The View From Scranton

From Dust to Then

It's dirty. It's dusty. It's toxic. It's Drylok Fast Plug and I just spent the day helping to make sure the stuff spreads around the world. Stack, fill, weigh, lid, box, stack. They put me smack in the middle, on lids, which was the perfect for someone who's flipped his own a time or three. Oh, the boredom. I tried to get the Hood's-eye version of the hippy-dippy Zen trance Jan Michael Vincent worked for himself in Tribes. Didn't work for me. Maybe it's cuz I didn't have some girlfriend-in-the-flower-fields to fall back on. Or a drilll sergeant screaming in my face. I had only the unseen Man.

And the blaring music of my youth. For some dumb reason the Rock-of-the-'70s is as ubiquitous now as it was then (more later). Foghat's "Fool for the City, Joe Walsh's "Rocky Mountain Way," Rick Derringer's "Rock 'n' Roll Hootchie Koo." C'mon. That shit was hip when I was a kid. Sure, they were great. In their day. I know, I saw 'em all at the Miami Jai Alai Fronton. Listening to 'em now though is little joy. Listening to 'em while I slog poisons is no joy at all. Kinda makes me feel like a teen paying a grown man's debt.

Speaking of teenstuff... Believe it or not, I used to be a bit of glam boy. And No, there are no surviving pictures. I saw to that myself. Anyway, as I say, as a kid I was all glam, as in Pretty Things, Mott the Hoople, T-Rex glam. Yeah I was a few years late; this was Miami in the late '70s and everybody but the cocaine cowboys was late. Late didn't impinge upon my thoroughness. Or my, er, flair. The scarfs, the platforms, the satin, I gladly, madly wore it all. In fact so good was I in my get-up that people used to say I looked like a rock star, specifically Paul Chapman of UFO, who were then the reigning kings of pretty boy metal. UFO was one band I hadn't seen except on record covers, and the live images there were just murky enough to lead me to agree.

So then UFO was coming to town. An old barn of an arena way out in the swamps called The Hollywood Sportatorium. I not only had tickets; I had backstage passes. Better yet, I had the gall to be them. The week before the concert, at the very same arena, appeared The Moody Blues. Now I was never a big fan; they were always a little too much pomp and not enough circumstance for me. But even in those days I went to everything and this was something to go to. So I went. And I approached the backstage entrance on the side of the building: "Elo," said I, in a transparently fake Cockney accent. "I'm Paul Chapman of UFO. We're playin' ere next week and I thought I might take a look around." It was preposterous. Then this massive lug of a man looked me up and down and up and down again, wiped what I thought for sure was disbelief outta his eyes and opened wide the gate. Sure, sure. Come in. Then he called over a few friends who were hanging around and introduced me as if we were old friends. This is Paul Chapman of UFO. He's playing here next week. Take care of him. The ooh's and the aah's were exceeded only by the amount of liquor and narcotics they proceeded to ply me with. When I say copious, I mean more. So happy were they to have a supposed star in their midst they never even stopped to question whether or not the star was real. Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was Miami. Now every time I hear "Night in White Satin" I wonder if they're still talking about that night too.

posted by John Hood. @ 10:27 PM