RAR con't-----------Leaving San Francisco to go on a three month tour having no money in my pocket, no real place to com4 back to was not even a thought in my head. Isort ofassumed Phillip would be there when i returned and again let me move in where ever he was. and money--i never thought about it. i had about $90 worth of Food Stamps so i felt ready to go. Debbie had gotten in touch with the AR people and we had a loosly put together itinerary. I did not know then but later found out. the leadership of RAR did not want us to go. they really had not heard of us, and felt they didn't have the money to take on another band. Dave and MDC had really fought to gt us on the tour. It came down to they would not go if we were kept from going! I never really knew this and it touched me wwhen i much later found out. ofcourse it made the crew not exactly in love with us when we did show up.
My old friend Scot form the Palo alto days had a little truck and offered to drive me and help roadie if we could get him fed daily and gas money to drive. He would also help carry some of out bags...since the only equipment we had was Glen's guitar, i think Pat had some drum sticks....maybe. the day before we left Buxf was able to get a Bass from a pawn shop--we were depending on the 'kindness of strangers' to get us through. the band was a little hesitant to bring Scot along. even though he was one of my oldet long time friends he did have a reputation of "being late"...for everything. always. but i really wanted him to go. instead of being in a crowded van with Pat, Glen, Buxf, and Debbie...i opted to ride along in the little black truck and turn it as muh into a vacation as i could. i had never seen the most of the country. never ben to NYC or anywhere on the east coast. so having my buddy along sounded good.
as time got close to leave everyone was happy to be going on a real tour. I never really knew how but one day we had an old van...i think Debbie had bought it with the understanding wwe would pay her bqck when we ere able. leaving Phillip and San Francisco was hard but i was also ready to hit the road. i knew this was going to be real experance. i was nervous, too. but i was with my family, i felt.

a few weeks before we left Tim Yohanan from Maxium Rock and Roll had done a big interview with us at hi house in the East Bay. Tim was a great guy and always seemed to lik the Dicks and seemed to be fond of me, too. we had done a few interviews at the Radio station where MRR had their show over in Berkeley. we were known as the 'drunk rock' band since e always had beer...wheather in the radio station or whereever. once while being interviewed by Jeff Beale (sp-?) on the radio i hryad said "Russia was a revolutionary country until Khrushchev
became it's leader. Meaning, of course, that Stalin waas a great leader. Of course i was drunk as hell and happy to have put dumbfounded looks on everyone's face's. A bit on air arugment followed....i really didn't believe this none sence but i wanted to be the baddest communist in town so i fowwowed up by spouting a bunch of drunken jibberish. i really don't think we ever got asked back. But Tim wanted to do an interview with us before we left for the RAR tour. He even told us we going to be on th cover! the issue would come out the day e left. it was another drunken party asfar awe ere concerned. and another chance for me to shock everyone by my "more red than Mark" attatude. years later i tried to read the long, rambling bullshit i was spewing and really couldn't get more than a couple of paragraphs into it. the other guys were not even talking much. so e came off like crazy people. when the magazine hit the streets the picture on the cover indeed was us. a live shot taken i don't even know where....buxf had a mohawk and looked like the meanest murderer in prison. glen looked nuttie and demented. pat, as usual couldn't be een. I had a Mu-Mu on....sunglasses and bleached blond hair screaming into the mic.....the words scrawled across the top were....The Dicks--A Commie Fag Band From Texas. i looked at Debbie when she handed me one to see for the firt time..after a long gaze i met her eyes and sort of nervously ask, "what do you think people are going to think about this...about us". she looked funny and said, " just wait till you read the interview".
I kept thinking to myself, 'i'm bound to get my ass kicked before this tour is over". however, the day came to leave and off we went.

As we started writing songs and playing sshows i found myself becoming compleatly infatuated with Tim. he and i would sit in the tiny kitchen on Clay st. till all hours of the morning talking about what to do to make the band ork better. he would write down thing on a 'to do ' lit for Debbie and leave it on the table for her to ee the next morning. I can not say how muh she hated that. i mean he really hated that. i had a big crush on Tim, who was straight, of course. he was looking at me as a good friend and i was thinking how i would be a perfct boyfriend. how tupid i was. in my zeal to b honet i told him one night that i liked him more that jut for a friend,,,that i had a super crush on him. he as real nice about it, but things were never the same. thinking back i really don't know why i felt the way i did. i guess i was lonely or something. but i'm became pretty depressed about the whole deal. Phillip and Debbie hated the idea that i liked him in that way.
Mean while the band ws getting better and better. Jalter all, we were practicing almost every day. Jello Biafra and i had been friendly since th Dicks from Texas had played with the Dead Kennedy' s back in Austin, and a few time in SF. He had also been a fan of Lynn's old band The Wrecks. He asked me if we were ready to record an album and if so did we want to releaseit on Alternative Tentacles ? we did. i was wtching as we moved away from the hard core sound. we never hadth gritty dirty sound of the Texas band anywy. but we were tarting to move in a whole different direction. again, thi would have been the perfest time to re name and move on. but i didn't. Debbie and Biafra had thought it would b a good idea to do a little tour before recording.

I missed Pat, Glen, and Buxf a lot. I felt like i had lost my family. but i was where i was and i needed to do what i had set out to do. i knew i was not going to ever be able to replace the look or sound or attatude of the Texas band so i was real happy to look t the new band and see the exact oppisit. tim was a ine looking guy..sort of dirty looking and unkempt, but cute in a tame way. Sebastian went out of his way to look tough. model good looks and attitude to match. Lynn was a strong and beautiful young woman. and she could play drums as good as anybody. i knew a lot of fans were not to happy to see the new line up. they wanted a more hard core look to my band. meaner and more punk. i didn't give a shot about anoy of that crap. i wanted music to be the priority. between dave and MDC we always had a space o practice in. as soon as we starte playing shows we seemed to be right back in the spot of being a pretty popular band. we all bonded pretty fat and debbie ws starting to be a great manager. we were getting good shows and getting more money for playing. the atmosphere of the punk scene was changing in the City. the Democratic national Convintion was going to be heald in SF that year. thesignof the day was the A with a circle around it. i was not int the fad of being an anarchist . i had early on proclamed the Dicks as a communist band. i like Chairman Mao and loved to ware a big mao badge to prove it. the only problen was i was certenly never an atheist .

While i was gone on the RAR tour Phillip had move from Hyde St, where we had lived before i left, to a small but really sort of cool apartment on clayton St. half ablock from Haight---which is one block form Haight and Ashbury. Not only was he a saint to let Debbie move in and share the rent, but let me, of course paying no rent, also move in. Debbie got the big bedroom and Phillip and i had each a small couch in the "living" room. It was great. Phillip had areal talent of making friend ith the younger punk girls around the scene, and the clubls. He looked like the straightest person in the world...clean cut and always neat. but inside he was a hard partier andcould keep up with the hardest core of any of us. He tole me he had met two extreamly cute, funny, and friendly girls hile i was gone nd had started hanging out with them. They had moved to SF from Reno and had been in a band called The Wrecks. The Drummer was named Lynn and was into tryng out for the Dicks. I had been at the Vats almost everyday for a week hearing different people try out.for all th4 parts. Even though i was never the ideal of a hard core punk the Dicks had the reputation o lots of the guys trying out were trying to 'out punk' each other. i found that tired. so when Phillip sid Lynn and her bet friend Helen, 3ho had sung for the Wrecks lived right around the cornor and were coming over to drink a huge box of wine.....well, i was happy. I knew Lynn was going to be the drummer as soon as i met her. That is if she wanted to. i think she was 17 at the time.....beautiful and shy.. but ready to have fun. as the four of us (me, helen, phillip and lynn) went through the gros box of wine, laughing and playing music, i asked Lynn, "Do you want to come tryout for the Dicks?" i knw she did. i knew Phillip had told her all about it. She had seen us play once and liked the band a lot. but he had seen a rough, bunch of sloppy loud man looking men and was unsure of what i wanted from new members of the band. but i assured her i was open to a different thing now. and most of the guys who had tryed out to too macho for me. She said "yes" tomorrow she would be there for the next try outs. Oh lord, why didn't i just call the band another name.....but i plowed on thinking i was right.....
Lynn did how up the next night. there were a couple of other guys before her. she told me she was so nervous she threw up before she caa guitar player who everyone had pretty much decided was me in was there for the third time and a german guy on bass. Sebastian was his name. waiting to try out on guitar was a neerdy guy named Tim....compleatly not the look of what a 'Dick' should look like. but i thought he was super cute o i told th4 other guitar player to let Tim Play....Lynn, Sebastian, and Tim...i yelled out Dead in a Motel Room...it sounded great to me. the firt time i heard the sound i was looking for. tim was a grat guitar player nd Lynn pounded and hit the drums so good it compleatly blew me way. Sebastian was a beautiful looking guy and very punk rock looking---leaather jacket and bleached hair....to me that was it. this was the new band...we pleayed a bout all the songs nd i asked all of them..."are you ready to work?? Prctice everyday and tour and write and be dicks?" everyone was happy as hell and said YES.
i till felt like a traitor under the skin but put that feeling aside and there we were The Dicks a Texan, the student-cab driver from Ann Arbor, a German and the girl from Reno. a long shot from The rel Dicks. but to prove my point i had forun a gret new cast of musicans. Debbie was happy but looked to me and said,"you think people are gonna buy this?". "Time will tell, honey".

When we left RAR the Dicks made our way back to Austin. To play and also to rest and sort of see where we were. The long weird tour was a very draining and much of a learning time. Debbie and i had become almost sister and brother. my belief in reincarnation comes from meeting people like Debbie. Something clicks right when you meet...something deeper than just liking each other...a long time feeling of knowing each other. When we arrived in Austin everyone had old lovers to stay with. except me...and Debbie, For a few days we stayed with the Dicks friend and artist Carlos and his wife Alice. Carlo had done the art work for Dicks hate Police and Kill From the Heart.
Alice was a hardcore radical from the 60's and 70's. Like a real radical. FBI file and all that. She had just had a baby and was probably not that thrilled to have two punk rockers staying in the house. She was not a huge fan of punk rock either.....however, i had always idolized her as the hard core commie beauty of the left. So when Carlos told us it was going to be hard for us to keep staying with them, we went and stayed with Do's husband and co producer of Dicks Hate Police, Bryan Flarity. He and Do had seperated and she had moved to Boston. For some reason he was staying somewhere else too, so we were welcome to 'move in'. it was ummer in exas and the house was hotter than hell. He asked us to not use the air conditioner because the bill was too high already. the house was pretty messy, whice as fine, so we decided to clean it up. itook the dishes....when i moved an old rag near the pile of filthy plates one hundred million huge shiny brown roaches ran in every direction. i screamed and thew the rag. Debbie came running to see what was wrong. she cought the tell nd of the roach's run. aa night mare to wittness. the dish washing was putt off...forever. i ent and turned the the heat was abut 98 nd i really felt like i was in hell. i ent and turned on the air conditioner ashigh as it would go....we both looked at each other and said we would tay that night then we had to get back to San Francisco. we lept thre that night and were both woke up more than once with the huge water bug roach legs skipping cross our bodies. i told deber that they would drink from the corner of our eye when we went to sleep. e got up very early and left the house....i forget where Debbie went, but i had her drop me off at Mr. Peepers...a huge, super air conditioned adult video store. two stories. a refrigerated glory hole heaven...hundreds of booths and dark and onderful.
when We all met up later in the day the other guys told us they didn't want to go back to Cqlifornia. I can understand why now. i had it pretty easy. Phillip let me live with him rent free. He pretty much supported me. except for food stamps i had nothing. pat, and Buxf were living andstaying where they could. Glen and Cindy had forun a room in a hotel right near the corner of Broadway and Columbus.....not a grand hotel, i might add. During the tour Cindy hadmoved to Oklahoma so even she as now gone leaving Glen with nothing to go bqck for. they all felt that was. In Austin everyone had great friends and lovers and easy access to jobs, which no body had in SF. it just made sense to stay in Austin. Except to me. I selfishly could not understand why they would give up the band's chance to move up instead to move back. Debbie liked the people in Austin but being broke and hot and now hearing the other guys intened to stay she was now totally into leaving at once for SF. we had a long meeting about it and it was decided that i was moving back. and they were staying there. Kill from the Heart had just come out. Im sure they hated me and could not undertand me moving. i could n't understand them staying. i remember telling Pat i was going to go to SF and reform the band and they could do the same in Austin....and we'd see what happened. we all said good bye and i left with Debbie the next day to go back to SF.
i wish i had just started another band with a different name and played the same songs. how much trouble and hurt feeling would have been avoided. i look back and wonder why i didn't do that. when e got back Some of the guys in MDC picked us up at the airport. they were all excited and told me how they had put out the word that i as looking for new members for the band and the whole Vats were playing Dick's songs getting ready to try out for the band. i was even more shcoked when they told me they had set up try outs and we were going right then to have the first try outs! when we pulled up in the parking lot out side the tall old Ham's Beer Factory a crowd of people ere hanging out. Waiting for me! A whole lot of people who had never given me the time of day were now being real friendly. acting all happy to 'welcome me back to town'. i really could hear our songs being played in different 'studios". it was a bit exciting, but i felt funny. i felt like i as

San Francisco was buzzing during the early mid 80's with a punk community deep in the politics of the day. MDC were very much in the center of that community.
before the Dicks even moved to SF MDC had sort of taken over an old brewery and turned it into a living and practice space. It was so odd to think you were standing in a Hamm's beer vat. long yellow tiled hallways with big round doors all the way down the hall....doors that were once holding vats for brewing beer. Somehow sweet talking Dave had talked the land lord into letting the punks use the place and pay a little rent and there it was---the center of an underground community of the hard core punks of SF. The Dicks showed up and wow, it was a sight to behold. a 6 or 7 story tall skinny building sticking up from a parking lot in the boarder of the Mission district. we used the space of different bands. since nobody had jobs we practiced almost every day. Teh Vats became a huge part of the scene in SF. Thanks to MDC we fast became part of it.
Drugs and drinking and loud music were boiling over in the day and night happening. It was sort of a scary place that i loved. But thanks to Phillip, i never had to live there. leaving at the end of the day was good for me. Phillip saved my sanity more than a million times.
Talk of a big tour was starting to be passed around. Rock Against Reagen.
There was even talk of us going MDC was already planning to join up. DRI, also transplants from Texas were going too. At first it seemd too much to even think about. three months on the road with a big caravan of punks, hippies, and yippies, kids, dogs, and playing almost everyday. I was pretty lazy and loved my comfort zone of home, tv, and a clean place to sleep. However the Reagen erea was insane and meeting up with people around the country who felt the same way seemed like a great idea. plus, though a lazy guy on the outside , i did live for the music. i really did live for the shows and the song and meeting people so i was on board. Glen, Pat, and Buxf wanted to go too. It became a decision for the Yippies to make. the real Yippies from NYC were the ones putting the whole thing together. Dave was trying to talk them in to letting us on the tour.
We needed a van, and we needed a manager too. someone to do business and deal with these people. the fact that nobody had drums or amps or mics didn't stop us from wanting to go for a second.
soon Dave told us the big guys in NYC said yes...we would be dded. they would feed u two meals a day. a place to sleep at night and gas money for the van we did not have.
i was about to began the tour of hell.

When MDC formed and started playing the Dicks were already going pretty good and since Dave and I were pretty good friends we put them on lots of our shows. so when they got the tour thig going on and played in SF they pretty much got us on the shows with them. we shared a lot of political views so we got lumped together as the benefit bands. we played so many shows for so many causes. I was always happy to do sshows and give money to things i believed in. i wam especially proud to play for the John Brown Anit-Klan Group. It's funny to think back and realize their was no Aids back then. Lots of fucking and sex was going on. ths did not hurt our timing using sexual images as a political motivation and enjoying the time.
Dave came to me one day and said MDC was moving to SF. I wanted to go too. I always felt the Dicks could move up and really start writing and playing big shows. when i brought it up to the other guys they all thought it could be fun.
so in Oct. a few days before Halloween we moved to San Francisco. it was 1882.
Buxf and Pat were staying with Barry Gavin who also had moved to Oakland. My dearest friend Phillip Guilbeau had moved out as part of the whol Texas migration a couple of months before me. He, being a talented office worker, got a job at SF State and was staying with our old friend Scott from the Palo Alto days. He had made some great friends who went to school there. Dtella and Debbie became his week end buddies. when he told them The Dicks were moving out Debbie told him she was moving in with Stella aand we could move into her apartment. Glen was hanging with our friend Cindy so they drove out and moved in with Phillip in the new place.. i flew in and they all met me at the airport. it was a happy reunion and we stopped and got a few six packs of beer and headed to out new home. a big surprise waited for me.
First it wa up a huge hill in the outter Mission. once up the hill there were about 70 stairs to climb. as a fat guy me and stairs never got along to well anyway. Opening the door once to the top i walked into a tiny space. the "bath room" was a toilit with bar room swining doors....just big enough to hide the body but the legs showing. a tiny shower stall. not really a room but a cornor.
a small kitchen and then the bedroom. we all spept in the one room....on the floor. after the beers and as i was passing out i could only think...."san francisco open your golden gates..". i was home, though, and i knew it.