I was still hanging at the 'bookstore' a lot. i had made a great friend there. a fairly well to do guy named Mitch. He was a handsome and out going personality to say the least. he and i wee both ' hardcore regulars at the place and had two choices...be bitter competitive enemie bitches, or be friendly and try to get along. we choose the latter. Mitch was a really interesting guy. from a small mid western town.moved to the big city and had tons of way out experances. ended up in a great job and made tons of money one day we were talking and he ask if i wanted to go get a beer, of course i said yes. we both had seen a little bar on the corner of Pacific and Broadway called Mr Bings. we headed down the hill and began what would be a 10 year 'stool warming' at the greatest bar ever. the place was a mix of North Beach, China Town, and tourist. Mitch and i sat there for hours and talked and drank. His money seemed to be endless and he paid for every beer. he could tell a story and loved to talk. he and i became really good friends. now and then one of us would run up the hill to see if any action was happening at the 'store'. if too much time passed and the other was left at the bar, you can bet nerves were on edge and only seeing the other coming back could calm u down. it was a blast .
tons of sailors who were on leave ended up at Mr Bings. For some reason North Beach was a place for navy guys to gather and drink. maybe it was the strip clubs and adult video dives.Mitch would shamelessly flirt and buy them beers. i guess i did a bit of flirting myself. it was fun to watch them get drunk and steer them up to the bookstore. some went and some didn't . either way we all had fun. lots of people walking by the open door recognized me from the band. i loved that. sometimes crazy people that knew me would also come in and just sort of stand there and creep me out. but for the most part it was the bliss of drinking and laughing and sex all with in a few yards of each other.
Kevin had seen Sister Double Happiness a few times now We had even gone to LA and played One of the problems Warner's had with us was defining us and Kevin hated our first album on SST. He thought it was so bad that if the other executives at Warner heard it they would never sign us. that was odd to me. we were an independent band on an indy label and recorded an album and mixed it in 48 hours and he thought it so bad that he was not letting anyone hear it. I like Kevin, though. but it was always a lopsided relationship. he was clearly going to be the one with the power and we were the band. He was funny, though. we made each other laugh a lot. Debbie called one day to tell me a tribute to Roky Erickson was being recorded and we might be able to be on it. Roky was is pretty bad shape and a big fan of his at Warner's , Bill Bennit, was in charge of it. I found out REM and ZZ Top were two of the bands going to be on it..kevin went to bat for us and before long we found out we had made it! and the song we wanted, Red Temple Prayer--Two Headed Dog was ours if we wanted to do it. What a dream! Keving bookeed Hyde St. Studio and we had a time block of four days to record and mix. Before any of that, though we had to do pre production...which just means practice out asses off. getting the arrangement we wanted and deciding how to approach the song. It was pretty smooth working with Kevin on it. we wanted to do it hard but add sounds and tempos that would set us apart on the song. Kevin worked with us very close and had some great ideas. I thought he was pretty good in his moving in to the band and his comfort in giving opinions to a band that had been together for a couple of years and we had only known him a few months. However it was working and it was fun. i was learning that a lot of discipline was needed to keep my voice working smooth for a whole recording session. drinking was not a good thing. hot tea was. i hated hot tea then and loved cold beer so it was a big problem. i smoked a few cigarettes a day but had to stop. every one of us was going through his or her own victorys or problems learning how to really get serious about the recording process. just before we recorded we got the news that Kevin did indeed want to sign us and Warners would do it if he gave the word. Red flags certenly should have gone up when we were told the deal was in cement if Kevin was given the job of producing our first cd. oh, boy. even though this it's not unheard of it' a little dangerous to do. if their is a problem during recording it's the AnR person the band goes to for support or help. however as time passed and we spent more time with Kevin the more I liked him.
getting ready to sign with a major label was a funny thing. going to the Warner's complex in Burbank, Ca. with the men in suits and coolsters gone cooperate was always a trip. guards everywhere, and lots of people ready to help you spend the money you might just make them. oh so weird. but i loved a lot of it. even if they ere phony, the big shots were very friendly to you. phony is a word not used much around the place. I will say, though, I also met some very real and loving people People who loved music and were in positions of making and breaking other people. LA was fun on this trip down. we all piled up and were staying in Debbie's little apartment. Poor Mikey. he was hving trouble th whole trip.. as soon as we got back we were going to record the track for the Roky tribute cd...in the mean time we had decided to play LAA, meet th new lawyerthat was going to represent us, then drive to Texas and play a few shows. Mikey got sick, though. i was so stupid i didn't know why he was in puking in the bath room of Debbie's before we were leaving to go meet out new attorney. I kept knocking at the bathroom door, "Mikey, are you alright?". on the way down to Hollywood he kept nodding out and dropping his cigarette. i figured out what was going on and got super pissed. i'm not perfect and thought it was fucking disrespectful for him to hav gotten high when the our wholee futhur was right there in front of us. he decided not to go in with us. the lawyer was Rosemary carroll...ex wife of jim Carroll. i compleatly agreed tht if didn't want to go in to met her it was fine with me. Maybe nodding off during the meeting might be the wrong impression.

I was back in San Francisco and I was ready to do music. When we restarted SDH after my time away from the band it seemed to be a perfect time for us. we had our first practice and all were happy to be playing again. During out time apart not only did i go my thing, but Ben had stopped drinking and other getting high stuff. he was healthy and he and i made new efforts to get along and work together. He and i were as different people as anyone could imagine. we both had a lot of respect for each other and this made it possible for us to play together.we never really socialized at all. i remember once thinking that it might be nice to hang out sometime and try to cultivate out friendship. this is before he stopped drinking so i called him up one after noon and asked him, "hey. Ben what are you up to?"
:Oh, gary....uhh, well nothing"
"I was wondering if you wanted to go get a beer somewhere"
all he sad was "why?"
i said "well, i guess just to get a beer. nothing else".
"well, i don't understand...why?"
ok...so i just got pissed and we never went for a beer. i realized we would be band mates and that's all and that s the was it was for out entire time in the band. this does not mean we were not close, but it was close in a guarded way. we laughed and fought and created what i think was great music together. I found Ben the best at listening to my ideas of what i wanted to hear on guitar and playing it for me exactly as i heard it. he would very patently listen and put it to music. Mikey was still playing great but bigger problemms were touching his life. He really was one of the sweetest people i ever met but some inner saddnes made him look in the wrong places to fill up the sad spots. i feel no need to go deep into the problems Mikey had except to say i loved him and he played bass better than most people i have ever heard. He defined out sound during this peroid.
Lynn Perko. My sister. my dear friend. when Lynn joined the California version of the Dicks she was still a bit of an awkward girl growing into a woman. and did she ever grow. i watched Lynn become one of the most beautiful women i have ever seen. One of the most dedicated musicians and hardest pounding, or gentle drummers ever. we love each other till this very day.
The other member of the band was Debbie Gordon. my best girl friend and one time manager of the Dicks. Debbie and i were a crazy sister and brother-best friend pair. during the time i had left the band Debbie had not only been the manager of Alternative Tentacles records, or as i call it...Jello's label. She had gotten a job at Warner Brothers n LA. Funny how one of her so called best friends denounced her for selling out and going to work at a major label. This same phony soon became a millionaire running her own record label. Creating a punk rock empire firmly cracking the whip to keep her myrmidons in order. People are funny.
Debbie could not be our manage anymore because she was a Warner employee. but i did ask her advice now and then and she was helpful when she could be. We were playing and writing and would practice at least three times a week. People started acting real nice when they would recognize me. During this time i met up with a nice guy who tole me to check out a bar south of Market called My Place. i had lost some weight but was still looked at as a fat guy. My friend told me My Place was very friendly to big guys and i would like it. well i told Phillip and that night we headed to My Place and it was pretty cool. the best news though i found out about was the Lone Star saloon and the Bear movement. ah--the Bears!
I had never been a popular guy in queer bars because either i was a hippie looking long haired weird-o back in the day, or a punk Mohawk haired wild nut or fat. fat being the real reason. the main stream queen worked 24 hours a day to look the right way. a way to attract guys who looked like himself. the fat queer spent years dealing with being either the super cattie sharp tonged queen or some lonely chub in the dark corner or the bar. finding a fat fiendly gay bar was rare. Phillip and i loved hanging out and drinking together but i hardly ever went to a gay bar with him due to me choosing the weird punk looks i came up with and being fat. not just fat, but more like in your face fat. so when we found the extreamly welcoming Bear culture growing on Harrison St. in the Lone Star i was thrilled. The bartenders, at the time were the nicest guys in the world. as Sister was in the papers a lot people there recognized me and that was a plus. going from ugly fat ass to a welcomed popular item was unbelievable. this pretty much meant i was there every night. when SDH did shows around town lots of the guys would come. once when we did a show at the Great American Music Hall one of our roadies came back to tell me "Don't be nervous, but there are lots of pretty rough bikers in the crowd...right up front". i went to peek and it was about 30 or more of the Lone star guys i had met or seen hanging out there. i told Kyle, the best roadie in the world, " i think things will be ok". i was never a big "fuck everybody in the bar" type so i was able to keep things friendly and easy. I was getting drunk at least 4 or five times a week. but loving it.
One day Debbie called and tole me one of the A abd R guys at Warners was interested in coming to see us play. he had heard a tape and out first album and wanted to see how we played live. we were ral excited and since we had a show coming up we spent extra time practicing and getting into the mind set of beint 'watched' by a record executive. i thought back of a show the Dicks had done in Houston way back in 81. i was hailed as one of the best hows ever at the island...so said Ronnie Bond of Really Red...Glen broke a string on th first song and was so drunk he sat on the stage for most of the show trying to change it. Buxf had a beer bottle and was running it up and down the bas neck over and over and over while Pat was doing the 'naw-jaw' speed clenched teeth and beating the drums out there on his own....i walked around on the stage cussing and blabbling about the communist and queers and so on. th entire show was nuts and we had a great time. oh, how times had changed. now one guy in the crowd was someone who could change our lives. if he had seen the Dick's in Houston he might have been a different kind of guy. a few diffrent a/r people came during this time to see us. one from Rough Trade, one from somewhere else....i thought most of them were big headed and on power trips to promote themselves and really could not care less about us or music. that night Kevin came into Laffee came into our lives.

I've had people ask me how i could become religious? I don't know the real definition of the that word. I feel 'spiritual' suits me better. although that's just me. I always had a feeling with in me that a bigger 'thing' was somewhere out there but also with us. It was the same thing in and out. Our being able to tap into that 'thing' was a two way street, It was always the same--ready to take us to It's center and be our guide, but only if we took a step or two to realize it's helping nature.. the steps are what i call our own personal path. Some are taking the steps by following the Pope and going to a Catholic church, others are hooping and hollering in the Pentecostal church. I do think it it is helpful to find, as the Buddhist say, a sanga---a community of 'like thinkers' to unite with. Of course i would like to believe no one would expect or even want to be a clone of his
church or sanga fellow member. The "I am right and you are wrong" attitude is the element that has fucked up how so many of us feel about God and the path to enjoy what God is. When I hear people snarling and denouncing god and religion with much unhidden hatred i laugh to myself and think how they mush have been made to go to church and endure either the screeming preacher sending everyone to hell, or being tortured and forced to get up early on Sunday mornng and dress in clothes you hate to ware. Setting in a ritual of things you neither understand or even want to. some of the very few fights my mother and i would ever get into were the ugly Sunday morning clothes war. i would have gone easy if i could have just picked out my own clothes! not some fucking white shirt and tie and dress slacks. even to this day the very words 'dress slacks' send a chill down my spine. this has nothing to do with whatever god mght be. Jesus in dress slacks. the Buddha in a tie! Krishna in a JC Penny's summer suit. never happened. My point being we miss so much of the good and fullflling elements of God because of out past dealings with religion and church.
The great Swami Vivekananda said if there is really a Heaven there will be more atheist than belivers because theist did good for no reason...while belivers did good for the reward....(paraphrased). I love that.
I was looking for something to fill the gap i found in my life when i found Ramakrishna and the Vedanta. I knew what i was looking for but hqd no idea where to go. at the risk of sounding silly, i just let the faith of going where IT lead me tke over. All of this was much less mysterious, and more down to earth than i might make it sound. no angles singing in the background. I was lookiing though. this was my taking the steps i talked about. if you want to catch a fish you have to go to the water and put your pole out. sit and wait but at least bait the hook. you don't catch one usually by jumping in the water and hysterically grabbing. calm and steady is the way. when i first went to the little bookstore at the temple i loved it. when i first got Christopher Isherwood's book on Sri Ramakrishna and how wonderful His crazy life was. I felt like it was a personal, ongoing party for me. none of being Queer was going to stop this from moving me onward. no communist, punk rocker, dressed in drag and singing about being dead in a motel room made any difference to anyone. reading about the funny and loving and, to say the least, bazaar life of this God-man and his young followers, i fell in love with it all. this was no cult love because if you couldn't think for yourself and be a 'stand on your own two feet' person....well, you might move on. My heart had been pretty hard due to life being a rough row to hoe, but as got stronge in the ideals of these teaching my hert became softer and more loving and excepting. it can be a little hard to sing about hating people when really, i don;t hate anybody. i try to love everybody, although lots of people i love from a distance. being spiritual shouldn't make you a dumb ass...so don't go hugging stinging scorpions and kissing madmen. thinking and moving in a calm inner mode can keep you grounded and let you act like a human. meditation , or just setting down and being silent for a while is great. shut up for a few seconds...is the world going to fall apqrt if you are not talking? i offer no blue print of how to do this. you can find 10,000 other people to tell you how to meditate. of just find it out for your self. you can start with the simple method of just being alone with in your self and being quite. O million pages have been written and millions of dollars made by teachers when this first step is the mail lesson to follow. believe me, it's hqarder than you might think. me, being quite? me?
I offer no paths to you follow or anything for you to do. being happy and feeling whole within your self is the goal. if you are, stay there. i moved only when i felt the need. never aking if it was right. it was right---for me, and i live it now.

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i was looking for a spiritual path. i would always call my self a 'small c" communist, but to hell with 'religion is the opiate of the people' crap. i was not into that thinking. as a matter of fact, i had always felt if the communist leaders had allowed the people to practice spirituality ...have the gathering places of the church, not having a state religion but a flourishing of different paths the communist political system would never have fallen. If you remove the spiritual freedom from people's lives you soon have a deflated people. the proof has happened--there is no argument. i certenly think the two could have mixed. It also seemed to me as soon as one communist leader died very soon he was not only replaced but denounced....so whatever -- i loved the idea of keeping a socialist world overview with a path of god-consciousness. as usual i felt a 'fuck you' to the few people who gave me any grief for my beliefs. i was looking and knew the Christen path was not gong to work for me.Prue Christian folks were wonderful...if they really followed the teaching of Jesus. i loved Jesus. but that type of Christian was hard to find. usually a lot of judging was found toward my own experience. so i was looking for another way -Buddhist teachings were next and i looked deep into the Buddha and found a lot of different thinking and so many variations i became a bit confused and kept moving. although now i am as Buddhist as i am anything. i had though the years seen many times the book Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. i had often made fun of his looks--a sweet faced, androgynous holy man from India. i felt ashamed for laughing at his looks as i opened the book and found him a wonderful teacher and the book itself a fascinating story of his life. i was reading the book one night after the kids had gone to bed at the shelter. I was working with a great guy named Ishmeal. a really sweet and super smart man who late, sadly, died . his spirit was funny and loving and giving. when he saw the book he sad he had been instretedin some eastern techers...and knew of Yogananda. a few says later he bought three little books to me when we were both at the shelter again. from the Vedanta society. 'Thus Speak Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother Mother, and Swami Vivekananda'. A picture of the three Indian teachers were on the front of the little pocket books. and quotes from them made up the books. he gave the books to me and told me he had gone to the big temple on Vallejo St. that they had a book shop. That i should check it out. At once i felt a attraction to the books and the pictures. I couldn't wait to go and see the place. I had found out a year before that i had diabetes. it ran in my family and the dr told me to loose weight. yeah, right! however it seemed to be the time for me. i had started riding a bicycle and walking all over SF. it was a good time for me. popular band, good job hat i loved, and the adventure of a spiritual life looking at me. i was happy. when i first went to the Vedanta i found a lot of old women working at the book shop. and nuns...not the catholic type but still nuns. i loved it. i would go every other day and hang out reading and buying books. asking the women tons of questions. the first book i bought was by the great writer Christifor Isherwood. Ramakrishna and His Decipeles. Isherwood was a follower of Vedanta. being gay and excepted into the Vedanta Society in LA i was happy to start showing up at the Sunday lectures and even meeting the Swami in charge. i was even loosing weight..about 80 lbs. in all and the diabetes had 'gone away'. soon i got the swami to become my teacher by giving me initiation into the followers of Vedanta and Sri Ramakrishna.
Around this same time i left the shelter. the 'burn out' factor had et in and i had to move on. i would miss many of the friends i had made there, and keep seeing many who i am till friends with to this day..truly the best job i have ever had.
but leaving the shelter and not being able to shake the problems and nightmares of the kids who were getting more and more heavy was too much for me. so i left. as alwys the good and the bad run together like twins. bad comes with good and good with bad.
my mother was sick...cancer .
a few months earlier i had quit SDH. it made the other folks in the band pretty pissed off at me. we had just recorded our first album...on SST. it only took 48 hours to record nd mix. great music, but i wanted out..i wnted to join the monastery and be a monk. yes. me--a monk.

The Shelter was keeping me busy at least three days a week. one doing day shifts which was cleaning, getting food prepped for the night shift, making calls to get permission for the kids to stay there. after 72 hours you had to have a legal guardian give permission for them to stay there over night. i was always surprised when parents would just say "yeah" and hang up--not even asking how the kidwas...ok, healthy, alive...some parents would get pissed and say NO, send them home! it was such an across the board responces that usually let me know why the kid had ran away. i did two over nights a week along with another staff person and a 9--12 to give support to the over night people. it did not really take long for me to get way into the job. to work there you had to. some nights would be nuts with 30 kids and a few rappers and a skin head or two, husslers and kids tripping...it was a great effort to keep things calm with out being a 'big brother'and bitchy. some nights only a few kids would be there. that's when you got to really know the kids one on one. the could drop the street mask and be real not worring about the tough skin to protect them from the street.
a punk couple had been there for a couple of nights. they clung to each other from the time they got htere to the time they went to their separate bed areas. they had ran away from smaller town in Organ. i had done the intake for the guy...and checked in with him as we did with each kid every night in the office one to one. at nine the door bell started ringing with the kids ready to come in and eat....rest and just relax. i was cooking in the little kitchen and was saying hello and talking to them as they started pilling in. i was the punk girl come in and she looked less than happy. then the boy came in..."HI" he said to me. in a mood different than his usual stoic attatude. "HI" i said "how are you?"..he tood there with a big smile and said, " I sucked my first dick today...i loved it!". me and the other councilor just locked eyes. " i looked over at the guy and said "oh, did you ?" "yeah...im gonna suck a few more tomorrow". ok...i thought i had to deal with this at once. the poor girl friend was setting on the couch with big tears rolling down her face.
"why don't you and i go talk." i told him. and we went into the council room.
"what's up? and why are you making J---- cry?"
"i met thi guy today, and he took me out to eat and he gave me a little money and we had sex and i loved it"
"well, do you feel that givves you the right to hurt someone who loves you?"
"I don't want to hurt her but i feel like i am gay and i want to live that way".
"you may be able to do that and not hurt your long time girl friend both. just think of how happy you would be if she was not so hurt. I want you to be what you are but hurting another person is only going to hold you back....much less having sex for money. go slow with this and think for a second how to move forward. "
he was a good kid. just got away from a little town and wanted to be himself...if that was gay or whatever. i just wanted him to be safe and not mean to his poor hut girlfriend. we kept talking each night and he made peace with the x girl friend and they seem to settle into a sort of best friend thing. years later i ran into this guy in a bar and he thanked me for helping him come out..i ran into lots of the formor kids during my years after working at the helter and they all were thankful for what the shelter had done for them. of course some of the kid hated me...skin heads who came in and were trying to be bullies to gay or Mexican or black kids...i had to remember they were runaways too and had problems that needed attention. but i had to make it clear this was a place for everybody and no one was was going to feel otherwise....even if it meant kicking them out to prove that. i had a few mean big kid tell me they were going to kick my ass if they ever saw me out of the shelter....which scared me to death. Lucky, though, it never happened.
SDH
once when the Dicks were playing, i think in Houston, we played in the back of wha once had been a Revolutionary Communist Party bookstore. I have no idea how that happened. the guy who put on the show told me i could have a book...which was stored ther but he gave me a copy of a cartoon book. about a woman who was a fighter in the war of resistance against Japan that the Chinee had fought. she was super brave and loved Chairman Mao. Her name was Sister Double Happiness....i guess like a nun...yoou know...sister mary lovejesus?? so after my many other ideas had been shot down for naming our band i remembered the book and said why not use that as the name--Sister Double Happiness?? we all liked it, although long we could use SDH. that was the name and i heard my old pal Mikey from Austin and the bass player of the great Offenders had moved to SF. i was thinking how great of a bass player he was and how we needed one and....
i found Mikey and asked him to please come at least practice with us. he was happy and wanted to play something different than hardcore for a while. well, he played a couple of the songs and wow...we had our band at lat...SDH was hppening. we had written most of our first album's songs by our first show. SDH, the song, was our first tune when we did that first show at the Chatterbox in Valencia. what a club? small but it had the feeling of a real gritty rock and roll place. the sound we looked for was fitting the club at the moment. honest and nasty blues-punk songs we loved to play. a song Freight Train was about the ever increasing nightmare killer AIDS. it was cool because two writers for gay news papers were at the show. Don Baird and Adam Block. they both wrote great reviews of the show for their different news paper. Poodle Dog was our last song and it had started. SDH. i couldn't have been happier.
but i was still feeling a bit of a longing for a spiritual path. I felt something coming, though.
things were good.

The Dicks were over now. I was happy to be out of a band for a while. Lynn and i were already talking about a new band with no 'kind of music'...or rather 'any kind of music' but for a while we wanted to just do nothing with band. however, the sweetness of having a house to live in came with the problen of paying rent. Phillip, rightfully had got a little sick of supporting my ass.
I head from Hilary that a night time runaway shelter was looking for taff members. Diamond Youth Shelter--a collective of diverse people dedicated to providing a safe place to sleep. A warm meal. as few rules s possible. and no judging due to color, sexuality, all the stuff a runaway shelter should be. Hilay worked at a sister shelter --Larkin Street Drop in center. Lots of x-hippies and punks and odd balls worked there....queers and sdykes and ananchist and people who wanted to help kids not fuck with them. I had never even thought of tht kind of work. a councilor..? Everyone told me to go for it. Not having a job and one being put in front of my face just made sence to at least apply. I knew a few of the people whi worked there. One of Hlary's best friend's Stacey. I met her a few times through Hil. She was a great woman. pretty much raised herself on the streets of Ney York City...Tom Alder, who had help start the anarchist book collective --bound Together. One of the guys from Crucifix worked there, too..but was leaving. the rest of the 20 or so staff members held hiring meetings to interview the job applicant. i was a bit nervous as i strolled into the old church building on Central Street....acros the paanhandle from the Haight. I lived just down the street so that was a plus right off. it was a rather odd group of collective menbers. Stacey and Tom were friendly and introduced me to the staff. A tall woman named Stephanie was the one doing mot of the talking at first. he was a beautiful person. pertty face and long hair in a braid. she poke with a kin voice telling me about th helter and what it ment to work there. I, had stuk with my long super bleached totally dead hair, no facial hair, pretty fat, tan pants and a big hite and blue hirt. meaning i had dresed up! everyone started asking questions. what if..type questions. having been in a touring punk rock band for years i had a pretty good way of dealing with all kinds of people.....all kinds of people on all kinds of drugs and all kinds of problems. the last question was 'will you to commit to working here at least a year?" of cours i said yes...not even thinking i would really work a second past when i wanted to leave. Later i saw what an important obligation that was. so they told me they would call me the next day to let me know if i got the job or not.
i left and thought about what it would be like working there. It was financed by Catholic Chairities, but the collective had a representative to go between the shelter and the CC.runaway kids. i had had some big fights with my parents in my years at home, but reunning aay had never been something i took to heart. there was a real feeling of all the people who had interviewed me as being really good people. the place, being an old church, was funky as could be. where had been the auditorium was now the sleeping quaters for the kids. half for the girls and half for the boys. the offices and eating area were now the hang out place and eating tables. and a mall kitchen. funky.
it was with in a few hours i got the call asking if i wanted the job--if i did they wanted to ask me to join the collective. my first thought was "oh, fuck...a job". then i was Ye and was told to come the next night around 8. i would be doing a 9--12 shift. two over night people and one 9--1 were the working set up for the staff. you never really knew how many kids might show up. My friend Stacey, who was one of the people being replaced since she was going back to her home in NYC was on duty that night...this was a good thing. She had been a street kid herself in NY and had been a real success story. she ran away but got her life in order and found safe places to stay...even group homes and places where she could get her education and not be a victim but an example. of course, everyone ain't stacey but it tought her how to work with other kids in situations close to her own. i got there right at 8 and the two folks were already getting food ready for the night. a huge salad, bread, tons of salad dressing, cooking and tea and a giant home made spaghetti. it looked great. i saw every type of kid that night. the seasoned 17 y/o who scamed and sold drugs to get by...just using the shelter to sleep....more that a few boys and gils who hung out on Polk St selling their bodies to men and using the money for dugs or a hotel room for the night that all the kids pilled up n in. clean scared looking 15 y/o girl who had been abused by her dad....on and on....after the kids ate taff member pulled a kid aside one on one to check in and find out what had gone on that day....it was a real trip. usually a clitent made a connection with one of the staff members and thats who they would talk to although everybody did every thing. one boy about 16 or so picked me out as an easy target to fuck with. he pulled out a knife and tarted playing with it and looking at me."i don't think you're supposed to have that", i told him, but a little uptight i showed a bit of fear of him..."yeah, who'll take it away?" he said to me in a real smart ass voice. From behind him Stacey reached over and said," i'm going to take it away...you know damn well no weapons and stop trying to scare gary...he's a punk rock singer" and walked off. he looked at me and i stared at him and started to laugh..."what and ass hole thing to do on my first night...you gonna cut off my fucking head next?" lucky, he laughed too...."a punk rock singer..." he asked. that sort of saved me and we hit it off the rest of the night....he was a sort of leader of a group of the hussler kids...girls and boys. a real sweet, but hard street wise boy. he was cute so he made more money and was famous for making enough to rent a room and let everyone stay there and part all night. he had been kicked out of his house by parents who had so many of their own problems his leaving hardly touched them at all. i ended up working at the helter for three years. i learned more on this job than i ever learned in school or on the road or anywhere. thi boy died a year or so later of aids. lots of the kids i met and worked with and got close to died of aids and durg overdoses or just never came back.
during this time Lynn and i were looking for another guitar and bass to form another band. She called me one night and said the famous and well known Ginger Coyote -- the local singer and fanzine owner...singer of White Trash Debutnts had called her to say she knew a great guitaist for our band. Ben Cohen. He played with Polkaside and with Ginger in different projects now and then. Lynn had called him and shure enough he was interreted in getting to gether and seeing how it might work out. It did work out. iwe met up at old capp Street Studios and played for hours. No bass yet but we loved his playing and he seemed to be having fun, although sometimes that was a bit hard to figure out. we set another get together up and made a commitment to try and find a bass player to come jam (although i hae that word) with us.
i wanted to get his going. Ben had a stule of playing that somehow had rock and a sort of ragged blues combined. i loved it and wanted band . I thought Brown Beach was a great name. they both gave me real non approving looks. whatever.

Soon i was back in SF and living in my own room on Divisadero st. when we firt got back in town i slept on an extra bed in phillip's room. before to long, though a guy living in a tiny room in the back of the house decided he was moving out so Phillip moved into that room. i shut the doors to my very ownroom and cried at the fact.....I was home! i had not had my own space since living in California. only due to Phillip's unbelievable kindness had i lived anywhere at all. my room was right in the middle of the house. A stripper who i did not know well named Shela had the front with all the wwindows facing the street.
lynn and Helen shared a bed room and phillip was in the tiny room in the back.
i was so happy. i knew Helen really did not wnt me there, but everyone else did so i was IN. Helen liked me but she thought of herself as the boss and i must have poised a threat. the house parties were almost non stop. it was a blast.
It was no surprise that soon as we returned to SF Tim told us he was leaving the band. i was happy really. he was completely separate from the rest of us. i know at first i had freaked him out by having a man crush on him but this had long pased and absolutely anything i said was taken as a jab at him. he was a good guy but time was up for him in the band and he left. we had a couple of shows coming up and the big one was with the Dead Kennedy's in LA...with Fishbone at the olimpic auditorium. Sebastian knew a good guitarist named Granny...a friendly and out going likable fellow. African=American rock and roller with dread lovks....handsome and a girl magnet. He and sebastian were difinatly into the rock and roll life style. we did a few hows in SF. one being at the Farm Tim as hardly missed and Granny was really good on stage. I remember Tim telling me or somebody later, it was like watching somebody fuck your girlfriend on stage in front of your very own eyes. whatever. When the how in LA came up we decided to fly down there. ho we got the money i'll never know. i remember at the airport a huge fight between Debbie and Sebastian happened just before e boarded the plane....i have no idea hat but it was just the last straw to kill off what might have been left. at the show it wa fun to play suck a big place. Fishbone are and were then an amazing band. the lat time was played at the olimpic i got my as kicked by some of the Discord fans....this time i was much more confident and we were much more popular. Hilary had surprisedme and flown down to ee us and be there t the last show. Debbie liekd Her but kept an eye on me to make sure there was no romance re blooming! the show ended and the Dicks were over. t least for almost 20 years.
a huge part of my life had hit me and floated away. what a great bsnd to have been part of. but now neww stuff waited fo me and i was running to meet it.

we had another tour coming up and i went to look for a good book to read while driving the long spaces between shows/ this time we were going to the east coast and most points between. part of the tour as going to be with DOA...like 6 or 7 shows. i had known these guys for a while now. they were for the most part just like good old boys like the Texas guys i had grown up with...only they played punk rock. they ere always very nice to me...although i always felt if i had not been so openly gay they would have liked me better. the drummer, Dim Wit, was an especially tough acting guy. funny though one day while i was at the big famous DOA house in Vancouver he sort of sneaked out to the van where i spent most of my time...and gave me a tee shirt he had printed with his own ace on it....i was touched at his gift because i got the message he did n't just give them to anybody....25 years later i still have that shirt. Sad to say he died later on.
so once again we were heeded out. I went to a pretty famous, huge, unorganized, dusty book store shoping for my tour book in the rough part of town ...the Tenderloin,. A big, filthy adult book store with booths and glory holes was near by so i made a pit stop in there. a real cute very normal guy was watching a porn movie with his door open....which was the big signal to come on in and join him. I did just that...closing the door and locking it behind me. we sktood there for a few seconds when he asked me, "you want to come over to my place? i live near here."
"sure," i said, "do you live alone?"
"yeah---you ever like to ....dress up?"
hummm. i could see this might be leading in a direction i wanted to avoid, but i had to know more.
"dress up? how dressed up are you talking about?"
"you know...dress up like a baby"
"A baby?"
now i knew a cult of grown ups that liked to get off dressed like babys existed because of a porno magazine that me and toby used to keep on our coffee table called Infantile Anilisis. a joke of course. now i knew i was not going anywhere with thi guy but i wanted to get ass mch infor out of him as i could.
"what would we do?" i asked...trying to look all interested.
"well, dress up in baby stuff...i have things that will fit you...diapers and baby bonnets, and we could mess ourselves and then ..." i had the door open and stepped outside..."sorry, dude, but im not into that" i said
he snapped back, as if to tell me off, "there are lot of adult babies in the bay area". then he slammed the door in my face.
i decided to drop any idea of having sex that day and just go to the real book store to get that touring book to read..
i usually got commie books but for some reason i wanted a book to feed the spiritual thing going on in me. I found a great little book The Teachings of the Buddha. i still have this book. all over th country i read it. i found much comfort in this book. Having been a good little Maoist it felt odd to be embracing the ideas of the Buddha. i laughed when anybody gave me shit about it. we played everywhere on that tour. Even staying a few days with our old friend Christy in NYC. One of her room mates at the time had been a boyfriend for a while with a new popular woman in the music world...Madonna! he tod us all about her and how ambitious she was. soon we moved on to Boston where two of my very best friends from austin lived now. one of the Torn panties, Do and one of the really great brother friends Raymond...which is where we would be staying. In NYC Lynn and i walked around everyday. one day on the way to the village we ran into Marine Stapelton...we asked her for directions...when i relized who shoe was i stupidly asked, "were you in the movie Reds?". she looked like a was the dumbass i felt like but she politly sid yes and walked off.
later waalking by the Dakota we saw Yoko Ono and a young Sean walkinging tinto the building....surrounded by big body guards....i wnted to say hello, but thought twice and just squled inside. i was always a huge Yoko fan. so lynn and i just laughed all the way back to the apartment. Tim and i usually had little to say to each other and were growing sick of being aroundeach other every day. i was really starting to look forward to getting bacck to SF. It was wonderful to play in Boston and hang out with Raymond and Deloris (Do).
soon we started the drive back to SF. but not frit before driving through Tesas. Even playing in Austin. we stayed with Biscuit....Randy Turner my old buddies came to the show and even watched and helped us hold Lynn's drums so they would not move across the floor. i found out later they wanted to come and kik my ass, but became friendly when i was really happy to ee them and we all went back stage and drank. i think back on this and am amazed ho kice they all were.to me and the ret of the band.
after the austin show we tared the long drive to San Francisco. things were about to cahnge. i ws happy to know thi but unsure how it would go down. all i could thinkthough, was bring it on!

These People came out and we stated thinking of another tour for The Dicks. a US tour to promote the album. and keep our name out there. Tim and i were getting along worse than ever. My little infatuation was now over. It was hard to deal with each other and Sebastian and Lynn had become somewhat involved and that was another intertwined set of problems. Tim now distanced himself from me and i resented that. the soap opera was a real pain in the ass and i wwonder how Debbie stood it. so when everyone is getting along badly what do you do? jump in the van for a month long tour. Debbie was starting to get a reputation around SF as a tough and good manager. She booked the tour herself and pretty soon we headed out. now this is he way all this works. i have been on many many tours. Long ones and mini tours. up and down the west coast. then up and down the east coast. from the dicks to black Kali Ma and Sister Double Happiness. all over the USA and all over most of Europe. to tell the truth i get them all mixed up. this happened here or was it there....which band did what and on and on. i never kept diaries and still really don;t regret it. I do know the Dicks from California toued the US a couple of times. long month or 6 weeks or one even two months. and up the west coast a lot. from san diego to Vancouver. we got an old van from a friend of ous pretty cheap. a big yellow sign on the side said The Tile Man with ome information and numbers to call. I never knew why but we left it there. so it became known around town as the Tile Man Van. we drove that old beat up thing all over hell and back. every once in a while it would brake down but wekept glueing it back together and kept on going. Everyone really tried to get along on these tours knowing we were going to be stuck together for months so try not to fight.
a few high lights of the Dicks--
once we were on a tour up the wwet coast. Playing Portland and Eugene, then up to Seattle. I think with TSOL. Funny how they were all punk looking and acting. they watched in amazment as Lynn used her curling iron to fix her hair back stage. you could just see them thinking how uncool we were. they were all business and leather jackets....we were queers, and curling irons. Sebastian was embarrassed at the Dicks being so unconcerned with being cool .the next night was Vancouver. we had never played in Canada and canada is one of the toughest boarders there is. We had no papers or anything to be ready for this little trip to our northern neighbors. We had played a lot with DOA, one of Canada's very best punk rock bands. So we knew from them that the Boardwr qwith Canada and the US was a tough one. Most of this could be avoided by knowing how to do it right. Having a list of all your equiopment and the worth of it, your merchindise, the peolple in the van and ID's. also you did not go the regular get in line and tourist way...you went the truck rought and pulled in and took your papers in to the office. even then it might not not go so smooth but usually that was the way to do it.Of course we did not do it like that at all. we got right in line with the rest of the tourist. well, no surprise we got the meanist woman in the world. she told us to pull over and for Debbie to come in the office. we all waited in the van nervous to see what was going on. soon she came back and told us we could not take undeclared equipment and tee shirts into Canada so we had to turn around and go back into the stats to the little town right there and put all the things into storage then come back into Canada. We were all freaked out. After some phone calls DOA's manager told us we could use their amps and just not sell shirts but to hurry up and come on so we wouldn't be late. it was atarting to get dark and we turned the old Tile Man van around and headed back to the good old usa.....now in the short time it took to turn around Sebastian told us, "i am not in the US legal and have a fake ID...it belongs to Carl" Sebastian and Carl, a SF punk, look like each other like i look like Cher. no one could really even say anything....we were pulling up to the guard who had, i'm sure, been told we were coming. a big strapping hot man waiting for the Tile Man. "good vening folks...Where you coming from tonight". he asked just as friendly as if he was family.
Tim was driving, with Debbie in the front seat, Lynn, Sebastian and i were clumped around The driver's seat in the back.....this wan't a van with back seats..it was a set on the florr type thing.
Tim sort of half tried to tell him the story..."well, we are a band and we are headed back to the US to...."
"everybody give me your ID's," he barked
we all had them ready and handed then to tim who politly gave them to our friend with the gun. one by one he looked at them.
"Mr. Floyd--where are you?" he asked looking in my face.
"Here". i said.i know i looked nuts to him. fat, big wild bleached blond hair".
mr. floyd--where are you from?"
"Origanily from Texas," i said, " but i now live in San Francisco."
"How about you, tim Carroll?" the guard was asking as he looked at each ID.
"time sort of beamed "from Ann Arbor i live in San Francisco now as well"
then the guy heald up an id card and looked around the van. oh, boy!
"an Mr --he said some name i never heard before. "Where are you from?"
in the most German accent i have ever heard in my life Sebastian says, "I am from America".ok, everybody's ass tightens up.
"Where?" the big mean looking guard asked
I'm whispering to Him in the back," say San Francisco...say San Francisco"
again "America, I am from America".
"the cop lost all human emotions then...pointing to an empty parking area just outside the office he said," Pull this van over and turn off the motor. "Mr..".whatever the name was that was not Sebastian's last name..."you follow the red line and come into the office now.
everyone was in shock....Sebastian was wild looking as he put his hand down his paints and pulled out a baggie..."What the fuck is that?" somebody asked.
"it's weed...hide it" he said slamming the door as we all sat there under the brightest lights in the world and watched him walking into the united states boarder office. we were were the only car there. slow sunday i guess.
"wjat are we gonna do with that?" er all asked eeach other."
"i know im going to kill that little mother fucker" debbie snarled
tim took out some little pocket knife and cut a little line alonge the cealing lining and stuck the baggie in there and stuffed the material back to try and hide the pot.
the office door swung open and a huge cop walked up and slammed against the side of the van yelling, "everyone out! follow the red line into the office and take a seat! no talking!"
we all got out with ouniforms were watching us. they came and told us one at a time to come to the desk and give our ID's to the cop and go sit back down. about this time the door opened and it was Sebastian followed by a few big guards. he had his suitcase and was all teary eyed. one of the cops laughed as he passed us and said, "your German friend Mr Fuches is going back to Germany..might want to say good bye!"
Lynn asked "can i please get his parents telephone number...i know they live in Boulder...please?" the cop said "well ok, but be fast."
about his time they called us all back up to get our id's when they gave me mine, the guys asked me, "did you know he was in the country illigally from Germany" i had no idea what to say. all i could think of the pot in the van and our show being cancelled in Vancouver.
"Uh, i knew he had German roots" i stupidly blurted out.
they told us they were deporting him tomorrow and for us to get out of there before they put us all in jail for trying to slip him into Canada.
he had vanished along with the other guards. we tryed to be calm and walk that fucking red line back to the van. as we got in we saw the pot was still there.."they didn't even search the van" Lynn said.
"everyone started saying to tim, "get outta here, get the fuck away from here. we stopped at a trash can placed just befor we pulled out onto the main road and threw the pot into it, and headed back to Seattle to spend the night with the folks who had put us up the night before. Debbie had called them to tell what had happened. thinking back i am sure they must of thought how stupid we were. but said we could spend the night there and try to deal with all this needless drama.
we called the number for Sebastian's parents in Boulder and Debbie sopke with his dad. thye seemed pretty unexcited by what had happened. i guess the dad had worked in some compssiry in washing dc and knew Jimmy Carter really well. a few phone calls were made and the bourder gaurds took Sebastian to a motel and even gave him money to buy food!! the next morning we piled back into the van and had to drive back that creepy little town and pick up sebastian from some restaurant. i wanted to fire him then and there. so did debbie...i think Lynn and Tim gave him a lecuture and thought that would be enough. I never trusted him at his word again. but we stayed together. i was starting to re think the whole band and was began to want something different. people were starting to yell "faster" after songs we played. i hated the idea of not being aboe to play any kind of song and feel free to do it the way i wanted. i wanted another band..i was also starting to feel the hunger for a spiriual direction. i needed sa change.
one more tour and i was sure it would be over. Just ojne more tour.

My day to day life was mostly pretty easy. The handsome worker at the Zoup Kitchen and i became pretty friendly. His name was Scott Squat...named for his dedication to living in empty buildings and finding squats for others as well. he and i even pent a few night together on the les than clean floor of a practice pace we had for a while at the notorious Turk St. Studio we shared for a hort while with the band Tragic Mulatto. i had also met a wonderful woman named Hilary. what a wild, go getter she was. very much a part of the anarchist collective that ran the Bound Together Bookstore on Haight. Skinny, like a model big eye and really mart as attatude. she and a few friend had started a big squat in town. they kept out the drug dealers and fixed the place up really nice. they even had movie night and big dinners for the community. at a show one night in the Russian center off Diviadero st. I ran into her. we talked all night and realized how well we got along. she was a big flirt sexy person...with boys and girls...and i was a bit of a flirt myself....although queer only, i had had oral sexx once at a party in austin with a south American beauty, a rich girl visiting and somehow ended up at Little Mexico on a prty night. I don't know how but public sex came up, and she asked me if i had ever had sex in a bathroom i said yes, of course but only with guys. she asked if i would have sex with her in the bathroom...beitng drunk i said yes! we went into the bathroom and she sat on the side of the tub and i used the. knowledge i had picked up from porn movies and buried my face in her crotch and ran my tongue un and down her pussy. She loved it and i sort of liked it too. -- however, lots of people had figured out what was going on and everyone started beating on the door.
So, i wasn't completely n the dark about what might be about to happen with Hilary. She asked if she could come over to my house and spend the night sometime. I said sure he could. Sure enough the very next night a knock came to my bed room door and it was her. I was very sober and very shocked. she did spend the night and she crawled into bed naked. I was born gay. End of discussion. but i was also flattered that Hilery was so into me and so up front about it. I kept thinking, "on my god, Phillip is just int he other room and i am in the bed with a naked girl! hat will he think?" we slept that way that night. me fully dressed and her completely nude. The next night a repeat happened, except i sort of flowed with it and let her take charge of it. we ended up hving sex! like everything! i knew how those straight guys felt that keep saying, "but i'm not gay" while getting you give them a blow job. Hilary started hanging out a lot. and she and i became really good friend. one night in a pizza place we both thought a guy in the cafe was really hot. Sex was the common topic of out conversation and a three way was something both of us wanted.
he noticed us looking at him and we were makiing it no secret that we were looking for trouble. a he was leaving he looked back and Hilary asked me ,"do you want me to ask him?" Hell Yeah!" i told her. she ran out of the restaurant and i watched them talk. i saw her write down what turned out to be his number. she came back and we laughed at our brazen act. he was into it, she said, but could not do anything that night. call him tomorrow and make a plan. well, we were both waiting all day to call and see when we could met up. when she did call another guy answered the phone. when 'out guy' got on the line he was acting all butch and both Hil and I were sharing the phone trying to listen. he said. some crap about he couldn't do it that day because his room mate was around. we both heard a loud "Room mate?" iin the background....then our guy sheepishly, "I mean my lover.." Great, he was a queen. cute but i wasn't looking for a three way with another gay guy. my stupid fantasy-- was some big strapping straight guy was going to be in the bed with us...not going to happen. we told the guy we might call him back. we were both disapointed, but not that surprised. Debbie got a little jealous of Hilary and i hanging out all the time and when i told her we having sex, she was pissed. Not that she wanted to do anything like that with me....she just looked at me as her best friend and me having a 'girlfriend' seemed to threaten that. My other girlfriends didn't like it either. The Torn Panties all later told me the idea of me having sex with a girl made them feel a little mad at me. i laughed one day when talking to Hil and said, "funny, after all these years finding out i am bisexual".. she quickly put me in my place and said, "you mioght be having sex with a woman, but you ann't bisexual--honey you're a queer!" i was de-butched pretty fast. soon Hilary found a girl friend and she and i went back to jut being dear friends. besides an occasional drunken eating a snatch or two in the bar or party bathroom i stayed on the queer road and have been better for it. Even Scot Squat turned out to be Straight but just sweetly into hugging and an noce nasty kiss now and then. Most of my sexual outlets were in adult video booths. "I'm in love with a glory hole" was more than just a song line i came up with. Aids was now tarting to be a real plague and public sexual outlets were drying up , so to speak. Aids was starting to be an real issue. One ignored by government funding, but very much not ignored by the right wing religious, anti gay fundamentalist. 'God's punishment' was a creepy catch phrase used by the good folks who hated the homosexuals anyway and were happy to now have a real reason to want to round us up and kill us. i feel lucky to have remained Negative during the years. the atmosphere was charged though with solidarity of anti ragan and and ant-war, Gays were dying but at the same time starting to recognize their government did not give a shit about them.
i remember getting on stqge at the huge anti government demonstration at the Moscone Center Parking lot during the 1984 Democratic Convention. 1000's of people were there on the sunny, beautiful day. I even saw Peter Jennings walking in the crowd. I thought of the wars the uS had been in and how Viet Nam had changed so many people's lives. Mine included. the Injustice of money over rights when it came to the lives of the poor and now the homosexuals dying in the misery of a disease that no one understood. The last song we sang during out 30 min. set was No Fucking War. i think i never sang it with more feeling and 1000's of people singing along, fist in the air and pissed. these are the times being in bands that say something has given my life meaning.
there is a picture of Dave Dictor and I hugging each other on stage that day. we both felt lucky to be able to express out feelings with so many who felt like we did. later that day a riot went down in downtown SF. horses running over people and cops beating up everybody. I had ducked into a bar to have a few drinks and missed getting the shot beat out of me. who says drinking can't be good for you?

The 'new' Dicks were completely different people than my Texas band mates. Lynn and I were close from the very start. Her energy brought a whole different side of me out. I felt a total dedication to the band and was able to define it by actually saying those words with no shame. she had been drumming since her days with the Wrecks in Reno. All young girls playing the pure punk rock sound with out the need to dress up an look punk Joan Stebbins later played with Imperial Teen. She also became one of my really good friends. Bessie on guitar. i never got to know her very well, but seemed sweet. Singer Helen Pardy was the crazy one of the band. and in day to day life too. great singer and a blast to hang around. she and Lynn were best of friends and Helen was always a part of he picture. Phillip, Lynn, Helen, and i would spend lots of Sunday after noons drinking boxes of cheap wine. playing AC/DC at top volume they lived tight on Haight St near Clayton so parting was on the menu all the time.....Sebastian was a very pseudo-macho, German in every way. A little defensive and ready to get pissed at the drop of a hat. He was really a handsome guy and had tons of girl friends. Usually beautiful girls willing to take care of him. . He respected me a lot, though. And he played good. He was really into being a punk rocker. Sweet, but it was hard to bring that out sometimes. He never thought Tim was punk enough to be in the Dicks. This, of course, caused problems right from the start. I was compleatly infatuated with Tim. He and I spent tons of time together. He was a very creative guitarist and loved playing music.. i had this big crush on him and gave him total freedom to sort of lead the direction the music was going in. This started a little bit of trouble with the other members. Debbie hated it when he and I would leave her notes offering ideas how to do business better. I mean she hated it. Although we were practicing almost everyday at the Vats and writing lots of songs no body was having too much fun.
The Vats were starting to get a bit scary with a new crew of crazy people hanging out. Meeting up with nuttie people in the hall ways became common. A busy dominatrix lived on the top floor...like 7 flights up. her whole trip was humiliating straight married men. 10 or so of us would be drinking beer on the stairways outside the building. a cab would pull up and out would come some guy dressed in a skirt and blouse, tacky hand bag, and lipstick. we knew the dominaatrix had ordered the guy to dress in simi drag and climb the stairs to her beautiful abode and get his ass beaten for an hour or so. Dave Dictor made friends with her and used to watch from a closet or something...in her room while she "worked". i wanted to watch too, but men in hose never turned me on. when they walked by us we always yelled at them and laughed and asked real loud..."gee, i wonder where the pretty lady might be going tonight?". soon, though, it was starting to get a bit crazy so we began looking for another place to practice. we knew of a cool woman, Carrol Lennon, who had a practice studio on Capp St...the street of the poorest prostitutes in SF. Capp, between 16th and 17th. Rough. However, we went to look at the place and it as very cool. plus Carol was so kind and so cool. an English women with two young teen boys. we decided to move into Capp and start practicing there. we practiced three days a week, and some weeks more. although we didn't get along to well as friends we were all very into the music. we wrote the songs that ended up on the album THESE PEOPLE. we were playing lots of shows around SF. Black Flag and Fear and MDC and DRI all still were bands we played with a lot. a new place in SF became a venue for live music. The Farm. a cultural center, really much like the places i would see later on in Europe. People lived there and used the space of everything from day care to after school places for kids. all kinds of music as going on in the Farm. it had a big music room and big stage. Playing there was always good. Soon we started recording These People. Klus Fluoride was producing. although Jello came by the studio almost everyday to check on the progress. He and I were always friendly. he loved to talk and give his opinion on everything. He is one of the very smart people in the world. He never failed to give me a great deaal of respect and always complimented my singing. Recording These People is another bit of a blurr to me. I never had money for day to day livin g but always had money for beer. Phillip was there druing the recording almost every day and Debbie was also there as manager. she and Phillip and I loved drinking ith each other so beer was always on hand. Lynn, Tim, and Sebastian never had much to drink. I do remember Tim and Sebastian having lot of different ideas on how songs should sound. the sound i was always very proud of was about my child hero George jackson....the Black Revolutionary who was killed in prison. and i loved Sidewalk Begging.
a ong about the new population of homeless people that were starting to be on the streets of the city--everywhere. the recording went smooth, i guess...because one day it was finished and we had a big show record release party. i loved record release parties.
Reagan was becoming more and more fascist. he had invaded Granada, broke the airline strike, laughed as the streets were filling up ith homeless people. and the atmosphere in the punk rock scene was geting more and more political. one of the meeting places of the political gatherings was a free lunch room known as the Zoup Kitchen. people started lining up about an hour before it opened this was at the Methodist church about half a block from the apartment Phillip, Debbie, and I shared. so i was there everyday...along with the MDC guys, and most other bands of any street dignity! a block from haight St. and tons of hippies and punks were coming together to eat. Skin heads were starting to appear in SF, but most of these guys were yesterday's punk rockers, and so every body was pretty friendly with them. Most of them came to Dick's shows and were nice to me. Uniting us all was an older guy called Diamond Dave. He would tell us he had been the one who turned Bob Dylan on to marijuana . i believe him. he was a street poet and looked upon himself as the thread to tie the hippies, punks, and skinheads together. Dave Whittiker. still around SF. the Cozmic Lady was also an older hippie poet. she would get up and say poetry ato the eating crowd everyday. punks would do acoustic shows....the cooks and cleanup staff were all dedacated to feeding the hungry. It was a real moment in SF political conscieness. i espically kept an eye on a volunteer. he was there everyday. thick build, black hair and big dark eyes. a beautiful smile and seemed really shy, but very dedacated to being there to help cook and clean everyday. i found myself looking to see him hen i went to the Zoup, which was about every day. the 1984 democrtic convention ws in SF that year. so huge plans being made to demonstrate. The Dicks were planning to record a 45 single around this time. we had written a song called I Hope You Get Drafted. Pointing to the apolitical folks i so disdained. I as wishing the 'give a shit' types would get drafted. i had to go through it o iwanted everybody else to. it would certenly put ome thinking into a blank head. MDC included thi on one of their compulation albums. they were running their own label now R Radical Records. when the Dicks recorded Hate Teh Police we made up our own label since we did not have one and knew we never would. we called it Radical Records. I knver knew how R Radical came to be but it did, so ironically WE ended up doing the single ep on R Radical. we got the great punk rock producer, who had produced KILL FROM THE HEART, Spot. i thought the ep should have a name. PEACE? i called it. it came from my wanting peace in the world, but wondering if it could ever come. the song on side one was NO FUCKING WAR. people loved that song and sang along with it at every show.
we recorded it at Howie Kline's studio... one Sat. all three ongs. No body asked me, I hope You get Drafted and No Fucking War. Somehow we Had Spot in town to produce the project. what a great guy to work with. a ture nerd and musical wonder. That he liked the Dicks was a real honor for us. His method was to let the band play and do it's thing. ever so often giving a little hint of what might make the song ork better. for No Fucking War we had a bunch of friends show up and sing on the Chorus.....everyone shouting as loud as they could..."we don't want no fucking war..and e don't want to fight no more..." It mde me think of the last time i had lots of friends inging along in the studio. When the Texas Dicks were recording Kill from the Heart and we recorded Anti-Klan Pt @, with Tim Kerr from the Big Boys on Dobro and all ou friend doing back ground vocals on the "We'll fight you" chorus. Most days i was thinking of Buxf, Pat, and Glen and wondering how they ere doing and what they were up to. i figured they hated me so i didn't call.
I was living a sweet life, always broke, eating in soup kitchens and living free with my two best friends. sometimes though i felt a little empty nd lonely. who dosen't feel tht way sometimes?

Hanging out is Austin was good. but i knew the other guys were not planning to return to SF. why would they. they had lovers and friends to live or ty with. they had jobs waiting for them. i on the other hand was having a blast in SF. Phillip and i were like brothers and i lived with him. Debbie and i were like family now, too. i had gained a bit of populairity in SF amoung the punk scene so going back for me was not only easy but i looked forward to it.
During the time we were there our SST album KILL FROM THE HEART got shipped to us. too bad it missed the whole tour but we tore into the boxes and were thrilled to see the big beautiful album cover. it looked so cool. Carlos had done a great job. too bad, upon openning the album the wrong record was in the covers. open another one. another etc. every record had the wrong vina. i went ballistic we had a instore record release party the next after noon and a show in a couple of days. Debbie got on the phone and fixed everything. They promised to send a batch in time for the party and the show. we had to ship the ones back they had sent. i wish now i hqd kept a few for collector's items. the records did come and we did have the party.
soon i knew every was getting a bit pissed at me and i felt the same. Debbie's parents sent her the money for both of us to fly back to SF and leave the old van with Buxf. i soon left Austin to reform the Dicks. a san francisco Dicks.

As our time with the RAR tour was coming to a halt i did have a few fond memories to cling to forever. Meeting Doc Dqrt was a special thing. a great guy from the old school of weird and wondeful. i remember him on one show in a small croeded club pulling a bic disposable razor out of his pocket during a song and reun it down the side of his face as he sang. as the blood started pouring down his chin some fan standing near the stage started yelling and freaking out. to comfort him
Doc jumped off the stage and ran right for the guy...with razor in hand....of course the happy fan, fearing for his life dropped his beer and ran as fast as he sould to the end of the club, Doc close behind. i never knew what really went down but after while Doc rejoined the band , who had never stopped playing, back on stage. that Doc. always good for a laugh.
another time in new york the yippies had called a meeting of all the bands and workers to figure out what was going to happen and who was staying with the tour and who was leaviing. at this point we really weren't sure what we were going to do.
It's funny to look back on now and i relly can laugh. but i wasn't laughing then. none of us were. to many turkey dogs and crying babies and cops pulling plugs. the meeting was compleat and utter chaos. a packed room on Beaker St.. at this time it was rough and nasty part of town. im sue nw it's part of the clean and pretty new-nyc. we were ll packed into a airly big, but stuffy room. too many turkey dogs had left everyone a bit miffed and e were all getting tired. people were getting really stoned and then making decisions for all of us--nice, well meaning people but a little lopsided in their thinking.
i was really worn out and at one point of some argument i had had it..i got up and stormed out of the room and down the stairs to pull open the door and get some air on the dirty street. i was in a fury at how silly the scean had become. i yanked to door but it didn't come open...ipulled again and looked at the young hippie looking girl who i suppose was a receptionist. she looked terrified at me pulling on the door knob and cussing.."this godamned fucking shit...even the door is fucked up"...at this poing the knob came off in my hand almost sending me into a fall flat onb my ass. Buxf had followed me down and was telling me to calm down. i felt foolish at being so mad but it was too late to stop now so i took the door know and threw it as hard as i could at a blank wall. "wham!!" it hit the wall with uch force it stuck there. silent and still looked scared the young woman salked over to the door and said, "it opens by pushing it." while saying this she slowly opened the door with ease by ever so slightly pushing it open. there was the door know sticking in the wall, and me with a shocked look on my face. Buxf started laughing and said, "let's get the fuck out of here....there's beer in the van". i felt stupid but, oh, well....afte a few beers i started telling the story to anyone who might listen to me....oh, what a day!
another night after being lot and getting the wrong directions for a couple of hours....cot and i finilly got to the little packedgarage apartment everyone had settled into. I think it was Amhurst and the show the next day on campus was supposed to be really big. lots of local young political punks were there adding to the crowd and noise and the juicer was buzzing and i wanted any thing but a fucking turkey dog to eat. already in a pissed mood dur to getting directions in the wrong little town instead of Amhurst....an it being late and walking into a nest of punks, and hippies, dogs barking and babies crying...seeing Buxf, Glen, Pat, and Debbie looking miserable , but drinking, i said something like, "is there any fucking beer or something to eat...." some hippie kid started heading toward me with his arms open. everyone got tense---"dude, you just need a hug". as he said this i grabbed him and picked the tiny rat up up and headed to the window to throw this mother fucker out the second floor. "Ill give you a fucking hug", i told him. Pat and debbie had grabbed me and made me put the kid down. i remember him scurring away and under his breath saying.."dude.."
i eneded up sleeping alone in the van that night...i needed the lone time to clear my head. i woke up feeling pretty good and knew a big plate of turkey dogs was all cooked up and wiiting for me.
the show was great that day and we were about to leave and drive on down to Texas to rest, play a few shows and then head back to San Franisco.
I could tell trouble was coming by some hints and actions from my dear band mates and best friend.. i ignored them mostly and just kept it going for myself.







Christy compleatly saved us on he tour. she could deal with the leadership, and yes, their was a real leadership in this anarchist unit. she would screem and yell to get sence making points across. without her we would have stayed about a week, but instead we had fun staying at her crowed 102nd and Broadway apt. one of the most fun nights we all had off and were having a meal together with MDC, Christy and Rob, the sound guy on the tour and lots of other folks i can't remember. Beer somehow was there in many cans which the Dicks were gulping down. that night after eating and while we were all sitting around the living room Glen started playing every ong he knew on the guitar...old top 40 radio songs and i started singing along, only adding my own filthy lyrics. In stead of Stop in the Name of Love....it became Cum When I Suck Your Dick....with all the lyrics changed to fit the night. every one was laughing and getting drunk and it was great. I, for once, felt it was a bit of history for us all to be gathered there involved in this cause. this anti right wing bull shit Reagan was doing to out country. no matter how crappy i felt the 'turkey dog tour' was, i belived in the reason we were all there and espected the others for being there, too.

may 20--09

Scot soon showed up to met us and i was again back in the little truck i loved so much. we were setteliing into the day to day traveling and laying and meeting new eole along the road. Dealing with the RAR eole was a tri in it self. WE ahd made really good friends with Tour manager Chrisy, though. Although she hated us as eole at first....only due to us being added at the lat momen and being a ersonal hasle to her, she did like our music. She had to deal with us everyday and soon found us to be funny and rolling with the punches of the turkey dogs and odd places were were put up at night. we had mistakenly thought Chrisy was one of the hippie elements since she had long hair and worked with the yippies. we were proved wrong one day whn the poor baby that was on the tour was crying and hungry and in that little baby talk was reaching and saying, "my bottle, my bottle...". the gross stingy haired father, not even looking at the kid said "it's not 'your' bottle, it's 'everybody's bottle".Chrisy who was, along with everybody else was getting sick of this jack ass dad, snapped his head off, "Shut up hippie and the kid his bottle...it's his fucking bottle, not everybody's!" . the guy looked painfully shocked as he handed the baby the bottle. we looked at Christy an all felt we had seen a hero in action . a comrade and friend. shelaughed seeing us so aproving of her beheading of this creey weird-o.
after that we had a great relationshi ith her. even till this day a close friendship remains.
the days and nights dragged by. another close friendship srang up between the Dicks and the Crucifucks. Doc, the singer and main force behind the band, and i shared a sence of humor and made fun the silly hippies on the tour. Steve Shelly, now drummer for Sonic Youth, was Teh drummer for the Crucifucks. He was one of the nicest people i ever met. even though he didn't drink he loved hanging out with the Dicks who were always drinking. some shoes were tired and smll and others were huge and exciting. i remember an outdoor show in a ark somewhere, here their were more cops than audience. the y olice hated us. the whole thing irked them. i wa looking real good too. fat as a bear, and a big bush of badly bleached blond hair, iped up clothes....handsome. so i aalways cought their eye as i was walking near them. Singing Dicks Hate olice during these showswas a test of my paranoid
thinking, but i did it. over and over i did it. One day glen told us he had worked up the old soul song Love Train...so we started singing it at every show. some of the punks thought it was lame....so we moved them into the catagory of daum ass hippies and stupid no humor punks. a big "fuck you" went out to them. when we played Kent Ohio we played the Neil Young song OHIO....we loved doing that song and put it into our set list most of the rest of the tour. one of the biggest shows was in Central ark in Nwy York. thousands of people were there. It was wonderful. about 20 eople were staying in Christies one bed room apartment. noone going to sleep till it got light and not getting u till almost dark. Scot and i made sure to do tourist stuff everyday. MOMA, aks and the filthy adult book stores in times SQ. even Christy, who was born and raised in NYC had never been to one of these places went with us one day and watched as the gilrs behind the windows in small booths let men stick their hands up their legs and fingers nto a hole where ever it might be. sad to watch. again, aids was not a thought in any ones heads, although it was coming, we didn't know it yet.
the Cantral Park gathering was a high point. The dicks were about ready to leave the tour so it was almost a good bue show for us. the cops were getting ready to close down the show due to noise permits not being right or something. really they were just afraid it was all about to get out of hand.MDC had stirred up the crowd to a near frinzy, then We came on. the crowd was slamming and the it was wild. a mid day chaos the olice had gotten sick of. I yelled into the mic, " we dedicate the next song to your friends and ours....from New York to Texas to California.....it's called DICKS HATE THE POLICE".....well, every one went nuts....about half way through the first verse the cos pulled the plug! they were staring at me from the generator just daring me to say or do something to insite the crowd. i just raised my fist and yelled, THANK YOU NEW YORK CITY" and left the stage.
our three months with the tour were nearing an end........

RAR was a traveling caravan from hell. MDC had their own van. fixed for touring with a loft and all the comforts of punk a rock touring band . We had a van but it was not all fixed up and was bare bones. I;m not sure if DRI had a van or not. some of the travelers had cars and the Crucifucks were stuck on the Big yellow sschool bus which had the cooking things used by the staff of RAR. some guy...a driver or omething..a tall kinny long haired hippy dude had his baby on the tour. a little kid, maybe three...always in a filthy diaper. dogs, weed, lots of different types of us were there. the big guy with huge hair that i had seen on stage doing, i think, a sound check, when i walked in the club the first night was a poet...of sorts. doing spoken ord while playing a little cassieo key board thing....i remember he had a clothes hanger tangle in his hair....and a very skinny wife that waited on him handd and foot. what a couple! i really can't remember past that. to many people for the project. the agreement being the staff would provide a place for the band to stay and feed you two meals a day.the first night we met a woman who was the tour manager named Christy. I think she hated us due to MDC insiting e be added to the line up. e ere nothing but an added head ache to her. she a nice enough but i could tell she could be scary if needed. Allen, her partner, was the sound man. skinny, buzzed hair and cute guy. both were a little spactic, but nice. after the show Chisty told us they had lined up for us to stay at the apartment of one of the local club promoters. it sounded ok to us. He told us he lived in a walk up old building in downtown cicncinati. the club got pretty croded and at the end of the night e lokked and looked but couldn't find him. everyone was in the van waiting and Debbie was searching for him all over the place.. hen he came back to the van another guy aswith her. he told u he lived at the same place and could guide us there. the other guy had already left he said. somehow during the night Debbie had twited her leg and poped her knee out of place....she literately had to pop it back in order to walk. her leg was killing her. as e pulled up to the old, what looked like an abandoned office building, we asked the guy, "people live here?". "Oh, yeah, it's the best squat in town".
Oh, boy, i though....the cops are going to come and beat me and drag me to a Cincinnati prison.
everyone grabbed their bag and headed to thee door. Poor Debbie was mortified when we saw the endless stairs ahead of us. like, hundreds of stairs. 5 floors up. the room was big but very dusty and messy. Debbie and i yelled, "we get the bed". since her leg was so fucked up no body put up a fight. Glen, and Buxf piled sleeping bags at the end of the bed and Pat wasleeping in the van.
a huge window was right at the head of the bed with a long ripped up curtain hanging above us. the as a fight eh Glen stole Debbie's pillow in the middle of the night. but the real fight was with the window and curtain. a huge rain storm movedd in and i was awaken with rain blowing through the glassless window and the long curtain had some how blown around me and Debbe both sort of tying us together in a wet knot. after untying the roap like thing and moving the bed we slept till the sun was shining through the same window. i had to pee really bad. i had no idea where a bathroom was, but went looking. the place was so different in the light of day than the night before. it was a hughe old office building. no electricity and when i found the toilit in a dusty hallway and lifted the lid i saw theplace also had no water. a dry toilit with piles of shit in it looked at me. more than making me sick i couldn't wait for Debbie to see it. i pissed in the filty sink and went back to the room where everyone was gettin up. hangovers and a sence of wanting out of the place hit us all at the same time. Debbie's knee was better and we all filed down the stairs to a balmy morning. hot and steamy and ready to go.
the plan was to meet the rest of the crew a some address we had gotten the night before. and to have our first breakfast with the whole bunch.
who knew that some kind person had donated thousands of Turkey Dogs to the Yippie to feed us. thousands. not being a variegation at the time i had a fw with some white bread offered. MDC ere very political with their no meat policies so they had a huge bag of carrots and a juicer supplied by the RAR staff. so while they were buzzing their carrots and drinking their juice the rest of us were downing turkey dogs and while bread. soon we were all off the the next city where some poor kid had agreed to put u all up....the surprise came to him qnd his horrified parents when a school bus, 4 or five vans and about 50 or so freaks piled out to rock against everybody.