Confiscated Experiences

1965 at 14

I was off on the adventure of my young life. My mother had a year-long teaching sabbatical in Rome. I had read all of Ian Flemming’s James Bond novels and had just seen “From Russia with Love.” I started outlining my book on the American Airlines flight to New York, to meet the Italian ship, Michelangelo, for the passage to Naples. Three days in Capri. The first night I was approached by two gorgeous French students who missed the last ferry off the Island; to be their chaperone until the morning. I started my spy caper and the rest of my life.

Surviving Encounters

Italian Mob in Music – Motorcycle Gangs – Collecting from a Fence a bad debt – Making my car a slot car on a Steel Beam at 85 mph – Plane Engine Fire – 200-person Ballroom Brawl – Psychopath Band Leader sabotaging my wheel lug nuts – My eyeball pushed into the passenger window separating my head from the roadway grinding off my door frame as the car slides a hundred yards down the roadway – Chased on sidewalks by drug-crazed murderous thugs in a car – several close calls with stage lighting collapses – taking over the driving from a promoter overcome by angle dust in the fast lane of rush hour traffic – On a Flo & Eddy Tour waking up while driving an overloaded sound truck on a 6% downgrade – Stage manager for Ike & Tina Turner in Oakland when the Black Panthers Security stormed the stage and tied to kill Ike when he refused to play the gig for free – Held up at gunpoint – Outrunning gangbangers on Highway 5 between LA and Sacramento, in the middle of the night at over 140 mph – My own Fatale attraction moment.