2009.34: The Fountain of Death
Geneva, Switzerland, 1974
In between tours to Europe and Asia that year, some friends and I were hired to play in a club act for three brothers who danced and sang. We were recruited in Los Angeles and flown to Boston. After several days of rehearsal, we traveled from Boston to Geneva to play a show in a cabaret. Most musicians will tell you, there is nothing more boring than to play medleys, especially medleys with no solos. "O Holy Moses" modulates into "Proud Mary", and on and on for 40 minutes, then break time.
When musicians get bored, there are three possible cures: sex, drugs and alcohol and food. As we got done playing at around 4AM with nowhere open to eat, we'd look at each other during the medley and nod, "Salami sandwich in the room there boy, got some hanging out the window in a pillow case". Usually it's all three of the possibilities, just the order that might vary.
I won't go into the sex part here, but it will always be a factor in the business of making music and this was no different, except for the weird crowd in this place, women in fancy fur-lined coats drinking Champagne at $100 a glass (in those days). I had sent a train ticket to a girl I met in Zurich on a previous tour and she was to join me in mid week, so I wasn't looking.
So to the drugs and for legal reasons I won't go into who did what, although the statute of limitations is probably in force from 30+ years away, but still... Inquiry was made as to where to seek certain controlled substances and we were told, "Go to the fountain, man, the fountain is where it's at." And so it came to pass that we were looking around for someone who looked like they would know where to cop substance X and each time a likely candidate was seen, he was asked the magic question. Finally a positive nod and a transaction was made. We went back to the hotel.
Again, without the superficial details, something bad happened, a dose too strong, a tolerance too low, who knows, and one of us is slipping into unconsciousness, but with the lucidity to say the following astonishing sentence: "I saw some huge industrial garbage bags on the maid's cart this morning. Put me in one, drag it to the elevator and put me in the dumpster." One of us went to get the bag.
I won't ever tell what happened next. Go listen to http://tr.im/wwhite and it may become clear. What I will say is that as you travel and look upon the many, many beautiful places on the planet, places like the lake and fountain in Geneva, the bridges of Paris, the streets of Rome, the Hollywood Hills, you aren't thinking of it but many, many funky things have gone down there. Damn, it's good be home.
