• Further to Keith’s,  LIFE — he goes into a lot of detail about his friendship and times with Gram.  It includes a lot of detail of their drug dalliances..  I don’t know if Keith remembers this one…We were in San Francisco at the Mark Hopkins Hotel ( I believe) and I got a call from Keith to come to his suite, immediately.  I rushed up to his room and he and Gram called out to me to come into the bedroom.  In the bedroom was a large four poster bed with these large wooden posts on each corner.  Keith stood next to one of the posts and said, “Ronnie, look!” and then he lifted his left arm up with his right arm and swung his left arm like a baseball bat, into the wooden post.  “I can’t feel a thing!”  Gram did the same and they both said they were freaked as they had no feeling in their arms.  Yet they kept saying, “Look” and kept smashing them into the post.. I got a doctor and the doctor client privilege takes over as I didn’t hear anything else about it and they both seemed fine the next day..  It is still one of the wildest things I have ever seen.

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  • General Stuff, Keith Stories 30.10.2010 Comments Off

    I am listening to Keith’s LIFE audio book and I came across his describing his relationship with Anita.  At one point he says she made him a man.  I can give a specific occasion which brings illustration to his statement.

    We were in Goteborg, Sweden at the Intercontinental. The tour promoter had gathered the local politicians and their entourage for a sit down long table dinner with all of us. We were at the far end of the table..on my left was Anita Pallenburg, Keith and then about 10 ‘others’ across from me was Bill and Charlie, it was awhile before Mick got there. A waiter appeared and Anita whispered something to him–she asked as to what was the strongest alcohol that was traditional –he appeared with a bottle of a clear liquid (probably like straight grain alcohol). Anita took a water glass and filled it from the bottle, she then took the glass and chugged it. Slammed the glass down in front of Keith, refilled it and said..”prove to me that you’re a man”..Keith chugged it as all us ‘men’ did..when Mick appeared we were getting quite drunk and he wanted to catch up so he chugged a glass.. By now things were getting noisy, Keith had put his feet up on the table, smashing the plates that were there, and once again we were talking louder …the promoter signaled me over –he said that I had to try and get them under control as it was bothering the people.. I called the boys over and we actually huddled..I said that the promoter had called me over to help get them under control and laughed that he didn’t realize how drunk I was and we just laughed about it.. Keith ended up on the floor of the restaurant making out with Anita, at this time the promoter, politicians, etc left. A waitress came over to pull Anita off of Keith and Keith accidently hit her with his arm–a photo of this was on the front page of the paper the next day..
    A waitress came over to me and said that the police had been called and I had better get them out of there. I pushed, dragged and carried us out and into the elevator to go up to our rooms..I actually carried Anita and now for something no one knew:  As I had Anita in my arms carrying her out of the restaurant, she looked up at me and said, “do me a favor, take me to your room”–she was drunk and not for a second would I ever do that to Keith, myself or the tour and now after Keith’s book it could have been a game she was playing on us as well… I came down a little later and asked the waitress what had happened.. she said the police and a paddy wagon had come but since no one was there..they left…and oh I should know that the police would now not come back on any further call… and with that I went back up to the boys, told them and they ended up back at the restaurant and played there until very early the next morning..

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  • Because of a time problem we had gotten two 6 passenger Lear Jets to fly us to Baltimore.  My first request, was based on info that I had picked up somewhere, and that was  a request for a power assisted takeoff.  It’s basically a booster pack for the jet and when they do that kind of a take off, they taxi down the run way and then launch the jet at a 90 degree angle and you shoot straight up into the sky.. It’s amazing,  if you love to be pinned back in your seat because of the ‘ g ‘ forces and heading to the heavens.

    After the take off, the two jets were flying side by side when we decided that it would be cool to race the other jet.. We told our pilot to step on it, he said that it was against the FAA rules and they couldn’t race but then he ‘stepped on it’ and we began to race each other..at least the pilots seemed to make it so as each jet leapt in front of the other back and forth as we sped across the sky.. Great fun!!

  • I don’t recall how I got this picture. It is the Paris show at the Palais des Sports and in the spotlight is my one year old son, Eric Schneider.  Looking over him is my ex, Jane, with the glasses and I believe the woman looking from the left is Rose, Mick Taylor’s ex..

  • Everybody was trying to have a business card that stood out from the usual 2″ x 3″ card–gold embossing,  ultra thin translucent paper, eye catching fonts and then John came over and said, “here’s my business card” (it’s  8″ x 11″) (sorry for the bend marks-I don’t treat stuff that well)

    So what to you think? Leave a comment and let me know!

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  • One of my fondest memories of being with John Lennon (Yoko, I hope you remember) was one day in 1969, when he was drawing what he envisioned a house should be.  He said it should be made of mirrors so it reflects the sky, trees, grass, nature.  He said it should be invisible so a plane could fly over and only see the ground, and here it is 41 years later.  I always liked and remembered shall I say, that reflection.  Yoko and he agreed that it should be round in shape, similar to an igloo.  No corners just curves. A bit different than this but the same idea.

    mirrored treehouse sweden photo exterior

    They said it couldn’t be done. When we first wrote about the almost invisible tree house to be built in Sweden by Tham & Videgard, 899 commenters thought it was computer-generated eye candy, impossible to build, and death for birds.

    But the architects built it, one of six units in a “Treehotel,” which recently opened 40 miles south of the Arctic Circle in Sweden.

    And now I just found this…. (I don’t think John was contemplating this as well)

    This one-way glass stall looks like a mirror to an outsider, but completely transparent to an insider, leading to a nerve-wracking bathroom experience.

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  • While in a discussion about John and the bed in-I found this on wikipedia…:
    During the Vietnam War, in 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held two week-long Bed-Ins for Peace in Amsterdam and Montreal, which were their non-violent ways of protesting wars and promoting peace.
    Montreal Bed-in
    Their second Bed-In was planned to take place in New York, but John was not allowed into the country because of his 1968 cannabis conviction. Instead they held the event in the Bahamas at the Sheraton Oceanus Hotel, flying there on May 24, 1969, but after spending one night in the heat, they decided to move to Montreal. Setting the record straight: I couldn’t go with them to the Bahamas and sent a friend of mine from Miami to go with them. I thought all was going well until I contacted my friend who came back the next day from the Bahamas. He said that John and Yoko had set up a bed at the foot of the stairs in the room but didn’t like the looks they were getting from the staff at the hotel. Based on the weird vibe they felt..they left for Canada…
    Had nothing to do with the heat..they had air conditioning..

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  • I was just recently going through my files (there will be more examples coming..) and I found the following article which further confirms my side of the story as to why we had Melvin Belli.

    I/we were hiring Mel Belli to represent us in a lawsuit against Filmways, and Richard St. John for screwing us out of our original location and causing undue hardship etc, etc…  Mel told us that we were bigger press for him then the two girls from the Manson murders he was representing and in the back room; hence we got the “big front room”.  Mel also advised us to break the law and stay at the site.  Bet 99.9% of you thought Belli was there to get another location.

    Don't be shy, leave a reply!

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  • Following Bobby Vinton, the next major talent that I worked with was Sam Cooke (interesting how dangerous the entertainment industry is..two were killed by gun fire – Sam Cooke and John Lennon, George Harrison getting stabbed. and being next to death at Altamont..).
    Sam had this incredible voice that he knew he had. He would tell me that his act consisted of two things: while holding a microphone (with the old microphone cable)–he would swing the cable and jump over it. That was act one.. and for act two … he would bite his lower lip. That’s all he needed!
    As I write this I recall the racism. On the positive side, I remember my uncle getting him the gigs that were the first time locations for black entertainers –with the Stones, I remember the night stick I got to my arm as it was around Sarah Dash and the warnings from the cops backstage that we weren’t allowed in the black entertainers dressing rooms nor they in ours. This was on the 1965 tour and was with Patty Labelle and the Bluebelles as well as the Vibrations.

  • Tom Monaster took the shot. We met Ringo on his arrival on the QEII and are departing with him here.
    Many times I planned to take the QEII to or from NYC to London as my first shipboard cruise. Unfortunately an emergency always came up and I couldn’t afford the time.
    This was the closest I came.

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