Spike and Mike Part 7; Tallahassee
I was excited to be heading to Florida. It was somewhere new. It was further from home than I'd been so far with Spike and Mike. In fact it was further than I'd been ever save a trip to New York with my folks when I was a teenager.
I also had high hopes of Finding Bill and Rob, my friends who lived in Tallahassee. Bill and Rob were a couple I met when their own VW road travels brought them to Sacramento. They didn't stay long but we got close quickly, and Rob had a self confidence about him that inspires me to this day.
The crew heading to Florida was huge as there were show in Tallahassee and Gainsville. We would fly in to Gainsville as a big college game was going on there that day, beween Gainsville and Tallahassee. We would flyer the hell out of the record breaking crowds, taking full advantage of having the population of both towns so concentrated in a small space.
But first there was the flight. I love flying. I've never had issues with it, and no matter how many times I do it, I still love to sit and stare out the window. On this flight however I was suffering with sinus pain and the change in altitude wasn't helping. I closed my eyes and concentrated on keeping my breathing even. I couldn't wait to land. It was a night flight, and I actually managed to sleep through most of it. As we started our blessed descent at last, I started to wish we'd just stay up in the air. Whatever was going on in my head, it was so painful I was sure permanent damage was being done. It felt, pecisely like a needle was bing pushed through my left eye ball, through my brain behind my eyeball and out the top of my head. I could feel every inch of the needle. My hands tightened into fists and my eyes watered down my face. When at last we landed every muscle in my body was exhausted and I was wet from sweating. I remember very little between the airplane and the hotel where I fell asleep for a too brief nap while the rest of the crew grabbed breakfast and coffee.
The woke me up and we were off to put flyers beneath the windshield wipers of thousands of cars. The game had indeed broken all records for attendance of a college sporting event, so strong was the rivalry between these teams, and I could not relate at all. I hated sports, mostly because of the fans and their aggressive competitive nature. I didn't understand how they remained loyal to the "local" team, when the owners, players and coaches were all imported. The only thing local about these teams were the drunken idiot fans getting into shouting matches and fist fights with the folks supporting their own "local" team. Needless to say I was anxious to get done with the football fans and get to Tallahasse.
Of course after flyering we had to go to the bars and doing some flyering, and some drinking. For once I stuck to sipping on a Coke. I was starving in a town that thinks Veganism is something you get inoculated against. I had some red beans and rice that the bartender promised me they hadn't yet added the bacon fat to, though she warned me it would taste pretty bland without it.
I would be working with Dax, a young, gay, black man with a shaved head, great taste in music and an easy going nature that would make him the perfect roommate. The crew in Tallahassee would be just the two of us with Mike as the crewleader. Mike and Dax were as anxious as I was to get to Tallahassee ahead and settle in so we left sometime around ten pm.
We arrived at our lodgings andd, they sucked. We were staying at a run down, beat up Howard Johnson's. We had no kitchen in our room, just two beds, a small table and a TV, and that was all that fit. I was glad I had a roommate that I liked. We'd be plenty crowded. I didn't unpack. I climed in bed and I was out like a light.
Mke rang our phone in the morning and asked Dax to come to his room. I unpacked, wondering what was up. Dax came back and packed up the few things he had taken out of his suitcase.
"What's going on?" I asked him.
"You're getting a new roommante. Robo headbutted Ron in the nose last night."
Ah crap. I couldn't stand Robo. He was a homophobic moron covered in tattoos. Both Spike and Mike adored him despite his being a lazy ass. Ron I had just met the day before but he struck me as being cut from the cloth as Robo. And now, lucky me, one of them would be in my room.
Ron arrived a few hours later, with his nose bandaged up, two black eyes peeking through the bandages. I got various versions of the previous evenings events and it would seem Ron and Robo were both pretty drunk. Ron started the fight and Robo finished it with top of his head smashed into the middle of Ron's face. Ron declared to me his dedication to kicking Robo's ass. He restated this goal repeatedly as he did push ups and sit ups in the tiny space between our beds.
Despite the rough start flyering in Tallahassee was great. I'd either work with Mike doing hop and hits, or Mike would take Ron leaving me to flyer at Florida State. I loved being on campus. There were lots of goofy art students running around doing silly things. One in particular impressed me. He was out there flyering as often as I was. His yellow flyers bore his face and the words "Vote Mello", presumably his name. There were no upcoming campus elections, and nobody I talked to had any idea what he was campaigning for. I asked the man himself and he gave me a great bit of hyperbole about changing my reality.
Also of note were a group of kids who all had matching shirts with a small star on the front and saying's like "Kick ass to live, live to kick ass." or "I'd rather be kicking ass." Every cheesey bumber sticker I'd seen showed up on one of these shirts, adaptd to kick ass. And every t-shirt was being worn by some scrawney art student. I decided I loved Tallahassee. I didn't see Ron enough for him to drive me crazy, except when he left the tv on at night, every night.
"Hey dude? I can't sleep with the TV on, can we turn it off around 10?" I asked, as politely as possible.
"I need it on to sleep." he answered. No suggestion of compromise.
"Yeah okay. We both need to sleep, so why don't we take turns. On one night, off the next."
"No man. I need it on to sleep."
FUCK! I wasn't going to fight him, though I imagined a pop in the nose would end things pretty quickly. A few nights I got desperate enough to take a pillow and sleep outside the door of our room in the hallway. The light was on, but at least it was quiet.
I was walking by a shopping center, I saw an orange Volks Wagon with J.R. Bob Dobbs sticker on the back. It had to be Bill and Rob's. I waited and eventually a guy in a leather jacket with freedom rings around his neck came walking out. He looked to gay to be Bill or Rob, but as he got closer, it was Bill after all.
I smiled and waited for him to recognize me. Not expecting to see me again, much less in his town he was almost to the car before he returned the smile and then a hug. I asked him why he was looking so gay these days.
"If I don't look gay, how are cute boys supposed to know to flirt with me? I like for cute boys to flirt with me."
"Well then, What's a nice boy like you doing in a parking lot like this?"
We exchanged phone numbers and after checking in with Mike I got the night off and somehow persuaded Ron to drop me off at their place. I was happy to find Rob as butch as ever, in fact he asked me if I'd noticed what a fag his boyfriend had become. Their house was a cool little two bedroom. The extra bedroom was full of pillows and smoking parapheneli. one wall was dedicated to their impressive collection of the worst and cheesiest gay iconography they could find. Plenty of short haired, buff, oiled up men with rainbow flags. Hillarious stuff.
I asked about Rob's greenhouse, which I'd heard so much about. They had apparently just moved into this house and the greenhouse was at their old pad, still occupied by a friend of theres. We went to check it out.
Their old roommate was named Keith but there was no confusion between us as he prefered the name Muffin. Muffin was an odd one. He slept throughout the day, a minute or two at a time. He might be mid sentence and then, boom, he'd be gone. Rob would motion for me to wait it out and then, just as suddenly as he shut off he'd come back to life, just where he left off. Muffin made his living repairing the many VWs in Tallahassee. He was a brilliant mechanic and he'd learned to work on things in such a way that falling asleep for a bit while under a vehicle would not result in eating an axle with a gasoline chaser.
The green house shared two walls of the house and felt like an addition. It was extraordinary. Huge plants growing every which way with a winding path through them. The second you stepped foot onto the path you were felt miles from civilization. I walked to the back of the green house and took a seat beneath a plant called an elephant's ear. I sat there in silence and just loved the feeling of being in this amazing environment that Rob had constructed. This repsonse was, the three boys informed me, not at all unsusuall, but most pleasing to Rob every time.
I crashed in their smoking room frequently giving me a break from Ron and his TV. Ron was happy to drop me off in the morning and pick me up at night as it gave him his own room, and I never had to worry about inviting him in as he was appalled that I'd hang out with fags and he certainly wanted nothing to do with it. I loved hanging out with Bill and Rob. Rob and I would go for walks in the woods and be nature boy types and then Bill and I would go shopping and totally fag it up. They were the perfect ying and yang together. Florida was working out nicely.
I made no effort to meet girls in this town. I was writing a-lot and reading and over all feeling introspective. But Stephanie happened along and asked me about the flyers I was handing out. I told her about the fest and then she asked about me, and how I ended up with this job. So we got some lunch and I talked about me, and she talked about her, and we talked about music. I'd been wanting to go Ice Skating at the rink by my hotel and we made plans to meet there the following afternoon. Ice Skating with a girl you just met has to be one of life's greatest pleasures. The date ended in kisses and from then on I spent a-lot of time with Stephanie.
I was looking for Some Ayn Rand to read, as I heard a fair amount of controversy about her philosophy. Bill and Rob sent me into a book store that they were sure would have it. I asked the dyke-ish woman at the counter and the look she gave me suggested I'd just asked for "Mein Kampf-a user's guide."
"No. We do not carry Ayn Rand here. This is a feminist book store!" I didn't get it.
"Ayn Rand is a woman!" I answered.
She was done talking to me. I went back to the pizza place where Bill and Rob and Muffin were waiting, and laughing. Great, I'd been a pawn in a prank between two fags, a narcoleptic mechanic and a feminist dyke.
I finally got some Ayn Rand, and while I didn't agree with everything she said her statements on the virtue of selfishness and the preference of the individual of the committee were exciting and had me scribbling in my notebook like a madman. That she expressed these ideas through her ridiculous soap opera novels was even more exciting.
Being turned on intellectually like this had me pining for my old friend Bryna who I'd spent many hours debating with. I began writing her fairly regularly and I called her from Florida a few times. I told Bryna that even with friends in town I was alone a great deal of the time. What thrilled me was that I didn't feel lonely. Being able to be by myslef was an exciting and new sensation for a guy who grew up in a full house and moved himself from one crowded situation to another evevr since.
After Florida I would go home to Sacramento to see my mom and my little brother for the holidays, maybe my dad. I would definately make plans to see Bryna.
The shows did not do so well, and no amount of flyering was changing that. We hit hard, night and day. We hit the colleges, the white one (Florida State) and the black one (F.A.M.U.). I was amazed by the segregation in Tallahassee. A town with so many art students and such a cool gay scene had to have at least one bar where you could find black and whites drinking together, other than the gay bars I mean, which are always diverse. I never did find this bar. A black girl working at the theatre taught me all kinds of southern black slang that hadn't reached California's white hip hop fans yet, but it would, and soon.
The main problem with attendence was that the price of a movie in Tallahassee at the time was about five bucks. We were charging the $8.50 that movies brought in most everywhere else. This compounded the slow pace of a first run in a new town. The big bosses seemed to understand and we weren't being beaten up about it, but it was less fun than having the show do well.
Mike let me do some MCing. I just borrowed bits from his introduction and mixed them with pieces from Mike Gribble's intro, but it was a blast. I started writing my own lines, and I'd eventually use them.
The run was coming to a close and so I went out drinking with Mike and Ron who I'd seen very little of. Ron met a beautiful and smart woman who had the librarian look happening. I could not for the life of me figure out what she saw in Ron but she took him home. Mike wanted to turn in early so I had him leave me at the bar. I sat out front on the curb when they closed, enjoying the cool night air and wondering how the hell I'd get home. Two beautiful girls came to my rescue. Tara and Silver, a blond and a native American. I started composing my letter in my head. "Dear Penthouse letters. I never believed the stories I read in you magazine until it happened to me."
These two wonderfull girls took me back to my room and we stayed up all night talking. When Ron got home and found me with two girls in the room he excused himself and I let him think what he would. The girls gave me phone numbers, but that was the last I heard or saw of them.
That night Ron had his Florida friends over, as well as the librarian. He rented a seperate room so that everyone could drink without worrying about driving home, and so he could be alone with his new friend in the cool glasses later.
I talked with the librarian about Ayn Rand, and philosophy. She'd majored in the subject and suggested lots of reading that I never did get around too. I talked with Ron's buddies who were impressed when I showed them a self inflicted lighter burn, I'd been trying to make a happy face on my arm. I told them it was a bullet hole and they marvelled at my hardcore California life. This, from a bunch of guy who lived in FLORIDA.
One of them asked me if straight guys really hugged each other in Cali. I assured him we did and I spent the next couple of hours watching him get drunker and trying to give him a hug. He was actually really nice as were most of these guys. I'd been such a snob, but a few beers and I was cured.
I was wearing a shirt covered in religious iconography. One of the Ron crew asked me if I was religious.
"Nope."
"Then why are you wearing that shirt?"
"I like the pictures."
"So you think it's cool to make fun of god."
"There's no god on this shirt. It's just a carpenter-profit and his mom."
"Dude, be carefull what you say about Jesus."
I was drunk. I hadn't slept. Ron had threatened to hit me if I didn't take out the earing one his cheerleader friends put in my ears making me look like a "Fag". It just came out. With no thought for my safety.
"Fuck Jesus."
The room fell silent. The Ronny that had brought that trouble making carpenter in the first place stood up.
"You're lucky I don't punch you in the mouth."
"Yes well, that would be most unchristian of you now wouldn't it."
"Don't you fucking talk about Jesus, or Christian or anything. And take of that god damn shirt."
I could have caught him for the god damn line, but instead I wandered back to my room and passed out.
Bill invited me to check out the art student's performances, which he was assisting a few student with doing audio viusal work. And there was Mello, of Vote Mello. Well, not the man himself, not yet. First he was introduced by an enthusiastic campaign worker. Then a video was show of Mellow talking to us from a library, expainnig how niether he nor any other polititician could fix such problems as crime, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, but if elected, Mello could help us to change our perceptions of these problems. Mello offered rose colored glasses for a shit colored world. A giant banner with his face and the word Vote Mello unfurled over the projection screen and the man himself took the stage to great applause. Just as he was about to speek to us, out of the audience came a gunman. He shot Mello in the chest, splattering the giant Mello face on the banner with blood. Police officers gave pursuit and two E.M.T.'s took his lifeless body from us. My god I hope Mello got an A+. If Bill hadn't been one of the E.M.T.s I'd have been unsure where the act ended and reality began.
Stephanie invited me to come home with her to her parent's place near Orlando for Christmas Break and I agreed. It was a great time sneaking into her room when the folks when to bed. I'd finally gotten right. I was totally honest with her about where I was coming from, and where I was going. We enjoyed each other and no promises were made. I was sure of it now. The perfect relationship lasted six weeks.
For some reason I still headed to Sacramento and asked Bryna to be my girlfriend.
Prologue: Ron did run into Robo at a bar in San Diego, a week after the Florida run. After all those push up and sit ups Ron mustered up his courage, walked right up to Robo, puffed out his chest, lost his courage again, and shook Robo's hand. He was fired a week later for selling late tickets and pocketing the money.
Help: If anyone knows Bill or Rob, who lived in Tallahassee at one point and drove an orange VW camper bus and an art car painted with mutant three eared mickey mouses please tell them to get in touch.
>>>>Part 8 next, Riverside and the end of this Spike and Mike saga (for now)>>>
I also had high hopes of Finding Bill and Rob, my friends who lived in Tallahassee. Bill and Rob were a couple I met when their own VW road travels brought them to Sacramento. They didn't stay long but we got close quickly, and Rob had a self confidence about him that inspires me to this day.
The crew heading to Florida was huge as there were show in Tallahassee and Gainsville. We would fly in to Gainsville as a big college game was going on there that day, beween Gainsville and Tallahassee. We would flyer the hell out of the record breaking crowds, taking full advantage of having the population of both towns so concentrated in a small space.
But first there was the flight. I love flying. I've never had issues with it, and no matter how many times I do it, I still love to sit and stare out the window. On this flight however I was suffering with sinus pain and the change in altitude wasn't helping. I closed my eyes and concentrated on keeping my breathing even. I couldn't wait to land. It was a night flight, and I actually managed to sleep through most of it. As we started our blessed descent at last, I started to wish we'd just stay up in the air. Whatever was going on in my head, it was so painful I was sure permanent damage was being done. It felt, pecisely like a needle was bing pushed through my left eye ball, through my brain behind my eyeball and out the top of my head. I could feel every inch of the needle. My hands tightened into fists and my eyes watered down my face. When at last we landed every muscle in my body was exhausted and I was wet from sweating. I remember very little between the airplane and the hotel where I fell asleep for a too brief nap while the rest of the crew grabbed breakfast and coffee.
The woke me up and we were off to put flyers beneath the windshield wipers of thousands of cars. The game had indeed broken all records for attendance of a college sporting event, so strong was the rivalry between these teams, and I could not relate at all. I hated sports, mostly because of the fans and their aggressive competitive nature. I didn't understand how they remained loyal to the "local" team, when the owners, players and coaches were all imported. The only thing local about these teams were the drunken idiot fans getting into shouting matches and fist fights with the folks supporting their own "local" team. Needless to say I was anxious to get done with the football fans and get to Tallahasse.
Of course after flyering we had to go to the bars and doing some flyering, and some drinking. For once I stuck to sipping on a Coke. I was starving in a town that thinks Veganism is something you get inoculated against. I had some red beans and rice that the bartender promised me they hadn't yet added the bacon fat to, though she warned me it would taste pretty bland without it.
I would be working with Dax, a young, gay, black man with a shaved head, great taste in music and an easy going nature that would make him the perfect roommate. The crew in Tallahassee would be just the two of us with Mike as the crewleader. Mike and Dax were as anxious as I was to get to Tallahassee ahead and settle in so we left sometime around ten pm.
We arrived at our lodgings andd, they sucked. We were staying at a run down, beat up Howard Johnson's. We had no kitchen in our room, just two beds, a small table and a TV, and that was all that fit. I was glad I had a roommate that I liked. We'd be plenty crowded. I didn't unpack. I climed in bed and I was out like a light.
Mke rang our phone in the morning and asked Dax to come to his room. I unpacked, wondering what was up. Dax came back and packed up the few things he had taken out of his suitcase.
"What's going on?" I asked him.
"You're getting a new roommante. Robo headbutted Ron in the nose last night."
Ah crap. I couldn't stand Robo. He was a homophobic moron covered in tattoos. Both Spike and Mike adored him despite his being a lazy ass. Ron I had just met the day before but he struck me as being cut from the cloth as Robo. And now, lucky me, one of them would be in my room.
Ron arrived a few hours later, with his nose bandaged up, two black eyes peeking through the bandages. I got various versions of the previous evenings events and it would seem Ron and Robo were both pretty drunk. Ron started the fight and Robo finished it with top of his head smashed into the middle of Ron's face. Ron declared to me his dedication to kicking Robo's ass. He restated this goal repeatedly as he did push ups and sit ups in the tiny space between our beds.
Despite the rough start flyering in Tallahassee was great. I'd either work with Mike doing hop and hits, or Mike would take Ron leaving me to flyer at Florida State. I loved being on campus. There were lots of goofy art students running around doing silly things. One in particular impressed me. He was out there flyering as often as I was. His yellow flyers bore his face and the words "Vote Mello", presumably his name. There were no upcoming campus elections, and nobody I talked to had any idea what he was campaigning for. I asked the man himself and he gave me a great bit of hyperbole about changing my reality.
Also of note were a group of kids who all had matching shirts with a small star on the front and saying's like "Kick ass to live, live to kick ass." or "I'd rather be kicking ass." Every cheesey bumber sticker I'd seen showed up on one of these shirts, adaptd to kick ass. And every t-shirt was being worn by some scrawney art student. I decided I loved Tallahassee. I didn't see Ron enough for him to drive me crazy, except when he left the tv on at night, every night.
"Hey dude? I can't sleep with the TV on, can we turn it off around 10?" I asked, as politely as possible.
"I need it on to sleep." he answered. No suggestion of compromise.
"Yeah okay. We both need to sleep, so why don't we take turns. On one night, off the next."
"No man. I need it on to sleep."
FUCK! I wasn't going to fight him, though I imagined a pop in the nose would end things pretty quickly. A few nights I got desperate enough to take a pillow and sleep outside the door of our room in the hallway. The light was on, but at least it was quiet.
I was walking by a shopping center, I saw an orange Volks Wagon with J.R. Bob Dobbs sticker on the back. It had to be Bill and Rob's. I waited and eventually a guy in a leather jacket with freedom rings around his neck came walking out. He looked to gay to be Bill or Rob, but as he got closer, it was Bill after all.
I smiled and waited for him to recognize me. Not expecting to see me again, much less in his town he was almost to the car before he returned the smile and then a hug. I asked him why he was looking so gay these days.
"If I don't look gay, how are cute boys supposed to know to flirt with me? I like for cute boys to flirt with me."
"Well then, What's a nice boy like you doing in a parking lot like this?"
We exchanged phone numbers and after checking in with Mike I got the night off and somehow persuaded Ron to drop me off at their place. I was happy to find Rob as butch as ever, in fact he asked me if I'd noticed what a fag his boyfriend had become. Their house was a cool little two bedroom. The extra bedroom was full of pillows and smoking parapheneli. one wall was dedicated to their impressive collection of the worst and cheesiest gay iconography they could find. Plenty of short haired, buff, oiled up men with rainbow flags. Hillarious stuff.
I asked about Rob's greenhouse, which I'd heard so much about. They had apparently just moved into this house and the greenhouse was at their old pad, still occupied by a friend of theres. We went to check it out.
Their old roommate was named Keith but there was no confusion between us as he prefered the name Muffin. Muffin was an odd one. He slept throughout the day, a minute or two at a time. He might be mid sentence and then, boom, he'd be gone. Rob would motion for me to wait it out and then, just as suddenly as he shut off he'd come back to life, just where he left off. Muffin made his living repairing the many VWs in Tallahassee. He was a brilliant mechanic and he'd learned to work on things in such a way that falling asleep for a bit while under a vehicle would not result in eating an axle with a gasoline chaser.
The green house shared two walls of the house and felt like an addition. It was extraordinary. Huge plants growing every which way with a winding path through them. The second you stepped foot onto the path you were felt miles from civilization. I walked to the back of the green house and took a seat beneath a plant called an elephant's ear. I sat there in silence and just loved the feeling of being in this amazing environment that Rob had constructed. This repsonse was, the three boys informed me, not at all unsusuall, but most pleasing to Rob every time.
I crashed in their smoking room frequently giving me a break from Ron and his TV. Ron was happy to drop me off in the morning and pick me up at night as it gave him his own room, and I never had to worry about inviting him in as he was appalled that I'd hang out with fags and he certainly wanted nothing to do with it. I loved hanging out with Bill and Rob. Rob and I would go for walks in the woods and be nature boy types and then Bill and I would go shopping and totally fag it up. They were the perfect ying and yang together. Florida was working out nicely.
I made no effort to meet girls in this town. I was writing a-lot and reading and over all feeling introspective. But Stephanie happened along and asked me about the flyers I was handing out. I told her about the fest and then she asked about me, and how I ended up with this job. So we got some lunch and I talked about me, and she talked about her, and we talked about music. I'd been wanting to go Ice Skating at the rink by my hotel and we made plans to meet there the following afternoon. Ice Skating with a girl you just met has to be one of life's greatest pleasures. The date ended in kisses and from then on I spent a-lot of time with Stephanie.
I was looking for Some Ayn Rand to read, as I heard a fair amount of controversy about her philosophy. Bill and Rob sent me into a book store that they were sure would have it. I asked the dyke-ish woman at the counter and the look she gave me suggested I'd just asked for "Mein Kampf-a user's guide."
"No. We do not carry Ayn Rand here. This is a feminist book store!" I didn't get it.
"Ayn Rand is a woman!" I answered.
She was done talking to me. I went back to the pizza place where Bill and Rob and Muffin were waiting, and laughing. Great, I'd been a pawn in a prank between two fags, a narcoleptic mechanic and a feminist dyke.
I finally got some Ayn Rand, and while I didn't agree with everything she said her statements on the virtue of selfishness and the preference of the individual of the committee were exciting and had me scribbling in my notebook like a madman. That she expressed these ideas through her ridiculous soap opera novels was even more exciting.
Being turned on intellectually like this had me pining for my old friend Bryna who I'd spent many hours debating with. I began writing her fairly regularly and I called her from Florida a few times. I told Bryna that even with friends in town I was alone a great deal of the time. What thrilled me was that I didn't feel lonely. Being able to be by myslef was an exciting and new sensation for a guy who grew up in a full house and moved himself from one crowded situation to another evevr since.
After Florida I would go home to Sacramento to see my mom and my little brother for the holidays, maybe my dad. I would definately make plans to see Bryna.
The shows did not do so well, and no amount of flyering was changing that. We hit hard, night and day. We hit the colleges, the white one (Florida State) and the black one (F.A.M.U.). I was amazed by the segregation in Tallahassee. A town with so many art students and such a cool gay scene had to have at least one bar where you could find black and whites drinking together, other than the gay bars I mean, which are always diverse. I never did find this bar. A black girl working at the theatre taught me all kinds of southern black slang that hadn't reached California's white hip hop fans yet, but it would, and soon.
The main problem with attendence was that the price of a movie in Tallahassee at the time was about five bucks. We were charging the $8.50 that movies brought in most everywhere else. This compounded the slow pace of a first run in a new town. The big bosses seemed to understand and we weren't being beaten up about it, but it was less fun than having the show do well.
Mike let me do some MCing. I just borrowed bits from his introduction and mixed them with pieces from Mike Gribble's intro, but it was a blast. I started writing my own lines, and I'd eventually use them.
The run was coming to a close and so I went out drinking with Mike and Ron who I'd seen very little of. Ron met a beautiful and smart woman who had the librarian look happening. I could not for the life of me figure out what she saw in Ron but she took him home. Mike wanted to turn in early so I had him leave me at the bar. I sat out front on the curb when they closed, enjoying the cool night air and wondering how the hell I'd get home. Two beautiful girls came to my rescue. Tara and Silver, a blond and a native American. I started composing my letter in my head. "Dear Penthouse letters. I never believed the stories I read in you magazine until it happened to me."
These two wonderfull girls took me back to my room and we stayed up all night talking. When Ron got home and found me with two girls in the room he excused himself and I let him think what he would. The girls gave me phone numbers, but that was the last I heard or saw of them.
That night Ron had his Florida friends over, as well as the librarian. He rented a seperate room so that everyone could drink without worrying about driving home, and so he could be alone with his new friend in the cool glasses later.
I talked with the librarian about Ayn Rand, and philosophy. She'd majored in the subject and suggested lots of reading that I never did get around too. I talked with Ron's buddies who were impressed when I showed them a self inflicted lighter burn, I'd been trying to make a happy face on my arm. I told them it was a bullet hole and they marvelled at my hardcore California life. This, from a bunch of guy who lived in FLORIDA.
One of them asked me if straight guys really hugged each other in Cali. I assured him we did and I spent the next couple of hours watching him get drunker and trying to give him a hug. He was actually really nice as were most of these guys. I'd been such a snob, but a few beers and I was cured.
I was wearing a shirt covered in religious iconography. One of the Ron crew asked me if I was religious.
"Nope."
"Then why are you wearing that shirt?"
"I like the pictures."
"So you think it's cool to make fun of god."
"There's no god on this shirt. It's just a carpenter-profit and his mom."
"Dude, be carefull what you say about Jesus."
I was drunk. I hadn't slept. Ron had threatened to hit me if I didn't take out the earing one his cheerleader friends put in my ears making me look like a "Fag". It just came out. With no thought for my safety.
"Fuck Jesus."
The room fell silent. The Ronny that had brought that trouble making carpenter in the first place stood up.
"You're lucky I don't punch you in the mouth."
"Yes well, that would be most unchristian of you now wouldn't it."
"Don't you fucking talk about Jesus, or Christian or anything. And take of that god damn shirt."
I could have caught him for the god damn line, but instead I wandered back to my room and passed out.
Bill invited me to check out the art student's performances, which he was assisting a few student with doing audio viusal work. And there was Mello, of Vote Mello. Well, not the man himself, not yet. First he was introduced by an enthusiastic campaign worker. Then a video was show of Mellow talking to us from a library, expainnig how niether he nor any other polititician could fix such problems as crime, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, but if elected, Mello could help us to change our perceptions of these problems. Mello offered rose colored glasses for a shit colored world. A giant banner with his face and the word Vote Mello unfurled over the projection screen and the man himself took the stage to great applause. Just as he was about to speek to us, out of the audience came a gunman. He shot Mello in the chest, splattering the giant Mello face on the banner with blood. Police officers gave pursuit and two E.M.T.'s took his lifeless body from us. My god I hope Mello got an A+. If Bill hadn't been one of the E.M.T.s I'd have been unsure where the act ended and reality began.
Stephanie invited me to come home with her to her parent's place near Orlando for Christmas Break and I agreed. It was a great time sneaking into her room when the folks when to bed. I'd finally gotten right. I was totally honest with her about where I was coming from, and where I was going. We enjoyed each other and no promises were made. I was sure of it now. The perfect relationship lasted six weeks.
For some reason I still headed to Sacramento and asked Bryna to be my girlfriend.
Prologue: Ron did run into Robo at a bar in San Diego, a week after the Florida run. After all those push up and sit ups Ron mustered up his courage, walked right up to Robo, puffed out his chest, lost his courage again, and shook Robo's hand. He was fired a week later for selling late tickets and pocketing the money.
Help: If anyone knows Bill or Rob, who lived in Tallahassee at one point and drove an orange VW camper bus and an art car painted with mutant three eared mickey mouses please tell them to get in touch.
>>>>Part 8 next, Riverside and the end of this Spike and Mike saga (for now)>>>
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