Maddancer #7 : Selling Wolf Tickets in Vegas & at the County Jail

This is another story from the time I went to the Banquet of the Golden Plate with Oliver Stone in Las Vegas.  It was a week-long event where the high school students who scored the highest on the SAT came to Vegas to hear lectures from the most successful people in all walks of life.  This included Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, Bill Gates, Robert Gates, Richard Sessions, Kevin Costner, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Edwin Teller and several prominent businessmen, architects, and doctors.

On this particular afternoon Oliver and I had just heard Barbra Streisand talk about knowing when to take advice and knowing when to”stick to your guns”.  She mentioned how, in the early days of her career, everyone told her to “fix her nose, change her name and stop singing those dippy love songs.”  She did not take their advice and became a huge success.   Then
we saw her in the hall.  I had already met Barbra a few times and I knew she had a great sense of humor.  We walked up and said how much we had enjoyed her speech.  Barbra smiled and said,  “Wait until you hear me tonight.  I’m talking about women’s rights.

Oliver nodded and smiled.  I looked at Barbra and said.  “Listen, I popped a button off my shirt a while ago…do you think you might have time later to sew it on for me.”

Oliver glared at me so hard it felt like he was elbowing me in the side. But I had read Barbra correctly.  She burst out laughing and gave me a playful shove, “Yeah, sure,” she said.  “Just drop it by.”

Then we all laughed.  I supposed I could’ve played it safe and not kidded her, but most people in the entertainment
business have a sense of humor and you get to know them a lot better if you make them laugh.

In some circles this kind of joking and false bravado is called selling wolf tickets.  This is actually an old blues term meaning to “put on airs” or “act tough”. Usually it when someone boasts about their fighting skills as in…

Gangbanger Stink: “Give me back my money or I’ll beat you into next week.”

Gangbanger Smudge: “Don’t be selling no wolf tickets here, Stink.”

I have been known to sell a wolf ticket or two in my time.  I think it actually has more to do with my Irish heritage than anything else.  My mom was a Kelly and great grandpa was an O’Riordan.  Growing up Irish, especially blue-collar  Catholic Irish meant you really didn’t back down from a fight.  Most of us figured that even if we got beat up, it couldn’t be any worse than the damage Sister Almira did with a paddle three times a week at school.  We bluffed a lot and we fought a lot. This is how I grew up.

The ability to “throw down,” as it is called in the teen subculture is worth endless street cred.  I used it often when I ran the teen center downtown.  One time I remember two very large black kids coming in and standing around glaring at everyone.  I knew they had the potential to be bad news since they each stood well over six feet and weighed over 250 lbs.   I wanted them to know that I wouldn’t put up with any trouble from them and that I was not afraid of them, but I also wanted them to know that they were welcome to have fun and hang out here if they would not use their considerable size to cause problems.  So I went up to them and said.

“Hi, I’m Jim Riordan and I run this place.  I want to welcome you guys here and…hey I wonder if you’d help me out. See, every once in a while I have problems with fights and big kids throwing their weight around so I was wondering if we could  stage a little something.  In a couple of minutes I’ll come over and act like you guys started some trouble.  I’ll like pick you up or slam you to the ground, smack you around a little, so it looks like I’m hurting you and then everyone else will tow the line.  They’ll figure if I’m not afraid to take a couple of big boys like you on, then they better be cool. Don’t worry, I’ll go easy. Does that sound okay?”

Of course the looks on their faces said it all.  Anyone crazy enough to ask them something like what I’d just said might just be crazy enough to do it. They weren’t sure what to do so they just stood there, kind of frozen.  Then I laughed and told them that I was just kidding around and they laughed as well. But they got both messages I wanted to send.

For the last several years I’ve been visiting prisoners in the county jail.  I started out just seeing kids that I knew from the teen center who had gotten themselves in trouble but over the years I’ve seen a lot of convicts.  Now the jail is probably the place where the most wolf tickets are sold.  Just about everyone acts like they are bad because if they appear soft they’re likely to be taken advantage of in all kinds of undesirable ways.  Well, I’d been going out to the jail for about a year.  I liked to see the guys one-on-one so they could feel free to open up and we could talk and pray without anyone hassling us.  But sometimes the lawyers were using all the private rooms to confer with their clients and the only way to see someone was to go inside the “pod”.  The pod is a large area which houses around fifty men in bunk beds formed around a central area where there is a TV and several tables to play games on or just hang out and talk.  There are no guards inside the pod area.  The guards sit outside the pod and watch the monitors. So I was sitting at one of the tables inside the pod talk-ing with Tony, a guy I’d been seeing for half a year, when a tall, lanky black man (who actually looked a lot like Snoop Dog) came over and asked me what kind of cologne I was wearing.  I told him I wasn’t wearing any cologne and he shuffled off nodding his head.

Now Tony was a good kid. Of course I see them all as good kids.  Tony was a white working class kid whose old man had been a violent alcoholic.  Tony had been getting knocked around since he was about four so…surprise! He was also violent.  I’d met Tony through his younger brother who used to come to the teen center.  Tony was a gangbanger with a swastika tattooed on his chest.  He was in jail for shooting a Mexican gangbanger because one of the guys Tony was selling coke with had told him that the Mexican had stiffed them on their money. This was not actually true.  The Mexican had not stiffed them on the coke deal but he had insulted  the guy’s girlfriend.  The guy knew that if he lied to Tony and made it Tony’s problem then Tony would do something about it.  So Tony and the other guys pull up in their car and the Mexican charges at them. Tony pops him two in the chest.

The fortunate thing and maybe the big break that God gave Tony, was that the Mexican didn’t die.  In fact he totally recovered. So Tony was coping to a manslaughter plea and I’d been seeing him at the jail.  We talked about how he got here, his life and we prayed.  Tony went from barely listening when I prayed, to listening intently, to praying with me, to praying for me, to praying with others guys in his pod.  And finally before he was shipped off he asked me if I could help him get the swastika covered so he wouldn’t have to hang with the white supremacists in the jail. This I did.  But here I was trying to talk with him and this goofy Snoop guy comes up to me again and asks what kind of cologne I’m wearing.  I told him again that I wasn’t wearing any cologne and he goes, “Oh, come on man. What’s the name of it?” Then he went away again.

The third time I saw him approaching us, I decided that this was one of those devil things.  When you’re trying to pray with someone sometimes the devil (or whatever you were taught to call him) sends someone over to hassle you just by planting the thought in the person’s head (if you don’t believe in the devil, that’s fine…but like I wrote in my song “So You Don’t Believe in the Devil” then who stabs a child forty times, who made Hitler so blind and who took Jeff Dalmer’s mind?)  I knew that Tony, being Tony, might react if the guy bothered us again and I wanted to head that off so as soon as the guy came near I stood up. The looked at me and said, “Man I just want to know the name of the cologne you’re wearing.”

And I said, “Okay, it’s called tough guy.  You want to know anything else?”

The guy shook his head and said, “I didn’t mean to start nothing” and he walked away and let us finish praying. I felt relieved that I could stand up to someone and , if need be, still sell a wolf ticket now and then.

Now the funny part is that about a month later I got a letter from another kid I was working with who had gone off to prison.  He had a picture of me in his cell and this tall, lanky black guy saw it one day and said, “Hey, I know that guy.  He wears Tough Guy cologne.”

Apparently he hadn’t really bought the wolf tickets I was trying to sell after all.  But six months later, when he got out of jail, the dude called me and said he was the guy that had asked about my cologne and I remembered him.  I met with him and we prayed together several times.  He said he respected me because of that day and that he knew I was for real.  And he never asked about my cologne again.

It Ain’t Easy Being Bob : A Retrospective on Dylan on His 70th Birthday

(A form of this article was originally published in the Weekend Edition of the Kankakee Daily Journal)

On May 24th, Bob Dylan turned 70 years old. Just living that long is an amazing achievement considering he came through the wild 1960s as a rock star with millions of dollars and worldwide fame. Many others did not fare as well. And it can’t have been easy being Bob. How about trying to live up to the title “Voice of a Generation,” particularly when it was that generation – the baby boomers of the ’60s who turned pop culture into high art and looked closely at both the sincerity and inner meaning of everything? When I was in college nearly everyone who had a stereo had a part time hobby of trying to decipher Dylan lyrics like the following:

You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at             – Like A Rolling Stone

The beauty of it was that there was no wrong answer especially since Bob was nearly always mum on the subject. It was like he thought his words were clear as a bell and if you couldn’t understand them you must not be listening close enough. Of course, later we learned that much of mystery of Bob lyrics and those of other symbolic lyric writers at the time like John Lennon was that “it rhymed”. Often it was about the flow, but it’s important to note that it was the flow that made the lines we could understand resonate so clearly:

Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’        — The Times They Are A-Changing

Bob Dylan has been a major figure in music for five decades. In the 1960’s he became a somewhat reluctant leader of the protest movement. Bob was just saying what he thought needed to be said but the disgruntled American youth and those few adults who sympathized with them made his songs anthems to be sung at Civil Rights rallies and chanted at anti-war marches. But Dylan wasn’t all political by any means. He was a philosophizer who gushed forth literary influences and he wasn’t afraid to go against the grain. While most recording artists were singing about their girlfriends Dylan was lamenting the murder of Black Panther leader George Jackson in San Quentin Prison or what he believed was the unjust imprisonment of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. There are a lot of thing one can criticize about Dylan, but playing it safe is not one of them.

In 1978, Bob Dylan became a born-again Christian. He became acquainted with the faith through fellow musicians Paul Emond, Larry Myers, T-Bone Burnett and David Mansfield. Burnett and Mansfield were part of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Myers and Emond were assistant pastors at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Los Angeles and both Burnett and Mansfield attended church there. Emond taught a bible class and Dylan and his Christian girlfriend showed up. I also attended the Vineyard from early 1979 to 1984, after which I attended Jack Hayford’s Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California. I later became good friends with T-Bone Burnett, Larry Myers and Paul Emond and I knew David Mansfield, but I did not meet Dylan through them. I met him on my own in a somewhat unique way.

I had just moved to L.A. in November of 1978 and was looking around for a church to attend. I had been born-again in 1976 and attended church regularly before I left Kankakee, Ill. This, however, was L.A. which is big, broad and pulls you about twenty different ways at once. A publicist at RSO Records told me about the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, which at that time was located in the San Fernando Valley. I was living in Malibu at the time and it was a good 45 minute trek to the church. Elaine, the girl who told me about the Vineyard, said it was loaded with musicians and other kinds of artists and that Bob Dylan even went to church there. It still took me a month or so to try it out. They had Sunday afternoon services at that time. But on the day we were going to go, my wife felt sick and I had some serious doubts about driving through the Sunday beach traffic (which was always heavy in Malibu) and then over the Santa Monica mountains and onto the Ventura Freeway to check out a church I wasn’t sure I would like in the first place. Most things that have a bunch of well known people involved in them tend to be decidedly unspiritual. But, on the other hand, I didn’t even know of any other churches and I’d been putting off what I felt my spirit was telling me to do for several weeks. So I got in my Datsun and headed over the mountains to Reseda alone.

The place was packed and I had looked around and finally found a seat near the back on the left side of the church. I noticed that there were a lot of people in their late 20’s like me, a few older folks and several who were even younger. There was no dress code at the Vineyard and most people wore jeans or shorts. When the service started I was amazed by the lack of pretense. Everything was simple and straight forward and totally sincere. No pomp, no ritual and absolutely no hypocrisy. Then about ten minutes into the service we sang Amazing Grace and I heard this distinct rough edged nasal whine coming from the seat behind me. “Aaaamaaazing Graaace, how sweeeet the sound” the voice sang, and I thought, “could this be Bob Dylan?” I had already interviewed lots of rock stars including George Harrison, Frank Zappa, Fleetwood Mac, the Doobie Brothers and many others but I’d never met anyone I truly idolized. Probably because the only people I idolized back then were John Lennon and Bob Dylan, whom no one but the top tier of rock journalists ever got access to and even that was rare. I decided I would sneak a peak so at one point, as I was sitting down, I glanced over my shoulder and… there he was! It was the classic Dylan image – wild hair, sunglasses and leather jacket. “Yep, that’s him,” I thought. Then, later in the service, we were asked to greet the people around us. I shook hands with Bob and his black girlfriend, Mary Alice.

As the service progressed, I became very impressed with the pastor, whose name was Kenn Gulliksen. Kenn taught with an amazing candidness so different from the churches I grew up in. To use an important phrase from the time, “he told it like it was”, even admitting the things like being in an airport and thinking about buying a Playboy magazine because, “after all, no one would know” and then chiding himself because “God would know”. Kenn exuded love, kindness and truth and he never put himself on any kind of a pedestal. When the service was over I thought about approaching Dylan, but then held back thinking, “I am not going to bother this man at church. He needs to feel that he can come here without that kind of burden.” And I didn’t go up to him. He came up to me.

I was in the church bookstore looking around and I happened to pick up a new edition of Hal Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth, a best selling Christian book of the time that attempted to apply bible prophesy to modern times. It was one of my favorite books back then and part of the reason I moved to L.A. was because I had this idea about making it into a film. What made this even more interesting was that the man who sat next to me in the pew that first Vineyard visit had given me his card which said that he worked for Hal Lindsey’s company. So I was thinking about that and looking at the book when Dylan approach me and said in his classic drawl, “Hey, that’s a pretty good book, ain’t it?” I said yeah, that I liked it a lot. I thought about telling him of my desire to meet Lindsey and develop a film but then decided to keep silent lest he think I was trying to use him in some way. I mean, here he was, one of the most recognizable people on the planet, venturing out to seek Spiritual growth. I couldn’t bring myself to use that as an opportunity to further my career. But it wasn’t over yet.

Later, I was standing in the parking lot waiting for some cars to go by so I could get to the Datsun and this woody station wagon stopped next to me. It was a new car, but really dusty. The window rolled down and it was Bob Dylan behind the wheel. He said, “Hey, see you next week, huh?” Now, at this point, I was thinking I would no longer be bothering him since he had approached me twice. So I said, “You know that Late, Great Planet Earth book? Well, I just met a guy who works with Hal Lindsey and I’m thinking about going to see him to talk about making a movie out of the book.”

Bob looked at me for a moment and then said, “Can I go with you?”

The surprise and elation I felt was beyond describing. A flood of visions passed through my mind. Me calling up Hal Lindsey’s office and going, “Yes, Bob Dylan and I would like to see you sometime.” I was pretty sure he’d see me. Then the thought of me and Bob working together. Hanging out! And there was Bob, driving a station wagon with the window rolled down, waiting for my response.

“Sure, you can go with me.”

I told him I lived in Malibu and he said that he did as well which I already knew since his house was like a Malibu landmark. He wrote down his phone number on a torn off piece of paper and told me to give him a call. Then he said goodbye and drove away.

The album that followed Dylan’s conversion was the compelling Slow Train Coming. It won Dylan a Grammy for “Best Male Vocalist” for the song Gotta Serve Somebody. While the album sold well, Dylan took a lot of heat in the press for his conversion. When he toured from the fall of 1979 to the spring of 1980 Dylan talked about his faith saying things like: “Years ago they…said I was a prophet. I used to say, ‘No I’m not a prophet.’ They said, ‘Yes you are, you’re a prophet.’ I said, ‘No it’s not me.’…Now I come out and say Jesus Christ is the answer. They say, ‘Bob Dylan’s no prophet.’ They just can’t handle it.”

And so it was. People didn’t mind other people embracing a particular faith, but they got angry when Bob Dylan did it. Why? Because Dylan had long been established as the voice of truth. And when the voice of truth says you need Jesus you have to reckon with it. Many responded in anger. By the next album, Saved, in 1980, a lot of people seemed to be hopping mad about it. Dylan has never been afraid to go up against criticism and his records still sold, but after awhile, all but his truest fans weren’t listening to the songs or anything he had to say about his faith. They just couldn’t let it go.

In fact, though Dylan later told interviewers he had re-embraced his Jewish faith, every album contains lyrics and themes that are virtually right out of the New Testament. I don’t believe Bob gave up on Christianity. He just realized that he could be far more effective if he stopped challenging people head on with it.   In a 2004 interview with 60 Minutes, he told Ed Bradley that “the only person you have to think twice about lying to is either yourself or to God.” He also explained his constant touring schedule as part of a bargain he made a long time ago with the “chief commander—in this earth and in the world we can’t see.” In a 2009 interview with Bill Flanagan promoting his Christmas in the Heart album, Flanagan commented on the “heroic performance” Dylan gave of O Little Town of Bethlehem and that Dylan “delivered the song like a true believer”. Dylan replied: “Well, I am a true believer.”

When Time Magazine did their end of the century list of the Most Important People of the Century, Bob Dylan was on it, described as a “master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation”.   In March of 2001, Dylan won his first Oscar for his song Things Have Changed which he wrote for the film Wonder Boys. Since then he has often carried the award (or a facsimile of it) on the road with him, sitting it on top of an amplifier which he performs. On August 29, 2006, Dylan released Modern Times which entered the U.S. charts at number one, making it Dylan’s first album to reach that position since 1976′s Desire. Nominated for three Grammy Awards, Modern Times won Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album and Dylan also won Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance for Someday Baby. In 2006, Modern Times was named Album of the Year, for 2006, by Rolling Stone magazine   In 2008, the Pulitzer Prize jury awarded Bob Dylan a special citation for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

Bob Dylan has released thirty-four studio albums, thirteen live albums, nine bootleg albums (The Bootleg Series) and fourteen compilation albums. That’s seventy albums. One for each year of his life. And fifty-eight singles.

So what happened with Bob and I going to see Hal Lindsey and maybe developing a movie together? Nothing. I called several times, but Bob never returned my call. But there was a larger, spiritual truth that I learned from the experience. Seek the kingdom first and all else will be added unto you. That’s a bible verse that means if we seek God first, He will take care of everything else. I had moved from Kankakee to Malibu and thought I was a hot-shot writer. I kept feeling God was leading me to find a church so I could continue to grow spiritually in the direction He wanted me to grow in, but I was too busy trying to get my career happing and dealing with the fact that my rent had gone from $145 a month in Kankakee to $1050 a month in Malibu. Then, finally I decided I’d better put God as my top priority and I went to church. He then showed me in the most dynamic way possible that if would seek Him first, he could make the rest happen. Including suddenly connecting with one of my idols and having the opportunity to work with him. Even though it didn’t work out I never forgot that lesson and keeping those priorities straight has served me well in dealing with some of the biggest names in Hollywood throughout my career. And, as for Bob, I never resented him for not getting back to me. I think I understand about that. I mean he’s Bob Dylan. It’s not easy being Bob.

IN OVER MY HEAD : Visiting the Son of Sam & Swimming at Streisand’s

I was producing Kankakee Valley Prime Time, my cable access show with Jaymie Simmon, in Kankakee back in 2000 and my wife came out to the staff meeting to give me a letter from David Berkowitz.  The production team all laughed and joked  about how it would be funny if I got a letter from the Son of Sam.  Only it was the Son of Sam.  My good friend and great writer Bill Myers had directed a documentary on him for Christian Television.  During the process Bill decided that Berkowitz was the real deal – Satanist turned genuine Christian.  After all, David wasn’t trying to get paroled early or use his newfound faith for anything except trying to live a good life now (granted, it’s easier behind bars) and was putting all his chips on a new chance in heaven.  Bill had told Berkowitz about the kind of writer I was and recommended me to help David tell his story.  Now David was contacting me to see if I’d come out to the Sullivan Correctional Institute in Fallbrook, New York.  When I told the production team that the letter was from the real David Berkowitz, no one said anything.  They just stared at the letter.  First lesson in dealing with mass murderers and serial killers – your friends don’t wanna know.

So David and I spoke a couple of times on the phone and then I made plans to travel to New York.   About a week before I was supposed to go, I tore my Achilles tendon playing basketball with a bunch of 22 year olds in the league at my church.  It was pretty painful and expensive and the next year when I wanted to play again my wife said I had to put five grand in the bank first to cover the costs of any new injuries.  I told her that my team (me at 51 and four 22 year olds that I knew from my teen center) finished tied for second in an eight team league and I was the high point man.  She said I really wasn’t getting it.  I was too old to play full-court basketball with kids in their early twenties.  I said basketball had been part of my life since I was 9 whereas I’d only been writing since I was 12, but it didn’t seem to matter.

When I boarded the flight to New York to see David I was wearing a boot cast on my right leg and on crutches.  Getting around in the airport and on the plane was hassle enough but what I was really worried about was renting a car in New York and driving the 80 miles to Fallbrook. Actually I was mostly afraid of driving in New York City, especially since my traffic reflexes were going to be slowed by the cast.  Nonetheless, I rented the car, drove through the city and made it to the prison.  Sullivan is a triple max which means intense security precautions because these are the people they never want to get out.  Once there I asked for David Berkowitz and was told. “Does he know you’re coming because people come here all the time to try and see him and he won’t talk to them?” I assured him that David was expecting me and after a couple walks thorough the scanner I was cleared  (although the package of Rolaids I was carrying was confis-cated).

Then I was ushered into this cafeteria like room with lots of vending machines, tables and chairs.  And there was one kind of chubby guard sitting at a desk on the other side of the room.  He assigned me a table which was in the back of the room and way the hell away from him and said, “They’re bringing Berkowitz up now.’  And, even though I’d exchang-ed letters with David and even though I’d talked to him on the phone, I thought to myself.  “Where’s the bulletproof glass?”  Where’s all those barriers where you have to talk on phones?   I mean, I had decided that David was genuine or else I wouldn’t be there.  But, I guess I also thought there would be the thick glass.

About five minutes later, the big iron door clanged as the locks were pulled back and one of the gentlest and most peaceful men I have ever seen entered the room.  We talked for an hour and I had no doubts.  Yep, Berkowitz’s conversion was for real.  He wasn’t trying to get out and he wasn’t trying to make money.  He just wanted to explain how he went from being a Satanist whose specialty was murder to a devout Christian.  I thought it was a great book project.  But after months of trying to get an agent and a publisher for the project, I had to give up on it for awhile.  This is how that went down.  The mainstream agents and publishers didn’t want to hear about Jesus.  They just want the scoop about the Son of Sam murders.  This was the man that held nearly all of New York City at bay by awashing them in fear back in the summer of 1979.  In our country, if you talk about spiri-tual things, it has to be in a very broad “Oprah loves it” sense or else it has to be published by a Christian publisher and sold in Christian bookstores.  There’s even separate organizations and trade shows. ABA is the American Booksellers Association while CBA is the Christian Booksellers Association.  The Christian book publishers were not interested in the story because it was too violent for the sweet Christian housewives and Mom and Pop Christian Bookstores that buy most of the CBA books.  So that meant that what was probably the redemption story of our time was not going to be told.  I was so sure that David’s conversion was real that I would have let him sleep in a room with my kids.

Another time that I knew I was distinctly in over my head was when I was with Oliver Stone in Las Vegas.  We had been talking about doing a book and going through the deal process for months, and we’re going to start working when he invited me to this huge event called the Banquet of the Gold Plate at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas.  It’s really a week long thing where the 500 highest SAT scorers come to Vegas and hear lectures from the most successful people in all walks of life.  This was in 1992 so among the people giving a talk were Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, Bob Gates (then head of the CIA), Richard Sessions (then head of the FBI), Bill Gates, Kevin Costner, George Lucas, Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Edwin Teller (the scientist who discovered Pluto whom it well known that the character of Dr. Strangelove was based upon), some really big deal businessmen, architects, doctors and Oliver Stone.  I met more prominent people in four days than I had met in my entire life up to then…and I’d already met a lot of people.

So this one day on a break, Oliver introduces me to Richard Baskins who is an heir to the Baskin (as in Baskin-Robbins) fortune.   Real  nice guy. And he invites us swimming.  Oliver is in one the Penthouse rooms which is the top floor so he has no pool, but Richard is in a cabana on the first floor. I, however am staying at the Tam O’Shanter, the cheap Irish hotel down the street.  So Oliver asks me if I want to go swimming, hang out by the pool and talk about the book. The first thing I tell him is that I don’t have any trunks.  They’re back at the Tam O’Shantner.  So Richard says he has some shorts at the room that I can borrow.  Richard’s a lot bigger than me but I figure, who cares.  Oliver and I are friends and this guy will  be cool because Oliver likes me.  So what if the trunks are too big.  I don’t need to impress anyone.

So we go to the cabana and Richard gives me these shorts which are so big on me that I have to wear my belt with them.  I put them on and then the three of us are frolicking in the pool, having a good  old time when, all of a sudden, Barbra Streisand walks out wearing this long, flowing white gown.  She looks stunning. I stop frolicking and look at Oliver and ask, “What’s she doing here?”  He gives me this devil grin that he has and says, “Oh, this is her suite.  I forgot to tell you.”   Now, even though it was early on in the writing process, Oliver and I had developed this teasing “screw-with-you” mentality, always playing harmless little practical jokes on each other.  I had to do it to stand up to his powerful personality which basically would’ve run over me like a steamroller unless I pushed back a little.

So I’m in the pool with two guys who are bigger than me.  I look like a wet dog with the big shorts and Barbra Streisand is waving at us from the edge of the pool where the maids have just brought out food and drinks.  I’m trying to be cool but then I remember that my underwear is sitting on her bed where I changed.  I’m hoping she doesn’t hold them up and say, “Whose are these?”

In the end though, it was all great.  Barbra is a really sweet person or at least she was the three or four times I’ve seen her.   There’s just no easy way to do this job.

___

Two of My Riskier Decisions: Going to Rwanda and Letting David Allan Coe live in my Basement

Maddancer #4

Two of My Riskier Decisions

Going to Rwanda & Letting David Allan Coe Live in My Basement

          I remember getting the call from an agent asking me if I might be interested in writing a book about the genocide in Rwanda and the difficult process of healing that the nation was going through.  He already had a deal in place with an established Christian book publisher and they had tried two or three writers who regularly wrote books for the Christian market. The problem was that the CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) writers did a fine job writing about the forgiveness seminars and healing programs created by Bishop John Rucyahana, but they kept skimming over the horror of the genocide itself.  He said his agency heard that I was a Christian and they read my bio and saw that I’d written books on Jim Morrison and Oliver Stone and that I worked with teens in trouble and had tried to do a book with David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam.  They figured I was their guy.

          “I’m that guy?” I asked, somewhat surprised at who I’d become, I guess.  “You’re that guy,” the agent said.  “We’ll give you twenty grand and pay for your trip to Rwanda.”  I thought about it for a day, but instinctively I knew that this was my kind of project.

          So I went to Rwanda.  It’s a thirteen hour flight and you have to change planes in Belgium, which is kind of fitting since it was the Belgians who planted the seeds of the Rwandan genocide in the first place.  The Hutu and Tutsi tribal people make up about 99% of the population of Rwanda and, up until the Belgians conquered the country back in 1916, they had gotten along peacefully for over five hundred years.  Then in 1926 the Belgians implemented their colonization policy.  Using the standard European formula of divide and conquer, they forced the largest segment of the population, the Hutus (nearly 80%), to do the manual labor they required such as building roads and placed the much smaller group, the Tutsi (nearly 20%), over them as their taskmasters.  Both groups were virtual slaves to the Belgians but it was the Tutsi who wielded the whips that cracked across the Hutus backs as they worked.  Then, when the Belgians gave in to pressure from the United Nations and left the country in 1962, Rwanda held free elections.  By this time the Hutus outnumbered the Tutsis by six to one and it was an all Hutu government that ruled the country from then on.  The Hutus hatred of the Tutsis had built up for an entire generation and it wasn’t long before harsh discrimination became standard government policy. But not letting the Tutsi get a decent education or hold a decent job wasn’t enough to quell the Hutu anger and soon the government began planning what they called “the final solution” – the organized killing of every Tutsi man woman and child in the country.

          During a hundred days from April to June in 1994 at least 1,117,000 Tutsis were brutally murdered.  We know there were at least that many killed because that’s how many bodies were found.  The complete story is in my book, The Bishop of Rwanda, cowritten with John Rucyahana who lived it and who, through his amazing programs, has proved that God will heal even the most horrific situations if we have the courage to let Him do so.

          The genocide had long passed when I flew into Kigali, the capitol of Rwanda, but there were lingering effects.  One of them was that there were virtually no white people there.  The big corporations were not doing business with the country yet and the tourist trade – well let’s just say that even though Rwanda is a beautiful country with wondrous green hills – the overriding sense of death just kept folks from wanting to visit.

          The airlines have only lost my bags twice – the first time was in Bangkok when I was working with Oliver Stone and he was filming in Thailand and the second time was in Rwanda.  These are not the places you want to lose your bags, but both times I got them back within a few days.  Filling out the necessary paperwork at the Kigali airport took some time however, and by the time I got to my hotel, there was a problem.

          As soon as I steeped out of the mini bus that had picked me up at the airport, I realized that everyone was staring at me.  I’m pretty white, classic Irish boy pale and then I’ve got snow white hair to boot.  That means I glow under streetlights.  People stopped and stared.  Children pointed and parents tried to explain.  Some people looked at me as though they knew what the white man had done to their country.  As soon as I entered the lobby and gave my name the manager took me aside.  “Let me explain about the roooom,” he said in what sounded to me like a Jamaican accent but I soon learned was the sound of the colonial English spoken by hotel, restaurant and store managers all across the continent.  He held his hands out in the classic “nothing I can do” expression and continued.  “The day man…he knew. But the night man…he did not know.”  I soon figured out that he meant that, when I missed my reservation time, they had given the room away.  I then proceed to two other hotels where I was stared at a great deal and told there was no room at the inn.  Finally, I decided I would go to the Hotel des Mille Collines, the famous Hotel Rwanda,  which I thought would be more than ironic.  Unfortunately, they had no rooms available. 

Desperate and very tired now, I stopped at a slightly seedy place which featured a lively restaurant bar on its front patio.  At least it was lively until I approached.  Suddenly, the whole place quieted down and everyone stared at me.  A white man in Rwanda.  I nodded as politely as I could at the onlookers and made my way to the front desk.  There I was told that they did in fact have a room available. I was very relieved.  At least until we actually got inside the room and the manager turned to me and in the exact same accent as the manager at the first hotel said, “Let me explain about the roooom.”  I stared at him dumbfounded and then he said, “I do not have the inside door key for this room.”

Oh, well, that didn’t seem too bad until I figured out what he meant.  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You mean I can’t lock the door?” He nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid not.”  I must have stared at him for the better part of a minute.  “Let me get this straight,” I said.  “I’m in a country where one million, one hundred and seventeen thousand people were murdered in horribly brutal ways, I’m the only white guy here and I can’t lock the door.”  He looked at me and nodded sadly. “Yes.”

Now, I was pretty doggone tired by this point and I knew of no other prospects for a room for the night, so I took the room.  I asked the hotel manager if I could borrow the tin sculpture of a native warrior that he had on the front desk and he agreed.  After he left, I unscrewed the bulbs on the stairway leading up to the alcove where my room was and placed the tin sculpture on the steps, figuring that if anyone bumped into it there would be quite a clatter as it fell down the concrete steps.  Then I went in my room and placed a chair against the knob, holding the door shut.  Next, I stripped off the blanket and quilt from my bed figuring I wouldn’t need them since this was July in Africa.  I rolled the covers into a ball and placed them on the other side of the chair so that if my attackers took a run at the door to pop the chair, they would trip over the rolled up blankets.  Then all I would have to do is jump out of the mosquito netting surrounding my bed and wrestle the machetes out of their hands.  Needless to say, I did not sleep well that night.

The next day I was able to get a room with a lock on the door.  While in Kilgali I interviewed some men in prison who had been convicted of murders during the genocide.  One of the men told me he still didn’t understand the bloodlust behind some of his actions.  “I killed babies,” he said. “I am a father. I have babies.  How could I kill babies?”  I also interviewed victims including one woman whose entire family had been killed and whose house had been burned to the ground.  She was now participating in one of the forgiveness programs where the men who had killed her family and burned her house had gone through a confession program and were now building her a new house as part of their retribution.  She had forgiven them and would bring them water as they worked.  John Rucyahana, an Anglican bishop, knew that there was so much pain and hatred in the country that only this kind of face to face repentance and forgiveness could save Rwanda.  About the third day I was there I got a call from the Bishop whom I was to stay with in his mountain compound the last weeks of my trip. 

“Jim,” he said in excellent English, “I understand you are leaving the hotel at night and talking to the people.”

“Yes,” I replied.  “I have to get the feel of the man on the street if I am to write about the country.  It can’t just be scheduled interviews.”

‘That is dangerous,” he continued, “but I understand.  I will send you a body guard.  His name is Apollos.  He will watch over you.”

Well, Apollos was a very nice man.  He wasn’t that big, but he seemed well versed in what was safe and what was not.  One time we were sitting at an outdoor restaurant in a crowded square and I became concerned about some slightly nefarious characters who kept staring at me.  I kept my passport in a wallet that was strapped to my shoulder so that there was no way it could be stolen.  From a distance though, it looked a little like a shoulder holster which might contain a gun.  When I was out at night with Oliver Stone in Thailand he once remarked, “Why do you wear that thing?  It looks like a gun.”  To which I replied, “Good!”  But, in Rwanda, things were different.  In Bangkok, a very dangerous city, the possibility that you were carrying a gun was something that would keep people at bay.  In Kigali, where nearly every human being had witnessed the most horrendous violence possible, a handgun was more of an invitation than a deterrent.  After all, how many could you kill?  But when I mentioned the men staring at me to Apollos he just shrugged and jerked his head to the left saying, “We are safe here.  There is army security nearby.”  I looked in the direction he was indicating.  “You mean that fifteen year old kid with the Uzi?”  He nodded.  I nodded too, but actually I was more afraid of the kid than I was the guys staring at me.

I soon realized the shoulder wallet was not a deterrent in Rwanda so I quit wearing it, but still people eyed me on the street. Often, when Apollos and I would enter a crowed area, I would hear the word mazuma being uttered through the crowd.  I would also hear the words zuma or zum, zum, zum. Sometimes, on a dark street where the brightest thing was my hair, this was unnerving.  I asked Apollos what the people were saying and he said, “White man.”  Then I asked him what the other words were and he said, “Variations of white man.”  I figured that was good enough.  I also figured that maybe I was getting too old for this kind of adventure.

Another problem with Apollos was that he walked very fast and I couldn’t keep up with him.  If I was attacked, there was an excellent chance that he would see who did it, but I’m not sure he would actually be able to stop it.  But whether it was Apollos or God watching over me I got through my trip with no injuries whatsoever.  What I learned in Rwanda was that God is not absent when great evil is unleashed.  Whether that evil is man made or helped along by darker forces God is right there, saving those who respond to His urgings and trying to heal the rest.  Sure He could stop the evil in its tracks.  But where do you draw that line without ending free will and turning mankind into a bunch of zombies?  When people ask me where God was in Rwanda, I say, right there on the streets amidst the dead and dying.  Today Rwanda has not only recovered from the genocide politically and economically, but men like Bishop John are accomplishing the impossible — healing the hearts of the people.  With God’s help.

Things didn’t quite work out so smoothly with David.  Back in 1969, I was living in Nashville, Tennessee. trying to make it as a songwriter.  From 1969 to 1971 I wrote about 300 sets of lyrics of which about 125 became songs, of which 32 were published by Nashville music publishing companies, of which 3 were recorded and released as records, of which none were hits.  During that time I met lots of colorful characters.  I met Jimmy Buffet who in those days, sounded more like James Taylor.  Jimmy and I have an unusual connection.  The first song he wrote that was released as a record was called Ellis Dee by an artist named Gary Miles.  Mike Leppert and I wrote the B-side of that single, a song called Jennifer Sunshine.  Gary Miles was actually a top Nashville publisher named Buzz Cason who was the first person to take a chance on both Jimmy and I.  In Jimmy’s case, it eventually paid off handsomely.  In my case, not so much.

Anyway, another friend of mine at that time was David Allan Coe.  Back then David was a struggling songwriter like me.  He used to drive a funeral hearse that he had painted white and decorated with steer horns welded to the hood.  He had yellow concert posters with red writing on them taped to both sides of the car.  It looked really nice.  David was always an original and, despite what you may have heard, a pretty good guy. We had lots of good times together hanging out at the life size replica of the Greek Parthenon that they had built in Centennial Park.  It was where all the hippies hung.  Well, eventually we both got a little action and a little money.  David moved back to Ohio for a while and I moved to a better neighborhood in another part of Nashville.  I thought I was going to hit the big time just about any day.  In fact I talked my 65 year old widowed mother into leaving a somewhat secure situation with my brother in Wichita, Kansas, and moving with me and three other songwriters into a big house in Nashville.  My mother was a wonderful person with a great sense of humor as you may have already figured out.

Well, after we’d been in the house a few months I get this call from David telling me he’s got some gigs in Nashville and wants to bring this hard rock country band from Cleveland down to try to get a record deal.  Can we stay with you?  I don’t have room.  What about the basement? Well, there is a basement, yeah.  We won’t be any trouble.  Now that was where I should have let some form of common sense enter in.  But no.  So David and the five members of Eli Raddish moved into my basement.  They were all nice guys. The band had this version of poker that they played all the time where cheating was legal, but if you got caught you had to match the pot.  So you can imagine that things often got out of hand.  And along with the yelling and fighting were the extremely loud practice sessions.  Of course, I pretty much knew all of that would happen and was willing to forgo it because of my friendship with David.  Then the band brought one of the stripper/hookers that hung around the Pancake Man restaurant over to the house for the weekend.  The next thing I knew Crystal – that really was her name – was upstairs borrowing my mom’s makeup and my mother was inquiring about her moral stature.  Things had gotten out of hand.  I told David that Crystal had to go and that maybe the band ought to leave pretty soon as well.  We agreed that the band could stay another week until the last of their gigs and we all parted as friends.  A few years later David wrote a couple of big country hits.  And then he became somewhat of a star himself.  I was happy for him.  I still am.

So today, when my wife questions my decision making process once in a while, I try to recall questionable ventures that I’ve done in the past.  Maybe I’m wiser.  Maybe I’m just older.

___

Maddancer #3 : A Celebration of the Strange : Downtown Nashville 1969

 

  The recent floods in Nashville, Tennessee,  brought to mind my years as a songwriter there. Nashville is home to some of the nicest and most talented people in the world. But Nashville in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s was also home to some strange folk.  Of course, a lot of these people only came out at night and that’s why the most bizarre place I have ever regularly visited was the Pancake Man Restaurant located in the downtown Nashville Holiday Inn.  Now I’m admitting that I myself and the three to five other songwriters who lived in that wild house on Central Avenue then were pretty strange ourselves – which is why we belonged with the late night Nashville crowd.

Before I digress, let’s break down the basic after midnight clientele of the Pancake Man.  First you had your Grand Ole Opry performers.  Now, this was back when the Opry was in the Rhyman Auditorium in downtown Nashville and not in its own theme park. Occasionally, a legitimate country music star dined at the Pancake Man but not that often.  But many second tier acts and their bands and backup singers always ate there.  Then you usually had a representative or two of the legions of honky tonk singers that performed all over Nash-ville, but especially in the downtown area.  Now, I don’t know how well you know your basic Honky Tonker but think of a bunch of David Allen Coes without the fame and the money and you’ll get the idea.

Another key ingredient of the Pancake Man crowd was the strippers and hookers.  There were like seven thou-sand strip bars in downtown Nashville then and each one had fifteen girls working there.  Okay, that’s an exag-geration. Let’s just say there were always a few there. Since Nashville was a major recording center then as well as now, you had all kinds of session musicians hanging around, some of whom were legends themselves.  

Downtown Nashville was also host to big wrestling shows and there were always a tag team or two wolfing pancakes there at two in the morning.  I don’t know how many professional wrestlers you know but, in public, they are pretty much like they are on stage except they don’t slam you on your face with a figure-4 leglock.  But they’re really loud.

Then you had songwriters, armies of them – three James Taylors, two Joan Baezes, four Carole Kings, two Carly Simons and three sets of Simon and Garfunkles. Some of these were hippies as well and that was the slot in which I and my co-habitators fell. 

So this one Saturday night we’re eating eggs and the Pancake Man is in its full glory, overflowing with the previously mentioned folk.  In comes the Allman Brothers, fresh from their concert at Vanderbilt University.  This is their first major tour even before the first album is released.  But everyone had heard of them.  This is the original band before they started dropping like flies caught in the heyday of the ‘60s rock myth.  Duane Allman was still alive.  Eric Clapton had already said he was an amazing guitar player and he’d already been in Rolling Stone.  Duane was tall about six foot maybe, but a little shorter than Gregg.  Both of them had long strait hair, down past their shoulders.  Gregg’s was pure blond and Duane’s was red.  Rock gods. And Dickie Betts stood next to them, already being recognized himself as a great guitar player.  I believe that Butch Trucks, Jaimo and LaMar were also there, but I can’t be positive (like everything else about the human body, the memory does its dance). 

I remember them scanning the room as they waited for a table and watching the look in their eyes as they took in the downtown Nashville menagerie.  After a few minutes, Dickie Betts looked over at us and recognize-ing kindred spirits(longhairs), came over to our table. He said, “Hi, I’m Dickie Betts of the Alman Brothers.  We just got done with our gig at Vanderbilt and…” Then he paused as he watched the Alaskens (their Wrestling stage name), one of our tag team patrons, go into one of their fake tantrums with another wrestler whose name I didn’t know but who we called the “Giant Craig” because he looked like a larger version of a good friend of ours.  When the professional wrestler-pseudo tantrum was done, Betts looked at me and said, “What the f**k’s the deal with this place.  I did my best to explain late-night Nashville to him and he marveled along with us that such a place could survive very long.  A few years later when I was writing my syndicated column on pop music I got invited to the Capricorn Records picnic and hooked up with Dickie again.  By then half his band was dead but we reminisced a bit.

Nashville by day wasn’t much more normal especially to some Illinois boys like us.  One time Mike Leppert and I had written a tune we thought was perfect for Bobby Goldsboro, the reigning country king of smaltz ballads who’d had huge hits with “Honey”, “Little Green Apples” and “Watching Scottie Grow”.  I wrote these lyrics called “Another Busy Day” and it was all about this guy who adored his wife and could never afford to take her to Paris and give her all the things she deserved.  We took it to Kenny O., Bobby’s song guy, who ran his music publishing companies.  Well, like most Nashville music execs, Kenny was a real nice guy and made time to listen to our latest batch of songs.  In fact, people are so nice in Nashville that it takes six months for you to figure out they’re just giving you the run around.  In L.A. you learn that in about an hour.  In New York, about ten minutes.

Anyway Kenny listened to the tape and didn’t find anything to his liking.  I made a point of asking him about “Another Busy Day” because I thought it was Bobby’s type of song, but he passed.  So then, Mike and I went across the street (actually across the alley) that ran between 16^th and 17^th Avenues, an area called Music Row in those days because of all the music compa-nies located there.  We took the song over to a guy named Larry who worked for Elvis Presley’s arranger at the time.  Larry put the tape on and as soon as he got to “Another Busy Day” he stopped the machine and said. “This song is perfect for Goldsboro.”  I said that I had thought so too but Kenny passed on it.

Larry nodded.  “Let’s take it over to Kenny right now.”

“I was just there,” I replied.  “He didn’t like it.”

Larry nodded again.  “Let go over there and play it for him.”

I looked at Mike and Mike shrugged.  “No, we were just there, not fifteen minutes ago and he passed on the song.”

Larry nodded.  “Alright, let’s go then.”

Who am I to question the marvelous minds of Nash-ville music?  I got up and Mike and I followed Larry right back to Kenny’s office.  When we entered, Larry said, “Hey Kenny, we got a song we think would be great for Bobby.”

I said, “Hi Kenny, you remember us.  We were here like twenty minutes ago.”

Kenny said, “Hello boys.  Yeah let’s hear it!”

Then he put the same tape back on the same machine where he had listened to the song before.

Larry said.  “It’s the third song.  It’s called “Another Busy Day”. 

Kenny nodded and fast forwarded the tape to the song.

I said, “Remember, it was the one I pointed out to you.”

Kenny said, “Alright, let’s take a listen.”

I looked at Mike.  Mike shrugged.  I shut up.

Kenny played the song.  After about a minute he said, “Yeah, this is Bobby’s kind of song alright.”

Larry agreed.  “And Glenn too.  We’ll get a lot of cuts on this.”

“Cuts” is music publisher slang for recordings and by Glenn I assumed they meant Glenn Campbell, another big star of the time. 

“Maybe even Johnny or Waylon,” Kenny added and Larry nodded.

When the song was over Larry said, “Alright I found the song so I get half of the publishing and you and Bobby can have the other half.”

“That’s fair,” Kenny said. “But you got to do the demo.”

“Okay,” Larry said.  “I might just record it on the album I’m working on and we can use that as a demo to pitch it. I’ll draw up the song-writing contracts with the boys here.”

Then he turned to me and said, “Congratulations, boys.  You got a hit song in the works.”

Now, as things tend to go, Larry’s album got bogged down so we never got our demo and then he left the company so our song was stuck with someone who didn’t care about it.  But that day, as I sat in Kenny’s office, I couldn’t help myself from looking the gift horse in the mouth.  After all the talking was done, I said.  “You know Kenny, when I played you that song like, oh about a half hour ago, you passed on it.  How come?”

He looked at me for a long moment and then he said, “I just couldn’t hear it then.”

I use this story in my book The Platinum Rainbow because it illustrates what I call “The Well Respected Source Rule” which means that, since the arts are so subjective, you always have more power when someone successful brings in your project.  That why agents work so well. Kenny was telling the truth.  He couldn’t hear it when the song was coming from two kids that were living in a ’65 Chevy.  But when Larry, a respect-ed songwriter/publisher, played it for him, he heard it loud and clear.

Maddancer Blog #2: The Illinois Winter Olympics

Maddancer Blog #2: The Illinois Winter Olympics

Well, we just concluded the first Illinois Winter Olympics which were held primarily in my front yard. The most popular event was Shoveling the Driveway, the gold medal for which was won by a neighbor from down the street who cleared a vehicle path in 12 minutes, 34 seconds – a new record. I took the silver and had a shot at the gold until I fell down and, knowing I had lost, began practicing for the snow angel event.

My friend F. Johnston was a double winner – taking home the gold for Bradley in two events – Car Jumpstarting (16 vehicles in 42 minutes) and Snow Writing (the entire Declaration of Indepen-dence in one burst — some credit must go to the six beers consumed moments before).

The Sand and Cardboard Under the Tires event went to M. Leppert of Kankakee who managed to get an entire refrigerator box and three buckets of sand under a 1994 Toyota Corolla.

Our only serious injury was to D. Rapier who won the gold in Cold Pole Tongue Sticking, but had to have the paramedics cut him free – yes, the tip of the tongue is still there.

There was quite a controversy over the Scraping a Windshield with a Credit Card event when J. Carter one of the younger contestants was found to be using a CD case.

As always, quite a crowd gathered for the Sidewalk Ice Dancing event, which was a thing of beauty. The winner, B. Rashkin performed to the music of Sade’s Smooth Operator. C. Erickson’s dance to Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love drew rave reviews from some but was too controversial for most judges.

The Icicle Whack was won by J. Simmone who sent a two foot Stalactite soaring fifteen feet over the trashcans and into the neighbor’s yard (actually into the neighbor’s small dog, which recovered once placed in a warm environment).

There were several injuries on the Icy Front Steps Climb but none seriously and three contestants did actually make it to the front door.

There was a touching family story when G. Reynolds won The Trashcan Chase and his wife Cathy took the gold in Snow Angel Making.

Salting the Front Porch was won by R. Denhart who managed to dump seven 30 bags in just under 8 minutes (a new record).

The Giant Snowman event was won by D. Horn whose nine foot in diameter base was an event record. The eventual height of 18 feet, 7 inches was just shy of the all time mark.

Loud cheering accompanied to Getting to the Mailbox without Falling was won by J. Garret who retrieved sixteen loads of mail before biting the ice.

As far as team standings went our home town, Kankakee, won with three gold, two silver and two bronze medals. Bradley was second with two of each category and forty three communities were tied for third with one medal each. The cities of Chicago, Peoria, Rockford and Joliet were not allowed to compete because of the likelihood that they contained citizens who were more skilled than ours. Also, we neglected to inform several other communities for the same reason.

All in all, it was a pretty successful launch, especially considering that most of us would have rather been doing something inside where it was warm.

Crazy Story #2
     This crazy story also happened while I was in Vegas working with Oliver Stone on his biography. It was at a weeklong confer-ence where students with the 500 top SAT scores were invited to hear inspirational talks from leaders in politics, business and the arts. While there I met Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, Robert Gates (head of the CIA at the time, now the Secretary of Defense), Richard Sessions (head of the FBI at the time), Kevin Costner, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Barbara Streisand, Bill Gates, Dolly Parton, Tom Selleck, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, a slew of other famous folk and a guy who sold popcorn outside Caesar’s Palace.

     It was the last official night of the conference and, after the last speaker, Kevin Costner came up to me and said, “Hey, I’ve got a blackjack dealer coming up to my room so we can gamble up there instead of going into the casino. You and Oliver are invited. “Great,” I said. “Who else is going to be there?” Kevin began counting, “Let’s see…you, me, Oliver, Barbara (Streisand), Bruce (Willis), Demi (Moore), Tom Selleck and Barry Diller (former CEO of Paramount). Yeah, that’s eight. In like thirty minutes.”

     I told Kevin it sounded good to me but I would have to check with Oliver. Well, it turned out that Oliver had something else he wanted to do so we didn’t go which is probably good because I had been thinking: “What am I going to bet? What if I lose? What if I have to go home and tell my wife that I lost the house to Bruce Willis?”

     Sometimes God keeps me out of trouble.

#1: The Day I Made the Cats Believe the Vacuum Cleaner was God

Maddancer Blog #1
The Day I Made the Cats Believe the Vacuum Cleaner Was God

It’s like that old joke about cats and dogs. Dogs look at you and go, “Wow, you feed me, pet me, love me…You must be God!” And Cats go, “Wow, you feed me, pet me, love me…I must be God.” So, even though I love cats and fawn over them and do all that kitten bull shit, I still will follow about any path that gets them to do something I want. After all, it’s not like you can train them. In short, when I saw the look in Caper and Sweetpea’s eyes when I turned on the vacuum cleaner, I knew what I had to do. And the truth of it is that the vacuum cleaner did most of the training. Anything that large, that noisy, with a weird shape that breathed – that was something to recon with. So the fear part of the training was easy. At first I didn’t chase them with it. At first I cooed and shut it off and then I realized that they were never going to accept the vacuum cleaner, especially as a regular, weekly part of their lives. So why not do something with it? Use that fear to get the cats to obey.
Fear with no love is not any kind of a real God so if I really wanted the cats to be good – especially if I wanted them to be good when the vacuum cleaner was off, then I needed to show them some love – the warm fuzzy God behind the thunderbolt. So I always push the vacuum cleaner away from the cats to minimize the fear – they were already so fucking scared of the thing that they were about to blow up. And then I would sing happy songs or enthusiastically hum rock anthems while I vacuumed and cooed at the cats. Since I’m pretty damn sure they can’t distinguish between me and the vacuum cleaner when I’m running it, I felt I was showing them the loving side of the cleaner. That really didn’t work, but it did calm them somewhat. Slowly, they got used to the terror of the mighty Hoover being coupled with the warmth of an old David Crosby song. It was slowly working. At night, the vacuum cleaner, not just a huge source of power but also now their sort of mutual friend, sat silent vigil over the litter box less anyone but Dad try to change it (don’t worry about that) Then on Saturday when Mom worked and Dad was off because writers who live very long never work on Saturdays, well, especially Irish writers don’t. On Saturdays the old dirt sucker roared to life sending al the nonhumans to another room. But then I would make some vague cat sounds and sing parts of “Almost Cut My Hair” or “Cowboy Movie” and the cats would begin peaking around the corner.
Now, I’m not certain that the litter box is more orderly or that they leave the dog alone more, but they have been going straight into their room at night without slinking under the sofa or some kind of unbelievable chase down. The reason I have to keep them in the room (my home office by the way – that litter box is just fucking great for the computer) is that they race top speed around the house at night. They’ll pounce on you bed, slam each other into walls, knock the damn curtain rod down and scatter the dog’s dry food bowl all over the kitchen in frenzied play. Since they’re locked up, they do less of that shit, too. And they’re trained. At night Caper begs to go in there and Sweetpea moves as soon as the food hits the bowl – food is another great motivator – so it all kind of works. Course I still have to wedge the door and stick my old electric typewriter in front of the door so they can reach under it and open it. Then I wedge this exercise ball that my wife has yet to blow up since Christmas. My wife works so much that she barely has time to do anything. She’s amazing. And I contribute too. I pay big chunks of bills when I get paid which is often but not regular. So money is sort of always a surprise. So I help out doing dishes and vacuuming, especially on Saturday when she has to work and I can stay home and do chores. And I trained the cats.

 

Crazy Story #1

            So I’m in Vegas working with Oliver Stone on his biography.  We’re attending a weeklong conference where students with the 500 top SAT scores have been invited to hear inspirational talks from leaders in politics, business and the arts.  While there I met Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, Robert Gates (head of the CIA at the time, now the Secretary of Defense), Richard Sessions (head of the FBI at the time), Kevin Costner, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Barbara Streisand, Bill Gates, Dolly Parton, Tom Selleck, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, a slew of other famous folk and a guy who sold hot dogs outside the Mirage hotel.

            I have a ton of stories from these four days.  One of them involves meeting Bruce and Demi.  It’s Saturday afternoon and the casino in the Mirage is jammed with people.  Here come Bruce and Demi strolling through and Oliver says we should go over and say hello.  So we walk up.  Bruce has his head pretty much shaved for an upcoming role and he is very nice and down to earth saying things like, “I’m gonna change and then see if I can make some dough on one of these crap tables.” A very Bruce Willis type of comment. Demi, on the other hand, is cold and pissed off.  She is wearing a black nylon blouse that is totally see-through with nothing underneath and she’s complaining that people keep staring at her.  I’m thinking, “You’re a huge movie star, you’re with another huge movie star, it’s Saturday afternoon in a crowded Vegas casino and you’re wearing a see-through blouse…and you’re upset that people are staring at you?”

            You gotta forgive celebrities sometimes because they just don’t get much of a clear shot at reality.

Rwanda Report Validates Charges Made in My Book

The recently released Rwanda Report has validated and supported my investigation (considered controversial and far fetched at the time) that the government of France not only arranged the assasination of Rwanda’a president which triggered the genocide in which over a million people were horribly murdered, but actually trained the kill squads in torture and kill techniques and even participated in some of the executions. All this was done by France so they could keep a colonial hold on Rwanda. Obviously the French government considers the Rwandan a subhuman worth sacrificing for the ends of the white man. My apologies to my many My Space friends in France but the truth needs to be told.
What Century are these people living in?

James Riordan ~ Mad Dancer

The author of twenty-one books, James Riordan’s career began in the music industry where as a songwriter, manager, producer and concert promoter he worked with several well known artists. In 1976 he began writing a news-paper column on popular music, Rock-Pop, which he later syndicated. Riordan soon became one of America’s premier rock journalists with articles reaching millions of readers including those of Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy, Circus, Music-ian, and newspapers like The Chicago Daily News, The Kansas City Star, and many others. His reputation for relating on a one-to-one level soon led to interviews with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, Frank Zappa, The Doobie Brothers, Kenny Rogers, Barbra Mandrell, Crosby, Stills & Nash and countless others.