Audio Interview, Mike, 1974

MIKE: At that time early in my life, or earlier than honestly

ten years ago like that, I felt like I

had tried to identify with these super violent men.

With Hell's Angels, with, you know, Wyatt Earp--

not Wyatt Earp--

Jesse James and the outlaw image, the very masculine men.

And up until a little short time ago, maybe a year,

maybe in that, I was still really intense into that.

Now, the way I feel about it was that I

was looking for a man image, because I felt that I had none.

So I grew up--

I was always mommy.

I grew up like with all women consistently around me

like that, you know?

And so this was like the most masculine thing there was out,

was this real, virile, hard guy, fighter, drinker.

INTERVIEWER 2: You got this image after your father left?

MIKE: No, that was like, well, I grew up-- my early years

until I was like four years old on,

I lived, me, my mother, it was my grandmother

and my grandfather.

And my aunt and my cousin, both female, man, and my cousin's

a girl too.

I was consistently surrounded with women in the house

at all times like that, you know?

My grandfather was older like that

and he was a rummy at that time.

He drank a lot like that.

So, what I figure is what happened

myself is that when I started coming to realize these things

I was looking for, like, a man image or a father image

or something like that to copy.

This is what I went for, was the most outspoken, violent thing

that I could get a hold of at that time.

And in the late sixties and middle sixties

the Hell's Angels were in full swing,

everybody was denim, leather, swastika.

At least that's the way I saw it, you know?

And that's what I went after.

And I could never reach that fucking point.

It's really so bizarre.

I had all the trappings.

I had this Iron Cross around my neck

and I had the cut-off denim and I had the gang's name

on the back, Rogues Incorporated, Lovejoy

in Buffalo, New York.

And it was a big suit.

I used to love wearing that, man.

Just the way people would look at me.

Oh, look, there goes a man.

(Mike laughs)

And it was really true.

That's the way it really was, you know?

Because I could go in any place and like

I knew what was going on inside me and I wasn't what

was portrayed.

And yet, I could go in a place like that

and I could give off enough show that people wouldn't bother.

It was a mutual agreement that other rough guys do not

hassle this rough guy too.

It was mutually like that.

Just don't mess with that guy, he's a bad motherfucker.

And I was never--

these people started picking up this.

Other people started seeing me as that mask.

It was so bizarre like that.

And then like a legend grew up, you know.

I don't remember, I was in a fight in I think seventh grade,

and I wasn't in another fight for maybe four years.

But here I was, big, running around like that.

A lot of strange people would say like outside,

they didn't know me like that, they would really think that I

was really a hard, nasty thing.

You know, here's these guys, street corner guys.

And I was never really that.

I tried, after I got out of high school, I tried--

it even got more intense for some reason.

I really went nuts.

I didn't wear shoes for a year.

I wore consistent cowboy boots for like eighteen months.

I didn't even own a pair of shoes.

It was always boots, boots, boots.

You know?

It was always black denim pants, always black t-shirt,

had a big truckers wallet hanging out

with the chain on it, the belt, I used to wear

the skull, the cat skull all the time.

It was just a big joke.

And what happened, I think, is I started to believe the image,

and that's where I really got into trouble because I couldn't

keep up with what I thought I was,

or what I wanted to be, or identify with.

And that was a big hassle.

INTERVIEWER 2: What was it, again, that you definitely

wanted to identify with?

MIKE: I wanted to identify, I think,

with a masculine image of what a man is.

And I felt like--

INTERVIEWER 2: Did you try like in all ways?

MIKE: No, I don't think so.

I don't know where I am there.

INTERVIEWER 2: OK, well you're talking

about being really masculine.

So did that also go into, like-- what was your relationships

in high school?

I mean, besides like with the guys?

Did the other image go into your relationships

with women that you met?

MIKE: Yeah, they did.

And they always consistently found me out too.

INTERVIEWER 2: Well, why don't you explain what happened?

MIKE: Well, I say, you know, like how could

the immortal, masculine, mucho macho man,

how could he lower himself to love a woman?

You know, because women were always

sex objects in our group.

They were nothing else, they had no minds, nothing.

It was always like, broads.

It was never women or girls or anything,

it was always broads like that and it's really hard.

If you're trying to portray something you're not,

how are you going to portray it that way?

I got really messed up all through those hangups

like that.

You know, I just couldn't come out.

It was another--

I was suppressed in all these ways.

These social pressures and pressures from home

like that, they really messed--

I can't explain it yet myself.

INTERVIEWER 2: Well, why don't you

give a particular example of a relationship

and how did the conflict (unintelligible)?

I mean, you tried to love a particular woman

and it would get involved-- it would get tangled up because?

MIKE: It was because of having to play

the role, of having to act like someone I wasn't like that.

I would consistently fuck it up.

And I think I chose also people who I would want

to have relationships with.

I would choose people who would like maybe would supposedly

jive with that, and yet didn't.

I want to see if I can put that better.

(pause) I felt I chose people who I felt

were, say, the ideal person for the ultra masculine man.

You know?

Like the chick with the cut-off jacket, right?

And it turns out that these people are playing roles too.

You've got two people playing roles

and all you've got is shit.

At least that's the way I felt, you know?

It was really hard for me to carry on a serious--

have a serious relationship, a long-term one.

I still don't have long-term relationships

because I always hit and run.

It's really-- I can't get over that.

I blew so many beautiful, beautiful women

with beautiful heads like that by playing the game.

I could kick myself sometimes when I think back and say,

Jesus, you know, I could have had a really in-depth,

intense relationship with this woman,

but I fucked it up because I was playing someone I wasn't.

And that's really different.

I don't know.

I don't know, it was just a lot of pressure too from like--

I don't want to put too much pressure on my--

from home like that, but I think that's got a lot to do with it.

I really do.

Like I was telling Paul before, it

was a total matriarchal society there in my house.

Grandma was boss, Mama listened to Grandma,

and Grandpa had nothing to say, and there was Mikey.

And Auntie came over with little girl cousin and here it is.

I think I thought that I was being feminized like that,

so I took hold of the most masculine thing I could find.

INTERVIEWER 1: You had to.

MIKE: Well, I had to, right?

Or did I have to?

I don't know, I don't think so.

INTERVIEWER 1: Well, you had to have some identity.

MIKE: Yeah.

So this is what I tried to identify with.

And yet, it fell through like that.

INTERVIEWER 1: Well, it might have

been the best thing you could have done at the time.

MIKE: Yeah, but I shouldn't have had

to go through all those years and years of shit.

INTERVIEWER 2: Right.

MIKE: Right, I blew so many things.

So many good things.

I could have really enjoyed myself

doing by hanging out and putting on the big show.

What else do you want me to get into?

INTERVIEWER 2: How do you feel about yourself now?

I mean, do you think that you play any games now?

MIKE: Yeah, in a way, I'm still caught up in that--

not as much as before, and I recognize it now

and I kick it down--

of trying to identify with other people and doing what

other people would do in order to get their acceptance.

I find myself still doing that on certain occasions like that.

But I don't think it's-- it's not as intense as it was at one

time.

Like, I couldn't go any place just myself,

I always went like the other person.

Like I was saying before the tape,

I had all these social pressures on me.

And I--

INTERVIEWER 2: Why don't you explain that about the gang?

About the fights?

How you got dumped?

MIKE: Oh, yeah.

I was talking before about when I was playing

my role as hard guy like that.

And the guys I'd hang around with,

I don't know if they were playing the role too.

I got a feeling that they probably were to some extent,

too.

But I don't know if they had such intensity about it or not.

I can remember, for instance, Carl and Artie coming

to my house, "Come on out.

There's a fight down on Walden and Bailey tonight, alright?"

I go, "Yeah?

Geez, I don't know."

And I'd have all these things going on in my head,

I don't want to go fight, I might get beat up.

(Mike laughs) I might lose, we might lose.

That would be terrible if we lost, right?

But yeah, then I said, if I don't go, who am I

going to hang out with?

Right, because there was nobody else.

Like, all my friends were in the same thing,

we were in the same boat.

So I was under that pressure of having no friends

or being called a cop out or chicken or pigeon or weasel.

Weasel was our word then, I think.

If you're a weasel, what good are you?

Where could you go, right?

There was no one else for me to hang out with,

because all my friends were in the same boat like that.

Or the guys I was hanging around with at that time.

INTERVIEWER 1: So you always went.

MIKE: So I went.

Right?

This is exact for instance I can remember like that, you know?

And I can remember walking down Walden with Carl and Artie,

going down there, giving ourselves the boost, the talk.

I can remember the things running through my head,

like which is the best way for me to escape?

How could I get out of this?

I've got to go to school.

They ain't going to believe that, they

got to go to school too.

I got homework, they ain't going to eat that shit up.

Look at all that garbage.

Forget about the homework.

I just couldn't get out of it, so I was there going with them.

Then we used to meet at Deco on Walden and Bailey.

And everybody's all over there with the jackets,

and everybody's getting geared for the fight.

We were fighting Genesee that night.

Lost Souls and Genesee.

So it's like fifty guys from Walden,

they're all around there.

So I was nervous.

I was really nervous like that.

And it was like if I had left--

well, at that time, I wasn't hanging around with Walden,

we were hanging around in Lovejoy and the gang

in Lovejoy, and Artie was a real high member,

he was like vice president, I think, at that time,

of the gang in Lovejoy like that.

So this was our little part of Lovejoy, helping Walden out

in case we needed help some other time.

Which is a lot of shit too, because no one ever

helps you out. (Mike laughs)

I can remember going out in Deco and meeting behind,

it was in Victor's store.

And we were all standing around.

All the other guys are running around, getting ready,

hiding pipes and chains and things like that.

And I was like--

everybody was grouping.

I can remember standing away from the group like that.

With the group, but not in the mass.

And then we started walking through the back streets

over to Genesee through Walden, through Rapin Street and Hazel

Street over there.

I can remember everybody making noises and everything

like that.

And I can remember walking towards the back of the group.

And there was Artie.

Carl was up in front.

I didn't even know where the hell he was.

And I can remember, there's this one guy walking next to me.

And like I said, the first time I met him, his name was Lonnie.

I remembered his name and everything.

This is like I was still in high school.

Like, I was seventeen or sixteen years old.

I can remember walking with him over there,

I says yeah, (unintelligible) are fighting.

And he goes, "Yeah, me too.

I live in this neighborhood, I got to--" he says to me,

I can remember, he says, "Yeah, I got to come to the fight.

I live in this neighborhood, there's

no place else for me to go."

I says, "Yeah these are all my friends too,

I've got to help them out like that."

And I can remember, we're just like walking up to--

we were walking up (unintelligible) to Genesee

and all of a sudden you hear all this noise and stuff.

So everybody's moving up there.

By the time we got up to the street there,

everybody was coming back across the street.

Everybody's running all over the place.

We see this one guy, Nature Boy, running up to the tracks.

He goes, "Nature Boy, where are you going?"

He goes, "I'm getting my hammer.

I'm going to pound a few heads in."

And now, everybody just dispersed.

And then they all came together in the same spot.

A couple of guys got beat up on the other side of the street.

There were like seven guys against fifty.

Fortunately, we had the fifty guys that time, you know?

So I remember going up to Artie and saying, "Well, Artie, I

came to the fight."

I shook his hand and said, "I've got to go now."

And I just took off right out of there,

because I was really paranoid about being busted.

Being arrested for assault or something like that.

INTERVIEWER 1: Did you take part in the fight?

MIKE: No, it was like over, like the first two

guys who were across the street got to beat everybody up

with the chains, and everybody just came across like that.

I remember saying to Artie, see Artie, we came to the fight.

I shook his hand and I left, and those guys stayed there.

Then, what I would do then, this is really

terrifying for me inside.

So then, the next thing I know, I'd be over there--

yeah, I went to the gang fight down in Lost Souls.

Yeah, I was there, man, I seen the whole thing, you know.

Like I was one of the first guys across the street.

You see that guy got smashed in the head with the chain?

Ha, ha, ha.

I know the guy who did that.

And I'd be playing the role then, you know?

Here, I didn't want to do it, and once I did it,

I didn't even to do it, but I was just

around the general vicinity, not wanting to do it.

I'd be bragging about it.

Yeah, yeah, I was at that fight.

We wiped out the Lost Souls.

Yeah, Walden and them.

It was so fucking ridiculous.

And it just went on like that.

And then you get those legends built up

about why is there the parties at my house?

Me and Denny used to say, yeah, we had a fire in the summer.

Everybody's all, big fire, wow.

And then you start living up to that

and it really becomes complicated.

And then you become less and less fun, you know,

your real self.

You become more fucked up, and then

it just like perpetuates itself, it keeps moving.

And then I think I started to believe what everybody's

telling me, and I felt that I started

to almost forget about my real self and become the image.

And that's, like, just a little bit

before the group started is where I

started to fall away from that.

Well, I started about maybe six or seven months

after I started work, which would be about eighteen

months ago, is when I started just to break away from that.

And they would be putting me somewhere.

I was almost twenty-one years old at that time.

I was twenty-one at that time, when I just

started to fall away from not living up to this image.

And now, I feel like I'm really away from living up to other

people's--

now, I can be more of myself at this moment.

I could never do this--

I could never admit-- this is the first time I had ever

admitted to anybody that I never wanted to go to those fights

and be in those gangs like that.

It was cool to say, I'm in the gang,

but when it came down to defending

the neighbors like that, I'd crumble,

I'd fall apart like that.

Like I said, that guy Lonnie who was walking

next to me, same thing, man.

He was scared shitless as I was, but he was there

for the same reason.

What can we do?

You got to go.

And you really don't have to.

That's the amazing thing, you know?

I think a lot of fear of it was--

I can just see, Mrs. (unintelligible)?

This is your son, Michael.

We just brought him home.

He was in a fight somewhere.

Oh, my boy.

What's he been doing?

That's a lot of pressure, from mom and home.

That's why I think I started off on those things like that.

I don't know, I feel at this point,

that I'm blaming too many things on my home life,

my early home life.

But I don't know if it's true or--

INTERVIEWER 1: Yeah, but when you're young,

that's most of the influence you have

is from your parents and your family.

It has to shape you a real lot.

MIKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER 1: No matter who you are.

MIKE: But I don't know.

I'm trying not to believe that.

I'm trying to think that I did a lot of reading it

and read it wrong.

I think that's what a lot of what happened there.

INTERVIEWER 2: What happened when you started work?

Like when you got into work, how did work change you?

Just the idea of being in work, you

couldn't keep up the image, or--

MIKE: No.

See, what was happening was that I was getting older.

I was becoming really frustrated with the image.

I was becoming really frus--

like when I would go out, I couldn't have a good time,

because I had the things, saying I was just doing nothing,

you know?

I had no money, hardly.

I had money, but I didn't have enough money

to do a lot of things, or things I

could have done if I had been working or something like that.

So it really got frustrating.

And when I got a job, it started to ease off the frustration

like that, because I was--

like, I was there, and I was doing something.

And it just started to ease off.

It seemed like it was a tap into the frustration, the pressure.

And it just started to ease them.

Then I went back to school that fall, night school.

I was working back then.

It was just, like, last fall.

And that was even more.

And I got, like, now--

when I was in school before, it was, like, to take up space,

and that was it, you know?

I was there, and I just did enough work to get the C,

and that's it.

And, like, now I can--

I just sit around and I get the good marks.

I pull real good grades just by--

I don't even have to study, you know?

It's just-- it's not like being forced.

It's because I want it now.

And before, like, I went to college first

because I didn't know what to do, right?

Our senior year in high school, everybody--

September, everybody is writing applications out, sending them

out all over the place, you know?

You know, it was April.

I think it's about time I do something, you know?

So I did, you know?

So I went, I got accepted out there at Erie.

So I went there for two years.

And all I did there was get drunk and pass--

yeah, I was like--

INTERVIEWER 1: Were you still into the image there?

MIKE: Yeah, that's where it got intense.

That's where it really got out of hand.

That's where the outer dress really, really blossomed,

you know?

Always in black, always in the cowboy boots with the chain,

the big skull.

That's where it really got--

it really got intense there.

And at that time, after my first year of college,

that's when I started--

when the outer signs of my body started

to show the effects from drinking too much, and eating,

and just continual partying like that.

That's when I started getting-- put on weight,

got a huge beer gut.

INTERVIEWER 1: It's hard to picture you like that.

With the black and the skull and the--

MIKE: I could show you a picture, if you want to see it.

They're funny to look at.

INTERVIEWER 2: I remember.

MIKE: Fuck it.

Paul, do you remember this girl?

I don't know if you do.

INTERVIEWER 2: Yeah, I remember at (unintelligible)

Plaza and everything.

MIKE: Yeah, and I was like--

INTERVIEWER 1: How long have you guys known each other?

MIKE: I'd say we were in fifth grade?

INTERVIEWER 2: Oh, yeah, fifth grade.

MIKE: Fifth grade.

Long time.

Lost track of each other for quite a few years and--

INTERVIEWER 2: We'd come back every once in a while.

MIKE: Came back once in a while for a reunion.

That's where it got intense.

It was totally every day, and, like, I never wore--

like I was telling Paul before, I never wore shoes.

It was always boots.

I didn't have--

I never had-- at that time, bells were starting to come in.

That was like, uh, I can't do that.

And it was always black denim jeans, right over the boots,

no bell on them, just cover the boots right off like that.

That's what it was, you know?

And it really-- that's where it really--

I don't know why, you know?

That's supposed to be a stimulating environment there

or something like that.

INTERVIEWER 2: Oh, you didn't have--

there wasn't any gangs there.

You were just mostly by yourself there, right?

Putting on the image?

MIKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER 1: (unintelligible) other people?

MIKE: Maybe I had to intensify it.

I don't know.

Intensify the image more.

I can't figure that out.

Why would I do that?

I don't know.

But it just got intense then, you know?

And then, like I said, at that time,

I was really capable of putting away great quantities

of alcohol at that time.

Yeah, and what happened is that on occasion it's

like I'd have blackouts, minor blackouts like that, from when

you drink a lot, you get a blackout, where you still move,

but you don't know what's happening.

And then people tell you these things.

I was starting to get these things, you know?

I got a few times.

And one time, I went after Jimmy (unintelligible)

one night with a hot dog fork.

And I threatened his life.

And I was continually--

I was really abusing my body to no end.

I guess it was just more frustration there,

more trying to live up to the image.

I was really going nuts inside.

I was really neurotic at that time, you know?

I couldn't carry on a relationship with a girl

more than, like, one night, you know?

That was it for me.

Like, hi, how are you?

And then we'd-- you know.

I couldn't even--

I didn't even want to have sex with anybody.

I just wanted to get drunk all the time.

And I couldn't function socially without drinking.

Like I was telling Paul, I would get to the point,

like, I would go out, in order to break down inhibition

I would get drunk, and then when I was drunk enough

that I could-- that the inhibitions were gone,

I was too drunk to do what I'd broken down

the inhibitions to do.

And then it really got vicious.

And I couldn't function, I couldn't remember.

Everybody would be sitting around,

having one or two beers, and I'd be over--

and I'd really get drunk.

I was getting drunk, like, five days a week.

And not just high drunk, but drunk,

you know, where I was sick.

I remember, like, every night I used

to come home and go behind the garage and puke.

And that's like day in and day out.

And then I started--

when I'd get drunk, I wouldn't get tired like that.

It would speed me up.

And I'd be walking around and I'd

fall off things and fall down.

And I always had big, huge bruises on my arms and my legs

from falling all the time like that.

And I was continuously drunk.

And it really got to--

it was really sickening.

And the thing was that after a while like that,

I wasn't having a good time, even in my own head,

doing that.

Even when I got drunk, the inhibitions

were still there, right?

I still had the pressure, social pressure

of not doing anything, but just laying

around being a drunk like that.

And it really got super frustrating.

INTERVIEWER 2: What were the inhibitions

that you wanted to break down?

You know, you said that you got so drunk

that you couldn't do the things that you wanted to break down.

What were those things that couldn't--

MIKE: First, let's see, one major thing

is like, well, I can remember my mother always putting ladies up

on a pedestal for me.

Like women are something ultra special like that.

They're not people.

They're above you, above men, "fe-males."

And there was always Grandpa around who was--

supposedly never took care of the family very good.

So she's got this man image from him.

My father wasn't with us, you know?

And so, like I said, it was super feminine like that.

So I was getting pressured.

I can remember.

I don't know.

I can remember arguing with her, saying,

"I didn't mean it that way."

She says, "What?"

Then she'd, like, embarrass me in front

of relatives and friends who'd come to the house like that,

her friends, my family when I'd see my relatives like that.

Because I remember her saying, "He hates women!

He hates women!

Look what he said!

Look what he said!"

I said, "I didn't mean it like that."

She says, "Oh, yeah, yeah."

And you know, I was, like, driven away.

And the whole thing like that, the whole thing

of women being so idealistic is so, like, unapproachable,

right?

And that's one thing that always, on a social level,

say, out at a Binky Brown's or something like that,

is really hard for me now, just to imagine

that those people are just people and not

off by themselves.

And it's really hard for me to break down things like that.

Where I am is, like, I have to know ahead of time, you know?

I have to talk a few times.

I can't just go up and say hi in a place like that, because it's

still too bizarre for me.

And see, when I'm sober, it was even harder then.

I couldn't even do it at all, you know?

I couldn't go in a strange place and say, "I like that chick.

I think I'll go over there and start a conversation with her."

INTERVIEWER 2: Yeah, but then that's a pressure of the idea

that hardly anybody goes through the same things about going

into a bar.

And the bars really aren't set up for people

to meet each other, in a way.

I mean, it's, like, pretty loud music,

and it's pretty hard to go over and say hello and really

get to know a person.

MIKE: No, yeah, I know.

INTERVIEWER 2: It's sort of a joke, the idea of setting up

a bar on that aspect, you know?

MIKE: Yeah, but see, like, the first thing I do is, like,

I wouldn't even look at anybody in there.

First place I'd head to when I went

any place was just to the bar.

I'd just sit there and I'd pour four or five, six drinks down

there.

And then I could get up and take a walk around,

even to look what was there.

It's really been difficult, because then I

also had that extra thing of trying

to live that image of being wild and hard

guy and tough and crazy, see, acting bizarrely

in order to attract, I don't know, attention, maybe?

I think that was part of it, too, attract a lot of attention

like that, you know?

And how could I be serious then, right?

And say, "Hi, how are you?

It smells like she got on her fucking rag or something!

Ah!

Look at that one, a warthog!"

You know?

And that's what it was, you know?

And then I'd just keep getting more and more frustration,

drunker and drunker.

And if I wanted to, I was too drunk.

I was slobbering around, throwing up.

I don't think I can really express to anybody the amounts

that I used to drink, the great quantities,

and how sick I used to get, like, every night.

It was like my days would go like, I would get up,

and I wasn't in school.

It was summer between my first year of college and second.

I didn't want to work.

I could have worked if I wanted to.

Didn't want to.

I figure this is my last summer--

(pause in recording)

That was my last summer of freedom

so I didn't want to work.

It turned out it wasn't.

It just got more frustrating after that.

But I was under these--

that image of being the most masculine man around,

being the craziest guy around, doing all the most bizarre,

sickening things he could to make

everybody say, (unintelligible) be really gross and things

like that.

And I was under the pressure of putting women on a pedestal

so far above me, you know, the unapproachable woman,

to say all women are unapproachable.

But it was like the unapproachable woman like that.

And it just kept getting more and more frustrating for me.

And I didn't--

INTERVIEWER 2: Did you feel she was unapproachable because--

MIKE: Because she was a woman.

I had that thing in my head that every lady is a saint.

And how could anybody as vile as me even

think of wanting to fuck this woman

or thinking anything like that?

I can remember my mother finding dirty books of mine

that were around the house.

Saying, "You look at this trash!

Trash, trash, trash."

All the time, you know?

It was never, like, so what, or anything like that.

It was always, that's filthy.

That's no good.

And it was (unintelligible).

I don't know.

She really implanted in me that really well.

So I had a lot of trouble like that, trying

to have relations with women.

It was really terrible.

I really think that's one thing I--

like I said, I don't want to put the blame there totally

like that.

But I don't know if I should or not.

But I was-- that is a lot of pressure.

It was on me.

INTERVIEWER 2: Yeah, I was wondering because before you

said that you knew the image wasn't the He-Man,

or all the really big man that you were putting on,

the violent man.

I was wondering, since you knew the act was on,

that it was really hard to approach these women,

because you really didn't feel that you were

a man that could approach them.

MIKE: Yeah.

See, you can see how intricately involved it was,

the whole-- all the things accumulating

into one mass of frustration, that they seemed to all fall

into-- they all worked against me like that.

And so I tried to break these inhibitions like that,

and I didn't know how.

And I was just like--

I don't know.

I feel like the only outlet I had was

to put it down on paper.

It was to write.

That's where I think that came from like that,

from inhibitions that--

from inhibitions like that.

It was my outlet.

Yeah.

And so I would get--

I would go out and I'd have all these--

get all these images of the unapproachable woman

and these violent man.

And it just--

I can't say while--

I'm losing what I'm trying to say.

I'm with it, and then I lose it.

This is like one, big frustrating experience

to have to go through all that shit, having that wall,

whatever, like--

of that women are so unapproachable

and so up on a pedestal and so much different.

They're not people, you know?

They're not men.

They're not "hu-man."

Human beings are like something really different like

that, you know?

INTERVIEWER 2: The woman that you

said that you went after that would, like,

dress like you with the cut-off work shirts or, you know,

jazz stuff.

They wore a look differently. (unintelligible).

They were like the-- you associated more of them with

the women in the magazines, or--

MIKE: Yeah, yeah.

Well, let's say, the women, say, in our group,

say, in my peer group, high school peer group,

they were out there, too, on the streets being women,

like, say, out of the home, whatever like that.

INTERVIEWER 1: So because they were more like men,

they were more human.

MIKE: Yeah, they were more--

I could relate to them as people like that, you know?

But then again, those were friends,

and we weren't-- we weren't approaching them in bizarre

instances.

INTERVIEWER 2: What do you mean, bizarre instances--

MIKE: Not bizarre instances.

You weren't approaching them in situations like at the bar,

because you were all friends.

Just like going in there and saying, like,

"Hi, Betty," you know?

"Hi, Jim," whatever.

Just, like, they were people.

INTERVIEWER 2: Sex was never involved.

MIKE: No, I wasn't involved with those people like that.

When it would come to the sexual aspect like that--

you know?

That's really a hard thing to break when you--

like I said, I really think that was plugged into me.

INTERVIEWER 2: Was it ever mentioned between you

and, say, these women who were in your group,

about having sex with them?

MIKE: No, not that I recall.

Everybody was, like, openly--

everybody was always like, fuck this, fuck that.

All the women were the same as the men.

As far as I knew it was like that.

But it seemed to me, like, they just

have never had sex with us, like the friends on the street.

We just never, like, associated them.

INTERVIEWER 2: They had sex outside,

and you had sex outside.

MIKE: Yeah, it was kind of like that, like they--

I would have my girlfriend.

And then we would go back--

I would leave.

And my girlfriend lived in the projects, (unintelligible).

But I was--

INTERVIEWER 2: How did you get to know your girl--

it was like go to bars to find--

MIKE: No, it was before bars even when I met her.

It was like, we picked--

I picked her up, just walking along through the Plaza,

you know?

I just grabbed her hand, and everybody else

was grabbing women around that were in her group.

And so we all grabbed women, too.

Like, Denny grabbed one woman, so I was, well,

this woman is nearest me so I'll grab her hand.

And that's how I met her.

And then I said, "Why don't I meet you at the show tomorrow?"

And she said "Yeah."

I said, "All right."

And it just went on like that.

But then, well, what happened is I would go over there on Friday

and I would stay, like, two hours at her house,

or we'd go--

I didn't drive at that time.

I would call her--

I would go visit her house, I think, like,

(unintelligible) what you call it exactly, her house.

And we'd sit around and talk and watch TV and shit.

Then I would leave, like, at nine o'clock

and be back just in time for all the good things

that all the men were doing with all the other men.

And then we'd talk about how frustrating

our experiences are with women.

We'd sing-- are you familiar with Bob Dylan's "Ballad

in Plain D"--

I Don't Believe You", Bob Dylan's song,

"I Don't Believe You"?

Evidently, she won't, evidently she won't, she just

acts like we never have met.

Just continuously singing that to each other.

We'd just sit around and go, how disastrous this love

affair is going, when, you know, you just left.

Because you wanted to come there and moan and groan over things

like that.

And then Saturday night was always wide in the fields

with all the men.

And then Sunday was, like, call up, "Want to go to the show?

Meet me there.

Have your father drop you off at the daily show."