Playing with bands e loved and playing with the local bands who all hadsomething different and omething special was most wonderful. ssoon e tarted going to Houston to play the great Rock Island. Being texans competition between their bands and out bands was light, at most. We wanted to like each other. the best of the Houstn scene was Really Red. Nice guys, and great live hows with good music. Teh Dicks and The Big Boys were pretty regular on the Houston and Austin Scenes.
the other band we played with a lot was the Stains. Singer Dave Dictor an i were pretty good friends and i had even moved into a house he vacacted. I in the meaantime had become bet friend with Toby---the Armadillo Waitress, moved in togther. what a pair. his brother introduced us because we were the weirde queers in town! the tains were a great band too. big hit was John Wayne was a Nazi. talk of going to San Francisco on a tour started being passed around. i wanted to go bad. Dave was good at pulling shos together and had be come friends with the Maxium Rock and Roll people, especially Tim Yohanna....who was the surpreme leader of that world. we all wanted to go. just to get aay was a chance we wanted to take. we had our little ingle, Daick hate Police and the Live at Paul's album o e were all ready to go. after a long hot trip driving from Austin to SF, we howed up a few days before July 4th, 1981. the firt thing we did was head to Good Will to bye coats and sweat shirts cause it was cold! i loved that.
we did an interview in Bearkley with maxium RnR radio show. that was my first meeting with Yohannan and i a happy he was older that amy of us. He loved the Stains...newly named Millions of Dead Cops aka MDC. He liked us. I had begged Torn Pantie Byrd to come along with me and she did. Being on the road with no women to me was no fun. so she and i were having a time of of own. wathing the california punks and dicecting everyone pretty good. some ere nice, ome too cool to freeze. our big show was at the Mabhua gardens with MDC and The Dead Kenndeys.....it was a big show in a small club. Jello Biafra was very nice to me...to us. i think he was a little afraid of Buxf but still though we were a good group. he liked my 'gay communist' reputation too. i was a straight talker to him and was not at all intimidated to speak my mind with him---but i respected him so we got along. the trp back to austin was long and hot and we had made pretty much no money....we had played only two shows..the MAB AND THE BEAUTIFUL, TENDERLOIN SHEEZY HIT HOLE The Sound of Music. the cop even came in during our set and tried to top the show.....we kept playing and they jut left. me. Byrd, Glen, and our friend Conas had a drive awaay' car to get home with. a huge tation wagon with big wall unit air condishner in the back. just hell. we had fun though. and the idea fo moving to the west coast had been planted in my head. MDC was moving and i wanted us to do something new...somethng to make us get better. practice more. as we began to talk about it more i could ee it might really happen. worrying about money, a place to live and those little problems were not in my thinking at all. jt moving and heading to San Francisco was all i wanted. it was jut about to happen.

The one thing i can say about being in the Dicks is...we had fun. lots and lots of fun. even the dramas were fun. we loved to practice since it meant a party and friends coming by to hang out. We kept writing songs too. Glen or Buxf would come in with new tunes all the time. I must say they were so easy to work with and i never felt intimidated to let the words por out of me to the muic they played. Glen was a great guitar player. He could play anything. Most people looked at us a a sloppy drunk bunch of lazy creeps. well, although partly true---we were not lazy when it came to playing. songs like Right Wing-White Ring, Little Boy's Feet, Dead in a Motel Room....it was a blast. we were playing a lot too. We were lucky to be on of thee first bands to get called when out of ton bands came through. Either us or The Big Boys were usually on the bill. The Offenders, or the Next, tones of bands had sprung up and were all showing Austin to be a place to reckon with in the punk rock world. When the Big boys and The Dicks Randy and i would try to out do each other and tht certenly gave the people their money's worth. Biscuit was more creative than me. he would spend hours, or days, putting an outfit together. i would throw on some torn up dress and some nasty panties, a wig and i was ready. but it worked. Biscuit and i loved each other. we both remembered the boring pre punk time before we had bands and were taking full advantage of what was going on. the bit of creative competition between he and i was always a fun thing. never catty or done to be mean. our friendship was deep and both being lead singers in popular punk bands who just happened to be gay and big showoffs....well, it kept us close.
I remember when we heard Black Flag was coming to town. they were the top of the punk underground. during a show they did in LA the cops had showed up and a riot ensued...it caused national attention for ome reason. we had just seen Chuck Ducowsky (sp) on the late night Hollywood talk show Rona Barrett...we couldn't beleive the mohawked bass player was answering her quwstions about why the cops hated the punks...he was very cool and all at once they were cming to town. we did get on the bill and we very excited. they were very laid back and nice guys.. although they were not big talkers and kept amoung themselves they ere likable. the singer at the time was Dez, was the most down to earth and approachable. i wore a torn green stretch dress....a couple of sizes to small. i had a bleached Mohawk, and had taken about a dozen condoms and put a mixture of water and mayonnaise in each one and penned them all over the dress. now thi as 1981 and as common as rubbers might be today, in the pre AIDS early 80's nobody ever even saw rubbers...so a look of surprise was on the faces of the crowd. No one, as far as i knew, was dealing in 'cum' as a shock factor so i was proudly displaying my props. when i spotted someone in the crowd who looked really disgusted i would yank a rubber off the dress....heald on by a safty pin, and bite off the end then throw the dpipping condom and then. it caused a bit of a panic. i never understood why...after all it was just cum! they didn't know it was only a look alike to the filty seman filled safty device. Black Flag were a little shocked too. i guess they were not doing that in LA.
the next ime Black Flag passed through they had a new singer. Henry Rollins. He hated us. I mean he liked the music but thought we wee a bunch of alcoholics. he said as much while were were sitting on the porch of Buxf's house where they ere staying, or hanging out, or something. i just showed up and everyone was drinking cold beer on the hot afternoon. we were playing that night so getting warmed up was natural for us. i remember Henery coming out of the house , letting the screen door slam behind him and as marching down the stairs saying, "bunch of alcoholics!". we all laughed loud and started yelling about LA nd the light weight weight punk rocker....the rest of the band just laughed and we kept drinking. Henry was always nice though. In his rather offish way. i never cared though. i was too busy digging my own thing.
we played with all the bands that came thorugh Fear was one of the other bands i was excited about. Sadly, i don't remember more than i remember due to enjoying drinking too much and forgetting so much. My own friends and i had our own scene going on and wee never so cought up in the cool stuff.
soon, though, we tarted talking to Blacck Flag about putting a record out on SST. Kill From the Heart was coming. So was San Francisco.

Playing the Punk Prom was a great way to start. May 16, 1980. we soon started playing Raul's a lot. a new guy named Steve Hayden had taken over the club. of course everyone was worried he might try nd change it, but he really didn't somebody might have mopped once but that was about it. Steve started talking bout wanting to do a second Live at Raul's album. the first one had lots of bands who playe there regularly. during this time we had met a guy namd Bryan Flaurity. a drummer and funny a hell guy. Boston Irish compleat with accent. he told us he had a cousin who owned a studio and would like to record a single with us. the idea of making a record had alway been a dream. all the years i stood in front of the mirrow singing into a hair brush were about to pay off. Glen Taylor had the best song in the world.....he came in to practice one day and played and sang Dicks Hate Police. we ere all pretty blown aaway. then we all played it--loud. i added a little verse about we ere planted on desert sand, and there it was...our hit! so on friday and sat. after noon in the summerof 198 we did out record. Dicks Hate the Police. a very shy long haired guy who seemed to always be there when we played offered to do the art work. Carlos Lowery showed us the art work and shocked as hell in the best way we could be, we said Yes. The communist themes i had been adding to our image came through loud and clear. hammer and cyckels and out faces lined up lke Marx, Lenin Stalin and Mao.....i loved it so much. we used the other side to put a take off of the Bee Gee's Night Fever and our own Life Time Problems. other bands in town were all starting to do records. it s a party almost every week end for some band's new record coming out. austin was full of music and punk rock was now the big ooze showing up to be the loudest and most creative out let.
when Steve Hayden came and asked us to be on the new Live at Paul''s record
we couldn't believe it. this one was going to be different too. just two bands. the Dicks and The Big Boys. side b and side d.
the Big Boys:
Randy Turner and i had known each other for years. never very well but enough to say 'hey' when we ran into each other on the drag in Austin. Both of us were sick of the hippie crap, but sot of stuck in that gray period between to two. During Sound checks when we played together, and that was a lot, he and i got to know each other pretty good. we loved each other. Both having grown up ga bu always outside of the gay scene made us a little bitter at the gay community, but at the same time open and out. Of course we had a friendly rivalry between the bands and between us as show off ingers. but it was always a game and done with love. besides the Big Boys and The Dicks were so different that it was all a game that we all loved to play.
The recording was going to take place on a riday and Sat. night during the hottest part of the summer in 1980. i remember all my close friends being really excited. i knew Biscuit would use the occasion to really show off his talent for dressing up and being a true flam of outrageousness. on the first night i dressed in a ragged dress and huge breast ith a curly blong wig. on the sat. night i pulled out the look--Nurse Julia Mean R.N.. i got a real nurse outfit. including cap and withe stockings. i had a big brown-black wig i called my Liz Taylor hair....my girl friends shortened h skirt to just below the balls....i got the biggest bra i could find andstuffed it till the cups were as hard and new pick up truck. coated in make up and looking real good....i was more than ready. a mobil recording truck was parked in the back of the club. it was a wild eek end and super hot and the club was packed. I'm sure a lot of other bands hated us for being the only band on the album. i never knew why that happened that was. whatever. i used the nurse out fit only one other time and added a brand new enema bad to the act--of course filled with beer. it was funny to un-clasp the tube and see beer flow from the little holes in the plastic white attachment at the end of the long white hose. i heald it out and veryone opened their mouths for a fe drops of tasty 'enama beer'. the nurse even got center fold in a local fanzine. i wish i had one. cause, as i said, i was a real sight.

...so somehow Barry Gavin was named our manager---i never knew what that meant but i was happy to have one. we were already prqcticing. once wirh our good friend Chuck Lopez on drums. That didn't work. he tried but he knew and we knew he was no drummer. then Barry showed up with a guy named pat Deason. real cute, short guy. but thoe clothes!! a mullet and flip-flops, bouble knit pants and a sleeveless tee shirt. i was never one to give a hit what people wore, but thi guy was pushing it. Barry told us if we ould get a few songs together we could open a show he had put together qt the AWHQ....it was 2 weeks away. we were never orrie for a econd. "sure. we can do it". and we did.out place to party and practice was ot own little punk rock hub known as Little Mexico. Manolo, Chuck, Santiago, who was the one whoreally lived there, i think. he as a great friend to have on your side. and then Glen moved in and buxf stayed there from time to time. it w the Dicks practice house and drnking center. a party every day. during the two weeks we had to get it together for th show wa a big party each and every day. some of the ongs were tunes Buff and Glenn had written in other bands and i came up with my own words. so before it was over with we had the song list down:

KIll from the Heart
Bouroeois Fascist Pig
Wheelchair Epidemic (buxf sang this one)
Little boy's Feet
Sat night at th Bookstore
You Keep me Hanging on
Night Fever (another buxf singing disco)
Pigs Run ild
Dicks hate Police
then it was over...being on that big stage at the famous club as wonderful for u all. we forun out that day that pat had no trouble starting a song, but never knew when to end the song...so the usual ending as the band stopped and he just kept playing unill some ugle look came from me to '''''stop, already" i never uderstood what was going on tht would let the ending of a song happen and you be so far away to loose it. however time gwas on his ide and he still oes it till this day. during the time on stage my houe mate and best friend, Toby, played ocktail waitreass...bringing ber to the band on stage. of course he as in some outrageous drag outfit...and as drunk as hell. cute and we were not afraid to show the queer side of punk right off the bat. even though at the time i thought ai was the only gay member of the band everyone just always went along ith my ideas to be a little extra freaky. nasty and freaky. the other bands that night were the Reactors, Sahron Tates Baby and the Next. i could n't wait ti see the tickets....but was disapointed to see all the band's names and we wee listed as "..and others", i always thought it waould have taaken less room to just put out name....maybe the dicks' were gonna test peoples comfort leval....fuck 'em.
before the show we all got deed up and Monaola had just bought a huge beat up old cadalac convertible. to go to the show we all pliled in and with Manola driving headed over ot the hippie heaven of the "Dillo.....a sight to be seen. a big car full of punk roker. ustin as not use to this. i had a purple Mohawk, purple shirt with white dots on it, and bron, wy to hort, nasty double knit double knit pants. the ret were in leather jackets, sunglasses, ripped up shits...and mean looking...i remember a city bu pulling up next to us at a red light--the hole bus s hanging out of the windows...silent and wide eyed. we wave at them and they all started yelling, 'ho are you'?, are you a band...etc" it was great...we didn't tell them we were poor ans hell and were playing for drinks and kicks. oh what a night.
a good thing a the whole ho was recored live to tape in the under stage studio the Armadillo had....same place Frank Zappa recorded a live album. we ere lucky to have out very first show on tpe and ready to bethere all these yeaes later.sounds fucking great.
i remember seeing Toby going out on stage during the other band's set bringing them beer too.....drunk as a skunk....i left early and pent the night at the Torn Pantiess House....my girlfriend...the Torn Panties....o, Roxanne, and Byrd. boy i that another story! they were as much a part of the Dics as the Dicks.

When i first met Buxf (buff--the x is silent.....this is what he always said) and glen never knew they woud become uch huge partos my whole life. i had been back in Austin a very short time whn my friend Lynn introduced me to a new guy in town...his name was dan and he worked at a high end beauty salon . he had worked at Sassoon's in San Francisco and had only lived in Austin a few month. he was the most smart mouth and equally intelligent person i had ever met. he loved to bleach my hair and then put Crazy Color on it. ok, this was 1979....austin texas. and i am walking around with cntty looking super red sort of day glow glow looking hair.....people would almost have wrecks looking at me from their cars. i loved it.....i ws the first person i knew who had this kind of hair thing going on. like--30 years ago. i did n't have a car so i got around on UT shuttle bus; or the terrible austin city buses. lots of contact with the locals. people would say really stupid shit, .like, "is that your real hair color?". i would usually look real serious and say "yes". to which i would always hear the thick texas fighting voice "it is not" come from their mouths. mad---they were mad at me. the red hair brought out some emotion of hate in them. again--i loved it.
me, Lynn, and Dan had heard of Raul's nd could not wait to go there. the firt night i went The Skunks were playing with the Violaters. one fashion i alwaays liked a lot was the Stained Look...a light colored shirt and double knit pants...always adding some huge nasty stain on the shirt...like brown cake frosting...or just dirt and water---let it dry and it looked great...just --nasty. the red hair--or white or some color....i looked great. i loved the band and the atmosphere of the small club. i went back every night. dan and lynn were not so into it...but i was and made friends pretty fast. Chuck and his brother Manolo Lopez, the guys from the Next, and a funny, nutty guy named Barry..they all knew i was gay but they also know i was real and good for a laugh--we sll were. i liked to give a quick beer bottle break and cut my arms now and then. the attention was great. only wking up the next day with a bad hang over and have my bloody arm stuck to a friends filthy carpet got old pretty fast.
i tarted telling everyone i had a band too. The Dicks and we were getting ready to play. of course it was a lie....i had no band but it made no differance. me and a few friend would make poters announcing :
"The Dicks
playing at the
New Mars Club
1313 Parkway
first 10 people who bring a gun get free drinks all night"

we'd make up some other names of bands. (Of course their was no New Mars Club or no 1313 Parkway.)and put the posters all over the place. i did this for at least a year before i ever met the other guys in the band. my idea was 'fuck everybody--i should have a band'. so walking into Raul's one night, already drunk, i noticed two new faces. these guys looked real. mean. more like freshly released prisoners than punk rockers. i found out later they had been there a few time and seen me. Buxf said they called me Alfred e. Newman!! the very idea. i walked right up to them and we all started talking. it was Glen Taylor and Buxf Parrott. the y lived in San Antoino they said, but were looking for any excuse to move to Austin. I told them I had a band called the Dicks....only i was the only member...would they like to join? they said yes!! buxf played bass and glen played guitar. we needed a drummer...but we hd a band. at last i had the band i had been telling people i had for over a year. i heald my head high and drank about 20 more beers. i noticed they were keeping up, if not out drinking me. yes...we had the band at lat .. The Dicks had come.

I moved back to Austin from San Francisco in late 78.
Just seeing the Sex Pistols gave me a little 'big headedness' with the one or two people i knew who had even heard of them.
seeing the gods of punk:
My friend who i lived with and i strolled into Winterland in SF, after buying our $5 tickets. I was trying really hard to be cool, but this was almost an overload. my memorie is rater distorted by time and a certen dream like sensation i was in. the Sex Pistols. and then walking in i was 100's of other punks. beautiful and weird and some a little scary. i loved it. i had this dee dee ramone hair cut...but made a quick note "cut hair tomorrow". ti me, who had never been to Winterland, it seemed the place was huge...and it seemed people wa walking in a big circle outside the auditorium. Just walking in a big circle before going in to see the band. Now, i know they were just 'being seen'. a fashion and "I'm Here" statement. i felt so uncool being in a blue jean jacket and that long hair was weighing me down.. i don't even think i drank a single beer....im sure i had no money. however back then i didn't care.
wsling into the huge auditorum i could see the misty lighted stage and it was the NUNS. the lat of their set...next to the last song. these people were great...looked som real and sounded so loud--.making a mental note to 'start Band at once" i just stood there with my mouth open watching the likes of Alihandro Escavero in all his punk glory....Seeing the Nuns makes me special...right?
then the Avengers. Teh ture goddess of world of punk....except for England's Catwomen, was there on stage. Penelopie Houston. the most beautiful women in the world. as se hopped and jumped across the tage i saw him...to the side of the stage...Sid Vicious. laughing and watching the band. swigging on a big bottle of beer. he was there. my hair felt a mile long. Note to self "fuck up your hair tomorrow". then they played. it was wonderful. i was hearing the ongs i had been playing 10,000 times at home. it was great. i hear the horror tales of what was really going on ith them now i didn't know any of that then....it was like the christian seeing Jesus--or a Hare Krishna enjoying the company of Krishna Himself.
Life having just changed i wass brought back to reality by my friend's telling me his lover was going to be home after being away on a business trip and they wanted to be alone--so, here's $10..see you tomorrow. Now, Palo Alto and San Francisco are at least an hour or so apart and the bus ride is long and i was being left to the teeth of the city. Making another mental note "move back to Austin asap" i spent the night in a very bazaar se club--Mr B's Back Room. Not really where i wanted to be after the life chnging time i had spent at the concert...but i guess it made sence. a long hall way leading to a dark, big, smelly back room....and packed with every type of sexual dream or nightmare---take your pick. you couldn't see the face of the person net to you...but after a wwhile the little blue light bulb in the cornor enabled me to see good enough to give at leat 5 or 6 blow jobs to no faced strangers...before finging a bench in the cornor an going to sleep. oh what a night.
soon i was going to be back in Texas, though. God was looking out for me. i had seen Penelope Houston and Sid Vicious in the same night. had a lot of filthy sex...and thought of Austin were in my head.
good times.

I hated school. from the first grade to the 12th grade. hated it.
be fat and stutter. be a bit of a sissy and be fat and stutter and tell me how great school is. i went to Gurdon Elementry school. i wanted to stay home and watch television. not go to a room full of paste eating monkeys. i wasn't that smart either. i couldn't spell. i was not to good at math either. i did a little "show n tell" thing once, though. how much of a fag i must have looked like, i can only guess. i had some record of my mother's. Cuban songs...nightclub music. i put on the record and then a big huge sombrero. "el manisero" was the song, and boy, did i dance! rising from the floor at the first notes of the song, then breaking into a full 'round the room'....the other kids must have loved it cause they sat there with no talk and mouths open. even Miss Benton was speechless when the room was 'pin drop' silent at the end of my act. a few people clapped untill they saw no one else was moving.
this was my high point in school. times were going to be rough, and i had not even moved to Texas yet...but that was coming. soon.

Gurdon, Arkansas
December 11, 1952
9:45am
I'm born.
My whole family was from this area of small town Arkansas. one little clump of stores here and another there.
there are three things i remember most about Gurdon. although my faamily moved away, due to cut backs in the Mo. Pac railroad.....a few things stuck in my head forever.
1- when the Butlers moved in next door. Cleda and Gene, with young Brenda and the first cool person i had ever met, Russell Butler. i think of it now and he was probably only 16 or so, but to me he was ageless and brought out in me the need to let grow my 'cool seeds'. he was an artist....a beat nic i think. painted pitures of himself in coffens. i knew i had been influenced.
2--going to vacation Bible school one hot summer . The First Baptist Church...that cool breeze in the auditorium, with kool-aid and cookies....then they ended the day by playing the old hymm Just as i Am. tears rolled down my face and i knew i wanted to give my life to Jesus....so i walked down the aisle
into the arms of Brother Nelson. I was saved. i was 8.
3--the Daisy Queen.
My mother's dream--a place to eat where all the tiny town's teenagers hung out..male car hops, a teen side...which was just a big old room with benches and i could watch them dance....teen agers dancing and girls putting on make up and drinking cokes and the boys---boys from the very early 1960's...flirting with the big hair girls and dancing and me looking and wondering if i could be the boyfriend someday.
soon, however, the family was all packed up and moved to Palestine Texas. New things to freak out about. a new school of hard core red necks...pretty girls and boys in the shower that i remember till this very day.
From Arkansas to Texas. Lyrics being implanted so deep i didn't even know it.