Read Online We'll Be Here For the Rest of Our Lives by Paul Shaffer - Free Book Online
Authors: Paul Shaffer
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bestowed upon them. Women were only too willing to allow them entrance into their “hearts and souls.” In Thunder Bay, we froze. There was something of a cruise scene on Saturday nights on our downtown’s main drag, Victoria Avenue. I cruised but never conquered. I was too busy playing music. The truth is, I was a touch naive and shy when it came to the opposite sex. My passion was for music. Don’t get me wrong; I was ared-blooded adolescent with raging Canadian hormones, but, alas, I had not yet tasted success in the sexual arena.
My senior year in high school 1967, though, God blessed me with a girlfriend, Judy. She had lustrous brown hair, a shapely figure, and an appreciation of my ability to play every Temptations song by heart. By then I had grown my hair long in the front. That may or may not have added to my appeal, but I could sure knock out any love song she mentioned.
Looking back, I see that Judy may well have been willing. She came to all my gigs. She watched me play my Rascals’ covers. After I performed, if there was any applause whatsoever, it was Judy alone doing the clapping. When I took her home after the shows, we would kiss on her porch and, if her folks had gone to sleep, kiss on her living room couch. Kissing led to petting and, though I am not a baseball expert, I believe I may have made it to first base and was on my way to second when we heard her father loudly coughing from his upstairs bedroom. That was it.
“You can stay a little longer,” said Judy.
I considered the offer. I tried to imagine the scenario of making it to third base and heading home. Exactly where would that happen? On the couch? On the floor? In either case, what would we do if Dad suddenly appeared? And besides, perhaps she had no intention of allowing me beyond second base anyway. Perhaps reaching home plate was simply impossible.
So at that moment I uttered words that have come back to haunt me decades later: “I’ve got to go,” I said.
“You sure?” asked Judy.
“I’m sure.”
What prompted my exit, though, even more than my uncertainty about hitting home, was the fact that the radio deejaywho had promoted the dance was hosting an after-party—and I wanted to be there.
I wanted to be there because I realized even then that the good times—indeed the best times—happen after hours. The axiom learned in Vegas—the later the hipper—never left my consciousness, even when courting Judy. My friends like Wayne Tanner got funnier as the hour got later. And even if there was a possibility of a sexual coda at evening’s end, I’d skip the coda in favor of getting back to the laughs. The truth is that I was most in love with the idea of being a late-night musician.
The Fugitives was the band that gave me my first taste of the road. To be sure, the road was abbreviated; it went no farther than nearby Terrace Bay, home of a gigantic Kleenex factory. It was there that our Ricky announced we couldn’t hit the gig until he did what he called his “Triple S”—shower, shave, and shit. Wayne, who was along for the ride, said, “Funky Ricky’s so funky he needs an equipment man to set up his shit.”
Even the term “equipment man” was exotic to me. Everything about music and musicians was exotic. And if the erotic side of this exotic life was slow in coming, I figured there had to be a payoff.
Chapter 10
Sweet, Sweet Connie
Now before I leave you with the idea that I was a perennial loser in all matters sexual, I want you to meet sweet, sweet Connie.
Everyone knew her. My encounter with Connie came at the dawn of the eighties, at a time when I was unattached. If the seventies was the decade of debauchery, Connie, bless her heart, was determined to extend that happy era by offering her services to all those she deemed worthy. And Connie found many in the music biz worthy.
I am, of course, advancing my story—beyond Thunder Bay, beyond my college days and professional beginnings in Toronto and New
My senior year in high school 1967, though, God blessed me with a girlfriend, Judy. She had lustrous brown hair, a shapely figure, and an appreciation of my ability to play every Temptations song by heart. By then I had grown my hair long in the front. That may or may not have added to my appeal, but I could sure knock out any love song she mentioned.
Looking back, I see that Judy may well have been willing. She came to all my gigs. She watched me play my Rascals’ covers. After I performed, if there was any applause whatsoever, it was Judy alone doing the clapping. When I took her home after the shows, we would kiss on her porch and, if her folks had gone to sleep, kiss on her living room couch. Kissing led to petting and, though I am not a baseball expert, I believe I may have made it to first base and was on my way to second when we heard her father loudly coughing from his upstairs bedroom. That was it.
“You can stay a little longer,” said Judy.
I considered the offer. I tried to imagine the scenario of making it to third base and heading home. Exactly where would that happen? On the couch? On the floor? In either case, what would we do if Dad suddenly appeared? And besides, perhaps she had no intention of allowing me beyond second base anyway. Perhaps reaching home plate was simply impossible.
So at that moment I uttered words that have come back to haunt me decades later: “I’ve got to go,” I said.
“You sure?” asked Judy.
“I’m sure.”
What prompted my exit, though, even more than my uncertainty about hitting home, was the fact that the radio deejaywho had promoted the dance was hosting an after-party—and I wanted to be there.
I wanted to be there because I realized even then that the good times—indeed the best times—happen after hours. The axiom learned in Vegas—the later the hipper—never left my consciousness, even when courting Judy. My friends like Wayne Tanner got funnier as the hour got later. And even if there was a possibility of a sexual coda at evening’s end, I’d skip the coda in favor of getting back to the laughs. The truth is that I was most in love with the idea of being a late-night musician.
The Fugitives was the band that gave me my first taste of the road. To be sure, the road was abbreviated; it went no farther than nearby Terrace Bay, home of a gigantic Kleenex factory. It was there that our Ricky announced we couldn’t hit the gig until he did what he called his “Triple S”—shower, shave, and shit. Wayne, who was along for the ride, said, “Funky Ricky’s so funky he needs an equipment man to set up his shit.”
Even the term “equipment man” was exotic to me. Everything about music and musicians was exotic. And if the erotic side of this exotic life was slow in coming, I figured there had to be a payoff.
Chapter 10
Sweet, Sweet Connie
Now before I leave you with the idea that I was a perennial loser in all matters sexual, I want you to meet sweet, sweet Connie.
Everyone knew her. My encounter with Connie came at the dawn of the eighties, at a time when I was unattached. If the seventies was the decade of debauchery, Connie, bless her heart, was determined to extend that happy era by offering her services to all those she deemed worthy. And Connie found many in the music biz worthy.
I am, of course, advancing my story—beyond Thunder Bay, beyond my college days and professional beginnings in Toronto and New
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