*Journal Entry / August 1978 - "Dad and I had a talk today. I told him about my recent thoughts about going to Clown College and trying to join the Circus. He seemed to get into it...  "

Our friend Barbara the Bartender quit the Hungry I. She'd been pushing the owner, Bo Yale, to let her raise the cover charge so she could give us a well-earned raise. Bo got hacked and started giving Sue (the manager) a hard time. Barbara didn't want to deal with him anymore and quit. She was a real sweetheart. 

Wade had to miss rehearsal due to a softball game. When we finally did rehearse again we worked up "Over and Over", "Running With the Devil", and "Miss You."  RJ and I re-dubbed a Robin Hood movie. Mark Ballew and I got stood up by a couple of girls. 

We put the board, speakers, and monitors in the shop for repairs. Everything was finally in great shape again. The guy who owned the race car under our garage apartment lost his brother. RJ's cousin Brad married his childhood sweetheart, Sandy. RJ's ex-wife Brynda came out to the club and wanted me to get back together with Kay! She must've had amnesia. 

The first anniversary of Elvis'death came and went. The controversy over the "Umbrella Man" in the JFK plot builds steam. I went to Pam's new apartment that she shared with Janice Lindsey. Pam and I had been on the rocks for so long that I was shocked to have such a great time with her that night! She was WILD! 

Ran into an old friend from school at the club. Janie (not her real name)  had been a sort of flower child in school. She was a rock and roller from way back, and had been through the mill. She was still beautiful and I'd always had a crush on her, so I asked her to come over after the gig. She had me go to her place instead. By the time we got to her house she seemed to be floating in and out of reality. She'd had a lot to drink, and it was anyone's guess what else she'd ingested that night. 

I never expected to end up playing councilor that night, but sometimes that just happens. My friend, it turned out, was having a breakdown. She melted into a pile of tears and told me a story about her mother being murdered, her little brother being killed in a car wreck, and now she wanted to commit suicide. She'd reached out to me, not as a love interest, but as a friend. Being a social retard, there was only so much I was intelligently equipped to do. But I did the best I could to comfort and console her. Once she'd fallen asleep, I went home.

Here is a blatant example of how much we took things for granted back then. Four beautiful girls came over after the gig one night and partied until the sun came up. After they went home, RJ and I crashed. Less than an hour into my deep slumber, the phone rang. One of the girls had left her purse at our place and wanted me to drive it to her in Euless!! Most guys would be on their knees thanking their Higher Power for problems like these, but to us it was like a major inconvenience. I look back on how much we complained about having to do ANYTHING out of our way and just cringe. I cringe because I think some of those bad habits linger with me today. And if you were the girl with that purse, I think I still have it here somewhere.

 *Journal Entry / August 15, 1978 -  "I get a strong feeling that soon things are going to really change in my life..."

For some reason, I was becoming very melancholy towards the end of August, 1978. I was writing a lot of mumbo jumbo about how if I were to die, the world would keep on spinning. I'm sure the rest of the population would have rested easier knowing THAT! I was writing about loving my parents more and more, and feeling the need to travel to see family I hadn't seen in a while. Just a mood. 

I looked back at what had been going on exactly one year earlier: Rick Jackson had been a friend before going out with Pam behind my back.. (somebody call me a WHA WHA WHAM-bulance.) We'd just started using the Peavey PA. Pam had moved to Circle Park, where I'd pulled the Spiderman stunt to retrieve my TV. Rastus had sworn they'd never play the Hungry I again, but they'd just played there the previous week. Randy Tanner wasn't with them anymore though.

RJ and I got our TV out of the shop. It cost us $84 but we split it two ways. It was a color TV I'd bought from a dude in the parking lot of the Hungry I for 50 bucks. But hey, it was COLOR! We needed color for our video games -- Breakout and Pong. Real "eye candy" those games were. I was relieved to see "Janie" back out at the club. She seemed in better spirits. I've been talking to Ryan Brennan a lot lately about future possible creative endeavors. His girlfriend, May, went out with another guy. They were having  problems, and it was getting sappy.

Joe Bates was the new place to go for a big greasy breakfast after the gig. It was just up the road from the club. Cullen Davis was back in jail for trying to hire a hit man to kill a judge. One of the judges on the Davis hit list was Tom Cave. Cave had been less than nice to me on a particular occasion so I was happy to see him getting his. (He would be getting a lot more in later years too, after getting busted with prostitutes. It would end his career on the bench. Voodoo dolls and bad Karma can really put a hurt on you when you least expect it.) I watched Lou Grant with Dad. Sue paid our tabs off, as a gesture of good will. 

I finally used that VW book and did a brake job on the old bug. The book is great and I fixed the problem. Made me feel like a real manly man. Pam and I went to see Animal House. I was spending a lot of time working on a big magic show to perform for an upcoming family reunion. I had an idea for a screenplay, about a jail cell that fills up with clowns. It shows the dark side of the people behind the makeup, as they complain about being arrested for various things. Sounds great now, eh?  Do you see a "clown theme" manifesting itself in my life somehow? Just wait...

I've practiced with brothers Chris and Ray on some songs to do at the reunion. Steve Todd left Sidewinder. They hired a keyboard player. I locked myself in the bedroom and worked up the guitar parts to Ruby, an old Ray Charles song.  The Oilers beat the Cowboys in a pre-season game. On the 26th of August, Susan O. and I went to a few clubs. I'd been attracted to her for years, but she was always very elusive. She seemed like a real party type, and she was, only when it came down to it, she was a good girl too. How about that? I didn't know what to make of that back then, but I can appreciate it now. Our paths continue to cross now and then, and she still looks absolutely stunning. We had some fun times, but at the end of the day I just wasn't her type.

The day of the big family reunion finally arrived. It was nice to see so many family members there, but my magic presentation was a disaster! First, the wind blew my magic table over, sending several pre-set tricks rolling across the area. My magic appearing cane popped out prematurely, shooting up into the air and landing in the crowd. Someone stepped on it and ruined a $40 prop. But I was able to turn it into a part of the act. Nobody realized I was dying inside. They thought it was supposed to be a "magician in trouble" routine. After the magic fiasco, we played a few songs. My great uncle Virgil wasn't supposed to know that my grandfather had died. Virgil had a really bad heart and the news would have killed him. We spent the afternoon making up excuses why grandpa wasn't there. Virgil's mind was going too, so we had fun making up a different excuse every time he would ask and he never caught on. 

On the 27th of August we had some guests sit in with us; Charlie Bassham, Rick "Hollywood" Myrick, Gary Owens, Rusty Boden, and a host of others I didn't know. *note:  Rusty Boden recently sent me the following story about how Rick Myrick got the nickname "Hollywood". Rusty wrote:

"By the way, I gave him that nickname. It was probably late 74 early 75. We were playing at the airman's club at Shepherd (sp?) Air Force Base in Wichita Falls. This was LoDella. I don't know if you guys ever played there, but it was a trip. The story's correct, but I may be a little foggy on the club details. It's been almost 30 years.....and I didn't write stuff down!!  The deal was you did a couple of hours in the early afternoon and a couple of hours in the evening. We're inside setting up and I look over and Rick's still wearing his sunglasses. We'd already been inside about an hour, and it was only house lighting. He continued to wear them through the sound check. There were a couple hundred airmen already there, watching the sound check. We start playing the early set which started about 2:00 p.m. and Rick still has on the shades. So during the gig I make some kind of joke about it, and introduce him to the audience as Rick "Hollywood" Myrick. We go back to do the evening set, which is always a huge crowd, probably 60-700 airmen, with a few WAC's.  By the first song, airmen were coming up to the stage bringing Rick sunglasses, "Here you go Hollywood!" "Hey, Hollywood, I've got some shades for you!"  By the end of the week he probably had a couple dozen pair of sunglasses. Well, the name stuck with him. To this day Charlie Bassham calls Rick "Hollywood"

Back at the Hungry I, the Desperados always had Sundays and Mondays off. Other bands would play on those nights and we'd usually end up hanging out there anyway. My routine for off nights was to make the rounds of every club I could, and try to end up at a party -- or bring one home. I would hit Spencer's Corner, Joe's Garage, The Regale Beagle, The Hop, Savvy's, the Hungry I, and any other place that might have something going on. I went to see Excursion play at the "I". Nice guys. 

Tony Walls sat in and played sax with us. Robert Shaw, the actor from Jaws, died. A paper appeared in the paper showing Judge Ellison appearing to be dead in the trunk of a car. It was staged to bust Cullen Davis. Caberet Booking Agency called and wanted to discuss some dates. Red Bud and his brother Bob became regulars at the club. Rumors started up that Larry Hughes was leaving Flight and joining Sidewinder. 

While sitting around watching "Little House Burnt Down On The Prairie", I got a phone call from Melody Murral. She was the sister of Brother John Murral, the religious bible thumping kid from school who once tried to heal me from an asthma attack in the lunch room. She told me that John's wife wanted to go out with me. I'd long lost touch with those people and couldn't imagine why they were even thinking of me. Duh. I was in a band. Word gets around. I knew that would be a little too weird to get mixed up in. It could have even been a plot to kidnap and deprogram me from my evil ways. I declined.

On August 30th I woke up, drove someone named Diane home, went to the bank and borrowed $400, then headed straight to Tanner Miles Magic Shop where I bought that ventriloquist figure (dummy) I'd been wanting for so long. The dummy I'd been using was a fixed plastic head, with no moving features. This one had EVERYTHING! Moving eyes, moving eyelids, and even moving eyebrows! He had a human hair wig and an ugly mug, but soon he was a regular member of the group! He inherited the name Jimmy from his predecessor. This was the new and improved Jimmy!  One of the first places I took Jimmy was to Savvy's, where we sat in and did "Health Center Blues."  While there, I noticed a guy in the crowd who looked familiar. In fact, he'd been at the family reunion! He was the grandson of my grandmother's sister. Basically a cousin.

September had finally rolled around. August seemed like the longest month of my life. September meant it was time for the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon / Rock and Roll Marathon at Savvy's! It was two days of 24 hour, around the clock rock and roll! But the Desperados had something special cooked up for them. I can't believe we actually did this, but we did...

Jim Wise had long been a fan of the National Lampoon Radio Hour. I'd collected National Lampoon magazines. Between RJ, Jim, Ryan Brennan, and myself, we were really into NL. One of the great bits they did was about Al Jolson, a famous minstrel singer from long ago. He was a white dude who put on blackface makeup and performed old black traditional songs. He was a big star in Vaudeville and even did some movies. In the Lampoon bit, Jolson was telling a story about how great of a star he'd been back in his day. It was a hilarious bit that had "Jolie" being extremely egotistical and bragging that he was such a professional that he once performed an entire show while knowing his best friend was lying dead in his dressing room, without once thinking of his friend while he was performing. We loved the bit and all knew it by heart. Without giving it a second thought, we put our plan into action. Ryan agreed to put on blackface and wear a tux and perform the entire monologue during our set at the Telethon! Finally it was our turn and the lights came up on stage showing the Desperados, only I was playing a banjo. The band kicked off with a few bars of Swanee River, then Ryan walked out onto the middle of the empty dance floor in his costume. The spotlight hit him and he started singing. "Swanee, how I love ya how I love ya, my dear old Swanee..."  On stage, we were dying laughing! This was going to be sooo great! Ryan stops the music, in character, and goes into his routine. It is sort of long, and unless you know that it is a joke, it makes no sense at all. The audience sat in astonishment. All they knew was that a white guy was dressed up like a black guy and he was telling a really boring story, while the band stood on stage silently! It was BRILLIANT! At the end of the bit we broke into MAMMY, and Ryan did the big Jolson finish on one knee.  The bit was over and the audience didn't know how to respond. Then a trickle of applause started, and grew, but the audience was still shocked. Suddenly, with Jim's synthesizer cranked to full volume, we went into the rockin' intro to REO Speedwagon's "Riding the Storm Out."  People rushed to the dance floor, no doubt to clear their mental palettes of the disturbing images they'd just seen.  I'll always remember that night. In fact, Chris filmed it in Super 8mm with sound!  It was a real coup for us. One part of us wanted to be a good band, but another side was into something bizarre that can't be explained. We didn't care that nobody got it but us. That was the payoff. I should point out that Boogie and Wade didn't really know what the hell we were doing either, but were great sports and went along without asking questions. The irony is that some people probably took it as us making fun of blacks. The real point of the bit was that we were making fun of stupid white guys who used to make their livings dressing up like black performers. We never found out WHAT they thought because nobody dared speak of it....

At the Telethon I met Studdering Kerry. She was really sweet. There was also a magician and a cheesy Elvis impersonator. Later I went to the Hungry I and saw a band called Names. The owner, Bo Yale was there watching the Cowboys on TV. Pokes beat Baltimore 38 - 0. Ryan bought 24 hours of video tape. He is going to record the entire Roots series. Mark Ballew and I go to a party at Don Reeder's house. After the party, we ate at Joe Bates. Susan O. finally went on a real date with me! I'd been hounding her for a year. We had a nice dinner at C.A.'s restaurant in Irving and then to Sneaky Pete's in Dallas and saw Head First play. Great band that used to play at The Hop. Their keyboard player ended up with Rick Springfield. Susan and I got really loaded and really lost. We laughed and talked the whole way home. It was one of the best times I'd had in a long time. She was STILL a good girl. I was bummed out when she didn't seem interested in going out again. 

We had another party at the garage apartment; Rick Myrick, Ray Boles, Wade, Jim Wise, Susan, and Nancy. Susan tried to explain why she hadn't gone out with me again, but I didn't get it. Another girl I'd been dating, Diane, also retreated to an old boyfriend. Then there was Carol, the German girl. She'd flaked out several times. It seemed every girl I was interested in had dumped me all at once -- except for Pam.  Time for a rehearsal. We worked up "She Cried Wolfe". Boogie's pal, Johnny Barber, was hanging around a lot. I went to see a band called Conniption Fit at the Hungry I. It was a fit, alright. Susan called and asked if I'd like to go to Dallas and see Lightning. We did. They were great, but there was still no love connection. A big CB club called Metro Truckers started coming out to the "I" regularly. I began working part time at Harris Costume Shop as their annual Halloween rush began. On September 20th, my brother Ray totaled his car. His girlfriend was hurt, but not too badly. 

My social life started picking up a bit. I met several nice girls at Savvy's. Then a group of girls from Bedford started frequenting the Hungry I; a blonde, a brunette, and a red head. Stacie, Angie, and Jackie would become good friends and party pals.  Mark Ballew came over and we talked about Lee Pickens. Mark was doing some singing projects with Lee. I had lot's of dreams about first love, Suzanne Hare. Then more dreams about Don Ameche. A guy came into the club one night and I thought he was someone I went to school with. I said, "Hey Sammy! Great to see you!" Turned out to be Sammy's brother, Willie. He told me Sammy had been killed over a year ago. Insert foot in mouth.

Mom was in the hospital for kidney problems. The club had a record night on the door; $570. I don't think it had anything to do with mom being in the hospital. One of the guys from Rastus took some tubes out of our amps.

October of '78 started with a bang! First, someone stole the door money Friday night at the Hungry I. Then rumors started circulating that Sue Robertson, the club manager, was leaving. I saw a bunch of old friends from high school while working at Harris Costumes; Jimmy Murray, Dennis Nelson, Leslie Nelson, Robin Cushman, and David Anderson, George Papajohn, Jimmy Jo Luther, and others. I did a magic clown party for one of Don Hudson's boys.

*Journal Entry / October 1978 - "I met Lilly from Savvy's! I want her!"

The big news, however, would come from a stranger -- a girl from the Hungry I, who told me that Boogie was leaving the group! I didn't think much of it at first. One hears all kinds of crap in the music business every day. But once I asked Boogie about it, he confirmed it. He was leaving the Desperados and was joining up with bassist, Ronny Ward. Once the initial shock passed, we started processing thoughts of who would replace him. The first person on a very short list was someone we hadn't even met yet. Bobby Albin was pushing for us to check out HIS guitar player, Ricky Lynn Gregg. I knew deep in my heart of hearts that if that happened, Bobby would likely step in to replace ME... 

The Perfect Ending