Once Wade-E-Boy Johnson was settled in, the Desperado boys finally felt like a real band. We were sounding better than ever and the Hungry I had become a real hot spot for musicians to hang out at. Yet, we weren't really a "musician's" band in the musical sense. Those were the groups that made your mouth water. They made it all seem so effortless. You could easily picture those players on the big concert tours, making hit records and pretending they don't know you anymore.  We were a "musician's" band in other ways; musicians could always kick back and have a few laughs with us, set in and jam with us, hook up with other musicians needing players, and at the end of the night still have a decent chance at finding a date for the after-hours partying at our garage apartment. 

RJ and I were still living it up at Le Shady Rest -- our garage apartment, hosting after-hour parties just about every night of the week after the gigs. After five months we finally had the living (efficiency main) room looking sharp -- relatively speaking. The bedroom was still a mess, though, with cob webs and dust hanging from the ceiling like a scene out of the Munster's mansion.  (The bedroom was never lit up though, and only RJ and I knew what lurked in the shadows.)  In its heyday, we would have as many as thirty people up there in the middle of the night, with music blaring, cars coming and going, sweet smoke pouring from windows and rafters -- and not once did any of the neighbors complain. At least not to the police, anyway.

We did eventually have a bit of a problem with the next door neighbor -- or should I say that he had a problem with us. Let's call him Randy.  Randy owned a race car. Our garage apartment was his garage for his race car. He rented the corner house from RJ's uncle Harold, so he couldn't really call the police on us as he probably wanted to. But Randy came came up with a very creative way to exact his revenge for those sleepless nights, due to our relentless partying.

On a few choice Saturday mornings after we'd been really loud all throughout the night before, Randy would wait until he was certain we were finally asleep, then he'd go out and crank up that race car in the garage, revving and revving and racing that engine until smoke filled the apartment and the whole place shook like it was made of toothpicks. Earplugs and pillows over the head were no match for the giant GOD motor embedded in that vehicle. Imagine living under a wooden roller coaster next to the railroad tracks with helicopters constantly hovering overhead during a tornado. Now multiply that times 10.  On those mornings, all I could do was squint my eyes, feel around for my car keys, and literally crawl down the rattletrap wooden stairway to my VW bug and attempt to drive to my parent's house. If I was lucky enough to make it there I'd crash on the couch.  It was a fair trade off and we were men enough to realize it.  Even now when I think back on those days, I can understand why I'm punished with noisy neighbors now. Karma. Poetic justice. 

The Shady Rest was basically "kindergarten" for us -- a place to learn our most basic party skills and limitations. Those first parties were key to developing my social life. After all those school years of being a dork's dork and thinking I'd never be a false echo blip on a girl's radar screen, the band thing had changed my life, and in a BIG way! By this time, we were having more problems trying to KEEP from getting tied down to any particular girls. That Elvis movie, "Girls, Girls, Girls" didn't sound quite so silly anymore. We weren't having to run down alleys and dodge in and out of limos like the Beatles in "Hard Day's Night", but we were having some really good times. Most honest musicians will tell you this is why they got into the music business. I was beginning to live out fantasies that before I'd only dreamed of, or saw on the silver screen. 

Ironically, it wasn't long before the "girl" thing began to develop into a bit of a distraction for some of us. Mostly, Boogie and I seemed to have the most problems when it came to handling relationships with the ladies. Boogie had a full time girlfriend who was trying to keep him on a fairly short leash. Actually, those short leashes make for much healthier relationships in the music biz. I was still in and out of a fading love / hate relationship with Pam, but I knew my feelings would never be the same after her cutting comments about my grandfather.  

RJ had a great way of handling girls from the very beginning. He acted like a jerk. It was part of his rock and roll persona. It was made clear up front that he was not going to be attentive to them, and if they wanted to hang around him it was completely on his terms. When he got bored with them, he told them to go away. It seemed crazy, but it worked well for him. 

Jim Wise was taking college classes during the day and was the mystery man in the band. He could hang out and party with the best of them, but when it came to his personal life, he kept things to himself. He dated his share of girls, but Jim was functioning on a higher rung of the food chain than the rest of us. Unlike the rest of us, he had a career plan that didn't hinge on getting a big record deal. Jim played the game well.

Wade was pretty discreet about his personal life too. He had a day job and didn't stay out all night like we did. He was on a softball team and was involved in life outside the realm of the Hungry I, and the Shady Rest. RJ and I, on the other hand, were completely absorbed in it! 

Yes, we all had our methods of dealing with the growing madness. Often, the weird lifestyle seemed to inspire creative energy. One of our greatest creative endeavors born out of that time and place was when my brother Chris bought a Super 8mm sound projector! Being a pretty creative, resourceful, and insomnia-afflicted bunch, we soon figured out that we could actually record our own soundtracks to store-bought movies. Our little re-dub improvisational group consisted of brother Chris, RJ, Ryan Brennan, and myself. Our first re-dubs were done at the garage apartment, recording our voices, sound effects, and music onto cassette tapes, then syncing the soundtrack up with the projector. It was a constant hassle keeping them in sync, but the result was well worth it. Most of the plots ended up being about drugs, sex, or other outrageous subjects, but people absolutely loved watching them.

We played around with a few different movies until we hit on an instant classic -- "The Disco Hulk. We took an old Hulk cartoon and changed the plot so that David Banner turned into the Hulk when he heard disco music playing. There were lot's of references to local musicians, friends, and bands around at the time. This was the first one that had a really good story line, and was filled with really funny original material that had been improvised. As word got around the club about our movies, we finally decided to run the Hulk during one of our breaks at the Hungry I.  That was the beginning of the Midnight Movie at Eleven tradition. 

It was a nightmare setting it all up, but the audiences couldn't get enough of them. Over the next few weeks we ran our versions of a few other short cartoons and films.  We did versions of Sand Pebbles, Desert Fox, and Blue Max during that period. We changed an old Silver Surfer cartoon into "Boogie Lamont-- Underwater Daredevil!"  We also made a parody of "One Million Years B.C." in which the B.C. stood for "before clubs." That one was about our keyboard player, Jim Wise, and his journey back to the days of dinosaurs.

I loved getting together in the wee hours of the morning with those guys and creating those soundtracks. We had the worst equipment you could imagine. That is what made it so much fun. We developed  hundreds of great sound effects from using RJ's old backgammon board and game pieces. 

We'd been doing some goofy things onstage at the Hungry I, but the movies brought it to a new level. I'm sure there were a few people who didn't get what we were doing, but the beautiful thing about it was that we didn't care. We were truly doing it to entertain ourselves, and it seemed we were entertaining (at least some of) our friends and regular fan base at the same time. It worked. At least it did for a while. It got to be a bit of a hassle once the pressure was on to come up with new movies when we weren't in the mood. So after a few weeks, we got out of the movie business. At least as far as showing them at the Hungry I club was concerned. 

That wasn't the end of our re-dubbing days. In fact, our best work would be a year or two off in the future. The next time we would run our movies at our gigs it would be at Savvy's Nightclub, in full color, projected onto a big screen with full Dolby sound -- and it wouldn't be film; we were entering into the VIDEO generation! Our closet masterpiece classics such as "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valenchi", "Homo Cowboy", and "Flying Fish Inn" wouldn't happen until then. But I don't want to get ahead of myself here. 

Looking at those old VHS tapes gathering dust on my bookshelves, it is hard to believe they are 25 years old now! I've dubbed a few of them off digitally to DVD, but they'll never be appreciated as they were back then. Get any of us together who made them, or our small circle of remaining musician friends who knew about them, and we will roll in the floors laughing at every line of dialogue with every showing. But the inside jokes and references, along with the counter culture  and politically incorrect themes of the day, make them difficult to follow for anyone who wasn't there, or doesn't appreciate the art of re-dubbing in general. And considering that I'm a dad now who is somewhat concerned about the legacy (and incriminating evidence) I leave behind, I sometimes can't help wondering if a bonfire might not be in order. Evidently, none of the cast members are ever going to be wealthy, successful, or influential enough to blackmail with them. While I've weeded out some of the old "filler" stuff, I can't seem to let go of the classics. At least not yet.

[look for photos and sound files for this chapter as soon as I can locate them...]

The Big Roast - and Other Nonsense