smiled. This was all weighing on me once we got back. See, hanging with all those jugend, I had made a vow to myself to put Portland on the map as soon as possible. I rallied the Denim Demons band members and a couple of my family members and we put in our order for our jackets. They were supposedly the last batch from Bitzcore. It’s crazy that the band doesn’t even get some royalties or a cut of something for all those jackets manufactured and sold. I think Tom mentioned to me that they may have gotten a whole set of denim for each member, ONCE! Crazy…..

Once we had our jackets, I remember that night we pledged to sleep in them. Not to neccessarily became ONE with our jackets, but to stretch them out. They were like European sizing or something. Our husky American frames, certainly filled out our jackets…. 

The band would eventually come to the states a few times and we would load a few of us up and follow them up and down the west coast. Scotty Potty, Welfare Stoner and Teen Machine Dean (Me) went to S.F. to see one of two nights they had booked. We stopped off along the Oregon coast and northern California hitting the town of Eureka. Found a club that was still rocking and we found the local dealer. We wanted cocaine but he had “The other white meat!”

Sounds good! Got that, and got lit. Still spinning the next day we checked into our crummy little hotel right by Great American Music Hall, which is where the band was playing for the first night of two. So, I go down to sound check and run into Tom. I mention stories from Koln. We also now have the jackets and I asked if he had any room for of us, for tonight. He asked how many we had and that was that. I headed back to the room, played it of all cool like. “Yeah, we’re in….” They just barely raised their heads from the pillows and gave a thumbs up. So, they finally wake up and we get the last of that meat into us and walk the couple blocks to GAMH. At the ticket window, there is a sea of blue denim jackets. Like Koln, but not quite as intense. Bay Area, San Francisco, San Jose all the local area Jugend. Then WE rolled up, PORTLAND! THE home of Death Punk!!! I approached, gave our names for our tickets, get em. good. Then we turned to walk away and the ticket agent called me back. “Hang on, I forgot to give you guys, these!” 

They were after party passes for us. THIS got everyones attention outside. We felt like kings. My guys were over the moon. The show was what it was. We ended upstairs for the after hang. As we are getting our posters signed by the band, I asked Tom who printed them. He pointed to the guys at another table and said “They did.” I leaned over to them and asked “What kinda of mesh did you use for this glitter ink?” This one question, got us an invite to hang out at the Firehouse with Chuck Sperry and Ron Donovan. They handed me an address and said get a cab. 

The band ended up there at the same time and it was another hang with Turbo. Scotty and Mike were again, just over the moon. It was a good hang and as the evening winded down we said our goodbyes and went back to the hotel. Waking up the next day, we though about it and realized we couldn’t do another night of this, so we get in the van and head north to catch the Porltand and Seattle shows. We wussed out and ditched the show we actually HAD tickets for on night two in SF. We made our way home, for one day of rest. Caught the Portland show and there were plenty of people having an amazing night as it was THEIR first time to see the band. So, that was fun to see. We made Seattle the next night. Now, one of these Seattle times, we took Mike Thrasher with us. He was a jugend member by now and also the promoter for the shows the band was doing. The show goes off without a hitch and we heard they had to leave for Australia the next morning. Like in a few hours type of thing. We said our goodbyes and had them sign our vests, and hopped in the van for the 3 plus hours back to Portland. Well, we had a little surprise from the the boys. We benefited from the surplus of party favors and looming customs officials at the airport. We were more than happy to fall on that sword for the guys.

My time as Portland Turbojugend came to an end once the whole internet thing took off and it became WORLDWIDE. I had people that contacted me to stay or visit and all that. Which is what it was all about. But my enthusiasm wained and to be honest, my life was getting heavy. I lost my number one Jugend partner, my wife, Darcy. She ended up with cancer and I ended up alone at the age of 45. Much too young.

Much like Hanky…. Much too young. This is a guy that could have been anything he wanted. Come to think of it, I think he was everything he wanted to be. He was a singer in a rock band, an radio host, museum host, broadway actor, celebrity chef, scientologist, drug recreationalist, resurrected rock singer, mental health helper…. He could have been a stand up comedian if he wanted to. It always seems the brightest burn out the quickest and leave the rest of us behind in the dark. Left to fumble and feel our way out of darkness.

OUT OF DARKNESS!!!!

[deanmiles13]

Dearest Darcy

BIRTH-LIFE-DEATH…

Seems to be just about the whole story… 

It encompasses everything, just in those three words.

We call it a lifetime, some say how many moon cycles, or rotations around the sun. These are all huge ideas and thoughts, but really, its all over and done with before you even know it.

Some people have certain goals in life. One of mine has always been to share my time with someone who is into life as much as me or maybe even more. I’m a little cynical and need a push every now and then. When I met Darcy, she was the one. Trust me out there, you JUST KNOW IT, when it happens. Our paths crossed earlier in our friendship, but it wasn’t until March 17 2000 that we really hooked up. We were never really apart, from that day forward. It would take another 15 years and cancer, to rob me of this. And my once in a lifetime opportunity to be “somewhat normal”. 

I am thankful for our time together, don’t think that I’m not. It’s just that I’m angry of the missed time that will never be between us. Even IF it meant divorce or mundane living. Living on the streets and poverty or whatever. I just never anticipated HER DEATH in all of this. EVER!!! ME dying? Well that’s more likely the way it should have played out. I ride the motorcycles and took copious amounts of drugs. She was just a lite smoker AND a physical trainer for christ’s sake!

But THEN it happened. 

I was watching tv one night and Darcy was in the kitchen doing something. All I heard was the loud sound of what sounded like bowling balls falling on our floor. I yelled into the kitchen to check on her but got no response. I jumped off the couch and found her lying on the kitchen floor splayed out like a pretzel or something. Her legs were bent out from her hips and her arms were above her head. I screamed for her to wake up. She started to come to and mumbled something. I can’t recall exactly what. I told her I was gonna have to call the ambulance, but she insisted I didn’t. 

I then dragged her from the linoleum to the carpeted exercise room and it was like moving a wet bag of cement. She was barley conscious as I pulled her from the kitchen to the other room. 

I got her propped up against the wall. By then she was finally coming to. She asked me what happened? I ask her, if she had eaten anything and did she have some liquor to drink? She told me no, on both accounts. Then it all just passed, just like that! She snapped right out of it. She was better and we were back to watching tv. 

But something else ominous happened.. She woke up one day with the light just killing her eyes. She said it was painful and hurt her brain to look into the light. We had her on the couch with a towel over her head for a day or two as she stayed home from work and we let this pass. That was weird, but passed as well.

Then the pains started in her back. We thought they were tight muscles or something, so we had her on the floor with tennis balls on her back, rolling around on them to loosen up the tissue. Her pain persisted, but we thought nothing of it really.

THEN she started having some weird feelings in her hand. THEN trouble with one of her eyes.

I can remember seeing our general physician that we shared. He looked at us both and said “I’m gonna make an appointment for you today, and I want you to go see an opthalmologist. I had no idea what that was. But with the look on his face, the mood changed really quick. Almost like, HE knew this was bigger than all of us and we may never be visiting HIS office again. 

This was his good bye. 

So, we go across town, to the office and they see us right away. We get into the office with all this M.S. stuff and brain model molds. Oh, shit… This is getting serious. SO, this cat does his thing, and without batting an eye, says the same thing Dr. Chin did. “I’m making an appt. for you today and I want you to go.” DAMN!?!?! We go to THIS appt. and it’s kinda standard eye care stuff. We do our test and go home. 

This was all on a Saturday or Sunday I believe, because the next thing I remember is being at work and getting a call from Darcy, crying and telling me to come get her at work. She got the call back from the doctors and she has cancer!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!! I cried all the way to get her and we both cried all the way home. We really had the wind sucked out of our sails. We had only been married 12 years and together for over 15. We travelled all over. Saw things that no longer exist. Some not even on this earth anymore. We loved NYC and were devastated just like everyone when 9/11 happened. We saw Prague. Hung out with Turbonegro in Koln. Travelled to see bands from all over. 

There was obviously still so much to do. That all just walked out the door. Dreams disappeared into oblivion when this news came down. Everything kinda came into sharp focus, but was a blur at the same time. Like the immediate  future and how long did we have left together? How long did we have to drudge through this cancer mess? We talked of murder-suicide… That was off the table for now!

Darcy was such a strong person. She wanted to tackle this thing head on. She had suffered some major injuries throughout her life. Peteler tendon ruptured walking down some stairs. Broken wrist (twice). Near misses with hitting things. 

I mean, she had seen more injuries, than I had as a skater in my whole life. So, she was gonna take this cancer and whoop it. For sure! She had so many friends from work that came to our aid. Her friends in general were split down the middle. Some came around, and some, we never seen again. Her parents of course were there at our house ALL the time. I mean, their daughter was sick and it was probably crushing on so many levels. 

We ALL experienced her sickness and subsequent passing with varying degrees of pain. But for now, the food was coming in fast and furious and the freezer was full. We had rotating shifts of people that would come before work or after work. 

And that’s another thing...  Darcy was working for a while into her treatment. We even would load the wheelchair up and get her into the the building. It was rough… I remember one day, a guy I didn’t know introduced himself. He wanted to know if he could ride the elevator down with me to my car. As we rode down, he just shook his head and was at a loss for words but then started up. He said he couldn’t understand why we made such an effort to come in every day. I just told him “You don’t know what you can, or will do, until it happens. This is what SHE want’s to do. I will not stop her.” He shook my hand in respect after he helped put the wheelchair into the trunk. Darcy and I kept this routine up until one day I got a call, again at work, and it wasn’t Darcy. It was her boss who sounded a little panicked. She said I needed to come to get Darcy. She had fallen at work. She hadn’t really hurt herself, BUT, she was basically told that she was done for now. That hurt her more than anything.

From here, we sorta just ran to the chemo treatments down on Interstate Blvd. Kaiser. Which was the way we took to work every day and I still live within a half mile of there, to this writing. It sucks to see it all the time. That’s why I had her cremated somewhere I would NOT pass every day. It’s hard enough just being in this town. The sick time she acquired at work, we cashed in…. Payed off all our debt from construction projects over the past 10 years of owning the house. Then went and saw Elton John in Las Vegas. That was Darcy’s idea and it was a great one. Awesome show etc. but the “being in Vegas” was really hard. She was wheelchair bound and everything hurt. The bumpy cobble stone walk ways of Caesars were fucked up. Even the bumps in the side walks made her grimace. 

The airport security in Las Vegas had me so mad, I was ready to blow like a test missile. They had Darc get UP and OUT of her wheelchair to check for what?  THEN, the made her go again, because they didn’t search her pillow she was sitting on or something like that. I was going nuts!!! Screaming and hollering…. I guess this was just the beginning of that sort of behavior for me. But back to our travels real quick. 

Ya know, people always say stuff like “If I found out I had cancer, I’d blah blah blah…..” Fill in the blank with whatever fantasy. 

But the truth is, you’re either in treatment and can’t really go anywhere. OR you are so sick from treatment, that just traveling to the toilet is enough for the day. Let alone, go on safari or write that book you always wanted to write. Everything is just a little too much. IF you’re luck enough to fight off the illness long enough, GREAT. But that wasn’t our case.

When we were in Vegas, Darcy had to be helped to the bathroom. I’m not ashamed to say it, nor was I ashamed to help her. But, one night I awoke in bed to hear a muffled groaning sound. It took me a second, then I jumped out of bed and ran to the HUGE handicapped restroom we had. She was laid out in front of the toilet crying in pain. I went from zero to 100 in a second. I picked her up. And, I say that like it’s nothing. IT WAS HARD getting her back in that wheelchair while sliding all over the marble floor. I asked if she had any pain, she said no, then we got her back to the bed. While I’m putting her to bed again, I was kinda mad and asking WHY she did that all by herself and didn’t ask me to help her? I had helped her every single time before that, and would still do so after, as well. 

In my mind I knew the answer already, but I was just lashing out. Well, she lashed out at me and said “Dean, if you knew what I know, you wouldn’t be mad at me.” 

It crushed my soul. I didn’t sleep a wink the rest of the night. How could I? I was mean to my wife and she pulled from deep in the deck and got very REAL with me. She had protected me from so much. She knew ME and was very protective and understanding of the whole thing. Now we were getting real.

When we got home, we talked about how we would see this thing through with courage. Show our friends and family that we could be strong, no matter what. Unfortunately, for friends and family, each had individual ideas of how they were gonna handle this whole thing.

Some people were total class and respect. They were available when needed and even made themselves available after she passed. They also gave us space when needed as well. Then we had friends who just HAD to get THEIR time in with Darcy. Hell half these people had never even been to our house in the first place, period!

And this was OUR house they were coming to. I mean, a visit and whatnot is fine. We even had those scheduled. But people just dropping by, got old. Having her convalesce at home was hard. People treated our house like a hospice unit and I was relegated to front desk clerk. I thought, I knew a lot about people and human behaviors. Ya know, what to look FOR and OUT for…. But NOTHING can prepare you for the places each of us go when death comes calling. 

Again, certain friends and family members just never came around again. EVER!!! Either they just wanted to give us space (which I appreciate) or they “just couldn’t deal with it.” (which I get, but can’t respect). Like I wanted to deal with it? Either way, at the end of the day, it was just Darcy, me and our pets. And we were dealing with it....

Our house in St. John, that we bought together, worked on together, that is where she wanted to die. It made sense. I was only too happy to try and provide for my wife this one last time. We eventually DID have a hospice nurse and set up Darcy in the front room with a nice day bed. She could see out the window and had a comfy set up. She spent a lot of time there by now, as the foot traffic got heavier. The family was ALL over the house. ALL the time. So much went down in this dept. I have a hard time even to this day discussing it. 

ONE of the fallouts is, I have no communication with my ex-in laws. They wrote me off completely. Although, her Dad DID call me after she passed to check on me. ONCE!!! Word came down some years later that her Mother was upset at me for “Wanting Darcy to hurry up and DIE!” She just took certain things that I did out of context and placed her shit on me. 

See, Joyce had just recently lost her husband. Darcy and I helped out a ton when that was going down. This had to be killing Joyce (Her Mom) and I think she was super critical of everything I did. One thing was, I was getting rid of our bed upstairs. Because, WE didn’t sleep in it anymore and NO ONE was EVER gonna sleep with me in that bed. PERIOD. Now ya see, Darcy was not aware of this fact as I had done it on the sly. That is until her bitch of a mom pops off on me one day “Why ja’ git rid of the bed upstairs, DEAN!!!!????” Darcy popped out of her morphine haze and said “What?!?” Man, that pissed me off. Not to mention her lesbian, real life older sister, made some remark to me one day that: “That’s what husbands are supposed to do, DEAN!!!” FUCK ME!!!!! Jeezuz.

THEN?!?!? Darcy’s birthday!

Now, just a little context. 

We are in early May 2015 and her birthday is May 18th. One thing, Darcy wasn’t the hugest fan of her birthday. BUT her mom DID make the same cake each year since she was a baby and blah  blah blah…. Well, obviously this year was gonna be different and Darcy was in no mood to do this birthday shit. She couldn’t really “Talk”  at this point, but could still nod, mutter and mover her big toe. We asked her about having a party and a furrow came across her brow. That was all we needed. Her eyes narrowed like “How dare you even think about that!” That was it. NO party, moving on….We ALL agreed. Done deal.

Then her Mom went home that night and cried a pity party and whipped up her pink frosting and by god, SHE was gonna have a party. We were notified as much the next morning when she showed up for her bed side vigil. Darcy was indifferent but I hit the roof. I came unglued. I smashed my phone on the floor and it bounced and landed up on the top bookshelf. Right next to this book we had been reading about dealing with death. Fuckin’ weird.

I had lost ALL control of my house, my wife, and it seemed my life. My brother and I had been working on a project that Darcy had planned FOREVER since we moved into the house. It was a concrete walkway on the side where we walked to enter our house. With the addition of bamboo it was the last thing on a LONG list of home improvements we had been doing since the economic downturn in 2008. So, while her birthday approached we were busting our humps. The people visiting continued and so did the party. Pink balloons and cake and ice cream and all that. I couldn’t help but feel…. Helpless. Like Darcy. Laying there. Everything was out of our hands now. We barely had each other anymore to hang on to. It was auto pilot from here on out anyway. We literally had 10 more days. 240 hours.

We prayed some, (which we/she never did) I also would play some of our favorite tunes. I cried at her feet so she wouldn’t see. She probably heard me though. Her hearing was still good. As I played our favorite Sinead O’Connor album, she shook her big toe at me. As if to say, I Love You. Thank You. I’ll Miss You.

Then one day, about 10:00am, I jumped in the car real quick to go get some t shirts that I was printing. I got home and she was gone. Just like that. I know she heard the car start and decided it was time. I left the house and she was gonna make her exit. 

Always protecting me. To the end.

I miss you my Angel. Your were my once in a lifetime. My soul partner. My rock and roll handler. 

MY EVERYTHING.

Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again?

The Angels:

Without you near me

I got no place to go

Wait at the bar

Maybe you might show

Am I ever gonna see your face again

Am I ever gonna see your face again

I've got to stop these tears

That's falling from my eye

Go walk out in the rain

So no one sees me cry

Am I ever gonna see your face again…

[deanmiles13]

Johnny Cash/Tables for 3

My move from Indiana to Tucson was my transition into adulthood. The trip was on a Greyhound bus and was my first time ever being further west than St. Louis.

I moved into my fathers place which was located on a “reservation”. The domicile we shared was a travel trailer. Just a step up from the pop up kind.The kind you can spit from one end to the other. It was THAT small.

It sucked living there with a stranger basically, and I hated it. I actually looked forward to school, which was a rarity. I took the bus from our way out post, to the school located a few miles away. Almost every day on the trip home, we would get off the bus a stop or two early, just to watch a fight. It was always the typical fights, but these Mexican kids always made up after. It was cool. 

Going to the school I went to, was wild. I was one of about 50 white kids attending. The rest were Mexican Americans or Native American. 

When I moved out to Tucson, I was thinking this was gonna be some real punk rock landing pad. Little did I know where I was going to land. Coming from the midwest I was used to getting shit for the way I dressed. Alot…

I never really got hassled at my new school. At Cholla, everyone seemed to respect the fact that I stood out and went out on a limb to do so. But every once in a while, I did have a couple of goofballs that would yell out “Hey Sid Vicious!” They seemed to have fun doing it. They laughed at themselves more than at me and the way they talked it seemed they knew WHO Sid Vicious at was. 

Finally one day, I “confronted” them. “What’s up with the SID VICIOUS stuff, man?” 

They just busted out laughing and invited me to lunch with them. We were friends from that moment forward.

The lunch’s at this school meant you could leave campus to pursue other options. In Indiana, that was never the case, we couldn’t even leave the parking lot. We were pretty removed and it was a haul to get food around there. When I first learned we could leave for lunch here in Tucson, I was blown away.In this new situation, I often found myself not wanting to return for the second half of the day.

But these two guys, Joe and Adam, are my new besties. We go to record stores and music stores and I even start to stay with their families at night so I don’t have to make the journey all the way out to my dads. Unbelievable kindness I was shown by total strangers.They are of Mexican descent and there parents are pretty much the kindest people I have ever encountered. They must have totally known what was up when I was around there houses. They fed me, and looked the other way as I climbed in and out of there windows at night to sleep in a safe place.

Adam and Joe also are musicians. And this is a HUGE plus. 

Adam plays guitar and is hugely influenced by Peter Buck of R.E.M. and Joe plays a Gibson S.G. bass. They both have a wacky sense of humor. A ton of inside jokes between them and just a real loose attitude. I would like to think they were EMO way before that was even a thing.

They don’t drink and they love the Descendants. We would listen to records in Adams room and talk about them. Sometimes, he would just take it off the turntable and give the record to me if he didn’t like it. That happened a few times. We would jam on his guitar and play tunes. They also are forming a band.

And needed a drummer. 

See, when I moved out to Arizona, I had pretty much put the drums behind me and was giving the guitar ALL my attention. I practiced a lot and loved the instrument. I would hole up in my dads trailer with Zero Boys on my walkman and the guitar plugged into my amp. I just played all day long out there in that hot tin can.

But, drummers were as rare as hens teeth in Tucson and these guys offered to buy me a drum set if I played in their band. Count me in like Dee Dee Ramone.

My dad had usually called me up around Christmas every year with the same shameful call… “So, what are you into? Drums huh?!?! Maybe I’ll get you a drum set for Christmas!” Man, I heard that for years and the balls it must have taken him to get the courage up to make that call. To lie to his own kids face. Over and over… Well, not literally to his face.

And here these home boys wanted to buy me a drum set? TODAY?!?!

MY first ever drum kit was bought by Adam Lopez. A friend that was working as a bus boy.

More on that in a minute…

Thank you Adam. My gratitude is eternal. 

He took me downtown Tucson to the legendary Chicago Store. That place deserves a story of its own for sure....

Now, Adam always seemed to have a little extra scratch to spend. I was broke as shit all the time. I remember asking him one day how he got all this “cash” he had. He told me he worked as a bus boy at night at an Italian Restaurant. This had my interest. “Hey, If they ever need any help, let me know” I offered. It was almost immediately that I got the job. We would carpool together from school and then I would crash at Adam’s. 

I would sneak in and out the window in the morning so his parents wouldn’t know. They eventually found out, and when they did, they insisted that I stay in the guest house that was outfitted for Adam’s older brother to live in. He was away at the time and this was an awesome opportunity for me. I would actually stay in the park across the street from Adams house sometimes just so I wouldn’t jeopardize  him getting in trouble or me wearing out my welcome

.

So, at this point, we are attached at the hip and if I remember correctly, it was Adam who was going to a new school. It was an alternative H.S. called Project MORE. This was exactly what I needed.

The restaurant we worked at was called Scordatos and it’s kind of a big deal in Tucson. From memory, it was basically an “upscale” Italian joint. The location seemed to add to the overall “allure” of the place.

When hired, I was alerted to the movie stars who would wonder in from time to time. 3 Amigos had just filmed in Old Tucson and I had heard that Steve Martin had come into the restaurant recently. It was talked about in hushed tones and secrecy. We were told in no uncertain terms to NEVER approach the guest.

Makes perfect sense. They are out for a nice dinner and don’t want the attention or the hassle. I GET IT…..

And then it happened!!!

It was just another normal shift. Take out the trash, feed the leftover lettuce to the Javelina that wondered down from the hills at dusk. Back inside, change the linens, get the silverware, wipe the booths down and be seen and not heard. Also, stay out of the way of the waiters and their guest. This was my first real taste of work and I was just getting the whole feel of my place and getting my timing right. So, I was changing a table’s linen one night. I happened to be about two tables from the door where customers come in from the outside. Just as the floating table clothe lands on the table, the door opens. About 3-4 people come in. Just fuzzy shapes to my peripheral vision. 

Not really noticing faces or anything… 

They stand for about 10 seconds waiting for staff to help them and no one is coming to help them as I continue my work and stay out of the way. Then the room starts to go silent. The phrase “Can kill conversation, just by walking in a room”? That was this situation to a tee. Forks hit the plates and you just heard clanking silverware, murmurs and whispers. 

I looked up from the forks and spoons I was setting and notice the party had moved closer to ME as I seemed to be the only “Help” that was there. As, I go to give them a standard greeting like “My name is Dean, and someone will be right with you.”, I look at their faces for the first time really. 

It was like seeing Mt. Rushmore or something for the first time. Something so familiar is staring right back at you. I takes a second to register that this is a face you’ve seen a million times before. On TV? On album covers? So familiar but foreign because of the reality of the situation.

“I’m Johnny Cash” the tall man of the party says as he extends his long arm and shakes my hand.

By this time, it sunk in that this was indeed, the man in black. 

JC- Johnny F’n Cash.

I watched his show on TV growing up. My grandparents listened to him. My parents listened to him. He was synonymous with AMERICA. The gravity of the situation was swirling in my head.

When we shook hands, the rest of the group started to take focus. He was there with June Carter and his daughter Rosanne Cash. Un Frickin’ Believable….

I worried for a nano second about my job and the policy I knew they had about guest. Maybe they would take it easy on me? In truth, I didn’t care AND I didn’t  get in trouble at all. 

But, I did get to meet the Man in Black and the most important women in his life. 

While a very brief encounter, this sticks with me today.

It’s about time and place. Synchronistic stuff.  

I probably would have lost my mind if I had worked a different day and had missed my shot. 

But as fate would have it… we met.

I honored him the day of my marriage. When I married the most important woman in my life. 

Darcy and I had planned to sing “If I were a carpenter” at our wedding. We practiced for a month or two before the big day. Me on guitar and her doing the June Carter parts. 

We were married on Sept. 13th. 2003.

It was Sept. 12th  2003 when Johnny Cash passed away.

As fate would have it…

[deanmiles13]

THE GUY WHO WEARS THE LEATHER MAN

It all seemed so cool to start with… 

The company I worked for had been struggling and was going to be saved in our last minutes, in the fourth quarter, by Neil Lomax. A local Oregon Football celebrity. Played for St. Louis and Phoenix Cardinals. 

So, the two companies have a meeting, his current group of people that he runs and us. They are an events company. Mainly for Charity etc. He also has on the premises, a printing company. They did offset and we did screen print. Meeting this new group, it was very evident and made painfully aware, they were a Christian company. I was worried right away, and it was not unwarranted. We were of the rougher side of the tracks you could say of our company. So this merger was sort of interesting, but we would all mesh pretty well. I actually became inspired by one printer they had for his use of Weight Watchers. I started to keep track of my diet and this stuff actually worked.

The “Print shop” was run by a guy we will call “Itsy” in reference to his uh… portly nature. He was all ‘Large and in charge” type, and ran the show and his mouth. His employee’s seemed a little put off by his slightly abusive nature. Dickhead… He relished in his passion for trading cards. Sports trading cards specifically. He had pallets of this stuff and sold unopened boxes to other collectors and ALL that stuff. 

This was the VERY beginning of E-Bay and the internet. He was all over this new format to make sales with his trading cards. It seemed like a drug to him. He was on the internet CONSTANTLY!

Now, I should explain, that our company was a sports supply company and we did the printing for teams etc. We also sold Nike shoes and all sorts of sports related gear. Every season, we kind of switched our stock accordingly. Some of the guys were refs for basketball and even coached teams. One of our salesmen was such a guy. Very interesting guy named Rick. He told me all about helping develop the Peter Jacobson Golden Tee Golf Game. Flying to Japan and meeting the dudes with the chopped off pinkies. And Tattoos….. That’s where we bonded. It was in a small talk - water cooler- type thing, but we were cool and talked frequently.

Sometimes at the end of the season, these guys who coached would buy the kids on the teams a memento of sorts. 

It could be anything... A trip somewhere, a sweatshirt with a logo, or whatever. 

Coach Rick one year, had a special something for his team! 

He had these items special ordered and was always asking me about them. 

Here in lies the twist in the plot.

See, I was moonlighting in the “Shipping AND Receiving” Dept. as well as printing and production manager. Our business for some reason was not doing that good and they had cut people, and I saw this as my opportunity to start doing something different at work. It broke up my day a little. I would ship shoes for teams and ship our printed stuff out. When UPS would come, I would sign for the packages. Count them and THEN sign of course…. 

After checking in the UPS, usually I would bounce back to the screen print side and start doing work there. This was across the warehouse and around a corner. Once I left that shipping area, I could not see what or who would be over there. We had 7 sales guys looking for stuff that they were waiting on. 

It was like a feeding with vultures when that stuff dropped.

Well, this meant sometimes, dudes would be riffling around there and forgetting to mention to me that they took something. I think you see where this is going…..

The fact that I was a hard working individual, who obviously could do the work of two people, this did not make me immune to ridicule from the “proper” Christian types that I worked with.

 I was the wild card. The partier. The barometer for all their Rock And Roll Nightmares. 

That’s cool… Not too far off actually... at the time.

I could be called out for my unique nature of dress style (a Spice Girls T-shirt for instance) or called on the carpet for the wild music emanating from the cd player.

One cool thing about this new venture in our businesses getting together was we moved to North Portland. MY area of town. 

These dudes all lived in Lake Oswego, Milwaukee and Vancouver. 

This also meant I was in the area ALL the time. And I mean ALL THE TIME. 

Hell, I practiced a stones throw from my front door at work. I would smoke out EVERY day over there. The Gotham Building, Man.

So, one Sunday afternoon, I was flying down the street and saw the door open to our building and a car parked right there in front of it. I circled back around because I didn’t recognize the car right away. 

When I eventually get turned back around, who should come waddling out but Brad, I mean “Itzy”.  Of course I rationalize it and forget about it. 

Nothing unusual really, he IS the manager of the print shop. 

BUT!!!

He WAS carrying with him, 4 NIKE bags we used when we would ship shoes. 

Huh? I think to myself. BUT, I don’t say anything. I just rolled on. He may have bought them and was picking them up that day? I don’t know and really didn’t care. 

At the time…

Next day though, my buddy Coach Rick is asking about his “Special Gift” for his team. It seems to be lost or is running late. He’s been hounding me for a week. And frankly getting a little testy with me about it.

He claims the package has been received and it is nowhere to be found. 

We looked high and low. I ask him what sort of box are we looking for, and he tells me a smallish box. “It came from Leather Man knives and is 12 knives in a tiny box.” Huh?!?! This is a box I would have remembered for sure, but again, I was doing two jobs and not really paying 100% attention to WHERE the boxes were coming from. I just had to make sure my count matched the UPS drivers. I had no idea WHAT was coming in the door, and had no clue as to what had happened to this ONE box that came up missing. 

Well, that was not a good day at work for Dean.

Back to these knives... 

He had them engraved with each players names on their own knife and these are LEATHERMAN knives. The Swiss Army knife for the new millennium. Made here in Oregon as well. 

He was pissed I didn’t have an answer for him. I felt a new attitude towards me after this day. I was not to be trusted. I was also really looked at under a microscope now. 

The jokes followed not too shortly. 

“Hey, I can’t get this box open!! Ask Dean for a knife!!!” 

It really was a bummer. We could laugh it off, but still, they “knew” I stole em’.

I was also made to feel fortunate that they didn’t just FIRE my ass. This sucked because I basically ran the whole print side of things. I mean I worked there for 5 years and until this bitter end. 

Fast forward a few months, we have more financial troubles and it comes to light that one of the main managers had embezzled a butt load of money from Neil. 

When the accountant that we had from OUR company, brought this to the attention of certain people, he was fired. NO JOKE. 

Super nice guy too. Just doing what was asked of him. That’s why I love math. There is only one answer. No matter how you chop it up, it all adds up in the end.

Speaking of super nice.Neil Lomax was one of these Christians who practiced what he read, it seemed. He would totally cross the street to shake my hand if he saw me out in public.

 So, the cookie is starting to crumble, and no one loved cookies more than that fat manager from the print shop.

Then one day, we have an internet issue, and they say it was someone watching porn that got us a virus. One of the young interns gets that pinned on him. Nice clean cut stuff, christian behavior ya know?!?! 

Porn at work? WOW!

Doing inventory on our stock of shoes one day, there seems to be some discrepancy in what we have on the books and on our shelf. 

They have me do inventory, TWICE, and still somethings up!

After what just happened with the forensic accounting incident and the missing knives prior to that, management  from the Lomax team is starting to wonder about a certain employee selling stuff on Ebay and it’s NOT me. No sir E.

This suspect, has a full blown Ebay account. They sell oh... just crap. Like sports trading cards and "Oh look... Nike Shoes like the ones we are missing from inventory. And what’s this? Leatherman knives? Dean!!! we found those missing knives!!!” The knives that I took the heat for for all that time. While ITSY stood right there and let it all happen. Even piled on when they would make fun of me about the lost box of knives.

This guy selling the gifts that a coach had gotten his team for all the hard work THEY did that year. Not his FAT ASS. He just waddled over there to MY shipping area and helped himself to the knives and threw away all the trust and respect that I had with all the guys I worked with by doing so. Again, he would also join in on the ribbing me about them.

Man!!! Some people….

To say, that I felt vindicated after they found this on his site would be a lie.

I still felt like the piece of crap they had made me out to feel. I felt like going postal on the fat fucker, to tell you the truth. 

Everyone was having a good laugh, still. Even well after the incident. It was like they were covering up for being wrong about the whole thing.

Even Neil would rib me. They wanted to take all the credit for being the internet sleuths they thought they were. They fired Fat Fuck and it shook out in time. They guy who turned me onto weight watchers took over the shop management. I actually started driving for them until they went to just a promotions event company. They sued Brad, I mean Fat Fuck, I mean Itzy.

And he would have gotten away with it too. 

That’s because I didn’t snitch about the time I saw him on that Sunday afternoon with the shoes in hand.

Until I had to. 

Then I let them in on what I had seen that afternoon driving past the shop.

Neil lost all the steam he had in this new merger. He pulled his loyalest employees in closer and and closed the doors on both print shops. He still did the events though.

Rick the Coach and I actually made up after all this crap. I was able to forgive and forget. He as well. That was most important to me. He was a cool guy. 

A real man. 

That whole ball of wax though, shit the bed and there was no more Pro Ad Co or Pro Print. Some people saw their opportunity to get over on the people they worked with and took a paycheck from. Like they were owed more!

The moral to this story? 

What morals?!?! 

Who’s morals?!?!

I had mine. They had theirs. 

And in the end, who’s more respectable and trust worthy? 

The guy covered in tattoos with the Spice Girls t shirt, OR the manager you had working for you for 12 years and then stole from YOU. 

I’m sorry Neil, you did not deserve any of that. 

Honestly, neither did I.

“The only outlaws I know are the guys in 3 piece suits” Dickie Peterson

[deanmiles13]

A SLICE OF WISDOM

A SLICE OF WISDOM

New York City!!! 

If I can make it  there, I can make it anywhere. 

I’ve learned that there are sayings like this for a reason. NYC is a whole different pace. 

It’s ON all the time. I mean anything you want/need is pretty much available anytime. 

I love the city and I especially love the people. 

There are generalizations of NYC types that go something like-Gruff, Rude, Mean, Short Tempered. 

You know, the Soup guy from that Seinfeld episode. 

But that is just TV and narrow minded opinions. Mostly from people who have NEVER been to NYC. Do you think that type of person/people could have dug out after 9/11? They are the most straight forward, to the point, no BS people I’ve ever encountered and that works just great for me. I have had strangers approach me on the sidewalks and start conversations with me in Manhattan. 

Just cool people… 

You could see a celebrity on the street or in a restaurant and it just plays out like normal life. Oh, yeah sure, they are on TV every week and you feel like you know them, but seeing them with a package of Charmin Toilet Paper, you realize, we all put our pants on the same in the morning.

So much history just oozes out of every block as well, which really puts things in perspective. Much like the Grand Canyon makes you feel small and it seems timeless standing there before it, when you are in the concrete canyons of Manhattan, you feel like this corner is where CBGB’s really IS.

Not in a book or picture you’ve seen a million times. Or the countless movies filmed there.

This IS the Village Vanguard, Electric Lady Land, Ellis Island, and yes the Twin Towers. 

I was in Tower 2 getting coffee at Starbucks and using the restroom just 5 days before that particular building came down. 

I was asking Transit Authority which way to the Staten Island Ferry. 

Fond memories of NY pre 9/11. Hard to explain.

Anyway, it was on this particular trip to NYC that I was in a deli and was given one of the most valuable life lessons ever. At least for me…

Trying to get in out of the rain, I ducked into a random deli to get dry and get a bite. As I approached the counter, I see the menu board above it and it has all the sandwiches, ingredients etc. I’m contemplating my choices and was readying myself to order, but sorta hemming and hawing. 

I was seeing what the sandwiches came with, and was working backwards from that. 

“I’ll have a turkey on wheat, but NO mayo, NO tomatoes, NO….” and he stops me right there.

“Why don’t you tell me what you DO want, and not what you DON’T want?!?!”

This hit me like a freight train between my two ears!

Now, some people may take that at face value and with the tone he had, get really pissed or upset. But being in NYC, you just kinda fall in line, and follow orders.

“I’ll have a turkey sandwich with wheat bread, mustard, lettuce and sprouts. Thank you…”

“$5.50 please.”

That’s just how it works there and should in general. 

No time to mess around and decipher what it is you are getting at. Just let me know. 

That’s why people take it the wrong way, as short, or gruff. I take it as a no bullshit attitude, that is gonna be solid day in/day out. 

If we all lived as close to each other as New Yorkers do, we would be a little more understanding of each other, I think. 

But most of America is sequestered in their own homes with their STUFF, their yard, and their cars. 

The City is small and compact and you only have what you absolutely need. 

Groceries for the next couple days at the most, sometimes. 

No freezer with the whole seasons’ worth of meat. 

I mean there were apartment up until recently and probably still today where the bath tub is in the living room. NOT a framed out bathroom of even an enclosed outhouse. We’re talking Little House on the Prairie stuff.

After I got my sandwich, I just kind of shuffled to a table and opened my bag of chips.

I was really reeling from that little interaction at the counter. 

TELL ME WHAT YOU DO WANT…. 

Most people never ever do this. They feel they will hurt someones feelings or perhaps approach an uncomfortable situation. That’s how most will live their lives. 

Never uncomfortable. 

Try getting on a subway after the MTA threatened a strike the whole weekend before a Monday commute. Tight and VERY uncomfortable.

TELL ME WHAT YOU DO WANT

“I want you to be a nicer person!”

NOT WHAT YOU DON’T WANT…. 

“Don’t be such an asshole!”

This is what we all do. 

“I don’t like this, I don’t like that. I don’t want you do go out tonight.” as an example.

Well then what DO you want me to do? Want me to stay home with you? Believe me someone would rather hear “It sure would be cool if you stayed home tonight and we could do something together.”

THAN…. “I don’t want you to go out tonight!” (This isn’t me by the way:)

The positive movement forward in that conversation is what is key here. 

Removing the obstacles, hurdles and uncertainty.

Cutting the crap and getting to the point. 

All of the life situations this could be applied to, were mind boggling.

This was all swirling in my head as I ate my sandwich and just felt like a huge weight had been lifted. 

I mean, it was an intense couple of minutes. it seemed like total clarity had been bestowed.

This was my new mantra. I would apply it to all my aspects of life. 

I’ve always been a “straight shooter” but this was a whole ‘nuther level. 

This deli guy had no idea that he dropped some serious knowledge on me,

I’m a simple dude and have been on my own since the age of 15. 

I lived pretty close to the street, but was smart enough to know it was a hard way of living. 

I had to have some of the nicer things and a little more consistency in my life. 

I have always worked growing up. ALWAYS… 

I may have quit High School as a Jr. but it was only because I was a bus boy at an Italian restaurant at night. Then I actually was working afternoons AFTER school in a huge industrial laundry factory across the street for school. My work career was off and running. One crap job to another. 

Anyway, this New York trip found me returning home Sept.8th.

I remember on the plane trip home, I was listening to some music and this gentleman across the aisle said that the motion of me tapping plus the soft sound was bothering him.   

I was slightly offended from his tone, his attitude and particularly his face. 

He explained he had “work to do”.

 There were multiple ways for him to approach this matter, but he chose the worst one.

I put my cd player away and just watched him work. I’m “passive aggressive” that way. 

I should have applied some of my new found wisdom and told him: 

“I want you to not treat this glorified Greyhound Bus ride like it was your own personal time alone to do work and don’t treat 36C as YOUR OWN office space when we are 3 aisles away from the crapper. YOU DICK!!!” 

But I didn’t…

As the planes crashed into the buildings and our lives forever changed the way we fly, 

I reflected back on this dude and his petty request.

I hope he reflected back on his arrogance with me and my “tapping” that bothered him.

You got a whole new mess of problems with flying these days, huh buddy?``` 

Why don’t you tell me what you DO want. Not what you DON’T want!

[deanmiles13]

BLUE CHEER (JUST A LITTLE BIT)

My time working with Blue Cheer.

“Bridging the Digital Divide”                                                                            That’s what I’ve heard it called and much like Evel Knievel, I love to try and bridge that divide. If we have the technology to “Reach out and touch someone” like AT&T said, then we surely must honor the convenience and follow through with furthering a connection, if it calls for it. 

Old friends, fellow collectors of Rock and/or Wrestling Icons.They’re all out there to be tapped. Its happened for me....many times! 

Here is one such instance where I got off my butt and let my fingers do the walking.

It all began with that show we all know and love, Antiques Roadshow.

The segment had a poster collector, so that had my ear as I continued to read in bed. I love paper and posters and books. Always have since I was a kid and started “collecting” KISS posters. Then my mother threw these all out one winter and I’ve never been the same. I hold onto everything. NEATLY…

But I digress….

A fellow was going through some posters he had on this particular segment and he had some San Francisco Psychedelic posters. That was interesting, BUT the one that caught my ear/eye was a Blue Cheer poster from Tastee-Freez. I was blown away. 

THE POSTER THAT STARTED THE WHOLE GYPSY BALL ROLLING....

First of all I LOVE BLUE CHEER and the juxtaposition of BC and Ice Cream was too much. I had to have it. I ran to my Mac G3 and dialed up that modem as fast as it would dial. Early daze… Then I proceeded to Google BC and see what they were up to these days. We all watched that killer Closet Classic on MTV of Summer Time Blues and that is where I fell in love with them.

I sought out the records later in life, but here I was in the 2000’s? and where were they? I found a website and it had a contact for North American management for the band. I just threw out a quick email stating that I was a fan, owned a T-shirt printing company and was more than willing to help out if the EVER needed it.

The NEXT morning, I had an email from Rosalyn, the woman handling them here in the States. See, BC had relocated to Koln Germany and were doing just fine over there and in Japan. They never really stopped. She was so excited that I had reached out. She said the band loves it when their 1%’ers (BC fans) reach out to them, and especially if they offer help. I immediately got together with a friend I had at the White Eagle named Thomas. He was a super chill guy and struggling artist. He had a knack for retro 60’s looking stuff and he was up to the task.

He cranked out a 1% design and a logo and some other stuff. We printed up a variety of sample t-shirts and started the process of sending them to the band via Rosalyn in L.A. 

This part got to be a bit tedious so she eventually just gave me Dickie Petersons’ mailing address in Koln. We had a procedure for getting them to him and for getting his feedback (pun intended). In all the back and forth with Rosalyn, she mentioned that “I’m just gonna have to have Dickie give you a call some time! Don’t forget to ask him about the 3 legged dog and the boat!”

I was pretty sure that she was just building me up and stringing me along…

...but she sent me an 8x10 of Dickie and a letter out of the blue. 

She also warned me to ignore ex-guitarist Randy Holden. Dickie was and is BC, and no one else represents them. Got it!

THEN, one day at work, I had a call on my old flip phone and the number was a dazzling display of digits. I was like “Who and what the hell could this be?!?!” I answered it and the voice on the other line asked “Dean Miles?” 

Uh… yeah! “This is Dickie Peterson of Blue Cheer!”

Holy crap, it was him and I could tell just from his voice. I was stunned but played it cool as a cucumber. Man, if I told you we talked for over an hour and a half, you probably wouldn’t believe me. But we got on like a house on fire. He was so casual and just comfortable with me, that I just kinda did an interview. Of course, I had all sorts of questions outside of the t-shirt we were working on. I don’t really recall the story of the dog and the boat, but he did bring it up without my asking. 

I feel okay talking about some of these things because he has passed and so has pretty much anyone he was talking about. He mentioned his addiction issues and how he regretted letting that waste a bunch of his time and money. He said Janis Joplin turned him onto the junk. They were all at practice and she wanted some alone time with her boyfriend Paul (BC drummer). The band had work to do so Dickie objected. She said “Shut up Dickie, and just try this.” He said that was the beginning of the end. 

I’m not trying to dish dirt, or re write Rock & Roll history with any of this. Just to share my story. That’s all.

I asked him if he liked “Stoner Rock” and he replied that he was more of a blues guy. Which is totally true. I let him know that tons of bands out there worshipped at the Marshall altar of Blue Cheer. He seemed to like that.

I just have bits of stuff that I remember because it flowed so effortlessly. He was a real cool cat. I picked up the phone at the shop and talked for a bit, closed up, drove home (talking still), got home, walked in and mouthed to Darcy 

“IM ON THE PHONE WITH DICKIE PETERSON!!! and we continued to talk. 

By the end of our talk, he offered to put us up in Koln at their rehearsal spot. He gave me his phone number and address. I mean, Damn!!! Old School!!!

One of the coolest things I wanted to impart on you from our phone call was the 1%er thing. I asked him about that and the “Biker” connection, and he proceeded to tell me this story…

“You know, we were playing a gig way back in the day and it was a biker rally. Shit broke out and so did the guns. We dove under our truck that we brought all the gear in. Man, when the dust settled and we got back out from under there, we had holes and shit shot in our brand new amps. I was pissed and started to stomp around asking who was in charge here. Well, the biggest, baddest looking cat steps forward. I stood my ground and politely explained we had just bought the amps and we can’t work if we don’t have gear. He looks at me and says ‘How much do think they cost to replace?’ I gave him a figure and without hesitation he starts peeling hundreds off a money roll from his pocket. He says ‘Is that fair?’ I said ‘more than fair’. He just went back to hashing it out with the other club president that they had just gotten into it with. We loaded up and got the hell outta there. Let me tell you one thing though, a lot of people call those dudes outlaws and whatnot, but I’ll tell you the only people who stole from me were in 3-piece suits. Those outlaws were righteous when I needed them. The only OUTLAWS I know wear 3 piece suits.”

WORD!!!

Another cool thing that happened with this was I shop at a local record store called Vinyl Resting Place. Toby, the owner, has a bulletin board up and at the top is an OLD Blue Cheer picture of them playing outside to like 20 people behind some apartments. I would always just stare at this picture and wonder about the scene that day.

Well, the whole t-shirt thing was happening so I explained it to Toby and asked if I could borrow the picture for an hour. I wanted to go home, scan it and share it with the band. He had no problem with this. I sent it to Dickie and he couldn’t recall anything. He just remarked at the hair cuts and busted sticks on the ground. I was hoping they would get a kick out of it and circulate it on the site or something. No dice….

Fast forward to 2007 and BC is touring the States. I immediately start in on the promoter here in Portland and Rosalyn for a back up. My band at the time (Legend of Dutch Savage) has GOT to play this one. We actually secured an opening slot and couldn’t have been happier.

The ads hit the paper and our name is there. It’s really happening. I can thank Dickie for the call and meet him in person. Maybe even secure the t-shirt for the tour?!?!

I knew I shouldn’t expect too much….

The shirt thing was a no-go because they already had that in the works. Rosalyn was in L.A. and could get them done dirt cheap. 

Okay, cool… We still got the gig.

NOPE…. some friends had just started a band named Red Fang and they were invited to play the show. At first we all were on the show, but somewhere along the line Dutch Savage got bumped from the bill. Probably so it was just 2 openers. 

Hell of a bill…

Meanwhile, I was crushed. I have opened for tons of great bands but that’s about the only success I’ve enjoyed in my 35+ years as a working musician. Records, tours and the usual bull that a band goes through is all well & good, but when you get a slot playing on the same stage on the same night as your musical heroes, it just makes it all worth it.

I’ve played shows with Roky Erickson, Hawkwind, Dead Moon, Steel Pole Bath Tub, White Stripes and on & on.

  I was bummed beyond belief and just refused to deal with the whole night. I didn’t go to the show, didn’t go meet Dickie and didn’t drag my drums out on stage. I just sat home and moped. The scene was moving on, and no matter how tight we had it nailed for that show, we still got the shaft. No biggie. Dusted myself off and kept moving. Aint no cure…

I don’t really have many regrets in life but not going down to Dante’s that night is one of them.

I should have gotten over my self-entitled ego and just went down there. I will never forgive myself for blowing off the opportunity to meet the guy who took time to call ME to chat and just be a cool dude. I’m sorry Dickie!!! I know you had to leave this earth not too long after this gig, but the music lives on my brother. Always has/Always will. 

Like a true bluesman.

FROM WIKIPEDIA: 

On October 12, 2009, Peterson died in Germany after the development and spread of prostate cancer. After Peterson's death, longtime Blue Cheer guitarist Andrew MacDonald wrote on the group's website that "Blue Cheer is done. Out of respect for Dickie, Blue Cheer (will) never become a viable touring band again.". Under ten years later, in January 2019, drummer Paul Whaley died of heart failure.

[deanmiles13]

GONE GAMBLIN’ A NIGHT IN LAS VEGAS WITH THE SUPERSUCKERS

This was to be some weekend…. 

It started with a road trip up to Seattle to see The Hellacopters/Quadra Jets at the Showbox. That was a barn burner, recorded and later released on the live Sub Pop album. 

I had seen them in Portland, and I don’t think they had a great time at E.J.’s. This time they opted to just do Seattle. 

Road Trip….

Great show with surprise guest Scott Morgan joining the Copters for two Sonic’s Rendezvous songs. 

Afterwards I was whisked away to SeaTac Airport by good friend, Lisa Z and was on the next flight that morning to Las Vegas. Getting into Las Vegas, hungover and dead from the night before, the sun SEEMED like a refreshing thing… NOT!!!

I remember I could see my hotel, from the airport, but it was advised that I would probably die if I had tried to walk to it.

So, I got a cab, and this is before cell phones and got to the hotel. We had made plans to meet at the pool. 

It was sweltering hot and I had to get in. 

But first, had to meet my people, and then get the key to go up to the room, to change, to come back down to the pool. Las Vegas is huge….

We were at Mandalay Bay which was awesome. A fake beach and lazy river to relax in with drinks. Pretty awesome. Getting day drunk in the heat was kinda nasty, but what the heck, I was ALL IN this weekend. The show that night was X with The Supersuckers opening up. We had an inside contact with the suckers and had passes waiting etc. I had a camera and was shooting a lot of bands at the time, so was permitted a photo pass. NICE….

We pretty much got to the show and the boys were on stage. I started shooting out in front of the stage and was immediately shut down and told I could only shoot from the stage. 

Alrighty then. NO problem. 

Up to side stage I went and started to shoot. “Act like you’ve been there before” is my motto and I slid with it. 

Suckers are doing their Devil Rock and Roll thing and we see them off the stage and X is up next.  I still had to be on the side of the stage to shoot. NO problem.

Especially since Jane Wiedlin was there as well, watching her old pals in X. 

The only thing was, I had NO IDEA it was her. She had on a Cleopatra wig. 

So, I kicked her drink over. 

Hey, it was sitting on the floor. I mean I apologized right away, and offered her another drink. But, she was more than cool about it. We were going Cool Places. 

As I’m standing there taking pictures of X, a band that I was introduced to from Decline of the Western Civilization, and had been a huge fan of, and here I am standing ON STAGE basically with them. WTF indeed. 

I owe this all to Ron apparently who had given us the passes. I’m standing by Billy Zoom and he had just returned to the band making this an early version of their “Reunion”. 

The band finishes their set and we make our way back to the Suckers dressing room. I got my camera with me, but we are on a smoke brake at the moment and talking about their album that just got shelved. They were gonna write a whole batch of new stuff and Eddie mentioned they were going to write about Tucson. 

Jan. 87 Tucson AZ article on the house I lived in. OZ House. Eddie is quoted in the article. Here is a picture of their singer Eric, who went on to be in the Black Supersucker. Then immortalized in the song Marie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1hl5Pou6k8

See…. I had come to Portland from Tucson and they traded the desert for the rain around the same time. 1988. I believe we may have been “running from” the same sorta of situation in Tucson. Kids lived beyond their years down there and you found yourself knee deep in adult  situations real quick. 

Anyway, as I’m listening to Gone Gamblin the song, it totally brings me back to the story at hand…

We were backstage and they are gonna rewrite the album etc. and Eddie says “Hey that was pretty cool that Jane Wiedlin was there tonite!” I said WHAT?!?! WHERE?!?! 

He said “Standing right by you the whole nite!!!” It suddenly hit me, it was my favorite fucking band growing up-THE GO GO’S- guitarist that I had kicked her drink. OH THE HORROR. 

My mother had driven us as kids to see them with Flock of Seagulls at Purdue University on the Vacation Tour. I LOVED THE GO GO’S.

Then all the sudden someone comes in and says “Their ready for you!” 

Eddie grabs me and says “You’re our photographer.” 

We go down the hall a little and Billy Zoom is standing there with John Doe. Ron makes small talk with Billy and there is a bench along the wall. I jump up on the bench and Billy Zoom just looked right at the camera and did that million dollar smile. I snapped the pic, and jumped down and kept moving. Thanking Billy, we make our way into the room proper. 

It is full of various people, but Exene is starting to stand up from this really cool chair with flames around it. Out of nowhere I ask her “Exene?!?! Would you mind sitting back down so I can get a picture of you in that cool chair?” 

She totally complied and I got up on a coffee table and shot the picture like I was from fucking Rolling Stone or something. So I’m out of my mind and again, playing it like I’ve been there before. 

We then make our way to the bathroom they had there in the dressing room. And it’s popping off!!! I saw NO DRUGS. That is 100% honest. Straight up…

But man, it was just alive. Ron kinda seemed in the center and the action and they were all in the shower goofing off with the shower head. Acting like it was a mic and singing into it. All of the sudden the disposable camera’s came out. Told you, this was pre cell phones. 

Danny Bland was their manager and he started to hand them to me in an orderly fashion. As the Supersuckers posed with Exene and Jane, I snapped away. INCREDIBLE. Luckily I have the photo’s to prove it:)

So…. From there we make our way to the MGM Grand, which was where they all seemed to be staying. We get there and it’s packed. At 2:30am!!! 

We get in line and make small talk about what we wanna do etc. and then all of the sudden the automatic doors come open and it’s Jane with some guy who is pulling himself on the ground all the way through the lobby. I mean, like he fell out of a wheelchair and had to make his way inside somehow! 

Well, everyone is wondering WTF is going on, and is this guy ok? Jane is kinda cheering him on.. “Come on, you can do it!” Then all of the sudden, he pops up to his feet and acts as if nothing has happened. 

WTF indeed. Mommy look at me?!?!

Anyway, we make out way up to their rooms while I take a fair amount of ribbing from that hard case of the band MR. DAN BOLTON AGE ?

Trying to represent the Turbonegro, decked out in denim, Dan comes at me with “Look at this guy trying to look like Corey Hart!” 

Which was a pretty good line. I laughed.. But then again, I can laugh at myself. 

Ron, being a little cooler, was making small talk with me and I told him I just flew in from seeing the Hellacopters last nite. He gushed about how much he liked them, so I hooked him up with some extra stickers I scored. He was very gracious. 

We smoked some more weed and then proceeded to pile into a rickshaw thing that carried a load of people. I felt bad for the dude… 

But we made our way down to Binions Horseshoe to play craps. I was familiar but unfamiliar so Eddie was very patient and kind of explained the basics and I have to tell ya, I was hooked on dice for a bit.

Anyways, we said our goodbyes by the time we got to the penny slots. 

They probably got in their van, on the dusty old road to give you two friendly beeps on that horn.

Meanwhile we were looking for that van behind CIRCUS CIRCUS that had sold us some blow earlier that night! 

Into the wayward wind I keep on traveling

I’ve gone gamblin.

[deanmiles13]

PENSACOLA EXPRESS

The sunny northern coast of Florida is home to many things to many people. But to wrestling fans, it’s rich in history. This is what fell in my lap one afternoon as I was on tour with my band Gern Blanston.

 The year was 1996 and it was May. It was very hot and having plenty of time on our hands, we head to the beach right away. Our show that night is at the Handle Bar, which we were soon to find out is home to the 25 cent beer. 

This afternoon was a great relief from the last 4 weeks on the road. Touring inside a hot van, and wearing the same clothes you just played in and sweated in. Washing in rest area sinks, and eating crap food... This was paradise.

White sand beaches and Pina Colada’s, waves lapping up gently on this pristine shoreline, fun was had by the whole crew and drinks flowed. Of course drinking in the sun leads to a very sleepy afternoon, which had me heading back to the van to lay down for a spell. I took our main man from Cavity Search Records, Chris Copper, with me to the van. As we approached the parking lot area, there were those showers for people to rinse off the sand. 

We spot this guy in a Speed-O and full on mullet hair cut. He was with a younger woman and is rinsing himself off in the shower next to us. We finish our bit and he’s still working the sand out of his britches but turns and asks if he can use one our towels to dry his mirrored shades. I oblige as we start to make small talk. 

I can talk to anyone and just get it going. Chris and I mention we are on tour and are a band playing that night in Pensacola at the Handle Bar. He laughs and says “...it should be a blast.” 

I ask what he does for work and he mentions he works in Atlanta. I press him a little further and he says he works at Turner Broadcasting for WCW. 

My mouth hits the ground and I spit out “You’re BRAD ARMSTRONG!!!” 

He looked at the girl next to him like “SEE, They know who I am!”

At this point Christopher is standing with HIS mouth open and just taking it all in. 

Brad proceeds to tell us how we HAVE to go to the bar and get the Brad Armstrong special banana daiquiri. He was under the influence of a couple himself you could tell. 

Let me make it very clear here, this is in no way a slam on Brad or wrestling/wrestlers in general. It’s just something that happened to a true fan one sunny afternoon in Pensacola FL.

Brad was very gracious and totally opened up once I noticed who he was and we had a small rapport going. I really couldn’t believe it. I mentioned how I grew up watching him and his father on Georgia Championship Wrestling. I loved his work. Brad was known as a REAL wrestler. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Armstrong_(wrestler)

He was a real technician in the ring. A true joy to watch. 

So, he’s is taking this all in and kinda digging it. That’s when I saw my opening… 

I started to give him more of our story about being on the road the past 4 weeks and we had a few more to go, but we had run out of weed back in NY. I politely asked if he was in the know, and let him know how much I appreciated even his considering helping us, to which he say “Of course... I got some!” 

He reaches into his fanny pack he was wearing and starts rifling through it. 

“Wait a minute, those are my pain pills… Hold on… HERE!!!” 

He then holds up 3 joints and just smiles. And I mean he held them UP. Like a West Side gang sign or something. He’s so proud to help us and we are just blown away at our good fortune. Trying to extend an invitation to the show that night, he refuted with: 

“I’m a beaten man!! Soon as we leave here, I’m out! 1-2-3!!!” 

Cool my man, no problem. We say our goodbyes and make our way to the van to smoke out and Chris is just speechless the whole way back.  

“WTF Deaner.!?!? What just happened?”.he asks....

I’m pretty over the moon about meeting Brad and what just happened. I mean in NYC we met Debbie Harry right outside of Electric Ladyland Studios.

This story was a good one to tell the band, and if Chris wasn’t there, no would probably would have believed me. 

To me, these wrestlers are very similar to musicians in that they work hard and play hard. Travel long distances for little pay. The love of the sport keeps them going. The need to do it compels them. Same with any artist.

To this, I say, Respect. 

Brad Armstrong passed in 2012 at 50 years oid.

Rest easy Brad. You have a legacy and family that will live on and honor you. When we meet up again, I owe ya… Thanx my man.

Christopher Cooper passed in 2018 at 52 years old.

Christopher, I miss you so much and your sense of merriment and take it as it comes nature. You were a perfect tag team partner on that tour. That’s why I love you so much my brother.  Ten Bell Salute to you both....

#wrestling #rockandroll #portland

[deanmiles13]

-Monday Migraine- Screen Printing over spray paint-on semi-opaque heavyweight plastic. #linkinbio #screenprinting #myart https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu4ScHmgr-f/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=pebg84wnao44

#linkinbio #screenprinting #myart

[deanmiles13]

Some giant things going down!!! 23 green/ yellow limited run. Link in bio. Thanx #screenprinting #poster #wrasslin (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/BuvTy4gAL6-/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=k79th2738btk

#screenprinting #poster #wrasslin

[deanmiles13]

I did some retro posters of an old wrestling advert. There’s a link to my store in my bio. More to come... #wrasslin #screenprinting #posters https://www.instagram.com/p/BuvL8nWAidR/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=8gz6muvcwt1y

#wrasslin #screenprinting #posters

[deanmiles13]

AND THE AWARD GOES TO... My time on Hollywoods dime.

The Musicians Wanted ad in the back of The Rocket read: 

Guitarist looking to join up with like minded individuals. Influences include Iggy and The Stooges, Sonic Youth, and The Cramps. 

That was all I needed to see. This had to be my guy. I was looking for musicians, having just left Rancid Vat and Alcoholics Unanimous. 

AT SMEGMA STUDIOS WITH RANCID VAT 1992

My own project, for the 1st time. 

Actually, I had another “project band” in Tucson called Butchers 4 Piece. 

I wanted to start a “Dirge” band. Pre “Grunge” The Melvins were pretty much as heavy as you could get. B4P was my need to play heavy guitar and write with my best buddy Abel. We picked on every clique in the scene with the lyrics. 

Having heard the Melvins on tour in 87’, I was blown away. We were in Riverside CA with a band called Twisted. 

The band I was in, Opinion Zero from Tucson, was gonna be on Alchemy Records, which is the label the Melvins 1st album was on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mascara_Snake

 SO, these Twisted fellas say… “Hey, you ever heard of these dudes, The Melvins?” 

“Uh…. NO. What kinda name is The MELVINS!!!” 

The sound that came out was a methed out, metal riffing, band that stopped on a dime and then went into a heroin paced dirge that was heavier than Black Sabbath.

I loved it!!! 

Song titles likeThe Heaviness of the Load, Big as a Mountain, Over From Under the Excrement. Man!!!

Anyway… 

I was hoping to get back to doing a HEAVY band again and this ad just spoke to me. The Rocket was a Seattle-Portland Rock magazine, in newsprint form. 

It was the Bible for what was happening throughout each month in Seattle and Portland. Feature articles on local musicians and all the club listings and personal ads! It was priceless, in that sweet spot we had going in the 90’s. 

I get on the old land line phone and end up gettin a hold of this “Jerry” guy and we make plans for him to come over with his guitar to jam. The day comes, he shows up with his guitar, amp and a 6 pack.

We set up in the attic at 27 N. Thompson, where I was living. We make small talk and then I’m propose…

“Lets play a Cramps song!!!” 

I can see this makes him a slightly uncomfortable and he shifts in his seat and says 

“Which one?” 

“Anyone!” I replied. 

He starts to play Goo Goo Muck or Human Fly, and it’s not really all there. Already, I can see the ad was more of a description of bands he was INTO and not really his ability level or influences. 

No worries… 

We jam a bit more, and in my mind, I figure I’ll just keep on looking. After wrapping up our best attempts at a jam, we talk some more. 

Little did I know that I would be spending more time with this guy, inside of a van, than ANY band I have EVER been in.

 He starts by telling me he is from Portland (Salem actually) and had moved to L.A. for a bit and was just getting back to Portland. He played with a band called Trashcan School, a band I knew of and had read about. 

JERRY LA BUCK AND HIS FIRST BORN.

I was impressed!!! 

I asked what he did for work, he said he ran a security company in L.A. 

He told me, mainly set security for movies. 

Now, this IS “Hollywood” and his resume had titles like, oh…

Chopper Chicks From Zombietown

 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103959/

Your usual B list movies, I thought, but he explained that movies worked under working titles sometimes to keep people off the scent. You couldn’t say “Yeah, we are filming Rocky 8 but keep it under your lid!” Although that would have been good….

So this all sounded pretty interesting to my ear.

Myself, I had done security before and had actually recently been fired from my job of 3 years. It was my first job in Portland and it’s where I learned Screen Printing. 

My profession, basically. 

It was at Goldsmiths in Old Town on 5th and Burnside.

https://goldsmithcompany.com/our-story/

Anyway, I got fired from there. Can you believe it? 

ON a side note… 

One day I got a call right after this, and it was the daughter of one of the older Vietnamese women that I worked with. She was old school and spoke no english. 

Mooey!!! 

That’s was her name…. 

I loved all 4’5” of her. Such a lovely woman. 

So her daughter called the house one day and it sounds like someone on tour or something.

A foreign voice and kind of broken up, and we are speaking over each other… 

I can’t really think of who I know on tour in Japan. 

It’s Mooey, having her daughter translate to me that she misses me at work and can’t believe they fired me. She said she loved me and I was a good guy. 

Man, I will never forget that phone call EVER.  I tried real hard to learn what I could while I worked with that crew of Vietnamese. What I learned was, that you can come to America after being lost on the ocean for 3 weeks on a raft, and end up owning 3 homes and a small market. That’s just one of the many incredible things I learned. 

Inspiring/Respect

Back to Jerry…. 

He said he wanted to do something similar up here with the movies and security thing. 

He had a few connections with location managers, but what he really needed was security team. 

He had been doing most of all this work by himself. A lot of this was just sitting in a car and watching a trailer or some prop on set. But still, that could be hard work. And he needed help. So, I threw my hat in the ring and said let me know if you end up getting a movie.

 Right away, he had a gig. 

And it was big. 

I wanna say, a 3 month shoot?

Almost all of it being shot in Portland. 

Timothy Hutton, Faye Dunaway, and Murdock from the A-Team were the main actors he said. 

I had no car at the time and Jerry had a 65 Dodge Dart we called the Clam. 

The trunk didn’t latch and had been connected with bungee cords. Every single bump in the road, that thing would start bouncing up and down. It looked like it was talking to you. 

Man, we had barricades and cones and all sorts of stuff in that car.

We had to block off parking spots and various roads at certain hours for shoots. 

(To annoy a Portland that WAS NOT Hollywood friendly)- Pre Portlandia. 

“Go back to California!!!” was the most common one you were guaranteed to hear. 

We had half of Downtown ready to kill us one afternoon. The shot never even made the final cut. 

Another incident we had all lanes of the Marquam Bridge blocked on a Friday morning, at rush hour, just to get a helicopter shot. 4 TIMES AROUND!!!! There was one guy who followed us to the off ramp, down to Old Spaghetti Factory. 

Pretty scary!!! 

I mean SCARY, like when we had to move all the big wigs out of their personal apartments. 

We found dildos, handcuffs and all sorts of stuff. All the crap they were definitely not taking home. 

There were many things I can recall from those long days on my feet, but I’ll just throw a couple at you.

Towards the end of the shoot one day, Timothy Hutton had a tape he wanted the Make Up guys to play. 

It was a tape of prank phone calls. 

The Jerky Boys. 

First time most people had heard that stuff at that point.

Speaking of Make Up, I witnessed nothing short of miracles come out of those Make Up  trailers. 

The magic they can do with the human face.

Speaking of magic and faces… 

I ended up gettin some face time with Faye Dunaway.

I had my Barfly book, by Bukowski, with me and had an angle to get it signed by the time she was done. 

On the last day, it was the day to do it. 

I asked her P.A. and she shut me down. 

NO WAY. 

Well, this WAS her last day and Faye seemed in a really good mood. 

As she was leaving, Some people were  getting autographs. I wasn’t too much concerned how we looked as a security team, as I was a fan and wanted MY book signed. 

I put it in the mix of outreached hand and she looked at it with a surprised expression. 

She said she had not seen this. NICE… 

I had the page marked and she thumbed her way towards it, stopping to remark on certain pictures and relate little stories. Everyone was enraptured and I was the hero.

Man, was her P.A. fuming by this time. 

Faye signed it and handed it back to me with that smile. 

NO WIRE HANGERS!!!

I shrunk off a little awkward but victorious.

I ended up working one last movie with Jerry and Buckeye Security. 

This one was awesome. 

It was…  Even Cowgirls Get The Blues.

From Wiki:

According to film critic/historian Leonard Maltin, "The novel was hopelessly dated, and there is not enough peyote in the entire American Southwest to render this movie comprehensible or endurable...K.D. Lang's score is the picture's sole worthy component.”

Directed by Gus Van Sant. 

A legend in Portland. 

Whole slew of stars in this one. Uma Thurman, Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover et al. 

Totally different vibe on this movie. 

With Gus, you had a more laid back, punk rock, “we are all in this together” feel. 

Most actors made themselves available to chat up and get to know. 

This set was SO laid back, I remember Gus had some Nitrous Oxide delivered to the Camera Truck for the purpose of “cleaning lenses” he said. 

Well, as soon as they gave a brief rundown of the how’s and what not’s, we all made a B line to get a hit from the tit. 

It was pretty sweet. 

It ended up at his house later that night, I heard, for his NO on 9 benefit party. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Oregon_Ballot_Measure_9

  The wrap party itself was pretty cool, because Tom Robbins the author of Cowgirls showed up to the tiny little bar they had rented. 

The premier that afternoon, was a trip as well. It was the first showing ever and in the opening credits he had JUST ADDED a dedication to River Phoenix. 

River was in Gus’s “Private Idaho” and was also in Cowgirls. 

Pretty sad day. 

There were a lot of actors in this film that made cameos and also just NW legend types. 

We had hired a kid to help us on security and he told us he was the son of Ken Babbs. 

His name was Simon Babbs, and he was a total sweetheart. 

His father was joined at the hip with Ken Kesey and these cats were the real deal when it came to being there on the edge of counter culture. 

They practiced what they preached, and also I wanted some of the sacred sacrament. 

This was the guy who turned the nation on as far as I’m concerned and punks is hippies.

Well… I put my request in via the son of the gun who road shotgun with Kesey. 

It came through. Nice stuff. 

Years later, I would end up on the Further Bus with Ken Kesey’s son, buying sheets of acid art (non electrified!), but that’s another story.

ON BOARD FURTHR2 WITH ZANE KESEY 

We also had a dude on our crew that was training to be a fire fighter. 

He and his lady had recently split and he was moping around, being a sad sack. 

This really got to him and his good friend could really notice his mood changes etc. 

He actually felt sorry for this hard working kid and saw his determination to be a fire fighter, to train all day and then come and do this stupid job. 

So this friend put pen to paper. 

He told Aaron’s girl that she was really missing out on a good guy and that if she maybe just gave it another shot, who knows?!?! 

I watched this whole thing go down. I then watched him give Aaron the note, to give to his uncertain lover. 

And that “friend” of his was none other than Keanu Reeves. 

That guy was so down to earth and a genuine, righteous dude. 

I don’t know if this whole thing worked for the girl or not, but I sure know it worked for me. 

It was one of the coolest things I’ve seen. 

Really…. From Bill and Ted to Rivers Edge, that guy may come off like a “HImbo”, but I saw just the opposite. Totally aware and compassionate person.

I would like to thank Jerry for letting me make mad money while getting to zip up Sean Young’s dress when she couldn’t reach it. 

For being able to help Crispin Glover get in character. 

He had asked me for a cigarette and I told him “I don’t smoke! I don’t have any cigarettes.” 

He said “Neither do I.” and walked away. 

It was totally Crispin Glover. 

CRISIN GLOVER AUTOGRAPH.

He later walked past me holding a cigarette very awkward and asked me how to hold one. Weird dude for sure.

And, thanks Jerry Sandifer for putting that ad in the Rocket. 

If you hadn’t we would have never met and I would have never met Ken Stevenson. 

It’s this connection that brought my wife and I together. Ken would come to mean so much to me in my life and would later marry me and Darcy. 

Jerry and I would eventually live together for a while, 

THIS IS ME PLAYING JERRY’S GUITAR (WHICH I OWN) PLUS THIS IS AT THE HOUSE WE LIVED IN TOGETHER ON SHERMAN ST. IN BETWEEN CHRIS TENSE FROM POISON IDEA AND THE BLOODMEN HOUSE.

We would also play music in a Halloween themed cover band called the Punkins. So, I guess the ad did work… Just took us a while.

Kind of a full circle thing… 

Friends for life my brother.

[deanmiles13]

IN THE HAND OF GIANTS

She was a girl in school, no one paid attention to. Mary Em…

Heavy set and not many friends from what I could tell. With a gap and chipped tooth that resembled Darby Crash. She sat directly in front of me in our JR. High School. This school was a unique setup where there were no walls per se, but more of a partition type of situation. Pretty cool for the 80’s. The proximity of her and my need to play drums all the time, led to one of those weird teenage things where we would chit chat before class, and when class started, I would let her know that I was still there, and I would play drums on her back with my pencils. Innocent stuff, kinda flirty I guess, but it was our thing, and she didn’t seem to have that thing with too many others at school and frankly, neither did I. I was shooting for the stars by trying to get the attention of a girl in my apartment building, but she was little older and a lot cooler than me (at the time).

Mary and I had another connection other than me pestering her. 

It was wrestling. 

Not schoolastic type, but professional wrestling. You know, that fake stuff!?!?!

But just know, there is nothing fake about this story. 

One morning at school, Mary turned to me asked 

“You like wrestling, don’t you?” “Hell Yes” I said. 

My love for the sport goes back, much like millions of us fans, to a time when I would watch it with my brother and my Grandpa. He had his soap opera’s during the week, but on the weekend, Dick the Bruiser, Moose Cholak, Spike Huber, Bo Bo Brazil, and many others would replace the soap opera stars. They would invade our living room and come on the TV and yell into the camera with these over the top, gravelly voices, that were not too far from my Grand Pa sitting right next to me on the couch. He could be pretty even keeled watching the matches, but I was unhinged. 

Crouched front and center, I would have various Aunts and Uncles laugh, and lean over my shoulder to let me in on the secret…. “You know this is fake, right Dean?” 

“Shut up! I don’t care.” was my usual reply. And I didn’t….This was no different than other stuff on TV, to me. 

Was the cowboy really getting killed? Time and time again?!?! 

I mean really…. Was the Hulk real? Wonder Woman? The news?

Mary Hartman - Mary Hartman was probably the realest thing on TV then.

“You know, that’s just ketchup, don’t you Dean?” Man, people just can’t wait to ruin YOUR good time, huh?!?!

Well, not Mary, she was ready to blow my mind with what came next.

“My birthday is in a couple weeks and my parents are gonna take me to a wrestling match. Do you wanna go and get pizza and then see the match with us?” 

Man… Hell yes!!! 

It never occurred to me ever GO TO a match. This was something believed only existed on TV. 

I don’t remember much of the pizza dinner with her parents, except their generosity of course.

The Expo Hall is what first comes to mind when I remember back on this night. It was where you would have a car show or something. Maybe some bleacher’s brought in on the sides, but no arena show. Yet… (7,000 SOLD OUT) 

This was WWF in the mid 80’s. 85? 

Anyway, we were seated right on the end of a row, about 10 rows back. Man, this was electric. Some of the stars I can remember that night were, Roddy Piper, Junk Yard Dog, Greg Valentine, and Andre the Giant.

Jerry Valiant was in the first match that night. This I do recall, because what happened next was something I can never forget. 

As they locked up and circled once, then twice, they released their grip on each other and stepped back.

Now, here comes the wind up and the big punch to really kick it into high gear. 

Valiant rears back and laid it in and stopped about 3 to 4 inches short. 

I mean, I looked around to see if anyone else was seeing what I was seeing and all I witnessed was a rabid crowd, on their feet, screaming at the top of their lungs. I kinda did a double take back to the ring, and then back to the crowd. I stood in the expo hall with this friend from school,  but I also stood at a great chasm in my life. 

Between, sport/showmanship, good guy/bad guy, my childhood/puberty, belief/disbelief. 

I turned back to Mary with her family and they were totally oblivious to what was going on with ME, and totally wrapped up in their moment. 

Enjoying every second of it.

Standing there, at that moment, I remembered all the people stepping on my favorite sport and telling me it was all fake. This crowd reaction was anything BUT fake. 

People who laughed when you would tell them you liked “Wrasslin”. 

But would never laugh at a wrestler in person. Guaranteed…

It was all becoming obvious to me. A moment of clarity. I had a choice to make… 

To take the dive and go with the crowd? Or my family? 

Who I loved more than anything. Then one person came to mind. My Grandpa!!!

HE NEVER called it fake. He knew and could respect that these men were like him. Old hands who had towed the line and lived through hard times. 

My Grandpa was in Korea and was the first living, Human Bomb. 

A 50 mm shell left undetonated inside him, he was left to die. Another story another time. 

It also wasn’t fake when Dad and Grandpa ended up in the hospital after wrapping their car around a tree, drunk, coming home from a wrestling match.

Back to me… 

Here I stood. The crowd noise, drowned out by all this going on in my head. Slowly, I came to be more present and in the moment until it just erupted out of me… 

KILL him! 

Kill HIM!

I was hooked. Jumped in with both feet. Drank the Kool-Aid, whatever you wanna call it.  

I was taking the ride with everyone else. I felt right at home with it and it all made sense. 

Who cares what people think of you and what you like. If it brings you joy, embrace it. 

FULLY. 

Speaking of embracing it fully, there was one last thing that left a lasting memory for me this night. 

As stated before, we were seated on the end of the aisles. If you watch wrestling, you know that when the wrestlers come to the ring, they walk through the crowd and down the aisle. Well, when Andre the Giant came to the ring, with his huge arms outstretched, it’s pretty easy to touch HIM. 

And I did. 

He was all smiles as he made his way to the ring. His hands came slapping down my way and as he passed, I grabbed onto his thumb as he went by. IT WAS SO AWESOME. Trying to compare it to something is hard. It was just BIG. Maybe an empty toilet paper roll would be close to the circumference.

Man, it seemed if I was being bounced from one reality into another this night.  

From the worked matches, with real giants? I was confused and I loved it. 

Still do. 

I’m still on the ride drinking the Kool-Aid. Believing in something, that is so real, yet still gets written off as a joke. While we all know the matches are “scripted” the injuries in the ring is anything but. They work hard to take care of one another. We all need to eat.

This is a profession I equate to my line of work ,all too much. 

Being a musician or artist is pretty much a losing battle. Tons out/little back in return.

A lot of athletics profession is the same. 

Few are chosen for that path to fame. 

Many wrestlers toil in obscurity, solely for the love of nurturing the craft a little further down the line. 

Happy to bleed and sweat (some times at their own hands).

These dudes travel long distances for little pay. They get in nasty old rings and bleed for little pay. Just like bands and shitty bars and long rides in shitty cars. 

We all do it because we love to do it.

Anyways…..

Let’s wrap it up D!

I often think back on the night I just described above. When I do, I think that Mary was very cool for including me on her birthday outing. She had no idea how much it would impact me. 

When we returned to school, we were still friends, but I can’t remember much beyond that story. 

When you are that young, there are too many moving parts. 

AGE is your ememy.

You’re busy prepping for that hard clothesline that Age is about to hit you with. But you duck it and come back with a hard right. You got Age down… Youth is Strutting and Cutting!!!

You go to the top ropes for your signature Atomic Elbow….

Flying effortlessly through the air you got Age squashed.

And then it moves! 

Leaving you reeling on the mat. You don’t know where you are. Looking up at the lights...

Age comes in for the cover 1…2 and a half! 

But you kick out. Whip em’ back into the ropes for YOUR own clothesline. 

“I’m gonna open a can of whoop ass on this Age thang” you scream.

Then it ducks and hits the ropes, bouncing back and catching you with a huge flying drop kick. 

Knocking the last breath out of you. That’s it.

You’re not kicking out for this one, it’s over. 1 2 3!!!

AGE (always) WINS!!!

Nothing fake about that.

And the crowd goes crazy.

In closing...

One thing I DID learn from this whole experience?!?!

Never mistreat or judge harshly on others for what they like or enjoy. 

WE all have more in common than we probably  know. If we can level the field we would all be able to have the same plain of vision.

And if we can meet in the middle of that field, you never know, maybe someone will surprise you with a hello and an invitation to a wrestling match. And you can celebrate a BIRTH day of your own. 

And perhaps one day, you too, will shake hands with a giant. 

BELIEVE

“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”

― Hunter S. Thompson

[deanmiles13]

I WANNA’ BE ELECTED

“THE TIME I CADDIED FOR ALICE COOPER AND LIVED TO TELL ABOUT IT!!!”

I Wanna Be Elected! Well not really. You see.... I was working at a shop that had been bought by Neil Lomax. He was a Portland native, who had graduated from P.S.U. and had a career in the NFL. The Cardinals to be specific. Which, had relocated to Phoenix Arizona in 88.

Home of J.F.A., The Meat Puppets and the great Mighty Sphincter. Oh and George Lynch, and Rob Halford. And the one and only Alice Cooper.

Now, almost everyone knows that Alice is a serious golfer.  And that’s where we are going with this story. Not really a Rock and Roll story except for when I hound him with trivia questions, later. So, back to Neil. Super sweet man and excellent human being. He was heading to play a golf event that Alice would be at, in Phoenix one weekend, and he said, “Hey Dean, going to see your buddy Vince Fernier. See, Neil actually thought his name was ALICE COOPER. I corrected him one day and he loved VINCENT. He even came back from this event with a framed Hatch Show Print poster of the event. He let us display it in the shop when he got back. I was hoping he didn’t care for it and would part with it. But alas, my reward was yet to come. He actually had another golf tournament and I sent him down with a copy of Killer.

It came back signed and I was stoked. But there would be more....

So, then Its Neil’s turn to have his big golf event “The Quarterback Shootout”. 

It’s an annual charity event he is really known for in Portland. A meet and greet with NFL legends and local celebs. The big ones I can recall are Drew Bledsoe, Marcus Allen, Charles Barkley, Jim Plunkett.

Having worked with Neil for a while, he had events and people would help and volunteer from work. The big event was this golf thing. Everyone fought over caddying for Charles Barkley. He was big tipper. The real cool thing was, this year Alice was coming up for it as a favor to Neil. No one at work was stepping up to caddy for him. What I knew about golf fit into a golf tee.

I imagined me out there fumbling around and dropping clubs to the sound of all that iron clanging and people laughing. So I was petrified, to say the least, when it was decided that I was going be Alice Cooper’s caddy. They demanded that the “residential rocker” at work, handle this rock royalty on the links.

Well the thought of me on a golf course was as foreign to my mind as being a surgeon, so I spent the morning getting ferociously stoned at home. The event was held at Heron Lakes Golf course and I lived pretty close. I got to the golf course and met up with everyone from work and just kinda waited.

Some people were already on the part where you tee off and practice. The driving range?!?!? You can see I’m out of my element here!

Anyway, we are kinda waiting for our assigned celebs to show up when a car pulls up, out comes this really petite person. All in black with their back to me. I was unable to make out who it was. They turn around and it’s Alice. People cheer and they hand me his clubs. This is the first time I have EVER held golf clubs. I used a golf bag for my drum stands to carry to many clubs, but this was the first time the had actual clubs in it. 

He signs some stuff and is escorted my way, and I’m on the driving range. The first thing I tell him after we are introduced is “Alice, there is NOTHING I can tell you today to help you in any way on the course today!!!” He smiled and said “ I think I got it.”

That put me at ease right away.

We made our way to a practice area of sorts and already, people were coming up for autographs. I got the impression I would be doing a little security work today as well.

That was no problem actually since I had done set security on movie sets and all sorts of events. And he was approached by all sorts of people. Old, young, and everything in between. The first person I remember to approach held out a cassette and said “I took your music to Vietnam with me!” Alice stopped on a dime and just talked right to the guy. Not to/at him, but TO HIM!!!.

I could tell right away that this dude was genuine. Little kids with Todd McFarlane/Alice Cooper dolls would come up and he would sign the smallest signature. Taking time with everyone he took a photo with. He had a line for everything. After the photo was snapped he would say “Now, I may not show up in the picture when you get it developed.” He was, in a word “PROFESSIONAL”

This is a guy who hung out with Harry Nelson, Keith Moon, Salvador Dali.

I mean, he was on the Muppets for cryin’ out loud!!!

I know we were paired up with Jim Plunkett and played against Drew Bledsoe and Rick Mirer. Jim was an old school NFL dude and was here to have a good time. Drew Bledsoe did some things that day that I thought really were uncool. For someone being asked to a charity event, to sign autographs and take pictures, he was acting like he was being put out. It was interrupting his game. That was the whole point of this thing. You could saddle up next to the celebs and say hi and a bit more. It’s what they paid for, quite frankly. He was taking his golf game a little too serious if you ask me. Jim and Alice had wagers going as to who could drive the ball the farthest and stuff like that. Alice was a petite guy and Jim was a bigger dude.

Alice won the drive contest. The main thing that I took a way that day was answers to a load of questions that I had. Some prepared and most just off the top of my head.

As I relate some of these, just realize, that I’m paraphrasing what was said. He was so totally open and honest with me, it was quite staggering to be honest. I would feel horrible if anything was misinterpreted. 

I started by asking about Johnny Rotten doing the liner notes on a Rhino Box set and he said “Johnny hates EVERYONE.... EVERYONE! Except ME! I can’t believe it. 

I guess him and Sid used to play Dead Babies on acoustic guitars to make pocket money.” 

I was like, Oh, it’s on! We proceeded to hole one, and I started chronologically with his career and headed back to Detroit. I asked about Ted Nugent, Bob Seger, MC5 and Iggy. He said “I’ll open for anyone! The Stones! The Who! But not Iggy! He just wipes the crowd out. Uses them up and wrings em’ out, and I can’t come on after that.”

I asked about his song “Only Women Bleed” and he said that was a number one multiple times, multiple countries, for multiple people.Tina Turner had a hit with it and he was proud of that.

I asked if he was a WHO guy or a STONES guy. He said “Listen to the opening of Elected.” DUH!!!

There were some interesting crowd interactions. From, two young dudes that wanted to have him sign a joint they had, to the McFarlane dolls and everything else. I told kids with the joint, there was no way... Then I mentioning it to Alice and he said “Yeah, it’s like right when you quit smoking weed and your friend comes over with 8 ounces and says “Hey, I’m leaving town for a few months, can you hold onto this for me?!?!” 

This one women came up to us and was yelling to get his attention. Frankly, I was a little sketched about having to “deal” with her. We go over, she says “Can you sign something for me?” He says “Of course, what do you want signed?” She starts pulling scarp pieces of paper out of her pocket and I mean like a match book, a receipt, and just whatever. So he signs whatever it was and we walked away. He is being real silent, like in his head and he said “Man, that was 40 miles of rough road!!! I often wonder what I would be like if I had kept drinking and what not ?!?!”

That was probably one of the most profound things he said that day. I asked him when he quit drinking and he said, when his daughter was born. I too had recently quit with drinking and found this to be sort of a bonding moment for us. I remember that I had brought some items to have him sign. A postcard and an album etc. But the cool thing was I asked him at the last minute if I could have the ball he had used for the whole game. That was awesome, and I still have THAT. 

I had all the stuff I wanted to asked and had kinda prepared the questions in my head, but it was the interaction with his fans that was really neat to see. The two young women who came up and started to bow and say “We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy.” I had kind of spaced the whole Waynes World thing, and when I told him “Oh man, I kinda forgot about that!” He replied “ I didn’t!!”

I asked if he gets that from people all the time, seeing as it was a whole new generation of exposure sorta thing. He said “No! It’s just that, when you get a movie script and you just see your scene, it’s not like you get to see the whole movie. It’s just me, backstage, Mila-wa-kay- and then we split.”

I’m still not really picking up what he’s putting down... “So when they asked us what we wanted, we just took my day fee for the movie and didn’t worry about any “back end” so to speak. So what happens? The movie goes on to make 18 million opening weekend.” He was not kidding... you could see that this one hurt.

I had mentioned a quote from him in Rolling Stone, I had recently read in which he commented on Marylin Manson. He said “Yeah... Real original. Call your self a girl name and put makeup on. Where have I heard that one before?”

Not in a rude or snide way, but in a kinda joking way. With a smile... I guess that’s what it all came down to that day. Here was a man who had done it all, seen it all, drank it all, and snorted it all. And in the end, he was alive, enjoying something that kept him sane (golf). Now, he’s out the other side, meeting people, saying HELLO - HOORAY!!! Let the show begin!!!

He was so at ease with it all and it was a true pleasure to watch him “work”. When anyone ask, what was he like?

I just say... “In a word - KILLER”

He was a man who seemed very content where he was. I mean if you weathered a storm like he did and lived to crawl from the shipwreck and right yourself for a second, third career?!?!? 

Man... that’s it!!!  That’s a success.

Telephone is ringing......

#alice cooper #golf #rockandroll

[deanmiles13]

My Very First KISS Concert.

KISS- August 10th, Indianapolis, IN. 1979

I can’t actually remember where/when I first heard them, but I do remember the two brothers we hung out with who gave my first KISS record. The NUGENT!!! Brad and Brian. We always wondered and asked about the TED connection... They said it was true.

Anyway, one day, they said I could have this album called Rock and Roll Over. I was immediately drawn to the cover. We lived in the same apartment complex and I ran home and never took that album off. In fact, it was like a drug. I had to have more. Luckily, KISS was everywhere. Magazines, Records, Toys etc. Baseball cards were the big thing at the time and I would steal packs of these. Easy to steal and satisfied my craving for these new monsters that filled my imagination. Also fueled my desire to collect anything and everything KISS. My walls were covered in posters and pages from Circus, Sixteen and Hit Parader. The inside of my closets were top to bottom covered with stuff as well.

The Kabuki make up of my new idols was transfixing. I would notice if a lazy photo editor had published picture of my heroes with their guitar backwards or even lettering on the cases. I would pour over each detail of these pictures until I had exhausted all possibilities as to what was going in the photos. Like where WERE they?!?! Had they beaten up Shawn Cassidy for real? Was IT. goats blood? Did Peter stab someone with a drumstick?

This was pre internet and it was awesome!! But the MUSIC?!?!

 It was the real hook. It had me. I had to have it all. We lived near a Woolworth’s and man did we turn that place inside out. We would spend hours there just running all over. I remember people lined up out the door to play Atari -Space Invaders- the day it came out. I took my turn and then got back in line to play it again. Anyway, somehow my brother and I came up with a brilliant scam to get records. In them days, when you would buy a record, they would fold the receipt and staple it to the outside of the bag. SO... We went and bought just one album, and then we just used a “dummy” bag to procure our new drug, a couple of albums at a time. My mom got to asking about my new phono collection and I just told her that a friend “gave them to me”. Well this led to endless hours playing these records.

They never would play KISS on the radio back then, and I would just have an ALL KISS - ALL DAY sorta thing and play these albums back to back. I still own these very same KISS records and there is nary a scratch on them. I covet them!

I would even call radio stations and request KISS. They would straight up laugh and tell me that they would NEVER play that crap on the air. I must’ve been just one of many Flaming Youth trying to set the world on fire.

But when KISS came to town?!?! Man, was Q95 happy to have them down to promote the show. It must have been weird for KISS. Their music wouldn’t /couldn’t be played on radio, yet they still needed radio jocks to promote the show?!?!

Which leads to August 10, 1979.

Market Square Arena (Built in 1974, brought down in 2001) Capacity 16,000 KISS Opening act: Michael Stanley Group.

It was the last Peter Criss tour with them. I don’t remember the build up to the show much. I’m sure we had to go to J.C. Pennys or something to get the tickets. It used to be at Customer Service where you would put payments on layaway stuff. The day of the show however we were off the wall in anticipation.

I wondered where they would be sleeping? When they got here to Indy (Apparently Paul was stopped by a frisky female officer while on i-465. He had a love gun on him). The whole day we were on my Mom, “We gotta go!!! Now!!!” See, this was “Festival Seating” and that was first come- first served. Hell, I would have waited all week if I knew it meant Iwould be sitting up on the front.This was just a glimpse of my dedication and love for Rock and Roll.

But my Mom, she just kept saying “The show don’t start til’ 8:00!” Man, it was the longest day of my life. The show?!?!? I can remember the smoking guitar. Beth... N.Y. Groove and I was made for loving you baby. And sitting so far away, you couldn’t even see the make up they had on. I recall the blood, the smashing of Paul’s guitar.... I still have the program.

But the show, the crowd, the smells. Fuck yes!!! My Mom RULES. Setting a 9 year and 6 year old kid in the middle of this, was baptism by fire.

Back to MOM.....

She knew I was stealing those records. She saw my devotion to this band a saw how it made me feel.... GREAT!!! So, it was slightly weird when I was asked to take down all the posters etc. She said the apartments we lived in wanted to paint each unit and we had to prep. This meant removing everything from the walls.

So, I neatly rolled all the posters and put them in grocery bags. And waited.... And waited... It NEVER crossed my mind why my Mom wasn’t “prepping” and taking stuff off the walls of the apt.

No paint crew EVER arrived. It was front and center on my mind, but slowly slipped from it and so did my posters from my life. I turned around one day to put them back up and couldn’t find them. Our apartment was small and I knew every inch of it. I couldn’t find them anywhere.When I asked my Mom about them, she would just shrug and say “If it was on the floor, I probably threw it away!”

I’ll never forget those words. My temple to the Gods of Thunder was gone. Just like that!!!

This was a life lesson I was being taught by a very caring and loving mom. I know she had no intentions of creating a collecting monster that she did. Years later as I look back on all the boxes of fliers and posters, it all makes sense. Actually, I learned this in therapy years later.

If not for KISS I would never have picked up a broom (works best for Gene/Bass) or a tennis racquet (best for Ace/guitar). But more important, it made me wanna be cool like the cat man. The best voice KISS had. The one with the big hit that made em’ mainstream. The DRUMMER!!! I would play along to the records, air drumming, all the time, The one to set the bar to was Alive. I would grind that one out on Friday nights with my pillows and headphones.

Eventually, my musical taste changed and I kinda moved on from KISS. I would see them a few more times and then with no make up. The WTF moment for all fans. It was uncomfortable to watch them roll with the changes and get more frilly.... UGHH!!!

The next band I got into hardcore, was The Ramones.

 Seems to be about right. 4 NY guys, straight up rock, a uniform image, intensity, passion!!!

HEY HO LET’S GO!!!!

#kiss ramones music