WEBVTT - Cidny Bullens 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.760 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:17.279 My guest today is Sydney Bullet. Sid tell me about 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.000 seeing the Stones in nineteen sixty six. 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:25.760 Oh, he starts right in, all right, Yeah, I was young. 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:29.960 I was about fifteen, and my brother dropped me off. 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:31.960 He was supposed to go with me, of course, and 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:36.239 my older brother and said, nah, you go, and I'm 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:42.400 going to go see my friends. And I, like all 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:46.920 other teenagers back in the day in the mid sixties, 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:52.600 was totally enchanted by the Stones. I was taken over 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:57.360 by their music, their energy, their grit, you know, the 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:05.080 whole pack just to me, spoke to me, and I 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:08.399 really and and I had this thing where I I 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.120 like to call it the hips and lips. I had 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.319 the lips, and I had the the moves, and I 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.280 just wanted to be Mick Jagger. And so when I 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:23.000 they were coming to Lynn, Massachusetts, which was on their 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:27.640 first ever tour of the US. I think I may 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:32.240 be wrong about that, but I think it was. And 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:34.640 H and I went and I wandered around in the crowd. 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.640 It was all kids. There were very few adults. It 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:43.360 was on this muddy field outside and Lynn Massachusetts, and uh, 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.280 the story which I described in the book in my memoir, 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.639 I did work my way up front, and a kind 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:59.360 police officer let me into that forbidden zone between the 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:05.160 wooden horses, remember those bob the wood absolutely back then 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:10.000 that that provided whatever security was going to be, like 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:13.760 they were going to hold anything back, and the stage 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.360 between the sawhorses and the stage. So I was right there, 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:22.560 feet away from Mick Jagger watching him. And as the 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:28.680 story goes, there was a terrific thunderstorm and it started 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:33.040 raining really hard, and for some reason in my in 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:38.760 my imagination or in my view, the electricity just you know, 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.120 infused the crowd, and the crowd and the stones were 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.120 infusing the crowd, and suddenly there was this burst of 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:51.280 eight thousand kids toward the stage, toward me, and uh, 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.800 I got caught up in it, and the stones ran 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.359 off the stage. Uh. You know, the limos were parked 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.040 right to the side of the stage. Back in those days. 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:05.000 We didn't have all the security, as I said, And 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.400 I got swept up into the crowd and there was 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.720 tear gas and it was pouring rain with lightning, and 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:17.359 it was a movie scene. And I got pushed up 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:24.640 into the limbo right there with Mick Jagger's face looking 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.280 at me. It was just wild. It was great. I 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:34.400 loved it. That was to me. It was all I 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.400 needed to know that this was what I wanted to do. 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:39.640 It was rock and roll. It was the mud, it 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.480 was the grit, it was the music, It was the fans, 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:47.000 it was the the electricity of it. Loved it. 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.640 So did you grow up? Was there music in the house? 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:51.840 Did you play an instrument? 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.400 I did. I started playing guitar when I was about ten. 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:01.280 My brother already, who's five years older, already he was 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.200 playing guitar. By that time. He was doing you know, 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:08.160 folk music and stuff, which I wasn't really into, but 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:10.960 of course I did. My first song I learned was 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.800 a Bob Dylan song like the Times They Are Changing? 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.760 Or where have all the Flowers Gone? Or something like that. 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:22.679 But and my parents were not musicians, but they loved jazz. 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:27.279 So we had everything from Benny Goodman to Miles Davis 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:34.920 to Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson. They loved jazz for which 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:37.960 I'm really grateful because even though I don't play jazz, 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:46.160 it was a wonderful education on you know music. And 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:50.000 they weren't classical people they didn't like I mean, my 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.000 parents were middle class from Boston, you know, they didn't 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:58.159 listen to classical music. However, I will put this caveat on. 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.840 My mother made all five kids sit down and watch 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:03.159 Leonard Bernstein. 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:04.719 Of course, so. 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:10.760 Every whatever it was, Saturday morning, Sunday morning, whenever it 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.680 was on, I don't remember, but she used to make 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:15.919 us sit down and watch it. So that was like 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:20.880 her concession to Okay, I'm going to broaden my kid's, 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:25.320 you know, views on music. So there was music in 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:27.360 the house all the time. And every time my parents 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:31.640 had a party, somebody one of their friends played piano, 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.359 and there was always there was always music in the house. 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:36.080 So even though they didn't play. 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:40.840 Okay, I'm your contemporary just a few years older than 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:45.080 I am, and Elvis was before my time. I remember 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.120 the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys, but the Beatles 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.320 hit in January sixty four. The Way's Party. It was 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:53.839 never the same, was that your experience? 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:59.200 Absolutely? Absolutely, The Beatles came on before the Stones. They 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:01.640 kind of people think about it at the same time. 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:07.840 But the Beatles, it really they really did, as they say, 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:13.039 sweep the nation you know, I mean they came. Everybody's 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.480 who's into you know, the music of the sixties has 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.640 seen the pictures of them coming down the from the 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.599 plane and in at Kennedy Airport where whatever it was 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.839 at the time in New York, waving to you know, 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.440 throngs of fans and all the girls crying and everything. 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:37.280 And yeah, they were a phenomenon and they did change 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:43.200 forever and ever the landscape of music and pop music 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:48.440 and maybe other music. And yeah, I was swept up 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.640 into it as much as anybody else. I wasn't one 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:58.000 of those girls screaming and crying and doing all that, 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.039 and you know that gets into the other part of 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:05.600 my story. But I loved the music and what I 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:10.000 loved about the Beatles. So there's two things, the Stones 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.360 and the Beatles. What I loved about the Stones, I said, 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:16.800 you know, the grit, the rock, the beat the influence 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.960 of the blues and so on, R and B. What 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:25.080 I loved about the Beatles was the melody and the harmonies. 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:31.640 Because I was born, I believe with a sense of harmony. 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.360 You know, I love to harmonize. Even when I was 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:38.800 a little kid, somebody would be singing on the radio 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.680 or whatever, or in our house, and I would start harmonizing, 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.400 and my sisters and brother and I we would sing 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:51.760 and I would be the harmony, and and so it 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:56.040 to me. They were the melody, they were the music, 0:07:56.080 --> 0:08:02.840 and the Stones were the beat the grit. And I 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.600 loved them. I loved them both for those different reasons. 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.800 You were infected by the sound. At what point did 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.240 the switch flip and you said, I want to do this. 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:19.760 The switch flip before the Beatles and the Stones. And 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.800 it was when I heard when I was, you know, 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:29.720 in single digit numbers of age, when I heard Little Richard. 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:32.840 When I heard because I had an older brother and 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.320 a sister who was eight years older, and they listened. 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:39.439 They were into the music of the day of the fifties. 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:45.160 And when I heard Little Richard's two Dy Fruity, and 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:50.280 I was about four or five six, I said, that's 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:54.760 what I want to do. And it just I just 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.880 got You used the word swept before I got swept 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.000 into that rhythm, into that and I keep using the 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:06.600 word grit because that's what I felt. It was this energy, 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:12.920 of this kinetic energy, which of course became you know, 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.960 the anathematic people who didn't want who thought rock and 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.920 roll was the devil's music. Well that's what back in 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:23.760 the day, right, That's what infused me. So I had 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.400 already decided on some level that I was going to 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:30.160 be in music. I mean I used to imitate I 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.280 was six years old, imitating Elvis Presley and for my 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:36.640 parents at their parties, you know, and lip syncing. And 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:41.679 you know, I started playing piano. I'm not a piano 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:47.360 great piano player. I'm a still in novice fifty sixty 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:50.760 years later, but I did start making up my own 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:54.880 songs and the piano I started, you know, air guitar 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:59.200 playing before I even started playing. And so I was 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:01.600 infused with the music at an early age. But the 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.760 Beatles and the Stones when I was a teenager or 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:06.920 what put me over the edge. And I mean I 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:10.000 started writing songs even when I was about twelve or thirteen, 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.360 but they were more of the folky kind of things 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.920 until the Beatles and the Stones came along. So they 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.120 are what put me on the track of real rock 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:21.560 and roll. 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:23.920 Okay, when you were in high school, did you sing 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:24.560 in bands? 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:33.080 I did, but yes I did. I tried to put 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.320 together my own bands and I did sing in some 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:43.199 other bands I was. I played my guitar a lot solo. 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:47.400 I used to go to this. If anybody's from Massachusetts, 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:52.200 who's north shore of Massachusetts, who's listening. There was a 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:59.000 club in Ipswich, Massachusetts, called the King's Rook, and everybody 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.720 came there. I mean all the old blues guys, you know, 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:07.760 John Lee Hooker, you know Sunny Terry and Brownie McGhee, 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:13.920 you know, all the people who played at like Club 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.600 forty seven in Boston would come up to the King's 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:22.480 Rook and play there as well. And I used to 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:26.640 go there and do the the hout Nanny night and 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:29.760 you know Monday nights. You know, I'd play my guitar 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:32.480 and I did that kind of thing. So, yeah, I 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:33.840 played in high school. 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.560 Okay, while you're in high school, you run away to 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:39.600 New York. Tell us that Steward. 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:46.160 Yeah, I'd had it with my I was fifteen. It 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:52.560 was January of nineteen sixty six, and I had had 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:57.520 it with my home life, with school. My parents had 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:02.840 moved from one town and northern northeastern Massachusetts to another. 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.080 I was not happy. It was the middle of my 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:10.920 sophomore year. I was leaving my friends in my community 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.880 that I had grown up in in West Newbury, Massachusetts, 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:19.000 and I was not a happy camper. I had, you know, 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.240 I had started smoking weed, you know, and doing all 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.360 the things that we did back then in the mid sixties, 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:35.160 and my home life was chaotic at best, and I 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:38.840 just said, I'm out of here. And my thought at 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:43.640 fifteen years old, because I had this fantasy about Greenwich Village. 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.520 Greenwich Village was the place to be, you know, it 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:51.200 had all those folk clubs that were now they had 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:55.960 some other stuff going on with the music and with 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.600 rock and all that, and I just said, that's where 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.960 I'm going. So a friend who said I'll go with you, 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:06.920 who was a year older and had twenty dollars which 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:12.080 I didn't have, so and so I ran away. One night, 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.400 I told my mother I was going to the library 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.240 with Jane, my friend, and I walked up to her 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:25.200 house from my house and then we walked onto Route one, 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:30.040 which we both lived near, and caught walked down to 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:35.560 the gas station wherever the bus from where Greyhound came 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.560 from north to south, and took a bus into Boston 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:40.880 and then switched and took a bus and arrived in 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:43.880 New York City at about two thirty in the morning 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:51.560 into a port authority and there we were fifteen and 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.800 sixteen year old girls, even though nobody knew whether I 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.079 was a boy or a girl, because that's the way 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:03.280 I liked it. And you know, not knowing a thing, 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.560 never having been in New York, not knowing what to 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:12.200 do or where to go or anything. And a very 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:18.360 after a couple of attempts of guys trying to pick 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:25.840 us up, this very attractive, tall black man approached just 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:27.840 and said, do you need a place to go? And 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.600 I looked him in the eye and I knew that 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:38.280 he was safe. And he grabbed Jane's bag, which was 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:43.120 very heavy, and my I only had a backpack, and 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:49.240 he walked us side of the Port Authority down eighth 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:55.800 Avenue or whatever it was, and into a YMCA on 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.840 the thirty fourth Street YMCA, and that's where we stayed 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.000 for the first night. And then we found a hotel, 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.000 a flea bag I like to say, a flea bag 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:10.920 hotel in Washington Square and for two fifty a night, 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:17.880 two dollars and fifty cents a night, and you know, 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.040 it was a flea bag hotel, and now, of course 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:27.600 it's still there, it's just not a flea bag hotel anymore. 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:37.040 And we were there for a while, about a week 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.400 or so, and then I started getting hints that my 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.160 mother was looking for me. I had a friend who 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.080 was at Ris, not Rizstie, that was in Rhode Island, 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:51.760 Pratt in Brooklyn, Pratt Art School, the art school, an 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:56.560 older friend from high school, and my mother had contacted her. 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:00.760 This little bit is not in my book, but it is. 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.880 Just to stop for a minute. Yeah, Sid has a 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:08.240 book called trans Electric My Life is a Cosmic rock Star. 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:12.120 It's a fascinating quick read that will hook you and 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.160 two days you'll be done. You'll hear all of these 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.600 stories in many Moore, although I'm sure we'll cover some 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.840 stuff that's not in the book like this, So continue 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:22.520 your tale. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:30.800 Yeah so, and thanks for the promotion. Yeah. So, I 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:33.560 had this friend who went to Pratt and my mother 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:38.960 had contacted her, and of course my mother had the 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.520 police with her. They had the FBI out looking, you know, 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.120 and they had a fifty state alert out for me, 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:53.000 and my friend was finally because she refused to tell 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.760 them at first, and finally, of course, you know, she 0:16:56.240 --> 0:17:01.160 was just a freshman in college, and you know, they 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:07.240 coerced her into saying where I was. So a few 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:13.320 days later there was a big knock at our door, 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:22.520 our hotel door, and then they busted in. We hid. 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.520 It makes me laugh now, you know. One of us 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.520 went under the bed, one went in the closet. You know, 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:34.480 there was no place to hide. It's a hotel room. 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.240 Where are you going to hide, you know, And and 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.359 a small one at that. And they came in and 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:45.399 dragged us out. They told us, and know un certain 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:47.720 we had befriended. Let me back up a little bit. 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.840 We had befriended a couple of drug addicts who were 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:58.600 in the hotel, and they were nice guys older than us, 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:05.439 and they had entered one of the guy's rooms and 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.240 beaten the guy up. We didn't see him, We never 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:14.040 saw him, but they told us it was it was 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:19.800 a scene again, another movie scene, and dragged us down 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.200 the stairs. And there was my mother and my aunt, 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:25.959 her sister who lived in New Jersey, who was the 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:32.640 socialite that I talk about in the book. And I 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.600 was not happy. I did not want to go home, 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.960 in fact, because I knew that my mother was looking 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.359 for me, and the police were out looking for me. 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.040 I had decided that I was I don't even know 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:48.920 why I was. One of the guys who we were 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:53.680 talking to in the hotel had a friend in Philadelphia 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.080 or something. I don't quite remember, but we were going 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:58.320 to be on our way to Philadelphia the next day 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:00.840 because I knew my mother was in town, so I 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:08.080 had no intention of ever going home again. At fifteen, 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:10.880 I did not want to go home, and in that, 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:12.919 you know, I don't What I do talk about in 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:14.960 the book, which we haven't talked about here, is that 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:19.840 I did think, before I knew my mother was in town, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:24.000 that I could get some kind of work as a 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:27.600 musician in one of these folk clubs or something. And 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.640 I went around, knocked on the doors during the day, 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.280 went in, you know, talked to the managers, you know, 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.639 trying to get some connection of how I could, you know, 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:44.200 get some work, even if it was, you know, passing 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.360 the hat, which I, by the way, did later when 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:49.959 I went back to school in New York City, I 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:56.760 did work at the folk clubs passing the hat. So 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.359 that was the runaway story. They did take me back 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:10.159 to Topsfield, Massachusetts and My mother was a force to 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:14.399 be reckoned with, with all her issues, and she convinced 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.439 the school board, who wanted nothing to do with me, 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:22.040 to not expel me. They did. They did expel my 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:26.440 friend Jane, and they didn't expel me. And I went 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:32.399 back to school unhappily. But that was the story of 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:35.000 my running away. But I did run away after that again, 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:37.040 but not it wasn't quite as dramatic. 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.760 Okay, but you do graduate and go to the American 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:50.400 Academy of Dramatic ORIGS in New York City. How does 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:50.960 that happen? 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:55.199 My mother, as I said, was a force to be 0:20:55.320 --> 0:21:00.480 reckoned with. And I did graduate from high school, not 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:06.080 with honors, but I did get out of there. And 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.240 I said, you know, I had no intention of going 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:16.560 to school after I didn't apply to any colleges. I 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:19.320 was going to be a musician. That's what I was 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:21.000 going to do. Or maybe I thought, in the back 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.520 of my mind an actor, you know, because I was 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:28.240 in plays and stuff in high school. Mostly I was 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.400 not actually that's not true. I was in some musicals 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:36.399 and stuff. But anyway, and then my mother said, no, 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.640 you've got your going to school, so pick a school. 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.840 You're going to go to and that's what's going to happen. 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.399 And I ended up going to New York to the 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.840 American Academy of Dramatic Arts. So back to New York 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:56.800 I went. And it was a great experience for me 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:00.159 actually to go to the Academy. It was taught me 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:02.760 a lot. I still have you know, a couple of 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:07.560 my best friends in my roommate from those days is 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:14.720 still my closest friend. And it was a great experience. 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:16.800 I actually learned a lot. I got rid of my 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.680 Boston accent, which I can bring back in any time 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.280 if you want to hear it. In fact, whenever I 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.800 get within one hundred miles of Massachusetts or you know, 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:30.679 New England, it comes back automatically. But you know, I 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.800 learned some great life lessons there. I had a great time. 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:38.120 I started doing more drugs and drinking a little bit, 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:43.440 but which I talk about in the book later what happened. 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:49.359 But my mother was right, you know, I needed that time. 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.359 I needed that experience to be in a I'm going 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:56.760 to say in a controlled environment, although I'll say not 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:58.840 controlled structured environment. 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:01.560 So did you actually go to school? 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:06.280 Two years I graduated the American Academy at Dramatic Arts. 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:09.400 Okay, and since it is an acting school, to what 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:11.719 degree did you try to be an actor? 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:14.399 Yeah? I tried. I stayed in New York for another 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:20.320 year trying to get roles. But because I didn't look 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:26.399 like a normal girl back then, I did grow my 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:30.439 hair the last year of the Academy just so I could, like, 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:34.120 because I always had short hair, so I could look 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:37.320 more like a girl and try to get some parts. 0:23:37.359 --> 0:23:46.160 But I just didn't have that ingenu look I They 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.600 just I couldn't get work. I mean, I did get 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:56.680 called back for some you know, for not Jesus Christ Superstar, 0:23:57.520 --> 0:23:59.640 I've forgotten the name of it now, but I got 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:02.720 called for some things that were musicals because I did 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:08.600 sing and play guitar and so on, and I did finally, 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:14.200 after many, many, many rejections, and I hated auditioning, by 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:19.920 the way, but after many rejections, I got cast in 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:29.240 a Broadway show because I played guitar quote like a guy, 0:24:30.080 --> 0:24:35.320 Oh ask me. And I get cast in the band 0:24:35.680 --> 0:24:41.239 of the musical Lisistrata, which is a Greek play with 0:24:41.359 --> 0:24:44.160 Molina mccurree. For those of you of a certain age, 0:24:44.200 --> 0:24:50.640 She was the lead in a movie called Never on Sunday, 0:24:50.760 --> 0:24:54.399 and she was a big Greek star and it was 0:24:54.440 --> 0:24:58.840 directed by Michael Kachianus, who was a great Greek director 0:24:59.240 --> 0:25:03.800 and both of whom had made their way into American movies, 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:09.119 and so it was a big deal. I was. So 0:25:09.200 --> 0:25:11.080 I was put in the band, but then they gave 0:25:11.119 --> 0:25:14.080 me three lines because they liked me. I was the 0:25:14.119 --> 0:25:17.600 youngest member of the cast. There was all these big 0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:25.359 Broadway show stars in the cast, you know, and so 0:25:25.600 --> 0:25:28.800 I did that. It flopped, so it wasn't a big thing, 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:31.520 but but I made money. I made some money. I 0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:35.280 you know, was living in Greenwich Village in a you know, 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:39.959 apartment with three other people, and so I got that. 0:25:40.160 --> 0:25:46.119 But then I decided that acting really wasn't what I 0:25:46.160 --> 0:25:48.520 wanted to do. But I'd keep it in my back 0:25:48.560 --> 0:25:51.600 pocket and I'd go to LA and I'd see if 0:25:51.600 --> 0:25:54.240 I could find some work there, either as an actor 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:57.760 or a musician. And that's when my career started. When 0:25:57.760 --> 0:25:58.480 I went to La. 0:25:59.080 --> 0:26:03.440 Okay, you go to LA and you stay with Diane Bennett. 0:26:04.640 --> 0:26:10.400 No. I stayed with a woman named Helen Gorman, who 0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:14.760 was a friend of Diane ben Right Helen Gorman, that's 0:26:14.800 --> 0:26:17.760 her maiden name. And she was a friend of a 0:26:17.800 --> 0:26:20.160 friend of a somebody I had met in New York 0:26:20.160 --> 0:26:23.960 who was a producer for ABC Television, who I met 0:26:24.080 --> 0:26:27.040 on a bus. You know, you know, it was just 0:26:27.080 --> 0:26:31.400 one of those random things. My life, as you will 0:26:31.440 --> 0:26:35.160 read in the book those of you choose to read it, 0:26:35.200 --> 0:26:38.440 is a series of coincidences of who I meet and 0:26:38.520 --> 0:26:40.680 how it leads me to one thing and the other, 0:26:40.760 --> 0:26:44.600 which is why the title the Cosmic rock Star applies, 0:26:44.720 --> 0:26:48.199 cosmic being the operative word, meaning you know, I'm not 0:26:48.400 --> 0:26:53.560 a rock star on earth, but my life was lived 0:26:53.720 --> 0:27:01.280 like one. And anyway, so Helen Gorman, this guy who 0:27:01.359 --> 0:27:04.840 I had randomly met in New York City, and we 0:27:04.960 --> 0:27:11.160 became acquaintances, and he liked me, you know, and and 0:27:11.280 --> 0:27:14.720 he called his friend of a friend who called another 0:27:14.760 --> 0:27:17.479 friend who happened to be Helen Gorman. And Helen Gorman 0:27:17.560 --> 0:27:21.600 turned out to be the the producer of the Johnny 0:27:21.680 --> 0:27:25.240 of the Jay Leno Show. And you know, she went 0:27:25.280 --> 0:27:27.840 on to do great things. But at the time she 0:27:28.000 --> 0:27:31.479 was writing for The Hollywood Reporter, which still is in 0:27:31.560 --> 0:27:38.440 existence today. Weekly rag out for the for the show 0:27:38.480 --> 0:27:43.959 business and she was friends with Diane Bennett, who also 0:27:44.040 --> 0:27:48.000 wrote for The Hollywood Reporter. So Helen Gorman let me 0:27:48.160 --> 0:27:55.040 sleep on her couch and for a long time actually, 0:27:55.160 --> 0:28:01.879 until she kicked me out. And you know the stories 0:28:02.359 --> 0:28:05.199 Bob go, you know, they weave into each other. So 0:28:05.520 --> 0:28:08.520 you know, I can stop, I can go, I can, 0:28:10.000 --> 0:28:14.159 you know, well tell us about meeting Bob Crue. Yeah. So, 0:28:14.160 --> 0:28:22.240 so the Diane Bennett reference is because one day I 0:28:22.440 --> 0:28:26.040 got a job in a gas station on little Santa 0:28:26.080 --> 0:28:29.280 Monica Boulevard, which is no longer there. The gas station 0:28:29.760 --> 0:28:33.080