Burning the candle at both ends was definitely catching up with me. We video taped a show at the Agora with 14K and it was apparent that I was struggling with a bit of laryngitis from simply working too much. On top of that, I overheard RJ talking trash about me in the dressing room to the other guys one night. It was becoming a little scary to come to work for fear I was about to be canned. The mood lasted for a week or two, and then as quickly as it had come, it was gone. 

I decided to try to get my act together and put myself on a budget. Mom and dad's 29th anniversary went well. I got them a king sized bed (courtesy of the guys who'd given us all the furniture for our house) and took them out to eat at Bill Martin's on White Settlement. 

My parents on their wedding day.

On March 14th, we played the Rock Saloon in Houston. I spent a lot of time with Sherry. In what turned out to be an unfortunate mistake, she invited me to come to her house and meet her family.  She came from a very well-to-do, conservative family, and I'm sure her dad was less than thrilled to have the likes of me in their Jersey Village mansion, cavorting with his pride and joy. During dinner, I turned to gesture with my arm as I told a story and knocked over a huge potted plant, breaking the pot and sending potting soil all over the kitchen floor. But besides that big awkward moment, the rest of our time together there seemed to go okay. We went to the movies to see a Richard Pryor movie, went to dinner with her family at Houlihan's, and did the flea market thing. I have to hand it to her parents; surely they hated the fact that their young daughter wanted to date guys in bands -- but what baby wanted, baby got! 

There were parties all weekend long. On one particular night, the band tried to go to a strip club next door to the Rock Saloon called Baby Oh's, but they wouldn't let us in because our hair was too long!  A lot of important people were coming to see us in Houston. The Lone Wolf reps were there. At the hotel, RJ hosted a big blackjack tournament. Big Mike won. Dan hooked up with a Scandinavian girl after hours at a Denny's and some type of scandal resulted. I don't remember what the scandal was all about, but I think a camera was involved! On the 15th, we assembled at Hobby Airport to fly home. Sherry was there to see me off, which was very sweet of her.  RJ, Ricky, Rick, and I boarded the flight while Hud was in the restroom. Sherry saw his briefcase sitting by the gate and thought Hud had boarded and forgotten it. She took it with her and personally delivered it to Ft. Worth the next day! Now that's what I call "SERVICE!"   [In hindsight, I can't imagine what in God's name could have been in that briefcase! Hopefully, Hud had it locked!] 

Back home, attendances and attitudes at Savvy's were excellent. Bartenders, and long time friends of the Savvy organization, Rat and Margie, announced they were getting married. We decided to add "Love Light" to the album. Our garage had been totally trashed by Kitty and the pups that we'd kept for Bobby Albin. My Volare' seemed to be falling apart by the day. An eccentric, wealthy regular at the club, Mark Berry, gave us a $3,000 loan to help finance a trip out to California to get the album mastered. To him, money was nothing. He once gave me half of a $100 bill, telling me (in slurred, drunken speech) that if I found his car keys he would give me the other half. By golly, I found them too! Mark was always showing up in the most expensive luxury cars you could imagine. Around the time of the loan, he bought a Ferrari. 

Saturday Night Live legend, John Belushi, died from a drug overdose. Brother Ray built, and flew his first radio controlled airplane. Uncle Kenny and Aunt Sally (from Colorado) were in town visiting. I saw Dale Cone (from High School) at the club. The people from Performance Magazine came out to Savvy's to see us play

. 
Savvy's ad in Performance Magazine.

I had a couple of interesting "Ronald" incidents. One Friday morning I was scheduled to perform for 14,000 second-graders from the FWISD at the Tarrant County Convention Center. I did a 20 minute stage show, only to find out afterwards that they'd really only wanted a quick "hello" - not a show! I was told that I held up the entire FWISD for 20 minutes, which apparently was some kind of a big deal. Talk about POWER! Then on the following Saturday while Sherry was staying over, one of the account exec's from the ad agency, Scott Hudgins, was scheduled to pick me up at the house on Lester early that morning and drive me to an event. When he arrived, I had Sherry answer the door and pretend she'd never heard of me. He was momentarily freaked out to think he'd gotten the address wrong, but then I stepped into the doorway, in full costume and ready to go, and let him off the hook. But the joke ended up being on me. Scott had just bought a brand new BMW and I was carrying a cup of coffee with me. Less than a block from the house he hit a big dip in the road. Coffee went all over the headliner of his new car -- and all over ME! We had to turn around and go back so I could change into another costume, and clean up the mess in his car as best we could. I felt absolutely terrible about messing up his car. Over the years Scott has always maintained that he was able to get all of the coffee stains out. I hope he wasn't just sparing me from guilt. We managed to have a lot of good laughs about that one over the years. Thank goodness.  

[Sadly, my friend Scott Hudgins passed away in 2005 after a short bout with cancer. I hadn't seen him in almost 15 years when I got a call from him asking if I could do a "clown" show for his son's birthday party. He didn't mention that he'd been sick. On the day of the party I was disappointed that Scott wasn't on hand for it. That's when his wife explained that Scott was at home recovering from recent bouts of Chemotherapy. I asked if I could stop by and see him on my way home from the party and she was thrilled at the idea. So Ronald had one last visit with his old pal. Scott was weak and in a lot of pain, but he held it together and put on a brave face during our brief visit. Ironically, he'd left McDonald's and bounced around between a few jobs before ending up as a big advertising guy for another major fast food account. We worked our way through all the same old war stories about the coffee spilling in his BMW, and how I was always having girls answer the door pretending he had the wrong apartment or house, and what it was like when he was having to set up the stage shows for Ronald on the McDonald's parking lots. I could tell he was getting weak and so I cut the visit short. I'm really glad that we had that chance to visit one last time. If he hadn't called about the party, no telling how long he might have been gone before I'd found out about his passing. Scott had a lot of great friends still working at the Moroch Agency after all those years. While he wouldn't ever want credit for it, Pat Kempf, VP of Moroch and Associates, was faithfully mowing Scott's lawn and doing whatever else he could to help his old friend in the last difficult months. On the day of Scott's funeral I was booked for an appearance and was unable to go. That's show biz. Scott would've understood.]  

On March 22nd (Mom's birthday), we played a concert in Longview. I rode to that show with our new Chief of Security at Savvy's, Joe David. We talked about Samantha, a girl he was interested in, that I had been involved with recently as well. I think the entire purpose of his asking me to ride with him was to encourage me to leave her alone through sheer intimidation. Joe David was a loose cannon. He wore steel-toed boots and was way into martial arts. He didn't mind using violence to end violence at the club. Whether he was trying to drop a hint or not, I knew it wouldn't be safe to see Samantha again. 

The attendance at the Longview show on March 22nd was just like the drive to Longview: grim.  Then we played two nights at a popular college hang out in Lubbock called Fat Dawgs.  That show was great!  As soon as we returned from Lubbock we sent Ricky, Rick, Hud, and Big Mike to Los Angeles to oversee the mastering of our album. While there, they ran into Michael Jackson in the studio. The tentative new date for the release of Made In Texas has been moved to April 15th. Staying on budget had me financially on my feet again in no time. Sherry  was driving from Houston to Ft. Worth on a semi regular basis. I was a little surprised to find out that she'd taken my parents out to dinner without me knowing it. I went to a doctor for a sore throat and ended up going ahead and getting a physical. Far more serious than treating a sore throat, the doctor told me to be aware that I could be a candidate for prostate trouble 10  years down the road. I didn't know what a prostate was, and figured if I was still alive in 12 years, I would hopefully have done everything I'd wanted to do. In short, it didn't take long for the routine of being in a successful local band to make me forget about the prostate thing altogether.  (Ironically, my dad was about to be diagnosed with prostate cancer and would lose his life to it after a courageous ten year battle.)

Hud had been dating a girl named Brenda. When they broke up, she called me from a club one night. I met up with her and we had some drinks. The next night we went to the Agora to see Al Dimeola. I had even asked Hud if he was ok with me seeing her and he managed to conceal his true feelings and told me he didn't care. I think Brenda cared too and was pretty much using me to see if she could make Hud jealous. I didn't realize it, but wouldn't have minded. She was beautiful, sweet, and I'd had a giant crush on her from the day I met her. But she'd been teamed up with Hud through the matchmaking efforts of Rick's girlfriend, Carla. I wasn't surprised to learn that they were back together within a day or two of my going out with her. As long as they were happy, I was happy for them.

On a night off I went to the Loft, and then on to Baby Doll's. When I got home, Ricky was there with Bubba and Billy Jack Marney, two musician brothers from the band Rafferty Rule. Then after our last set one night at Savvy's, Big Mike and Lilly were talking at the bar. They invited me to go to breakfast with them and hang out. I figured that having Big Mike with us would make it safe so I agreed. We went to the Travel Lodge Restaurant. It was the first time we'd been able to be civil to each other since breaking up a year and a half earlier. Just friends hanging out and talking. It was nice. On April 4th, a band called Runner opened for us at Savvy's.  There were holdups getting the album released so it wouldn't happen on April 15th as we'd hoped. Then on the 18th the Grassroots played Savvy's and we opened for them. After a killer opening set, Charles Stewart came back and said he can "promise" we'll have a hit from the album, and wanted to expand to national distribution as soon as possible. His idea was to redo the whole thing by adding 2 more songs ("Won't Call It Love" and "Love Technique") and redo the cover. We would have to wait and see. A band called Diamond opened for us that weekend.

The Marney brothers: Billy Jack (left) and Bubba (right) sitting in at Savvy's. They were long time
 friends who formed a band called Rafferty Rule.

I sold my Marshall amp to Jim Wise. We had lunch downtown which was made difficult because of a stomach virus I was suffering from. Bobby Albin came and got Kitty, and sold all the pups except for one, "Tiger Man." Ricky had designs on keeping the Pit Bull and I pretended to go along with it. But I knew that Nigel was the dog of our house and that Ricky would soon be too busy again to take care of it.  I mowed the lawn and spent a lot of time fixing up the dog-devastated garage. 

Tensions were mounting in the Falkland Islands. To the world, it was a 72 day, undeclared war between the British and Argentina. But to us it was just a funny name to say. I didn't think that to be irreverent or non-caring. It's just that people in my line of work were usually so caught up in living out their fantasies that they had little time for contemplating world events. There would be plenty of time for that later on.

With friends Brenda B. (left) and Vanessa (right) at Savvy's.

A beautiful girl named Vanessa had been puppy-eyed over Ricky for several months. She and her friend Brenda, were flight attendants. It was another situation where I wanted to ask a girl out, but had to forget about it because either she was interested in Ricky, Ricky was interested in her, or they were both into each other. But in this case, Vanessa finally realized that Ricky was in serious relationship with Laurie and simply couldn't give her the attention she wanted. So with the "all clear" from Ricky, I asked Vanessa out to dinner. What I didn't know was that she'd just broken up with a long-time boyfriend who had been following us all night during our date! He was basically stalking her. Towards the end of the night she figured out that he was driving behind us and it ruined the mood. I dropped her off at home and went back to my car, keeping a careful eye out for flying baseball bats! 

It was a little strange to be going out with Vanessa because when we'd first met it seemed pre-ordained somehow that her friend Brenda and I were going to end up together. We came close on several occasions but we just never really clicked. It wasn't that I wasn't interested. The only reason I could come up with was that I must have been a little too wild for Brenda in much the same way that Ricky was too wild for Vanessa.  Whatever it was that polarized us,  Brenda ended up dating Dan. It seemed to happen overnight. I was even a little jealous of old Dan, too. 

Savvy's Nightclub made TV soap operas look like Child Day Care Facilities back in the early 80's. In those days dating was a lot like square dancing;  you just kept going in wide circles while music played, and every time you turned around, there was somebody different on your arm!  Yee haw!

A packed dance floor at Savvy's Nightclub.

CHAPTER 34: JUST GIGGIN' IT!

SAVVY STORY INDEX

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