The tour was off to Europe for the next three months where we were opening for The Scorpions, Germany’s biggest rock ‘n’ roll band of all time. They were really great, and super regal, like dukes and barons. They’d enter a room with their long hair and gold rings and leather pants and you could just tell they were rock stars. Their wives were all dressed up in furs and diamonds and it looked like they were all just flat- out rich aristocrats.

The band was really nice and polite and total gentlemen, which is very uncharacteristic for rock ‘n’ roll types. I was very impressed.

It was also my first time in Europe and I couldn’t wait to get to Amsterdam, where pot is LEGAL! Of course, when we got there, I jumped out of the tour bus at like 8 a.m., pulled out a little notebook and ran up to the nearest drug dealers I could find, who were about 12 feet away, and found out where everything was and who was in charge and how much all the best drugs cost, etc., etc.

My favorite drug in the whole world was marijuana, and in Amsterdam you could buy it legally in certain public places. It was okay to sell pot and hash in special bars and coffee shops, but you couldn’t mix any of it with alcohol; that was available next door. How incredibly civilized and evolved that anyone over 18 years old could go into a hash bar and smoke in public without getting in trouble.

The one I visited every day had all kinds of different types of killer pot from all over the world displayed in little bags in big notebooks. I was in heaven. They had Hawaiian, Kush Bud, Green Indica with purple hairs, Black African bud, and Northern California Humboldt County A Plus Bud.

Legalized pot, how great was that!! This was the creme de la creme of the best pot in the world.

We were in Amsterdam for 11 days and only had one show. We had ten days of R&R with killer hotels and we were being paid to just hang out. We got 50 Gilders a day per diem, which came out to about $25 bucks a day to live on (our hotel rooms were already taken care of). It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough to get by ’cause pot was cheap and food was too and overall, it was a total blast.

I was 24 years old and those were, by far, some of the best days of my life.

When we had to leave, Wally came up to me and said, “Cliff, do NOT bring any pot into Germany through the border.

I saluted like I always did and said, “No problem Wally, you can count on me!”

He said, “Cliff, if you bring drugs into Germany and they find them, then we’ll all be cavity-searched, and I don’t want to get cavity-searched by Communist Germans in East Berlin. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, Wally, I promise I won’t bring anything into Germany, and get us all cavity searched. You can count on me sir!”

I saluted again to show him I was serious. Of course, the second he got off my back, I brought a little bit of pot with me, because no one would find out and no one would know and I was too smart to get caught. Once again, I was living dangerously, and, because I was part of a big rock ‘n’ roll show, I was also risking getting a lot of people into a lot of trouble. But I didn’t get caught and everything was fine.

For a while, that is.

We went through Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, that little “No Man’s Land,” separating East and West Germany, where they used to have tall guard towers and barbed wire everywhere and Communist German soldiers with machine guns. You walked through this area about 200 feet long where you could get shot and killed for any reason and no one could stop it.

In fact, we heard about a few people who had tried to escape through Checkpoint Charlie a couple weeks before we got there who had been shot to death. It was a little scary and intimidating to think that we were going into a communist part of the world, where life was cheap, and you could get shot if you didn’t pay attention or do what you were told.

Well, we walked through “No Man’s Land,” all well dressed up like rock ‘n’ rollers, and most of the guys had long hair and wore sunglasses and leather pants and looked all cool, like they always did.

I noticed that way up in one of the guard towers, one of the guards was giving us the finger. He had an M-16 in one hand and his other little hand was just showing out of the window and there it was, his middle finger waving at us.

I instantly thought to myself, “I have to defend our country, I need to defend our honor.” I mean, I couldn’t just walk through Checkpoint

Charlie and not do anything. This asshole was giving us the finger for no reason. I couldn’t let him get away with that. He probably was jealous that he was stuck inside his little guard tower world and we could just waltz right through the border with our long hair and leather pants with no restrictions on our lives.

I paused, thought about it for a good five seconds, and very nonchalantly, while we were walking by the tower so no one in my group could see me do it, I gave the guard an upside down finger, which I knew he could see. I just wanted him to know that I saw him do it, and that I wasn’t afraid of him and that I was giving it right back to him, in a subtle, little way. Nothing happened after that. He didn’t retaliate against my counter offense. No one got shot. No one else saw me do it. Nothing bad happened.

For a while, that is.

We got through customs and no one got cavity- searched. Everything was fine. Wally came up to me and pulled me aside and got in my face and quietly said, “Cliff, do NOT give the finger to Communist German guards ever again!”

Wally NEVER missed a thing. I couldn’t believe he’d seen me do that. I’d been so subtle and careful there’s no way any normal human being could’ve seen me do that.

I said, “No problem, Wally,” and saluted him, saying, “You can count on me.”

He just looked at me like he always did, like he basically wanted to wring my neck and probably would’ve if he could’ve gotten away with it.

We made it through Checkpoint Charlie and into East Berlin, where we went sight seeing, and just cruised around. We got to see the Limelight Club, which was in an old, bombed-out church from the 15th century — a very cool joint. I went shopping and bought the coolest black shoes. Germany had the best shoes and clothes, by far, than any other place I’d been to.

For some reason, the Germans made stuff really well, and in general, things were bigger and stronger there. The hotel doors were thick, and made from solid wood and they were taller and wider than normal. The towels were all big and fluffy and better than normal. The clothes were better made and cheaper, and higher quality than what I was used to. They seemed to be tailored to fit my body style more so than anywhere else, except Holland. They had amazing clothes for tall skinny people like me. I’m 6’4″ and have long, monkey arms and can never find shirts with long enough sleeves, because normally in the U.S., if the sleeves are long enough the rest of the shirt is for fat, huge people. It’s very rare for me to find a friggin’ shirt that has long enough sleeves and is tight enough around the chest and waist. I had been all over the U.S. and had shopped in many cities, but nothing compared to Germany and Holland, where just about every store I went to had a huge selection of super cool clothes that fit me surprisingly well.

So, we’re all in East Berlin in front of 19,000, drunk and smelly Viking type Germans at the Das Hammer Metal Festival, opening up for Ozzy Osbourne, Motorhead, The Scorpions and tons of other heavy rock bands. The indoor arena smelled really bad and had terrible air circulation. It basically smelled like what I imagine the hull of a Viking war ship must’ve been like, with the sweaty slaves pulling on the oars while the guy with the whip was being mean to them.

It came time for the show and everything sounded great and I didn’t make any mistakes and, once again, it all worked out fine.

After the show, when everything was all packed up and put away, I, of course, snuck off with some chick and smoked a little bit of pot. No big deal, everyone did it, and no one really cared as long as you were cool about it.

I came backstage, looking for some food, like a typical stoner would. Wally was there with a bunch of people and I figured no one could tell that I was stoned and that it’s all good. I said something stupid, like I always did, and made a bad joke and no one was laughing, and I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and scrounged around for some dressing room leftovers.

Wally, in a really quiet voice, said, “Cliff, come over here,” and he walked me out into the hallway away from everyone.

“Yeah, Wally, what’s up?” “That was another great show,” Wally said.

“Yep, another great show, all right,” I agreed.

“Cliff, didn’t I tell you not to bring any drugs into Germany?”

“Yes, Wally, you said that, and I promised you that I  wouldn’t.”

“And, didn’t I say I would fire you if you risked getting us all cavity searched?”

Yes, Wally, you certainly did say that. What seems to be on your mind?”

“Cliff, you’re fired.”

Finally, after all those months, I got fired! It almost seemed surreal. Or, maybe the pot was just really good. Or maybe a little bit of both…

Our sound guy, Johner, was standing right there and he hated my guts. He saw the whole thing go down. He had a giant grin on his face a mile wide. He was all smug and just looked at me like a little kid, like “ha ha ha ha ha, you got fired.”

I just looked at Johner, right into his little, beady, below average intelligence eyes, and scowled back. Whatever, I didn’t care. I was SO over being a lowly, bottom of the totem pole roadie.

I paused for a moment, and then turned to Wally and calmly said, “Well, if you ever change your mind, you can call me anytime and I would be more than happy to go back out on the road with you guys any time, no hard feelings.”

He just looked at me like he always did, with a mean grimace, and just walked away shaking his head probably thinking, “Cliff will NEVER learn…”

Whatever man, it was the last show of the European tour; we were going back to the States the next day, and it didn’t matter either way. Hey, man, it was rock ‘n’ roll! I didn’t hurt anybody and 19,000 other people were smoking pot, so what’s the big deal?

I got back to Los Angeles the next day and since all my stuff was in storage I had to crash at my friend Mike Eddy’s little apartment in Hollywood.

Mike Eddy was one of my oldest and most trusted friends in Hollywood. He was my first friend, from the day I arrived. Mike was an eccentric guy who lived in the smallest apartment in the history of indoor dwelling. It was smaller than a single. In fact, it wasn’t even an apartment; it was the old building manager’s office and was literally just a hole in the wall big enough to barely fit a nest for a small animal.

Mike Eddy was a projectionist for the movie studios and made really good money and could have easily afforded a big house but maybe he just liked living like that. Anyway, he was about 15 years older than me and grew up in Manhattan Beach in the ’60′s and was cool and I knew he would let me crash on his floor until I got my stuff out of storage and got a new apartment.

I woke up the next day at around noon and noticed that Mike was gone. He was probably at work. I was all hung over and dehydrated and jet-lagged and all groggy from the 18-hour flight back from Germany, via New York. I was extremely thirsty and barely awake, so I looked in his refrigerator for something to drink. I scoped it out and saw an old, unmarked plastic lemonade bottle with some clear liquid in it. I figured it was probably lemonade and grabbed it and took a HUGE chug.

I froze in horror.

I instantly realized what had just happened.

Oh no, I’d been poisoned!

I had just chugged a HUGE gulp of some mystery fluid that was NOT lemonade.

I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was the wrong thing to drink and that I was totally fucked. I ran to the bathroom and started throwing up white foam for what seemed like hours. I had just been poisoned and I didn’t know what it was, but my body was in convulsions and I couldn’t stop puking.

I kept puking even when nothing was left. It was, by far, the worst experience of my life when it comes to swallowing the wrong thing and throwing up. I highly recommend to NEVER crash at Mike Eddy’s apartment and drink random, clear liquids from unmarked old lemonade plastic bottles. You never know what you might find there. What kind of lunatic stores poison in unmarked lemonade bottles in their refrigerator, right next to the expensive, organic, Berry Smoothies?

After about an hour on my knees, praying to the porcelain throne and throwing up white foam and green and yellow and every other horrible color you can imagine, I gathered up enough strength to call Mike Eddy at work.

“Dude, what the fuck was in that lemonade bottle! I’ve been poisoned. I’m dying. Help, do something, call the poison people!”

He calmly said, “Oh, that was just pure hydrogen peroxide; that isn’t poison. I use that with a diluted solution in my water-pik to clean my gums. It’s basically water minus one molecule.”

“Quick, do something, I’ve been poisoned. Help!”

He said he would call the poison control hotline and find out what the deal was.

The poison people said that it wasn’t that dangerous, but just to make sure, I should go to the hospital and double check. Mike rushed over and took me to the emergency room in Hollywood at some lame hospital. We got there and filled out all the papers and after about what seemed an eternity we finally got to see a doctor. Actually, it was a nurse, because most emergency rooms start off with a nurse to get the scoop on what the deal is, unless you literally have a bullet wound or got run over by a train; then you get to a see a real doctor right away.

So, I get this big, fat, black nurse who didn’t have any sense of humor, at all.

She was like, “What seems to be the problem?”

Mike explained to her that I drank a big gulp of pure hydrogen peroxide that he kept in his refrigerator. I mumbled to her that it was in an unmarked lemonade bottle and that who in their right mind would put hydrogen peroxide in their refrigerator camouflaged like that. She looked at him kinda funny, but you know how emergency room people are, they’re all so unimpressed and basically totally desensitized to all human feelings. Otherwise, how could you stand it, day in and day out, with all those messed-up people around you? I guess that’s how a lot of people might feel if you really think about it. They have such crappy lives and jobs, and pretty much have to numb out just to get through it all.

Suddenly, for some bizarre reason, and without explaining why, the nurse decided to stick this long plastic tube up my nostril. The problem was, she wasn’t very talented or maybe she was just a dumb ass and couldn’t get the tube through my sinuses and down my throat. She meanly pulled the tube back out and tried the other nostril.

This one was even worse. She was ramming the thing, and I mean RAMMING it up my nose, trying to get it up through my face and down to my stomach. Of course, she wouldn’t tell me what was going on and I was just sitting there in shock, and in total pain and bumming like no other. She couldn’t get the tube through that nostril either, so she pulled it out of my face and went back to the first nostril and the madness continued. For all I know, that dumb ass, fat, meanie nurse might’ve been a sadist.

After about 15 minutes of her cramming this thing up my nose and through my forehead, she finally got it through enough and it started to go all the way down the back of my throat and into my stomach. At this point, I put my hands up like a time-out signal in football and I yelled at her, “What the hell are you doing to me? Why are you sticking a tube up my nose and down my throat and into my stomach? Don’t tell me you’re trying to induce me to vomit, because I just finished throwing up for six hours nonstop, and there ain’t nothin’ left, you dumb ass! If you want to know what I swallowed, here’s the shit I drank, you moron!”

Mike Eddy handed her the bottle of hydrogen peroxide. She had that glazed over, stupid look in her eyes, and didn’t apologize for traumatizing me. She hadn’t even bothered to ask, “By the way, sir, may we analyze what you drank?” Or, “Pardon me, but do you mind if I ask what you accidentally drank?”

That’s all she would’ve had to do. She was just doing a procedure to waste my time and money. We told her up front what the fuck I drank. I should have sued her fat, black, dumb ass and that lousy hospital, too. The trauma of going to the emergency room was worse than being poisoned!

I should’ve just punched that beady-eyed, ratfink, sadistic, evil nurse in the face and run her over with a steamroller. But I was poisoned, traumatized, and in shock, and not my usual happy-go-lucky self. I had just gotten fired in Germany, been humiliated by all the rock stars who hated me because I was smarter, younger, and better looking, been on an 18 hour flight, jet lagged and all confused and dehydrated, woken up super thirsty and chugged the biggest gulp of pure, 100% hydrogen peroxide — from an un-marked lemonade bottle I might add — right out of my retarded friend Mike Eddy’s refrigerator!

I was NOT having a good day.

Finally, a real doctor showed up. He said that I was going to be fine, but that I should stay a couple of days for observation. What he really should have said was that he was positive that I was fine but that he was going to milk my parents anyway for $5,000 with no goddamn legit reason of any kind. I was in the hospital for three days in my own little room with a TV and three, below average, hospital meals. I could’ve gone to Vegas, stayed in the best room in town, got a few hookers and I still would’ve had a couple grand in my pocket for the same amount they raped my parents for.

But you know how it is; the medical system in this country is a crying-shame joke, not to mention the political system and, while we’re at it, the military, and let’s not forget the energy companies and big business in general. It’s all a big mess and everyone knows it. I guess most people just don’t give a rat’s ass and that’s why it’ll never change. Or maybe the few people who do care can’t really do anything about it because the powers-that-be will just kill ‘em because that’s how it’s done, folks. Might makes right. That’s how it’s always been and that’s how it always will be.

I don’t write the rules; I just point ‘em out once in a while.

If you want money and power, all you gotta do is rape, pillage, and murder and get in line and take a number, because there are plenty of guys who want to do that, but since the competition is so intense, they have to wait their turn…

After I got out of the hospital a couple of days later, I got a call from Wally and the House of Weasels, asking if I wanted to go on the road some more.

I said sure, man, and I was off and running again.

This time, it was opening up for 38 Special in the south. Now, the south has its ups and downs, like all places, but this one particular place was a dry county. Prohibition still existed and folks were still sore about people having free will to live their lives.

I guess some people will just do whatever they can to try and control other people because they are just plain crazy, and if enough of them get together then, well, they can make a dry county if they want to. That’s America in action, folks. If enough people wanna do somethin’, then they’re just gonna do it, and it doesn’t matter if it makes any sense and it doesn’t matter if it’s legal, or moral or right or wrong. People are just gonna do what they want, because that’s what people do.

We were in a dry county somewhere in Florida, opening up for 38 Special.

Wally came up to me and said, “Listen Cliff, we’re going to a dry county and that means the people there are extra neurotic about drugs and alcohol. So, please, do NOT mess around with any drugs and alcohol while we’re there. Be on your best behavior.”

“Don’t worry, Wally,” as I saluted him once more, “you can count on me.”

He just rolled his eyes and walked away, knowing full well there was nothing he could say or do or threaten me with that was gonna keep me from getting in trouble. It was just a matter of time, really.

Everything was cool, and we did a bunch of shows and nothing bad happened.

For a while, that is.

We got a whole new lineup of roadies and one of the guys ended up being a good, long-term friend. His name was Chief because he was tall and had long hair and looked like the Indian chief from that movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. People still call him Chief to this day.

After one gig in a club, I was just hanging out and some dude comes up to me and says, “Hey, man, do you guys want any coke?”

I’m like, “Sure, man, let’s check it out.”

So, we snuck back to his apartment around the corner and tried some and it was pretty good, so I got a little bit for the guys, in case they might want some. On the road, there’s always someone who wants a little bit of coke but it’s not always that easy to find stuff like that, especially in dry counties in the south.

I thought I was doing the guys a favor. I headed back to the club because I didn’t want to get in trouble and everything was fine, no big deal. Later that night, I hooked up a couple of the rock stars and they thanked me for being so resourceful and thoughtful. I was just being a good guy and keeping an eye out for them, like I always did.

The next day, we all got invited to a big backyard BBQ party. It was true Southern hospitality and totally fun. Sometimes, life on the road was just a regular ol’ good time and this was one of them. We were laughing, and drinking, and eating really yummy food when all of a sudden we hear a big knock on the front door.

“FBI, open the door.”

Everyone at the party turned white in the face and we all just froze. Wally and Clay both looked at me automatically, like I somehow had something to do with it.

Turns out the husband of the chick that was throwing the party was an international drug smuggler, and the cops came in and dragged the guy away. They had been doing a sting operation on him for months and, of course, I had nothing to do with any of it. But, as usual, the guys in the band and Wally all looked at me like I was somehow bad luck or something, just because they had to look at someone and, of course, not themselves, because quite frankly they were the ones that invited me, and THEY were the ones with the friend whose husband was an international drug dealer, not me.

So many people are just in denial, in general; they just don’t want to cop to the fact that they don’t know what time it is in life and they want to blame someone else for their problems. Even though I got some dirty looks from those clowns, I didn’t really care, because I didn’t do anything, and by that time, I was used to their crap. I just shrugged it off and said, “Could someone please pass the cornbread?”