"Dolenz"

Am I to understand, dear Fellow, that you are a man or your word and a true gentleman in matters heroic and chivalrous? Then I feel inspired to tell you about some things that happened to me.

…what’s that? You say you’re too inspired to want or need to listen to my sage words? O, she errs! Behold, see how she errs.

And do you expect me to believe you were the keyboard player for the Monkees’ 30 Year Anniversary touring band? You say you’ve even partied with Mickey Dolenz a few times?

You expect me to believe it and so I DO believe it. What does it matter anyway? It’s the Monkees. It’s Mickey fucking Dolenz! Are you bullshitting me? DOLENZ???

Ah, but my story is much like yours, and I long to tell it to you. Relax, have a seat. Toke a bowl if you need to. Every single word is true.

This happened smack dab in the middle of 1968, as both the Beatles AND the Monkees had huge records on the chart. They were riding high on a wave of popularity and adulation the likes of which have not been seen in over 2,000 years.

I knew this girl and she knew this guy who knew another guy who was dealing dope to the second guy, whose girlfriend knew the girl I knew and said she would pass on some crucial information to the third link in the chain.

Anyway, she was able to procure two good seats at a Monkees show in Philadelphia. Even better…she had backstage passes! You talk about hanging with Mickey D, that’s nothing next to meeting all four of them and shaking Mike Nesmith’s hand. That’s a-what I was-a
gonna do.


Lady Luck must have been stalking me that day, because right there at the show, not 15 feet away from me, were THE BEATLES! Not just one or two…all four!!! And then I saw a mind boggling exchange of words between Peter Tork and Paul McCartney. Never, in my wildest dreams could I have imagined John Lennon sharing song ideas with Davy Jones. Yet there it was, right in front of my very eyes.

I heard it all. I swear I have every word of it committed to memory…

PAUL: So what you’re sayin’ is that the a song like “Blackbird” would sound better with just me and the acoustic guitar, sort of folky, right? You didn’t like the polka band I brought in for the final mix? Or the death metal rendition that Linda likes so much? You gotta be crazy. That stuff costs a lot of money.

PETER: Settle down, mate. Don’t lose your nut just yet, eh, Old Salt? Take my word for it. There’s too much of that thrasher metal out there. The polka idea is cool, just not for this song. Chill it and kill it, Pauly.

PAUL: Okay, Tork, I’m takin’ your word for it. DO NOT let me down.

PETER: Have I ever let you down, Big Macca? Don’t you remember me giving you the idea for the “Sgt. Pepper” concept? Have you forgotten my contributions to the story line of “Help”? You even stole a few from me. None of the good ones, though. Thank God.

PAUL: I’ll do it. By God I am throwing caution to the wind and we are by god gonna do this your way, because it seems to be a good way and because I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ll lay down some tracks along those lines here in a few days. It’ll kill.

PETER: Of course it will. Now quit worrying and slip me a sack of that stuff I smell.

PAUL: You got it.

I was afraid to approach any of them after that. Lennon, especially, as I overheard him asking George Martin to make sure Yoko had all access to the studio while the group recorded. Paul would be furious.

But shit happens, you know? You hear it all the time…shit fucking happens. I hear it and I suppose people think they’re real clever in saying it. I hate that it is a cold, hard fact of life that rings out as true as a parable from Jesus’ lips…SHIT HAPPENS. So it does.

Long and short of it, that is my true story of how the Monkees, not the Beatles, hold the coveted title of “My Favorite Band”.

But what’s that got to do with you, you ask? It’s just to show how my experience with the Monkees and the Beatles trumps your lousy ass night with Mickey Fucking Dolenz. Shit.

It doesn’t matter, though. You know it and I know it, so let’s not pretend while we are alone. What would be the point? None of those things we thought would follow us to the grave…all the tastes, all the tendencies, all the tolerances and all the biases---none of them survive even an age. They all drop away, one by one, the strongest hanging on by a frayed thread.

And she will roll on as sure as the werewolf only comes out on a full moon.

It kills time, though, doesn’t it? Makes the minutes fly by faster. If I only had a package of sunflower seeds and a spit cup I would be in some bona fide business. Crack-spit-crack-spit-crack-spit. That will wile away the hours as sure as Elton John wears a lot of different pairs of eye glasses.

So while I lie here in this vat full of some kind of nuclear engineered ooze, while my mind still hovers just outside of my body, I need to tell you some things. I know, I’ve told you a lot of things. Some things I have never shared with any living soul. You were always there for me. So these things I want you to know. These things I need you to know. These things I wish I did not know.

Like the night when I stole all of my uncle’s Playboy magazines while visiting him on vacation. The folks wanted to stay there for a few days but as soon as I packed those Playboys in my suitcase I pestered mom and dad until they relented, succumbed to my demands: Put me on a Greyhound bus to ride, all the way home to wait for them to return in a couple of days.

I spent the entirety of those days holed up in my bedroom performing what was to become a ritual:

1. Peruse the pictorials first, before anything else. Of course.

2. Go back through the magazine in it’s entirety, noting the article’s names, the subjects, all that kind of thing.

3. Go back through the entire magazine yet again and read all the cartoons. If I’ve got a little time and I'm in the mood I'll take in the party jokes on the flipside of the centerfold.

4. Get aroused by accidentally catching a glimpse of a buxom gal’s nipple on the top page of the centerfold.

5. Repeat step #1.

6. Swallow my pride, retire to the bathroom to “read the articles”.

There had to be at least 10-15 Playboys in that stack of booty.

I was set. Might as well have hung a Do Not Disturb sign on my door. The phone was off the hook. Maybe that was the problem…

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