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The staple label of a generation. Was it really like that? How come they're not all dead? Guess what? Some of them are. A number of them. Probably the most uninhibited era since the roaring 20's. Not to make light of it, but, Richard Pryor had a routine on one of his albums where he talked about the "sex" part of cocaine use and the fantasies conjured up. His story went something like "Okay now honey. Let's take off all our clothes and I want you to get up on the roof....(snort, snort) ... then I'm gonna run around the house three times (snort) and I want you to jump off on my face!" I laughed my butt off about that joke cause I could relate to it. Everybody I knew could relate to it. Almost everybody I knew was hooked on cocaine. Wives and husbands alike. Almost everybody I knew took multiple recreational drugs. Women and cocaine were synonymous in the 70's. Wild party's with bathroom podiums galore. It was not, nor is it now, my intent to make this a chronicle of drug abuse. On the contrary: It was my intent to leave it all out. I'm sick of drug stories by rock n roll people. It's way less than unique. Boring, almost. A mind set of a generation ... and some that followed. In writing this part, I have found it hard to avoid, and, have decided to try and tell it like it was. I will only know when I am finished with this if I will leave it in or not. The truth is that drugs permeated my life for many years and to tell it otherwise would be an untruth and incomplete at the very least. In some respects it is just like Armed Services buddies. They have their "drunk as hell with the boys" stories that aren't really anything to aspire to, but none the less, they still bring a smile to my mind when I think of many of them. A very hard thing to do: Not glorify drugs when, in fact, I do have many funny memories of endulgent youthful times. Not all the memories are good, though. I have lost many friends to the evils of drug abuse. Maybe even a wife or two. I have been exceedingly fortunate in my genetic structure given me by my parents. I have somehow always had the ability to "stop" just before it completely got me. I have seen the edge. A few times. A dangerous game of Russian Roulette to some degree. I don't recommend it AT ALL and I can't say it any clearer than that. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So says your body. So says your mind. Want to wear yourself out quicker than you have to? Take that road. If you make it at all ... you'll find your face more wrinkled, your teeth shot to hell, your heart suspect, and your emotional stability something other than dependable. Oh yes. One more thing. Should you continue to pursue the life of drug abuse ... your bank account, if you have one at all, will most likely never be large enough to be a thing of any great comfort to you. I don't know if I'll leave all this in here or not. I have friends who have recently lost children due to drug related problems. I hope they will understand my candor and the problem I have in trying to not promote drug use by my "service buddy" stories of old. More than likely I will edit this down to some reasonable amount of text related to drugs. I considered just listing the years with title pages like 1970 ... and then 2 blank pages following it. Then 1971, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76 ... and some blank pages following them as a way of showing my partial lack of memory of those years. Even that approach seems like glamorizing it, to some degree. Not really laughable at all. Although I definitely do have lots of memories from those years, I also have plenty of fog in there, too. Enough about that for now. I've recounted more than I intended to. Let's move on. I hope you like the card below from 1970 simply called "JOY". Scroll down. More text to follow. |
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The card above seems a little out of sequence, doesn't it? It isn't. Don't get me wrong. Drugs were not all that was in our lives. No way. The music and the success we were enjoying was absolutely entoxicating ... all on it's own. There's an old saying that holds a lot of truth: "NOTHING BREEDS SUCCESS LIKE SUCCESS." A little success is a major boost to your confidence and therefore your ability to focus on keeping it going. A big success holds even more of the same ingredients. Although self indulgent to some degree, we were so thrilled with all that was happening ... it often was like a dream to a certain extent. Too good to be true. The more we did ... the more we did. The better it got, the more we did. Another saying is "When your ship comes in .... row like hell and put your shoulder into it for as long as you can ... and when you feel like you just don't have anymore to give ... then row some more." An amazing time in my life. Wonderous and filled with so much joy. Yes, drugs too, but, lots of natural joy. The 7 of us making up the band were blowing our own minds ... on a regular basis with the creative flow and productivity. More than the sum of it's parts describes it pretty well. Chemistry. Something you don't question and only partially understand. Just thank God for it ... and keep on rowing. We had the extra benefit of Richie Podolor and Bill Cooper. They rowed like hell, too. They were also a part of the chemisty. Let there be no doubt about that. |