Shall I talk about pussy, or guitars?

Alright, alright, you weirdos...I'll talk about guitars (then pussy).

In '71 I joined a kick-ass band---the first-ever punk rock band in the world...WAAAAAY ahead of the Sex Pistols---called Third World War. This was in London. Terry Stamp was on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, John Knightsbridge was on lead, Jim Avery from Thunderclap Newman was on bass, John Hawken from The Nashville Teens and the Strawbs and a whole bunch of other bands was on piano, and yours truly was on the tubs.

One Saturday night we played a gig at a venue called the Club Noreik at the top of Seven Sister's Road in northeast London. I lived in severe southwest London. Greater London is a big city. BIG CITY. At the end of the gig we packed up and loaded up...we had two Ford Trannie vans, and at the last minute I don't know what made me do it, but I dashed out to double check we had got everything. Sure enough, tucked away in the corner of the dressing room was Knightsy's SG Special and case....I grabbed it and dashed back out of the empty club only to see both vans pulling away in the rain. It was 1 am. 10 demerits, Knightsy! As it turned out, the guys in the one van thought I was in the other, and vice versa (that better be fucking it, or there will still be hell to pay when I next catch up with the bastards...and they are all [except for Jim] here in the States, now).

So there I am, standing in the freezing bloody rain at 1 am with Knightsy's fucking SG, in the OPPOSITE end of London from where I lived. Maybe 16 miles away. No taxis, no nothing. Back in those days, London shut down completely at 11 at night. The streets were empty. And wet. And cold. Good thing I was a former Marine. I now faced a challenging logistical problem: I had to pick the shortest route home through London's winding streets. This would test my knowledge of this fascinating city, and also my sense of direction. So, I started off and tried to draw the straightest line in my mind from where I was to where I had to go. I did pretty well, but that damned guitar got heavier by the hour. I dragged myself into our flat at 5:30 am, while my very concerned girlfriend, Lesley, was so relieved to see me. She had called the manager and they went looking for me, but of course it was like finding a needle in a haystack. The streets of London are a maze.

So that is the story of Knightsy's guitar. He got hold of me several months ago...he is now living in Indianapolis and selling car insurance! But he had made a living playing the blues in London up until a few years ago when the gigs finally all dried up, moneywise. I asked him if he still had that guitar, because if he didn't, I would fly out to Indianapolis and flog him to within an inch of his life! He assured me he still had it...I think he was telling the truth.

What's really strange is that Terry Stamp disappeared after the band broke up...the stories were that he went to America and became a truck driver. I then moved back to America in late '75 and lived in LA until 1991. Then back to the UK, then back to LA in 2000. In 2001 I get an email from Terry...he had been living in LA since 1975!!!!!!!! So, we got together and played and had a few beers...and there is a following for us in Europe apparently, but there is no way we can raise the bread to put the band back together and go to Europe and play, as much as we would love to do it. Hawken is in New Jersey. Avery is in Epsom, England, near where I lived my last ten years over there.

Have you seen "Scent of a Woman" with Al Pacino? Remember the scene in the airplane where he says to the college kid who is 'looking after him,' in response to his question, "I guess you really like women, don't you?" and Pacino answers, "Above all things....a very distant second is a Ferrari." And then he goes on to say, "The only two syllables in this whole wide world worth hearing: 'Pussy.'" I second THAT!

I was talking about my stable of favorite cars if I had all the money in the world in the last blog...I forgot one: I really love the VW Turbo bug convertibles....such neat looking cars! Pure design, and lovingly retro and true to Ferdie's original concept. Hitler still lives! The "people's car" (Volks=people----wagen=carriage) was Hitler's idea, you know! He commissioned Ferdinand Porsche to design it...and Hitler also built the first freeway in the world. OK, he did a lot of terrible things, but some of his legacy is with us today and we enthusiastically embrace it. Just keeping things in perspective.

I love Germany, and have some very good friends there, but I have always been fascinated with Hitler as an historical figure....how he rose to such power and could bend powerful people to his will---an itinerant corporal, for Pete's sake. And you know, he put down his whole, twisted philosophy in Mein Kampf...it's all there, and no one paid a blind bit of attention to it until it was too late. Churchill saw it coming in 1936, but no one in Parliament paid a blind bit of attention to him until IT was too late!

One of my friends is the famous, and very eccentric---utterly eccentric in the classic English sense---Lord Bath....Alex Weymouth, who I met through Lesley (see the bio section of my website), whose good friend Tania was anti-married to Alex at one point (too long to describe). Alex's dad was a mate of Churchill's, and during WWII, Churchill, when he wanted a break from the war, would spend the odd weekend at Longleat, Alex's stately home, with Alex's dad. Longleat has the most complete private library in all of England, and is justly quite famous and has been for centuries. Well...at the end of the war, the Americans captured the Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden (Hitler's retreat in the German Alps on the Austrian border) and found 21 of Hitler's drawings there (Hitler made a bare living in Vienna selling his drawings after the first world war). No one knew what to do with them, and some officer suggested getting them to Winston. Winston got them, realized their historic significance, but didn't want anything to do with them, so he gave them to Alex's father for the library...and they are still in one of the FIVE private libraries in Longleat!

Alex has had the Grateful Dead play at his house (and since Jerry Garcia played guitar.....see how neatly I weave guitars into my ramblings?) and all sorts of films have been made there and other events hosted there...it's a real happening place, and Alex is really something else. There is no one like Alex. I was staying there with Lesley one weekend in 1970, and was getting lost in this huge place which had bookshelves lining all the incidental hallways. Alex had books that were 3 feet tall by two feet wide and weighed a ton...all natural history stuff from the 18th and 19th centuries, filled with drawings of bugs and plants and flowers and Egyptian and Greek monuments the English had discovered overseas, ALL hand water-colored! These books tucked away in a distant hallway were PRICELESS! And then I found a FIRST EDITION of Noah Webster's dictionary...two volumes, with a signed inscription from Webster saying," Please accept this humble work for your great library," as almost all of the books did. I dashed into Alex's enormous living room and enthused about my find. He only evidenced mild surprise. I think he said, "Oh....hmmm" and that was it! Well, he was surrounded with much more valuable and important works that that...but it blew me away. Rambling about that enormous house at night was a real treat...straight out of Agatha Christie. You could imagine all sorts of wonderful, scary, and terrible things. And hear them!

I said there is no one like Alex...here's the perfect example: One Christmas time in the late 70's I was in Hamley's, England's largest toy store---an institution as venerable as Harrods. I walked into the center of the store and was heading down the staircase (now gone) to the games department in the basement. In front of me in the crowds was a tall, long haired guy wearing a cape. It was Alex! I could tell immediately from the rear! I called "Alex!" and he turned around and it was him! Amazing.

Guitars? Did someone say guitars? I must have missed that. How interesting can guitars be, anyway? Exactly. Pussy is MUCH more interesting. So are Ferraris. But...guitars can GET pussy! (so can Ferraris). So maybe there's a connection there. Maybe guitars are more interesting to girls than they are to us? THERE'S a concept! OK, there has to be a stud attached to the guitar...but still....????

I love girls with big tits. One day I'm launching rockets at a huge playing field in England with my then 8 year-old son, and we stick the most powerful rocket motor you can buy in this puppy and it takes off into outer space. The Concorde roars by overhead on its approach to Heathrow and that rocket looked like it was headed for one of the four giant Olympus engine intakes. The rocket disappeared. Gulp. Were we going to bring down that beautiful bird? Then the 'chute thankfully opened about 2,000 feet up (whew!) and we followed it down, catching a high wind. I ran like crazy to see where it would land and it landed in the back garden of a house a block away. I knocked on the door, breathless, and this gorgeous Italian girl with HUGE tits answered the door and I felt like an idiot asking her if I could look in her garden 'cause we had lost our rocket (I really wanted to look in HER garden! And I got to!!!!)...well, one thing led to another over the ensuing weeks, and Mimi and I were together for my last year in England! She was a scream, and a lovely girl. I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I said she was a 40 GG. BIG, smart, and beautiful. And full of spunk (!)...no really....whenever she would drive us somewhere, if some twit got in her way or did something stupid on the road, she would lean out of her window and shout, "GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!!!!" What a doll. Funny as hell. You wouldn't want to fuck with Mimi...well, you WOULD, but you wouldn't, you know?

My son's two friends would come over---they were all 9 at the time---and they loved Mimi, who was always cooking in the kitchen and having fun teasing and chasing the boys around the house...then they would always manage to get her on the couch to read to them so they could cuddle up to her and feel her tits....the rolling eyeball all-men-are-the-same looks she would give me were hilarious! The boys loved her, of course, and couldn't get enough of her. And there was plenty of her luscious goodies for the boys AND me to go around! Ha!

England....what a lovely country, filled with lovely people. The women are fantastic and FEMININE and up for anything; the countryside is beautiful, and the pubs are simply amazing...amazing. And the beer! Well, that's five blogs right there! Real Ale is like fine wine. Beer, wine, women, and song. Or beer, wine, women, women, women, and song.

Gary Brooker owned The Parrot for awhile....a THIRTEENTH CENTURY PUB!!!!!!!! Just a ways down the pretty Surrey country lanes from Clapton's pad. Can you imagine walking into a pub that is EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS OLD!!!!???? It's mind-blowing.

Mimi and I delighted in going out of an evening in freezing winter to a nearby pub that had a wood fire going, and from the freezing parking lot to the warm, welcoming interior of the pub was such a lovely moment. But the best moment was when I would take off Mimi's coat and expose her tight, white, plunging top with her big dark headlights full on ("dark headlights full on," now there's a concept!) as she took a needless deep breath and we would watch all the patrons do a double take! She loved it just as much as I did. She would never wear something so revealing on her own, but because I loved to look at her spectacular goods, and she was with her man, she liked to dress up and show herself off. What wonderful evenings.

So why did I move to LA again??????? :) And why am I moving back to England? :)))))

If you think about it, guitars have a kind of woman's shape....why should it be "Coke bottle?" Why not "guitar shaped?" Man, look at THAT Martin!!!!!!! (OK if you like big asses, I suppose). I like big everything. Turn the guitar upside down and presto! Waga-waga!

As I write this, my lovely mother died 7 weeks ago....if you haven't read the MG interview, check her out: http://www.nannyrest.com .....I can zip along though the day, then I look at a photo of Mom I have up on the wall and I lose it completely. I can hear her voice any time I wish. Let me tell you something about kindness, thoughtfulness, and love: my dearest friends, Barry and Shelby, who live in Orlando, flew me down to spend Thanksgiving with them. I had an absolute wonderful time, and they never stopped giving. They also rented a Sebring convertible for me so I could drive down to my mother's house in Delray Beach (four hours away driving very fast down Florida's Turnpike...a Sebring will do 120, BTW) and visit with my sisters who had flown down from California for two days to sort Mom's things out. Barry and Shelby gave me the car so I could see my sisters for one night as we closed up Mom's house and got all the messy legal stuff sorted out. Now how sweet is that?

My two sisters and I went out to dinner in Delray Beach and had four place settings set and four glasses of wine poured...what a magical night it was...and Mom was there with us. We all felt it. But I couldn't have done it without the kindness of Barry and Shelby. If you buy The Book of Love, you'll read about them and how they met. Their 11 year-old son, Spencer, is the Karting champion of Florida for his class. His last race he won paid for them all to go to Italy and for Spencer to race there. I love them to bits.

Time to go.

Adios.