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Thursday, August 28. 2008
Rick Started It
There was this thought in my head about how to start this monologue, so clicking on the web browser (Safari) to find information, my home page pops up — it’s our family’s web site where we (not) often (enough) communicate with each other.At the top of the page are three photos from the various galleries on the site: my nephew (and Godson) Andrew in his high school cap and gown — geez, can’t believe he’s in college already — my brother (Andrew’s father) Ken and his wife Cindy, in a photo taken at the Wild Animal Park and then my brother Rick, in a photo taken at the Mission de Alcala de San Diego. That’s it to the left.
I have no idea what that original thought was ... thanks Rick! See what you started!
Rick has always been one of my heroes. He’s older by … (gimme a minute to do the math) … 21 months so when we were growing up, everything Rick did and had, I had to do and have. He was a greaser, I was a greaser.
Back in the day, Milwaukee greasers listened to soul music; James Brown, Ike and Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Isaac Hayes and Otis Redding. Great music, “dawg.”
When Rick started listening to hippie rock and roll, I started listening to hippie rock and roll. The fucking Doors and Cream man! That’s what got him (us) started! And then “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida!” (Iron Butterfly) and the Vanilla Fudge and then! Greg Hintz introduced us to the Mothers of Invention! We’re Only In It For the Money. Listen to how side 2 of that album starts — and then imagine, at the ripe old age of 13, listening to it for the first time, stoned on pot and gin.From that moment and for the next couple years I was Greg’s drum roadie. Greg and some friends were going to Woodstock and they had an extra ticket. “You wanna come,” he asked? Hell yeah! And then, instead of telling my parents I was going camping with Greg in Wisconsin’s North Woods, I told them I was off to Woodstock for a rock and roll festival! They said “NO!” C’est la vie.
Lesson: Honesty is not always the best policy.
Did you know, there are about a dozen songs titled “C’est la Vie”?
Anyway, Rick’s been my hero for over 40 years now. When we shared the room in our basement — it had some great places to hide our drugs and paraphernalia and was ventilated such so you couldn’t smell the pot smoke — we would lay in bed, passing doobies and pipes, talking about music.
Man! We had some great times! He was in a band called Mynas Terith and was the most popular cover band in Milwaukee for several years, until disco killed music. I was one of the band’s unofficial roadies and because the Wisconsin drinking age at the time was 18, I was never carded and was able to order, buy and drink like a fiend from the time I was 15! I have never been carded for alcohol, not even when in Las Vegas at the age of 20.
Humpin’ Hannah’s on Wednesday Nights! Beers, on Hump Night, came in these huge goblets and were only a nickel! Not to mention all the pot, hashish and LSD we consumed … Those were the days.
He was also the reason I wet the bed until I was eight. Sheesh, he had no end to the ways he could scare the crap out of me when we were little, sharing a bed. At one time he had me so scared to sleep on the “outside” of the bed (the side not against the wall), I insisted on sleeping on the “inside” of the bed. And since I didn’t want to see him, because he would no doubt scare me, I turned towards the wall. Quietly, as I was about to drift into sleep, an eerie, disembodied hand came creeping up the wall … “AAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
In come Mom and Dad … and there’s Rick, scrambling to get out from under the bed. Yeah motherfucker! I remember that little vignette 46 years later! But now, I laugh my ass off thinking of it. And the snakes on the floor if I got up to go pee in the middle of the night …
And when I got out of the Marines, deep in the 1970’s, not too many people wanted to be friends with a “baby killer,” even if we were running mates in high school. Rick stood by me and stood by me even into the darkest, deepest depths of my Hell, which followed for the next six years.So I stand by him today, regardless of the situation and the conditions. He’s my one remaining older brother and I love him dearly. Wish he were here today. We could share an apartment, go to the beach together and act like a couple dirty old men and I know — I KNOW — that being at the beach with Rick, we would always get lucky! Or at least fed. At our age, that’s gettin’ lucky too!
Neither one of us are into that hard drinking, pot smoking lifestyle anymore, it came close to killing both of us and we are suffering the health issues from that now. So, I think of him and hope one day we can be together as those two dirty old men, acting the fools, but always lovable and loved.
Just a lesson if you’re reading this and you engage in that addiction life style: the payment will come due, it will, as surely as day follows night.
We don’t talk or communicate as much as we should, as much as I’d like too. He’s back in Wisconsin with a thriving business as a music educator. I’m here … doing what I do, which isn’t much. So, when this is done I’m gonna call him, let him know I’m still here, still thinking of him, still wishing he was here, but applauding his success there as a music educator. Keep up the good work brother! Love you man!
As for the Democratic National Convention, this was going to be all about the convention and the two great speeches by Hillary and Bill Clinton, but politics doesn’t seem so important at the moment, at least not to write about. Both of the Clintons delivered; Hillary on Tuesday Evening and Bill Wednesday, right before Joe Biden accepted his party’s nomination as the vice presidential candidate.
The hallmark of Senator Hillary Clinton’s work — her core cause — is health care and as I sit here thinking of Rick and the illnesses we share, what strikes me as most important in this life, from this election, is that health care be available for everyone, regardless of social standing or annual income. I love my brother, and the rest of my family, and the thought that some of them cannot see doctors for their health issues because they can’t afford health insurance troubles me to no end.
Barack Obama wants to make health care available to everyone and his plan, similar to Clinton’s plan, comes real close to doing so. It doesn’t go far enough really. Dennis Kucinich had a great plan: make it like that of Great Britain and Canada where everyone is covered.Not so McCain’s plan, which pretty much continues the status quo that puts corporate profits ahead of our health; meaning higher premiums, less coverage and limited availability.
Before I pass on, I want to see health care for my brother, my sister Mary Lou who has no coverage and for all my family. For too long we as a nation have been riding this fantasy of being the “land of the free and the home of the brave” when in reality, it’s more like the land of the greedy and the home of the selfish. At least that seems to be the Republican Zeitgeist. Gordon Gekko is a hero to them.
We need to elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden and then pressure them to adopt a health care plan like that of Congressman Dennis Kucinich. The lives of my family depend on it, even though they disagree with me.
A couple of my friends, I won’t mention any names because I see Dan and Alan a couple times every week, like these monologues best when they’re not about politics and Alan really likes it when there’s a hot babe or two featured in a photo (hence, Obama Girl last time).
This is Chrissie Concepcion. She was in an accident and is now selling her Beemer piece-by-piece. Click Here to take a look and you might find her selling it on eBay. Help her out! Help me out and click the ads by Google!
Anyway, here you go Alan! Click the pic!
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