Laird with his Stinker

That right thar is slicker than quail poop on a river rock, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers


Keith Richards has published his memoirs titled “Life.” It’s short for “For the life of me I can’t remember a damn thing.”

A woman in Costa Mesa drove with a corpse in her car for ten months; it just shows what lengths we southern Californians will go to drive in the car pool lane.

We have had a lot of rain in southern California. In Westwood it rained so much, in a movie showing “Secretariat” Secretariat had to swim the last 31 lengths to win the Belmont.

The team with the highest payroll, the New York Yankees, was eliminated from going to the World Series by one of the lowest paid teams, the Texas Rangers. Right now George Steinbrenner is paying someone $10 mil to roll him over in his grave.

A woman in England made a portrait of her mother-in-law out of 10,000 pieces of toast. That’s not all, on one of the pieces of toast there is an image of Jesus.

In Miami, a 45-year-old Kayaker had to be taken by helicopter to a hospital after a fish jumped and stabbed her in the chest. Folks, for the last time, fish don’t like it when you pee in their ocean.

Justin Bieber was involved in an altercation during a game of laser tag. Well, altercation might be too strong, when Bieber was tagged out, he threatened to hold his breath until he turned blue.

Mel Gibson is going to film a cameo for “The Hangover 2.” However, in Mel’s case it is “The Hangover 32,465.”

A Connecticut man was arrested for sexually assaulting a horse. I thought it was mean when the judge said he could face five years in prison and then stomped out the number five with his foot.

Now there is an endorsement for Viagra for you.

“Secretariat” is a great sports movie. Now there is an athlete who would have impressed a hot female reporter by sext-messaging a picture of his junk.

The San Diego Chargers lost to the New England Patriots, 23-20 through a series of stupid mistakes including one receiver leaving a live ball on the field. In fact the only way the Chargers could have played stupider is if, during halftime, they sext messaged pictures to a hot reporter.

The World Series has the San Francisco Giants versus the Texas Rangers. The two teams are different. The Texas fans have hand symbols with antlers for speed and a claw for power. Whereas the San Francisco fans make jazz hands for absolute fabulousness.


Since you asked:
Now that I have read autobiographies on the Eagles, specifically Don Felder’s “Heaven and Hell” and all of Eric Clapton’s memoirs and a lot of Keith Richards, I have learned some interesting things. Yes, there is a lot of money, yes a lot of women, yes a lot of drugs. More drugs than I thought, less women. Whatever amount of cocaine you thought these guys did? Go ahead and multiply that by ten. Which would also explain the less-sex than one would think part.

It seems the pressure to make albums, write good songs, perform good songs, year after year is what causes the need to medicate so intensely. If the Stones were free to make tea, read and putter in their vast English gardens, the drug use would largely disappear.

It is a fascinating cultural phenomenon how much we want to believe our rock gods are like the coolest stud/jock in high school When in reality they are way closer to the dorks in the marching band. (Sorry dorks in the marching band, but it’s true) Even the Eagles who wore football jerseys on stage. According to countless accounts, Don Henley, all “GQ” cover shots aside, is a lot like that cranky old crazy Aunt you dread talking to at Christmas.

But a rock star life isn’t a life anyone in their right mind would probably want. There is no privacy once a rock star is famous. The pressure is intense because the money is so high. The Stones have to literally be told what city they’re playing when they walk on the stage. It is private limo to security guarded hotel floor to room, room service food, maybe a party, then a limo to the private jet, limo from the jet to the hotel, limo to the concert hall. Over and over and over again. Throw in some limo rides to TV and radio stations for interviews.

When you read these books you are struck by how little of the rock star’s life is spent in the glory of the stage lights. It is all studios and mixing boards, buses and planes and hotels – and surprisingly not really good hotels, they won’t book most rock tours - and wherever they write the best. To a person, the Eagles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, the Beatles, they all pine longingly for the days when they were just struggling to make it big. Their happiest day was when they were able to procure a shoddy tour bus or van, pile in with their gear and drive and play small, dingy clubs. Those days were all about the music. Once the record company executives step in, it is hard, cut-throat work and everyone wants their job.

To pass time on the road, Ron Wood washes his clothes in the hotel bathroom sink and drinks beer and smokes cigarettes and watches TV. Wow, great, huh?

One journalist who toured with the Stones and became part of their inner crowd made a comment to the effect most of us have had good sex and we’ve copped a nice buzz and or both. Simply increasing the numbers and combinations doesn’t really enhance either one.

Keith said Mick and Bill Wyman were addicted to tabulating how many women they were with, he and Charlie were not. Keith said he would rather skip sex or please himself than go to all that trouble.

From the groupies side, most rock stars are skinny, ugly pasty guys who aren’t all that entertaining off the stage. It’s like sleeping with a movie star because you expect them to be the way they are in a certain role. If you’ve ever heard him interviewed, Harrison Ford is about as far away from “Indiana Jones” as a human can get. Swimming to a submarine? You feel like checking his pulse when he is talking.

When a band as huge as the Rolling Stones makes it big, image becomes a monster all by itself. Nobody fretted, whined, worried or studied their image more than Mick Jagger. Nobody did it less than Keith Richards. Richards’s philosophy on life, in my opinion is; “If it isn’t about creating a tasty lick on the guitar, I don’t give a flying eff about it.” Jagger is the exact opposite.

Some bands worry about their image some don’t. The Eagles wanted to be the stud jock QB who got all the hot cheerleaders. ZZ Top? Steely Dan? They didn’t care and they don’t have an image.

Jamaica had a huge impact on Keith Richards, musically and socially. It fit his personality which is essentially a philosophical pirate who fell in love with a guitar instead of a sailboat.

Two factors were huge in creating the myth machine that is the Stones. First, they loved Chuck Berry. But Chuck Berry could write, perform and play guitar. Those tasks, Mick and Keith figured out, had to be divided between them. Keith essentially said, fine, I’ll come up with and write down the signature song licks, play them, you do the rest. The Stones are a very guitar-lick- hook driven band.

The other factor was the Beatles. If the Beatles had decided to be bad boy rebels, the Stones would have had to go another route. Luckily being the naughty boys fit the Stones personalities. But make no mistake, the Beatles did all the same thing drug and women-wise as the Rolling Stones. Basically all the Beatles wanted to be Elvis, the Stones wanted to be Chuck Berry.

Richards said when he first tried writing songs he was embarrassed to present them to the boys because they were pretty songs like “Angie” and “As Time Go By.” Keith felt the direction the band needed to go was “Satisfaction” and “Start Me Up.” He pointed out the Beatles were really a singer-based band. They all sang, even Ringo. Kinda. The Stones had a front man and guitars, like Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters.

For every song that makes an album there are probably twenty that don’t. And writing a song is no day at the beach. You try it. Hell, writing a damn joke isn’t easy. (For proof, see above) Plus there is all the arrangements and drums, and bass and guitars not to mention the studio gear and amps. And each one of those has to be mixed together to make a song. And then there is a nine in ten chance the song will get tossed off the album anyway. More if you’re Bruce Springsteen. And the percentage of time on stage versus in studio, travelling and waiting to go on stage is absolutely minuscule in their perspective. Blink of an eye.

One interesting band/technical breakthrough Keefers Richards mentioned was learning how to play five string with open tuning. Playing in a band I barely know that means a guitar that is tuned so you get chords using a slide, usually in G. That is how Keefers got those awesome openings to “Start Me Up” “Honky Tonk Woman” “Brown Sugar” "Tumbling Dice" Open tuning, capo on the fifth fret.

Open versus classic tuning is why even fledgling guitarists in dive bars have two electric guitars ready. One is tuned regular, where you put this finger here, the second finger there, etc, to form a chord in key. Open tuning you get a chord sticking your index finger across the neck and strumming. With a sawed-off beer neck on it for the slide.

It would be like moving the keys around on a piano to make a song easier to play.

You read about what a pain-in-the ass rock stars are with the riders in their road contracts. The most famous being Van Halen’s demand of brown M&Ms only. The Eagles Browns fried chicken thighs only served on a red and white checkered table cloth with tall neck Buds in an ice bucket. (That one sounds pretty good, though)

The truth is if the concert manager fulfills these picky demands that meant he read the stuff that was important about setting up their sound system. That and most rock stars are spoiled brats who never had to grow up.

Having played in bad to really good bar bands, I know the better the band, the more technically and electronically complicated things get. On the gigs where we have had a sound guy in the audience mixing and adjusting our volumes, we have gone from sounding like a crappy band at a company picnic to a band that could play at a 10,000 seat venue. OK, maybe 2,000.

Keith Richards mentions an interesting story where keyboard great Billy Preston turned his volume up so much Keith threatened him with hitting him with his guitar on stage. One thing I have learned about musicians, whether they are great or awful, they will always turn themselves up too high during a gig, including yours truly. If you are at a bar or party and you think the band is getting louder? Its because they are. Except the drummer.

Richards had an interesting perspective to the groupie scene. He avoids it. It’s like when you discover there is a craft service table backstage. Wow, free food. After a while you get sick of it because it is not that great. How many M&M’s can you get excited about?

Keefers said the women around the tours were mostly there to provide other services besides or including sex in exchange for hanging out with the band. They got cigarettes, drugs, booze, clothes, sandwiches whatever the boys needed. And they weren’t very attractive. Sad really. They want the life of a rock star because they don’t have a life. And the life of a rock star isn’t great. (They don’t look like Kate Hudson in “Almost Famous”)

Don't get me wrong, its not like being in the Stones circle doesn't have its allures. Take, for example, when the Stones were recording "Exile on Main Street" in the South of France. Besides the wild circus at the mansion and eating fresh halibut, caviar, lobster and drinking the finest French wines and dining in gorgeous bistros amid real life pirates and smugglers, one of the key members of this scene was sax-great Bobby Keys.

Bobby Keys's sax solo made "Brown Sugar" a classic for all time. Bobby is a great musician, a funny, funny guy, a personable guy - he won over the hard-to-get-him-to-like-anybody-but-himself Mick Jagger. But Keys is not a good looking guy. He is a chubby freckled good ol' boy from Texas with - if Keefers teasing is true - not a lot going on downstairs. And this guy was righteously getting himself some with the hottest women in France, including a gorgeous movie star, Nathalie Delon. (Again picture Kate Hudson with bigger breasts and a French accent)

Like I have written here before, picture a happy, affectionate, well-adjusted, healthy, athletic, fun-loving good neighbor California surfing family or a Colorado skiing family or a Chicago Bears-loving hockey-playing family, or a New Jersey or Connecticut running/biking/soccer playing family. You know who I am talking about. We all get their obnoxious Christmas cards each year.

Everything I’ve read concludes a rock star’s life is the exact opposite.