Legalize It! Ricki C. Celebrates the First Day of Legalized Recreational Marijuana in Ohio

Ricki C. decided to celebrate the December 7th legalization of recreational marijuana with a blog about his own history with illegal recreational marijuana, dating back to 1977 and a run-in with KISS.

(Should this blog have been titled "KISS made me start taking drugs?"  Yeah, probably,)

KISS was wholly & entirely responsible for me starting to smoke pot. In March 1977 I was 25 years old and had made it completely through the 1960’s and more than six years of the 1970’s without partaking in weed. (And this was on the West Side of Columbus, Ohio!) When My Favorite Band On The Planet Of The Time – The Dictators – were pushed off the KISS bill for some lame-ass L.A. douchebags called Legs Diamond I was so depressed at the show that when the stoner next to me absent-mindedly mixed me up with his Cheech & Chong compadres and handed me a joint, rather than going, “No thanks, maaaaan,” as I normally, derisively, Sex Pistoly would have done, I said, “Yeah, let me hit that.” 

From the moment that smoke hit my brain by way of my lungs on that Sunday evening, however, it was spring 1969 again and everything that had gone wrong in the 1970’s – mood rings, streaking, Richard Nixon, The Decline of Rock & Roll and concomitant Rise of Corporate Rock & Disco, my failing marriage, etc. – was gone and I was feelin’ good, Jack. I clearly recall saying out loud to myself, underneath the KISS din, “I remember feeling like this all the time, without drugs.” 

I was a convert. 

I had a pretty good run with pot, indulging from that day in 1977 to the year 2000 and the implantation of my first cardiac pacemaker. My cardiologist advised me to take 6 weeks or so off from getting high  – to let the pacemaker work in, because pot significantly increased my heart rate – and I never really got back into it. I never lost a job or ruined a relationship with pot (though I did with rock & roll); I was never arrested; and I ended my years as an alcoholic in 1980 (that began when I was 16 in 1968) with weed’s assistance. 

That being said, here is stupidest thing I ever did when I was high. 

It’s not exactly a State Secret that I was the model for Sean Richter in the 12-part I Love Distortion 

mix of fact & fiction novella that ran in Growing Old With Rock & Roll in 2013.  

Here’s a re-run from a Sean Richter Chronicles follow-up in 2021.

The Sean Richter Chronicles will appear occasionally in Growing Old With Rock & Roll.  They are an adjunct to I Love Distortion (a rock & roll novel in 12 chapters) that played out in the blog throughout 2013.  This episode slots in right around late May or early June, 1978, before Nicole had called off her engagement to her fiancée and before my wife had tumbled on our little affair. 

Callie was a co-worker of Nicole's in the toy department of the K-Mart where we all worked.  Callie was an INCREDIBLY sweet young girl, who couldn't have found a clue with a stepladder.  When she got pregnant at 18 with her high-school boyfriend, all of us agreed that we doubted she connected the act of having sexual intercourse with said boyfriend with the resulting birth of their daughter. 

This is an (unfortunately) entirely true & accurate account of our hospital visit following that birth. 

 

"Hey Sean," Greg the Roadie said to me as he parked the car on a street near Mt. Carmel West Hospital that late spring/early summer day, "you think we should smoke a joint before we go up to the room?" 

Looking back I can't imagine HOW that would have been an appropriate - or even sane - question before a visit to the hospital on the happy occasion of the birth of a new baby, but then again, MANY of Greg's & my interactions of that period hinged on smoking joints in cars.  I never indiscriminately smoked pot.  That set me apart from many of my brethren of the day.  I always had a REASON to get high: to attend rock & roll shows; to listen to music at home; seeing movies to make the cinematic experience more intense, etc.  And then I met Greg. 

Anyway, my reply in the car that day?  "Yeah, I guess we should," though even at this point - more than 40 years later - I have NO IDEA how an affirmative reply was the correct one.  Plus it's important to remember that buying pot on the West Side of of Columbus, Ohio in 1978 was just a Chemical Crapshoot: one time you would get a substance that just gave you a Vague Headache and a Little Sort Of High Around the Edges; the next time it might just as well have been Angel Dust that would have you hallucinating for hours.  You just never knew.  To quote/paraphrase Dostoyevsky; "You pays your money and you takes your shot." 

The other problem in that halcyon era was that we never did ANYTHING halfway.  "Moderation" was for chumps, and was not a part of our rock & roll vernacular.  There was No Such Concept of MAYBE smoking half a joint to test the potency, you just lit it up and rolled the dice.  I knew we were in trouble before we even got out of Greg's car, as I found I no longer knew how to work the car-door handle (and I had ridden in that car more than a hundred times). 

We weren't even a block away from the hospital, but we STILL got lost finding it.  Then we couldn't figure out how to GET INSIDE the building and somehow wound up in a sub-basement.  By sheer luck we happened upon an elevator and managed to hit the "Up" button.  To our enormous relief when the doors opened there was nobody inside, the car was completely empty.  "Oh man, I am SO GLAD there's nobody on here," Greg said, "I am WAY too high to deal with any straight people." 

The elevator went up exactly one floor to the lobby, the doors parted, and maybe 15 people - including a couple of doctors & nurses - were waiting to get on.  They just stared at Greg & me for a second - I think we probably had a look of total panic on our faces - and then for some reason the Elevator Mexican Standoff just struck us both as hilariously funny and we started laughing so hard we couldn't stop.  "Are you guys all right?" one of the doctor's asked as I tried to catch my breath to say, "Yeah, we're good, we're fine," but all I could do was laugh 'til I was crying.  Greg was doubled-over, leaning on the wall, holding his stomach, then slid down the wall to a sitting position, laughing the entire time. 

The doors closed again without anybody - sensibly - getting on, and we continued up to the 7th floor where the Maternity Ward was.  Any Sane Person - or Persons - would have just cut their losses right then & there and gotten their asses OUT of that hospital, but apparently we were functioning on some kind of Cannabis Automatic Pilot at that point: we had COME to this building to visit Callie and her new baby, and we were damn well GOING to visit Callie and her new baby. 

We ducked into the first restroom we came to so we could take a break and try to gather ourselves a little bit (and to stop laughing).  "Holy shit this is good pot," Greg said, "we hit the jackpot this time."  "Yeeeaaah," I said, a little less enthusiastically, "it IS good, but we still have to get through this."  The High had taken a turn now, we were functioning better, but now time seemed to be slowing down rather alarmingly, and Greg was starting to flag a little.  

When we got to Callie's room I couldn't believe my eyes; the room was CRAMMED with people.  Callie's mom & dad were there, her boyfriend's parents were there, Nicole AND her fiance were there (and that guy was NOT a big fan of mine), plus two or three people we didn't know.  EVERYBODY was just staring at us, open-mouthed, and Nicole - promptly & properly Sussing the Situation with Greg & I - was so simultaneously angry and frightened of what was going to happen next she had tears starting in her eyes. 

Greg broke that little tableau by walking over to the bed, saying, "Callie, congratulations," and KISSING HER ON THE MOUTH.  With her boyfriend AND his parents standing RIGHT THERE.  "Oh, my God," I thought to myself, "this is getting out of hand, I should put a stop to this," but I found myself rooted to the spot, incapable of action.  Before anybody could do anything, Greg then announced, "Man, I'm so tired, I've just gotta lay down for a minute," and climbed into the hospital bed WITH Callie.  The entire situation had now clearly gone Train 'Round the Bend, and I knew I had to do SOMETHING.  Breaking my drug-induced paralysis, I walked over to the bed, took his arm, said, "Greg, come on," and tried to pull him up.  He yanked his arm away and YELLED, "GET OFF me, Sean, I'll fuck you up." 

Greg was a Big Guy.  He played semi-pro football.  I'd seen him in fights.  I'd personally witnessed him beat people senseless, and I realized that if I couldn't de-fuse this situation quickly there was going to be carnage in that hospital room and Greg & I were going to jail, possibly for a VERY long time.  "Greg, Greg, Greg," I said, a little quieter each time, and stared in his eyes, "you have to get up off this bed and we have to get OUT of this room RIGHT NOW before Security comes, do you understand?"

I think something about the word "Security" cut through the haze of The Big High to reach Greg, and he let me guide him off the bed and out of the room.  "Sorry, everybody," I said over my shoulder to the assembled families, "wrong room," even though Greg had called Callie by name before he kissed her. 

Nicole showed up at our band rehearsal space later that night after she dropped off her fiancée, and the first words out of her mouth before I could even begin to apologize were, "What THE FUCK is wrong with you?"  She was as angry at me as I'd ever seen her and she was so frustrated she started slapping me on the head & shoulders.  I got her wrists and said, "Nicole, I'm really sorry.  We NEVER should have gotten high before we came up there." 

"Yeah, and exactly whose idea WAS it to get high before visiting Callie in the hospital," Nicole asked, whirling on Greg.  Greg put his hands up before she could start pummeling him, and said, "Nicole, I'm sorry too, but getting high just seemed like a really good idea at the time."  Greg had such a sincere, little-boy-caught-with-his-hand-in-the-cookie-jar look on his face that Nicole actually burst out laughing, much like Greg and me in the elevator.     

"You guys are such CHILDREN sometimes," Nicole chided, "I bet Callie's daughter has more sense RIGHT THIS MINUTE than both of you put together."  "Come on, let's go outside," she said, grabbing my hand, "you're gonna take me for a walk to get some fresh air." 

I guessed things were going to be okay.

(ps. Apropos of The Dictators mention in paragraph one of this blog, we just lost genius rhythm guitarist Scott "Top Ten" Kempner of The Dictators November 29th, 2023. 

check out this link - Pencil Storm / In Memoriam: Scott Kempner - for my tribute to him.)

 

© 2021 & 2023 Ricki C.

Boston Rock & Roll, Live, early to mid-80's (Mainly The Neighborhoods)

This blog is reprinted with the kind permission of Pencil Storm - the site where most of my blogs now appear - and is co-written with JCE, my best Virginia rock & roll friend.

 THE SHOWS

Ricki, why don’t you kick things off? 

There’s a BUNCH of entries earlier on this site about my favorite Boston band of all time, The Neighborhoods. (Two examples: Flying To Boston to See the Rock & Roll / The Neighborhoods “Cultured Pearls”.)  Plus there’s an early forerunner of the 1X2 concept, a tandem blog with my good friend JCE from Pencil Storm in 2019 about the ‘Hoods (as they were affectionately known to their fans) linked here.

At some point, though, it occurred to me that many of those blogs were about how I GOT TO those gigs or what they meant to me more than they were ABOUT THE PERFORMANCES at the shows.  This blog – again with JCE – will set out to correct that fault.  (Plus we’re both gonna throw in some of our other homegrown faves from the early 80’s heyday of Boston rock & roll.) 

THE NEIGHBORHOODS LIVE IN EARLY 1982 (TIM GREEN ON BASS)

My rock & roll-induced divorce was final in 1982 and occurred just as a marked decline in the quality of local Columbus r&r bands took hold.  Thus, my live rock & roll sights began to turn increasingly toward Boston, MA owing to listings of gigs provided by the great Boston Rock magazine and the availability of cheap East Coast flights via People’s Airlines (see “Flying To Boston to See the Rock & Roll” linked above). 

I entirely missed the pop-punk heyday of The Neighborhoods with John Hartcorn on bass, and my first trip to Boston to catch the ‘Hoods featured Tim Green on bass.  This was the “noisy-post-punk-we’re-gonna-do-our-level-best-to-alienate-our-suburban-fans-who-only-wanna-hear-“Prettiest Girl” and ”Flavors”-period” of David Minehan’s mighty rock & roll assemblage. 

The gig was at a small club in a kind-of strip mall in Boston that I can’t remember the name of.  It had to be on a subway line, though, or I wouldn’t have been able to get there.  In the early 2000’s – when I was tour manager for Hamell On Trial – I tried describing the place to Eric Law (who knows more about Boston rock & roll and its venues than ANYONE I have ever met) and even HE couldn’t pin it down. 

That show was good-but-not-great as the band labored mightily to obliterate any pop sensibility from the set and hooks became an endangered species.  I’m guessing I heard “Cash Dancing,” “We Don’t Do The Limbo” and “Drums Of Darkness” at that gig, but I can’t be certain.  Here’s a video from that era that I find I enjoy a lot more now than I did the appearance I witnessed in ’82.

THE NEIGHBORHOODS LIVE LATER IN 1982 (LEE HARRINGTON ON BASS) 

Okay, NOW we’re talkin’!  I went to Boston in June 1982 to turn 30 by myself because I knew 30 was not gonna be easy for me, and I didn’t wanna subject anybody to my foul mood, in case that’s the way the birthday ball bounced.  Either that visit or one later in ’82 was the first time I saw The Neighborhoods at The Channel club.  I had been seeing shows at The Rat since 1977 (more on that below), but The Channel – capacity 1700 – was much more my cup of rock & roll tea, since I had grown up – literally, from the age of 16 – at The Columbus Agora, a 1300-capacity venue. 

David, Lee & Mike Quaglia (on drums) were BLAZING at those Channel shows.  On a huge stage – with tons of room to move around, great lighting and a nicely-balanced BOOMING PA – those ‘Hoods gigs were more like concerts than just small-club shows.  The video below is a good – but far-too-SHORT – illustration of how those shows played out, but what I wouldn’t give for a FULL-SET video from that era. 

Over the next two years I saw The Neighborhoods at The Channel probably 4 or 5 more times.  At least THREE of those gigs were as good as any rock shows I saw in the 1980’s, and that list includes The Replacements.  WAIT; am I saying that The Neighborhoods were a better live band than Paul Westerberg & associates?  Damn straight I am.  (It’s no accident that David Minehan wound up in Westerberg’s 14 Songs touring band and later Replacements tours well into this 21st century.)

OVER TO YOU, JCE….. 

THE NEIGHBORHOODS at Bunratty’s, 1987 or 1988

This club was on Harvard Ave. in the Allston neighborhood.  I had seen the ‘Hoods play a number of times in Virginia, but the idea of seeing them rock out in their hometown was impossible to resist.  The show was well attended, but not as packed as I thought it would be.  If there was an opening act, I don’t recall one.  All I know is that once they kicked into gear, The Neighborhoods were a force of nature.  They played a great set.  Actually, I think they may have played two sets.  While my memory is faded, I vividly remember the crowd shouting for the song “The Pipe” which was a staple in the set during that time period.  There’s not too much more I can say - it was a great show.  This was the Minehan/Harrington/Quaglia lineup.  I shot a few photos on my Kodak Instamatic camera, this was way before iphones…

NOT BUNRATTY'S, But Close Enough For Rock & Roll

THE TITANICS w/ THE JONESES at The Rat

If I could have only been to one club in Boston, I would have chosen The Rat.  In high school, I had the vinyl 2-record set called Live at The Rat and I loved it.  Luckily, I got there in the heyday of ‘80’s Boston rock.  I wish I had seen the ‘Hoods or The Outlets, but the show I saw was killer.  On this visit to see my sister in Boston, she set me up on a blind date.  The girl picked me up and promised to show me the cool parts of Boston nightlife.  We started at some new wave dance club where the music was bearable and we got on pretty well, but after an hour or so of getting to know me, she realized what would really resonate. Out of the blue she said “Let’s go to The Rat.”  Hell yes.  I didn’t know if anyone was even playing that night and neither did she, but we were in luck.  The Joneses played first. 

The band played to a good crowd that really seemed like it was just waiting for The Titanics.  I thought The Joneses had a good crisp rock sound with a bluesy flavor—The Rolling Stones meet Bad Company.  Not too long after this show, they released a record called Hard on a major label which I still play occasionally.  (SIDE NOTE:  There is a California punk band called The Joneses that is better known and very good - this is not the same band.)  I was in heaven already when The Titanics hit the stage.  Their front man came out in this big fur Daniel Boone looking coonskin cap and just ripped into it.  They never slowed down and the crowd was really jumping.  I had The Titanics record at home, so I knew their songs, but as is often the case, the live set was superior.  My date was a bit out of her element, but I am grateful that she was cool enough to know about The Rathskeller, and to take me there. We were pen pals for years after.  If you happen to be a fan of the band Upper Crust, they grew from the ashes of the Titanics.

THE CLUBS

JCE:  Other clubs I wish I had been to would have to be The Channel, and maybe T.T. the Bear’s.  I differ some from Ricki C. in this area - I love the little dark basement clubs.

RICKI C. Small clubs like The Rat in big cities confused me.  The first time I visited The Rat in 1977 I couldn’t find the place, even though I knew the address and was standing right in front of it.  After crisscrossing Kenmore Square a coupla times I went into Strawberries – the record store next door & above The Rat – and inquired WHERE the venue was.  The ill-tempered clerk on duty at Strawberries pointed outside the window.  “Where?” I repeated, looking UP for a club as big as my beloved hometown Agora, and the clerk pushed my head down and said, “DOWN THERE!  Down that flight of stairs.” 

The fact that The Rat – the premier Boston rock club for punk & new wave bands – was no bigger than the church basement coffeehouses where I had played halting solo acoustic gigs in the early 1970’s SEVERELY strained the credibility of rock critics who had been telling me in print that punk was gonna be THE NEXT BIG THING in rock & roll and wipe Styx, Journey & others of their corporate-rock ilk from the airwaves and concert stages.  (It’s probably a good thing I never made it to CBGB’s back in the day.)

I bet this was a Saturday afternoon all-ages show The Rat used to present back in the day.

(The interactions between those kids to the left in the front row and the club bouncer never fail to crack me up.)

OTHER BANDS

JCE:  Other bands that were high on my Boston list were Shake the Faith, Nervous Eaters, The Blackjacks, Classic Ruins, The Real Kids, The Lyres (saw them in VA though) and more than anyone else, the aforementioned Outlets (saw them in VA too).  And definitely in the late 1970’s I would have loved to see The Cars in a Boston club.

Ricki C. : Oh man, SO MANY other great bands; Willie “Loco” Alexander’s Boom Boom Band, DMZ (later The Lyres), The Nervous Eaters, The Real Kids, Reddy Teddy, Thundertrain, La Peste (later The Peter Dayton Band), Mission Of Burma, The Atlantics, Salem 66, and The Del Fuegos, just off the top of my head.

JCE FAVES THE OUTLETS AT THE SAME ALL AGES SHOW AS THE NEIGHBORHOODS ABOVE, 9/14/1985

                                                                             THE CITY

JCE:  The city itself is pretty excellent, or at least it was then.  My sister would be working, and I would just get on the ‘T’ and ride all over the city by myself going to every frickin’ record store I could possibly find.  There were so many record stores, like Newbury Comics.  I had a real blast finding all these local releases I never would have found at home.  I didn’t feel unsafe or anything either, although I did once get stopped by a young woman, who was apparently a sex worker, who flashed me.  There were some great radio stations too, willing to play all the local bands.

Ricki C. : Everything I always hated about New York City I loved about Boston. (Then again, I never read a book that scared me about Boston like Hubert Selby’s “Last Exit to Brooklyn” scared me about New York. I read that book when I was 17 in 1970 - on the “recommendation” of Lou Reed in an intervew when I first discovered and fell in love with The Velvet Underground. I read it again during the pandemic and it STILL scares me.) Boston never intimidated me like that. And I admit; I’m a smalltown Midwest boy at heart with an innate mistrust of Big City Life. (Cue The Atlantics here.) But just like JCE mentioned above, I never gave a second thought to riding the Boston subways anytime of the day or night. It just felt like my home away from Columbus.

 PARTING WORDS…

Ricki C. : There are probably more blogs to be done on Boston rock & roll. For one; the excellent 70’s & 80’s fanzines - The Boston Groupie News (STILL active!), Frenzy, The Noise (which I got to write for in the mid-80’s when Boston bands would play in Columbus on the van-tour circuit). For another; the time I bought a Mission Of Burma record from Aimee Mann (then in The Young Snakes, later leader of ‘Til Tuesday) when she worked behind the counter at Newbury Comics, Boston’s premier “alternative” record store, which also published Boston Rock. And finishing up; a compare & contrast blog on seeing The Del Fuegos here in Columbus and at The Rat only a couple of months apart in 1984, to illustrate the effects the (grueling) van-tour grind of the mid-80’s had on nascent “alternative” bands.

JCE:  Those two shows (The ‘Hoods at Bunratty’s and Titanics at the Rat) are the best of my live rock n roll experience in the city of Boston.  I did also see another show at Bunratty’s - The Cave Dogs, who were a Boston power-pop band.  All four bands I saw were Boston local bands.  I love the city for a number of reasons, dating back to my childhood, but I won’t go down that rabbit hole.  Let’s just sum it up by saying that I have been to see the Red Sox at Fenway, I’ve been to see The Neighborhoods in their hometown, and I’ve been to The Rat.  I’m all good. 

JCE, or John to his friends, became a fan of the Boston Red Sox when his hometown Senators left Washington, and a fan of Bean Town in general when his sister moved there to attend Boston University.  But it was the music coming out of the city in the 1980’s that sealed the deal.  He counts himself lucky to have gotten to spend just a little time immersed in that music scene at the height of what he considers to have been a golden era.

Ricki C. began his love affair with Boston rock & roll when his best friend Dave Blackburn intentionally flunked out of Ohio State (note; not THE Ohio State University), moved to Boston and saw The Modern Lovers play AT A HIGH SCHOOL. That love affair continued through Willie Alexander’s “Kerouac / “Mass. Ave” single (see note below), The Nervous Eaters’ “Loretta” 45, DMZ’s e.p. on Bomp Records (among many others) and culminated in The Neighborhoods.

He hasn’t regretted one single minute of it.

© 2023 Ricki C.