Dad, Kathleen and Vickie....

1945-My mother on the set of 'That Night With You' with her father Les Larson (Dad). Les was sixty two and Susanna twenty one.

Vickie with her new husband 'Dick' Adams on October 18, 1952

Back of above photo--1361-P26

‘Susanna Foster, Universal’s young and beautiful singing star of “The Climax,” is mothering her two younger sisters, Vicki and Kathleen Larson, and preparing them for singing careers such as her own.’

Queen Bee Suzanne with her two sisters; Kathleen left and Vickie right.

Vicki married Harold Richard Adams in 1952. They had three kids; Steven, Scott, and Suzanne (Susanna’s namesake). ‘Dick’ Adams deserted his kids in the early sixties while Vicki’s alcoholism progressed and intensified.. There was feigned (?) devil worship, prostitution, anything for a buck and a drink. Vicki would force her daughter Suzanne to disrobe in front of one night stands, anything for a buck and and a drink. Suzanne was raped, discarded and taken back. Vicki struggled, her kids struggled, they all still struggled. Many of them still struggle...of a familiar 'collateral damage' that is so known....so deeply twisting.its unfathomable for most to understand.There was copious abuse, incest and insanity to go around. Suzanne developed schizophrenia. And was at the time of this writing, lives with three packs of cigarettes a day in a house she shares with her ten year old daughter Vivian Tin Wei (1996), and a once very promising Chinese-American professor- husband, Boice Ngo. He was very kind to me during my 'crazy years' in California in the early eighties. When I visited wiith them in 1996, Boice was a chain smoker himself, hafl his teeth were missing....seemed dazed and confused and surprised I was alive and had "gained weight!"

I owe much gratitude to Vivien Tin Wei as she was the one (at ten years old) to find The Letters and tell her Aunt Lupe, who in turn would tell me about them just prior to my visit in 1996, My last visit with my cousins? It was in 1982. 'The California Crazy Years.' Stay tuned.

Vicki and Dick’s wedding day October 18, 1952

When I was about 2 1/2 years sober, Vicki called one morning from California drunk, pleading with me, asking how I managed to stay away from a drink. She had just managed to put together about 8 months, just gone back out (began to drink again). I asked her to please call back when she was sober. She called back sober the next morning and listened intently as i shred my experience, strength and hope. I urged her to get back to the ‘rooms’. Two months later on February 3, 1991 at 6 in the morning Vicki was crossing a desert highway drunk, she was struck by an oncoming car and killed instantly. She was sixty three years old.

Adelaide Victoria Larson Adams (Vickie)

Kathleen -

'Dad' (Les) for many years tried ''get Kathleen better." He felt awful with the abuse she took from her mother that he witnessed first hand for years. In the summer of 1966 Kathleen came home from Norwalk State Hospital to live with her father. One afternoon in the early fall of 1967 Les was under the hood of his old Plymouth trying to get it started, Kathleen was in the driver’s seat helping with the start. The Plymouth suddenly lurched forward pinning Lester against the garage breaking both his legs. He died on January 9, 1968 in an Alhambra nursing home, delusionally extrapolating on his championship football days. Haskell remarried and raised his kids as best he could. Michael Francis Laramie developed schizophrenia in his early twenties and has been in a nursing home since that time. He is now about forty-six (1997). Susan Jane Laramie is securely and happily married, raising two teenage daughters, both she and her husband are self-described ‘recovering’ Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Kathleen was eventually stabilized and released again to live alone in a state subsidized apartment in Pomona, California for many years. She collapsed and died suddenly on October 14, 1995, in her apartment….alone.

She was sixty nine years old.

Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Led Zepplin....'Mike Evans.'

I met all of them the day I arrived; Mark Stein, Vince Martell and the two guys who were starting the new band, Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert.

I was amazed that I was even there. My Sugar Blues did a cool version of one of their songs, then breaks my heart by breaking up two months before and now I’m standing in the Fudge’s studio with primo musical equipment and the live flesh and blood rock VIPs that they were.

Carmine, Tim, a guitarist by the name of Terry Kelly (who had been with Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels) and I, all jammed a thing that I suggested “Parchman Farm” a tune off one of John Mayall and the Blues Breaker’s album. I started it off with a funky, growly harmonica and the band pounded in. The same version/jam was on the first Cactus album...for which they were kind enough to 'thank me' for on the back of the record jacket. I was listed among some rock and roll giants; 'Thanks to; Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Led Zepplin....'Mike Evans' ..among others. I guess you can't sneaze at that.

It was good, Tim and Carmine were heavy rockers, we got down….but they were not my Sugar Blues.

I guess they wanted me to front the band, naming the band after our first or second session…. Carmine named the band “Cactus.”

“Cactus” paid me $50 a week to come out to Oceanside, Long Island and rehearse. This was unheard of in our Sugar Blues realm, geesh, paid to practice?

Suddenly I was a big man on Eighty Deuce….I was playing’ with some known cats AND getting paid for it.

Carmine had told me that they were waiting for the famed English guitarist Jeff Back to join...but within a couple of weeks Beck was in a nasty auto accident in England (see letter to my father ..for desperate validation).

Inside, *I was pretty blown away by this….to think I might have been singing with Beck. Jeff Beck had recently released an album called 'Truth.' It featured one of my favorite singers of the time; Rod Stewart. 'Truth' became Stewart's breakout record.

I emulated Stewart's voice as best I could at 18 years old. I think that's why 'Cactus' liked me.

*one of many disappointments that would set a pattern for many years to come, a pattern so profound, I would become a master at disappointment 'ala the self-saboteure.''

About two or three years later Timmy and Carmine would get together with Jeff Beck, founding; “Beck, Bogert and Appice” for an album or two. I could never understand what Beck liked about my two former brief band mates....he had a sophistication that Timmy and Carmine could only dream of. But alas, who am I to criticize...I soon would become a 'lamplighter' on a Riker's cell block.

I was inwardly reeling from the break up that Woodstock summer of my beloved Sugar Blues Band, on my return to the City many of my Eighty Deucers were enveloped in heroin runs, I quickly followed suit with a snort, a skin pop and a main line. Man, it felt good. It dispensed with that fuckin’ Pain. Leading the next year (1970) to the ‘Heroin Chronicles’ ie: the Rikers Islands, Delware Work Houses, comatose blue, crumpled in a tenement hallway bathtub.

In the fall of ’69 as my snorting affliction with heroin progressed, Vanilla Fudge had their last gig at the Fillmore East and invited me to come. I remember Billy Stedman coming along with his guitar. I was scared, whiffing up a couple of bags of dope before arriving at The Fillmore’s stage door... helped a lot, I’d coast through it or so I thought.

Dr. John the Night Tripper was also on the bill. Dr. John at the time would do his show in full witch doctor regalia…a lot of people didn’t know how to take him, I sure as hell didn’t. I met him back stage, he gave me a little plastic bag of ‘gris,gris’ (gree-gree). He would sprinkle ‘gris-gris’ on his audience while howling his New Orleans funk.

In Voo-Doo, witch doctors (from what I understand) would sprinkle gris-gris on their sick patients to ostracize evil spirits. It was, I think, bone shavings from cadavers. Although, Dr. John made it very clear that his wasn’t ‘real.’

Hanging out in Fudge’s dressing room with all the hanger ons and wanna bees, I suddenly was commanding respect, I felt important, I was the new lead singer for Carmine and Timmy’s new band.

Just below the surface…I was unique…less than and couldn’t really come to terms with why I was there (in that easy serene heroin way).

Carmine had told me that at the end of the Fudge’s show, at the end of the night, they would have me come out to sing a number. I think it was Carmine who announced that a ‘couple of friends’ would come out to play a number. It didn’t help that I had just secretly puked a couple of times from heroin gluttony… I went on that stage nervous, numb and a little hopeful that I’d pull it off… feeling heroin serene and heroin sapped, I was ready as I was ever going to be.

The Fillmore was packed (as it always was) with rowdy, boisterous, very stoned, get down kids just like…… me. Billy played guitar, Tim on bass and Carmine on drums . We played “Blues Deluxe” sung by Rod Stewart off the Jeff Beck Group “Truth” album.

All I can remember from my Fillmore debut was that I kept my eyes closed through most of the song. When I opened them in the middle of a lyric, I got a big surprise. The Fillmore’s spotlight was on me and the whole rest of the stage was black…pfft…not a fellow band mate in sight. I shuddered, quickly closed my eyes and finished the song the best I knew.

There was huge raucous applause as I…. swiftly de-staged. For some reason as if I wanted to be “with my people,” I walked into the audience and became surrounded by very high, trinket giving, autograph stalking, adulating, Fudge loving…’uh… peers.

A letter from myself (forty two days from 19^th birthday) to my father:

November 1, 1969

Dear Dad,

I’m sorry I haven’t written sooner but I’ve been busy at the studio. As of a year and a half I’ve been a singer and a harpist. It’s not the kind of harp in a symphony orchestra, It’s a harmonica.

I’m joining two of the members of the Vanilla Fudge. The Fudge are breaking up in about a week. They’re one of the highest paid rock bands in the nation and Jeff Beck one of the “Super” guitarists of the free world, he’s coming to meet me from England November 6^th.

I really believe you completely underestimate the whole rock scene. To me, it sounds FAR from “All the same”. There is so much feeling and spirit it’s amazing! I know Bill Graham well and the article you sent me about Bill completely misinformed the reader. By the way, I sang and played blues harp with the Fudge at the Fillmore East two weeks ago last night for five thousand people and they really dug it!

I can’t understand why you can’t send the checks the right time or the right amount. I’ve had a hole in my tooth almost as big as the tooth and yesterday the tooth split in half. I don’t know what I’m gonna do, I can’t go to the dentist because you never paid the bill. Please believe me that everything I say is not under anybody else’s influence. I find out things for myself. I’ve read Philip’s letter and I’ve never seen him be such a damn phony.. It sickens me! He makes our money problem seem like a joke. You just don’t realize how much we depend on your checks. Ever since mom started receiving them from you, she has made the house look like a palace.! I can tell you one thing when I start making some money she won’t be sad anymore! About me joining the armed forces and playing in one of the bands…? That would be against my whole way of life and making music. Dad, there is a whole new generation out there with a vast brand new outlook and I’m proud to be part of it.! I’m not going into the service because I have bronchial asthma. I’ve met a girl named Candace and it’s very possible we will get married. Well, answer me soon. Love Michael

*I met Bill Graham that night at the Fillmore. Jeff Beck one of rocks premier guitarists of the era, who in 1967 formed the “Jeff Beck Group” with Ron Wood, introducing Rod Stewart to the world. I was told that Beck was to join our new band and was soon to arrive but was in auto accident in England November 3.

My time with Cactus didn’t last very long after I decided to take one of their vans into the city to cop some dope.

One weekend night I slept over Carmine’s house when I decided that I needed to get some.

Out in back of the Fudge’s studio they kept three vans for moving their equipment… and I knew where the keys were. It didn’t matter (whatsoever) that I didn’t have a driver’s license and that I had never driven a car!!

In the middle of the night I climbed in one of the vans, took off down the Long Island Expressway…screeching, jerking and weaving my way to Eighty Deuce…. to buy me a bag of dope.

And screeching, jerking and weaving my way back.

To this day I’m amazed, completely amazed that I fulfilled this task…with “no training.” I get angst attacks just writing about it. Unbelievable.

I soon was asked not to comeback to Cactus and the Fudge’s studio…I was incredulous, calling Timmy B. from a phone booth at Eighty Deuce and Broadway, “Timmy, how could you do this?, we can straighten this all out, I promise.”

I was terminated and heartbroken….. And clueless.

I found out that they ''thanked me', after my first release from Rikers Island prison in the spring of 1970. And also, so pleased of how awful the album was and equally… my replacement, Rusty Day. What were they thinking?

Several years later, Rusty Day would die from a heroin overdose.

3/31/09--Comment from 'anonymous' : "Rusty didn't die from a drug overdose. He was gunned down (with his son) in a drug deal gone wrong. Small distincition, but just FYI."

Our addiction to heroin was strong and fast, changing lives, forever.

'Cactus' with Rusty Day and Jim McCarty(formerly of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels) -middle left/right.

Tim Bogert far left, Carmine Appice far right (Appice would tour with Stewart in the 70s/80s).

A brief devolution with more on 'The Day' and Muddy Waters.

On the stage- The Cafe Wha?...17 years old.

During our brief 1967 ‘re-unification’ with my father, it was obvious that Philip and I were failing school. I wouldn’t go back to Charles Evans Hughes and Philip was in his own anti-school limbo. We found this school… “Quintano’s School for Young Professional’s.” All of our friends were getting enrolled there, suddenly becoming the hip place to be.

It sounded like a cool place. Wib came up with the $400 for each of us that first year.

1968- Michael on the Café Wha? stage, seventeen years old

Quintano’s School for Young Professional’s on W. 56^th st across from Carnegie Hall was in two (three?) attached turn of the century, three story buildings, and was filled with kids of show biz parents. Yea, noses held high and elitists substantial.

It was during the Quintano interval, that I engaged, several times; in hand to hand combat with my mom as she gripped a pair of scissors hopelessly trying to cut my hair.

I ran away from home on Toby’s urging, sharing with him an overnight stay in a Central Park playground tree house (70^th and CPW). Then on to Howard’s new row house in Jamaica, Queens. Toby and I both stayed there with Howard, his mom and sister Irene….among the cockroaches ….and once a terrible infestation of....fleas.

Howard was born in Butler, New Jersey. His sister was born a couple of years later. It was a complete family with mom, dad, son and daughter. They moved to Staten Island. When Howard was about ten he found his dad slumped in a bedroom closet, dead from a heart attack. The family was walloped hard with his sudden death. They struggled, with barely two nickels to rub, they ended up on the Upper Westside. Howard’s mom; a very quiet, very kind, almost nun-like, almost to a fault….at Howard’s house, we had our way; When they lived on Eighty Deuce (They lived at 32 west 82 for awhile), the three of them shared a small one bedroom similar to our 6E. These were the ‘psychedelic’ days and we were full fledged into it.

We painted Howard’s room black, including his window. Day-glow painted images everywhere; flowers, stars, ringed planets etc. Our friend “Riff” (of African and Native American descent, a great story, this kid. I hope to get him down) painted a a life-sized Spider Man, Riff fancied himself as Spiderman, he was quite the acrobat, he seemed to slide up the two story lampposts (like a coconut getter) that lined Eighty Deuce. I loved Spider-man too. I had Spider-man comic book #1, I traded it to Riff for a model of an aircraft carrier.

We’d drop LSD in Howard’s psycadelisized room and watch, for hours, our day-glo animations come to life. “What a Trip!” “Spidey danced across the wall, what a trip, rolling and tumbling!”

I am simply horrified as I write this, with all of it, as with much to come, I almost want to 'apologize.'

We’d fill up Windex bottles with Witch Hazel, ignite the spray, torching cockroaches…. “What a trip!”

Soupy Sales’ kids went to Quintano’s…Tony Sales and his brother Hunt who became well known musicians i.e. Tony and the Tigers, backing up Todd Rundgren, David Bowie, Iggy Pop et al.

At Quintano’s, I spent most of my time in the coffee shop across the street or stoned in the hallways or on the roof.

Philip once told me that as he watched me one day sitting in class, all I did was grind my jaw and stare out the window. I felt out of place there, lesser than...thats for sure..

In the late ‘60’s there were two major hangouts in Central Park, one was the Schaffer/Rheingold concerts located in the Wollman Skating Rink and the other, which was the MAJOR hang…”The Fountain” at Row Boat lake. Every Sunday the hippies would flock to “The Fountain.” Music, music, music, Frisbees and drugs prevailed.

The Fountain was THE place to be on a warm Sunday…it was a gas…I loved it. (January 4, 2000 after talking to Billy so much to write on the Fountain and the Shaffer and Reingold concerts).

Central Park's 'The Fountain' aka 'Bethesda Fountain.'

Arriving back on Eighty Deuce that late August of ’69, I was down and dazed…what happened?…my Sugar Blues Band was in the toilet. I was ripe for the new Eighty Deuce drug of choice. Everybody it seemed was snorting this white powder ('Devil in the White Gown'), I tried it with gusto just like all the rest. It quickly seduced. It started with dibs and dabs but was ever present as we were ever ready.

“The Fountain” (Bethesda Fountain), Central Park

At The Fountain one Sunday afternoon, I was singing and playing harp with some guys when this kid that I knew from some of the synagogue gigs we had done (he played guitar) came up to me and said how good my voice sounded and how much better my harmonica playing had gotten. After all, about a year before, at The Wha? Muddy Waters was doing a gig while Howard and I were sitting on the side of the stage digging it, when one of Muddy’s musician’s in the middle of a driving shuffle, spotted me, asked me if I had my harp (which I did). Handed me a mic and urged me to hop on up. All I remember is that I played for about a minute shaking in my boots ( I think Muddy was oblivious to my shaking AND my playing). When I got off stage, Howard told me that it was the best he had ever heard me play. I was thrilled, I think my playing and performing confidence made a couple of giant strides from that night on.

And I guess it paid off on that Sunday afternoon at The Fountain ‘cause this kid ‘Ricky Ramirez’ told me he was friends of the Vanilla Fudge out on Long Island, that they were starting a new band and he thought they would like to hear me sing. “Wow,” I thought “The Vanilla Fudge? That’s cool.” The Sugar Blues did their version of The Supremes song “You Keep Me Hangin’ On.” Go figure. I'd show my mother, I'd show my father.

Soon I headed out to Vanilla Fudge’s studio…feeling 'delusionally' invincible.

Remnants of Everything....

I regret that I know very little of what the other two thirds of our imploding little family was doing at the time of my Woodstock/Sugar Blues adventure. Except that Mom continued her working round the clock, supporting Philip and the many, many cats. It seemed our little apartment was barely hanging in there as well. I know it was around this time that Philip had his one or maybe two real girl friends. They would not last, the very remnants-of-everything would not last.... for soon the devil himself was to arrive. The devil on his big, bad, frothing steed....the steed called 'HORSE.'

HORSE would SMACK, beat, destroy and devastate these remnants-of-everything our little family had left......forever.

'Horse'/'Smack'

The Black Swan

I loved to play, and we had a gig that Woodstock festival weekend. It was at the “Black Swan” in Kingston, New York. The Black Swan was a black club (or to be more politically correct an African-American club) and I was looking forward to ‘getting down’ there. We had never played a ‘black’ club. And here I would be validated and verified… ‘as a black man in a white man’s body.’

We did cool versions of Otis Redding’s “Too Hard to Handle” (many years before the Black Crows), James Brown’s “I Feel Allright,” and the Isley Brother’s “It’s Your Thing.” I couldn’t wait to test the waters!

I don’t know….looking back….17 yo white boys doing this music in ‘69?…I think was pretty daring, but we simply loved the music.

The Black Swan turned out to be pretty dark and dismal, we did two nights and I think the biggest crowd we had were two old black guys with their wives in front of some smoky snacks at the end of the bar.

Sunday morning our ears were turned tightly to the radio; what was happening at The Festival!? We had to know, a lot of our friends had gone, we began to hear some gloomy signs, at the very moment the radio and newspapers were calling it a disaster, like; people were awash in mud and chaos…several were killed while sleeping under heavy equipment. The Thruway was CLOSED… It was rain, rain, and rain. Glad we didn’t go.

But as the months rolled on, it became clearer that Woodstock the Festival had made its mark on history.

All I knew was that the bandanna guitar man…whom I thought was a verifiable jerk…was now famous.

I kind of resented that for a while. I admire him much more these days.

It was closing towards the end of the summer and we moved back to Ellenville…the little brown house in Wittenberg and Corrina The Oppressive Toad Witch (that’s what I called her) was slowly sucking the life out of us and especially me. Being back in Ellenville felt good, The Sugar Blues would get back on track.

Now that Woodstock the Festival was making it’s mark on history, the Saugerties Sound Festival was gearing up for a second go. But with more sophistication and better bands with radio advertisements. We hadn’t been scheduled to play and wished we had been when one evening we heard our name listed as one of the acts. This was very cool and a complete surprise. But the coolest thing about it was that “Zacherly, The Cool Ghoul” from late night New York City TV (Shock Theatre?) was the announcer, on a NYC radio station (WNEW). Wow! Man, now I knew we were gonna make it!! “Zacherley” was one of my favorites and was famous to boot…. he uttered our names on WNEW!…. “The Sugar Blues Band!” We were excited and went to bed planning our show. The next morning a strange thing happened, Toby told us that he was quitting the band. “What!, your quitting the band, What! Now!? What’s gottin’ into you…Toby? WHY!?” We were dumbfounded, Toby had no explanation except for the mutterings that Big Brother and the Holding Company ‘might’ want him to be their drummer and that he had been jaming with the Paul Butterfield Band. There was no talking to him, simply no sense at all. I was stunned and crushed, simply crushed.

The band fell apart as if it were built on a house of cards (it was...LSD pinochle), strangely, astonishingly within minutes. I shut down and within a day or two I hitched a ride in a tractor trailer back to NYC with Corinna (oddly enough) and Danny Stedman. I was shell-shocked. One of countless deep disappointments that would set a pattern of hope and dispair and denial for years to come.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters.

I reiterate again and put forth this disclaimer... again. That I am not and do not pretend to be a writer. At least not the kind of writer with the talent that I feel is so necessary to pick through, to weave, better understand the dynamics of the swirling dysfunction, the pathos. To give this story the kind of depth, innuendo and significance it so richly deserves.

I believe that my brother Philip and I were born 'alcoholic.' Sadly with all the other genetic and environmental 'influences' on our very existence i.e. mental illness, the sexual abuse; familial and other chronic external pedophile determinants. The early abandonment, the sudden shock of the broken home. The many 'poor choices' that led to more and more chronic insanity. Even the 'knowing' of who our parents were juxtaposed with the bizarre festering cancerous chasm, the elephant-in-the-room of who they really were, was simply too much...we had many strikes against us. I believe, that my brother decided, early on that an expeditious, slow self murder was the only way out. I on the other hand had a sense of I don't know what...all I can tell you is that my appetite for chaos and insanity would become insatiable. My friends in 12 step would clearly understand this, for this is what we do; 'doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.'

An Autobiography In Five Short Chapters

I- I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall

in I am lost...I am helpless It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find

a way out.

II- I walk down the same street. There's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I

pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I am in the

same place but it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

III- I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I

see it is there. I still fall in...it's a habit. My eyes are open. I

know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

IV-I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I

walk around it.

V- I walk down another street.

The author at the bottom of the page was.....Portia Nelson.

One year after 'the shit hit the fan' for me in 1985, I began therapy and attend 12 step groups.

While in my therapist's office I noticed on her wall this poem. The author was 'Portia Nelson.'

Portia Nelson!!....I shared with my therapist that my mother had a dear friend....Portia Nelson! I figured how many Portia Nelsons could there be....this must be the same woman....!

I asked for a copy and got several. This therapist seemed to love the copier, any chance she had to make a copy and then some...she would.

Over the years in my comeback process, I would come across Autobiography in Five Short Chapters ..in self-help books, the counseling milieu etc...

It was the quintessential definition of insanity; “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results...” and the path away from it.

Over the years 'Autobiography In 5 Chapters' would always hang somewhere in my home helping to ever remind me of my own path through insanity.

http://www.susannafosterchronicles.com/2009/02/driftwood-susanna-and-kids-dig-in.html

Ten years after seeing this poem on my therapist's wall and trying so very hard to follow its truths, I would have a ground shaking, 'synchrondipitous' happening that would lead me to this journey of self-discovery and more.......... insanity.

More on this exciting, hugely baffling and perplexing time much later.

Now back to the time-line of heartbreak, delusion, mangled hope and insanity...great sadness.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen...Wib cuts out.

1967: In the midst of the 'ascending' Sugar Blues Band, Philip noticed in the paper that our dad was appearing in ‘Man of La Mancha’ with Jose Ferrer. We hadn’t seen our dad in five years, he owed child support and with my mom working two, sometimes three jobs, this was a welcome find.

Philip took it upon himself to go down to the theatre, knocked on the stage door and demanded to see Wilbur Evans.....to make a long story short, Wib paid the back support (some of it….$2800) to my mother and handed several hundred dollars to Philip and I, he had his estranged family appeased while in town. We saw “La Mancha,” visiting back stage with Ferrer and cast, (I was so impressed, I took some of my Sugar Blues buddies) he took us out a few times for dinner, that’s about all I can remember.

Soon after Wib's brief rescue of our tenuous near broken little family which gave my mother some relief but only enabled Philip and I to further obtain and choose our drugs-of-choice, he was offered a civilian position with the US. Army in South Vietnam as 'Deputy Head of Entertainment.' I believe my father welcomed this opportunity for 1- it offered him a more lasting 'job' at this stage in his life and 2- he would be more 'permanently' out of the threat of any court that would demand that he continue his support payments.

Letter from the producers of Man of La Mancha dated October 1967, twenty months before the Sugar Blues Band would move to Woodstock for its last hurray:

Sugar Blues in Woodstock…In the spring of ’69 Billy Stedman had a family friend who owned some property in Ellenville, NY…he suggested that we all move up for the summer and really get our shit together.

Coincidentally, it was ‘The Summer of ‘69’, the time of the Woodstock music festival.

It didn’t work out very well in Ellenville; gallons of Apple Jack, some LSD, marijuana; when out of pot, we’d try the banana peal thing, and once even cracking tea bags and rolling the leaves up…pretty hard up, nobody had a job from what I remember…. powdered milk and pasta was all that there was, most of the time. We were supposed to be rehearsing and writing music, advancing the Sugar Blues ‘concept.’ Which we did, at times, one joint-step ‘forward’ and two LSD-step’s back…. depending on the pocketbook.

By mid-July we moved out of Ellenville and closer to Woodstock proper…. to Wittenberg, New York. 5 miles outside of town. Crammed in a little brown house, I think with a bedroom and a loft. With a couple of very overweight needy women who fancied them selves as witches…. “Corinna” worked like mad to cast her love-spell on me.

Maybe it went a little awry; one night we all took some acid and decided to build a fire in the front yard. The fire wasn’t working so well, so Toby suggested that I grab the can of gasoline out of the mini-bus and put some of it on the dying flames. Thinking it was a great idea; I pulled the can out of the wagon and poured it on the fire. A huge ball of flame ensued, knocking me back while gasoline saturated my leg where the fire swiftly followed. My right leg was ablaze…I began to run in total panic (don’t forget, we were all tripping). Toby and the boys tackled me and smothered the flames with dirt and grass. I ended up with a nasty burn about the size of a desert saucer on the inside of my calf. All I did, the rest of the night, for hours, was watch this thing go through it’s blistering psychedelic changes, it wasn’t my leg, it was someone else’s, “What a trip” I thought. I was lucky.

Besides the ‘trips,’ Woodstock was fun….and we felt right at home. We played the Saugerties Sound Festival, in Saugerties, NY a mini-version of the upcoming Woodstock behemoth. It was just as muddy. I remember a cool band of black guys; “The Children of God.”

As I strolled with friends down a Woodstock sidewalk, Jimi Hendricks whizzed by as a passenger in a convertible Corvette Stingray. Our heads whipped around…”Man that’s cool, did you see….. that was Jimi!….Wow.”

The only time I ever saw him live.

While playing at the Wha?, there was a great night band called “Kangaroo.” They were out of Washington D.C. and they knocked our socks off. John Hall played bass (he later went on and founded ‘Orleans’ “Your Still the One” was one of their big hits) and a kid named Teddy Speleos on guitar, who looked like a skinny Winnie the Pooh with a shag haircut This kid Teddy was a monster player, we were awe struck by him. The following is an excerpt from John Hall’s web site:

‘As all night jams and practice sessions consumed more and more energy, that 8 AM physics class got more difficult. John switched to an English major, then left Notre Dame altogether. He worked at a paint factory (to get some responsibility, he was told), tried one more semester at Loyola in Baltimore, and finally accepted his calling and quit school to play in night clubs in the DC area. While he and his band The Wad were doing six sets a night, six nights a week at the Peppermint Lounge in Georgetown, Emmylou Harris and Roy Buchanan were playing just up the street. After stints with The British Walkers and Chocolate Snowflake, John left town with guitarist Ted Speleos to try to establish a beachhead in New York. The two, with John on bass, teamed up after a while with N. D. Smart and Barbara Keith as Kangaroo, whose only album was released on the MGM label. They were practically a house band at the Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village, alternating sets with bands like the Castilles, whose leader was the young Bruce Springsteen.’

We’d buy LSD from Hall, who ostensibly lived in Hendrix’s Wha? days apartment. He showed us old scribbled Hendrix lyrics to prove it....or maybe just to 'goof' and snicker behind the door while these 15 something's were nervously goin-a-gaga over 'ANYTHING' .....while amongst the land of their heroes. (Hall became 5 term a U.S. congressman....a very a-gaga good one!).

http://www.susannafosterchronicles.com/2009/02/home-was-all-she-wantedmichael-mommy.html

One night we were invited to a house party in Woodstock. It was a party being given by “some band from San Francisco.” A bunch of us from the Wha? crowd went along including Teddy Spelios, Kangaroo’s awesome guitarist.

When we arrived, there was a spread of food from one corner of this modern living room to the other and it was filled with band equipment from congas, amps and guitars to a Hammond B-3 organ. “Wow, who’s party is this?…let’s get down!” I thought. Well, after stuffing our faces and smoking a few joints (or was it smoking a few joints and then stuffing our faces?) and milling around with this apparent very hip crowd. All the musicians began to gather for a jam, as we were promised, a ‘heavy duty jam.’ I was psyched.

The place was loaded with great equipment and there were a lot of guys who seemed like they could play. I knew we could hold our own, but best of all….our man Teddy was gonna blow everybody’s brains out.

In the middle of the room, on the couch, a few sat with guitars….cow bells and tamborines (and what not). Against the wall…. a beefy latin lookin’ guy, hands resting on his congas with a very white, burly Irish looker behind the Hammond. They were ready to play and seemed to be waiting for a sign or something from the guy with the bandana and guitar on his lap in the middle of the center couch, it apparently was his court.

At first, there was indecision on what type of jam we were to put down. When, I think it was Howard who suggested that we play a slow blues. The bandana man swiftly interjected with… “No man, FUCK the blues!”

Howard and I looked at each other with a kinda ‘Whoa, what’s he all about?’

Teddy was sitting next to bandanna-man-in-the-middle with his guitar in hand as we all began to play a funky RandB shuffle.

Things started to heat up and the jam was ON! And Teddy was burning with electric fingers, dazzling everybody.

Bandanna guy suddenly stopped the jam and told Teddy that he had to turn it down…. “Man, it’s the neighbors man, the neighbors, you gotta turn it down man…”

It was odd, he did this several times and as Teddy continued to turn down and bandanna man would alternately turn up.

It became apparent to me (real fast) that this guy was intimidated by Teddy’s playing, was obviously the ‘boss man.’ And did what he had to do to remain the star of the show.

I thought he was jive, and a jerk.

It turned out, a couple of weeks later, bandanna man and his band were quite the hit at Woodstock.

Bandanna man was Carlos Santanna.

I don’t know, it seems we weren’t as enamored as others with this happening called “The Woodstock Festival.” Just not having a burning desire to get there. And besides everyone was saying it would be a madhouse and in addition we had been playing in the belly of it all…in downtown Greenwich Village…at the Wha?!

We saw countless shows at the Fillmore East; I remember Johnny Winter, Moby Grape, B.B. King, The Greatful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis) to name a few (sudden memory spurt; in the very early days of the Sugar Blues, Howard and I saw The Cream, The Who, Wilson Pickett, The Vagrants, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels all on one bill (or was that two or three!?), The Murray the K Show (I think at the Brooklyn Academy theatre or was that the RKO in Manhatten ?). So we were kinda jaded and certainly didn’t want to sit in the middle of thousands of people with no place to go when we could be playing.

Little did I know that I would be singing live and on the stage of THE Fillmore East in front of five thousand screaming kids.....three months later.

On a now defunct 'Saigon' street.