My Real Memoir
My band, The Daily Planet, had just finished recording our first album and were anxious to get on with becoming famous! Our sonic heroes were soaring: The Beatles with “Get Back” and soon Abbey Road, Simon & Garfunkle and Joni Mitchell with musical/lyrical masterpieces, our buddies in Three Dog Night with their break-out hit “One,” and The Who with Tommy—I’d been kicking around the idea of a rock opera for a year, but so far had only come up with a poster (above).
School was out. Marc and I had just finished our first year of college, drummer Joey had tossed his tassel and received a diploma, and bass player Jeph, the towering baby of the group, had just finished his junior year playing Fagin in the musical Oliver!
Now what?
Our friend and fan club president Kathy had an answer: Her father was hosting the four-man Congressional Commission on Something-or-Other and needed them picked up at the airport. So each of us drove one congressman to the Ambassador Hotel. My guy, impressed with my sparkling repartee, called me a “delightful young fellow,” but changed that to something you pick up after your dog when I got lost and delivered him to his destination two hours late, long after the champaign had gone flat and the lobster’d gone cold.
Nevertheless, Kathy’s dad rewarded us with a weekend retreat at his vacation house in the SoCal desert. It was just what we needed. And didn’t. When we arrived, host Kathy offered us drinks. Gin and tonic? Screwdriver? I’d had exactly two drinks in my life, a Bloody Mary that I hated and a Cherry Alexander that I loved (a brandy malt!) So I requested “one of everything.” Six or seven drinks later, I had the bright idea of playing “How Drunk Can I Get?”
Kathy and the remaining Planets showed a modicum of restraint. But I exercised the opposite of a modicum — a lot-icum. I tried to walk a straight line and crashed into the wet bar. Sang “Pinball Wizard” in a hitherto-unknown key. And then had to be carried to bed, avowing, “I love you guys SOOOOOO much!”
Joe’s bed was next to mine, so when I announced, “Whoo! The room’z spinning, Joey!” he informed me, “You’re gonna throw-up!”
“No, I not, Joey, I feel…”
I threw-up everything I and all of my ancestors before me had ever eaten.
“See!”
The next day, I had something else I’d never had before: a hangover. While horseback riding with a pretty local girl who I figured might find me less attractive if I got the dry heaves in the middle of my not-so-sparkling repartee, I made a mental note: Drunk—not good.
Dirt bikes, on the other hand, were very good! I must have hit the soft desert sand going thirty-miles-an-hour fifteen times (although it might have been the other way around), without the slightest injury.
I was invincible, and in fits and starts, parental handrails removed, sweet, conservative girlfriend gone, was spinning more and more out of control. How much more would I try?
A lot-icum!
My Real Memoir is a series. To read the next one, click here.
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Growing pains are tough but we do learn from them….. LaMirada Performing Arts is presenting Mystic Pizza and it does remind me of our youth… We had the Viet Nam War though which brought a level of sad and fear to everyone I knew. It affected us all though we didn’t talk about it, life did change… Our youth was forever changed…
I was indeed. My I ask who this is? (WordPress labels it Anonymous.)
I remember those days, Mitch, but without the joy of a band or a dirt bike. The first hangover will never be duplicated in my brain. I had two years of a lot-icum in the far north of Ontario, almost frontier territory. Long story, not for now, to now, when there is none-icum! God gets me high enough, and without the hangover!♥️✝️
Fortunately, most of us do learn in time, Gail. And, yes, faith is often the turning point. It was in my case, although it took quite a few years and quite a few bad choices to get to that point.
♥️Twenty-two years for me! In retrospect, God must have had some purpose for me all along, or I wouldn’t be here today. April 1, 1990, marked my official submission to His will.✝️
<3
Well, you certainly sowed your wild oats. 🙂
I did, Nancy. And this was just the beginning.
Oh man…I hated that feeling. The problem is that a brandy alexander tastes like a milk shake. No more!
;>)
“Modicum-aloticum” ha ha! Love that. Funny story, Mitch!
Thanks, Rhonda!
Dirt bikes and drinking yourself brainless? I’m glad you survived!
Thanks, Priscilla, me too!
A cliff hanger! The pressure is building for the next installment.
“Drunk – not good,” a sound bite to internalize.
Yes, Mitch, drunk not good, but you can’t say you were a teenager, especially in a rock band, without having a hangover. It’s a “rite of passage” or some crap like that. Good recount of good times. The foot hanging off the bed and touching the floor always helped for me, made the room stop spinning.
;>)
Thanks for sharing this memory!
My pleasure, Vanya.
You’ve been in a band as well?! Tell me, what haven’t you done? 😉
Bullfighting?
Better jot it down on your bucket list
Cheers to the days we thought would never end!!!!😊
I would have loved hearing you do this: “Sang “Pinball Wizard” in a hitherto-unknown key.”
Trust me, Neil, you wouldn’t have loved it.
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