Road Cage

When Rex arrived in Marin mid to late 60’s, he was led over to Mickey Hart’s ranch in Novato. Mickey had this one horse with an attitude, most saw it as very dangerous, virtually un-ridable, loco…When one made the sightest attempt to approach this horse, it just went ballistic. Jackson heard about it and said, “Show me the horse.” Not well known outside of Pendleton was the fact that Rex possessed the rare quality of being a true horse whisperer. They don’t advertise.

Within minutes, he had that pony nuzzling up to him. Strange, mysterious to us but true.

THEN, we went overseas for the GD’s Europe 72 tour to open for them. The culmination was 4 days at the Lyceum theater in London. Everybody was having a ball, a celebration of our time together, sort of a milestone at that - conquering a foreign crowd and all. Backstage, there were some problems: seems like some irate Brit kids, four or five tough guys were creating a ruckus in the alley behind the stage. At certain loading docks, there are these sliding doors, they were hung on thick wire cables, steel rollers on these immense, steel doors. There were fashioned to slide sideways. Balanced, sort of… These doors were about 4 feet wide, impregnable but when banged on, they made a helluva noise! These street fucks were protesting their banishment by beating on them while the Dead were in the middle of their performance.

I was sitting on a stairway just to the left of the stage and was privy to the disturbance. Jackson jumped right into the problem, yelling through the door that if they didn’t ‘quit it’, there would be trouble. Well - so what, they must have thought - one crew guy, four of them and these HUGE fucking doors!!

Jackson stretched out his arms as if to measure the possibility of accessing these punks. His wingspan was just about the right size. He bent slightly at the knees, gripped the edges of the door and heaved! Up, and off the tracks, came that monster door. He carried the piece of steel sideways about two feet!!

The punks outside were frozen, watching this superhuman display from the other side of the door - they were speechless. Apoplexy? It might have occurred to one or two of them that given this incredible thing had just happened and now, there was nothing separating (protecting) them from the Beast who lifted this massive piece of metal! Duh…

Rex took stock of their hopeless position, stepped out into the alley and beat the living shit out of 3 of ‘em. The rest of the Lyceum security jumped into the slaughter and finished off these peckerwoods. Jackson just turned back around to the stage, sort of brushing his hands together as one would when a chore has been completed. Unforgettable…

I think I remember him almost cracking a smile.

When it snows in NYC - well, there are some complications. It usually melts, what, with the 24/7 traffic and all the rest that goes with being a metropolitan center. But man, owning a car here can really suck when it snows, major-ly!

There’s a new film out with Jeff Bridges - I’m debating whether I can handle it or not. Seems like he’s dressed up à la, Waylon! Oh dear…
So, (and I don’t want to pre-judge) I may step in and check it out, Mickey. I wouldn’t go see “Ray”, nor would I pay for “Titanic” to see some Hollywood drivel. Wouldn’t go see the Johnny Cash exploitation either.

I felt I had skin in the game with all these guys since I’d worked with some of them and had grandparents ON the Titanic, etc. I knew Cash, worked on his tv show at the Ryman in 70, met him several times with Nashville insiders (Big Jim Webb, 6’5” steeler with Del Reeves). Hated the film angle. I’ll have to blog a piece on the Cash Show, Family/cast dinner we had before the actual taping at another time! “Have the frog’s legs, Son!” The night Buddy developed two heads…

After all, they never even came close to the real reasons he wrote his stuff – “Ballad Of Ira Hayes”, and all the songs that came in about the underdog in America, the suffering, the injustice. Would they have a fucking clue as to why he recorded a Nine Inch Nails’ song? Or care? Not hardly…

Worshipped Brother Ray – couldn’t bear to see an actor portray the junkie-genius and try to get away with it, blatantly vying for an Oscar before the ink was dry on his contract.

But Waylon – that’s a whole ‘nuther deal.

When I was working for you in 67, part of 68 – I had morphed into a neo-hippie! The transformation was achieved entirely through the love of music. I swore at the time, this would be my last gig as a sidemen. I’d done ALL the yeoman work, been a good student, a dependable soldier as a Mustang. But I was reaching for another goal – a broader place to play a wider range of music styles. Rock, pop, R&B…

The Beatles had affected me tremendously, the Stones, Led Zep. The Who, Big Brother, the Grateful Dead, Donovan, Steppenwolf – DYLAN!!! Crazy shit was going down. Then, I met Charmaine at Ann Dunn’s Matador club while the Mustangs were working there as pretty much the house band. And Char changed my life! She was the Magic Carpet Ride to take me through the Looking Glass to the Other Side. And I was deeply in love with her.

One day – Waylon Jennings came to town to play a week’s stint at the Horseshoe (Tavern), two of his band guys came to see me at the Edison Hotel the night we were both playing. They were seeking pot. They had asked around at the Shoe, who in town they might approach about finding some weed and were told that well, there is this ONE hippie we know (who might have some dope!) and they were directed to the Edison…Enter Me.

I always came to work early. And there were those southern-hippie-types a-waitin’ – smilin’, grinning. Waylon’s drummer, Richie Albright and his bass player, Jimmie Gray. They broached the subject of grass and I highballed it with a quick call to Charmaine. Yeah, we could hook up after our respective shows tonight and get stoned! I was single at the time and free as the breeze. I dropped by the Matador and whisked Char away to the Holiday Inn on the Lakeshore. We commenced to par-TAY!

In those days, it was kinda like a Zap Comix cartoon, Furry Freak Bros., Mr. Natural reenactment: Is it better to have dope than food? The classic conundrum. These boneheads would argue the point ad nauseum…coming to the conclusion that with Fat Freddy, they were fucked either way. If you spent the household bread on dope, you got high AND got subsequently hungry, needing FOOD!!

I remember the interior of Richie & Jimmie’s room at the H.I. – the standard H.I. twin double layout with BLUE CURTAINS! The curtains were significant. As we smoked and got higher & higher, we cracked funnies till dawn. Char brought a lot of weed and the guys bought the large amount we didn’t smoke. As morning crept up, the curtains got bluer and bluer! Quite remarkably so, enhanced by the marijuana (a C+ at best) till they veritably glowed, became 3 dimensional, then FOUR dimensional – then 5, then 6 and so on. These were 4 pretty nice people sharing those joints for 4 hours or so. And when we had to split, we headed for the elevator.

At that time…of morning…on that very given day, there was a convention at the hotel. Not unusual. We stopped on EVERY goddamned floor to pick up more and more people. Slowest elevator any of us had ever been on. And the PEOPLE!? They were SO FUCKING STRAIGHT!!! Slacks, short-sleeve golf shirt’s, argyll socks, loafers – a complete 180° from us 4 freaks. And of course, we started to laugh. And laugh. AND LAUGH till we were falling over these creeps in the elevator.

And when the elevator finally reached the lobby, the doors opened to reveal the source of STRAIGHTNESS rampant in the hotel. It was the USGA. Golfers. Thousands of ‘em!!! It was probably the Canadian Open Golf Championship or such – and they looked at us like we were well, from another Planet.

Which, of course – we were…

A week later, I got a post card from the Waylon bus saying, “Busted At Bridge”. [Actually, at that time, they were traveling in a Cadillac limo w/a trailer for gear] Ever since that time, Ole Hoss used to view me suspiciously every time we hooked up. Like I was about to get HIM busted. Fair enough.

When old Waylon dying, I was in Nashville recording, got hold of Richie and offered my help and can I drop over to see him. Richie said, “Buddy, thanks but Ole Hoss doesn’t want anybody to see him the way he is…”

Ah, man – what a gyp! The songs he gave us, the licks, the reactionary politics. I miss him.