43 Did she wake you up just to tell you that

I am pretty sure that it was 1971. Blue Oyster Cult played the Action House/Rockpile lots and lots of times. If you've been reading my story I told you how it was just a known thing that if groups wanted a record contract, they had to play the Action House/Rockpile. Organized crime stuff mixed up with the music industry. Some of the people that went there knew this. Nobody really thought about it. I'm pretty sure the musicians themselves didn't have anything to do with it, they were just told where they were playing by management. They were the victims here. Now I'm just talking all this stuff hearsay. Knew just a couple of people there. That's all.

The reason I bring this up is because I didn't go there this night. I don't know the exact date... there's almost no information online. People out there must have records & it would be nice to see who played when. But so many times I saw the name "Blue Oyster Cult' on the marquee & thought "who are they?" I remember asking someone once and they said something like "I don't know. They probably suck." So I never saw them. Ha. 🤣 We didn't know. A Long Island band too. Most of the time we didn't care, we just went. Some people we just accidentally saw, like MC5. They opened for J Geils a few times. I didn't go specifically to see J Geils either. Just went.

So one Friday I guess we were trying to figure out what we were doing. Blue Oyster Cult? Well, as ridiculous as it sounds Seals & Crofts were playing my high school. They weren't my cup of tea but my friend "I" said her brother was going to cover it for his college newspaper. Oh... her brother.

Back in those days it was sometimes hard to get weed or whatever. Dry. But pharmaceuticals were sometimes easier to find. Oh... I don't know how many Quaaludes I had shoved in my pocket. The dumb things we humans do. It was obvious I should have been doing anything else. Should have gone to that BOC show. I can tell you that as soon as I got there I wasn't paying any attention to what was going on up front on the stage. We sat behind "I's" brother but even that wasn't thrilling enough for me. I am pretty sure I started out with two Quaaludes. I had a problem with those. They felt really good. So I'm not sure how many times I went into the bathroom to take more. 🤷

From here on out I don't remember anything. I can only tell you what people told me later. I guess I was falling over (again.) I fell all over "I's" brother. I fell in the aisle. Whatever. I vaguely remember a split second of this... the mean gym teacher grabbed me by the arm. That's all I remember. I was told he threw me out front. Times have changed, haven't they?

Then I remember for a split second being on the floor of a garage and seeing two young fellows I slightly knew. But here's the story from a couple of people. I was completely, completely out of it. I was overdosing. I was like a flopping fish. I was vomiting out my nose. I guess you get so out of it, you don't even open your mouth. These guys sat me up a little so I wouldn't choke.

Somehow they got word to another guy that I knew better. He didn't have a car but other people did. I don't know who it was. I think I do, but not sure. They got me up and into the car and drove me home. The early 70's a lot of drug overdoses were handled at home because you were up shit's creek. Not only were the police involved, sometimes you had to spend at least three days in the psychiatric ward. There wasn't just the pain in the ass of the police, but there was a "Shame!" on the family. Gossip and all that. They'd stand at the chain link fence and you'd be the topic of conversation

Now in case you are wondering, there were no shenanigans with those two fellas that tried to help me. The gent that brought me home was known for kicking ass & they knew the boundaries. I ended up in a longtime relationship later with that guy because there's nothing more attractive than to flop around like a fish and vomit out your nose.

I guess it was a good thing that I was vomiting out my nose. Got to get that stuff out of there. If you don't that's when you kick the bucket. When people overdid things it was street knowledge to stick your finger down their throat. If it wasn't something you swallowed, you did the walking around thing. Luckily I never witnessed anyone else having problems, but heard about a number.

So I woke up and my mom was sitting there next to me on the bed. A washcloth on my forehead. We had a family friend that was a registered nurse. I guess she was by a few times to check me out. I said "How long was I asleep?" I knew it was a while. "Three days." I don't know how I went to the bathroom? I'm thinking the nurse & my mom helped me in there? Don't remember a thing.

Wow. My mom. She was cool. My parents put up with a lot from my brother and I, but they had a wild youth too. In the late 1920's before the Depression. So they didn't kill us. I guess we roll on through the generations doing crazy stuff, but at least we were living.

 

42 Meet me by the grapes made of rubies

I wasn't planning on writing stories purely about any sexual encounters, but it may be unavoidable. This one I really can't leave out. It's pretty good. It's not going to be erotic or anything. Probably funny. You might think I'm going to write about an orgy or something along those lines. But you know what? Both of my best friends were busy with those. I was just this out of place hippie girl stuck in dirty, old New York.

There was my friend "I" that you've heard a few things about, but I also had a friend "S." Yup. Another Catholic school girl. Now "I" was the poetic type dreaming about the life of Isadora Duncan. But "S" was the street smart type. She headed down a hard road pretty young.

Not her, but looked like this. With black hair.

Ha ha. Definitely not us but she wore a coat like the one on the right.

So while I was taking mescaline and breathing the flowers, the both of them took the train into the city on weekends. I did too but separately. All different worlds. I was like that. I floated between a few. They felt obliged, it seems, to take part in orgies and the like. Sure, good. I was just crying because I found a stick with a lonely leaf in the gutter. A few people never forgot that. "S" got in with a group and started doing smack. It was like she hated it but did it anyway. She was still living at home, but only made it home on occasion. I'd go over when she was there and if you ever wanted to hear arguments in foul language, this was the place. All these Catholic moms had out of control kids. Mrs. C would be ironing and look at me. I just shrugged. I smiled a lot so they all thought I was wholesome.

I liked to smell the flowers.

Where's my story? Here it is. I liked nature, what I could find. I also tried to find good in people. But it was the early 70's and I was completely out of control too. I talked before how I loved to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That's where this rendezvous took place.

🤣🤣

So I went there with a fella. Walking around & looking at stuff. That place is pretty big and has some amazing stuff. I haven't been there in forever though.

Ok. Here it goes. We probably were high on weed or something light. Who remembers? Maybe nothing? I don't remember. I do remember how it usually started out. I'd feel a hand go down my back and somehow land on my ass, and further. Boy, nobody could control themselves. So we ended up leaning against a wall, really heavily making out. Oh, I did know him too. What are we going to do? We can't stop. Crap. I can't find the floor plans from the 70's.

Not him, but a 70's guy in the museum.

So we were near some kind of exit hallway away from the main room we were in.  Let's go here. Yeah. Against the wall. I had my pants mostly down and we were having a "romantic interlude" in a hallway at the museum. We were going at it for a bit when all of a sudden I see a security guard, open the door and look at us. I said "Oh no. There's a security guard." 😼 My partner said "Fuck him. Let him watch." I said, "but..." But we kept going. The security guard just stood there. Looking at us. Not saying anything. But he left after a bit. Just went away. We finished. Pulled up our pants and went back into the main room. The security guard was nowhere to be seen. Wow. Somewhere there was a security guard with the same but opposite story. 🤣 I wonder what happened to him.

41 Young hearts can go their way, can't put it off another day

I can't remember crap. I don't know how you could remember much. Maybe people that worked there or in the music business in some way, and kept your head a little. Some people may have only gone a couple of times and the memory is more distinct? I doubt it. Maybe if you went in the mid sixties when the drug use wasn't quite as out of control? By the time I started going to the Action House/Rockpile it was the early seventies. 

This place was down the road a couple of miles from where I lived. About a mile from Nathan's. A few of us met up at Nathan's beforehand. Sometimes.

Oh yeah. I was underage, but we were more ready to get out there. Something has happened to humans. I don't know what it is, plastic bottles? But it seems as though in just 50 years there's been some kind of physical, mental, emotional change. What I'm trying to say is that... you know how you look at movies from the 50's and laugh because the teenagers seem older. Sure, the actors were a little older, but in my experience we were ready to hit the road much younger than kids today. I'm not going to make a judgment as to whether that's good or bad. Just trying to help you understand that we weren't completely dependent at that age.

Often enough I used the excuse that I was sleeping at a friends' house. (I may have described this before but I'm not checking. It just comes out all at once when I do this.) Sometimes I was. It was kind of fun when I went over my friend "I's" house. Her room was on the first floor and we jumped out the window. Climbed back in. Sorry. Nobody knew.

My entire life I passed by this place. Even as a little kid when it was The Shell House my face was plastered against the car window. Breath fogging it up. Glaring at the sign. Who was there? Who was playing? Then when it switched to The Action House mid sixties or so... holy crap. Everyone played there. I mean everyone. It has been said that everyone that had any kind of record contract in the US played there except for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys. I'm not exaggerating. I can't believe that nobody has written a book about the place. I have a theory why. But if they're going to do it, it better be soon. Won't be many left.

Christ, I couldn't tell you the first time I went. Sometime in 1970. They were open Friday and Saturdays. Let's see... how do I describe this. You get there. There's a big parking lot out front. Dirt parking lot. Even if you got there kind of early, they'd be some people already there so they were waiting by the front. It was a big party already. People were smoking joints. Passing around whatever else. You wonder why the cops weren't there? I found out. One of my distinct memories was some guy next to me saying "You know this place is owned by the mob?" Huh? Nobody cared, the place was rocking. Back then you almost needed to know someone in the mob to get a county job. It was everywhere. I heard from a few people that if a band wanted to be promoted or get a record deal they had to play at The Action House/Rockpile. I know some people are aware, but I'm guessing a lot don't know really how much the music business was intertwined with shady characters back in the day. I'm not going to write a bunch of stuff about that, but musicians were taken advantage of by everyone. I'm not an expert, but it's part of history. Thing is... if  the managers just could have stopped ripping people off, who knows. But when the big corporate entities stepped in... that sucked.

The owner of the place was Phil Basile. If you're interested there's some info out there. Club owner, music promoter. Lucchese family. Big airport heist. You know, Goodfellas. Stuff was real. Later, plays a part in my story.

So, I don't know who would be left to tell stories, or who wants to. What kind of papers are left, whatever. It's not on the internet. But there's probably plenty for a book. I honestly don't know much about that, I was just a kid that went there for the music and fun. It wasn't my life, I was really trying to figure out the journey. Everything I did, I thought it was just a piece of the puzzle. If I tried different things, somewhere along the line I'd find something.

I know the place was called a dance club for the "public." Maybe in the early 60s' when the music wasn't the heavy rock n' roll. God damn. Everyone was so wasted. They had guys at the entrance that today you would say were like Christopher Moltisanti. I didn't hang around with these people. But I wasn't going to put people down because they were different than me. I tried to love everyone. Anyway, they told me I didn't have to wait on line. Just c'mon up next time. I didn't have to pay either. They seemed nice. Maybe I could do some flow of consciousness thing to describe how my brain worked then. Space cadet hippie chick, but read a lot of books, did meditation and witchcraft and was on the honor roll. I thought these fellas were a fine judge of character. I was so damn cool. Maybe they could read my mind. Knew I was awesome? I walked cool, lanky like I was truckin'. I guess when I snapped out of it, I finally figured out it was they liked the way I looked. I think they liked hippie chicks. I wasn't a model. Not to sound weird, but that's how it was. Dumb, huh? Get this... stupid stuff, believe me I was an idiot, but people would ask "Can I get in with you?" They could. I was not important, just a goofball that they liked.

So what was it like inside? Well, I remember the stage and the red room. I don't remember it as being huge at all. That's why it was so damn fantastic. I just never could love huge controlled concerts. This place was bedlam. The bands got up there and sweat. Your ears were blasted out of your head. You felt the drums and the bass go right through your body. People were happy as hell. It was a mash of bodies but I usually wasn't smashed in the crowd. Uh, the big groups had roadies that did a lot of different kinds of work for them. Sometimes roadies had to find dope of some sort, but there usually wasn't a problem if there were people around with connections. Yeah. Lots of them here. They also had roadies that combed the audience for girls that could inspire the music. 🤯 Some got to line the front of the stage and some got to sit on the stage. 😉

This was a little before my time. I wish I could have seen Napolean the XIV. Would be as fun as the time I saw Zacherley play the saxaphone.

Funny. I remember seeing an article about the club when it changed to the Rockpile. The "owner" made a big deal about the wine room. Ha. Like it was classy? I didn't know anyone that drank wine in there. It was a room off to the side, painted red. Most of the people in there were tripping on acid. They needed to get away from all the commotion for a little bit. There were some real conversations in there. I spent quite a bit of time in here, also wanting to get away from the roadies.

Ha ha.

Really, I wasn't there all the time. I don't remember going in the winter, though I'm sure there must have been shows. I don't think any of us thought things would change so much. Somehow it would go on and on. All the fun. The music. If I had known how things would turn out, I would have written things down, but we were living for the moment. Must be one of the reasons it was so great. Had such a fun time. Never, ever had a bad time. I abruptly stopped going in 1972 and I'll talk about that later.

Here's some examples of ads. Hope you can read them.

40 Turn 'round quick and start to run Part 2

God help me. How do I start this? What was going on then? Was it the Age of Aquarius or were we all Manson cult followers. I can't be sure of what was going on everywhere, but all the people I knew were tripped out in one way or another. Maybe it was the cyclamates we all drank in the fizzies as kids.

 

I'm not sure of the first time I heard Black Sabbath. Damn, I played that album repeatedly and loud. I listened to other heavy bands but then the thought of these dark forces that we could harness... I just wanted to know if it was possible. Could we break free from all the repressive forces? Everyday of my school life I heard about sin. All those forbidden acts and the wrath of god. I hated going to confession. Every Friday they'd line us up and in we'd go. Let's see... what could I say that sounds good... a little bit of sin, but too much. Somehow our inner most thoughts were grounds for punishment too. You mean there's a way to reach out and find what these other dimensions might hold without becoming cowering and obedient, groveling for a bit redemption. I wanted to see what was out there.

A few ex Catholic school kids and I got into the Satanic Bible. (Later it was Raymond Buckland) I haven't looked at that book in decades, but I'm pretty sure we got instruction for some rituals there. I was already practicing meditation and brought myself to out of body experiences a few times. I had no problem channeling my spirit. I don't think there were really many results to any of the rituals we performed except for sex. We were novices and yeah, we did them in my room. Not the sex. Just the rituals. I had an upstairs room and my parents were usually downstairs having a few suburban cocktails. "What's going on up there?" "Nothing. Just listening to music."

I mentioned a while back not many of us had cars. Just a few. So there were a lot of unusual sex settings. It seems as though our rituals worked. We did them to entice our desired. But really, everyone was out of their minds with sex then, I don't think we needed the added forces. They were fun anyway. So I brought my desired to one of the chapels at my parish. Churches were always open then. I don't know, I'm afraid to think and sorry if we had anything to do with them being locked up nowadays. But anyway. We consecrated it. The walls of this chapel were all jutting natural rocks, like a grotto.

We took mescaline that night. I will never forget each rock morphed into a fox. The walls of the church were undulating with the movement of the foxes. We sat in a pew towards the back of the church and did it. Sitting position. No thought of "what if someone comes in?" Those really were the days, before cameras everywhere. What a night. 🌟

Out of the small group, I definitely was into the church sex sacrament more than anyone else.😼 I could feel the sacredness that permeated. Air and fire through repeated burning of incense. Water through the water blessed with intention. Earth through the natural materials of wood and rock in the buildings.

The next time we went to the fancy cathedral in the next town. We found the choir box up above most comfortable. Nice view and the thought of the choir singing there on Sunday gave us a giggle.

View from the box

Someone lifted a platen and I feel bad about that. It's just a thing, but who knows what kind of emotion it held. Could be a cursed object now.

Several more times we made visits to various chapels. Usually high on hash or mescaline. What was with us? I don't know.

The last time we made use of the church they had locked the doors. I think there were more people using it than us. I know there were. Someone probably got caught. Well, I don't know... it just couldn't wait I guess. Where are we going to go? Right here. In the doorway? Ok. So it proceeded. A few minutes in we hear yelling in horrible New York accents, "Hey, we see you in there." "We called the police." Shit. They called the police. Well, we skedaddled. We really should have stayed and let them arrest us. That would have been a scandal for all time. Plenty more anyway.

So. I guess some people must have blabbed or something. I don't know. I was walking by the church on my way back from a friends and the "head priest" came briskly walking towards me. I just have a couple of words for that guy and one of them is prick. Many young people had words like that for him. He wasn't a kindly benefactor hoping to bring a prodigal son into his pack. He was cruel to many of the boys. Well, he stopped me and told me I could never go back into the church to receive the sacraments. I didn't say anything but it sure didn't break me. I didn't go home and cry. I went on with it. 

I also want to say we never hurt a human besides ourselves and I always have a place in my heart for young people that may go a little crazy. I know how the mind can go there.

Footnote before the wagons before 45

I've been mentally preparing to write my next post. I haven't been back to where I grew up in years and there's lots of reasons for that. I was thinking about a couple of people and just wanted to see if they were dead or alive. I've heard of a few. So many people left that murky mire a long time ago and I'm one of them.

A while back I tracked down a close friend. She has led a very straight life since those days. She's good natured but I think would rather keep a few facts hidden. Her sister doesn't care, so I've gotten a few reminders, what she can remember, from her. I remember about five years after I left NY, my mom told me she saw her in the store and that she looked like an "old lady." Taken on her duties. Not a slam. Just her choice.

I briefly was in contact with someone a couple of days ago. Nice enough, but it was like everything they mentioned was some horribly disturbing tragic event. Oh yeah. That's why the hell I wanted nothing to do with this place. I'm going to have to write about some of it, but I just can't focus on it. I've done a hell of a job leaving a bunch of crap behind and finding some kind of fun out of life.

I just wanted to say that I've heard the saying "You can't run away from your problems." And I want to tell you that you can. Because most of the time it's really someone else's problem. Or a place. Or a way of thinking. Each and every person I've had the least little discussion with since I've left there has told me the same thing. "You did good by getting out of here." I could tell by looking at the pictures.