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Don't start with me!
When he was four and I was three, my best friend was Rocky Stump. Once, when I was over at his house, I watched him put a towel around his neck like a cape and jump out of his bedroom window yelling “Up, up and away” ...he fell 2 stories, but he didn’t die.
Another time, we both got caught tearing the windshield wipers off of parked cars. It wasn’t my idea, it was Rocky’s. I remember my mother making me wait by our front door until a man who owned one of the cars came back. It had started raining when she dragged me, screaming, off the front porch toward him. I don’t remember anything else that day.
We moved to Europe when I was four. Even though we lived in Barcelona for almost a year, the only thing I remember is being bitten by a snapping turtle. I have a picture of me standing next to some stuff by Gaudi when I’m about 2 feet tall.
I had my 5th birthday party on the tippity top of the Eiffel tower.
I went to a kind of kindergarten school and got in a lot of fights. We had a landlord named Rogué, he hated my sister (she threw his hat out the window once) but he liked me. Our maid was named Chantel, her boyfriend pulled her around by her hair. I was given yogurt and told it was “French ice cream”. My father pushed me out a window once because I wouldn’t clean my plate. We had a small balcony of iron bars that kept me from falling to the ground.
I remember my arms and legs falling through the bars and watching the broken glass fall around me.
I started my formal schooling in Ilford, a suburb of London. It was called Beehive Preparatory School. I wore short pants and a yellow striped blazer and cap, Kathy had a bigger bonnet sized hat, we both carried satchels. We took elocution lessons after school. We had huge three wheeled tricycles. My father drove a Hillman. Our dog was named “Jackie”. We played “Snap” and “Farmyard Cries” with the Turner kids. I remember going door to door saying “Penny for the Guy.”
We crossed the Atlantic on the S. S. America when I was eight. We moved to New Haven. I learned how to spell Connecticut by staring at the license plate of a police car. I took naked swimming lessons at Yale University. I got beat up because of my British accent by a kid named Eddie Ginty. I was kicked out of the cub scouts because I tried to pass off Hank Sugerman’s merit badge project as my own. I used to steal change off my parents bedside table and buy PEZ, before they had those fancy dispensers.
We moved to West Haven a year or so later, to a house with pushbutton light switches. There was a forest behind our house where I made about a thousand forts. One day I put some toilet paper into the john and lit it on fire. As punishment, I carried rocks in my wagon every day at 5 o’clock from our front yard to the wire fence in our back yard. I used stuff called “hair trainer” to try and make my hair comb like my fathers. I had a sling shot and a leather jacket with a dorky fur collar.
We moved to Florida in 1959. We drove the whole way in a brand new black Thunderbird. We moved into a beautiful house with a pool next to the 15th hole of the Biltmore golf course. I slept over at Chris Cloney’s house during hurricane Donna. I rode my Schwinn bike to St. Theresa’s, a parochial school run by nuns. I was caned and rulered until I finished the 8th grade. Billy Flanagan & Pat McGrawty threatened to beat me up almost every day. I went to South Beach in 1964 with my friend Ned who won a Hobie surfboard on WFUN (or was it WQAM?)
We lived there for almost 6 years and I finished high school at Christopher Columbus, an all boys Catholic school run by the Marist Brothers, I had perfect attendance, I wore a tie and carried a bookbag. I was the worst swimmer on the swimming team. I was kicked out of the National Honor Society because of a bad attitude. I once got caught cheating on a Latin test. The girl I took to the prom became a nun.
Even though Coral Gables High was only a few miles away from us, my sister went to Immaculatta, an all girls Catholic school. Except for Brownie Holland she was the prettiest girl in her school. Her boyfriend was Tommy Koziol, the star half back of LaSalle’s football team. She became a National Merit Scholar and applied to Vassar, Wellseley and Sarah Lawrence.
I did my first 2 years undergraduate at FSU in Tallahassee. I joined the Flying High Circus but never could press into a handstand. I ate for free for almost 6 weeks when I pretended to be interested in joining several fraternities. The ?T?’s found me out and threatened to kick my ass. I transferred to Univ. of Florida in Gainesville after my sophomore year. I rode my Honda 305 all the way down there in the freezing rain. I got laid 6 days later by a go go dancer from “Dubs” named Michelle... she carried a 22 revolver in her purse and asked me “Is that it?” after I came. I worked in an Emergency Room at Alachua General Hospital during the “graveyard” shift 11-7. I juggled in front of 2000 people at the Great American Music Hall and did not attend my own graduation.
I was accepted into a program in the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at Vanderbilt and caught a ride to Nashville with my sister’s drummer boyfriend named Louis. I lived on a 654 acre farm in Mt. Juliet where I read the Hobbitt and the Fellowship of the Ring trilogy while sunbathing nude.
Several years later I auditioned as a clown/juggler at Opryland, I lost 23 pounds learning to ride a unicycle that summer.
I moved to San Francisco in 1978 and took over the job as the entertainment coordinator of Pier 39 the same day Dan White killed supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone.
I now live three blocks from Venice Beach in LA and have a lemon tree and an orange tree in my backyard.
Another time, we both got caught tearing the windshield wipers off of parked cars. It wasn’t my idea, it was Rocky’s. I remember my mother making me wait by our front door until a man who owned one of the cars came back. It had started raining when she dragged me, screaming, off the front porch toward him. I don’t remember anything else that day.
We moved to Europe when I was four. Even though we lived in Barcelona for almost a year, the only thing I remember is being bitten by a snapping turtle. I have a picture of me standing next to some stuff by Gaudi when I’m about 2 feet tall.
I had my 5th birthday party on the tippity top of the Eiffel tower.
I went to a kind of kindergarten school and got in a lot of fights. We had a landlord named Rogué, he hated my sister (she threw his hat out the window once) but he liked me. Our maid was named Chantel, her boyfriend pulled her around by her hair. I was given yogurt and told it was “French ice cream”. My father pushed me out a window once because I wouldn’t clean my plate. We had a small balcony of iron bars that kept me from falling to the ground.
I remember my arms and legs falling through the bars and watching the broken glass fall around me.
I started my formal schooling in Ilford, a suburb of London. It was called Beehive Preparatory School. I wore short pants and a yellow striped blazer and cap, Kathy had a bigger bonnet sized hat, we both carried satchels. We took elocution lessons after school. We had huge three wheeled tricycles. My father drove a Hillman. Our dog was named “Jackie”. We played “Snap” and “Farmyard Cries” with the Turner kids. I remember going door to door saying “Penny for the Guy.”
We crossed the Atlantic on the S. S. America when I was eight. We moved to New Haven. I learned how to spell Connecticut by staring at the license plate of a police car. I took naked swimming lessons at Yale University. I got beat up because of my British accent by a kid named Eddie Ginty. I was kicked out of the cub scouts because I tried to pass off Hank Sugerman’s merit badge project as my own. I used to steal change off my parents bedside table and buy PEZ, before they had those fancy dispensers.
We moved to West Haven a year or so later, to a house with pushbutton light switches. There was a forest behind our house where I made about a thousand forts. One day I put some toilet paper into the john and lit it on fire. As punishment, I carried rocks in my wagon every day at 5 o’clock from our front yard to the wire fence in our back yard. I used stuff called “hair trainer” to try and make my hair comb like my fathers. I had a sling shot and a leather jacket with a dorky fur collar.
We moved to Florida in 1959. We drove the whole way in a brand new black Thunderbird. We moved into a beautiful house with a pool next to the 15th hole of the Biltmore golf course. I slept over at Chris Cloney’s house during hurricane Donna. I rode my Schwinn bike to St. Theresa’s, a parochial school run by nuns. I was caned and rulered until I finished the 8th grade. Billy Flanagan & Pat McGrawty threatened to beat me up almost every day. I went to South Beach in 1964 with my friend Ned who won a Hobie surfboard on WFUN (or was it WQAM?)
We lived there for almost 6 years and I finished high school at Christopher Columbus, an all boys Catholic school run by the Marist Brothers, I had perfect attendance, I wore a tie and carried a bookbag. I was the worst swimmer on the swimming team. I was kicked out of the National Honor Society because of a bad attitude. I once got caught cheating on a Latin test. The girl I took to the prom became a nun.
Even though Coral Gables High was only a few miles away from us, my sister went to Immaculatta, an all girls Catholic school. Except for Brownie Holland she was the prettiest girl in her school. Her boyfriend was Tommy Koziol, the star half back of LaSalle’s football team. She became a National Merit Scholar and applied to Vassar, Wellseley and Sarah Lawrence.
I did my first 2 years undergraduate at FSU in Tallahassee. I joined the Flying High Circus but never could press into a handstand. I ate for free for almost 6 weeks when I pretended to be interested in joining several fraternities. The ?T?’s found me out and threatened to kick my ass. I transferred to Univ. of Florida in Gainesville after my sophomore year. I rode my Honda 305 all the way down there in the freezing rain. I got laid 6 days later by a go go dancer from “Dubs” named Michelle... she carried a 22 revolver in her purse and asked me “Is that it?” after I came. I worked in an Emergency Room at Alachua General Hospital during the “graveyard” shift 11-7. I juggled in front of 2000 people at the Great American Music Hall and did not attend my own graduation.
I was accepted into a program in the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at Vanderbilt and caught a ride to Nashville with my sister’s drummer boyfriend named Louis. I lived on a 654 acre farm in Mt. Juliet where I read the Hobbitt and the Fellowship of the Ring trilogy while sunbathing nude.
Several years later I auditioned as a clown/juggler at Opryland, I lost 23 pounds learning to ride a unicycle that summer.
I moved to San Francisco in 1978 and took over the job as the entertainment coordinator of Pier 39 the same day Dan White killed supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone.
I now live three blocks from Venice Beach in LA and have a lemon tree and an orange tree in my backyard.
ude, we got no room for you tonight.
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