The Story of Riki OH!, My band, Getting Shot At, and Oriental Toothbrush Fighting

Ridiculous title for a post, wouldn't you agree? I started out wanting to do a post about Randall's brother Ricky, "The Story of Ricky", which reminded me of one of the most ridiculous, disgusting asian gore/kung fu movies every produced, but I thought of so many interesting stories about the band we were in, I decided to just talk about the band.

Robert, Ben, me, and Ricky played together back in the early 80s and Ricky was the lead singer. Both our lead guitarist Ben and Ricky refused to do a gig unless a ice chest full of Heineken was on stage. They would drink one between every song, which resulted in two hammered people by the start of the 3rd set. Ricky also lit a smoke and would stick it between two guitar strings up on the head of the guitar and let it smolder during the song. But his most fascinating characteristic was that he could not remember the words to any of the songs, which amazes me since he was the lead singer. So we had a music stand on stage with a book of all the songs with the words. I've seen hundreds of bands and never witnessed a singer having to have cheat sheets. One night the book fell off the stand at the beginning of "Mountain of Love", a cheesy Johnny Rivers 50's song which has six verses. Ricky could only remember the first verse so he sang it six times. People paid to see this "entertainment".

Early on, Ricky decided to hire his psychotic friend "Dave" to be our manager. Dave works in a funeral home and takes naps in a coffin. At some point before I met him he was in jail for who knows what, and I guess he got a little irritable, because he set his bed on fire. It must have been a small cell because he wound up with burns all over his upper body and arms. Now if I would have been a normal responsible adult back then, I would have said "Rocky, I am not sure about having Dave involved in our band. He seems a bit irresponsible and could use some therapy". Instead all I said was "cool".

Anyway, he had this stupid idea of a graffiti campaign for our band, so one night Ricky and I grabbed a gallon of black paint and a roller and hit the town. Now, to take on a stunt such as defacing private property, you need plenty of booze. We had no money or beer, so I jacked a bottle of banana liquor from my dad's cabinet. This folks, is true desperation.

Wandering aimlessly through town, we saw a billboard that looked like the perfect candidate. Up I climbed, 30 feet in the air up on the platform of the billboard, the big ones you see on the side of the interstate. I grabbed the paint roller and proceeed to paint our band name, "The Kingpins" in huge 6 foot tall letters. Once finished I climbed back down and got in the car. Ricky looked at me and said "you asshole, LOOK!". I had painted "Kinpins", leaving out the G.

By the way, Ricky was married once when he was about 18. I went to their house one day and opened the refrigerator to see if they had anything to drink. There were precisely two items; A bottle of champagne and a rotted tomato.

For one gig, Dave had this brilliant idea that we should play "Can't Buy Me Love" by the Beatles and throw money out in the crowd. Let me quickly say that after paying roadies and a sound man, we made almost nothing on gigs. Well, we started the song and Dave threw roughly one hundred single dollar bills out into the crowd. There went our revenue for the night. To this day, I have no idea what that was supposed to accomplish.

Once we booked a gig in New Orleans in an area known as "Fat City" which for a brief period was a hot spot for dancing and drinking and such. We rented a big Semi, loaded up all our gear, and "Big Richard" drove us there. We setup and went on stage at 10pm. There were exactly TWO patrons in the place; A young couple that were clearly on date number 5 at most. We started our set and they did not even look up. For the remainder of the evening we played to these two people as not a single other living soul walked in. Total pay for the night; $4.00. Yes, four dollars. After paying Big Richard and the semi rental I think we went in the hole about $80.

I know you are chomping at the bit to find out about the "Getting Shot at" part of this blog.

Our normal practice location was the living room of the house that Robert and I lived in. One night during a typical session Dave and our roadie George were all drunk and goofing off while were trying to practice. George had a haircut that resembled a helmet and thus his haircuts became known as a "helmet fitting". He also was the champion of popping "wheelies" in this wheelchair that was laying around the house (to this day I have no idea where it came from).

So these two idiots were in the middle of the living room doing kung fu moves while swinging their weapons, toothbrushes, at each other, hence the name "Oriental Toothbrush Fighting". They knocked a mic stand over and popped the one nerve that Robert had left. He threw his bass down, grabbed them both, and threw them out the door while kicking them both in the butt at the same time. Robert is a rather docile person, but i think the toothbrushes did him in. We went back to practicing, and at this point I need to step back and tell you the layout of the room. I sat up against the front door with my drums, back to the door. the rest of the band was strewn around the room opposite from me.

So we are banging away and all of the sudden "BOOM BOOM!". I was leaning back against the door and it shook and glass flew out all over me. Dave and George had gone to George's house, grabbed his 12 gauge shotgun and decided to teach us a lesson. I'm not sure they realized that if the shot had been a foot lower, I'd have had a nice hole in the back of my head. I think that's called "murder" in a court of law.

Well, they denied it of course and I don't recall much of what happened down the road from there.

Ok, a few Ricky stories.

He was into magic and gags for a while and had this quarter with a nail attached to the bottom. He'd nail it down on the floor and "watch the suckers bite"

While working at a car dealership if he had a customer that he had close to a deal, he'd put a pen in the middle of the table and slightly lift his side, causing the pen to roll toward the customer. They'd grab it before it rolled off the table. "One step closer to signing !" he'd brag.