GIRTH GODWYN
In the 60's, we were raised with
rules. Your parents were strict because they wanted you to be like them
and there's no way. It's like we can't expect our kids today to become
like us; because life is forever changing. As baby boomers we
became so rebellious and music was actually our blood. The parents with standards
are today more mellow. We wanted to live and be the way we wanted to
be. I still do. So when we were kids, it was, "Do this, do
that..." and it's, "No! you do this and you do that. I'm your
child. I'm your friend. "
" Your not my friend. You got to be
this way. You got to go to this church. You got to think this
way. You have to physically be this way." "No !" We
used to say. "I don't want too." I want to be Free!
What's free? The parents weren't free They were uptight due to
their traditions, their elders, their mom and dad, plus their
grandparents. You couldn't be free. That was the link. Once
you ran away from home back in the 60's, you became long hairdo hippies
running around. That's me.
I've been on Sunset Strip, Greenwich
Village. I've been to Soho in London. I got to go to the best
places. I saw The Yard Birds before they were Led Zeppelin. I saw
Jimmy Paige down the Soho in London, and I thought, "I want a band,
because i can do better than that!" I'd get admonished for for being
out late and I would express to them how I really didn't care. I'm going
back to my own soul, to my own self. You're no longer my home.
I broke the tie psychological, physically, spr\iritually, mentally, and become
my own self. I got to go anywhere I wanted to and it wasn't a run
away. It was a going to. Which to right now, to this very day I
came to myself. I came to myself and I don't need that. Like they
say, "Question authority." Don't even question it. Get
the heck away from it. Authority is, once somebody wants you to do;
that means you become them. You lose pieces of your own self, like pieces
of a puzzle of your own life. People want pieces of your own
puzzle. I'm sorry. I'll do my own puzzle. This is me
now. You brought me here to this planet, this life. Let me
be. Learn from life. Understand me, learn from me. help me
put the pieces of my own puzzle together. ( Like the defeated whining
troll:) " Naw-lue!!" (No)--Because their grand parents couldn't do
it. Everybody in the world is uptight.
I grew into - Instead of
listening to music, I want to play music; so I went back to London. I
went back to Sweden, where I was raised and got my cousin Jan Knuttson who
was a bass player. I was like: " Jan, let's do a band!
I'm tired of living at your Mom's sisters house. Let's get away from
home. " Jan was totally...because in Sweden, you live with Mom and
Dad ; a very small family Country. America is loose, because
you have Italians, you got Swedes, You got Jews, you got Africans, you got
everybody and so it's easy to bounce from one culture to another.
In Sweden, you don't got that , because you only got Swedish. So you
bounce back from one Swede to another. It's like "Go back home
because your Mom's looking for you." So, it's very hard. You
come to back to America, and you go: "Wow, I want to be - but I want to go
back and teach them people and break that cultural tradition." I
went back and said to Jan, "Let's form a band." He said,
"No, No, Mom would be ticked off" I said, " I don't
care. Let's play."
We met this English cat on a stipend from
England to become a doctor. His name was Huge Cornwell, who was famous
for being in The Stranglers, but they were back in the early to middle
80s. So Cornwell and I used to go out. Jan went back home because
he was scared. We used to play Denmark and Copenhagen, These little
places, "Teddy bear" bars is what we used to call them. I'm
only a singer and we used to be at the bars playing Simon and Garfunkle.
There were bodies flying back and forth with people fighting over Elvis
Presley records. It was like with the earrings, the duck tails, the long
jackets, and stuff like that. We were laughing and playing, and going,
" Don't any one of you guys, happen to hit us, or we'll jack you guys
up!" A couple of people hit us. We got into melee's.
Cornwell broke a lot of guitars over peoples heads. We got back to
Sweden, and I got a hold of my Cousin. I go, " Are you ready to play?"
Cornwell and I were ready to go out and have fun, But we didn't like the
violence in particular. But hey, when someone comes up to you or flies
into you ; you got to reciprocate or respond. So Cornwell says,
"Yea, lets give up the acoustical stuff and let's plug in.
" We went to Magnau in Sweden, right across from Copenhagen.
It's across the ocean, 20 miles- 30 kilometers. We bought brand new
equipment. I told my Uncles that I was going to school. They said,
"Oh Girth your doing good! Here's 20,000 Pounds." We
bought stuff because I chipped in. Played for a while and it got kind of
boring. I wanted to be commercial. I'm a lyricist and a
singer. I didn't play guitar or drums. I just wanted to sing, dance,
and pick out chicks in the audience. I was wild when I was 17 and 18.
So Cornwell was the leader of The Stranglers. My
band wasn't The Stranglers. We were called The Rouges, Johnny Sox
and all kinds of stuff. Dance ability is what we wanted;
Commercialism. We wanted to make a million dollars like The Doors.
I told Cornwell, "Oh yea, I'd like to go where The Doors
go." I met Jim Morrison, and Ray Manzarek on the beach. They
both went to UCLA's Art College. "Yea, lets go make a million
dollars and write a couple of songs." That was me right there - free
let's do it. I used to hang out at The Doors studio, in LA off of the
Sunset Strip. I'm a lyricist, I'm a writer. So we decided to
electrify ourselves and said, " Yea, let's write our own songs, kick butt
and make millions."
A lot of times in Sweden people would say,
"Oh yea, you guys are good, but can you do Rolling Stones, or Jimi
Hendrix?" " No! We don't do other peoples
stuff." They got their millions. They got their
Cadillac's. We're going for the gold in our own way. We were
cool. They never heard of people who didn't get discouraged. Then
we got into the studio and did Neil Sedaka songs in the 60's and stuff.
Then we did our own songs and albums in-between. We did good.
People would shove the mike up my throat while I was singing the lead,
They were drunks. Then I started drinking. (laughs) and got into drugs. I
look for the inside of the World; the rooms we hardly visit in
life. The colors, the decor of the mind, let's say. It's hard to
come outside of yourself and portray yourself when your totally spaced out; but
we seemed to have been doing it. We moved back to England. We went
to my Uncles hometown in Suffix County, in Guilford. Then we met a
drummer. This guy was like 32 years old! I was like 19 by this
time. I don't want no old timers in my band. I was trying to get
like a Beatles / Rolling Stones type of band together; where everyone was
the same age, the same attitude, and with no different generation gaps. I
hated people over 30 of course, but this guy was cool. He laughed good
with us. We played for quite a while in England. Decca studio's
wanted us. We weren't in Decca. We were in the subsidiary of Decca
doing promo's. Then one night we went down into a cabaret in Weymouth.
George Harrison lives there. It's like an exclusive joint. So I was
sitting down and we said, "So what's your proposal ? " to
these music agents. "Well, we'll give you 25,000 pounds, 30,000 pounds.
You'll get new uniforms, new equipment." and they were going to put
us on the Mediterranean on a Love Boat type of deal. I go, (In a
"what are you kidding me?" Or "Insulting me?" type of
voice:) " Naw, No, No, No, No. I don't leave
London." I said, "This is my gig right here. You ain't
putting me down there with a bunch of wine drinking Arabians who don't
appreciate the English music. What your doing is side tracking us,
because you have an open thing for gigs." I said, "No, we stay
in London and fight it." We still had to cash in coke bottles and
rip off shillings machines in front of houses for heat. You would go
outside and when your heat goes off, you would put in four shillings.
That's half a crown and you'll get maybe 6 hours of heat. We used to go
out there with sledge hammers, Jan my cousin, Cornwell and myself, to bust them
open for a couple of dollars. It was like, "Man this is
depressing." London is a hard area to fight; but we were making it,
but yet we weren't there.
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In England,
you get hired by beer companies. You don't just go into a bar and go,
"Can we play?" Then the governor listens to our music and
say's, "Oh yea, I like you guys." You got to go to Whatneys or
John Courage. Kind of like in America where Budweiser of Miller hired
you. You don't go into a pub and say, "Here I am." You
got to go through auditioning. It's a hard gig man. That's why when
these guys wanted to put us on the Love Boat, it was like "No! We already
made it past the beer companies, we're in clubs now." I mean we were
good in Dance ability. It was soothing music. Like I said, we still
used to do Rolling Stones, Then we said : "All right we're doing our
own songs that we wrote!" Which was in the same vein, so people
liked it. There was still violence. People just wanted to fight and
that's how London is. It's like LA, like Portland. I've been in
pub's in there and I'm like, "Ah, I'm outta here!"
Getting back to the agents from Decca,
they were talking about giving us a certain amount of money for playing ferries
up and down the Mediterranean. Going from Italy to Morocco, to Libya, and
picked up people from Greece and we just play. I'm sorry, I don't want
that. I want a every week type of fan following. I don't want to just
play for strangers off and on who might not ever hear us again. My
drummer, who I hired, jet Black of the Stranglers, leans over the table and
looks at me square in the eyes, and says, "Girth, never bite the hand that
feeds you!" I took my plate of food and went "smash" right
in the face. Mashed potatoes, chicken, everything. I said,
"don't you ever do that to me, or say that to me again." I
wasn't the leader of the band. It's like we had 4 people in the band, and
each one of us is one quarter each. When you have things to say he was
sold on the thing and i wasn't. I smashed my food right in his
face. I said, "I'm outta here." I did leave and that's
the last time I ever saw them.
My Cousin Jan and I went back to Sweden. This
was back in 1973. We sold the equipment we had to a DJ in Scotland.
We never even got the money that we wanted, but we were free again.
It was like the record companies were calling the shots, trying to be our
mom and dad. Telling us what to do, how much they're going to pay us and
how much we have to pay for room and board. I don't think so. I
call the shots, you call the shots. Every member of the band called the
shots. If your so set on going on the Love Boat, then see ya, go. I
don't care, I'll break you up in a New York minute. I'll go get someone
else. I never did. I went back to Seattle because I had a wife and
child there. I was going to bring them back to England while I did this
stuff. 3 - 4 years later I hear Cornwell on the radio, on Mother Earth
News, talking about his band called The Stranglers. I came back from
work that day and my old lady goes, "Girth, Cornwell's on the
Radio!" I went " Oh Shoot," because I bet Cornwell 2,000
pounds that I would have a band better and bigger, because i was going
to L.A. and get an American band this time because I've already done
the English trip. So I wanted to do what Jimi Hendrix and
Little Richard, because Hendrix played guitar for Little Richard in the studio
for quite a while. It's like Glen Campbell played with the Beach
boys. It's like everybody interchanges to get the right sound. That
guy beat me to it, So I gave up the music business. I got a couple
of bands here and there.
Cornwell said they became The Stranglers by
accident one night. A band had canceled and it was a funky gig, plus
these guys were ready to hang it up. The people said,
"Oh yea, we need a band to play. Can you fill in?" They
said, "Sure, we'll play." They played, and as played, people
started throwing stuff -- bubble gum and spitting. But the coke bottle
did it, because Conwell wrote to me over to Seattle to tell me. He said,
" yea, there was a coke bottle that came up to me and hit
me. " Now they know what it's like to be the front man. I
was the singer. I was in the front getting all the stuff and complaining
to the band. I would say, "Oh man," and they would say,
"stop complaining." I would say, "how would you like to be
up here?" They were in the back playing their stratocasters and
telecasters, guitars, bass, drums, while looking down. They didn't
realize it. Then they were in the fore-front playing guitar singing and
getting hit with a beer bottle? Coke bottle. So Cornwell writes to me
saying, "Yea, so I got hit with a coke bottle!" and he said,
"One more farting bottle and I'm going to jump down there and break you
up!' The audience loved it, and all of a sudden hundreds of coke
bottles were thrown up. The whole band stopped playing, came down, and
roughed up the audience. It was a big melee. Then after that night
the whole band said, "That's it, There's no future for us. Let's go
back. Jet Black going to be with the John Courage off license, being a
beer and whine distributor. Cornwalls can go back to Sweden being a
Doctor." Then a couple of days latter, the place they played at in
London, Now it's the same, but a really great punk rocker joint. The
club owner said, "Hey you guys, would you like to play again next
weekend?" and they said. "What?!" they said,
"Yeah why not the audience loved you guys." That was what was
at the time in the season of life for them. Me, I would have quit if
i was in the band. You don't throw stuff at me, spit at me or throw
bubble gum at me. I'm here to portray my words. my singing. Don't
throw stuff at me because it's been happening to me. Like I said, I've
been swallowing nikes by drunks coming up. It was an outrageous audience
band trip. it was like by accident. I drunk my cup and wanted to
dance and be stupid and it still pisses me off. This is my gig. You
don't come up to a guy, hammer a nail into a piece of wood and put a screw
driver on the way or push his arm over. To be able to play in the band
there's a drop. I'm portraying my words, disparaging other people's words,
but you have to when your playing in front of an audience. Don't
interfere with my gig and that's basically why I quit. The record
producers interfered where I could've gotten life. We could have hung it
out a couple more years cashing in the Coke bottles and ripped off the shilling
machines. (Laughing.) Ya know what I mean? When you're kids, your
desperate. You don't realize when your 25 years old, or 18, or 19 years
old, where your going to be. You don't realize that and I'm 49, 47 actually
50; a half century old. I look back at it and I treasure it. I love
it. I'll you what I'll walk this Earth to my dying day and be only
myself; not part of that puzzle of someone else. I'm my own puzzle.
I put my pieces together. That's all right. I do different things
in life. I travel and wander. I do model houses. I'm going to
be a novelist. I do my time. I don't do other people's time, not
even to say when I broke down ABBA's stage door in Sweden. Ha, Ha,
Ha, let's continue that one next week.
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We didn't have Jet Black in our band. He's an American drummer. We were
in Sweden. Me and my cousin, that's when we first met Cornwell. He
was coming from England doing a Doctorate ship. So me and Cornwell were
in again in Copenhagen playing the acoustic gigs and coffee houses and on the
street corner; Buskin basically. Ya know, get people to put money
in our guitar case. So we got this American drummer and me and my cousin
we met Cornwell anbd we had a foursome. We had a foursome and a Swedish
guitar player who used to be in the band called the Sputniks, back in the
50's. The cat was good. Rickenbacker, twelve string tremble
bar. His name is Hans. We called him hands. The guy had a
night owl sound. He was a what I wanted off my words when it came time to
solo. It was, "Go get 'em." He was always so loud because
he was older than us. We got another old mother. He was from around
the block because he was in a band in the fifties man, you know; very popular
Swedish band. They never lived that long. They took it off to
Russia when the Russians set off the satellite the "Sputnik."
We were so close to Russia because you got Russia and Finland. So
now, during the Winter in Sweden, we got not 24 hour darkness days, but maybe
18 hour darkness days. So what we have in Sweden is called Meed veen
ta. or midwinter which is mid winter. See English language is
imbued by Vikings; A lot of it. So mid dinter is like middle winter which
is almost around Christmas time. Blodett which is party major
blowout. So, we're like a new band in town. there's other
bands. We had Savage Rose in Denmark. Savage Rose is like an old
Danish band from 71-72. It's very popular. Chicks sang in the
band. We were like one of the last bands because we were the newest, and
it was in College in Lund. That was my mom's hometown and my grandmothers
hometown. We got out of twelve bands, we got the 13th or 14th. We
thought cool, We're going to get exposure. We were all happy and
all. It was before Jet black days from The Stranglers. All of
a sudden before band 8 was out, the place was packed. It was in a castle
looking joint called the university. It was called the student union
building. They had turrets and all that stuff. The guy that took
care of the whole thing comes up to me and says, "I hate to break this
news to you ; but some band called ABBA came over from Copenhagen and they're
in and you guys are out." I said, "No way!" It was
like everybody in southern Sweden was there. It wasn't that big of a
country, but we played on the sivadio-sivadio radio station a couple of times.
We knew people. Well we went "O.K., we'll relinquish. We'll
give it up." I was sort of like,
" who the heck is this band?!" ABBA wasn't even internationally
known. They were a very popular Swedish band from Stockholm and sang in
Swedish not English. In Sweden, we all speak fluent English. you
couldn't even tell a person was from Sweden. It's an international
and business language there. So they take our place. We listened to
them and we're standing there looking at the cute chicks with their "Bells,"
hanging out over the stage, and there's guys with wolves ears looking at
her. Cornwell goes, "God, look at that one guitar. It's got no
lead. I mean it's got speakers, but there's no lead coming out of the
guitar. where are they getting that sound?!" It was piped into
the auditorium from a record. It was mime. Like Milli Vanilli, type
thing. Nobody playing guitar. It was like, "No
way!" It was a chick show. I went "Whoa!" I
was waiting for the band to get over with because I was going to go talk
with him. "You took my gig over! You took my job over! How
dare you, You can't play you chicken little mother!" I didn't care
how many people were there now. I was ticked. So when they left,
they went through a turret and into the back stage like they were something
important. I went right up the stage. I followed them.
Swearing I went : You falska, mediker! Meaning you false such and such
people. Then their bouncer took out some metal key and jabbed it in my stomach.
"That's it!" I thought. I took off my belt and I was
throwing my belt around. The round turret on it, you can't swing it.
(Laughing.) To methis bouncer, were like pushing each other going,
"Whoa, I'm not going downstairs. " We were all
smoking. I didn't even drink alcohol in those days. I'm just a high
psychedelic cat. This guys going. "Shta bullta," meaning
stay away. i was using Italian on the guy. I was ticked off, they
took my job away. After the turret there was this dressing room. My
belt got caught in this veneer door, and I'm pulling on it, because they
slammed the door on me. This guy's trying to open it at the same time to
try to push them down the stairs, (Laughing.) and I'm trying to get my
belt out of the freaking door. We didn't have a confrontation. So I
went back down into the lobby siveria svenska, police were there. I come
down and the cops go, "Gelt vahenda," Which means, "God,
what's happening?" I know all the cops in town. These such and
such _____________,
coming into my town, taking my gig over, and then piping the music, not even
live! The main word is Falska. It comes from the latin word fallacy
meaning not true or false. The police asked if I smoked too
much. I said, "No these people come into town and took my gig
over. how would you like it if somebody from Stockholm came down and
said, " You can go home tonight and we're taking over, and you got a
family to support?" Everybody in Sweden-- It's like you have a
station in life. You're either garbage man, or you're a cop, or you're
a newspaper editor, or your a musician, and that's your station in life.
I said, " How would you like it if somebody from Stockholm came down here
and told you to go home? That they're going to patrol the streets, you'd
get ticked right?" They didn't take me to the clink or nothing like
that.
Two years later, In England, our new drummer Jet
Black who was at that time was in The Stranglers, I hired; it's off
license. We have a studio upstairs. This place is paradise.
We just felt good. We worked in the shop and sold ice cream and all
that. I sent my wife and child back to Seattle, to her
parents. I said, "Give us 6 months." This is
when Decca was looking at us. So when we're sausages, bangers and eggs,
like that and all. Cornwell says, "Girth come here Your not
going to believe this!" I go, "What?" He said,
"Come here!" Now what was on the tele was some European Folk
Rock Festival, where people contend for the number one title. It's like
art-musical show, and winner gets a lot of money and exposure etc. So I
come in and look at the tele and go, "It's them chicks! That's the
guys!" and it was ABBA! (Laughing.) They were doing Fernando
Hernado whatever that stuff. I go, "No Way!" and they won that
show. I think it was in 1973. They became world famous ever
since then. Dancing Queen and all that stuff. I like ABBA's music,
I really do. i didn't dig them coming in and taking my gig over. I
mean, when you're in a band, no matter how famous you are, respect other people
below you; no matter what gigs you are doing. If your're washing dishes
in a restaurant, that waiter's got to respect you, because everybody feeds each
other; everybody's hand and hand. What they did was totally false.
I'll never forgive them for that. (Laughing.) Even
though I said, "I like their music." I'm not going to say,
"I hate their guts." because then I would become one of
them. I try to understand as much as I can. That's why I'm a
writer. Ya know, I don't hold nothing against them, except for that one
night.
I went to the Doors workshop, not the Devils workshop,
the Doors workshop right off of Sunset Boulevard. Jim Morrison had 30- 15
inch speakers just for his voice. It was only a studio, a practice
studio. John Densmore and Manzarek, were all sitting around and
laughing. I knew I was going to get a band, because I love the Doors. I
go, "how loud?" It was a very small room. It was a little
small alcove. The whole wall on one side was filled with 15 inch
speakers. You talk on the microphones, "Hello." That was
Jim Morrisons thing, "Hello." He was more powerful than the
music and then you filtered through the mixing board. So what we did, we
didn't play or nothing like that because it wasn't my band, they couldn't do
it, We played a record. "Oh! Holly man!" It wasn't even on one
and the volume went up to 10. It wasn't even on one and you couldn't even
be in the place. And we were laughing, smoking, and stuff like that
because they liked having the kids from Sunset Strip come down, and ya know
because this was new to them in the world. Like Wow! They'd run a
record and shot that, but that was kinda like a non-enpromto type of
thing. Like to meet the kids from L.A. they were going, "Come on
baby light my fire." That was the number one song in like 1967 in
january. They made a big Sunset strip party.
I partied man. i met so many people.
I saw Janis Joplin. I saw Jimi Hendrix. I never rapped with
them or nothing like that like I did Densmore and Menzarek, but I said,
"I'm going to go England. I'm going to get me my own
band." and that's my History of Rock n' Roll and I'm there in
spirit, not physically anymore. Now I'm just going to write for bands and
I know the music world. It's hard. It's like being married to five
different people. It doesn't matter how many band members you have, it's
like being married. You've got the headaches. Oh man, if someone don't
show up, someone's got a drug problem, someone's got a job and they can't make
it... it's, oh man, It's a headache. And thank God I left that
business. That's my world. Write that and it's great. I want
to write. A couple of my daughters play guitar. They're not into
recording. I wouldn't even want to see them get into that life.
next to acting, it's one of the worlds worst--taking advantage of eating by
product lies anybody can do. Unless you know somebody, forget it.
It will take your life right down the toilet bowl, not even your own.
it's their life not yours. They'll take pieces of your puzzle and you'll
spend the rest of your life trying to put your puzzle together. Once I
left my band, I put my puzzle easily back together. I go, "This is
who I am. I'm not you, or you, I'm me." and never will anybody
become a part of me again.
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Interview:
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BIG TIME : Do you think the 60's will ever happen again?
GIRTH : No, impossible because we broke in the revolution. Suddenly
the sexual revolution or the freedom revolution, or the media revolution like
Marsh Gluon said, "Once that things are exposed there's no more
secrecy and everything is out in the open." Back in the '50's and
40's everything was secret because no one knew who was selling truth, who was
who. You because a subject to who ever had the most money and
power. Nowadays people are more free thinking. In the 60's we broke
the mold.
BIG TIME : With more poetic type lyrics and so forth?\
GIRTH : Not even that, but in freedom of movement. Poetry is only
words. Words to become enacted are mental. Poetry is not
physical. you can write about a physical movement in poetry, but it's all
calculated in mentalness, and you write it. Maybe, Ah, spice withh a
little bit of spiritualism. Like Khalil Gibran, he wrote the book called
the Prohet, which is very famous to beatniks. I'm a beatnik and then I'm
a hippie after that. Now, who knows what I am because we no longer need
labels because we're free now. We've broken that. I'm no longer a
child of society. They look at me as paternal. I relinquished my
station in life, because society can kiss my butt. I'm free. I'm totally
free now, forever. I can write what I want. Say what I want.
I can do what I want with more freedom than I could've in the fifties. In
the fifties, you couldn'. If you bicycled or motor biked, you wore a hat
different, you look different, or had long hair, Ahhhh!!Now it's more accepted.
BIG TIME : Do you think Maine's more like 50's than any other
part of the country, since you travel all over the place?
GIRTH : No. Ah, Maine's like the future and the
past. It's the future because their open to odd things. The
fishing industry. I was there 10 years ago. The fishing industrys'
gone down, and OSHA's come down with new rules. Everybody wants to make
money. Maine's like this. California is probably the most liberal
state. You can't even smoke in a restaurant. You can go into
the coffee shop and smoke. I'm trying to get into the bars. In some
states, you can smoke wherever you want. In California Ojai, you can't
even smoke out in the street. I did it to detest the low. I'll
smoke anytime I want. It's out in the open air. I'm sorry,
take me to Court, take me to jail; do it. i've got all the time in the
world to fight you. Don't mess with me. I'm free. I
don't have to get down to the job the next day and say, "Oh sorry, give me
a $50 ticket." It's all extortion. I'm sorry you know, but you
loose as far as I'm concerned. You can't even go to an outdoor concert
and smoke. You can't even smoke in a park in the outdoors. That's
Ojai California. Ojai right off from Santa Barbara. There's another
town down off L.A. you know exclusive rich towns, the snots. I'll go
invade your world. It's like those kind of people that invaded my
world when I was a kid and told me I couldn't do something, that I can
do. Give us some lee-way here, you know? (Laughing) i'm a
rebel. That's why I live so many places in the world, because I was
incorrigible, so my uncles took care of me. my grandmom took care of
me, until they got tired of me. It just don't hit me for nothing.
Hit me if I'm wrong, don't hit me for something I never did. Catch
me doing something. The cops, the cops pick me up on the side of the
road. "What's your problem?" I'd say. "Do you
got an ID?" "Yeah, I got an ID, here's my name rank and serial
number." I travel all over the country so don't mess around with me
because I'm having a good time and that's the way I want to live. How
dare you, because of your border and I'm the stranger coming to your
town. "Don't mess with me." "Well you fit the
description of a bank robber." "Well, wouldn't I be somewhere
else, or spending my money? Here I am in the middle of nowhere and I
robbed the bank there in town? Give me a break Dude!" It's
like : "Don't get wise with me. Where do you live?" I go
: "America." And then they think that I am a
wise ass. "What's the address!" I tell them:
"A.M.E.R.I.C.A." And they think I am a snot nose. "No,
you're the snot nose. It's not me. So you have something better to
do? Go get somebody that's perpetrating or something else. I'm
traveling. I don't want nothing. Why am I going to break into a
car?" But the guy don't know me, and there's a lady in the place
that said, "There he is!" But I don't know this at the time.
Right. So the guy goes. "Ya mind coming downtown with
me?" He's going to run your name and such. "No
problem! Here!" Ya know what I mean? Breeze
downtown. I have like 3 detectives staring at me like, "You been in
town all night?!" I go, "Yeah! I parked at a motel last
night." They go, "Oh, Oh, yeah. We checked
that." he says, "Well where were you the day
before?" I go, "I don't know! Somewhere down the
road. I walked through the night and what not. I'm a
traveler. I'm a gypsy, you know what I mean? How do I know? I
don't keep a diary for your behind. You know what I mean? I just
live life. My days are counted days and times are not yours. The
same as yours because I live like the wind. You know what I
mean?" "Oh wise guy, huh? Where do you
live!" I did the American trip again--(Laughing) and the cop is like
there shaking. He just wanted to pull his gun out and shoot me. You
know what I mean? So, they all go like, "You got a
witness?" I go, "Look dude." I go, "bust
me!" And this other guy goes, "All right, you're entitled to a
lawyer--" and all that, and i go, "All right cool." And he
goes "Sign this." I go, " I don't sign nothing.
Sorry such and such, because I don't read. I can't see up
close." "You won't sign this?!" They're like,
"You won't sign this?" (Laughing) And the cop is like there
shaking. He just wanted to pull his gun out and shoot me. You know
what I mean? This is like a small town, ah--mentality.
"Don't mess with me. I know you have nothing to do. So go park
your car on the side of the road, and go to sleep." Don't mess with
me dood, (dude) because I know people everywhere. This is what I do,
this is true. I've been in Louisiana in a little town called
Winnfield. I'll never forget it. I'm walking and I hear the voice,
"Hey how's it going?" So i turn around and it's a cop
car. I go, "Hey how's it going?" He says, "Come back
here!" So I turn around and I come back and he goes, "Where
have you been?" I say, "I stayed in a hotel down the
road. I walked around looking for work, because this is what I do
for life. There's no work. I'm out on the highway. I'm going
to the next town." "How long have you been in
town?" I go, "From the nightbefore and that was it."
he says, "We got witnesses that said you've been here at least a
month.'' It's like, "Hello, You talking to me, or what?"
What happened is somebody broke into a car in front of the place he came out
of, so he's picking on somebody because I'm new or a stranger in town. I
said, "I'm sorry about your witnesses, but they're totally
wrong." He says, "Well they were here last night--"
I say, "You want to take my finger prints?" because he told me
what happened. Someone broke into a car, it was like,
"Whatever! I don't own nothing. I don't want
nothing. I don't have a car, a house, a stereo. I don't have
headphones. I got a couple of bucks just enough to sustain me while I'm
traveling. I don't want nothing. Why am I going to break into
someone's car?" I go, "What?! Go do whatever."
And the other guy goes, "Well if you're innocent, why you so
mad?" And I said, "Because your friggin ticking me off and your
perturbing me. You're insulting my intelligence and my life."
And I go, "Do I come into your house telling you you did something?
I don't even know you people. You don't know me either. Don't mess
with me." He goes, "What are you going to do?" I
go, "Well in here I can't do nothing, but if you come out to the
highway on the side road--" I go, "I'll box ya. I
don't care if you kick my but or not." I go, "You don't mess
with me man, because my spirits stronger than yours." So the chief
of detectives comes in and I go, "Are you sane in this town? Are you
sane--with all these other--" This little dinky town in Winnfield
Louisiana right? "Are you sane? Are you part of this like
whatever this--riff raff bull?" The guy goes, "Well
Ah--well we have witnesses." I go, "Here we go
again. I want a lawyer." They didn't even want to give me a
lawyer at all. he goes, "Well where you been?" I go,
"I'll tell you what. I was at Nacogdoches Texas two nights ago--in
the Collegian Motel, call 'em up. Because I'm registered there. Do
you want top know where I was before that?" I go, "Your lucky
I'm remembering this, because you can roust me. I'll sit in jail a month,
you guys will be washing dishes tomorrow and I'll own this place. I'll be
the cheif of police in this frigin town and I'll get the real frigin
criminals. Don't you mess with the wrong person dudes."
"Well Ahhhh____" Guy goes in the bathroom, calls up Nacogdoches
Texas. All these places, Bronson Texas is another Motel I stayed
in. he comes back and he goes, "You can go now.'' "Thank
you very frigin much." I said, " I think I'm gonna live in this
town and marry maybe one of your daughters." (Laughing) I was giving them
frigin trouble man! You know? And they were like, "Well you
need a ride?" "No I don't need a ride. I like
walking. Thank you very much i like walking." And i go,
"What happened to your witness?" I could've taking them to
court and sued them for zillions. i just didn't spend time with the
riff-raff, because I really didn't do nothing. If I did something bad i
would be kissing their butts: "Oh officer..." But I don't do
nothing wrong. You're wrong. don't bother me. You know what I
mean? I don't do anything. I work for a living. I'm
traveling. I know the world very well. I go thru this a couple of
times, ya know and they think I'm a snot nose. I say no man. I'm
like, I'm you're dad now. You're not my dad. I'm your dad.
(Laughing.)
www.ArchEnemys.com
Online Social Network Magazine
ArchEnemys
Inc, is a multimedia production company founded in 1997 by Nate LaChance.
In 2004, Nate met Carrie LaChance, a hostess at a local restaurant. After
a few months of working together the two quickly teamed up and began to build
ArchEnemys into a thriving business.
ArchEnemys owns and operates 3 web stores, 2 multimedia websites and a fully
equipped production studio with state of the art production equipment.
They are known around the world for producing a unique style of pinup
photography and eye catching videography.
ArchEnemys has been featured on several television networks including Fox and
Spike TV, and have appeared in numerous publications, advertisements,
commercials, interviews and public events.
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The world of Burlesque Pin-Up
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& Carrie LaChance
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Contact
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LaChance: President/CEO
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LaChance: Vice President
Email
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Email Carrie: carrie@archenemys.com
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