Me and the Rolling Stones

I remember how fast we had to create this poster.  Posters weren’t the business they are now.  We would go to a venue and there would be only one guy that was selling his own Stones posters.  I would contact him and try and do a deal for the posters on the spot..

The video should be self explanatory and since a picture is worth a thousand words this is worth?

Poeple are interesting. Throughout the tour, I would be grabbed by Stone’s fans and asked for my autograph.  I, in the very straight looking suit (okay the side burns are scary but at that time they were like today’s tatoo’s…not that unusual to see on a person).  I would say that I wasn’t an artist but they would still demand my signature while blocking my way, as I was ‘with the band’.  I mention this now because the term Stone’s fans garnered me entree into some very interesting situations.  These run from the gamut of being at a table with the major of West Hollywood, the daughter of Xi Jinping, the person that controls the news and TV satellites in China, at party honoring the Governor of the state of Shanghai.  It was tradition for the host’s wife to cook the food for all the people.  There were over 60 people in the Chinese delegation and the wife and I, and  the major as the only none Chinese speaking people.  She barbecued lobster and steak.  Prior to the party my host took me aside and told me of another tradition. Get the American drunk, so he makes a fool of himself tradition.  She knew that at that time I was under doctor’s erroneous orders not to touch a drink of alcohol.  She said that she would bring a Scotch bottle over that would be filled with iced tea and that every time people looked over to me and raised their glasses to toast, I should drink the tea. I was also told that every time a glass was lifted to me I was to lift mine to the Governor.  The Governor would have to drink and that was good, as the other tradition was that as soon as the boss gets drunk everyone can party.  Now for why I was there.. Different people were being introduced to the party and when they came to me, I heard a lot of non understandable, for me, Chinese and the only words I understood were, “Rolling Stones”.  Who said you need money?

From that example I will, later, go into some other fans in the same ilk except they were in the Mafia or else they were drug dealers….  That led to many scary adventures..It ‘s the adventures I got from using those words..Rolling Stones more so than Beatles..and I had some adventures there as well..

Later

PS.. when leaving the Chinese party we passed one of the entourage being held up, literally, held up as he was fall down drunk.  The embarrassing, fall down drunk people are taken outside the party and leaned against buses to sober up and not embarrass further.

It wasn’t until we were at the airport getting ready to fly to Canada from NYC for the show in Montreal, that Keith said, “Ronnie, I don’t seem to have my passport”!.  It was too late to get the passport from Keith’s room so we had to use what we referred to as razzmatazz.   We were traveling in a group, I went to the gate attendant and flashed all the passports and tickets and started talking..( I told Keith to merge into the group and hide behind people..) leaving NY was easy, coming back was going be a different story?  I did the group clearance and the Keith disappear at immigration to get into Canada..and on the return –I still have the vision of Keith sliding behind this ‘large’ person as the ‘group’ passed thru immigration in NY.  Based on today’s security…No Way!  That probably goes double for the time we brought the Winchester rifle’s to the Pheonix Airport. See rifles below…

Now as to Stanley Booth. I never trusted writers as they have their own agenda, just read the 1969  Let It Bleed edition of Rolling Stone, realizing that I never spoke with anyone there and yet they had a couple of pages of quotes from me that weren’t from me.  I thought that Stanley would see, know and report what really went on and understand where I was coming from.  When his book finally came out, I was upset, stunned, and discouraged.  I have my copy with about 1/3 of it marked with paperclips denoting the pages where he got it wrong.  It came out that he was hiding that he was working on a book deal and it seems that he transferred his guilt and paranoia to me. His final disclaimer left any recourse, mute.. that disclaimer was something like–if I got it wrong or made any mistakes, I’m sorry but it was the drugs.. So he got a lot of it wrong and I have to assume it was the drugs and the fact that he didn’t do the book until 1984.

Update…I was just given The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones and after reading the first few pages I note more how his paranoia fueled by his doing deals on the side and keeping them from me, gave him a distorted view of me..(he thought I was in a side ‘on the quiet deal’ with Klein-seems more like his dealings with publishers)… ah well, I also noted that he says that Charlie and Jo wondered why he didn’t get on with me… after all, I am very lovable..You can’t please everyone…

At the Hog Farm with the Grateful Dead…( I have to confess, I never did Acid *(LSD) which was a challenge and will deprecate me in some hippie’s eyes. )  While having to work out of their office I made sure to never touch or drink anything! I saw suits think they were being safe by going over to the 5 gallon water cooler dispenser and take a dixie cup and pour out some water and think, since it’s bottled water I’m okay..not realizing the cups were dosed..

I and a lot of other people have thought that 1969 was a special year…Woodstock , flower power in full strength;  Altamont,  supposedly marking the end of flower power;  Man walking on the Moon;  Nixon becomes President; FCC bans cigarette ads on TV; First in vitro fertilization; the start of the internet and now I just found this..

View from top of de-watered Niagara Falls

A view from the top of the de-watered Niagara Falls in 1969 in New York. Unearthed after 41 years by American Russ Glasson, they were taken by his mother and father in law and show when the famous waterfall was turned off for almost six months. For six months in the summer and autumn of 1969, Niagara’s American Falls were “de-watered”, when the Army Corps of Engineers conducted a survey of the falls’ rock face, concerned that it was becoming destabilized by erosion. During that period, while workers cleaned the former river-bottom and drilled test-cores in search of instabilities, a temporary walkway was installed twenty feet from the edge of the dry falls, and tourists were able to explore this otherwise inaccessible landscape.

All I can say is –As sung by Crosby, Stills and Nash in their song, For What Its Worth—”There’s something happening here, What it is ain’t exactly clear”