also see www.michael.holman.com
I. INTRODUCTION…
(“Sentimental Journey”)
I was born, in 1955, in Letterman General Hospital, in the Presidio, the U.S. Army base in San Francisco, the oldest existing military base in the U.S., fort to three different countries, starting with Spain in 1776. I was born in the Presidio, because my father was stationed there. He was a young Army Officer, and so I grew up an Army Brat.
II. ARMY BRAT/GERMANY:
(“Dankeshane”)
In 1962, we moved to Germany and lived the life of Kings. Four marks to the dollars, everyone had maids, at least the officers families did. It was the beginning of the Go-Go ‘60s, and the DOD Budget was crazy. We might have only been service people, but we lived a near luxurious life, with all of Europe at our fingertips…
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Any military Brats out there? Then you know what I mean…
We lived in an Army base named Grafenwher, the heart of Bavaria and it was sweet. Small town living, in the heart of Europe. I really have to thank my father for making a point of that, taking us all over the Continent.
Considering the war was over, and the military had loads of free time, and had an over abundance of holidays, we really took advantage, and went on trips just about twice monthly!
One week we’d be in Venice, the next in Luxembourg, one holiday we’d visit London, the next Paris. We visited Amsterdam, Brussels, Lake Chiemsee in the summer and Garmish and Burchestgarden in the winter.
2.
I remember my family returning from one of these vacations, and it was my Birthday, I wrote my name in candle soot, on the chalk white ceiling of a French country restaurant, while being held up in the air by the waiter. The whole restaurant broke out in applause. I remember traveling to Prague, in 1963, with my Cub Scout troop, and staying in the American Embassy, because my father knew the Ambassador, Ambassador Horsey.
I remember driving on the autobahn, late at night – my father drove everywhere and being able to stay up late, and listening to music on the radio, like, Henry Mancini’s “Three Coins In A Fountain,” and “Dankeshane” by young Wayne Newton and “Dominique” by the Singing Nuns, and soaking in the electric blue dashboard lights of our little Opel…
3.
Call me an Uncle Tom, but I loved Europe in the ‘60s…
III. “NO I’M NOT A NEGRO”
(“Choice Of Colors”)
One day, in K-Town – that’s what we called Kauserslauten – My mother came home from the commissary, with a copy of the Stars & Stripes, and on the cover was that infamous photo of fireman hosing down Black Civil Rights protesters. I knew the police could be corrupt, but fireman?
“Who were these people, and what did they do so bad that fireman would have to do this,” I asked my mother! She explained the whole civil rights movement to me, how these Black people were fighting for their right to vote.
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Well, I was incensed! I got on my soap box and implored all my little friends to join me in writing letters to President Johnson to demand he give these people the right to vote!
I spoke to a group of kids about this, demanding, challenging them to act! “Did you write your letter? Let me see it!” This went on for weeks. I remember one kid, Margaret Massey, a precocious little Black girl my age. Her father was an officer like my father, and I think she’s a lawyer now. Anyway, I said to her, “Margaret! You especially have to write the president! After all! These are your people!” She looked at me funny and said, “But Michael, you’re a Negro, too?”
“What?” “You’re a Negro, too!”
“No I’m not!”
“Yes you are!”
“No I’m not!” “Yes you are!” “No I’m not!” “Yes you are!”
5.
I ran home crying, insisting there was some mistake! You see, it was quite all right to help victims of violence, but to actually BE one was a different thing all together! When my mother got home, our maid, Heidi, who couldn’t speak very good English, said, “Mrs. Holman, Michael is kronk!”
My mother ran into my room and found me looking pensively out the window.
And I asked her right there and then, “Mommy, Are you a Negro?” That’s when she knew I was a bit off.
My sister Linda thinks the whole thing is ridiculous, because she knew we were Negro’s, so why didn’t I?
My mother confessed to wanted to keep the whole horrible mess back in the States are far away from me as possible, as long as possible, since I had a habit of taking things too seriously.
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When I realized that we were all Negroes, and that the Drummonds, who made The Huxtable’s look like welfare cases, were Negroes, then it all made sense.
I knew Negroes were cool. I was cool. Everything was cool… And then David Gaylord Montgomery called…
IV. “GAYLORD ON THE PHONE”
(“Get Off Of my Cloud”)
One day – still living in Germany – after coming in from playing with my friends, I discovered my favorite cousin, my mother’s first cousin, David Gaylord Montgomery was on the wire!
I remember not being able to control myself, I wanted to talk to him so bad!
Even then, at eight years old, I knew my cousin Gaylord, eight years my senior, was the coolest human being on earth!
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At sixteen he was six foot two, and beautiful. He looked just like a mulatto version of “Bernardo” from “West Side Story.” He dated a playboy bunny, much to his mother’s consternation, collected rare, 1930’s & 40’s comic books, and always dressed at the extreme of style!
But he was a weirdo, loner, who didn’t mix much with other people, and sort of lived in a fantasy world of his own, ultra-hip making…
When I finally got on the phone with him, I blurted out, “Gaylord! How are you? I’m fine! What are you up to?
Are things pretty swift?” And he said,” I’m all right.”
“Gaylord, I designed a sword and shield, and my father had him soldiers make it out of wood! It has an iron cross on it!” “An iron cross? That sounds alright…” “Gaylord, Gaylord, who’s you’re favorite Beatle?!”
8.
“I’m not into the Beatles! They’re lame!” “Huh?”
“They all wear the same outfits! Not my style… Ever heard of the Stones? The Yardbirds. Love? Them?” “No?” “Not into the Beatles.” “I Wanna Hold Your Hand?” “I Love You, Ya Ya Ya?” “What’s that about? It’s lame! I can’t get with it. Not my style…” “Oh.”
That was beginning of my questioning what passed as “truth” in the greater scheme of things…
V. RETURN TO FT. DIX
(“Adams Family Theme Song”)
1. We were soon re-assigned back to Ft. Dix, and I had to enroll into Catholic School. My father liked the idea of the nuns and the discipline they meted out…it made perfect sense to him.
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I remember one of my first days in school, it was hot and we were taking some sort of class assignment. I remember flexing my toes in concentration, then slipping my feet out of my loafers for some fresh air and wiggle room.
Suddenly, the nun teacher, Sister Whatever, flips out and accuses me of intentionally causing a disruption!
She picked my empty loafer off the floor, where it was, under my desk, hurting no one, with her long, wooden pointer – the ones with the rubber tip at the end and placing it on the end of the flagpole. She said I was to remain in the classroom, while the other children went outside for recess, and stare at my demeaned shoe for the remainder of recess, and pray about what I had done.
I was mortified! I never did figure out what I had done…
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When the class came back, the Sister Whatever gave me my show back and said,” I hope you learned your lesson. And if you haven’t learned, then I suggest you pray. Pray you do learn…” I learned my lesson alright, Sister Dominatrix, stay the fuck away from all nuns at all costs. Pity them, but stay away.
My mother once told me this story recently about the first time we lived in Ft. Dix and my sister and I were going to Catholic School, and they got us into the habit of praying, at the drop of a dime, as the answer to everything.
One time when my mother was sick in bed with the flu and my sister and I decided we were going to pray for her, it was really my idea. I said,” We should pray!” So there we were, at her bedside praying, on our knees!
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All she wanted to do was rest, but there we were, praying, so she had to get out of bed because it was making her crazy!
And then when she took me and Linda to get our measles shots, Linda went into the doctor’s office while my mother and I waited outside in the waiting room. There was a real commotion going on inside the office and then we heard Linda screaming, “Wait! Wait! Let me pray! Let me pray!”
Soon after, I came home from school, surprised to find my father there, much earlier than I was used to seeing him. He sat me down and explained to me that I was the man of the family now, because he was now headed to Vietnam…
VI. SUMMER OF LOVE:
(“For What It’s Worth”)
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We drove across the entire U.S., and arrived in the bay area, late at night, just as the AM radio was playing The Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth…” it was an amazing moment.
The next song was, “If You’re Going to San Francisco, Be Sure to Wear a Flower in Your Hair!” it was too much!
I might have been a kid, just about eleven, but I knew something special was in the air. And all that year in the press were pictures of Hippies and “Young, Groovy People,” and Linda and I couldn’t wait to actually see some!
As my father packed his gear, and shipped out to Vietnam, we settled in with my mother’s mother, Pauline T. Wood. She was a fascinating person.
During the depression, she designed children’s clothes for her own company, then she started her own insurance company, she was a delegate for the first U.N., which actually was located in San Francisco.
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She’s listed in the book, “Who’s Who of Negro America,” for buying homes in wealthy neighborhoods, like Saint Francis Woods then selling them to wealthy Black people, all because she appeared white.
My grandmother, Nana, was an original hippy, she ate organic food, hung out with beats and hippie kids. She was so cosmic, she died right at the very moment of the Harmonic Convergence, just as all the planets fell into alignment. She left the solar system, and disappeared into the universe, on stepping stones made of stars…
VII. SOUL BROTHER VS SURFER
(“How Can I Be Sure”)
Our time in Catholic School in New Jersey, before my father’s assignment to Vietnam, I suppose was so short, as to be a brutal, chaotic blur.
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But my first day at E.R. Taylor Elementary School, in San Francisco, was true culture shock! I remember walking with my sister, as she then peeled off to Portola Junior High, where tough looking teens, in leather coats and konked DAs like Little Richard’s, eyed Linda up and down, menacingly. I went, alone, to E.R. Taylor, worried for my sister, but also very worried for myself.
This was our first public, civilian school since before we could remember.
The classroom was of a standard design, with a TV in the corner, and a “talking head” teaching Spanish. The teacher was standard design as well. She introduced me to the class, and wrote my name on the chalkboard, which was my cue, I thought, to introduce myself, and tell they all about my Army brat life overseas.
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I was going to truly impress them with all the places I’ve been and the people I’ve met. They’d be jealous at first, sure, but with my Army brat charms, honed from moving every eighteen months, my entire life, I would win them over. They were going to love me! Who wouldn’t?
These poor kids, stuck in their civilian world, never going anywhere, seeing anything, they couldn’t get enough of me!
You see, in the military, families moved so often, there was always a new kid in class arriving from somewhere and another kid leaving for somewhere else. We were very sophisticated in that way, but the constant moving was stressful, so the military supported schools always tried to make it easy for us.
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For example, when a new kid showed up in class, the teacher would introduce them to the rest of the class, and have the student tell the class who their father was (that meant his rank, we were rank snobs), and where they had just come from. Some kid would ask a question, like, “Oh, you’re from Kaiserslauten? Did you know the Owens?” And by recess, you had made friends with half the class. It was all very adult-like, sophisticated, mature.
It had to be. We had to learn to make friends quickly, because before you knew it, you were gone again.
So I stood up to give them a healthy dose of my well-travelled life, when the teacher turned around and started back on her lessons, totally ignoring me! So I sat down, stunned… Disbelieving what had happened. How could they not want to know who I am? Even if I wasn’t an Army brat.
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No matter where I was from, didn’t they want to know something about me? A total stranger? I found their lack of curiosity disconcerting, to say the least. Then the teacher turned around and addressed me again. OK! NOW she wants me to speak!
I jumped up, all ready to start in, when…“Michael, you can hang your coat up in the cloak room…” “Oh…”
So I took my wind breaker off the back of my chair and headed for the cloak room an antechamber, with two opened doorways, just off the classroom.
Inside, you could smell that wonderful smell of lunches – sandwiches and apples in brown paper bags, waiting to be devoured… As I was looking for an empty hook, a kid strolls in behind me, looking me up and down. He was a vision. He must of been Filipino, but I can’t be sure. He could have been Chicano.
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He had a DA, narrow pimp shades, an Italian Knit sweater, tight Banlons, high water pants, and pointy, Puerto Rican fence climbers on his feet.
He was a 1966 version of a B-Boy. A Bad Boy, not to be messed with. He was shorter than me, but that didn’t stop him from getting in my face.
“Say, Man… What’s your name?” “Michael Holman, what’s your name?” No response… More hard stares at my Beach Boy striped T-shirt, chinos and deck shoes. “Holman?”
I figured maybe I’ll tell this fella about where I came from, then he’ll tell his friends, and so on…“Yeah! I’m an Army brat! I just moved here from Germany. Kaiserslautern, ever hear of it? It’s in Bavaria. Now Bavaria is the southern most…”
“Saaaaay, Man!? Are you a Soul Brotha? Or are you a Surfer!?” So I said, in my most friendly, getting-to-know-you style…
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”Well I do have a sidewalk skate board I like to ride. Would you like to come over some time and ride with me? I just live over on…”
“Come on, Surfer! Let’s slap fight! Right now!” “But I don’t want to fight!”
I really didn’t, I don’t do well in fights, even though, as a perpetual “new kid,” I had my fair share of them. It’s not that I couldn’t fight, it was just that I had a tendency to lose my composure to such an extent, that after the fight, I would breakdown in tears.
SLAP! He slapped me!
“Owww!” (ala The Sapranos)… He didn’t just slap me?! SLAP! “Owww!” He did!
I saw no other way out, so I got in a pugilist stance, and took the measure of my opponent.
With all the hip, smooth posturing, all slap fights inevitable descend into sissy waving hands in the air at each other, flailing. I got a few slaps in, as did he, and before you know it, it was over.
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He smoothed his hair back into place, and said something like, “Let that be a lesson to you…” I was, of course, shook up. Though it was probably only sixty seconds, it felt like we were in there, fighting for hours.
I thought any minute the teacher was going to storm into the cloakroom, grab us both by the ears, haul us out into the hallway, and make us stand there for a while. But nothing happened. The tough kid bopped back into the classroom as like Bob’s your uncle, leaving me behind to wonder what to do.
I peeked back into the classroom, and was shocked to see no one was even paying attention.
How could they not have heard the commotion? I slinked back into my chair as the teacher droned on about something or other, I couldn’t tell…
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My head was spinning, and still stinging from the kid’s hard slaps. And all I could think was, “Welcome to America.”
VIII. MEET DAVID GAYLORD:
(“Over Under Sideways Down”)
The day finally came, David Gaylord was coming to visit! It was while we were still living at my grandmother’s house. I remember hearing about it, after coming home from school one day and then waiting and waiting for him to arrive. I would keep looking down the street, waiting, waiting, then finally he arrived, like a vision!
He came out of the distance, like a gun-slinging dandy. (“cue music”)
He had a Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix styled hairdo, and he was wearing a velvet, powder blue jacket, with embroidery, a white shirt with a ruff collar and cuffs…
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…tight, purple, wide cord, hip hugger bell bottom pants, powder blue, suede buckled shoes. He was a vision.
He was even wearing a bit of make-up on his eyes and lips. He designed all his clothes himself, and had them made by his Korean tailor, Mr. Lee. Every penny he made in his life he spent on his clothes.
I was so excited I ran at his, hugging him. “Gaylord, Gaylord! You’re here!”
He had to calm me down and peel me off his arm, “Watch the clothes there young fella!”
Once inside my grandmother’s house, everyone descended on him. My sister and I screamed, “Gaylord! Gaylord! Take us to see the hippies! Take us to see the hippies!”
And he said; “I’m not a hippy! I’m a beautiful person! Hippies don’t wear shoes!” “Oh…”
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My mother asked him, “Gaylord. Are you wearing make up?”
“I wear make-up from time to time, it makes me feel beautiful! Something wrong with that?”
“You go to Woodrow Wilson High School, don’t you? When I was a kid, Woodrow Wilson was the toughest school in the city!” “It still is!”
“Well, how can you go to school, dressed like that?! Wearing make-up?!”
“First day of school, in gym, I go up to the toughest kid in the school and challenge him to punch me in the stomach!”
My little brother Keith shouted out, “Punch you in the stomach!?!”
“That’s right! But I have a stomach of iron! Go ahead and try!” So I did, and it really was! Made of iron!
Gaylord was beautiful. Wherever he went in the city, he turned heads.
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He’d get modeling jobs all the time, but then there’d be complications… he told be about one job where someone saw him walking down the street and instantly asked him to model for a shirt ad, he said, “All right!”
He shows up to the location, riding the bus. He always rode the bus, he never learned to drive a car.
They gave him the shirt, and asked him to go into a nearby trailer to change. He said, “All right.” A long wait later, Gaylord comes out of the trailer, wearing the same outfit he showed up in, sans the shirt.
The photographer asked him, “Excuse me, but why aren’t you wearing the shirt we gave you? That’s what we’re here for. To shoot you wearing the shirt!” “I can’t wear that shirt!”
“Why not?”
“Not my style! Not my style…”
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Gaylord realized he wasn’t cut out to work for anyone where his personal aesthetics were compromised.
Gaylord had a band, and he was the front man. They did covers of songs like The Yardbirds “Over Under Sideways Down,” but harshly, like this…(I do the song).. It was punk before there was punk, I’m sure inspired by Love’s “Little Red Book.”
He used to perform for me, alone. I’d sit at his feet, while he’d sing songs, like, Them’s “Gloria” but it an ignorant, bluesy style, accented with his harmonica.
I think back, visualizing all this, and seems so unreal, like it was all a dream. But it wasn’t a dream, it was real. He was real…
One day, years later, I’m in high school, I called David Gaylord on the telephone. ”Say Blood! What it is?!”
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”I’m not a BLOOD!”
”No. Blood means…”
”I know what it means! I’m not a Blood! I’m a superior person! BLOODS don’t speak proper English! And that’s another THING. I only go by the name DAVID now.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because the sissies RUINED my name! I can’t use Gaylord anymore! It’s LAME!”
IX. DESIREE
(“Dizzy”)
Sometime after finally adjusting to E.R. Taylor Elementary School, I noticed this Black girl named Desiree. Desiree, the perfect name. She was the most beautiful, popular girl at E.R. Taylor. We all pined after her and were afraid of her at the same time. If she was in the mood, she and her two best friends would dress up like Diana Ross and the Supremes…
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…lip-sync their songs and dance routines to the entire student body during lunch. She was my first, States side crush.
One day, I dug up the courage to say, “Hi Desiree. I really like you. Do you like me too?” What did I say THAT for?
She slowly turned to me – or, rather ON me – and said, “No, I DON’T like you! You’re not Black enough for me! And when we graduate to Portola Junior High next year, you’re gonna get your ass kicked every DAY!”
“I see…”
At that time, near the end of the school year my mother was finishing negotiations on a house my father bought for us, out in South San Francisco.
And I remember thinking, like, “Let’s move out to the suburbs, let’s move out to the suburbs, let’s move out to the suburbs, before it’s all too late!”
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We finally did move out to the suburbs, and I got my ass kicked by white boys instead…
X. L.A./IGGY POP VS RUFUS:
(“Pain”)
Six years later – 1972 – after my father retired from the Army, and we moved to LA, so he could get his Masters Degree in Education at USC, I drive my metal flake blue VW Bug to the Whiskey A Go-Go, where “Rufus & Cha Ka Khan,” are headlining.
I noticed there weren’t a lot of people at the box office, which was odd, because Rufus had just dropped their first hit single, “Tell Me Something Good,” and it was on every car radio!
But I buy a ticket and steps inside the infamous Whiskey, and as my eyes adjusted to the gloomy interior of the club…
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…I was surprised to see there were mostly white, glam rock fans, wearing heavy black eye liner makeup.
I found a seat at a table, next to the stage. It was my first time at the Whiskey and I thought that it was interesting that so many white, glam kids and so few black and Spanish kids would turn out to see Rufus and Cha Ka Khan. But like, whatever, this was Hollywood.
As I sipped my drink, a metal curtain rises to reveal a young, angry, white band, clad in black leather, positioned on different height mini stages rimming the stage’s back walls, blasting out loud, fast hard-core music.
I was in shock. My eyes turned into saucers. This was NOT Rufus!
30.
Suddenly from stage right appears a skinny, white guy with long, bleached blonde hair, a leather bikini brief, fishnet stockings, thigh high platform boots, and nothing else. He attacks the stage dancing like a banshee, screaming into the mic… (cue music)
THIS isn’t Cha Kha Khan! It was Iggy Pop and the Stooges!
I had read the club’s schedule in the newspapers incorrectly.
When Iggy Pop started beating himself in the face with the microphone, jumping onto broken glass and bleeding all over himself, the stage, and ME, I realized that some artists out there who were fucking SERIOUS, Jack! This was a seminal moment in my life as a consumer of pop culture, a turning point. A door of perception opened, and I walked in, willingly…
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XII. AL KOOPER/THE TUBES:
(“White Punks On Dope”)
While I was attending school at The University of San Francisco, I went to this Disco, The Cabaret, every weekend. Being a decent dancer, I was discovered by Michael Cotten, of the theatrical rock group, The Tubes and put into their finale number, “White Punks On Dope.”
It was great fun, I even had my own groupies! And I was just a dancer, a character on stage! Not a band member at all! These two girls from Lodi California, a real blue collar town at the time, followed me down to L.A., for The Tubes big, industry debut. Al Kooper was to produce their second album, and he took a real shine to one of my groupies.
“Hey! Why don’t you guys come back to my studio.
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We’ll get a little high, have a little fun. You know!”
Wow! Was one of the hottest producers in L.A. inviting me – a lowly dancer, not even a musician – back to his studio with my two friends? “Of course!”
So we arrive to his recording studio, where there’s an indoor, sunken hot tub, that wasn’t very hot, and you could see all sorts of flotsam and jetsam floating about.
Being as anal-retentive as I am, I didn’t want anything to do with it, but I didn’t want to be a spoil sport.
Al Kooper is running around, taking off his clothes, getting in the hot tub – which didn’t seem to work right, and there was no “hot” to the tub, and no bubbly action, so we might as well have been sitting in a tank of lukewarm, damp water – and he’s all apologetic, and laying out lines of drugs, which we happily do of course, if only to take our minds off all the floaty bits.
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Soon, he’s chasing us out of the tub, and wanting us to join him in a bedroom, behind some wall somewhere, which turns out to be dressed up like a medieval dungeon, with wood panelled walls, wooden chandeliers with candles, handcuffs hanging from the wall above the bed, a real rack, and animal skins for rugs everywhere.
The girls and I could barely make it to the bed. We were so stoned, we could hardly move, and so stoned, we didn’t even realize we were the orgy. You see, the lines we snorted early, were not – as anyone might have assumed, but no one bothered to ask – cocaine, but rather angel dust. Horse tranquilizers. We got dusted!
I remember only being able to move my eyes, and watching Al as he screwed each girl, this way and that. They were rag dolls for Christ sake!
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All I can remember was watching from the corner of my eye and thinking, “Please don’t hurt me! Oh God, I hope he’s wearing a condom!”
The next morning, I found myself in bed with Al, and the two girls. They were all asleep. I felt my ass and everything seemed in its place, nothing out of the ordinary.
So I woke the girls up and quietly told them that this was our chance for a clean get-a-way. Let’s go! But they didn’t want to. After all, Al Kooper was a big star, maybe things will get even more interesting!
I decided right there that it was every man for himself and I spilt! I remember getting dressed and quietly escaping the studio, into a blazing, noonday sun. It was awful! Burning my eyes! Burning my eyes! Turned out, the light that was blinding me was also calling me, you see, because the light was the lites on Broadway, New York…
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XII. ARRIVE IN NEW YORK CITY!:
(“Love Is The Message”)
I’m in my Brooks Brothers suit, making my way through a Wall Street crowd, while taking in the canyon-like vistas. I’m working for Chemical Back on Wall Street, as a junior, banker, trainee. As I ride the subways, I see trains enter the station, completely covered by graffiti “burners” and blown away!
And I’m truly amazed that none of the other “straphangers” bother to notice.
New York, New York, so nice, they named it twice. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I wanted to do it in New York.
Tripping up Park Avenue I stopped in front of an Air India travel office where a passenger seat was set up in the special window display. I got an idea. I went inside and lined up to speak to an agent.
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“Can I help you?” She asked, eyeing me warily. People tend to do that a lot. Eye me warily…
“Yeah! I noticed the seat in the window, and I got this great idea for you!”
“What do you want? Do you want to buy a ticket?”
“Well actually, I was looking at that seat in the window and I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great if there was a TV monitor, placed right about where the airplane window would be. And the monitor would be a video image of clouds floating by! Get it!?”
“Who sent you?!”
“Look, just come outside with me and I’ll show you. Come on! Come see!”
“I don’t see anything with you! Get out before I call police! Get out…get out!”
I also thought wouldn’t it be great if a mannequin, wearing a suit, had a mirror for a head, so you could see yourself wearing the suit?
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Another time, I’m making my way up 5th Avenue, admiring the Empire State Building in the distance. I’m thinking,
I was an artist, living in the art capital of the world, and I was truly happy. But I wanted more. I wanted to be a SUCCESS! Living in New York City. What could be better?
Staring up at the Empire State Building, I almost accidentally walk into a little, old man, dressed in a wool overcoat, and his hat has a turned up brim – like Mugsy from the Dead End Kids. And he says to me, Out the way, Puerto Rico!”
To this man, I represented the entire island of Puerto Rico! Me!
I was falling head over heels in love with New York!
XIII. MEET JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT:
(“Drum Mode”)
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I wasted no time looking up old friends, making new friends, and going out almost every night to the happening spots like, Max’s Kansas City, Studio 54 – though I never really had any fun at Studio 54, too glitzy, and not at all funky – and a Soho disco called David’s Loft.
I started hanging with Stan Peskett, an English artist friend I had met through the Tubes. Together we thought up happenings and events, many of which we pulled off in his loft on Canal Street he called the Canal Zone. I got in contact with Fab 5 Freddy, who I had read about in a little blurb in the Village Voice, and he, Stan, and I organized a major, early graffiti art happening where I first met Jean Michel Basquiat.
It was April 29th, 1979. Jean was a skinny black kid, about 17, wearing a paint splattered lab coat and his hair cut in a severe Mohawk, dyed blonde.
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I was interviewing people for the camera, and I’d ask them questions, then stick the mic in their faces, then pull it away, like a jerk, just to flummox them. I don’t know why I did it. Kicks I guess. When I did it to Jean, he let his face drain of all information so that I found myself, looking not at Jean, but in a mirror, seeing myself acting a fool. It was brilliant.
Later I apologized, and he said forget it, then invited me to join him in forming a band, just like that! Which he named Gray, after Gray’s Anatomy. Gray was an atmospheric, slash industrial band. We turned noise and sounds into music.
Around this time, we, Gray, hung out at the Mudd Club, and our scene was downtown. Jean was our leader, and considered by many to be the ultimate arbiter of hipness. To us, winning his approval meant everything.
40.
We played conventional instruments in unconventional ways, like; Jean would lay a guitar on the ground, loosen the strings, and run a metal file across them…
Nick would play his guitar by running his guitar pick along the corrugated edges of his metal strings I would pull masking tape of a severely tightened snare drum head, micced up to a Marshall amplified, set on revere, and Wayne would run a twenty foot long tape loop, of random sounds, through out the room, along various mic stands and poles, until it would return over and over again to the tape machine head. We had fun, but we worked hard making harsh, yet beautiful, music. Jean was so sensitive, that bad ideas, and bad art didn’t just upset him, they actually hurt his feelings.
41.
Jean would eventually threaten the white art world with his genius, cerebral work. Literally shattering long held beliefs about the limitations of black artists, and black people in general. Jean was my hero. For all his faults I still love him dearly.
Still working at my Chemical Bank job, in a large room, in a building still under construction, filled with featureless, junior executive type cubicles and a view of the Hudson River, I, in a navy Brooks Brothers suit, am sitting in one of the cubicles, pours over financial records when a drop of water causes the ink on the paper to run.
As I touch the water drop, another one lands on my hand. I look up at the ceiling for a leak. Touching my face I realize the drops are coming from my eyes! They’re my tears. I straightened my tie, buttoned my jacket, walks out of my cubicle, and never came back.
42.
XIV. ANNA ACID TRIP:
(“You Just Keep Me Hanging On”)
It’s 1980, at the Mudd Cub.
(TALK ABOUT MUDD CLUB VS CLUB 57, ETC.)
This cute Jewish girl, Anna, and I decide to drop acid and go for a walk. An adventure really.
I bought some chalk from a Bodega, and started making my “Chalk Shadow Drawings,” like taking the shadows made by parking meters and outlining their shadows, and adding details, until the parking meter’s shadow looks like an upside down violin. I wrote love letters to Anna in between the lines made from the shadows caused by lights, through the window of a closed shop, shining through metal gates.
43.
For us, everything about New York seemed inspiring. Everywhere you looked, there was a good idea.
We’d create new images by connecting chewing gum spots together with chalk. Like, connect the dots images. I’d “tying up” models in subway ads, by drawing a “perspectively correct”, surrealistic “string,” with a pen, around the models’ faces and body parts.
We tripped all the way up to Carnage Hall, where we found a sleeping, homeless man, on his back, with legs crossed, and arms outstretched. An overturned pork-pie hat, and an empty bottle of cheap wine by his side. I grabbed some chalk and began drawing lines around the sleeping man, creating a tromp lie crucifix beneath him, as if he were sleeping on it, on the ground.
A Cadillac, with two tough looking Italian guys, pulls up to the 7th Avenue curb.
44.
“Hey, what are youse doin’?”
I don’t bother to look up. “Minding our own business…” I said.
They come closer to see me putting the finishing touches to the crucifix. “Youse mother fuckers!” The Italian Guys makes the “sign of the cross,” then gos back to their car, open the trunk, and – while Anna and I watch in horror – one of them pulls out a tire iron. So we bolt for 57th Street and disappear around the corner.
The Italian Guys runs back to the car, starts the car and burns rubber down 7th Avenue.
We run along 57th Street, heading east, when suddenly, the Italian Guys, in their Cadillac, burn rubber around the corner. We quickly duck into an all glass, millinery store alcove. The Italian Guys cruise slowly along 57th Street.
45.
The Italian Guy in the driver’s seat looked directly into my eyes, yet he didn’t seem to see me, and kept on rolling on. If he had, I shudder to think what might have happened that morning… I guess the nuns were right. Sometimes you just have to pray…
I like to think that later in the morning, the Homeless Man is awakened by a crowd of tourists, snapping his picture.
Ignorant to why he’s such an attraction, “Jesus on the Cross” reaches for his hat, finding it’s full of coins and dollar bills.
Years later I was sitting at an airline’s waiting area, reading a magazine.
I looks up and notices the arrival of a conservatively dressed woman with a little girl. They take a seat just across from me, about ten feet away.
“Oh my god! It’s Anna! Anna looks up, unsure. I get up to greet her.
46.
“It’s ME! Michael Holman! From the Mudd Club days! “Michael! Hi!”
I go to embrace her, but she extends her hand, stiffly. I look her up and down. Her fashion sense has changed dramatically. From ultra hip to dower.
The little girl sits quietly, still, staring wide-eyed at me.
“Is this your daughter? She’s, cute!”
“Is that a wig?! You have such beautiful hair!”
“I’m sorry, you weren’t, sick or anything?” She laughs. “No!”
“Hey, are you doing any art these days? Remember all that graffiti we used to do?” Suddenly a boy, 7, appears by Anna’s side. “Oh, is this your….ssson?”
As I notice, with some surprise, that the boy is wearing a yarmulke and little blond ringlets hang in front of his ears.
My surprise is greatly increased when Anna’s husband, a man in full Hasidic gear arrives, carrying yet another child.
47.
She introduces us. it’s all very awkward!
I find a seat on the other side of the waiting area and buries his face in his magazine, then peek up to see Anna and her husband in a quiet, but intense conversation, occasionally looking back over at me.
Anna is doing a lot of shrugging and shaking her head THAT day, I can tell you! And I’m tripping all over again…
XV. NORMA KAMALI:
(“I Put A Spell On You”)
Stilwend got Norma Kamali’s attention. “Who is this guy again? Can you set up a meeting?” Me, Norma Kamali, and her boyfriend, Ian Schrager, meet in Central Park, just off Columbus Circle. She tells me, “I’d like you to make an in-store promotional film for me, in your Stilwend style. What do you think?”
48.
And I’m like, “Sure! I’m into that!”
Beautiful FASHION MODELS, dressed in Norma Kamali’s black leather, studded swim wear parade before me. And I’m like, “Yeoow!” She and her assistant, Linda, started wining and dining me, taking me to swanky restaurants where she’d ask me questions like, “Ok….”
“You’re walking through the woods, on a path that suddenly forks left and right. To the left is a lake, to the right, a mountain. What do you do?” “Uhh, I go to the left, to the lake.”
She gives me a look. I’m like, “What?” “Ok, now, you walk to the lake. On the far end of the lake is a cabin, with smoke coming from the chimney. On the near side is a cabin with no smoke coming from the chimney. You’re hungry and cold. What do you do?”
“I, I, I would check out the near cabin first.” “Really!” “What?”
49.
Then she’d ask me if I called my mother for my exact birth time like she asked me to… and that she was doing my chart…
.
The first idea I had was a piece set in a museum… A marble bust of Venus De Mila turns on a revolving pedestal, wearing a Norma Kamali, leather studded, swimsuit.
Human models, body-painted to look like marble statues, stand still, on pedestals, wearing the different swimsuits with faux-museum VISITORS, milling about, taking in the scene. It made the swimsuits look like works of art, which I thought they were.
She didn’t like it. So I had to go back to the drawing board. The suits were so bondage, I started coming up with dominatrix scenarios. She didn’t like them either. Finally, Norma decided she wanted the shoot to happen on a pier in the Hudson River, right near her apartment.
50.
She wanted the models in the swimsuits just hanging out on the pier, so I said ‘fine!’
I figured I could shoot the video in a Warhol/Factory, Edie Sedwick style, or anyway she wanted, it was in the editing, like with Stilwend, that I would make the piece rock!
I was really excited because I had hired a steady cam, my first time using it. Vincent Gallo was my assistant on the shoot. Every time I tried to set up a shoot, Norma would interfere. One time she shouted “cut,” and I was like, “No Norma, only I can say “cut!” And then she said,”I’m not sure I understand what you’re doing here.” I told her not to worry about it, I was approaching it just like Stilwend.”
“I’m getting a bunch of great shots which I’m later going to effect with the optical printer, and then cut it, sort of in a bugged out style, to the music.
51.
Like my film Stilwend, remember? Just let me finish this. You’ll love it when I’m done, I swear. You liked Stilwend didn’t you?”
“You know what? You’re fired. Mark is going to take over the shoot.” Mark was her smarmy assistant, who was always under foot.
I was devastated! But oddly, instead of leaving, I stayed on the set, continuing to help out. We had a contract, which had no provision for termination, so I figured the best way to get paid was to stick around until the end.
So I’m pacing back and forth, at home, on my telephone, holding my contract with Norma. She hired me because of Stilwend, because of my ignorant style, right? So when I give it to her she kicks the legs right out from under me!
“This is Michael Holman. Is Norma there? I’d like to speak to her.
52.
Yes, I’ll wait. Oh, well I’m very GLAD she’ll see me. No problem, tell her I’ll see her at one. Thank you Linda. I know. I’ll see you soon…bye.”
So I march up to a Norma’s office building and wait in the reception area. When Linda emerges from the back offices. “Michael, I’m sorry about this.”
“Yeah, so am I.”
“Norma promises to see you.”
“I just want a check for three thousand bucks and then, that’ll be that.”
“Listen, come with me, Norma’s going to see you.”
‘Fine!”
So I enter a large, empty room, filled with large bolts of fabric, a design desk, and samples of material, and dress designs, pinned to a fabric board. Linda stands, halfway in the room.
“Just make yourself comfortable.”
So I look around the room, trying to calm myself down.
53.
I look out the window. Then he begin pacing back and forth. I wait fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes. Then at the forty-fifth minute, the door opens. It’s another one of Norma’s assistants, dressed head-to-toe in Norma Kamali.
“Michael?”
“Yes?”
“Can you come with me? Norma will see you now.”
I’m furious. I’m beside myself.
“I’ve been waiting here for exactly forty-five minutes! Where are we going? I thought Norma was going to meet me here?”
“Sorry but Norma’s sorry, but she’s really busy. Just come with me.”
So I follow her out of the room.
So we enter a storage room with low ceilings. There are a few tailor dummies standing around. Other than that, the room is empty, there’s not even a chair to sit on.
54.
“She’s going to meet me HERE?”
“That’s what she told me to tell you.”
“Ok.” So she leaves me alone in the room. I begin pacing.
In “The Initiate,” by Dionne Fortune, an English woman who considered herself a witch, a good witch, she describes how contemporary witches wield their power. They were all regular women, most of whom had reached high levels of corporate power in situations that happened to involve many female assistants, female assistants brow beaten and intimidated by mind games and radical swings in treatment towards them, which would destroy their confidence. The end result was an obedient staff, frightened and confused into blind loyalty.
I resigned himself to sitting on the floor, appearing more and more agitated. I wait fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes. Then at the forty-fifth minute, the door opens.
55.
I bury my head in my hands when I see it’s yet another different assistant.
“Hi! Michael? I’m here to take you to Norma now.”
I look at my watch.
“I’ve been in this room, waiting for EXACTLY forty-five minutes. I waited in the last room, exactly forty-five minutes. Now you’re going to take me to ANOTHER room, to wait another forty-five minutes! NO! I’m waiting right here! No more moving!”
The new assistant insisted that this was the last move, so I grudgingly got up and followed her out of the room.
Now, here’s where it gets really freaky.
I follow Norma’s assistant down to a basement, outside a tiny room, about 5 x 8 feet, stuffed with huge bolts of fabric, and in which two OLD, Hassidic MEN are passing bolts of fabric back and forth and out of the room to waiting attendants.
56.
“You can’t be serious! She wants me to wait for her in the basement!?
“No. She wants you to wait for her in there,” nodding towards the bolt room.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
So I’m sitting, crunched up in this cramped space. The two old Hassidic men continue to pass bolts of fabric back and forth, over my head, as if I wasn’t there. They were obviously used to this!
Finally, Linda shows up.
“Hi Michael, Norma’s ready to see you now.”
By this time I’m apoplectic. Hanging onto my contract, I dislodge myself from between piles of fabric bolts. Linda and I walk into Norma’s office where DESIGNERS, ASSISTANTS, and CLERICAL TYPES are rushing back and forth with clothes, talking on the phone, trying to get Norma’s attention who is sitting at her desk, on the phone.
57.
A radio is playing CBS FM, the oldies station, in the background.
I walk up to Norma’s desk, Norma motions for me to take a seat in the chair next to her desk. Linda walks away.
While I wait for Norma to get off the phone, I pull my contract out.
Then Norma hangs up the phone and says, “Ok, what do you want?”
“You still owe me three thousand dollars!”
Three thousand dollars is a lot of money, but it was a small fortune back then!
“I don’t owe you anything.”
“I did what I said I was going to do. When I tried to give you my vision, you wouldn’t let me!”
“I had to wait for you to come up with ideas…”
58.
“I gave you GREAT ideas! The museum idea with the Venus, with the Venus Di Mila’s busts was a GREAT idea but you rejected it!”
“Then you should have been more convincing..”
“What!?”
You know something Michael? You’re a lot of talk.”
“I’m sorry, what!?”
“You do a lot of talking, but you don’t really accomplish anything. And you know something? You never will. You’re a nobody. You’re a loser. And you always will be.”
My mouth and eyes are wide open, as tears form, my jaw trembles. Everything begins moving in slow motion. I knew right then and there that if I didn’t do something, to protect my soul, that that would have been it.
I would have been crushed.
“FFFFUCK YOU!”
59.
Everyone in the office came to a complete standstill. Absolute silence, except for the tinny SOUND of The Dixie Cups’ “Goin’ To A Chapel” coming from the radio.
Norma quickly reaches for her checkbook, fills out a check, tears it out and hands it to me and says, “Get out of my office!”
I carefully checked the name, date and amount, folded the check, put it in my pocket, and left…
Years later, like 1984, I’m at my lawyer’s office, picking up the first copy of my book, “Breaking,” one of the first hip hop books. It was a big deal! My first book!
As I’m walking down the street, W. 56th Street in midtown, when I realize, I’m right near Norma Kamali’s new offices, with the gold lame flags?
60.
So I decide, I’m going to march right in on her, show her my book, and say, “Eat your words, Norma!”
When I get to her building, and I’m standing in front of her giant plate glass windows, screwing up my courage to face her I notice, in the window, is a bust of a Venus de Milo, wearing her latest swimsuit…
And I thought, “OK, that’s cool. I made my point…”
XVI. LAST GRAY GIG @ MUDD:
(“I Wanna Go Back”)
It’s the summer of 1980, and Wayne, Nick, and our new member, VINCE GALLO, and I are putting the final touches to a hap hazard stage set that looks like a geodesic dome/jungle gym built by the blind. Each member of Gray, minus Jean, is being positioned, precariously, in and around the “dome,” sometimes strapped in with harnesses, at 45 degree angles.
61.
NICK is so high up that all one can see from the audience is his feet, I play percussion from a cavity in the stage, so all one could see is my head.
Jean arrives and is stopped in his tracks, looks stunned, and maybe jealous. Could that have been jealousy I saw on Jean’s face? That would have been the ultimate compliment.
“I told you what time to get here Jean, I mean…” Without a word, Jean spins around and leaves the club.
“We have sound check at 7, Man!”
Wayne said, “He’ll be back, I think…”
Five minutes later, Jean returns, dragging an empty, wooden packing crate, 3 feet cubed, and heaves it onto the stage. He jumps up and squeezes into the crate, dragging his tiny synthesizer in with him, then beams up at me. “You’re going to play in there?! Ignorant!”
62.
Jean couldn’t stand to be out done by anyone. Somehow he always had to come out on top.
One of Gray’s last gigs was something Glenn O’Brien hooked up, Leo Costelli’s birthday party at the Rock Lounge. Jean had gotten a hold of an electric machine, made by a Survival Research type artist, whose only purpose was to make noise.
Jean plugs the machine, an electric motor with a metal rod extending from it, encased in a steel basket, in and out, to the beat of the song. The effect is loud, and frightening. He played lead “machine.” It almost gave Leo a heart attack!
Jean quit Gray because he blew up at the 1980 P.S. 1 show, was being courted by the art world as the new sensation, and he knew better than to try to be a famous artist and famous musician at the same time.
63.
The way I wrote that moment in my script for Schnabel’s film, “Basquiat,” Rene Richard tells Jean that of course he’ll have to quit the band. Jean asks why… “You don’t want to be a Tony Bennett, singing on stage, and painting in your spare time?” “I didn’t know Tony Bennett was a painter?” “Exactly.” The band ended. Without Jean what was the point? We all scattered to our own creative winds, finding our own voices, in our own ways…
XVII. DOUG E. FRESH:
(“PSK”)
So it’s like, 1982, and I’m rooming with Nick Taylor, on 1st Street in the East Village and I get a call to come and see Doug E. Fresh perform. I had befriended his manager (find name!) sometime before, and now I was privy to Doug’s career moves.
64.
He was playing at The Gun Hill Run Club – named after the street it’s on, named after a famous, Bronx, Revolutionary War battle, that George Washington actually was involved in.(?)
Nick, being down like a clown for what ever was going on uptown, decided to join me… We decided on somewhat matching outfits, kinda sharp, snappy. to show respect to the hood, and same time appear “down,” with it, so as to avoid any unpleasant “unknowns.” Ghetto camouflage.
We both wore greyish slacks and jackets, with gangster hats, with wide brims. More like Run DMC or Fellini-esk, Western, felt caps. I remember Nick had a sliver of a goatee that was already going a bit gray. The look suited us both to a T. “Hip hop impresario, prowling for talent, and Downtown whiteboy DJ, chill enough to fit in anywhere. We looked the “team.”
65.
Nick and I grab a Broadway Line #2 train headed north to the Bronx. Riding between cars, a uniformed transit cop rolls up on us, just as we’re sharing a joint! He told us to put it out and kept on walking. We sort of marvelled at our good fortune. We were beginning to feel the trip was fateful, and we were untouchable.
So we exit the subway station, right off Gun Hill Rd. I remember us being a little nervous, but trying not to show it. It was summer, and though it was late, there was still sunlight.
As we made our way along this residential street towards Gun Hill Road, I noticed people were taking a bit of extra time, trying to sort us out. It felt like, “Who are those guys?” type stares. We just stayed in character, as best as we could. Cool…
66.
Out of nowhere, an older Black man, looked like he had just gotten off work, stops us in our tracks to proclaim, “Look at you! You guys look like a couple of Mafia hit men! Damn!” We thought it was funny, but we played it off, like, maybe we ARE a couple of Mafia hit men! Or maybe Cuban assassins or something. Better not get too close!
So we get to the club and we’re whisked in by Doug E.’s manager (name?), set up at the bar with drinks. All the kids at the club were giving us the same “look” and distance that the people on the streets were giving us.
With his goatee, Nick looked dangerous, and I was wearing shades. Just for the fun of it, Nick and I maintained the dangerous “vibe.” Why break character now?
67.
So Nick settles in at the bar, and I roamed the club, checking out the DJ, what he’s playing, the kids, what they’re wearing, etc.
What we didn’t completely appreciate was the extent that everyone who had laid eyes on us, not just the old Black man, were sure we were Mafia hit men, or Cuban assassins, and they wanted no part of what we were coming to do…
After making a 2nd round the club, I find Nick, still at the bar, chilling, very cool. He tells me: “Doug’s manager is over there, talking with that guy.”
I look over and see Doug’s manager speaking with another fellow, who could have been the club manager.
As I come up behind the club manager – a young Black guy in his 30’s, nice sweater – I realize they’re having a heated argument about money, when they were going to get paid, etc.
68.
Then I look down and realize the club manager has a colt 45 behind his back, in his right hand. And I’m like, “Damn!”
At that moment, I looked over to Nick, to try to signal him. No luck. So I screamed out, “NICK! HE’S GOT A GUN!” From the corner of my eye, I see the club manager’s right hand come swinging out and up, as if to come down on Doug’s manager’s head…
I turn back just as the gun butt impacted against Doug’s manager’s forehead with a crack so loud it sounded like a gun shot…
As if all in slow motion, I turned and yelled, “Ruuuuuuuunnnnnn Nnnnniiiicccckkkkkk! Ruuuuunnnn!” Then I turned and bolted for the exit, as all hell broke loose in the club.
But, apparently, “All hell had broken loose” in the club mainly because I screamed!
69.
When I reached the stairway out, people were trying to scrabble up and out of the basement stairway, onto the street, but were being inexplicably beaten back by a Black motorcycle gang wearing silver Nazi helmets! Life is beautiful…
Despite of the chaos, a teenaged girl had the presence of mind to look over at me, as I mawed and clawed my way over fallen bodies, and realized the “Mafia hit men,” “Cuban Assassins,” were perpetrating a fraud.
She shouted with glee: “Ahhh! You ain’t no assassins!”
And I was like, “No, not really, no, you see… Um…”
The whole time, Nick was just totally chill, at the bar. I had humiliated us both. The Bronx would never see the likes of the Mafia hit men, Cuban Assassins again…
70.
XVIII. MALCOLM MCLAREN vs. BAMBAATAA:
(“Mary, Mary”)
At another Canal Zone party, my friend Stan Peskett introduced me to Malcolm McLaren, creator of the Sex Pistols? Malcolm was in town with his new act, Bow Wow Wow. Bow Wow Wow, like Adam Ant, etc., was part of a new English pop cultural music, fashion idea called “The New Romantics.” I guess it was something Malcolm and his partner, Vivian Westwood cooked up after their run on punk. The New Romantics basically dressed up as pirates, and it was truly one of the last, major British fashion mistakes.
Anyway, Stan tells Malcolm that I’m involved in a new, subcultural movement uptown and I offer to take him to the Bronx to see it for himself and he’s game!
71.
So I called Bambaataa, who I had met through Fab 5 Freddy, and had already developed a relationship with, promoting him, getting him and Jazzy jay gigs downtown, etc. I asked Bam when he was doing another Jam, or performance, and he told me that next Friday night, at his projects’ community center, the Bronx River Community Center in the West Bronx, he was having a throw down. Like a Hip Hop party, outdoors. Perfect!
I arrange to pick up Malcolm at his hotel, the Parker Meridian, where all the hotel operators greet you with a fake, French accent. “Bonjour! Hotel Parker Meridian!?” “Huh!?”
So I go to pick up Malcolm in my summer time, B-Boy uniform: navy sea cap pulled down, cut off jeans, nylon T-shirt under a nylon tanktop, low cut Keds, sans socks,, and a gold chain.
72.
When I get to Malcolm’s room, he, and Rory Johnston, an RCA Records executive, are both dressed as full blown pirates, right off the stage of “Pirates of the Penzance.” Not scruffy pirates, but loud, foppy, satiny pirates, with pantaloons, giant silk shirts and wacky, buckled shoes, all in the brightest colors imaginable. They seemed quite pleased with their get up, and all I could think was, “We’re gonna get vicked!”
I remember debating in my head, “Do I ask him to change into something less, extreme? But who am I to tell Malcolm McLaren how to dress? I could explain to him just exactly where we’re going, but then that might scare him off from the whole idea, and I desperately wanted make this cultural connection! I could hear him scoffing at any danger, and he would claim to be an intrepid, British explorer and not to worry my pretty little head.
73.
I just kept my mouth shut, gathered up my little Pirate Posse, and we left for the streets. At least we all had a nautical theme?
Down on 57th Street and 5th Ave., we were having a hell of a time, finding a cab that would take us to the Bronx, but eventually, we found the Puerto Rican woman, in a gypsy cab, who offered to take us, it was near where she lived, and she happened to be headed home. Brilliant!
So we get the street, and there, about a block away, looming in the darkness, because most of the street lights had been shot out, stood the Bronx River Housing Projects, gathered round the community center, like circled wagons.
74.
You could barely see the center, but you could plainly hear the heavy bass beats and drums of a B-Boy classic, maybe Jimmy Castor Bunch’s “Just Begun,” bouncing and wafting into the night darkness. It was totally Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness!” Having just come from a luxury, midtown hotel, this had to be the most frightening culture shock for Malcolm and Rory. I was scared shitless myself! As the gypsy cab sped away, I told the guys to just stick close, we were headed in. They didn’t say much, what could you say?
As we got closer and closer to the projects, Bam’s outdoor party jam was coming into stark relief, against the night. We finally arrived, standing before the strangest, most surreal scene I had ever witnessed, in my life, up until that point. There, before us, in full color, was a teenaged, hip hop, Dante’s Inferno!
75.
We stood at the edge of perfect chaos. It was a massive crowd, I’d say 700 to 1,000 kids strong, mostly Black kids, but a good number of Spanish kids, and even some white kids, dancing and partying to Bambaataa’s jams.
Fights were breaking out all over the place! And when a new fight would break out, a sizable portion of the crowd would run over to watch. Then another fight would break out, and those same kids would run over to that fight to watch!
Then bottles came crashing and shattering down from the project windows from above, followed by shouts of “Shut up!,” and “Turn that shit down!” All this happened in just the few seconds we were standing there, dumbfounded. I remember looking over at Malcolm and Rory. Their eyes were wide as saucers.
76.
Normally, I would have taken some pleasure in seeing these Brits, devastated by a taste of real New York, if I hadn’t been scared shitless myself!
The weird thing is, I expected at least some of the kids to get in our faces, like, “Who the fuck are you?” Maybe even harass us. But nothing! I really think they didn’t notice us. But how could they not?! It’s a mystery.
I quickly ushered the guys over to where Bambaataa was spinning records, an area roped off and guarded by beefy Zulu Nation bodyguards, and introduced Malcolm and Rory to Bambaataa and Jazzy Jay.
Bam was cool, laidback, as he played a surprisingly eclectic, even bizarre mix of records.
77.
He’d go from obvious choices, like James Brown’s live version of “Give It Up Or Turn It A Lose,” to wacky, hilarious choices like, The Monkees,”Mary Mary,” and The Theme Song to the TV show, “I Dream of Jeanie!” And the kids loved it! They’d jump around and dance with silly abandon, as if to say, “This is how white kids on TV dance!” Not mocking, just genuine fun.
But the fights kept braking out, and Malcolm and Rory were getting even more frightened. I mean, all that Malcolm’s been through with the Sex Pistols, he hadn’t seen ANY thing like this! This was chaos on a completely different level. It was pure. It was natural, no “punk pretence.” He was like, “Michael, we’ve got to get OUT of here!” I told him that we couldn’t leave now, we’d be followed and wicked for sure! I begged him to hang on, and not to worry.
78.
Then I quickly turned to Bam and said, “Bam! we’re losing them! Get Jazzy Jay to do something, quick!” Bam said, “OK, after this song.”
Finally, Bam relinquished the turntables to Jazzy Jay, who started to scratch, cut and mix records that was truly amazing. I shouted to Malcolm and Rory, “See what he’s doing? He’s a special mix DJ! And look at that kid over there! He’s a B-Boy! Breakdancing! See what the kids are wearing? See that graffiti over there? It’s all part of this scene! It’s a new scene!”
It all was becoming clearer. Malcolm and Rory were noticing what I was pointing out, appreciating it all. Malcolm turned to me and said. “OK. I got it. Let’s go now. I have an idea.”
79.
After being escorted to a cab by Zulu security, Malcolm said to me, “Put together a show, to open for Bow Wow Wow. And we’ll showcase this scene of yours.” And the rest is history.
Malcolm gave me a budget of 3,000 dollars, with which I hired Bam and Jazzy to spin music, Bam’s rapper, Ikey Cee, to emcee, Rock Steady Crew to dance, Kel One, a graf artist, and boyfriend to my friend, Debbie Mazar, to do a live, graf piece, and finally, I showed my film, “Catch A Beat,” the first hip hop/B-Boy film, which came out a few months before Charlie Ahearn and Fab 5’s Wild Style, but wasn’t a feature film, just a short…
It was arguably the first, complete, live hip hop revue, since all the elements were there at the same time.
80.
It’s splitting hairs, since Fab 5 Freddy was producing rap and DJ events downtown as well, before me, and in many ways was more connected to the scene, but I’m proud of that show. I’m proud of what I had done. That night, at the Ritz, after Bow Wow Wow and my Uptown Revue played, which was a smash success.
I was approached by Ruza Blue to bring my revue to her night at a Jamaican club on 2nd Ave. called Negril. Negril rocked for only a couple of weeks, but we had Bambaataa, Jazzy Jay, DJ Kool Herc, Grand Wizard Theodore, Fab 5 Freddy, Futura, Rammellzee, you name it, it was the spot! Blue went on to do the Roxy’s and I went on to do “Graffiti Rock,” the first hip hop TV show, ever! These were heady times…
Sadly, Blue took credit for the scene that followed at Negril, whenever she could. Roxy’s yes. Negril, no.
81.
That was all me. All you have to do is look at the people in the crowd, all my friends! Rene Richard, Stan Paskett, Fab 5 Freddy, Francesco Clemente… These were my Downtown compatriots, Blue knew them from Adam, no pun intended. But the so called authors keep revising history, even when I tell them the real deal. Is it because Blue is English? What the fuck?
Don’t you know they will always take credit for shit if they can? WE created punk, not them! Grand Mixer DST saw Malcolm on UK TV, passing himself off as the creator of a new street movement that looked a little too much like hip hop! DST said, “Fuck that! The only Malcolm I know is Malcolm X!”
82.
XIX. NEW YORK CITY BREAKERS @ COVENT GARDEN
(“Give It Up Or Turn It A Lose”)
1985, and The New York City Breakers are invited to appear on stage, at London’s Covent Garden, Royal Opera House, with Alvin Ailey’s Dance Company and the London Contemporary Dance Trust, before a royal audience, of Princess Michael and various other dignitaries and aristos. Princess Michael, who was getting into trouble long before Princess Di, was caught up in a major scandal and had to disappear from sight for a few months, and Prince Andrew, “Randy Andy” took her place.
It was a pretty big deal, covered by all the press, and we were treated very well indeed. I had the whole crew there, but somehow, they didn’t seem impressed.
83.
The New York City Breakers were Black and Puerto Rican teenagers from the Bronx and all over the city.
Tough street kids who had set the world on fire, and had every dance critic and audience on their feet, and the boys knew it. Knowing their worth, they were capable of criminal faux pas and monstrous embarrassments if they had a mind to. As hard as I might try, trouble was always just one “broken-into-hotel-jewellery-case,” or “beaten-to-a- pulp-bystander” away.
I kept a close eye on them.
I noticed from the wings that while The London Contemporary Dance Trust, a modern dance troupe, was performing, Alvin Ailey was sitting in the Royal Box with Prince Andrew, and I wondered when I got to sit with the Prince? The woman who organized the show, a wealthy Canadian mover and shaker, said, “But Michael.
84.
When I asked you earlier if you wanted to meet the Prince, you said that since you were American, you weren’t impressed with inherited royalty. Remember?”
Yeah, I remembered, but, since I was here, I sort of changed my mind.
“Ok. After the Breakers perform, wait backstage and I’ll find you. Make sure the Breakers remain backstage, and in their costumes, there will be a press ceremony when it’s all over, and all the companies will line up with flowers, in a receiving line for the Prince.”
“No problem..”
So the Breakers do their thing and they are the absolute hit of the evening, every newspaper said so!
After they come off stage, I tell them not to go anywhere, that I’m going to meet the Prince, and they’ll meet him later.
85.
“Is he the queen?”
“The what? Of course not! Don’t ask stupid questions! He’s her son. You know that!”
“Rock Steady danced for the queen.”
Oh shit. Trouble.
I could see where this was heading. “It doesn’t matter! He’s still old school royalty, and you’d better not give me any shit on this one! I’m serious!” “Yeah, whatever, Mike.”
Fuck, now I was worried.
“You guys better NOT go anywhere! You’d better stay right here! Stay in your costumes, or I swear I’ll kill everyone! Promise!”
“OK, Mike. Damn!”
The Canadian woman finds me back stage and we head upstairs, to the dry bar, a swank pub in the space just behind the Royal Box.
86.
As the Canadian woman is leading me through a crowd of admirals and ambassadors, I can just see Prince Andrew, surrounded by aristo hangers-on, waiting their chance to get a word in edge-wise. I had seen the same thing with the President at the white house.
As I sort of craned to spot the Prince, I notice he’s doing the same thing to me! He sees us coming and he seems excited! Turns out he really was blown away by the Breakers!
Finally, the crowd parts as the Canadian woman introduces us. For all my American cool, and not being impressed by royalty, I had to say I was transformed. My English blood took over. “Prince Andrew, Michael Holman, Michael Holman, Prince Andrew. Mr. Holman is the director and choreographer for the New York City Breakers!”
87.
“Oh, well done, Michael! Well done!”
And all I could say was, “Haam, ne haam ne haam, ne haam…” Tongue tied like Ralph Cramden… I was through!
“Tell me…” Prince Andrew said… “What is it that makes them dance like that?”
“Well sir,” I stammered, “I suppose it’s a particular, New York ethnicity, that…”
“Ethnicity?! Ethnicity?! Is that really a word? You Americans are always making up wonderful new words!”
And all the dignitaries surrounding him were like, “Yes, well, quite right. Oh yes…” And all the sudden, I’m wondering if ethnicity is a real word myself!
“Would you like to take a tour of Covent Garden? There’s loads of history everywhere you know?”
Would I?! Suddenly, I was ready to follow Prince Andrew anywhere! Into battle if necessary!
88.
That royalty thing really has an attraction! I was ready to fall on my sword for the dude!
So he takes me all over the underground catacombs, under the Opera House, and he’s pointing out places where various ancestors were murdered or whatever, and I’m in a swoon! I love my dear Prince! Who wouldn’t!?
I remember we stopped in a cafeteria/ canteen, and he said , “This is the canteen.
I understand the food’s not very good…” No, of course not, whatever you say…
Finally we come to the end of the tour and the Canadian woman escorts us up to the royal box, THE ROYAL BOX!! There I am, sitting RIGHT NEXT TO Prince Andrew. In the Royal Box!
89.
I looked out over the railing and down and there were all the swells, just like the ones who were to told by John Lennon to shake their jewellery instead of applaud. And they were stealing glances right back up at me! At me and my bony Prince! All I could think about was I wish my mother could have seen me, sitting with Prince Andrew!
Then Alvin Ailey’s dancers came on and I had to explain some of the instrumentation to Andrew. Seems he didn’t get out much, but that’s OK! He’s the Prince! He has to be protected and cared for at all times!
Finally the entire show was over and we must say ado. “I’ll see you on stage in a minute?” He says. “Of course, my Prince!”
90.
So I run back stage to gather my troops, I mean the Breakers, only to find that out of the eight that danced that night, only two had obeyed me and stayed behind… I was totally fucked!
“They went back to the hotel…” said Lil Lep. He and Little Alex were the only ones to have stayed… I was too freaked to at least be happy for that!
So now all the dance companies are lined up on stage. All eighteen of The London Contemporary Dance Trust, all fifteen of the Alvin Ailey Company, and all two, and the smallest two, of The New York City Breakers. Flowers were shoved in our hands and we were told to smile.
When Prince Andrew came up to us and saw only the two Breakers, I could see he was truly perplexed, then genuinely hurt.
“Surely there’s more than this! Where are the rest of them, Michael?”
91.
Horrified, I mumbled something.
“Excuse me? What did you say?”
I mumbled something else, hoping he’d just go away, and leave me to my traitorous shame, allow me to fall on my sword.
“Oh, well.” Then he did walk away, never to take me on historic walks through Covent Garden again!
When I told my English friends what had happened, they thought it was frightfully funny! Which made me feel a little better.
“Serves him right!”
“Yeah!” I said. “Serves him right!”
Forgive me my prince. My bonny, bonny prince!”
XX. “BASQUIAT” THE MOVIE:
(“Public Image”)
1995… and we’re finally making the movie “Basquiat.” Me, Nick and Wayne are playing ourselves, with Jeffrey Wright Jean…
92.
…in a scene, featuring Gray, on stage, at the Mudd Club. Claire Forlani and Michael Wincott are also in the scene, playing Suzanne Mallouk and Rene Ricard respectively… There’s hundreds of extras there, appearing as the audience, dressed 1980’s “club chic,” but it ended up more “bridge-and-tunnel” than downtown hip.
They shot a bunch of takes of the band playing on stage. But then they began to shoot a scene where Jean leaves the stage – in the middle of the gig! No way! – to argue with Suzanne and Rene at the other end of the club. The set didn’t even look like the Mudd Club!
Actors Jeffrey Wright and Michael Wincott leave the stage and head for the film crew as I, Nick and Wayne stand around on the stage.
93.
Earlier, there was an issue with the set. I thought we were going to play in the ignorant geodesic dome set, but Julian nixed that, so I settled for the gray photo paper set and naked light bulb, where I did my electrocardiograph markings, only to have Jean tear the paper.
Strangely after hanging the gray paper for the movie set, the paper tears on its own! Ask Nick! He’s a witness!
Gray goes back to their positions. Nick at stand up bass, Wayne stands at keyboards at center stage, and Michael at a snare drum. Julian Schnabel can be heard giving directions:
“Michael, move a little to your left…”
So I take half a step to his left, slightly closer to center stage.
“Could you take another small step to your left, Michael?”
94.
I take a small step to his left.
“A little more…”
I take another half step. Now I’m almost out from behind his drum.
“Michael, another step to your left…”
I takes a medium step to his left. Now I’m completely out from behind the drum.!
“A little more…”
Now I’m standing next to Wayne’s keyboard! How am I supposed to play the drums from here?
“Take another step…”
Michael is standing right beside Wayne, behind the keyboards.
“Perfect!”
I catch the eye of a bushy blond, extra dud, who is beaming at me from the dance floor.
“He’s not talking to YOU!”
95.
XXII. DAVID GAYLORD AS LUSCIOUS LUCIOUS:
(“Life On The Streets”)
I Called DGM just before seeing him in 1996… I asked him if he had been into any “trips” lately, like in the late 1960’s, when he had his tailor, Mr. Lee, make him an all silver lame jump suit, with a hood, and Mylar face shield, which he walked around S.F., only once, years before David Bowie ever did. Or when he went in all 1930’s, film noir drag, with shoulder pads to LA. He didn’t go thrift shop diving for these suits, again, he had them tailor made, then it was an early 1960’s, Dragnet drag, when he assumed the alias of “Officer Frank Decker.”
I asked him if he ever went to the California Swing Clubs, where kids danced to swing music, in vintage, 1940’s outfits, zoot suits and all.
96.
He said, “I don’t dance? Dancing’s for Tutti Fruitties! I will let a Mexican girl dance around me every once in a while!”
Then he said that he did consider a new look, a trip not long ago. “Yeah. I had it all designed in my head. I was going to wear a pink, shammy leisure suit, with pink, buck shoes, pink pimp socks, pink hair, cut in a beehive do! Pink lipstick, and some pink makeup! I would call myself ‘Lustious Lucious!’”
“So what happened?!”
“I went and bought 9 yards of pink, shammy fabric and took it to Mr. Lee! When I showed him my design he said, “Oh yeah! Like that Prince Fella!’ And I said, no. Forget it. I can’t do it now. It’s not my style. Not my style!”
97.
32.
9. Hey! Buddy Holly!(Holman Uptown)
10. “I know you not a stick up kid, right?” (P.R. man with young son, with me in subway elevator, remember?)
10A. I went to an art opening recently, and was invited to the after dinner. I was placed next to a Japanese woman who was clearly an aristocrat, pure blood… She was dressed head to toe in Chanel, and had an aquiline nose that I knew to be due to the Japanese royal family, and then the aristocracy, breeding with the Ainu, a race of nearly pre-historic, indigenous people, who live at the very end of the island.
The Ainu aren’t oriental at all, and some suspect they are closer related to Russians, they’re Caucasian. But their narrow noses were idealized by the Japanese aristocracy, and so the legend goes. Of course this woman didn’t read the same anthropology magazines as I, and hadn’t heard this “theory,” and was completely offended when I mentioned that she had an aristocratic nose, and I told her how that came about. To say she might have Ainu blood in her was like telling a white southerner he surely had Black blood in him, it didn’t go over very well. “NOT Ainu!” I tried to describe the article I read but she tuned me out. I tried to recover by saying that most Japanese have Chinese like noses, since that’s where they all originally came from, and it was the Ainu genes, that ironically made for the finer featured nose. “NOT Chinese!” “No, I just mean that’s where the Japanese originate from, like thousands of years ago.” “NO! Not from China!”
“Well…” I said. “But the Japanese must have come from somewhere? Not from Korea?” “Certainly not!” “Well if you’re not from China, or Korea… Then where ARE the Japanese from?”
“We are from the SUN!”
“Ooooh… From the sun! Brilliant… From the mother fucking sun, Jack!…”
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