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I'm wet and I'm cold...but THANK GOD I ain't old

This is a line from a song called, Sea and Sand, from Pete Townsend's opus, Quadrophenia. Why some obscure line in some obscure WHO song from 37 years ago is relevant NOW is just as much a mystery to me as it is you.  Wait...I know.  And if you bear with me through this sidestep, you will too.

One of my best friends in the world became my friend 23 years ago in college and the WHO was a common denominator in our first meeting – The WHO and weed and the fact that we were both from LA., studying at UC Berkeley, living in Barrington Hall, and of Latin American descent. My friend’s name is Chepe Escondido. My name is Bravo. 

The year was 1987, and at that time Chepe Escondido was more into Public Enemy than the WHO, but he had been a HUGE fan of The WHO in high school.  I remember thinking Chepe crazy when he said (and Chepe was serious), "I always thought The WHO would've been better as a trio.   They didn't really need Roger Daltry (the lead singer)."  Sea and Sand, a song from Quadrophenia like many other WHO songs, is sung by Pete Townsend, who wrote nearly every song they did.  

For rockers growing up in the 70's early 80's, everybody had a FAVORITE band.  Led Zeppelin, The Doors, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, The Stones, Blackmore’s Rainbow, all the big names of that day...we liked them all!  But more often that not, each individual had his particular favorite out of the lot. My older brother was a Doors FANatic; my best friend in high school liked Iron Maiden like humans like oxygen. Jason T owned over ten Iron Maiden shirts, all different – Eddy in a variety of settings. Jason had a Marshall Stack and a Gibson Flying V. Jason was an amazing soloist. The year was 1985. My favorite group, bar none, even Queen or The Clash or Bowie, was The WHO. My favorite band was The WHO, as was that of Chepe E., but he’d never admit it now. 

And in my lifetime, I've met others who were of the same ilk; that is, we believed The WHO to be the best of the best; that is, our favorite rock n roll band, of the lot.

Looking back, I realize the attraction.  I also realize that Roger Daltry actually sung the song, Sea and Sand.  

Townsend must have been a SPEEDHEAD.  Everything Townsend wrote up until Quadrophenia and that one included were probably composed After Hours while the rest of London slept.  I was a speed head. There's something about methamphetamine.  Something ethereal, nonetheless substantial; I haven't done speed in years. Speed was something I did in my late teens, early twenties.  I did a lot of speed in college.  There's something about starting a 20 page term paper at 8 o'clock the night before it's due, armed with a pack of cigarettes and a typewriter and by morning having a decent paper written.  

I don't think I did speed once during my whole 30's, except that 2004 weekend in Pusan with NZ and bandmate Billigan; but back in the day I swallowed it, snorted it; smoked it! Loved it!  I spent my 30's in Korea.  There are no DRUGS in SKorea. Only booze…and pussy galore; that is, James Bond movies. 

Speed USED TO BE really popular in SKorea back in the 90's with young Korean housewives.  A pill that makes you not hungry and gives you limitless energy!?!  Korean people and speed – a match made in Heaven!  Koreans have the total personality for speed.  Speed in SKorea is called Hiropon or Pilapon, depending on your Romanization. The Korean Times (the English language daily) occasionally printed stories about busts; Koreans getting caught with speed. 

It was never Foreigners; it was always Koreans, usually young married women who got busted for Pilapon. Speed! These news articles have probably all been stricken from the Permanent Records, much like in the novel 1984, when News got erased from old issues. 1984’s chief protagonist, whose name I don’t remember, but who was executed at the end of the novel; his job was deleting entries from old Newspapers. It is my contention that the entire novel is THIS MAN’S LIFE FLASHING BEFORE HIS EYES AS HE IS EXECUTED FOR TREASON – that is, actions against the government.

THE GOVERNMENT YOU HAVE ELECTED IS INOPERATIVE – Public Enemy #1 

Events exist MOSTLY in memory. And memory is mostly subjective. All’s Well That End Well. No news is good news. Wait, I don’t remember! That’s probably for the best. Ignorance is bliss!

Western foreigners in SKorea only ever get busted for weed or hash in SKorea. It’s only SPEED that Koreans like. Rumour has it that North Korea is like one big meth lab.  It wouldn't surprise me a bit. Perhaps they are Asia’s chief supplier. Smoke-able speed, called ICE in America, Shabu in the Philippines, and Yaba in Thailand and Cambodia, is a real scourge on young people in South East Asia. 

Usually it comes in a white powder; sometimes it comes in pill form.  They put the pill or powder on a piece of foil, hold a low flame underneath and chase the dragon; that is, melt the crushed pill or powder into a liquid and then cook the liquid into smoke which they suck through a straw in their mouths while their faces strategically hover over, lips stuck onto and sucking through the inhaling apparatus over smoke rising from the foil.  I’ve seen people use the paper foil from a cigarette pack to chase the dragon. It’s a craft, a skill, as well as a bad habit.  

In any event, Culturebook MMX was written almost entirely in the AM hours of the day, more nights than I care to remember. And during NONE of those nights, did I ingest any SPEED. Staying up all night was not a problem, nor a concern, nor a dilemma; it was just reality. I watched the sun come up through the window via my peripheral vision more times than I care to remember from May 2009 till the present day. Going to sleep long after dawn has been a regular event in the last year plus of my life; it’s but a small part of my repertoire. I’ve stayed up all night and continued into the next day on little or sleep more times than I could count on my hands and toes, even if I were a family of octopi!  What the fuck does that mean? Does an octopus even have toes or fingers?

I remember insignificant episodes like driving in my brother’s truck last week through Century City and seeing an It’s Hard, The WHO’s 1982 release, cassette in my older brother’s glove compartment. “THAT cassette is from 1982!” He said. My older brother and I had seen The WHO for their 1982 concert, one day/night only at the LA Coliseum, 80,000+ screaming fans. My brother had purchased the It’s Hard cassette when he was 16. I’d purchased the It’s Hard record when I was 14, the same year. We fought a lot that year; that is, he hit me a lot that year. We saw the WHO together with HIS friends that same year, although I was alone for the majority the show. We arrived the night before, camped out with his friends, staying up all night partying in the parking lot, sleeping minimal hours, to be in front of the line in the morning – it was General Admission, First come First Serve festival seating; like The WHO’s 1978 Cincinnati Show when several people were trampled to death. 

WKRP in Cincinnati, the classic rock radio station sitcom with Venus Flytrap, Dr. Johnny Fever, Travis, Jennifer, Bailey Quarters, Herb, Les Nessman and Mr. Carlson Gordon Jump had ONE SPECIAL episode about that travesty. I saw that episode BEFORE I saw The Who live. I cried at the end of the episode, as did I’m sure many Americans when that show first aired. 12 people died at that WHO show in Cincinnati 1978.  After that show, Cincinnati banned ALL General Admission, festival seating concerts.   I was a huge fan of WKRP in Cincinnati. I can sing the entire opening song from memory. 

Baby if you ever wondered / Wondered whatever became of me / I’m living on the air in Cincinnati / Cincinnati WKRP    

No, I did not get that from the interweb. I typed it as I sang.

I remember in Subic Bay, Luzon Island, the Philippines, in October 2009, 27 years after seeing the WHO, 31 years after the Cincinn Catastrope I met a guy from Cincinnati living in the PI, who was AT THAT 1978 WHO SHOW in Cincinnati. Cinci told me – “Dude, they had only one entrance open, we were all going through slowly; they opened a second entrance, and people just ran to it.   The guards/ticket takers freaked out when they saw hundreds of kids running towards them and they immediately shut the alternate entrance, so everybody ran back to the original entrance.  It was BEDLAM. The cops and security just stood there as people piled up. THEY SHOULD’VE OPENED MORE ENTRANCES. IT WASN’T DRUGS OR CRAZY PEOPLE THAT CAUSED THOSE DEATHS, IT WAS POOR PLANNING. BAD DECISION MAKING BY SECURITY.

In October 1982, the WHO played the LA Coliseum for their first shows since their 1978 tour with now deceased drummer Keith Moon, who passed away that same year. Keith moon is by far, the greatest rock and roll drummer ever. Do I think Moon is better than John Bonham or Mitch Mitchell or Phil Collins?    

No. I just like Moon’s style more. I like the way Pete just strums and sings; and how the bass and drums are all over the beat, never touching the 4. I think The WHO have the greatest bass and drums in the world; i.e. rhythm section – MAXIMUM R&B, they printed on posters. My saying that the WHO is the BEST does not make it a fact. It is merely my opinion. Fact versus opinion is such a mind-fuck. It’s all about PRIDE.

There are 7 deadly sins: Lust, Gluttony, Sloth – those are the easy ones. Those sins are easy to see in people and point and judge and condemn. What about PRIDE?

PRIDE is also a Deadly Sin. What is pride? “I’m proud of my son, the valedictorian of his class!” “I just finished a novel, a class, a book, a month of Vipassana Meditation.” There is nothing WRONG with having pride in one’s own accomplishment; nor is anything WRONG with gorging on three pieces of Devil’s Food cake, or having a threesome, or snorting meth once in while. Sure, those actions are unhealthy and may be regretted the following day or week – that doesn’t make those actions WRONG. What’s so deadly about PRIDE is pretty self-explanatory. SUBJECTING PEOPLE TO THE LIMITS OF your INDIVIDUAL MIND SET – denying people the right to abortion, same-sex marriage, recreational drug use – imposing YOUR view onto others – that is PRIDE.   Thinking that YOUR views are the only views that have rationality; that is called PRIDE. Thinking that other people should live life like YOU LIVE IT, or as YOU see fit – that is PRIDE. That’s a deadly sin. Pride is intolerant by nature. Pride directly causes death and suffering. Pride is one of the 7 Deadly Sins. SILENCE=DEATH! So does Pride!

The Clash opened for The WHO in 1982 in LA. The Clash played in the late afternoon. That show changed my life. I was not a Clash fan at the time. I became one. I stood within 20 feet of the stage for the entire show.

One of the biggest regrets of my life is standing in a Beverly Drive, 90210 business district shop called LES CASSETTES, aged 13, 1981; and purchasing a Cheap Trick Cassette, instead of London Calling. LES CASSETTES is no longer there. BH boutiques and shops have a high turnover rate. By 1986, LES CASSETTES was no more.   But in 1981, when given the choice between buying a cassette of London Calling and Cheap Tricks latest (whose name I don’t even remember) – I held the London Calling 2 cassette set and only knew one song, Train in Vain (which was the hidden song, not even mentioned on the cassette’s list of songs).  I chose and bought the Cheap Trick cassette. I first heard London Calling in 1987 in College and realized, “Fuck, my life would have been so different had I’d owned this music six years prior.” The Clash probably played a lot of the London Calling album at the show. Perhaps I can watch some of that show on YOUTUBE; Giving you the look and feel of real leather.

 When they kick in your front door, how you gonna go?  With your hands on your head?  Or on the trigger of your gun!

Cheap Trick was the first concert I ever saw in 1981 at the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood.

Cassettes are no longer made; nor sold in stores. At flea markets across the US, DJ’s sold cassette mixes during the 1980’s. Really good stuff! Before the interweb, and basically the computer age of mass communication, a lot of world and indy music was difficult to find. On a 90 minute cassette, you could put TWO ENTIRE ALBUMS, one on each side, sometimes with some room left over for additional songs. Records had been the most common form of music since forever, and each full rock and roll SIDE was only about 17 minutes. A 60 minute cassette was never long enough for two complete albums.  

By the 80’s Cassette Technology had become the premier form of music listening in car stereos and boom boxes, replacing 8 TRACK tapes, as the main source of MUSIC to go.  The first portable musical format, following the transistor radio was the Cassette Walkman devised by Sony in the early 1980’s.

In 1984, Maxell, TDK, BASF and other Cassette makers launched huge MEDIA campaigns selling HIGH BIAS cassettes and the MAXELL commercial with the Flight of the Concords and the Rich 80’s Guy in sunglasses having his scarf blown back as he sits on his sofa and listens to MAXELL cassette renditions of his favorite music, became a household image, seen on posters nationwide. 

Is it LIVE or is it MEMOREX?

The engineers, in the production of New State of the Arts Cassette Technology, HAD TO KNOW in the early, mid 80’s that CD’s were going to wipe them out. In 1986, CD’s first became available. Not much music was available on CD in 1986; CD’s were pricy as were players, which were heavy. Changers appeared the following year; CD Walkmans took a few more years. People were reluctant to toss their records and tapes. Many people were ANTI-CD cuz they liked the sound of a needle on a clean record, the purity of ANALOG. It took till about 1989 for CDs to completely wipe out cassettes and convert nearly everyone. How could engineers in 1984, IN THE FIELD not see what was coming. It’s not like CD’s came from NOWHERE. They must have said, we’ve got 5 years! Let’s go big! And that they did.

News had just come over / We had 5 years left to crying

Last week while driving through Century City in my brother's blue Ford Explorer, I popped It’s Hard into the truck's antiquated cassette player. The music played in a swirl of back and forth – perfect sound to overly bass shrouded muffle back to perfect. “This is like the Dichotomy of Life – Good and Evil, Light and Dark!” I said, enjoying listening to it after adjusting to the LOW RES rendition. For each 6 second interval, 3 of them were nice, and 3 were not so nice; much was in a bleed of in between. Still the cassette played and we heard one entire side by the time we arrived at his house. I could’ve played the radio or plugged my brothers MP3 player into the cassette deck, but I wanted to hear The WHO. I had not heard It’s Hard in years; and surely THAT would not be playing on the radio. It’s Hard brought back a lot of memories – all the memories that appear in this story and MORE. One song, whose words I remember – I know ALL THE WORDS TO ALL THE SONGS – Cry if you want! Not that song, another.

SLEEP IS FOR FOOLS WHO NEVER SEE THE SUNRISE   /    WHO NEVER GET TO LIVE TWICE

Pete Townsend wrote the greatest songs ever heard (I’ve only ever had one pair of ears) and The WHO was/is the greatest rock n roll band. EVER! I can’t imagine a greater, more photogenic BAND or finer original MUSIC or LIVE ACT than The WHO. I can’t imagine loving any music MORE than I love the Who’s music; and them as a band on a poster on a wall. Even seeing their logo bring smiles to my eyes.

That is just my opinion. And award shows are really just popularity contests and ways to market CRAP. Music is a business. Music is also an expression and celebration of life like no other. 

I don’t think The WHO are any BETTER than BOWIE or THE STONES or IRON MAIDEN.

I just like them more. It’s very similar to the way –if a parent looks at their 12 year olds’ entire class: some kids are prettier, more handsome, smarter, more athletic, etc. – than THEIR kids. They still love THEIR kids the most. Parents have a connection with their own kids; it’s almost like – they have no choice but to love them more. It’s not a conscious choice. It is AN UNCONSCIOUS CHOICE!  Parents have no choice.  I’m not a parent, but I have no choice either.

I have a connection with The WHO. Where it came from, comes from, why it’s endured so many decades and hasn’t faded – GOD ONLY KNOWS! Maybe Chepe Escondido knows and he’s not telling me. It’s certainly not a choice I consciously made; kind of like how being gay isn’t a conscious, planned choice homosexuals make. “You should play for OUR team.” “Well, I’m the starting shortstop of MY TEAM.” “We NEED a shortstop!” Elaine from Seinfeld dating a gay guy, trying to CONVERT him.

I’d really love to meet Pete Townsend. It’s one of my dreams. I’d make Pete say to me, what he said to David Bowie in 1963. I’d love to hear Pete’s voice say the words, “That’s a bit of cheese off!”

ROCK AND ROLL NEVER FORGETS, BUT ROCKERS SOMETIMES DO!

Rockers dream. I’m a rocker. One dream of mine is to have Beck Hansen sing my songs and play keyboards while my trio: Bravo, Chepe E and Flibworth Thurstein does the backup rhythm section. We first met Flibby in 1987, the same year Chepe and I first met.  We all lived in Barrington Hall.  I’m sure Beck would fit right in with us after we pray to Manny Mota, the patron saint of selective forgetting, in Chepe's East LA home studio.  Maybe my brother can play keyboards and Beck can play lead guitar and sing. 

In the TRIO, when I play bass, Chepe plays drums and Flibby plays distorted electric guitar, we are called, "Coffee Pot, in honor of our two daily doses.  When I play drums and Chepe plays bass, Flibby still on guitar -- we are called, "Coffee Break" in honor of Feltcher Repoman's Rent a Cop.  When I play guitar, Flibby on bass and Chepe on drums, where he is most comfortable --   Chepe played drums in college in bands called BEEF CHURCH and Maggot Brain -- When I'm on guitar, it's kind of the Bravo show, since I have a lot of original songs, inspired by Chepe,who actually came up with the hooks, before I even thought of writing the songs!  

My Cadillac Car broke down on the 10 Freeway / I was on my way to East LA
Caddie broke down near downtown exit Santa Fe / The Triple A tow truck driver’s name was Noé  
Noé towed my Cadillac to Manny Moe and Jack / Noé towed my Cadillac to Manny Moe and Jack

I only ever drink alone. I do that sometimes when I stay up all night. Drinking at night by my self just may be my favorite activity; after reading, watching movies, playing music, cooking, and making love to beautiful women. Not in any particular order. Eating, like bathing, I do out of necessity; more than for enJOYment.   I drink to forget – or so said D Boone, whom many people in this world will never forget. I sure won’t. Every song I’ve ever heard in my life more than once has gone into making me the person that I am. Thank you, Music. And happy 43rd birthday, Chepe Escondido!