had sighed. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."
As soon as Gil found out Bob's reporting date to the induction center, he had been able to convince the recruiter to have his induction date be the same as Gil's. Everything proceeded as planned until a sergeant told the long line of recruits and draftees to separate into two lines. Next, the draftees obeyed and counted off by tens, with every tenth man, Bob included, now on the way to Marine basic training.
"Sargent, I want to be a Marine, too!" Gil had protested.
"Let me see your papers, son."
Gil hurriedly handed them over.
"It says Army, RA. You're a recruit for the Army. I can't take you."
"But?"
"You don't understand. Your recruiter has a quota to make or he's on the next plane to Nam. I steal you away and he'll kick my butt!"
So it was that Gil went to Fort Ord for basic and AIT training as an 11-B, infantry. He had enlisted to be a grunt because he was sure that Bob, being drafted, would also be an infantry soldier. Bob, meanwhile, traveled south, first to San Diego for basic training and then to Camp Pendleton for his advanced training as a machine gunner.
"Tough guy, huh?" Bob's drill instructor had laughed. "I'll be sure you get to carry around something heavier than an M-16, Marine!" I'm going to make sure you meet Mr. M-60! You'll have a ball hauling him through the rice paddies."
8
The first wave of the British Invasion - the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Kinks, the Moody Blues, Freddy and the Dreamers, Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas, Peter and Gordon, the Yardbirds, the Animals, Dusty Springfield, the Zombies, the Dave Clark 5, Petula Clark, and others - had barely subsided when a second wave hit. The second wave took rock, blues, jazz, pop and folk into uncharted territories, often fusing those styles: Cream, The Small Faces, Pink Floyd, The Jeff Beck Group, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, The Who, Jethro Tull, Ten Years After, King Crimson, Fairport Convention, The Nice, Traffic, and others bombarded the U. S. with tours and records. Because his dad knew so many people from his years on the docks Dave soon had a dream job.
"Mac owes me a favor."
"Who's Mac?"
"A guy who helped me unload ships. One of the few burros that worked harder than me. Anyway, he retired, but since he's so good at getting stuff unloaded and set in the right place, he's now working for a promoter."
Dave's eyes brightened. "Yeah?"
"That's right. He said he'll pay you five dollars an hour to help him set up and tear down after the concerts."
"I thought the bands had roadies to do that."
"Mac said they only do part of it. His crew does the rest."
"Dad, you're all right." Dave hugged his father.
"Glad to help my son."
By the time Dave started working with Mac, many of the first wave British Invasions groups had faded, broken up or as with the Beatles, just stopped touring. After setting up for the shows he wasn't needed until they ended, so Dave saw many of the second wave British groups. In addition, L. A. was spawning its own bands, and he saw many of them perform also - The Doors, Steppenwolf, The Byrds, The Seeds, Buffalo Springfield, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Spirit, Love. He also saw the Beach Boys, who eventually would outlast most of the English groups that had replaced them on the record charts.
Many of the groups from the San Francisco Bay also journeyed south and performed at the venues that Dave worked - It's a Beautiful Day, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Lee Michaels, Quicksilver Messenger, Service, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company. One concert that Dave paid to get into featured the hottest LA and San Francisco bands at the time, The Doors and the Jefferson Airplane. He was stunned after the Doors opened the show and almost half of the audience left before the Airplane even started their first song.
Hanging around the rock music world, even it's periphery, soon sucked Dave deeper and deeper into its often suicidal lifestyle. Although he had promised Gil never to use anything stronger than marijuana, just before his brother left for Vietnam, Dave eventually yielded to the temptation.
"Come on man, it makes the music sound fantastic," a friend had promised.
"I don't know. I heard that people go crazy on it. They jump out windows and stuff."
"Those people were already crazy. I've dropped acid at least 100 times and I ain't jumped out of no windows."
"Well, how about just a little bit since it's my first time?"
"Okay. I'll just cut this hit in half. We'll bring some weed along to help the trip out." The friend swallowed his half and handed Dave the other.
"You're going to drive us there while you're tripping?"
"Don't worry, this stuff is pure. We won't come on to it for about an hour."
"Okay." Dave nervously swallowed the tiny half tablet.
Thus, peer pressure coupled with curiosity led Dave to take his first LSD trip. When the warm-up group started to play and he wasn't feeling much more than his normal high from the pot so freely shared at the concerts, Dave thought that maybe his friend had been burned. He had heard enough friends, musicians and concert goers complain about getting bad LSD cut with speed or strychnine, or a tablet, capsule or piece of paper containing nothing at all to think that maybe he had swallowed nothing more than an aspirin. But as the Moody Blues invited the crowd to ride their see-saw and take their place for free, Dave's senses seemed to expand. Dave couldn't believe the sounds coming from the stage, especially the mellotron's tape loops and the perfect harmonies.
By the time the band finished its set and encore, Dave was in a state of consciousness that one moment was confusing and terrifying; the next, amazing and wonderful. During the intermission, Dave sat transfixed as he watched the roadies perform logistics that seemed to last for hours. His friend had wandered off and returned with two sodas.
"Something for your cottonmouth."
"What's that?" Dave grinned as he took the drink.
"The acid and pot make your mouth really dry. This will help it."
"Wow, what is this?" Dave had never tasted anything with such a sweet sensation.
"Just a soda. So how's the trip?"
"I don't know. It's like that see-saw the Moody Blues were singing about. First I'm up and then down."
"Hmm, sounds like half a good trip and half bad. We'll smoke a little something to make it better."
By the time they had finished two joints and passed the remnants to their neighbors, the roadies had finished positioning the huge stacks of Marshall amps.
Dave had only heard Cream on the radio as he had never bought any of their albums or singles. By the time the group tore through "Crossroads" and "I'm So Glad", Dave couldn't believe his ears. He kept counting the number of instruments he could see - guitar, drums and bass - but couldn't find the tuba he was hearing. Frustrated, he yelled at his friend in between songs.
"Where's the tuba?"
"That ain't no tuba. Look at how hard Jack Bruce is hitting his bass. That's his bass making that sound!"
"I've never heard anything like it or anything so loud."
"Yeah. Isn't it great when they jam?"
And it was, with all three musicians playing lead parts at once and making the sum of the parts sound greater than the individual components. By the time the set ended, the two concert goers had to stumble to the bathrooms before the drive home. When they reached the parking lot, neither could remember where the car was. After circling the huge lot five times on foot, they saw that only a few cars were left. Using the process of elimination, the two at last found the car.
Upon getting into the car, Dave's friend decided to rest. So they listened to a Cream tape and relived the concert.
"How many times have you taken LSD?"
"At least a hundred. Good cheap high, better than anything else I've done. Plus you can't get addicted like with heroin or speed. You like tripping?"
"I
don't know."
"You got to learn to ride the trip."
"Huh?"
"You know. Let the drug take you where it wants to."
"I don't know. That's sort of scary."
By the time they drove off, it was well after midnight, the traffic had subsided and the LSD was wearing off, at least for the more experienced user. So Dave's friend was able to navigate the LA freeways without getting lost or colliding with another vehicle or immovable object until he sideswiped Dave's car, which was parked by the curb in front of his house.
"What was that?"
"My car, man."
"Bummer. Oh, oh. There's lights coming on in that house. Get out! I gotta boogie. Maybe we can drop some more acid at another concert."
"Maybe."
Dave watched as the car sped off around the corner. Still feeling the LSD's effects and afraid to go inside Dave crawled inside his car and listened to the sounds of the night. A howling dog sounded like a werewolf; two cats fighting sounded like two tigers. Fears that usually lay buried in his subconscious worked their way free. He thought of Gil or Bob or both dying in Vietnam, of never coming down from the LSD, of never making it in the music business and having to work in a boring job.
"I'm never doing this stuff again," he swore just before drifting off to sleep.
9
Dave broke his oath and soon was taking LSD, mescaline, or psilocybin about twice a week.
Once a drifting hippie from Colorado gave him a dose of MDA. Another time he swallowed what was meant to be a single dose of strawberry mescaline and freaked out. When he asked the one who had given it to him he
Out of the Wilderness Page 6