Eddie Cochran - 1958 - Summertime Blues [originally posted on 2/5/2009]

[Note from the editor, Shlepcar (Chris Earley)]: This song is a selection by my totally awesome old man, the Vietnam vet, Marine, Harley rider and American Indian, Ray Earley. The write-up is via email, and I can't actually verify all of the claims, but I'm going to post what he wrote to me. If you've ever heard any of the stories from me of my Dad, or read about him in the 2007 version of this site, I hope you're happy as I am for his contribution. The tone has been set.]

Me (to my dad Ray): I've resurrected my old site, www.songotheday.com I encourage you to check it out, actually to register so you get the emails- it is an easy way to keep up with your oldest son

Ray:

OK Chris- Has anybody ever done anything on one of the greatest songs of all times? SUMMERTIME BLUES by the late great Eddie (Raymond) Cochran, DOB 10/03/1938-17/04/1960. I was 13 or 14 when “Summertime Blues” was first played on KDWB in Minneapolis. I fuckin' went crazy when I heard this song at 15. I had a '51 Ford “Vicky” dual-exhaust. The springs had been heated to collapse them and make it a low rider. I had put speakers behind the grill, so everyone else could hear Eddie, or the”Big Bopper” (Chantilly Lace), the Impalas, or the Del Vikings. 

When Eddie Cochran was killed in England, I actually got pissed-off drunk! We mourned him!! Albert Lea, Minnesota has Eddie Cochran Days in June, but I believe he was originally from Oklahoma.

People born in Minnesota sound nasally..like Bob Dylan! 

Me: Thanks for this- would you like me to post it to the site?

Ray:

Boozhoo Chris: Post it. You need an old fart to remind youse where the “music” came from. Back in those days everyone dug Elvis, which was ok, but Eddie Cochran was a musician.  He could play a guitar; Elvis strummed along. After the 'MUSIC DIED' and then Eddie, I was in “Dinkytown” in 1963 AND HEARD “SPIDER JOHN KOERNER. He played with Dave “Snaker” Ray, Tony “Little Sun” Glover on “Blues,Rags and Hollers”.

I lived on the West Bank, and partied with the boys in the late 60s, which led me to the blues: guys like Sonny Terry and Brownie MaGhee, Muddy Waters, and Bo Diddley. 

The Beatles sucked. Girls loved them. I hated them.

Dave Ray died of cancer a few ago. Tony Glover is still kickin', and John Koerner still plays the bars. Electra recorded a few of their albums, but spent their Wad on The Doors. 

Chris, you were conceived while “Blues, Rags and Hollers” was playin' in the 8-track player of my '67 Mustang Convertible.

Love Pop

Me: Thanks Pop! lu

-Ray Earley

Koerner, Ray and Glover - 1962 - Jimmy Bell [originally posted on 4/11/2009]

Boozhoo (Ojibway hello),

I listen to a lot of dead people (i.e.Jim Morrison, Eddie Cochran, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson).These guys featured are: John Koerner (an old 'drink til we tipped over' bud), Dave Ray (died of cancer Thanksgiving Day 2002), and Tony Glover (blues harp player who worked as a DJ for KRQS shortly after they hit the airwaves in 1969...he'd play songs all night and before he went off the air he was known to utter “OK”). As South Minneapolis white boys, they found a collection of old “negro” blues (before “black” was coined popular). Most of these 78s were of Leadbelly. This was back in the 50s and the music world ain't been the same since. 

According to their history, some of the people they influenced were Bob Dylan, The Beatles... 

But who gives a fuck about all that shit. All I know is I found them playing in bars- Triangle, the Viking, the 400. It was 1968, and I had just come home from Vietnam. I lived in an area called the West Bank in South Minneapolis, near the University of Minnesota, where I was trying to go to school. I rode a 68 XLCH SPORTSTER, made by Harley-Davidson. 

The West Bank is on the Mississippi across the river from the U. It had a lot of old rental houses with day-glo painted doors. This is the area that I wanted...wine, women and song. The Veterans Administration were paying me to go to school. They took attendance. But I lived in a party house where a lot of drinkin' and smokin' was goin' on. It left me little time for school. I think I made it two quarters, then I met Christopher's ma! Then I joined “Vietnam Veterans Against the War”- fuck it all. We needed to raise funs, I mean FUNDS. The March on DC to stop the war, “Winter Soldier” and then defending ourselves against Nixon and his Henchmen. Goddamn it was phun...getting charged in the district, “The United States of America vs. Ray Earley”!! PHUCKIN' RIGHT ON!!! Oh, John Koerner sang and played free to raise funds to send us to D.C. John is now in his 70s and still plays the bars!!I'm so phuckin happy Obama got elected!!I gotta go to a funeral today. 

Naygwonabe (RUFFLED FEATHERS)

Jamey Johnson - 2008 - High Cost of Living [originally posted on 6/16/2009]

This here is a country song. I grew up hearin' “shit-kickin'“ songs, as we called them. I lost interest until Waylon and Willie came back along. I've been to Willie's Fourth of July Party. 

Anywho... This is Jamey Johnson. He covers some of Waylon's songs, but I like his own writing. One of my favorites is “High Cost of Living” from the Sound of him being released. I've been there - I know what the cost of gettin' high is about! This here is a blues song, written and sung by a country singer, who is one of the best to come down that road in awhile. 

Redbone - 1974 - Come and Get Your Love [originally posted on 7/13/2009]

“Redbone” is an old Cajun term meaning ‘dark skin’ or ‘mixed blood’. Pat and Lolly Vasques - YAQI brothers - had been around for awhile. They met, partied and played with Jimi Hendrix, who was part Native American. Hendrix persuaded the brothers to form a Native American band, thus resulting in Redbone. Along came the American Indian Movement (AIM) who had attracted the thousands of Native Youth who lived in the large urban areas where their families had been relocated by the “Bureau” - Bureau of Indian Affairs, in an effort to assimilate them. It being the 70s, it was the Movement’s heyday with its march on Washington and its takeover of the B.I.A. Redbone played continuously on 8-tracks that every old “rez” car was equipped with. “Come andGet Your Love”, “Witch Queen of New Orleans,” “Maggie” - I’ve known numerous young girls named Maggie (my daughter was named Corrina, Maggie being a close second). 

Anywho, back to the band. Redbone knew how to put on a show. They would finish their sets with “Fancy Dancers” in Regalia, THE “Rock n Rollers of Pow-Wows”. The Band came to an end in the 80s. Their effort to reunite have been a loss - old age, strokes.

I still have my 8-track! 

Leon Russell - 1972 - Tight Rope [originally posted on 7/22/2009]

Back in the 1970s, I had this friend who rode a Harley-Davidson. So did I – it’s how we became friends. Anywho, he would get these jobs at the Auditorium or the old Minneapolis Armory working security for bands that played their gigs there. Sometimes we partied with them or we were paid other than money.

One night we got a Leon Russell gig. “Fat Frank” had set it up. I was a Russell fan (I owned an 8-track of his!). So back at the auditorium we held the “teenies” off. When it was over we had to wait until receipts were counted and divvied up and the trucks were loaded - Russell had a large entourage, a lot of speakers, instruments, and costumes. 

While the crew was tearing down we partied hearty. Ol’ Leon came out to thank us and as he got to “Fat Frank”, Frank pointed to the beaver skin hat on Russell's head that was popular for a coupla hundred years or more in London and says “NICE HAT” where then Leon removed it from his head, and said, ”It's yours, man”. 

 Ol’ Frank couldn't believe it. That beaver skin hat sat on Frank’s mantle for 20 years- anyone who knew “Fat Frank” knew where that Hat came from - until one day Frank was ripped off. Poor Frank never got over it.

Anyhow, as we got old and started dyin’ off, Frank organized the “OLD FARTS” party. For the last ten springs we had met and partied - not as hearty! - up on the Mississippi River. Two years ago Frank died from diabetes. He had a huge funeral. Bikers from all over. That’s why he had organized the 'OLD FARTS' - so we would know when someone kicked off. Before Frank died, he got a call from a woman requesting he visit her dying husband who was wanting to confess that he had stolen and sold The Leon Russell Hat. Frank's response was “Fuck him!” Anyway, Leon has always been good!

R.I.P. FRANK!!!

Rat

Golden Earring - 1973 - Radar Love [originally posted on 7/30/2009]

“Radar Love” became a hit in the early 70s. Back in the day when straddlin’ your hog, you checked your belt, Buck knife - check, inside your leathers, in your vest, an 8-ball of crank - check. 

This was before it became popular and the so-called epidemic drug it became after the US Government was burnin’ itself out in goin’ after that high-priced Yuppie Shit called cocaine. 

ANYHOO, this song is by the world’s oldest rock band 'Golden Earring'. They were Dutch and have been together since 1961, still playin’ now.

On runs we would stop in a small town bar, snort a Buck of Crank, hit the head, and order a beer. Beer kept the Crank down, Crank kept the Beer mellow, and NO one was the wiser. “RADAR LOVE” WAS THE ONLY SONG WE PLAYED! Then it was onto the next stop, usually an hour, or whenever we needed Gas!!

RADAR LOVE!

David Rose and His Orchestra - 1962 - The Stripper [originally posted on 8/6/2009]

It was 1962 and a movie called Gypsy came out. Anyhoo, us Catholics weren't supposed to go or we would go to

HELL! So we went…had to drive to Minneapolis. A composer by the name of David Rose wrote his biggest hit called “The Stripper”. Oh man, we loved that music (instrumental). We would start to pretend we were strippin’-drinkin’ and dancin’ around the fire. The top 40 stations all played it and then times changed. 

Along came Vietnam and a whole bunch of other shit, But I never forgot that song and bought the album...

1974, I was in trouble. They wanted to lock my innocent ass up (check kiting?) [Ed. Note: did youmean semi-innocent?] So I got A JOB! First time I worked for someone else and also was supposed to quit drinking alcohol.

I'm a good welder. After testing, I was hired. I started that day, second shift, welding augers for a large farm machinery manufacturer. Turned out I was the best welder they had. My foreman used to send me next door so the slow welders could catch up. Anywhoo, it was a strip bar. So me and my assistant would weld up 8 augers before the first break then sit in the bar until it was time to go home. 

Times were tough back in ’74- the country was going through a recession. So the Company was bought by some Bible Thumpers out of Missouri. They used to start a shift by all praying in a circle, which being a BORN AGAIN PAGAN, I refused to join in on. That was my first mistake. I should have shined those inbreds on. A few months later they threw the employees a Christmas party at a local night club. I hadn't intended on going and me and my partner were sittin’ in the bar, which was empty. In walks my foreman- a decent enough guy. “Hey come on! Let’s go to the party”, where he pulls out a roll of drink tickets and places them on the bar. Nursing a beer, one of the strippers walks in only to be told by the bartender that they wouldn't need her today as everyone was at the Christmas party. She came over and sat down on a stool. We soon had our heads together and after a brief discussion, we decided to give them a Christmas present.

The stripper went into the dressing room and changed into her costume. We all climbed into my truck and drove over to the nightclub. The shrimp and steak dinners were being passed out, and these old farts were looking cautiously at my stripper- the same one that they would stuff dollars in her G-String trying to kiss a titty. I told her to wait backstage and I WOULD GET THE MUSIC STARTED. As soon as everyone was served- all 250 people- I stopped by the band and passed out $100.00 in drink tickets (I had $500 worth!). “Play me David Rose’s 'The Stripper!' “

When I opened the curtain, there she stood in an evening gown. ”Merry Christmas everyone” she said. As the music started, off came her gown, and then she danced.

“Hi Louie, Hi Roger”…but no one heard her. It was assholes and elbows heading for the exits.

“Hypocrites!” I yelled.

We went back to the bar after cashing in $400 in drink tickets. Monday afternoon I went to work. Walking onto the Floor I caught a few snickers, but most wouldn't look at me. I went to check-in. My time card had a note and check in it saying I wasn't needed. A few months later I heard the plant closed for good and the Bible thumpers went back to Missouri.

Dion - 1968 - Abraham, Martin and John [originally posted on 8/27/09]

WOKE UP THIS MORNING to the news of another dead Kennedy! That’s number three now in my lifetime.

IT WAS 1960 and the good Catholic nuns had us all praying for John Kennedy and raising money for his election as the 1st Catholic Prez. I wonder what they woulda thought of Marilyn Monroe?   I WOULD BE IN THE MARINES - at the old Camp Matthews rifle range when he was assassinated in Dallas on 22 November 1963. I remember all the drill instructors were telling us this remarkable piece of marksmanship had been performed by a former Marine!!!  ASSHOLES!!

IT WAS 1968- I would be lying in the Minneapolis VA Hospital, having just come out of surgery and the news was Kennedy had been assassinated in L.A. Man, have these people got this all fucked up! It Was Dallas! Dipshits! It would be a couple of days before my head cleared up enough to figure it out.

AS A MEMBER of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, we would lobby Congress in 1972 to set up a Discharge Review Board. The DOD was passin’ out administrative discharges to Nam vets who, on their way out of Vietnam, were being questioned on drug use. If they admitted to smoking “pot”, the FUCKS wrote them an Administrative Discharge - WHICH WAS GOOD FOR NOTHING. Sen. Ted Kennedy was a big help in getting this Bill Passed to set up the committee [to aid the Vietnam Veterans Against the War]. His bud, and rising political star at the time, was John Kerry who spoke for us at a joint session of Congress! A few signs were spotted “Free John Kerry’s Maid”.Ol’ Ted would invite us to his Virginia Farm where he threw a buncha Nam Vets a wild party! With his death this morning, I thought of this song Dion covered.

RAT-A TAT TAT 

Bobby Bare - 1963 - All-American Boy [originally posted on 9/3/2009]

This here song was one of my favorites back in the early 60s. I had myself a car, and guitar - couldn't play a lick. Traded that Gibson for a bow ‘n arrow and a box of beer.

What ol’ Bobby Bare was singin’ about was what would happen to a lot of us in the 60s when UNCLE SAM would say. ”Here I am”. IT WAS CALLED THE DRAFT. It was a lottery. You registered, and ol Uncle Sam, Local draft boards, PULLED a number out - like it was Bingo - and your number was in that sequence. 

You was headed for S. VIETNAM, for maybe for the rest of your life. There were ways to get deferments (Ol Dick Chenney had five of ‘em). And then there was a beautiful country called Canada. A cousin of mine still lives there.

Anywhoo… ol Bobby got drafted and his record Co. credited Bill Parsons with this NUMBAH 2 HIT. Talk about pissin’ on your shirt tail! It would take a few years before Bobby Bare would get his due, but eventually he would. He went country after getting’ out of the Army. He served his tour in Germany.

PARTY HEARTY, DRINK ONE FOR Me! 

Miigwich Naygwonabe. That’s Ojibwe, thanks from Ruffled Feathers, First Chief of the Mille Lacs Band! Rat

Scott McKenzie - 1967 - San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) [originally posted on 9/13/2009]

1968 - I came home from the far east.

SINCE I was 17, I had been in Hawaii, Okinawa, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, and two tours of Vietnam. After 4 years and 4 months, I was getting out of the US Marines at 21. Having been in all these countries, I had sampled their beer and “skivvy houses”. The cost for a “Shortime”, or “Boom-Boom, ME Love You Forever! Girl” was $2.00 to $5.00, a fair price indeed. It was heaven. Anywhoo, my point being, after getting my young ass laid hundreds of times, from Hotel St. Honolulu to “Dogpatch” Danang, I hadn’t caught anything- no clap, no crabs, no anything!    

Golden Gate State Park, Feb 1968. Me and a few friends had been in Hue City for the beginning of the “Tet Offensive”. We were Combat Marines having just come out of battle! Tight as a drum, we were wired for sound. This may be the first you have heard, but combat makes you horny! 

Anywhoo, we were in the park, a couple million hippies, lotsa grass and other shit. This hippie chick comes up to me, I pass along a joint. When she asked “D’ya wanna ball?”, having no idea what she meant, I looked at my friends questioningly. She wants to FUCK YOU DUMMIE! A BOOM-BOOM GIRL, I said! Into the bushes we went for 15 minutes! They timed me! Remember I said combat makes ye horny!

After the concert, I ended up downtown at the Marine Memorial Club, sitting alone at a table. This older woman - 40 something - sent over a bottle of beer. As I said thanks, I joined her at her table. Later at her high rise, she proved to be as horny as I was! In the AM I got up, dressed, threw $5 on the bed and caught a bus back to Oakview Naval Hospital. The next time a corpsman took my vitals, he noticed me itching my crotch, and after looking me over, said “You’re going into ISO! You have the crabs!”

After being treated for the crabs, they said a blood sample showed I had “the Clap” and I would have to spend a week in isolation! Great! A corpsman said “We are not obligated, but it would be a good idea to notify your last sexual partner.” I didn't know where to find that crab-clap infested hippie chick, but I had the old lady’s address. The Corpsmen gave me a tube of crab medication and said to tell her I had given her a dose! Upon arriving at her condo, she slammed her door in my face. I figured she was pissed after finding out she had the crabs. Wanting to be of some help, I shouted through her door “I brought you some medicine. Rub it on your pubic area and try and get some up your rectum! And you better get a blood test!” As I turned to leave I heard doors being shut and locked. 

Well anywhoo, I been doin’ good deeds since!

Rat-a tat-tat!

The Surfaris - 1963 - Surfer Joe [originally posted on 9/21/09]

During the early 1960s, there was the surf sound coming out of Southern California. Bands called Jan and Dean, The Beach Boys, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, and along with dozens of others, these guys - The Surfaris. They all sang about what we midwesterners could only imagine: surfing, Hot Rods, partying on the beach.

Surfing became a lifestyle, influencing fashion - pants, shirts, hairstyles, and of course the “Woodie”, a little Ford station wagon with wood grain trim on the side. At the time, the media - Life, Look, and the big rags - all wrote the “Surfers” UP! I think it also caused one of the population growths in Southern California.

It was over in ‘65 when what was called the British Invasion showed up! Even George Lucas had John Milner

(AMERICAN GRAFFITI) Say “I DON'T LIKE THAT SURFIN SHIT” about a Beach Boys Tune!

Anyhoo, me and my folks and a Judge decided I should become a Marine, so in 1963 I became a Marine along with a bunch of guys that were relatives - the O’Conner’s, out of San Diego. They were a family of 13, consisting of famous swimmers, twins - one who would later become the Mayor of San Diego. They lived near the beach and taught me how to surf. The Marines also had a beach - Del Mar - and you could check out a surfboard for the weekend.

I became a good surfer. It was cheap and fun, especially for Marines. We were hated [by a lot of residents] in Southern California at the time! The surfers we met on the beach and partied with - wine drinkers all - listened to the Surfaris’ “Wipeout” and “Surfer Joe”, who in the song would become a Marine. They didn't think much of the Beach Boys, calling them the “Fat Boys”. 

Anywhoo, I loved this song/story. It was a sing-along. Oh yeah, I surfed China Beach in Danang, Vietnam in 1967, while on my in-country R+R! Ain't many can claim they surfed China Beach! Rat

Johnny Cash - 1964 - The Ballad of Ira Hayes [originally posted on 9/26/09]

“The Ballad of Ira Hayes”, penned by Peter LaFarge, was covered by singers such as Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, and the best was old Johnny Cash. Marine Native Americans loved this song. Played in clubs worldwide, the word would go out, WHEN PLAYED, Attention! and everyone in the club stood tall!

This song pretty much told you about Ira's Short life. I sure like the way John growls at the end of the song! Tony Curtis played Ira's story in a movie called The Outsider, which was played continuously, in Liberty Towns, near Camp Pendleton. Recently Clint Eastwood adapted the book, Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley and Ron Powers. Adam Beach probably played Ira better than anyone has - could that be that Adam is Native? Ira Hayes is buried in section 34, Arlington National Cemetery if you care to visit him.

Semper Fi!

Rat

Peter, Paul & Mary - 1963 - Puff (The Magic Dragon) [originally posted on 10/3/2009]

Back around 1960 or so, there was a trio of folk singers who were known as Peter Paul and Mary. They had a few hits, but the only reason I listened to them was Mary Travers. The way she sang (a voice that was so smooth and sultry) and looked (long blond hair that she wore in bangs) - she was what nowadays would be called hot!

I don't think I ever bought any of their albums. They were played so often on the top 40 stations I knew their songs by heart. One of their songs was called “Puff the Magic Dragon” - a kid’s lullaby. It was also the name given to a “Gatling Gun'' used in Vietnam. The description is below. Having heard this gun workout, it sounds like an OLD MAN'S FART, ferrrrrrrrrrrrrrah! Long and DEADLY.

The United States Air Force flew its AC-47 gunships in Vietnam while utilizing the call sign “Spooky.” Each of the three Gatling guns (aka “mini-guns'') installed in “Puff” was capable of firing 100 rounds per second. That's 6,000 rounds per minute PER GUN and there were 3 guns. Apparently, to both friends and the enemy, the fire from the eighteen barrels and the tracer rounds reaching to the ground looked like a “dragon's breath.” That fiery breath and the loud roar of the guns led to the name, “Puff the Magic Dragon,” taken from a folk song by Peter, Paul and Mary, which was recorded and made famous in the early 1960s.  

Anywhoo, Ol’ Mary died of cancer just the other day.

RIP Mary!

RAT-A-TAT-TAT

Kenny Rogers & The First Edition - 1969 - Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town [originally posted on 10/10/2009]

A few months ago, my fellow Vietnam Vet, and Old Mud Marine, Annishinabe, Fond Du Lac Rez Resident, and beer drinkin’ bud Jim Northrup, offered my wife and I a free room at the Black Bear Casino, with the entertainment being Kenny Rogers. The casino and free room were what we needed. Kenny Rogers hadn't done anything for my ears since he had been with The First Edition. 

We went to the concert with the rest of the seniors and after warning the Old Ladies behind us not to be trying to throw their skivvies at Kenny, I dozed peacefully. That’s what Kenny sings - lullabies. What woke me was the First Edition had covered an old Mel Tillis song with the title of “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town”.  It was a country song with the story of a disabled vet who had a woman who was doin’ him wrong. 

When the song came out in ’69, I had been in and out of the local VA hospital. Later, I would also marry a Ruby, who turned out to be a lyin’, cheatin’, sneaky, two-timin’ bitch, who got everything I owned with the help of the courts - leaving me houseless, carless, and trustless!

ANYWHOO, back to Ruby. According to Tillis, his neighbor in Florida was a severely wounded WWII VETERAN who married his English nurse and brought her home. This Ruby liked to run around. In real life, this Vet knew he would be dead soon, so he took Ruby with him. He blew her away and then himself! So this song has been therapeutic for my sick ol’ ass!

I was happy to hear Ruby! 

RAT

The Eagles - 1972 - Take It Easy [originally posted on 10/18/2009]

 It was 1972. I was homeless, drank a lot, locked up, beat up a lot of people, rode a Harley I had built in welding class, owned a couple pairs of Levis, my leathers, and a cassette player and crashed wherever I was partying. Wife and I had split. 

I had gone to DC as a Vietnam Veteran against the War and was drinkin’ in this bar called the HAWK +DOVE. I was wearing a t-shirt that said “VIETNAM VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR”.  

Anywhoo… three dudes came up to me and said they was American Nazi's and they was gonna KILL ME!! I said I'm a CHIPPEWA from Minnesota and put all three of them sorry ass Bastards in the hosp, where upon I went to jail, where these Cubans who had been caught breakin’ into the Watergate were my cell mates. In court the next morning the Judge set up a court date and says I had to stick around. Six weeks later this Old Cherokee Lawyer got me off. 

Anywhoo, at the time I was one Violent Pissed off Combat Veteran who didn't give a fuck about anything, myself included. Years later after a few marriages and many jailings, I was hospitalized in the VA, where I was diagnosed with P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). One of the therapies the VA used was music, mostly classical, but I prefer Eagles “Take It Easy”. I keep the CD in my house, truck, and car and use it frequently after getting married again and having kids!

TAKE IT EASY!! 

Zac Brown Band - 2008 - Toes [originally posted on 10/24/2009]

I sometimes miss my shit kickin’ days. Growing up here in Minnysnowda we had two kinds of dancin’ music played at every wedding reception. Bride and groom could both be Polish, or it could be an interracial marriage, one could be German - it wouldn’t matter.

Anywhoo, after the nuptials were said there would be a reception, followed by a dance, where the band would be a Polka band - which is a accordion and a tuba - or a Country and Western Swing band with guitar, fiddle, and the guy with the harmonica also had a tambourine. 

As a young boy I loved these dances because the beer did flow and everyone drank! My point being, this here group called the Zac Brown Band, is a country band from Georgia. They do a lot of concerts and are scheduled to be at the U of M’s Northrop Auditorium come December.... That means they are good Folks! 

I always like seeing southern people, when they get here and it's 50 below windchill, roads closed from a “Northerner”. They are in shock! Having heard the song Toes, we here in this winter wonderland love to hear any song with reference to a beach, sun, and sand! 

”Are they singing about Mexico?”

“ Yeah, didn't you hear that Vaya Con Dios?”

“Jeez I'd sure like to go there!” 

“I would too, but I heard it's dangerous!” 

“Yeah I guess you’re right!” 

“You would have to leave your car at The Minneapolis Airport. I heard you could get hijacked and never be seen again.” 

“Yeah, or I could get their CD and wait for it to warm up in 6 months.” Ok see you in the spring. 

My Ass in the sand, and my Toes in the Water!  Rat

Jonny Lang - 1997 - Lie to Me [originally posted on 11/2/2009]

Ol' numba 2 had already emptied the joint account, left me $20.00, took the car, her kids, and headed down the road. We are done! she said. 

Sitting in that old rented duplex, I took stock of what she had left: my clothes, a black-n-white 13” tv, a few dishes, and a garage with my tools, and my Harley. I called some friends who were looking for a house, and after renting out three of the four bedrooms, I started feeling a little better about collecting rent and they moved in. I took the money, paid the rent, got my '68 Chevy pick-up running, bought plates, beer, and an 8-ball of crank.

The dope man was glad to see me again, so we snorted two lines gratis, see ya! With my new buzz, and case of beer, I headed home to sit in my garage. Plugging in the old “fridge” and storin' the beer, I sat on the couch...three beers to get that balance I like. I put the battery in my Hog, gassed it up, turned that “stroker” motor over with the kick starter, primed it, kicked it through. I got a whoomp, turning it over again, flicking the throttle, she fired off, filling that garage with exhaust noise. After she idled down, I rode her down the alley. 

Turning around, I cranked it on in first gear, hitting second, I flew past my open garage. Turning around at the other end of the alley, I idled back as the kids and dogs were looking over their backyard fences. Barks and waves, I got thumbs up and a few middle fingers. I parked it in the yard, and looked for my garden hose. 

Shirley- the girl who lived upstairs- came down. She had hung out with my wife, so she knew what the score was, nothing was said about wife's absence. I asked where's my hose? In the basement she said, I'll get it. After letting the bike cool, I sprayed the winter dust off her. She still had a shine to her old Chrome and flamed paint job. You want me to soap her down? Go ahead. 

Shirley's husband had left her homeless. She had moved upstairs to take care of her invalid Dad. They were a talkative couple- what she didn't know, he did. As she soaped the bike down I sat in my lawn chair and swigged a few beers down. Feeling good, I invited her into the Garage. I laid out two lines of “blow” and handed Shirley a straw. Go ahead. I did another one and we sat on the couch. Getting me another beer, she said you're gettin low. Tomorrow's Sunday. Gimme your truck keys, I'll get you another case -my Dad wants his brandy fix anyhow. Having a mellow buzz, I said go for it.

After Shirley did the errand we pushed the bike in. Snortin' some more crank and having locked the garage, we sat on the lawn chairs listening to music. Shirley started questioning me. 

“Can I ask how you hurt your leg?” 

Feeling no pain, I answered her: “The war.” 

“Did you get shot?” 

“Yeah in the cheek of my ass. It took most of it off.” 

“What off?” she said. 

Wanting to end it, I said “my DICK!!! That's all you need to know!” 

“Wow, now I know why your wife left.” 

We sat in silence. I finished my beer and said “I'm going in.” As we got to my door, Shirley grabbed my hand. 

“Can I stay with you tonight?” 

“Yeah, okay” I said. “Keep to your side of the bed.” Once between the sheets Shirley grabbed my hand and put it between her legs, hot and wet. I dragged her over to me, mounting and sliding into her. She screamed “Your DICK didn't get shot off! YOU LIED TO ME!!!” “You just had to find out!” I said.

Tammy Wynette - 1968 - D-I-V-O-R-C-E [originally posted on 11/8/2009]

My son Chris was a youngster when his Ma and I parted ways. She took a “vacation”, so he lived with me for a while. My twin sister and Christopher's grandmother, Mrs. Earley, rescued him from me. No more motorcycle runs, or fetchin' another beer for me, or some of the nasty women I was seeing. There was an ex-hooker who rode her own Harley, who threatened to “deflower” Chris by his 15th b-day!

Anywhoo Chris ended up moving to a farm and living with his cousins, my twin sister and her husband. They were determined to give him a “proper” upbringing. They were also of the religious right-wing persuasion-something I'm against! I would visit Chris at their farm. Usually it was a holiday, or when I was invited to his Grandmother's farm where, after I was adopted as a child, I was raised to be a good Catholic by “Mrs. Earley”. She was called this by everyone. Being a registered OB nurse in a small town hospital, she had been in the delivery room of every rugrat that was conceived within 50 miles.

Anywhoo they set out to show Chris the error of my ways. One of them was to take him to the Catholic church so he would some day go to Heaven or Hell. Oh would they get pissed when I would say that! So after buying a white shirt and tie, Mrs. Earley and Chris walked into the Immaculate Conception Church to her favorite pew. Everyone got a good look at Mrs. Earley's grandson.  ”Oh he was dressed so nice”- which is a biggy in Catholic Churches! As the mass proceeded, Chris, who was 4 years old at the time, got restless. Finally it was time for the sermon. 

As the Old Windbag Priest paused, Chris said in a loud voice “JESUS CHRIST Grandma! When can we go?” Whereupon Mrs Earley with Chris in tow, proceeded to the side exit door looking for the fastest way out of Church! Later she told me how embarrassed she was and that it was my fault, teaching Chris how to swear! My claim was he was praying!! She never took Chris to church again! 

Later they would get their payback on me, lying about where Chris lived with his ma. It would be years before I saw my son again!

-Rat

Arlo Guthrie - 1969 - Alice's Restaurant Massacree [originally posted on 11/23/2009]

Being a Vietnam veteran, after I was discharged from the Marines I became anti-war. It seemed reasonable to me at the time that what I was saying would happen would happen, and it did!   I took a lot of shit from those pro-war assholes, you know, the draft dodgin' bunch like Repugnican Dick Cheney. My fondest desire would have been to see Dick Cheney humpin' a M-60 in the Que Sahn Mountains or driving the lead truck on a Rough Rider Resupply Convoy west on Route #9 out to the Marines who would become surrounded by the NVA (North Vietnam Army) at the Khe Sanh...

1967. With the War going on, Arlo Guthrie, eldest son of Woodie, composed this true life song.  Every male upon turning 18 had to register for the draft. If you didn't you could be sent to prison. This 18 1/2 minute song is all about what Arlo experienced when he went down to Whitehall St. in New York to take his draft physical. Listen to the song- Arlo explains everything! Draft dodgin' Cheney got 5 deferments from his draft board! 

Anywhoo- I got a threatenin' letter from my own draft board in 1969. I hadn't ever registered! I appeared before them in person, on my crutches, and told them to “Kiss My ASS!” What could they do? I had already done two tours. 

Peace on ya!  Rat

Delbert McClinton - 1975 - Two More Bottles of Wine [originally posted on 11/29/2009]

In the early 70s, times were tough. I worked day labor, partied often, did crank when crank usta be a bikers drug. My costs were high and income low!!

Anywhoo, once in a while I would stumble on a job. Like this one: The Jewish Community Center needed a janitor. I applied and was hired. It was a new building with a workout center, gym and pool. A night job, I had to stay inside the building. I found out if I walked through the doors, a silent alarm alerted the local police who would respond quickly as the members of this center were some of the wealthiest people in Minnesota.

A few weeks later I had this job down. It could be done in 4 hours. I would bring my alarm clock and sleep the other 4 hours- the silent alarm was on a time lock, which meant from 11 to 7 no one was allowed in or out.

Paydays I would show up early. A young Rabbi would have my check and pass on anything I needed to know. As weeks went by and the weather began cooling, I started driving my powered gray primed 58 Ford 1/2 ton. It was very noticeable among the Caddy's and Lincolns. The young Rabbi noticed my pickup and asked if I could haul some non kosher wine away? Hummm I said, taking a set of keys off his desk. He opened a storeroom, whereupon stood cases and cases of wine stacked to the ceiling. Hummm I said. It's gonna take awhile if I take a load every morning.

In the morning I took my first load home. Stacking it on the porch, I told my roommates to help themselves. That 50 x 12 foot porch became a wino's dream. It became a problem! ”Hey Man you gotta start dropping this shit somewhere else. We can't handle anymore!” My roommates had enough! I might have mentionedI'm Ojibwa or Annishinabe, we are also called Chippewa....Driving over to my Aunties House, which was a huge old 3 story, her son - my cousin - and his family had the second floor.

Anywhoo everyone partied when they could, and were happy to get the wine! Livin' in “Indian Country” they knew everyone, especially the Minneapolis Police, who were known as “pigs” in those days. The party started. In a few weeks, the pigs had busted the parties when they spilled out into the street. My Auntie said no more!

Hey my cousin said, I know where you can get rid of that wine! Wino park! Come on! We drove to the park, where we saw a lot of people layin' around. Standing in the back of the truck holding up bottles, yelling a “BUCK A BOTTLE”, we drove slowly around the park. Within an hour, me and my 'cuz' had sold all the wine! Handing me$250.00, I counted him back $125.00. You sure? he asked.

Within the next few months, we had both made enough to keep us in dope, beer, groceries... the rent got paid and I bought another Harley to fix up! We were doing good - it couldn't last!

The end came one morning when the Minneapolis cops descended on us. The guy who owned the Liquor

store next to the park had called the cops!! We had been cutting into his domain!  We were thrown to the ground, handcuffed and hauled off to Jail. Eventually after months of court hearings, with all our money eaten up by defense attorneys, we settled with a fine. We were broke and I was out of a job. I had sent one of my roommates to apply, and after getting my old job, he would become the most successful “bootlegger” in S. Mpls. He sold out of his garage...

“Two More Bottles Of Wine” Delbert McClinton, one of the best Texas bluesman I've ever heard!

Rat 

The Doors - 1967 - The End [originally posted on 12/7/2009]

March 1967. I had my orders to report to Camp Pendleton, Staging Battalion. That meant another trip to sunny Vietnam. Fuck it. Just out of the brig at El Toro MCAS, I thought of going AWOL. I caught the afternoon shuttle out of LAX to Frisco. I could let my hair grow and hide out amongst the hippies. 

My bud Little Richard, former squad leader, was waiting to pick me up at the airport. As we drove back to Sausalito, I told him my plans. All he said was that he got us tickets to the Matrix Club and that we were going to see this new band called The Doors. After hearing those guys play “The End”, I knew what I was going to do. One of the reasons I came up to Frisco was to pick up my '61 “Poncho”- a 348 cu.i. 4 spd wide track bubble top Pontiac. Little Richard - a man I had trusted with my life (he had been my squad leader in Nam) - had her in storage. She was a Honey. One of the finest cars I would own. She would get me away. 

I had been court-martialed and busted back to private and fined my lousy little paycheck for 6 months. Having made beaucoup money at El Toro transporting Marines to LAX for $10.00 a head, I purchased 5 old fast large cars- a Pontiac, an Olds, and 3 full sized Chevy 8 passenger wagons. The Marine Base at El Toro had only city buses to LAX. It was a 3-4 hour ride on a hot city bus.  I saw that I could provide a service to the plane load of Marines coming home from Vietnam daily. My transport averaged 45 minutes. (Do the math: 6 x32=192 x $10 =$1,920 minus $150.00 a day overhead, another $100.00@ $20.00 per driver a trip they bought their own 31 cent a gallon gas.) I paid off the 61 Poncho and sold the rest of the cars to the drivers. After getting busted for doing this Illegal act, I did my time at El Toro Brig. Little Richard had banked my nearly $75,000. I was set.  

After hearing The Doors, I bought their 8-track tape. Little Richard talked me into reporting to STAGING BN, Camp Pendleton. Monday morning we drove through the Main Gate at Pendleton with The Doors playing  ”The End”.

1968. When I came home, I sold that “Poncho” to Little Richard and bought a new Harley, a Road Runner, a Ford Mustang convert. In the immortal words of famous writer Jim Northrup, I pissed the rest away!! I kept the Doors. These guys were fuckin' real. The only group the Stones were afraid of. 

Seems that rhetoric “Only the good die young” is true!!! 

R.I.P. Jimi, Janis, and Jim!  Rat

Country Joe and the Fish - 1967 - I Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag [originally posted on 12/14/2009]

I live in an old house in the country, on a gravel road, surrounded by corn and bean fields. I'm in a wheelchair. My friend Snake and two of my boys built me a 20'x20' deck and ramp to get to my truck. I can get around. The VA rated me at 120% disabled. My friends are all Vietnam Vets who are dying off. I have buried 17 so far. 

Anyhoo, I spoke at St. Paul's Vietnam Memorial this year. I talked about these numbers. My friend Jim, who I had spent nine years with in a Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) group, died a month after he had talked at the Memorial last year. I was going to talk about Jim, but decided not to. Most of what I knew about Jim - which was everything - came from the nine years we had spent in group. We had talked, yelled, swore at, and - it's hard to say this word - cried. Some nights there would be someone who would break down in this PTSD group. I knew if I mentioned Jim, I would have broken down, so I didn't. 

At the Memorial, which has the names of eleven friends on that shiny black wall (two of them high school classmates), I talked about the statistics of the Vietnam War. The most important number is the 58,261 Americans who died there. 1072 of them were from Minnesota! California sent the largest number of people to Vietnam - 951,588 - and suffered 5,575 casualties. That war cost 352 billion dollars! We could have bought them off. 

But here is the most interesting statistic - it’s from the Census Bureau: As of August 1995, 1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive. During that same census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country was 9,492,958. As of the current census - taken during 2000 - the surviving Vietnam veteran population was estimated at 1,002,511. This means that 711,000 died between 1995 and 2000. That's 390 per day. During this census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country is 13,853,027. This means that 4 out of 5 who claim to be Vietnam Veterans are not. Damn, we are getting popular! Many Vietnam Veterans actually hid the fact because the war was so unpopular in this country. Some were called “Baby Killers” and spit upon. Now I have had people come up and say to me...let me set up the scenario: I was in the checkout line of the big box store, looking at this 17-year-old in a mini skirt. All of a sudden here comes her mama. Oh shit, I thought, she's read my mind. Anyhoo, she puts out her hand, and says “Thank you for serving our country”! This shit kind of freaks me. I think I liked it better when I was ignored. Like my buddy's hat says “Dysfunctional Vet, Leave Me Alone”. Rat

Steppenwolf - 1969 - The Pusher [originally posted on 12/20/09]

This song was originally written and recorded by Hoyt Axton. Steppenwolf covered it in 1968...

(VIET NAM 1967) I caught a ride on the resupply truck out of Con Tien, where the day before that hill was bombarded by over 1,500 rockets. Con Tien was set up on what was called the McNamar line, a Marine outpost overlooking the DMZ (“Demilitarized zone”) - the artificial line created in 1954, it divided North and South Vietnam. The hill and area around it had been sprayed heavily by “Agent Orange” to kill all the foliage so that the Marines could observe the NVA (NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY) when they crossed into S.Vietnam... 

Anywhoo, I was gonna get my young ass off that hill. I told the “Gunny” I was Catholic, I had to get down to Dong Ha, I had to go to Mass as it was Easter Sunday, a Catholic holy day. Gunny was pissed, but being he couldn't do anything but let me go, I grabbed my shit and M-16 (worthless piece of shit rifle) and headed down to the water point. 

The water point is where a resupply truck would bring in a fresh Water Buffalo, exchange it for the empty one, drop ammo Cs and whatever else the “GRUNTS” had ordered, and sometimes a Sandbag of GOODIES to a young “Grunt” who stuck it under his “FLACK JACKET” (a vest-like device with plates of fiberglass, supposed to stop shrapnel). Happy to be leaving the “Hill Of Angels”, I helped out with the off loading and loading. Another Grunt and I boarded the Deuce in a Half. 

“Hang on,” said the driver. “I gotta go like hell till we get over that Ridgeline. The NVA gunners got it sighted in!” Great! I then understood the skeletal remains of trucks I'd seen on both sides of the dirt potholed road. We topped that hill as fast as that 2 and 1/2 ton would go. Empty water buffalo bouncing along, as we crested the ridge, the driver slowed down and said “We made it. Gonna take it easy. Be in Dong Ha in 30 minutes. Anybody need a Head Call?” After the Head Call, the driver introduced himself as “Crazy”. “I'm a Florida Swamprat !” he declared. The canvas cab top had been removed to expose the driver, so talking was easy. “I make this run everyday. Lost three trucks so far. Busted axels outta 5 'Buffalos'.  I smoke a little 'Merrywanna'”, he said as he tossed a bag of 5 tailor made back to us. They looked to be the size of Camel cigarettes. 

I had not yet smoked any pot, usually saying “I'm a Alky” when offered. But riding along, sitting in the Sun, I reconsidered. “It relaxes me,” the Driver said. I opened that plastic bag and lit up. I smoked it down to a butt.  A feeling of relaxation, along with an “I don't give a fuck” feeling overwhelmed me! ”Damn this shit is good” I said, sitting on the sandbagged bed of that truck. I felt relaxed and calm FOR THE FIRST TIME since I got to Vietnam.

As we arrived at DONG Ha, Crazy stopped the truck. “This is the main road. You can find where your going if you stay on this!” “Hey where is everybody?”  “Probably in their Bunkers, that's INCOMING! BEST FIND A BUNKER! SEE YA!” Crazy yelled as he sped down the hill. Look, here's a trench. Jumping over the dirt pile into the flooded trench, we both yelled Fuck! Pulling our soaked selfs outta the trench we spotted a sandbagged bunker. Sprinting up to the entrance, we shouted “Marines comin' in!” Once inside, we sat near the door of the blacked out bunker, huffing from our run. 

“Damn you Marines stink” we heard from the dark interior. “We are soaked from that trench” I said. “Never use them. Besides being full of Binjo water, they are full of snakes”. 

A siren signaling all-clear sounded. We crawled out of the bunker into the sunlight. Everyone took off. Easter Sunday services were not gonna be held as the NVA were firing 122 MM ARTILLERY ROUNDS, harassing the Marines in what the grunts considered the rear. Dong Ha was a combat base with an airstrip, hospital,  ammo dump, and armory. Being a supply base, it also had a small PX. Cigarettes, Playboy magazines, cans of sardines. The biggest seller was SGT.ROCK comics.

After filling out our order, we were leaving when a 122 mm round came crashing into the Ammo Dump up the Hill. As the Hill exploded, the blast knocked us off our feet. Holy Fuck! I'm Dead I thought. I gathered up my gear, M-16, helmet - where's my helmet? Seeing it rolling down the hill I ran after it. Picking it up, I noticed that the bag of “tailor mades” were still stuck inside the helmet liner. Putting the helmet on my head running for the bunker where I was met by a Marine who said “keep going! This whole fuckin hill is going to blow”. As I reached the crest of the next hill, I found an unoccupied bunker. Throwing my gear on the bunker roof, I dug out my 35 mm. I took a roll of film of the Ammo Dump Blowin up. I lit up a joint and watched what looked like the 4th of July!

Fuck it! I'm gettin' short! 89 and a WAKEUP! Be goin' back to the world!  

Rat

Joe Walsh - 1983 - I Like Big Tits [originally posted on 12/27/2009]

1966. Bridgeport, California, Mountain Warfare Training Center, The Sierra Nevada's.

Tired of going to Reno, and in a walking cast, having broken my ankle skydiving, I was looking for something new. My bud “Mouse” was reading a rag. We were both on No Duty. Mouse had accidentally shot himself in the leg -a big NO-NO in the Corps.

“Hey Man, looky here. This stripper in Frisco has had her titties made bigger. She had them enlarged with silicone.”

“How the fuck does that work” I asked. “Silicone is heated until it becomes a fluid. It's the same shit we lube our GUNS with.” 

“All kinds of shit can be made from Silicone” said Mouse. “She had it injected (it was before titty bags were invented). Her titties have gone from 34 to 44 inches. She started topless dancing in June 1964 at the Condor Club out in North Beach. Wanna go?”

“Lets go!” I said.

From Bridgeport to Frisco we drove route 80, over the Donner Pass. In 1846 it wasn't called the DONNER yet. Trying to get over the Sierras too late in the year, the pilgrims got snowed in and had to eat each other for Thanksgiving! UUUMMM! They were known as the Donner Party. Nowadays the passes are closed every fall. Snow Gates are locked across the roads usually at the end of October. Bridgeport was on Sonoma pass. Thehighway people were repairing the road, so we took highway 80. My “Poncho '' handled the pass and elevation easily since I had those three carbs rejetted. Once over the Pass we made good time getting to San Francisco. 

The Condor Club is on the corner of Broadway and Columbus. Bridgeport to the Condor Club was a “skosh” over 225 miles. It took us 3 hours going over the Pass, following the Gulfstream's being towed by underpowered station wagons, slowly climbing the pass would add an extra hour to our trip, to see these TITS!!This was June and the tourist bunch were out in force. We finally made it for one of the shows. Fellow Perverts were lined up and down the block! The Club had a $2.00 cover charge and they ran a dozen shows a night along with one overpriced drink limit. Now Get out! The club ran as many people through the joint as possible. Finally, we got in and saw them Monsters. I haven’t been the same since.

Anywhoo It was in-n-out. Ain't it always!! In 1964, the Republican National Convention was held in Frisco. Many of the Goldwater and Reagan Delegates came to see those Monster Mammaries! 44 INCHES on a little woman make them look HUGE!! From that time on I would see my titty show at the Moonlight Ranch, cheaper and ya get some BOOM-BOOM!! But that's another story!

Carol Doda would become Infamous. She would be featured in Tom Wolfe's book, “The Pumphouse Gang”. The early 70s came and most women of the time were willing to give us their own Titty show. With the overhead being much higher, the Condor was sold and renamed. In1973, the Condor reopened. Doda became Topless and Bottomless until she retired in the 80s. She then would open a lingerie shop called the “CHAMPAGNE and LACE”.  Carol Doda is 65 years old. She is retired. The Condor continues to be a strip bar - the only bar I know of to have a Historical marker commemorating the world's first Topless and Bottomless Bar!! 

OOHRAH! Only in SAN FRANCISCO!!!! 

Rat

The Beatles - 1964 - I'm a Loser [originally posted on 1/4/2010]

1977.  My old partner was known as “Little Woodie” because there was a “Big Woodie”.  They were both in the same MC Club.  After his club days were over, he was still known as Little Woodie. I called him Woodie. 

Anywhoo, we got that straight. Hadn't seen him for a few years. He was married and had two daughters. We hooked up at one of our old hangouts, a bar in south Minneapolis. He gave me the address of the bike shop he had opened in St. Paul, saying “come on by”. A few weeks later I would visit the shop and being within walking distance I started hanging out there. Eventually we worked out a deal where I had my polishing business set up in the basement. I polished steel and aluminum and sent it down the street to the chrome shop. 

Owning a bike shop in Minnesota is good for only two seasons of the year- Spring and Summer. In Fall and Winter its like a DAIRY QUEEN at the North Pole! Winter is the time to build bikes. Chrome, paint, rebuild the motor and tranny, sending the frame to SB+F (Smith Brothers and Fetrow).  Maybe the customer would want one of SB+F springers or Girder front ends- they were the best in those days. Anywhoo, we would get all the parts then paint it, chrome it, rebuild the motor and put it all back together, getting it ready for the spring bike shows and waiting to get paid. 

We were also good at partyin' which usually began Friday afternoon in the back shop where we kept our used parts and Old “Bald J' ' kept his 90 inch Shovelhead “Rat Bike”. Bald J was called Bald J because of the obvious-he was bald! On the block was a liquor store, bar, and a sauna- a place where one of my women worked. 

She was a biker, and the first woman to have her bike featured in the April 1974 issue of “Easyrider”. Anywhoo she was a “professional lady”, in other words, a hooker, a whore, a prostitute. She sold her ass to ride and build an 80 inch Shovelhead. She also injected industrial silicone into her face, ass, and tits, regretting it when itbecame lumpy and hard. Years later she had multiple surgeries at the Mayo Clinic to have it removed, but thats another story. 

I'm setting up what happened to me during one of the Minnesota Vikings Super Bowl losses. (Between the Vikings and the Buffalo Bills, there are no bigger Super Bowl losers- four apiece!) Anywhoo, Woody was forced to move from his house near the shop when the dummy upstairs overfilled his waterbed and the mattress exploded ruining the house. Woody got his wife and girls out in the nick of time before the ceiling came crashing down. This dumb shit was going to the Air Force Academy. He wanted to fly fighters! Woody bought a house outta town on a lake where we partied a lot. They had a spare bedroom in the basement which I used frequently.  

Across the frozen lake was a big bar where Woody and I had gone to play pool. We won a couple games from two guys who tried to kick my martial arts-trained ass. After sending them along, the bar maid gave us a couple beers on the house. Woody finished his beer and said “I'm going home to watch the Super Bowl.” It was the Vikings versus the Steelers. The bar maid grabbed my hand, ”Oh, please stay! You won't have to buy a beer- its free on the house. My Dad owns this joint!” “I may be easy, but I ain't free,” I said. “wheres the TV?” The Vikings lost their 3rd Super Bowl. I woke up in the basement bedroom with a naked girl who had gained about 100 lbs during the night. She had her leg thrown over my stomach holding me down. “Who the fuck are you?” I

asked. The fat girl responded by saying “Nobodys ever done that to me before!” I didn't want to know what I done! Feeling my face for glaze, there was none. I told her to shutup and get dressed. I showered and as I got back in the room she was dressed. “Come on, I'll get you outta here- this is my buddy's house. Come on. Be quiet.” As I got to the top of the stairs and almost had the outside entrance open, the room erupted in laughter. Oh Fuck! There they all were: Woody, Sue, Skip, Jack...the whole bunch! Opening the door, I pushed her out. 

“Go!” I said. ”Will you call me?” “Yeah yeah!” I said.  ”Now go.” Two years later the Vikings lost their fourth Super Bowl to the Oakland Raiders. 

They haven't been to the Super Bowl since. Now the Vikings have old number 4, that “Cash for Clunkers” guy -Brett Favre- who gave Minnesotans some hope. Soon they were thinking, “Maybe we can win the Super Bowl”. I asked my son Chris (aka Shlepcar) what he thought. Laughing, Chris said ol' Brett would give us a bunch of hope, then lose the Super Bowl, afterward pulling off his Vikings jersey to reveal his Green Bay Packers jersey underneath.

The Del-Vikings - 1956 - Come Go With Me [originally posted on 1/11/10]

Back in the day, groups like the Del Vikings, The Impalas, and a whole shitload of Motown groups sang what I called “I will do anything to get next to your sweet little hoochie” music. 

Baby boomers were going through puberty and this brought on a whole bunch of- like the words to “Come Go with Me”- 'going together'. This was the only way that you were gonna get anything. In those days, going steady meant like being married. 

I was jealous of some of them dudes. I knew they was tastin' the fruit. Was jealous, that is, until Friday night when I could go cruzin', make all the parties, drink with my friends, go to football games, drag race out on numbah 11. 

Once in awhile you could get lucky and pick up a stray and do just about anything you wanted! These guys going steady mighta been gettin' a little, but they paid for it. What that little sweetie wanted to do, or where she wanted to go, they did and went. 

Mostly they cruised, both behind the steering wheel. She wore his class ring on a chain around her neck. He had a ring in his nose if you looked real close. 

Anywhoo, most got married after she got knocked up. Married guys were not supposed to be drafted. That was changed. Usually they ended up in Vietnam at about 20 years old. Us old salts who had been there awhile would bet on when he would get that “Dear John” letter. But, anywhoo, young girls LOVED this type of music. 

They fell for the I will do anything to get some, I promise. Oh please... I la la like you, I will be true! I got a rubber! We were good liars.

”I ran all the way home”  

The Trashmen - 1964 - Surfin' Bird [originally posted on 1/18/2010]

I remember when this Minnesota group, The Trashmen, became one of my favorites. They sang one of the songs you could sing along with!

You could have the worst voice in the choir, be drunk as all, and could still sing “Everybody knows the bird is the word”! The bird is also a favorite sign of mine- the middle finger. 

This group was around from 1962 to 1967 originally and they then reunited a couple of times. I don't think they will anymore. Just the other day, another one of the Trashmen bit the dust.

Their music was called “surf music”?!? Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, has none! Surf that is, nada! Gawheen! No surf, just surfin' bands! 

BBBBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAA! 

Rat

Carmen Electra - 1993 - Go-Go Dancer [originally posted on 1/25/2010]

This San Diego go-go dancer received her 3rd survivors check for $10,000 from the US Dept.of Defense. A bureaucrat in the system decided to investigate. So the dancer was interviewed. She said she only married 0311s- that's the MOS for Marine riflemen- commonly known as a 'Grunt' who had orders for Vietnam... 

Off to Vegas they flew, where no waiting period is required for the “I DUZ” ceremony... 

After burying her first husband, she married another Marine on his way to Vietnam. When he was killed, she was heartbroken. She got over this by wedding a third Marine. When he was killed, the government decided to investigate. 

Finding she had broken no laws... She informed the investigator, “I HONEYMOONED THEM, THE BEST NITE OF THEIR LIVES!!!

Semper Fi! Rat

Steppenwolf - 1968 - Born to Be Wild [originally posted on 2/1/2010]

STEPPENWOLF's “Born to be Wild”, THE biker anthem that Peter Fonda used in his 1969 film Easy Rider.  That movie was a fantasy for “wannabe” bikers.  They love it.  Along with the drugs and drinking they practiced, their “rides” (as they would be called) were always in pieces. They would say “I blew my motor” or “I'm building a Harley basket case” and were waiting for their ship to come in, like a dying relative who they hoped would leave them riches in a will. 

Wannabe's would come into our bike shop dressed in leathers, jeans, boots, black t-shirt, looking every bit a “Bad Ass Biker”. They would purchase the latest issue of 'Easy Riders' magazine, a patch or two, having just come from the liquor store and their drug dealer, looking to party with us. They would keep their drugs and liquor locked in their vehicles. Now they were broke, having spent all the money they could beg off their ol' ladies welfare check, bragging about their latest DWI, how the courts had punished them by requiring them to attend AA meetings and get their “card” signed. This was before the DWI laws became what they are today. 

Wannabes always said or did something stupid. “Hey Man can I bum a smoke?”,  pissing me off. They wanted to drink my beer, never bringing any “suds” of their own. Their beggin' would get old and they would be asked to leave- “Hey man, you're a fuckin mooch!! DI-DI FUCKIN MAO!”

This was usually enough. If it wasn't they would get their ass kicked and then leave. Bikers had learned who was “real” and who they could party with- there had to be trust. It was much more than getting a keg or two. Finding a private isolated area, with trees and water, somewhere you could build a fire, pitch a tent, where once you opened a beer, your bike stayed on its kickstand for the weekend having learned that DWIs keep you from riding. The campgrounds had to be private to keep the cops out. Rules were enforced by whoever put on the party. 

Having a few Big Friends, clubs had “Enforcers” who would keep you in and the “RIFF RAFF” OUT! No Firearms. No class “A's”- anybody who had a warrant wasn't welcome. That squad sittin' outside the gate can come and get your ass, if after running your plate, they find out you got a bunch of tickets that you neglected to take care of. They will get some more of their cop buddies and rouse all of us. 

This is a biggie: NO underage “HOOTCHIE! I know she don't look or act 15, but that underage Hootchie will bring more “heat” down on us than a 5 alarm fire. Bring her back when she is “LEGAL”. This is how the partying is set up for the big gatherings, like Sturgis. A lawyer (wouldn't ya know it) runs a huge campground- 26 bars, a giant stage, their own security- and he and his family have made$$$$$$ions. Its become a year-round full time job. It's how they party nowadaze!

HEAVY METAL THUNDER! Rat

Lynyrd Skynyrd - 1978 - Comin' Home [originally posted on 2/8/2010]

I have waited 42 years to tell this humiliating tale.

1968. My bud Paul and I were patients at the Navy Hospital in, I'll say, California. Paul had had his thumb blown off. He had “double rounded” a 60 mm mortar. He had accidentally dropped two rounds down the tube. At the time his unit was getting overrun by the NVA and he was in a hurry (Marines still had 60mm mortars).  A corpsman wrapped Paul's hand. He picked up his mortar tube and kept firing- all that mattered at that moment was killing the NVA before they killed him and his platoon! Paul survived and was Medevac’d to a stateside Navy hospital in California. The Navy surgeons cleaned up the damaged hand and, casting it shoulder high, attached it to his waist with a rod to keep it stationary. He looked like a traffic cop directing traffic. 

I had a full length, soon-to-be-removed cast on my leg. We went on liberty together, calling a cab, which took us about ten minutes to get into-I would get in first putting my leg over the front seat, Paul would spin in to get his arm in. Anyhoo, it was a circus fuckin act! The cab driver was black. 

He asked “Where to?” 

Paul and I looked at each other, briefly discussing it, and finally came up with the brilliant answer “Take us where there's a lot of pussy!!”

“Ok”, the driver answered, “I know just the place. It's in Berkeley. College girls!” 

Arriving at this “Pussy Bar”, I noticed it was near an auto assembly plant (?). Oh well. Indeed the bar was packed with pussy. The bartender gave us a funny look. 

“Couple of tap beers”, I said. 

The bartender said “You better drink these and leave. This ain't your kinda bar.” 

Although we were in “civvies”, it didn't take a genius to figure out we were military. We were hated in those days.  Berkeley was the most anti-war town in the country. At least that's what I figured was the reason for the bartending saying that- was I wrong! “Fuck 'em. I'm gonna scope me out some of this fine 'pussay'.” I looked around for Paul. He was talkin' to three nice lookin' “chickies”. 

Looking over again, I could hear them arguing. They were telling Paul if he wasn't gone in ten minutes, we was both gonna get our asses kicked. On crutches, I couldn't get over to Paul without leavin' my beer. I noticed this was a large bar. It had three front doors, which were all open to let the crowd in. “Where are they all coming from?” I asked. Assembly plant shift change! I then took notice these were WOMEN in overalls and, as Robin Williams describes, “comfortable shoes”. Uh-oh. I knew we better get while the getting was good! “Hey Paul! I'm gonna get my diddy bag offa the bar.  We betterdi-di (Viet slang for 'be quick') while we still can!” 

As I reached the bar, a big manly lookin' woman accosted me. “WHAT ARE YOU DOIN IN MY BAR?” 

”Same thing as you”, I said. 

The next thing I knew I was on my back, getting kicked from all angles. Putting my arms over my head, I came to on the sidewalk. Someone had rolled me over and taken my billfold with $1600, half of which I'd planned to use to pay for the motorcycle I bought in Vietnam. Being foolish I had put it off. A cop ran the guy down who had stole from us. He had also called the Navy Hospital. They sent an ambulance with two Corpsmen and a Marine driver. After loading us on stretchers and putting us in the ambulance, they talked to the cop. thanking him for taking good care of us. The cop gave them the address where I could get my money. 

Once the Corpsmen determined neither of us were critical, we were on the way up the hill to the hospital. The Corpsmen had a good laugh on us. “Dumb Fuckin Marines! Thats the biggest lesbian bar on the west coast. You just got your DUMB MARINE asses kicked by a buncha women with short hair! What the fuck were you thinkin'?!!”At the hospital we were both put in isolation for a week. My Dad had flown out from Minneapolis to see me. I had told him I was staying in San Francisco. He would wait for me. After getting my cast cut off, I was discharged. I was ready to go home. Paul and I were both humiliated by the shit we heard from the patient population, BIG TOUGH MARINES!!! 

I had planned to stay in Frisco, but after talking it over with my Dad, I went to the Harley Dealership that had my New Harley XLCH 900 cc Sportster. It was considered an Import. Having bought it at the Freedom Hill PX Danang RVN for $800.00, it cost another $800.00 to get it registered, which saved me nothing. I arranged for it to be shipped by rail to Minnesota. I would again meet Paul at the Mpls. VAMC. I would be run down by a drunk in a Plymouth. ANYHOO, that is another story. VA Surgeons moved Paul's index finger over to where his thumb used to be. We would be on the same Orthopedic ward for months. I would fix Paul up with a girl and would see him a few weeks later. “Hey man, you know that girl you fixed me up with- she says she thinks she's a LESBIAN!!!

SO AM I !! I said, SO AM I !! Rat

Spider John Koerner and Willie Murphy - 1969 - Running, Jumping, Standing Still [originally posted on 2/15/2010]

Sitting next to an older woman on a Northwest flight from San Francisco to Minneapolis, I was trying to sleep, but her chattering kept me awake. My Dad was a few rows back- we had purchased our tickets a day apart, so we were in separate aisles. It would be the last time I would wear a Marine uniform, flying standby on a discount  for being in the Military. As soon as we were airborne, the ”Queenie” ordered drinks for us. I remembered one of my Dad's sayings: Particular men don't get much pussy. Another one was: the electric light was invented with an off switch. So I took a look at her. I figured her to be about 35. I was 21, so 35 seemed old while I was sober. We were about to take care of that. As she slid across me to go to the john, her skirt slid thigh high. I noticed she had some nice legs. At the time, the airlines were runnin' a two drink max, which was why I carried a pint-sized flask. When she returned from the head, she sat down. I offered her whiskey from the flask, whereupon she produced a Coke, and the “Partay” was on. By the time we landed in snowbound Minneapolis, we had exchanged addresses and phone numbers.  

Feelin' good, it would last a year or so, until she started buying Hart Schafner and Marx clothes for me, trying to get me off my Harley, and quit wearing jeans, t-shirt and my leather jacket which had been my lifelong uniform. She worked for the mayor of St. Paul and my riding buddies and clothes either scared, offended or did both to the City Hall bunch. My response to this was “Fuck'em, they're pussies!” About this time she would say “I want more than just Sex!!!''`Me too”, I'd respond. “I like beer, food, beer, and my Harley!'' 

During our last argument, after I had bought a 1968 Chevy 1/2 ton, I mentioned the fact that the only reason I had talked to her was that I wanted to put what was between my legs between hers. That day I loaded my Harley and clothes in the new pickup and left during a Minnesota spring snowstorm.I had discovered being a combat veteran, I had very little in common with anyone, and I had begun to isolate. In a few more years I would meet other Vietnam vets who felt the same as I did. 

I would gradually come to see how fucked up war is, in particular how fucked up the Vietnam War was! Not knowing then I had PTSD, I wondered why everyone was so fucked up! At the time there was a large anti-war movement on every college campus in the country. I had attended some of their rallies and meetings.  Some of these people liked to play pseudo-Communist, preaching that Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro were the folk heroes of the Left, believing they were the answer. Naive folks they were. They hadn't seen the ditches filled with the bodies of men, women and children around Hue City as I had.  They didn't know the Commie brethren were stone cold murderers. The residents of Hue had been executed from lists the N.V.A. had carried with them, mostly because they were civil servants, politicians, and religious leaders. 

Anyhoo that's another story. I tried college. I was expected to attend class or the money I would get from the GI Bill would stop coming- unreasonable bastards. I lasted 3 quarters.The problem was I had discovered the blues bars. I was living in a community of college kids with head shops, book stores, and bars- my favorites being The Triangle, The Viking, and the 400. Along with The Joint, they were located in the Cedar Riverside area of the West Bank off the Mississippi River. 

There I heard Dave and Tommy Ray, John Koerner, Willie Murphy and the Bees. They played these bars late into the night, with the party going on in a backyard after the bars closed. My roommates, who were all Nam vets, were going to the ”U”.  Only two of them ended up getting degrees. How the hell was I gonna go to school? The party lasted four years. I would later attend a TVI year-long welding class and build bikes. That and 'Vietnam Veterans against the War' are another story. Here is John Koerner and Willie Murphy and the title track from the album they made together in 1967. It's called “Running, Jumping, Standing Still”. I did a lot of that!!!! Rat

Isaac Hayes - 1971 - Do Your Thing [originally posted on 2/22/2010]

I'm getting to the radical part of my life story. I never could take any of these people: peace groups or AIMsters. As I was getting to know them, I could see what a bunch of hypocrites they could be. This was before AIM

(American Indian Movement) killed “Anna Mae”. At the time, AIM wanted to use my talents. It was after I beat a white guy's ass. He and two of his buddies were kicking the shit out of an Indian in the alley behind my house. Coasting my Harley down the hill, (I usually jump-started my bike, saving my leg) they didn't hear me coming and it being dark, I was able to sneak right up to them. I braked my bike and put the kickstand down, walked up to them and said “you need any help?” The white guy says “naw”. I said I wasn't talking to you ASSHOLE! I kicked him in the nuts, the other two chickenshits beat feet. The Indian was an “Aimster”, and he too got up and ran off. I guess he told Headquarters, and anyhoo they knew who I was and asked me to attend their meeting. I was told what I would do. I declined their offer and it was years later before they would talk to me, mostly because of my Aunt Bea and Unk “Donald Duck” who were community leaders. Fuck it! I was having a tough time relating. I thought all people were crazy. I was right. Vietnam had taught me a lot!!My problem was I wasn't gonna listen to anyone who was gonna tell me what to do. I would get married 3 times before I learned a new trick: Always agree with what is said and then, like the song says, DO YOUR THING !! Rat

Ruby Tunes - 2005 - The IRS Audited Me and Ran Off With My Wife [originally posted on 3/1/2010]

Being that tax time is here, I thought I'd run this at ya!1972. A new gig, buyin' and selling old Harley parts. After building my '49 ”Sweathog” in welding school, I found out how many people wanted a bike. The Rigid frame,

“Flatheads”, “Knuckleheads”, “Panheads” were cheap and plentiful. Everyone wanted a Chopper.The movie Easy Rider and the Magazine that stole its name after adding an 's'-  Easyriders- had made these bikes more popular than pussy! Well, almost. Dudes were selling their British and Japanese bikes- not German bikes though, them dudes kept their BEEMER'S...Anywhoo, I was doin' good. Buying at swap meets, garages and barns- I always got a title card- along with the boxes of parts, I'd get enough pieces to build a Harley. I was doubling, hell, I was tripling my investment. The TROUBLE came when The State of Minnesota came looking for their share. I hadn't been collecting a sales tax!!After not paying attention to their demands, the State threw me in jail. 

They took all my parts and pieces- I needed a dealers license- and was required to collect the tax to pay the State. My argument was that I already paid. That didn't fly.I needed a job so I could get money to pay the State. Being a good welder, I was recruited to work on a prototype. The job was to build a Bobcat-type vehicle

with tracks on it. When we were finished, the owner offered the three of us who worked on it 1% to be paid in monthly checks pr we could have a barrel of suds. We lived in the Now! We took the BEER!We heard he kept our 3% along with his 2%. He made out. Only two of us still above ground. He was dead within a few years. 

Now about the custom bike building business, it would grow to become a multi-billion dollar industry, producing its own stars. Arlen Ness and Donnie Smith of Smith Bros and Fetrow were ones I knew. Others mostly from the West Coast, most LONG SINCE GONE! These guys were the bike builders. They had the ideas. They built the“Jigs” to make custom frames, and springers, girders and all the other parts. Except for Jesse James, these new ones- the tv stars- are actually “Assemblers”, ordering the parts from distributors who buy them from China. Take a look at the Custom Bike Builders who started in the 60s !!!

 http://www.arlenness.com          www.donniesmith.com   Anyhoo, I went to work for Donnie Smith @Smith Bros and Fetrow as a metal polisher. They were manufacturing custom springers and girders, frames struts. These parts needed to be polished like a mirror before they were chromed. It was good dirty work. Minnesota dropped all charges after I paid up the back taxes and I got all of my parts back after proving I owned them. These days, with the “Computer-run” machines, Complete Custom Bikes are built without a HARLEY part on them! Ride On! Rat

Roy Rogers - 1952 - Happy Trails [originally posted on 3/8/2010]

March 1968.This is about my bud Bill. He died of Cancer a few months ago. We got to know each other in the old Veterans Hospital Minneapolis. We both had surgery that day, woke up in the ICU, both needing pain meds!Bill had been drafted into the Army at 27 years of age. He went airborne and did a tour with the

173rd.  Bill's evil 1st wife had notified the local draft board that she had divorced him in 1965. They then drafted Bill,which made him Minnesota's oldest draftee.That 1968 Minnesota spring, as the weather warmed, Bill and I spent a lot of time outside smoking weed. The Ortho ward was so busy that no one paid any attention to us. As we drank bottles of Boone's Farm, brought in by a nurse I grew up with, we remained mellow, and I got yellow. It was soon apparent I had brought the malaria bug home with me.Bill was discharged a month before me. Bill would open a huge shop on Lake Street. He called it Gepetto's. He was good at rebuilding and repairing old antique furniture. I moved into the loft of the shop, with enough room downstairs to keep my van, which Bill used, with my bikes safe and sound inside. We smoked and drank a little better wine. Anyhoo, life was good. Both of us would screw that up. How? We married evil women.  Three a piece. 1980. Bill would be charged, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison for killing a woman he picked up in a bar! Always said he didn't do it

(they never looked at the boyfriend). It never mattered to me. We were brothers! For the next 21 years, I would visit Bill in two of Minnesta's prisons.On his 21st year, Bill was released and he and I had a party. Getting a job in his brother-inLaw's hardware store satisfied his PO. It was here I would visit him.  Three years after Bill was released, he would marry for the 4th time. We saw less of each other, mainly cell phone conversations, usually one or both of us driving.Three summers ago, Bill invited me and my wife to go sailing with him and his wife on Lake Pepin. My wife Cheryl agreed only after she was reassured they had life jackets (she is afraid of water ,can't swim). Lake Pepin is a huge lake with the Mississippi running through it. The sign days ``where water skiing was invented!! “ 

Anyhoo, the sailboat crowd loves it. The day we went sailing was a nice hot June cloudless day. We got Cheryl all bundled up and sailed into the middle of the lake. The wind died and there we sat, right in the barge traffic lanes. Windless, Bill and I drank beer while his wife was below in the galley. Bill said “Honey, did you ever tell Cheryl how we met?” Donna sweetly responded with the declaration, “I killed my husband! After doing 18 years, I was required to attend a “How to Reduce Violence” workshop. That's where Bill And I met!”

Turning my head, I saw my Ojibway wife turn white. ” Uh-oh,” I said, “we are in trouble!!” A towboat pushing 12 barges, which are longer than an aircraft carrier, had entered the lane and was bearing down on our little sailboat. Cheryl pointed her finger in the barges direction, but nothing came out of her mouth. Bill and I both had a good laugh. He started the inboard and we backed out of the channel.That was the last time I saw Bill. Two years later the Cancer would kill him. I was unable to visit Bill as I was sick and taking a drug that made me vulnerable to infection. I had to stay out of the hospital. Before his death, I saw Bill on TV as he was being escorted aboard an “Honor Flight'' and flown to D.C. He had never seen the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I talked to Bill one more time. He told me he was going home to die. Bill had asked his wife to cremate him, and that'swhat she did.....RIP BROTHER BILL!

Pink Floyd - 1979 - Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 [originally posted on 3/15/2010]

1959-60. It was the eighth and final year of my parochial education. Fuck, I hated it. I had been beat on with rulers, my ears yanked and was “bitch slapped” for seven years by the good priests and nuns. It was all I was gonna take. They knew it. That first day of my 8th year, I had dared these heartless bitches in black, just touch me ONE more time I said, and I would leave for public school-they would lose $$$$. It was already agreed between the nun, my folks and PO- there had been trouble previously, and I had been jailed, the juvie court wanted a resolution worked out- to keep me out of reform school. Smoking was a problem. I had been breathing secondhand smoke from my folks since I was three. I had been addicted to smoking since the fourth grade. I wasn't gonna quit! I stole cartons of cigarettes from the IGA....I was considered a juvenile delinquent. I had long greasy hair, wore boots, Levis, a brown WWII leather flight jacket, and listened to rock 'n roll, which the Catholic church called it the devil's music. I drove a loud 1951 Ford Victoria I had earned- I worked my ass off for it! That's what pissed them off. I was too big to beat. That summer I left home and lived at a farm I worked on. They were some of the most decent people I would know in my lifetime. Their influence kept me out of reform school. They treated me like family. Anyhoo, that fall I returned home to start high school. The first day of school, I drove my little Brown Ford, parking it across the street from the school. I saw a teacher writing down our plate numbers. We were ordered to report to the principal's office, where this crazy looking old man started screaming at me for driving my car to school. Doing that was against the rules- unless I had an after school job. I did.

“I've heard about you. Just remember I run this here school Mr. Earley. This is my territory!”

I would park my car for the next year and a half at my bud's house a block from the school. It pissed them off, but they couldn't do a thing about it. I would set a record for skipping school. Actually, I was pioneering

“Homeschooling”. When I did attend school I read a lot, a novel a day I would say, plus Mad Magazine, and once in awhile a “whack off” mag that was being passed around, if I could get the pages apart. I tried out for football. Being I was the second fastest in the 100 yard dash, I was supposed to carry the ball. After the handoff, I took off around the left end, I zigged, he zagged, and as I crossed the goal line, he tackled me, landing his knees on my back. I would spend a week in the hospital pissing blood. Kidneys bruised. (He would later get a full Williams scholarship to the University of Minnesota). No more Football?! Then fuck high school! My last report card had four Fs and a D. I would go in the Marines. There was a war coming. At the time it wasn't much, but it was all we had. Four and a half years later I would attend the U of M for 3 quarters. Vietnam was all the education I needed. Rat

The Beach Boys - 1962 - 409 [originally posted on 3/22/2010]

 

1960-61. I was 14 with a permit to drive farm vehicles. In the fall, I turned 15, and got my drivers license. Ahh freedom, I thought, not knowing then that I would become a slave to the internal combustion engine. What a invention. It changed the world. For better or worse, we have all been affected by this phenomenon and continue to be so. I had worked all summer for a farmer baling alfalfa hay. I spent from morning to after dark on the haywagon behind the baler, stacking 125 bales to the load. These bales weighed 85 to 100 lbs a piece. By the end of the summer, the counter on the baler read 5000, and I had filled out to 165 lbs. My arms had developed. I would be walkin' around the county fairs in a cutoff t-shirt and I got no shit from anyone. Anyhoo, that summer the farmer had parked his 2 DR Hardtop 51 Ford Victoria that he had owned since new, and bought one of the UGLIEST Fords ever made- a 1960 4-door GALAXY! I wondered if he would sell me the '51.  It was all I would want! Soon the summer was over and it came time to collect my wages. It was the last day of work. Labor Day Weekend was coming, and it would be back to school....”Let's eat”, the farmer said! After a great meal, he offered me a Grain Belt beer. He said “I'm broke. I would like to make you a offer- the 51 and that old Lincoln Arc Welder, and you can fill up from the gas tank for the rest of the fall. I've got the title and keys here.” 

By then we were on our second beer. My hand was shaking as I signed the title as the buyer. My DREAM had come true. I had gotten more than I had wished for- It was all I would want! We loaded the welder and filled the Vicky with gas. After telling me he would need me for silo filling that fall, I drove my first car home. It was a time in my life that I would feel truly happy!! Fuckin' Aye!! 

I told my Dad. He already knew, as the farmer had asked his permission to give me the car. “So take it Easy now, okay son?”

“Pop, I'll be back later. I'm going to town”.

My first stop was Butch Williams garage and gas station. Butch had grown up friends with my two older cousins and was a stock car racer and motor builder. He would become a member of the 200 mph club on the Bonneville Salt Flats ten years later. I was showing off my pride and joy to him when a couple of my hoodlum friends stopped in. We did what was a common practice in 1960- we got a case of beer. 

In those days, little towns usually had a part-time constable. County sheriffs would only come out to the villages if called. The night would change my life for better or worse. An automobile - along with the beer - became another addiction to go along with my smoking. I had no idea how these three things would have, and continue to affect my life.

Now with wheels under me, I quit riding the school bus. From that day on I drove to school daily and with it I had troubles from the first day! I knew then I wouldn't be around for long. Minnesota state law was that a

16-year-old could drop out. I was big and strong. I could work hard. I didn't need this crap. I was going to school with kids. At 16, I would get my chauffeur's license and I would drive a truck. School didn't make a lot of sense to me. At 16 I would quit. Until then, I would stay in school and play the game. I still had a little over a year to do.

Meanwhile, I skipped school a lot, working at Butch's garage, trading him my labor for the use of the stall with the lift after his day was over at 5 pm. It was great. I had given him the Lincoln Arc welder- the garage was wired for it- and I got good at welding up pipe. I put dual-exhaust on my Vicky and did exhaust work for Butch. I had my eye on the '53 Merc flathead- what was called a FULL RACE motor, Offenhouser aluminum heads, a two-carbed Manifold, with Stromberg Carbs. Cam.  It was all I would want.

By that spring, Butch knew I would soon go back to work as a farm hand. “Well, when are you gonna put that full race flathead in your car?” Butch would ask.

”Fuckin aye!” was what I said. 

After cutting and bending up a pair of headers, I purchased a heavy duty clutch. I hooked the three-speed overdrive tranny with the new JC Whitney floor shift onto that fast little flatty. It found its new home in the '51. I would win many drag races until 1961 when Chevy brought out the 350 HP 327 motor, and the one The Beach Boys sang about...THE BADASS 409! New cars like a '62 could be had by Sept 1961. I heard that Ray Korker who lived in Watertown bought a 409. I went looking for him. Wasn't until after dark that I found him. 

“What kinda 'clunk' you got now?”I asked Korker.

”A Ford beater!” he said.

”Lemme see.” 

“All you're gonna see is my tail lights!”

He said ”Show me! Meet you out on number 11.”

As we lined the two cars up, I heard his motor rev. I couldn't hear my Flathead. I revved my motor higher. As the starter dropped his arm, I heard his tires break loose, throwing hot rubber that looked like sparks from them15” tires. His exhaust drowned my exhaust out. That big Chevy was gone so fast, I thought I killed my motor. I heard him hit 2nd gear. I rolled to a stop. All I saw was those 6 taillights a quarter-mile down the road. HOLY FUCK!!!I had been beat once before, by a 327 chevy Impala, but only by a fender. I slowly drove home. Depressed. I knew what Butch had been telling me: the day of the flatheads being the fastest on the road wasover! Overhead valve V-8s had more power. That Dual Quad, four speed positraction 409....It was all I would want! Rat

The Rolling Stones - 1965 - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction [originally posted on 3/29/2010]

RAY ROUGH RIDER EARLEY. 1965. March.

Another history rap from Rat!

I had been in the Marines for two of my four year enlistment and became a member of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, of The 3rd Marine Division. We would become the first into Vietnam!

Anyhoo, our home was Okinawa, which was for me a paradise. ”Shortime Girls” were $2.00. Beer was 10 cents in the Marine Club. We were havin' too much fun! Can't have that! Let's get this war going. The Marines look for the ASSHOLE OF THE WORLD to fight their wars in and Vietnam was it!

The last three months of 1964- (89) days to be exact- we had sat aboard ships off the coast of Vietnam waiting to land. I guess 1964 was too early, it was put off until 1965. By Christmas we had returned to Okinawa. From spending all that time aboard a crowded WWII Era, LSD (Landing Ship Dock), with no room to exercise we had become soft. 

Offloading at White Beach, Okinawa, the Col. forced marched our bn. wearing full combat gear, helmet, rifle, flak jacket and pack twelve miles to Camp Hanson. As the Col. and his driver in his jeep drove back and forth alongside the stretched out Bn- sometimes he marched with- he would encourage us. 

The 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade all made it to Camp Hanson where we would return to our individual Bn's. The Brigade had been made up in '64. Our area would be renamed Camp Butler and become a staging area for all Marines going to Vietnam. The next four months we practiced Marine Amphibious Landings. 

Early on a March morning, 1965, we got the order to “mount out” packs, rifles and helmets. O-Dark-30, the 9th Marine Regt. would make an Amphibious Landing at Danang, S. Vietnam. Some of us flew into Danang's air base by KC-135s.Vietnam would be the Marines most costly war. They were the “first in” and “last out”. More Marines would die in Vietnam than had in WWII. They would be 25% of the names on the Vietnam Memorial, with only 10% of the troops sent to Vietnam. 

I would do another tour and be affected for my life by this War, passing on a disabling disease to one of my five sons. I am now 100% disabled and in a wheelchair. Anyhoo back to 1965…

I came home and had 30 days leave. The class I should have graduated with had already done so. After saying my hellos to my family, I said “see ya later”. Mice had moved into my Little Ford Victoria. They ate the wiring out of my Flathead, so unable to start it, I borrowed this beautiful 1961 Pontiac Ventura from Butch Williams. It was all I would ever want. 

I would purchase this ”Boss” car from him by the time my leave was up. Butch had rebuilt the 389 3-carbed motor, making it faster than stock. He replaced the Pontiac with a 1964 “sleeper”- a Chevrolet Biscayne 409,425 HP 4 speed, dual quad, positraction, bench seat, two-door post, Gramma-lookin', ugly green car. Butch knew the 409s weakness and had rebuilt the motor, replacing the connecting rods. He was a professional drag racer by this time and would go on to win Class titles for the next three years.I spent most of my leave drinking and telling bullshit war stories. It wasn't much of a war yet, but it was all we had. At the time I wouldn't know that adozen friends, two classmates, and 58000+ Americans would be killed in that “BULLSHIT” War. Many friends joined the Marines after I came home in July of 1965. I would go back to 'Nam for another tour in 1967-68. Semper Fi! Rat-a-tat-tat.

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons - 1968 - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? [originally posted on 4/5/2010]

 

1962-63. You're probably tired of seeing words about Jesse “White Trash” James! Well, it's Monday, and Rat's here to tell you about some long ago tales.

Back in the day, I didn't have much time for girls. Had a job and a car I loved to race. Speed costs money- how fast you wanna go!?! I knew at my age you couldn't have both. Oh, I liked how the girls looked, smelled, and jiggled when they walked. Giggled when they talked! Hey we got a song here. I was leather, smoke and sweat. Girls were lace, perfume, and sweet.

Anyhoo... with a reputation, this bad boy smoked, drank, drove a loud, fast car.  Most girls were afraid of me. This was when birth control was the condom you kept in your billfold!! Good girls would stay away from me. It

was more than I wanted to deal with at any time. They were full of “whys”. Why do you smoke? Why do you drink? Why is your car so loud? You can't hear me! About then I would point to the sticker on my dash. It read: SIT DOWN, SHUT UP and HANG ON! Girls were practicing for wedlock. I was only interested in the honeymoon part... I didn't have the time to find a steady girl. After seein' what happened to my friends that went

together, them “Steady Freddy” guys had to ask their 'SWEETIES' for permission to piss! UNH UH! I likedmy freedom!! With places to go, people to....aw, you know how it goes!

Friday nights usually were spent cruzin'. Watch the home football game for awhile, pick up a sweetie- they always had a fat friend who had to come along- find a party. Usually somebody had permission to set up in Grampa's woods where we could drive in, get the fatty “bombed”, and leave her at the bonfire party. Set up a drag race (“Here's $20 if your Momma's car can beat this old Ford of mine). Look for a “makeout” place, if she was still in the car. I kept beer in my trunk for me; the Sweeties liked the flavored Vodka drink...lime and orange were popular back in the day. If I heard “No, don't!” too many times, I took them back to the party. It was just a whole lotta fun! 

My twin sister transferred to my school. She was really popular. My twin told me of a teacher's daughter who was buggin' her about me. This girl had developed some kinda crush on me and would ask my sister for info: Did I know who she was? Did I like her? Would I date her? This all had to be on the sly. Her name was Paula, a good girl. I liked slutty girls. Yeah I know! She musta been in some kinda rebellion! Her mother also worked at the school and they were Lutheran Republicans!! I had been raised a Catholic Democrat. We had elected Jack Kennedy, an Irish Catholic. The Nuns told us we shouldn't marry anyone who wasn't Catholic, white, and right. Hell, I didn't want to marry! This here “Tete-a-Tete” didn't stand a chance.

The night finally came that we got together. I picked her up at the home football game. She sat as close as she could, with her legs on each side of the floor shifter. We cruzed for a while, when Paula suggested we go to her house. 

“My folks left for the weekend, and my brother is playing in the game”.

By this time I was ready. She had my interest, albeit against my better judgment. We went to her house. 

“Come on, follow me. We have an extra bedroom in the basement”. 

It was a walkout, which I'm happy to say, would save my young ass. Getting to the bedroom, she had stripped down to her panties and bra. Seeing this I quit listening to the voice that would save my life many times. I slipped my boots off, she had pulled my tee shirt over my head, for some unknown reason I left my jeans on. 

Laying beside her, she took my hand and put it where Religion, Wars, Births, Deaths, Pain, Agony, Utopia, Songs, Poetry, Books, Ballads, Sadness, Madness, Gladness,and Children come from!!!

Standing up to remove my jeans, I froze. Terror grabbed my nuts. I had heard the door upstairs open. Footsteps. Two people!

”Oh Paula! Are you down there?”

“Yes Mother, with friends- they are staying over!”

By then I was COMPLETLY DRESSED! ”Can I get out that sliding door?” I whispered. “Your old man hates me. I gotta go. Get upstairs and keep them away from the windows...Hey, your dog's outside the door!”

“Oh, Red likes you!”

Sliding the door open, I ran across the yard, the Irish Setter running alongside me barking. 

“Go home, Red!”

I had left my car on the street, knowing better than to park in the driveway. Hopping in, I pushed the clutch in and coasted down the hill. Nearing the bottom I turned the key, popped the clutch. The motor fired. Looking in the rearview mirror, the Irish Setter was chasing me. I opened my door, slid to a stop. Red hopped in panting. Using the drive-up phone near the laundromat I called Paula- she had her own number.

”Are you ok?” she asked.

”Yeah. Come outside. I got your dog.”

“I'll be there in a sec.”

I saw her standing at the end of the driveway in jeans and sweatshirt along with her two friends- where had these two been hiding??? Coasting to a stop, opening the door for Red, Paula pleaded “I'm so sorry. Mom got sick so they came home”.

”Yeah, that's how it goes! I'm going back to the party.”

Kissing me on the lips, she said “I'll see you later!” 

I wouldn't see her ever again. Singh Loi! Rat

Joe Cocker - 1969 - With a Little Help from My Friends [originally posted on 4/12/2010]

1971 -74. This song is one of my mainstays.  This, “Take it Easy” and ”Summertime Blues”. Although written and recorded by the Beatles (they suck!). Joe Cocker made it his, and as far as I'm concerned, Ol' Joe is the only one who can sing it.

Now, the final chapter of my escapades...

Before the banks used computers, I would help inspire Minnesota to change their banking laws. The banks made it easy. This is how I would do it. I opened business accounts in five different banks using aliases. No one ever asked to see any identification. Writing checks, I would cover that check with another bank- “Piggy back” you could say. It's highly illegal and you must write new checks to cover the last one every day.

I was arrested on an old warrant one night, and spent five days in jail, which started them checks bouncing and a banker called in the FBI. One of the older agents, who after a year long investigation, called me a “gentleman thief” and wished me luck with the courts where, I would find out, the banks wanted me hung. I had played them. 

Doing my version of Robin Hood, people who I had helped with groceries, rent and electricity so many times were nowhere to be seen- they were all gone. Once I was busted, I learned who I could count on. To this day I have six friends I can count on- all Vietnam Veterans. I call them my future pallbearers! If I need money, beer or a bed, I can depend on them. 

Sitting in the witness chair, my lawyer was stopped by the judge from questioning me with his own question: 

“How did Mr Earley pay you?”

“By check, your Honor.”

“Hopefully, you won't try to cash this check. It has no funds backing it and I will place another charge against your client. I had ordered Mr. Earley to stop writing checks, as you surely know, these are the charges Mr. Earley will face.”

That was the end of my 'High Buck' lawyer. The court assigned me a “public pretender”. I would be sentenced to restitution and five years. Damn, I better do something. I can't do 5 years. I will call my Ojibwa Mother..... Hello Ma, listen, can you get that federal judge you know to help me out?

Monday morning as the inmates were being loaded on the prison bus, I saw my draft dodgin' P.O. point me out, whereupon I was pulled out of line and released from the shackles. My PO led me to his new pickup. Get in, he said.

Driving away from the jail, he growled “I don't know who you know or how you did it, but the district court has ordered you to be placed in the Veterans Hospital for the primary Treatment of Alcoholism, to be followed by the VA's recommendation. That means for the next 5 years you will do what they say, plus pay off the $180,000 ordered restitution to the court! When and if you are able to do these tasks, it is further ordered that all your felonies will be reduced to misdemeanors. In my 5 years as a District Court Probation Officer, I've never seen anything like this!”

Thirty days later I had finished treatment. I had convinced my VA counselor that being Native American, I would need culturally sensitive aftercare. I was sent to an all-male Native American halfway house. Within one year I had received enough training to be hired as the “house counselor” and made it co-ed- the ladies got the top floor. I would marry number 2- an Ojibway woman. 

Staying sober for the next 5 years, I was able to pay the restitution. Quickly, I would sell all my toys. By selling my house, cars, bikes and business, I was able to pay it. It was theirs anyhoo! Upon returning to court, the judge was happy, the PO was happy, I was happy, and celebrated this 'accomplishment' by buying a 1975 Shovelhead Harley Davidson...and getting drunk, divorced and fired. 

Houseless, I would crash at friends. I dusted off my union card and would run a rock crusher at a Reddy Mix plant for the next 10 years. In 1985, I would get a DWI. The court would order me back to the halfway

house.  Two weeks later I would be working at the county detox evaluating Native Americans for drug and alcohol treatment. Later I would be hired to go into the state prisons. Back at the halfway house, I would meet and marry the cook's daughter. We had two sons and I adopted her son. And got drunk, lost my house, job, and old number 3 left me. You know how it goes...what goes around. 

She came back.

I worked at the VA, ran six houses for homeless veterans. We adopted her niece through the “Indian Child Welfare Act” (she will graduate from high school this year). My disability has forced me into retirement at 100%. On the 23rd of this month, we will close on a new 4-bedroom house! 

Semper Fi! I'm here until I die! Life is Good!! Heres to ya!!! Rat