Green Thursday, radio program, April 18, 1974

(music plays)

BRUCE JEWELL: OK.

That was Steve Grossman, "Can't Papa Blues."

And this is Green Thursday for April 18, 1974

and I'm Bruce Jewell.

And I've got with me this evening, again, Bob Crystal.

And how are you this evening?

BOB CRYSTAL: Oh, I'm OK.

I'd like to tell people out there

that Patti Evans just got back from Albany tonight.

And she said that-- she went there to deliver the petitions

that people had been signing all over Rochester

and all over New York state.

And she said that--

BRUCE JEWELL: Which petitions?

BOB CRYSTAL: The petitions to repeal the sodomy statutes.

There's a bill in committee to repeal the consensual sodomy

part of the sodomy statutes of New York state.

And she said that it looks as though there needs

to be a fire lit under the people in the committee

and that the people of Rochester,

if they want the laws to come out of committee this session,

that something has to be done.

More than just the petitions.

BRUCE JEWELL: Well, I'm going to try.

Just keep trying, I guess.

BOB CRYSTAL: Little by little bit the bird will whittle away

the mountain.

BRUCE JEWELL: OK.

I see there was a reply in the newspaper two Sundays ago,

I guess it was, by Mike Royko.

Sure enough, there were a great many people

who objected to his editorial on the mandate liberation

movement.

And he was moved to write another column

primarily concerning itself with the people who objected

to his previous column.

And I'd like to read part of that column

and make a few comments on it.

He said, "Chicago's gay community, as well as

many liberals, say they are furious with me.

They have bombarded me with letters and phone calls

and have picketed the building I work in

to receive an apology for the column I wrote.

Among the words they have used to describe

the column are atrocious, tragic, inhuman,

nauseating, etc.

The column raised the question of whether marriage

between men and monkeys should be condoned in our society.

The gay movement correctly deduced

that it was a satiric comment on the growing

demand by homosexuals that society accept

their relationships as normal and that they be permitted

to marry and adopt children.

They also correctly gathered that I

don't think homosexuality is normal

or that they should be permitted to marry and adopt children.

But they are incorrect when they say I am

in favor of persecuting them.

As far as I'm concerned, what any two adults, or more

if they wish, choose to do is their business, not mine."

Now, looking over this comment--

well, it goes on.

"However, when they talk about society's laws being changed,

then it is no longer just their business,

it is the business of the rest of society too."

OK.

I'll agree to that.

Certainly changes of laws are the business

of society as a whole.

However, to say on one hand that he does not

favor persecuting homosexuals and then on the other hand

to say that he does not approve of changing laws, which

do persecute homosexuals, is simply hypocrisy.

One cannot really on one hand say, well,

I don't want to persecute you, but I don't want to change

the laws that arrest you and harass you,

and so on, and so on, and so forth.

Clearly he is not, in fact, in favor of allowing homosexuals

to live as they wish.

Moreover, the whole marriage and child adoption problem

is not examined by him.

I doubt that he knows very much about it.

In many instances, it's not so much

a matter of adopting children for lesbian women,

it's a matter of being able to keep the children that they've

already had.

He then continues to say that a number

of, by his own description, "knee jerk liberals"

came into his office and/or called him

on the phone objecting to the column.

He said, "'Well, why shouldn't they be permitted to marry?'

This particular liberal said."

Mr. Royko replied, "I answered them by throwing a curve

and asking, 'How about legalizing sexual relationships

between mother and son, father and daughter, et cetera,

et cetera?'

The friend looked horrified and gasped, 'Why, that's incest.'

'So what?' I said.

'That's disgusting,' was the answer."

Well, Mr. Royko has indeed thrown a curve here.

He's proceeded to compare the gay liberation movement,

with all its many complexities and many different aspects,

to a movement that simply doesn't exist.

There's no such thing as incest liberation

nor, I think, is there likely to be.

He has, again, avoided coming to terms

with real situations, which seems

to be his particular talent when it

comes to this particular issue.

Moreover, he's made it perfectly clear

that what he is saying is simply, I don't like you.

While there's nothing wrong with saying, I don't like you,

there is something rather wrong about being

hypocritical about it and about being denigrating to the people

that you do not like.

There is a lesson, by the way, in looking this over.

One shouldn't debate other people's metaphors

unless you want to play Don Quixote to other people's

windmills.

Stick to issues.

Mr. Royko could never--

simply could not get away with this type of thing

with people who were willing to stick to the issues

because he's incapable of handling them.

Let's see.

Coming up on the twenty first of April

is the GAGV meeting, which will be

held at the GAGV Center, which is in the Genesee co-op

building at 713 Monroe Ave. It's held every Sunday at seven

thirty.

The meeting this coming Sunday is

law enforcement and homosexuals, the policeman's view.

This is the first time, I believe,

that the GAGV has had a policeman to speak at a meeting

and I certainly hope it should be very interesting to hear

the exchange and I hope it brings

about some understanding on both sides of that particular issue,

which is so very touchy.

OK, let's have a little bit more music here.

Next it's Caravan, "Love to Love You."

(music plays)

BRUCE JEWELL: This is the news for Green Thursday.

Though it seems paradoxical, other gay teachers

may benefit from the appeals court ruling recently handed

down in Richmond, Virginia, which

denied Joseph (unintelligible) for a reinstatement

to his junior high school classroom.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

let stand a lower court finding that homosexuality by itself

is no bar to the teaching profession

and took the further step of reversing that lower court's

gag provision, which indicated gay teachers must

keep their sexual orientation out of the public eye

or risk providing their employers with legal grounds

for firing them.

Should similar cases arise in other parts of the country,

the record in the (unintelligible) case

may serve as a solid precedent in securing rights

of homosexuals to enter the teaching profession

and remain on their jobs, even though openly gay,

if that is their choice.

Despite those major liberal interpretations,

the court said (unintelligible) was not

entitled to recover the job he lost because he failed

to list a college gay organization in his application

under outside interests, a point which was not even

an issue in the earlier proceedings.

(unintelligible), who is now looking for work,

was transferred from a teaching position

to an administrative job in the Rockville, Maryland school

system when it became known he was gay.

And his first contract with the system

was not renewed last year.

The National Education Association,

which supported (unintelligible) legal battle thus far,

will decide by the end of March whether to continue its backing

through a Supreme Court appeal.

Joel Garowitz, a staff attorney for the NEA,

estimated that such an appeal could

cost as much as twenty five thousand dollars If the NEA

does step out, the possibility exists that the American Civil

Liberties Union will take up the case.

BOB CRYSTAL: In Dublin, Ireland, an Irish legislator

and a Catholic priest have joined

in calling for changes in Irish laws, which would decriminalize

homosexual practices between consenting adults in private.

Senator Noël Browne and Father (unintelligible) broached

their proposal at the conclusion of a gay symposium at Trinity

College, a Catholic institution in Dublin.

Senator Browne estimated that Dublin alone

might be home to more than eight thousand homosexuals

and deplored the current practice of sending homosexuals

to prison.

"It not only is an offense to personal liberties," he said,

"but hypocritical in the extreme.

Sending a homosexual to prison is precisely

the equivalent of confining an alcoholic to a brewery.

In prison there are only two kinds of sex

available, auto-erotic and homosexual."

Speaking against the legal sanctions which

confront homosexuals, Father (unintelligible)

said, "One should be free to be homosexual as

to be heterosexual without being persecuted

for a characteristic which is not,

apparently, a matter of choice.

But within and without the church a greater understanding

of homosexuality is needed."

(unintelligible) continued, "We shall

be attempting to change social attitudes

and legal provisions insofar as they

are oppressive or punitive to this under-privileged

and deprived group."

The symposium was sponsored by the Sexual Liberation

Movement of Dublin and included speakers

from both England and Ireland.

BRUCE JEWELL: A new defamation law,

which has been proposed to the Delaware state senate,

would make it a misdemeanor to publicly call someone

a "queer," "dyke," "faggot," or other terms

insulting to a person's sexual preference.

The provision is part of a general public defamation

measure introduced to the 127th General Assembly

by Senator Herman Holloway, Democrat of Wilmington.

The proposed law would also outlaw epithets

against persons directed at their race, age,

marital status, creed, color, sex, ancestry,

national origin, or employment.

Although the bill does not itemize prescribed language,

it might conceivably be construed to

prohibit such phrases as "old man,"

"dizzy dame," "broad," "bitch," "old maid," "Polak," "dago,"

"chink," "slant eyes," "greaser," and others.

"A person is guilty of public defamation," the bill says,

"when he utters in any public place

an obscenity, insult, demeaning, or defaming words

towards another person or group of persons

when those words are directed at the aforementioned

characteristics."

The defamation measure is one of the three bill

package sponsored by Holloway.

The other bills amend existing portions of the Delaware code

to extend anti-bias protection in employment, housing,

and public accommodations without regard

for sexual preference.

All three measures were referred to the judiciary and elections

committee.

No date has been set for the hearings.

BOB CRYSTAL: A reform bill which would

have removed criminal penalties for homosexual behavior

in Israel has failed to get by the Israeli parliament.

The bill was introduced last year

by Uri Avnery, who said he based his feeling that the time was

right for such legislation on a 1971 public opinion poll.

The survey indicated that 45.54 percent of the sample

thought that homosexuals should no longer be

subject to penalties.

Only 39 percent thought penalties

should remain in effect, with 15.5 percent undecided.

Apparently, when it came time to cast a vote,

those in the parliament who were undecided

voted against the decriminalization bill.

Gay organizations in Israel have difficulty

getting any publicity and have had little luck

in lobbying members of parliament.

A Dutch organization, the COC, said

that it is responding to direct appeals

from Israeli gays for outside assistance

by planning a letter writing campaign to the hundred twenty

members of Israel's parliament.

Gays in Israel estimate that the country's gay population

is about one hundred fifty thousand.

Advocate 135.

BRUCE JEWELL: And that's the news for Green Thursday.

Coming up next, Mike Cooper, "Theme in C."

(music plays)

BRUCE JEWELL: That was Mike Cooper.

This interview that we're going to hear this evening

is the first part of a series of interviews that

will be heard on this program.

The people in the interview are not gay.

The relationships that are being discussed

are not gay relationships.

These interviews were, I think, of particular interest

not because they're homosexual or heterosexual, but rather

because of the discussion of roles

and the effect of roles, particularly

inappropriate roles, upon relationships among people.

There are, of course, good roles.

No one wants deep interpersonal relationships

with the bank teller.

You'd never get through the line.

But there are also many bad roles.

And for people such as homosexuals

who are forced into role playing a good deal of the day

in order to protect themselves, their role

can become a genuine impediment to all kinds of communications.

Not only with straight people who the gay person may not

wish to have his true sexual identity known, but eventually

through learning and through habit

the roles can become damaging to relationships

between gay people.

I think the interview that we are going to hear

is particularly interesting in that the young man who

is speaking has become aware of the roles he is playing

and conscious of the effects on his relationships.

These interviews were made not by myself,

but were donated or given to me by members of the Tolstoy

College at the University of Buffalo.

I want to thank them for their generosity.

Alright.

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, you know, the outlaw image, the very

masculine men.

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

maybe in that, I was still, like, 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 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 figured is what happened

myself was 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 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, Rogue's 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 like, I could like go in any place

and 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.

Don't mess with that guy, you know?

And I was never-- these people started picking up this.

Other people started seeing me as that mask.

It was so bizarre like that, you know.

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 like that.

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 the big trucker's wallet hanging out

with the chain on it, the belt, and I

used to wear the skull, the cat skull all the time.

It was just a big joke.

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.

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 now.

INTERVIEWER 2: OK.

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 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: Like how could the immortal, masculine, mucho

macho man, how could he lower himself to love a woman?

Because women were always sex objects in our group.

There 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.

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.

I just couldn't come out.

I was suppressed in all these ways.

These social pressures and pressures from home like that.

It really messed-- I can't explain it yet myself.

INTERVIEWER 2: Well why don't you give, you know,

like 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 like tangled

up because?

MIKE: It was because of having to play

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

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 got two people playing roles.

(laughter)

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

have a serious relationship, a long-term one.

I still don't have a long-term relationship

because I always hit and run.

I can't get over that.

I blew so many beautiful, beautiful women

with beautiful heads like that, by playing a game.

I don't know.

There's 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 there it is.

You know?

(unintelligible) 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: 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: It might have been the best thing

you could've done at the time.

MIKE: Yeah, but I shouldn't have had to go through all those--

INTERVIEWER 2: Right.

MIKE: Right.

You know?

I blew so many things.

So many good things.

I could have really enjoy myself doing by, you know,

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 will do in order to like get their acceptance.

You know?

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 with the--

like I was saying before the tape,

I had all these social pressures on me.

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

About the fights?

How you got dumped?

MIKE: I was talking before about when

I was playing my role as hard guy

like that, the guys I 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 were--

they had such intensity about it or not.

They would like, I can remember, for instance,

Carl and Artie coming to my house, "Come on out.

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

I go, "Yeah.

Jeeze I don't know."

And I had all these things in my head, I don't want to go fight,

I might get beat up.

(laughter)

I might lose, we might lose.

You know, that would be terrible if we lost, right?

Then I said, if I don't go, who am I going to hang out with?

Because there was nobody else.

All my friends were in the same vein, we were in the same boat.

So, like, 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.

You know?

All 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?

I can remember walking down Walden with Carl and Artie,

you know, going down there, you know,

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've got to leave,

they've got to go to school too.

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,

like we were fighting Genesse that night.

Lost Souls and Genesee.

So it's like fifty guys from Walden, they're all 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, 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.

This was our little part of Lovejoy helping Walden out

in case we needed help some other time.

It was a lie because nobody ever helps you out.

(laughter)

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 and hiding

pipes and chains and things like that.

Everybody was grouping and I can remember

standing away from the group, with the group,

but not in the mass.

And then we started walking through the back streets over

to Genesse through Walden through Rapin Street and Hazel

Street over there.

I can remember everybody making noises and everything

like that.

I remember walking towards the back of the group

and there Artie, Carl was up in the front.

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

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

It was his first time out, his name was Lonnie.

I remember his name and everything,

this is like I'm still in high school,

like, I was seventeen or sixteen years old like that.

I can remember walking over there

and I said, yeah, (unintelligible) are fighting.

He says, yeah, me too.

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

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

I live in this neighborhood.

There's no place else for me to go."

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

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

I can remember we were just walking up the--

we were walking up (unintelligible) to Genesee

and you hear all this noise and stuff.

So everybody's just 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 off the tracks.

I go, "Nature Boy, where are you going?"

He goes, "I'm getting my hammer.

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

And everybody just dispersed and then

they all came together, like, in the same spot like that.

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

There were like seven guys against fifty.

(laughter)

Fortunately we had the fifty guys that time.

I remember going up to Artie and I said, "Well, Artie, I

came to the fight."

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

And I just took off because I was

really paranoid about being busted, or being

arrested for assault or something like that.

INTERVIEWER 1: Did you take part in the fight?

MIKE: No.

It was like over like that.

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,

I came to a fight."

You know?

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

And 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, "I was in a gang fight (unintelligible)

Lost Souls.

I was there.

I seen the whole thing.

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

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

(laughter).

I know the guy who did that, you know?"

I'd be playing the role then.

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

you know, I didn't even do it, but I

was just around the general vicinity not wanting to do it,

I'd be bragging about it.

You know, I would say, yeah I was at that fight.

We wiped out the Lost Souls.

Walden, you know--

It just went on like that.

Then you get those legends built up

about what I said at the parties at my house.

I mean, Danny used to say like, yeah, we burned it

and we had a fire in the summer.

Everybody's like, a big fire, wow.

And then we start living up to that

and it really becomes complicated.

And then you become less and less your real self.

Then it just perpetuates itself and keeps moving.

Then I think I started to believe

what everybody's telling me.

I felt that I started to almost forget about my real self

and become the image.

And that's just a little bit before the group started.

It's where I started to fall away from that.

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 that.

That would put 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.

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.

Like I could never do this--

I could never admit--

this is the first time like 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 would crumble.

I fall apart like that.

Like I said, that guy, Lonnie, who was walking next

to me, same thing, man.

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

for the same reason.

What can we do?

You got to go.

But you really don't have to.

(laughter)

That's the amazing thing.

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 like that from Mom and home.

It is.

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

I feel at this point that I'm blaming too many things

on my early home life.

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, no matter who you are.

MIKE: 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 a lot of what happened there.

INTERVIEWER 2: What happened when you started work?

When you got into work, how did work change you?

This idea of being in work you couldn't keep up the image?

MIKE: No.

See, what was happening was I was getting older.

I was becoming really frustrated with the image.

When I would go out I couldn't have a good time because I

had the things and saying, you know, I was just doing nothing.

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 there

and I was doing something and it just started to ease off.

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

the pressure.

I just started to ease then.

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

and I was working like that.

That was just, like, last fall.

And that was even more and I got--

when I was in school before it was to take up space and that

was it.

I was there.

I just did enough work to get the seat and that's it.

Now I just sit around and I get good marks,

I pull good grades just by--

I don't even have to study.

It's not like being forced, it's because I want it now.

And before, I went to college first

because I didn't know what to do.

Everybody in their senior year in high school,

September everybody's writing applications out,

sending them out all over the place.

You know, it was April.

(laughter)

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

So I did.

I got accepted out there at Erie.

So I went there for two years and all

I did there was get drunk and pass.

INTERVIEWER 1: Were you still into the image there?

MIKE: Yeah.

That's were it got intense.

That's where it really got out of hand.

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

Always in black.

Always in the cowboy boots with the chain, the skull.

That's where it really got intense there.

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

that's 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 putting on weight, got a huge beer gut.

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

with the black and the skull.

MIKE: I can show you pictures if you want to see them.

(laughter)

They're funny to look at.

INTERVIEWER 2: I remember.

Yeah, I remember at (unintelligible)

Plaza and everything.

MIKE: Yeah.

And it was like--

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

MIKE: Fifth grade.

INTERVIEWER 2: Yeah, fifth grade.

MIKE: Long time.

Lost track of each other for quite a few years.

INTERVIEWER 2: We come back every once in awhile.

MIKE: Came back once in awhile for a reunion.

That's where it got intense.

It was totally every day.

I never wore-- like I was telling Paul

before, I never wore shoes, it was always boots.

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

That was like, I can't do that.

It's always black denim jeans right over the boots,

no belt on them.

Just cover the boots right up like that.

That's what it was.

You know?

That's supposed to be a stimulating environment there

or something like that.

INTERVIEWER 2: There wasn't any gangs there.

You were just mostly by yourself there, right?

Putting on the image?

MIKE: Yeah.

Maybe I had to intensify it.

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.

And then like I said, at that time

I was really capable of putting away great quantities

of alcohol at that time.

On occasions I'd have blackouts, minor blackouts like that.

When you drink a lot, you get a blackout.

Where you still move, but you don't know what's happening.

And people tell you these things.

I started to get these things, you know?

I got a few times.

One time I went after Jimmy Loose

one night with a hot dog fork.

(laughter)

I threatened his life.

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.

I couldn't carry on a relationship with a girl

more than one night.

That was it for me.

Hi, how are you?

Like, I couldn't even--

I didn't even want to have sex with anybody, you know?

I just wanted to be drunk all the time.

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--

the inhibitions were gone, I was too

drunk to do what I had broken down the inhibitions to do.

And I really got vicious.

And I couldn't remember.

Everybody would be sitting around having one or two beers,

I'd be--

and I'd really get drunk.

I was getting drunk five days a week.

And not just high drunk, but drunk where I was sick.

I remember every night I used to come home and go

behind the garage and puke.

That's like day to day.

And then I started when I would get drunk I wouldn't get tired,

it would speed me up.

I'd be walking around and I'd fall off things and fall over

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

from falling all the time like that.

I was continuously drunk, you know?

It was really sickening.

Thing was, that after a while I wasn't having a good time,

even in my own head doing that.

Even when I got drunk, the inhibitions were still there.